Number fractions of different types of submicron mineral (kaolinite) and soil (China loess soils and agricultural soils from different crops) particles capable of nucleating ice under mixed-phase cloud conditions were investigated using a continuous flow diffusion ice chamber (CFDC). We found that both China loess and agricultural soil particles are better ice nucleators than kaolinite particles particularly at warmer temperatures. We also found that although the ice nucleation properties of untreated China loess and agricultural soil particles are relatively similar to each other, agricultural soil particles lose their ice nucleating ability after heat treatment at 300°C. Our results suggest that agricultural soils contain rich organic matter, which can play a key role in enhancing their ice nucleating ability.


Renovation processes are complex and there is a risk of underestimating architectural, cultural, and social values in favor of exterior and interior upgrading, energy efficiency and financing. A synthesized, systematic process is needed for making decisions about renovation measures. The aim of this paper is to survey decision-making procedures aimed for sustainable renovation. We inventory existing tools and methodologies based on (a) a literature review and (b) results from a workshop with participants from the Swedish buildings sector, academia, and other stakeholders. Our results show that there are many tools available but few seem to have reached acceptance in renovation. None of the more established methods and tools addresses a complexity that balances material and immaterial values and they are often too specific. There is a need for simplified tools, especially for evaluating more intangible, experienced values. Instead of one comprehensive tool preferably a methodology for renovation should be developed with references to different tools. In the building sector, renovation should be considered a service-minded process rather than a merely technical one as often is the case in new construction. There is a need to clarify the process and the meaning of the terms, and that need is even more urgent when it comes to the values that are more difficult to define.


Our state of emergency is good - is the public library prepared for the future?

Our state of emergency is good! These are the words spoken by Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson in 1939. He claimed that Sweden had nothing to fear from a future war, we were safe. Today we know it was not so. Is this the situation for Swedish public library of today? Is the public library ready to face the future, or is it only fancy words?

We have to form the future, not let the future form us. There have been tremendous changes within the information technology during the last 30 years. There are several information retrieval systems in our society. The public library is one of them. Libraries can supply information through time (the archive function) and space (the lending- and allocation function). But one fail to serve the public if one does not focus on retrieval and users. The purpose of this study is to find out whether Swedish public library today is prepared for the future. We did our research at six different public libraries in thinly populated areas. The study is divided into two parts. The first is a theoretical background to point out how things could be in a perfect world. And the second part is the results of interviews with library managers and our analysis. We have emphasised consciousness, awareness and will for the purpose of manage a strategy for the future. We found that the preparedness is low. The public library has difficulties in knowing what to do and how to do it and how to find the time.


To the Editor.— A recent report of anti-penicillin antibodies in patients previously treated with penicillin indicated that the incidence increased from 1.2% in 1958 to 3.1% in 1969.1The clinical significance of anti-penicillin antibodies is that they may cause a positive Coombs reaction, or even hemolytic anemia. Since a direct Coombs positive reaction without positive indirect Coombs is most often interpreted as autoimmunity, the detection of anti-penicillin antibodies in such patients receiving heavy doses of penicillin is important. Antipenicillin antibodies may exist in blood from donors who meet the requirements of most blood banks. We screened 438 consecutive blood donors for anti-penicillin antibodies. The donors were grouped as shown in the Table. The over-all incidence of positive anti-penicillin antibodies was 3.2%. A significantly high incidence of positive anti-penicillin antibodies was found in the group of donors with history of allergy to penicillin. The incidence of 3.2% in healthy blood


Memory devices, each capable of storing at least one charge, including an electrical off the plurality of charge storage elements insulated from one another. Memory devices, flash memory, fullerene


Continuous conductivity imaging system of EH-4 for magnetotelluric sounding is used widely.However,two-dimensional inversion of EH-4 data has a problem.It is difficult to make distinguish TE and TM mode which is existed in magnetotelluric sounding.Three effective apparent resistivities are introduced.It is shown that that effective apparent resistivity for two-dimensional inversion can really reflect geo-electric model,and can remove static shift.This method is proved effectively during data processing in practice.


In this paper a simple and viable on-line method to transmit ECG under hardware restricted environments is derived and its performance illustrated in simulation studies. The proposed scheme makes use of an ECG signal lossless compression technique for the communications channel optimization. Obtaining a better compression rate guarantees both the sending costs and the memory resources reduction. Simulation results show lossless compression ratios superior to 50% without restrictive requests to the application system. The main success of this research is that it gives adequate assurance for the implementation of a feasible and reliable prototype in mobile environments for remote monitoring.


Construction projects are managed by focusing on the results of projects. Moreover, cost and schedule are managed separately even though the efficiency of integrated management is very high. This paper proposes existing and progress control research of existing quantity the integrated information uses WBS-CBS. Schedule and cost are most important in construction projects. Specially, progress and cost are relationship of the managing integrated in many construction management. The quantity of materials for the works of construction is the base to create activities and a network. The quantity of materials of materials for the elemens of a building is a base of cost estimation and resource. allocation. This study suggest method for relating the schedule and cost information through the case study of construction field engineers.


In establishing an environmental integrated data bank, it is important that a suitable common denominator or 'anchor' be selected to which the various files can be related. Logically, this common d...


This trip examines exposures in the Adirondack Lowlands that contain Paleozoic hydrothermal and faultrelated features hosted by Mesoproterozoic 'Grenville' marbles and Cambrian Potsdam Sandstone. These features have been the source of some debate historically and are now explicable as resulting from hydrothermal activity within an ancient wrench fault system. This system is similar to the deep structures that give rise to economically important gas and oil fields in the Appalachian Basin and elsewhere. The trip will include localities where the direct effects of coupled fault-related deformation and hydrothermal alteration can be seen, and the results of recent petrographic, stable isotope and fluid inclusion work will be used to better explain outcrop-scale features. The trip concludes with a stop in Ordovician Black River Group carbonates that demonstrates on a small scale the effects of hydrothermal dolomitization related to brittle deformation that may be linked to basement faulting. The regional extent, timing and tectonic significance of the fault systems will also be considered. Figure 1. Generalized geolo Gouverneur


Each bulletin presents an in-depth discussion of a single topic of significant interest to the information systems community. Bulletins are issued on an as-needed basis and are available To be placed on a mailing list to receive future bulletins, send your name, organization, and business address to this office. You will be placed on this mailing list only.


Cloud computing is sharing of enormous resource with a billing plan creating ease and providing solution for IT needs to a business of any size. Growth of public cloud has contributed widely in making cloud a household name in the field of software use ,creation, deployment or even management but at the same time securing the cloud is most important responsibility of cloud provider to build trust in the customers. This paper talks about most common threats and the strategies to deal with the risks.


Ovaries from 200 buffaloes were collected from slaughter house showed different types of tumours: granulosa cell tumour 3 (1.5%), thecoma 1 (0.5%), fibroma 1 (0.5%) and teratoma 1 (0.5%). The macroscopic and histopathological changes in ovaries having neoplastic conditions were described and discussed.


SIR,-We have shown that subcutaneously administered degraded carrageenan has a pronounced inhibitory action on the acid secretory response of the intact guinea-pig stomach (Watt, Eagleton & Marcus, 1966b). This inhibitory action was observed in relation to histamine-stimulated secretion but not to the secretion stimulated by 3-(2-aminoethyl)pyrazole dihydrochloride (ametazole hydrochloride ; Histalog) an analogue of histamine. We have now investigated the time course relative to this inhibitory action and, in addition, the effect of degraded carrageenan on fasting secretion. Adult male albino guinea-pigs (550-750 g) were prepared for secretory studies by a preliminary fast of 15 hr, during which time they wore looselyfitting Perspex collars to prevent coprophagy. Gastric secretion was then stimulated by the intramuscular injection of histamine acid phosphate (1 mg/kg) in aqueous solution (1 mglml). One hr later, the gastric juices were collected by intubation of the unanaesthetized animal. Total acid concentration was measured by titration using phenolphthalein as indicator. Freshly prepared degraded carrageenan (5% aqueous solution) derived from the red seaweed Eucheuma spinosum, was administered as a single subcutaneous injection in a dose of 400 mg/kg. In the time course study, secretory tests were made on separate groups of animals at 2 hr intervals over the first 24 hr and at 2, 3, 9 and 14 days after the administration of carrageenan. Groups varied in size from 2 to 10 animals; the control group (at zero hr) comprised 20 animals. The effect of degraded carrageenan on the fasting secretion was studied in animals which had received the drug subcutaneously (400mg/kg) 18 hr previously. The time course study (Fig. 1) indicates a significant reduction (2 standard deviations below the mean of the control values) in both volume and total acid concentration of the histamine-stimulated juice from about 6 to 24 hr following a single injection of degraded carrageenan. By 3 days all values are within the normal range. The effects of degraded carrageenan on the fasting gastric secretion are shown in Table 1. Degraded carrageenan lowers the volume significantly and tends to reduce the total acid concentration of fasting secretion. It has been known for some time that orally administered degraded carrageenan, apart from possessing antipeptic activity, also causes a temporary reduction of gastric acidity in response to histamine (Anderson, Marcus & Watt, 1962). The results of the present investigation show that degraded carrageenan administered parenterally has a pronounced inhibitory effect on histamine-stimulated gastric secretion and that this effect is a prolonged one


A virtual elastic robot as an autonomous robot is proposed which has a body with multiple degrees of freedom. It is capable of fitting its body to the given surrounding environment. This study focuses to allow the elastic robot to adapt to various environments. The intended robot is modeled by rigid objects connected by spring joints in a circular structure. Its control system manipulates spring actuators to realize elastic movements. This paper aims to acquire its control system to the robot to behave autonomously. A behavior acquisition is implemented as an optimization problem by the use of Evolutionary Computation. A physical simulation on the computer is done to achieve given tasks for the virtual elastic robot. The task aims to achieve a locomotion which moves toward a destination on a flat ground. Simulation result shows that the elastic robot acquires a locomotion. Moreover, we assume a complicated circumstance in which an obstacle is put. In order to allow the robot to adapt to a complicated circumstance, a simulation experiment results in forming a behavioral pattern of an autonomous locomotion. These experimental results show that the robot is capable of acquiring locomotion in specific circumstances. I. I NTRODUCTION This study focus on an autonomous robot which is capable of adapting itself to the surrounding environment. An autonomous robot can behave to achieve some tasks. This paper is to acquire their adaptive behaviors that achieve given tasks. Accomplishing this task is regarded as a learning problem for autonomous robots. It has been studied actively in areas such as evolutionary robotics and artificial life. In order to construct an adaptive control system, a bottomup approach is adopted in recent works. This approach aims to construct an optimum control system so as to achieve a given task by a parameter optimization. The parameter optimization is generally implemented by the use of evolutionary computation (EC). There are many studies to acquire autonomous behaviors by computer simulations [1]. K. Sims [1] proposed a method for creating a virtual creature. In this methodology, the geometric morphology for a model structure and a neural system for controlling a creature are both generated automatically using EC. Therefore, it is expected that the creature adapts to the surrounding environment by the use of physical simulation. K. Sims indicated a problem what shape would be the optimum shape to accomplish a task. Similarly, in the area of artificial life, a behavior emergence and an evolution of the artificial creature on a computer become a significant problem. The virtual creature which is proposed K. Sims [1] is expected to design the specialized shape in a specific environment. However, the obtained model cannot exploit its adaptive ability in other environment. Consequently, a modular robot is proposed to solve this problem [2], [3], [4]. The modular robot consists of simple modules, and its behavior is obtained by each module movement based on local communications between connected modules. In many studies, it has seen attracted how to control each module autonomously and emerge its self-reconfigurable property which is capable of changing their module structure by ducking and separation. However, it is not shown how to determine the optimum body structure to adapt to the surrounding environment, like challenges found in the research of K. Sims [1]. Controlling the modular robot is generally studied by the use of a rule-based control which is described by the specific behavior rule for each module [2], [3]. However the rule-based controlling approach has only allowed robots to behave simple motion. Furthermore, it is also difficult to control a model with scalability. Then, an evolutionary heuristic approach is adopted instead of a traditional rule-base approach to control a modular robot [4]. In these background, we have focused on a virtual elastic robot which has a body with multiple degrees of freedom and aimed to acquire behaviors to achieve given tasks [5]. This elastic robot can behave flexibly such as an amoeba and a snake. Especially, the robot is constructed by connecting flexible spring joints. Then a controller to manipulate spring actuators to realize elastic movements is acquired by the use of EC. The body has a circular structure to propagate a elastic motion efficiently. Previously, we have shown that the virtual elastic robot is capable of acquiring locomotive behaviors [5]. This paper aims to reveal a motion mechanism for the obtained behavior. Additionally, in order to adapt the robot to a complicated circumstance, a learning experiment is carried out so as to form a composite behavior by the use of the obtained behavior. The rest of this paper is composed as follows. Section 2 explains some related works. Section 3 proposes an elastic circular robot consisting of modular units. Section 4 describes learning experiment to acquire an autonomous locomotive behavior and shows some experimental results. Section 5 describes a learning experiment to adapt the robot to a circumstance with an obstacle. Section 6 concludes this study with some remarks and gives some directions toward the future work. II. RELATED WORKS There are studies to acquire an amoebic motion by the use of a body with multiple degrees of freedom [6], [7]. A. Ishiguro et al. [6] proposed an amoeboid robot which is connected SCIS & ISIS 2010, Dec. 8-12, 2010, Okayama Convention Center, Okayama, Japan


Based on the characteristics of explicit integration used in the pseudodynamic tests,an improved explicit integration method is proposed,and the detailed procedures are introduced.The stability,accuracy,numerical dissipation and error propagation characteristics of this method are investigated.The results of theoretical analysis and example calculation show that this method can hold the advantages of the explicit Newmark method(NEM) and the unconditional stable explicit method(UEM) by means of regulating three parameters,and suppress the spurious participation of the high frequency responses while the lower mode responses is obtained accurately.And the error propagation characteristics of the proposed method are better than those of other explicit methods.


Ronald Ozio is a classroom teacher of learning-handicapped teenagers at Dallas Academy, Dallas, Texas. For their help, the author expresses thanks to Dorothy H. Savage, Margaret S. Kroeger, Katie Maris, Evelyn Koon, and especially, Dr. Wallace H. Savage. I N THE REMEDIATION of scholastic difficulties arising from a reading disability, academic and sensory-motor therapies can be an effective combination. An excellent example of this is afforded by the case of a teenage boy who underwent two years of such combined remediation with good results. Gene was thirteen years old, blond, and athletic. He loved to laugh and had a keen sense of humor that was disarmingly fresh. He loved practical jokes. Stuffing wads of paper into the school bell was one of his favorites. But seldom was there malice


Julin, Juhani Kristian Fabrication, electrical characterization and 1/f noise study of submicron-sized superconducting tunnel junctions Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2016 (Research report/Department of Physics, University of Jyväskylä, ISSN 0075-465X; 8/2016) ISBN 978-951-39-6678-2 (paper copy) ISBN 978-951-39-6679-9 (online PDF) diss. This thesis presents results focused on fabrication and electrical characterization of superconducting tunnel junctions and Josephson junctions, e.g. measuring the current–voltage response and 1/f noise from different samples at different temperatures. Junctions were fabricated inside a vacuum chamber where metal evaporation through a resist mask was used to create submicron-sized junctions. The tunneling barrier was common between all different samples, i.e. in-situ oxidized aluminium between the metal depositions. Different material combinations were used, e.g. Al–AlOx–Al, Al–AlOx–Al:Mn and Al–AlOx–Nb. The manganese doping in aluminium (Al:Mn) suppresses the superconductivity making the Al:Mn parts normal, while pure aluminium is superconducting, creating a normal metal–insulator–superconductor (NIS) device. The qualities of junctions were improved, if possible, by vacuum thermal annealing at 400 ◦C, which was found both to stabilize aluminium and aluminium– manganese based junctions and to reduce the characteristic 1/f noise in them. These results are desired, since for most applications it is important to have a junction with stable parameters over long time and 1/f noise is limiting the sensitivity of many devices. However, the procedure is not for granted, since most other NIS material combinations didn't survive the annealing treatment. We studied Al–AlOx–Nb junctions at cryogenic temperatures (≈ 100 mK) either as an SIS' device, or as an NIS device by suppressing the superconductivity of aluminium with magnetic field, and observed excess sub-gap current, which could not be explained by standard tunneling theory with the Dynes model.


Suppose that a finite simplicial complex C has fi faces of dimension i . The sequence ( fo, fi, . . .) is called the f-vector of C. Suppose now that r is a class of simplicial complexes. Is it possible to characterize the fivectors of complexes in r ? This question has been often studied for various classes r, and a number of characterization theorems are known. These are (in roughly chronological order; details are given in the paper): (1) for all complexes, (2) for Cohen-Macaulay complexes, (3) for boundary complexes of simplicial convex polytopes, (4) for Leray complexes, and (5) for complexes having a given sequence of Betti numbers. For some other classes, partial information and conjectures are available. Most of the classes for which characterization efforts have been successful share the property that they can be defined in terms of homological conditions on all or some quotient complexes (links of faces). In this paper we review some of the advances in the study off-vectors from this common point of view. Some combinatorial and algebraic methods for "compression" and "shifting" of simplicial complexes seem indispensable for the results we discuss. These methods are reviewed in the third and fourth sections. Using these methods, complexes in classes (1), (4), and (5) [and probably also (2)] can be moved within the class into a special position where the characteristic properties of their f-vector can easily be read off. In the three classes that are homologically defined, the complexes in "special position" always belong to a combinatorially defined subclass: for (2) the shellable complexes, for (4) the &collapsible complexes, and for (5) a certain class of near cones. Also, class (1) can be considered to be homologically defined in a degenerate way. Its members in "special position" are the compressed complexes. It is conceivable that further research will extend the characterization theorem for complexes in class (3) to all homology spheres, in which case (3) would also become a homologically defined class, cf. Concluding Remarks and Open Problems.


Based on a paper presented at the 27th UKSG Conference, Manchester, March 2004 The Public Library of Science (PLoS) was formed in 2000 as an advocacy organization to encourage publishers to deposit articles in the newly formed biomedical archive PubMed Central. Frustrated with its lack of success in this aim, the organization has since become an open access (OA) publisher. The article reviews the history of PLoS and how it came to become a publisher. It then considers some of the objections to OA publishing and how PLoS's publishing efforts are aimed at challenging those objections and demonstrating that OA is a viable and credible alternative to the existing subscription-based publishing model.


12CaO·7Al2O3 (C12A7) composed of nanosize cage structure can clathrate oxygen radicals (O−) and has a high potential to application of strong oxidizing catalysis. In the present report, we demonstrate a fabrication route to C12A7 fine powders by Chemical Solution Deposition method in order to enhance the catalytic reactivity. Aluminum sec-butoxide, calcium nitrate tetrahydrate, acetylacetone, 2-methoxyethanol, and nitric acid were used as raw materials. Precursor solution was dried and annealed at 800°–900°C in air or O2 atmosphere. Crystalline C12A7 powders were obtained by annealing at 900°C in O2 atmosphere. Scanning electron microscope and transmission electron microscope images of the obtained powders revealed C12A7 particles were sintered and formed several micrometer particles with many pores. BET specific surface area of the powders was 4.2 m2/g. Possibility for synthesizing C12A7 powder with higher specific surface area by the solution process was indicated.


The corrosion behavior of mild carbon steel, has been investigated using an immersion test and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy in solutions from the sites of Karangsong and Eretan, Northern Coast of West Java Region, Indonesia. As reference, solutions of 3.5% and 5% NaCl were prepared. Salinity, conductivity, and total dissolved solids (TDS) were measured. It was found that uniform corrosion observed on mild steel during the immersion test. Corrosion resistance of alloys decreases with increasing exposure time in natural seawater solutions. Since magnitudes of conductivity, salinity and TDS of all test solutions are similar, it implied that chloride ion have primary role for inducing the corrosion risk of mild steel. That parameter hinders the formation of stable passive film on the surface of corroded mild steel.Key words: conductivity; immersion test; mild steel; salinity; seawater; total dissolved solids.


This study focused on an exploration of methods to study land cover and land cover change in a national park buffer zone area in southern Zambia. Zambia lies in southern Africa, and is landlocked on all sides by eight countries: Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Congo, Tanzania, Mozambique and Malawi (Figure 1). The majority of Zambia lies on the high central African plateau, with a few mountainous areas in the east representing the lower end of the Great Rift Valley. Several major river valleys cut across the landscape, including the Zambezi, the Luangwa, and the Kafue, resulting in wetlands and broad flood plains. Figure 1. Zambia lies in southern Africa


ESA's Doppler Wind lidar mission, the Atmospheric Dynamics Mission (ADM-Aeolus, hereafter abbreviated to Aeolus), was chosen as an Earth Explorer Core mission within the Living Planet Programme in 1999. It shall demonstrate the potential of space-based Doppler Wind lidars for operational measurements of wind profiles and their use in Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) and climate research. Spin-off products are profiles of cloud and aerosol optical properties. Aeolus carries the novel Doppler Wind lidar instrument ALADIN. The mission prime is Airbus Defence & Space UK (ADS-UK), and the instrument prime is Airbus Defence & Space France (ADS-F).


This article is concemed with the authenticity of the four «corporales» supossedly owned by Saint Claire of Asis toda y preserved in two monasteries of Salamanca and Zamora. The tradition of giving the nuns as a present this sort of liturgical pieces is well documented through both private and public sources. The function, fabric and tecniques of these «corporales» are also studied, as well as the shift from being useful objects to be considered as relics decorated with embroideries and exhibited in reliquaries.


Recently controlled and sustained drug delivery has become the new standard in modern pharmaceutical design and a thorough research has been undertaken in achieving much better drug product effectiveness, reliability and safety. In situ gelling system has become an outstanding among novel drug delivery system (NDDS) in recent years due to its advantages like sustained and prolonged drug action, improved patient compliance and reduced frequency of administration of the drug compared to conventional drug delivery system (DDS). In this system the formulation is in the form of solution and when comes in contact with body fluids it undergoes gelation to form a gel. The formation of gels depends on factors like temperature changes, pH changes, presence of ions and ultraviolet irradiation. Various biodegradable polymers like gellan gum, pectin, alginic acid, chitosan, xyloglucan, etc are used. In situ gels are administered through various routes like oral, ocular, nasal, rectal, vaginal, injectable and intraperitonial. The production of such devices is also less complex and thus lowers the investment and manufacturing cost.


Since the beginning of the new century, Germany has become an active global player both in the diplomatic and the military field, with its own perceptions and interests. Firmly anchored in the existing multilateral structures of NATO and the EU, Germany has deployed many efforts to contribute to solve the world's main conflicts. But given the very complex dynamics of these conflicts, its chronic lack of financial resources and its reluctance to use military force, Germany's aims in foreign policy reach sometimes far beyond the practical results of these efforts.


In the era of digital granted access control – biometry has become important subject when it comes to deal with digital security. Persistence of this paper is to contemporaneous the novel model of biometric security. Conception of it is to enable the authentication method on mobile phone by using the video face recognition method as model of biometric identification. Biometry today, is one of the sophisticated research subjects, especially when it comes to implement it and make it applicable. Such an exploration is not just matter of application, yet it consists and involves different areas of engineering and computer science as: image processing, mobile network security, machine learning, pattern recognition, etc. The objective of this research is to syndicate the areas of intelligence and propose the contrivance model of artificial recognition system via mobile phone. The initial idea is to have client server application, developed on Android Mobile Platform. Such a research will be tested on different algorithms and will propose the best solution. Authentication using facial expression predominantly is very challenging because of high level features involved in recognition model. Especially in near future artificial model of authentication and recognition will play foremost role in authentication and security. In here, we evaluate recognition biometric method for mobile device, concerning its application as well as accuracy. The result provided


Hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si:H) films for efficient nc-Si:H solar cells are made at the transition to the nanocrystalline regime during radio frequency plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (rf PECVD). This transition occurs within a sensitive process window and is affected by various deposition parameters. This paper reports an investigation into the material properties of nc-Si:H films as affected by the following rf PECVD parameters: deposition power, deposition pressure, substrate temperature and silane concentration. The aim was to verify the sensitivity of nc-Si:H material properties to rf PECVD parameters. Our results showed that i-layer deposition pressure and the silane concentration mainly affected the blue response of nc-Si:H solar cells. The a-Si:H/nc-Si:H transition can be attained by manipulating any of deposition pressure, deposition power and silane concentration while keeping all other deposition conditions constant.

 Keywords: Nanocrystalline, vapor deposition, thin film, parameters.


I begin obliquely. Doty,] following the work of Downer,2 has studied the relation between visual gnostic functions and fear reactions in the split-brain macaque. In one of his preparations a unilateral amygddectomy is combined with sectioning of the optic tract on the contralateral side. Then all of the forebrain commissures are transected, except for the posterior one-third of the corpus callosum. This remaining tissue, the splenium, is ensnared by a ligature that is brought to the skull surface and left protruding. Allowing several months for the bone flap t o knit, the animal is then placed in a large enclosure. Now if a man enters this enclosure the monkey behaves normally: that is, it takes flight. However if the splenium snare is pulled-which takes only a few minutes and causes n o reaction other than a slight blink-a dramatic change occurs in the same animal's behavior. It n o longer runs from the man. In fact it will approach him, let him touch its snout, will sniff, nuzzle or very gently bite his outstretched fingers. This is precisely the point at which conceptual problems arise. For suppose someone, trying t o explain the change in the monkey's behavior, asks if this animal can still see the man in the enclosure. The answer must be "yes," because completion of the neocommissural transection did not add to its blindness: it was already homonymously hemianopic due to sectioning of the optic tract on one side, i.e., both eyes were blind for that half visual field. And in fact it displays normal visual behavior, at least for one half the visual field. It blinks and dodges rapidly approaching objects, jumps accurately from perch to perch, and fixates-with conjugate eye movements-on the man as he enters the enclosure. Now suppose we are asked if this monkey can still feel fear. Again the answer must be "yes," because disruption of the splenium did not affect the remaining intact amygdala. Indeed if this animal is touched elsewhere than on the snouton its body or limbs, for example-it will be provoked to violent flight or attack. But then why does the monkey run when it sees the man in the enclosure? If it can see him, and can feel fear, why has it lost its visual fear reactions? The short and simple explanation for this, the kind of answer I would expect from Geschwind,3 is that what we are witnessing here is just another "disconnection syndrome." By pulling the splenium snare, we have disconnected the visual cortex of one cerebral hemisphere from the other cerebral hemisphere, which includes an intact amygdala. So the part of the monkey that sees but cannot feel fear is cut off from the part of the monkey that is blind but fearful. Thus we have provoked what might be called a functional bilateral amygdalectomy with regard to visual stimuli. I find this explanation attractive for its simplicity, but ultimately unsatisfying. The reason I find it unsatisfying is that if we persist in thinking of this as a single conscious organism, the fact remains that "it," the monkey, both sees and is fearful, yet does not react fearfully to what it sees. HOW can this be if it is the same monkey that sees and is fearful? And if one says that only a part of the monkey sees, another part is fearful, and these two parts were disconnected by


We show how cellular neural networks (CNNs) are capable of providing the necessary signal processing needed for visual navigation of an autonomous mobile robot. In this way, even complex feature detection and object recognition can be obtained in real time by analogue hardware, making fully autonomous real‐time operation feasible. An autonomous robot was first simulated and then implemented by simulating the CNN with a DSP. The robot is capable of navigating in a maze following lines painted on the floor. Images are processed entirely by a CNN‐based algorithm, and navigation is controlled by a fuzzy‐rule‐based algorithm. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


This paper deals with the topic of the digital factory and, in particular, the consideration of the logistical processes that take place in a highly automated factory. The paper focuses on an analysis of the Fischertechnik® Training Factory Industry 4.0 model, which is used as a teaching and learning environment at the Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences. The objective is to record the processes taking place in the model factory and to evaluate them with regard to their level of digitalization. For this purpose, the so-called Smart Logistics Zone (SLZ) approach [1] is used to apply a structured procedure that divides the overall process of the model factory into two main processes (incoming goods process and customer order process/manufacturing process) and to identify and evaluate targeted improvement measures. Furthermore, the paper applies a value stream mapping method as well as the maturity model according to Appenfeller/Feldmann [2] and in the outlook considers an extension of the SLZ approach by a VSM 4.0.


The use of techniques for analysis of CVD diamond films and the correlations of results of the macroscopic parameters of diamond growth promote a better understanding of the growing process and technological applications of diamond films. Starting from this principle and through an iterative process, the conditions are identified in the diamond film grows more favourably and with better quality. The characterization techniques are of great importance for the analysis of diamond surfaces, interfaces and inside the material. This article presents the assessments made by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), confocal technique (MCLV), X-ray energy dispersive EDX ("Energy Dispersive X-Ray") spectroscopy, Raman scattering RSS ("Raman Scattering Spectroscopy"), X-ray diffraction spectroscopy and excited photoelectron X rays. XPS ("X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy") on the diamond film CVD and the material where it is deposited and also its descriptions of using metallographic analysis and Rockwell indentation technique on said film. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org) PRES17 conference


More than 150 million people worldwide are chronically infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) and face higher risk of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Highly effective HCV treatments have recently been developed; however, they are costly and therefore poorly suited for application in resource-limited settings where HCV burden is high. Pegylated-interferon alpha (PEG-IFNα) and ribavirin (RBV) therapy is far less costly, but also less effective. Vitamin D supplementation has been proposed as an inexpensive adjuvant to treatment, however, prior epidemiological evidence on its effectiveness is inconsistent, with little data available among African Americans who naturally have lower vitamin D concentrations. We thus evaluated associations between baseline vitamin D status, measured by circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D), which is considered to be the best marker of vitamin D status in humans, and subsequent response to PEG-IFNα/RBV therapy in two large clinical trials that together included 1292 patients infected with HCV genotype 1. We used race-stratified logistic regression models to evaluate multivariable-adjusted associations of 25(OH)D with early virologic response (EVR; 2-log10 HCV RNA decline at week 12) and sustained virologic response (SVR). Among African Americans, we saw no associations. Among European Americans, we saw no association with low vitamin D (≤20 ng/mL) versus sufficient concentrations (20-<30 ng/mL). However, patients with 25(OH)D ≥30 ng/mL were actually less likely to attain EVR (OR = 0.64, 95% CI = 0.43–0.94) than those with sufficient concentrations, with a similar but non-significant association observed for SVR (OR = 0.49, 95% CI = 0.20–1.17). Conclusion Higher vitamin D status was not beneficially associated with responses to therapy; if anything, patients with higher vitamin D concentrations were less likely to attain SVR. Our data do not support a role for vitamin D supplementation as an adjuvant therapy for HCV.


The guitar composer Luigi Legnani (1790–1877) published some 250 works with opus number, most of them for solo guitar. His catalog, however, contains many gaps. This article explores the particular circumstances of the discovery of Legnani's opus 9, focusing on Legnani's possible contact with the French guitarist Luigi [Louis] Sagrini (1809–74).


Local crystalline structure of hypo- and hyperstoichiometric SmCox alloys with x = 5.15, 4.95, 4.0, 3.75 heat treated in different conditions was investigated by means of the X-ray absorption spectroscopy. Experimental spectra were measured above the L3-Sm absorption edge. EXAFS-analysis shows that stacking faults appear in hyperstoichiometric alloys SmCo4 and SmCo3.75, confirming the hypothesis of high coercive state, induced by phase transformations, changing the state of the grain surface in basic phase. L3-Sm XANES spectra demonstrate the reduction of the white line amplitude in Sm-enriched samples.


The three previously cloned Cyprinus carpio muscle-specific subisoforms of creatine kinase (CK, EC 220.127.116.11) designated M1-, M2- and M3-CK were examined. At temperatures 7·7, specific activities of M1-CK were three to eight-fold higher than specific activities of M3- and rabbit (R) M-CK. At pH 8·0, M1-CK exhibited its highest specific activity at 15° C. Michaelis constants of PCr () and ADP () of M1-CK were relatively stable at pH between 7·1–8·0 and 25–5° C. Its calculated activation energy of catalysis (Ea) at pH 8·0 was lower than at pH 7·1. Circular dichroism spectroscopy results showed that changes in secondary structures in M1-CK at the pH and temperatures studied were much less than in the cases of RM- and M3-CK. The M1-CK enzyme seemed to have evolved to adapt to the synchronized changes in body temperature and intracellular pH of C. carpio.


Let p be a prime number, p ? 2,3 and Fp the finite field with p elements. An elliptic curve E over Fp is a projective nonsingular curve of genus 1 defined over Fp. Each one of these curves has an isomorphic model given by an (Weierstrass) equation E: y2 = x3 + Ax + B, A,B I Fp with D = 4A3 + 27B2 ? 0. The j-invariant of E is defined by j(E) = 1728·4A3/D.
The aim of this note is to establish some results concerning the cardinality of the group of points on elliptic curves over Fp with j-invariants equals to 0 or 1728, and the connection between these cardinalities and some expressions of sum of squares.


IN CONCURRENT PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT (CPD), the disciplines involved in the many phases of a product's life (from concept to disposal) are represented on the design team from the outset The potential advantages of this type of organization are several, including faster time to market, improved quality, and lower costs. Given these outcomes, providing students with a CPD experience and sensitivity to the related design-management issues should be an academic priority, but as Jacques Giard and George Lee attest, it's easier said than done.


Although the birth of film art is the youngest form of art, but in its work has shaken the world by seizing a spectacular position. When film is recognized as a work of art, film also has the potential for communication that can deliver messages uniquely, so that it can be said as a manifestation of the representation of the lives of its people. However, how can the film be appreciated by the audience? Of course the stages of the process must go a long way starting from the inspiration to the embodiment of appreciation. There are several stages in the process, namely the stage of idea finding, development, packaging and formation until tangible to be appreciated. The idea-seeking stage is the stage of absorption of inspiration stimulated by aesthetic experiences. The development phase is to motivate the theme and the problems to be expressed in its realization. After that it is then packaged based on literary rules into a scenario. Furthermore, the interpretation of the manuscript is done to form through several components of creative workers. Compiled based on cinematic elements to the form of film packaging that can be appreciated.


We prepared novel mesoporous organosilica nanoparticles with internal metal‐chelating diethylenetriametetraacetic acid groups (DTTA‐MSNPs) by co‐condensation and decorated them with fluorescent moieties. We studied the binding of transition metal ions such as copper(II), cobalt (II) and gadolinium (III) by DTTA‐MSNPs, and found high uptake of these metals. In particular, DTTA‐MSNPs uptake ~1.1×105 Gd3+ per particle and possess a high r1 relaxivity of 15.27 mM−1 s−1. Thus, DTTA‐MSNPs may find applications in metal sequestration and in MR imaging and neutron capture therapy.


The case study phase of the research project, ?Use of technology in adult language classrooms? followed these three steps:1. Access to teachers and data collection,2. Writing of teacher profiles based on all data collected for each teacher, and,3. Writing of a cross-case analysis report based on the teacher profiles mentioned aboveThis document reports on the data collection and analysis procedures (Section 2) and the cross-case analysis (Section 3). The teacher profiles are presented in a separate document titled, ?The Teacher Cases (Profiles)?.


To conduct a systematic review to deter-mine clearance rates and adverse effects of topical imi-quimodorfluorouraciltherapyinthetreatmentofnon-melanomaskincancerssuchasbasal(BCC)andsquamouscell carcinoma (SCC), and to develop recommenda-tionsfortheuseoftopicalimiquimodorfluorouraciltotreat BCC and SCC.


The value of several reagents capable of removing quantitatively the α-amino protecting group of NPS-aminoacyl- or peptidyl-derivatives is assessed, by comparison with the reagents currently used, i.e. hydrogen chloride, RS–-nucleophiles or alkyl thioamides, especially with regard to reaction specificity and end-product solubility. New reagents proposed, 3-nitro-4-mercapto-benzoic acid, and its methyl ester, appear to optimize the numerous, and often competing, requirements. These were probed, under conditions suitable for both conventional and solid-phase methods, on a series of model compounds, including diversely protected amino acids and short peptides, as well as for the actual synthesis of a triacontapeptide by the stepwise, solid-phase approach.


Letrozole is the third-generation aromatase inhibitor.It could induce ovulation by inhibiting estrogen production,with the result of releasing the hypothalamic-pituitary axis from estrogenic negative feedback and increasing the synthesis of follicle-stimulating hormone.Clinical trials indicated that letrozole could be safely and effectively used in ovulation induction of anovulatory women,especially those who were clomiphene resistant,and also in assisted reproductive technology.In addition,it can be used in controlled ovarian stimulation for the purpose of fertility preservation in young women with breast cancer.This article mainly focuses on the progress of letrozole in ovulation induction.


Through testing the dryness and shrinkage of the common concrete brick under various environments,the mechanism of the shrinkage of concrete bricks,the effect of autogenous shrinkage on the shrinkage of concrete brick and the characteristic of partly inreversible shrinkage was analyzed.The characteristic of the dryness and the relation between the moisture content and the shrinkage of concrete brick were investigated.Using the theory of capillary tube tension,the characteristics of the shrinkage in different moisture contents were expounded and proved.


In this volume leading scholars from North America, Europe and Asia come together to explore the topic of business models that takes the demand side


The invention belongs to the field of edible fungus cultivation and discloses a method for cultivating edible fungi by rape pod shells, which comprises the steps of selecting edible fungus cultivation varieties, manufacturing strains, collecting and processing rape pod shells, preparing culture medium formula, accumulating for fermentation, bagging for inoculation, discharging the bag for fruiting and the like and is characterized in that edible fungus cultivated species are prepared one month before the harvest of rape so as to ensure the harvest season of the strains to be synchronous with that of the rape pod shells, and the harvested rape pod shells are dewaxed harmlessly firstly and then are mixed with cottonseed hulls and accessories to form the culture medium used for edible fungus cultivation. The invention utilizes the rape pod shells instead of the cottonseed hulls as the main raw materials of the edible fungi, can make full use of straw resources and save the production cost of the edible fungi, improves the economic efficiency of mushroom cultivation by 30-50% for farmers, and can be popularized and applied in vast rural areas.


On 10/14/2020, the author wrote his first research note on his developed linear elastic glucose theory (LEGT). Over the past 5+ months, he has continuously conducted his research on this subject, where he completed his research note on a summary report, No. 415, LEGT Part 26 on 3/15/2021. In the LEGT research note, No. 416, Part 27, he applied simple geometry to derive a set of equations in estimating the average LEGT sensor PPG and LEGT finger PPG values known as Equation A, which were based on values of P1, P2, and P3. In the current research note, No. 418, Part 28, he derived another set of equations for the same two PPG values known as Equation B, which were based on values of Weight or FPG, carbs/sugar intake amount, and post-meal walking k-steps. In summary, similar to the Young's modulus of engineering materials, the GH.p-Modulus for diet is the most important GH-Modulus of biomedicine applications. This is related to and dependent on the patient's overall metabolic conditions, age, lifestyle, health, medical diseases, types of food, amount of carbs/sugar intake, and to some degree the chosen time-window for certain analyses. Nevertheless, its linear and elastic behaviors and general glucose characteristics are quite comparable to the Young's modulus of stress and strain in theory of elasticity of engineering. All of the author's collected glucose data to date present their behaviors within the defined "elastic" region. Therefore, his developed LEGT would be useful for other type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients to control their diabetes conditions.


This paper is concerned with deening a formal mapping from a terminological logic to an object data model which preserves as much of the semantics of the terminological logic as possible. To this end, the paper gives concise introductions into the terminological logic FRM and the object data model COCOON. It then brieey outlines a mapping from FRM class descriptions to COCOON types and classes and shows how the terminological inference of classiication is mapped to a set of equivalent COCOON queries. Since these queries can (mostly) be submitted as a whole to the underlying database system we can take full advantage of all the results on query optimisation, on providing eecient physical access structures, as well as on parallelisation that are available in the database area to make terminological inferences more eecient. This can play a crucial role in realising knowledge base systems capable of dealing with very large knowledge bases.


In analyzing tough difficulties existing in teaching materials used in music teacher education programs, this paper points out that the old contents as well as skills taught in colleges are not able to meet the needs for the graduates to use in schools. As the school curricu-lar refonn goes on, new texts put to use in schools have become big challenges to those being untouched in teacher education programs, that is, our colleges are far behind schools. Based on the situation of school reform, the paper reveals the problems concerning the issues of teaching materials so that more educators would pay more attention to it.


Plans testified to the House Energy and Commerce Committee that more than 80% of new customers had paid the monthly premiums.


Papers with focus on biomedical data analysis have investigated the initiation of HIV treatment on the basis of several factors including the patient's clinical and immunological state, mental health and the likelihood of adherence to treatment. Here we focus on a different domain, namely the decision whether to change treatment based on sequential laboratory test indicators of the patient. In this paper, we give attention to CD4 and blood viral load-based parameters since they have been shown to be significant disease indicators. We develop an SVM-based method and show that our method provides results consistent with guidelines built on clinical knowledge of the impact of various factors on treatment response, and more importantly, indicates which factors contribute the most to the decision via bootstrap analysis. Among our findings are that CD4 T-cells and HIV-1 viral load absolute levels are strong contributors, while CD4 T-cell and blood viral load sequential changes are weaker contributors.


A method for predicting the coverage of a 4G LTE (Long-Term Evolution) network based on 3G path measurement data comprises a process for measuring the key coverage indexes of base stations in the existing 3G network and a process for calculating measuring results, wherein the key coverage indexes of each related base station in the existing 3G network are acquired by a test tool, the wireless signal propagation loss of each related base station is calculated, the extra wireless propagation loss, which is caused by frequency variation, of each related base station is measured and calculated according to a freedom space propagation model, the key indexes for evaluating the quality of the 4G LTE network are obtained, a predicting result is obtained, and the predicting result is finally presented by a secondary development tool of a geographic information system. The coverage of the 4G network deployed by the existing 3G network can be predicted, and the deviation degree between the predicting result and a test result after the deployment of an actual test network is within 6dB.


HISTORICAL RETROSPECT Though Ceylon achieved the status of an independent dominion within .the British Commonwealth of Nations on February 4, 1948, its leaders who inherited power did not deem it necessary to enact a new constitution and preferred to be governed by the Soulbury Constitution of 1946. Initially the major reason for this seemed to be the fact that the Soulbury Constitution' was mainly based on the proposals drawn by the ruling elites who, joining hands under the banner of a newly created United National Party (UNP) continued in power when the country attained independence. As such, perceiving the Soulbury constitution as virtually their own creation, they merely modified it to remove those limitations which were inconsistent with the independent status of Ceylon. The outcome of this effort was the enactment of Ceylon Independence Order in Council of 1947 which remained one of the basic documents for governance of the country till its repudiation on May 22, 1972. It is necessary to note that even before independence, the left parties in Ceylon e.g. the Trotskyite Lanka Sama Samaj Party (LSSP), the Moscow oriented Communist Party (CP) and the Bolshevik Leninist Party which provided the major oppositional thrust in the island's legislature (called the State Council) and outside, refused to endorse the Soulbury Constitution. The Communist Party for instance, called it a 'reactionary constitution which will only benefit the foreign and vested local interests'z and the Bolshevik Leninist Party, in a, severe commentary dubbed it as a slave constit~tion'.~ Demanding the scrapping of the Soulbury Constitution the left parties maintained that 'a free and sovereign Constituent Assembly should be elected on universal adult franchise to determine the future constitution of Ceylon'.4 The Sri Lanka Freedom Party, (SLm) Which broke away from the U.N.P. in 1951, vaguely referred Urmila Phadnis and Lucy M. Jacob


Dragonfly topologies are gathering great interest nowadays as one of the most promising interconnect options for High-Performance Computing (HPC) systems. However, Dragonflies contain physical cycles that may lead to traffic deadlocks unless the routing algorithm prevents them properly. In general, existing deadlock-free routing algorithms, either deterministic or adaptive, proposed for Dragonflies, use Virtual Channels (VCs) to prevent cyclic dependencies. However, these topology-aware algorithms are difficult to implement, or even unfeasible, in systems based on the InfiniBand (IB) architecture, which is nowadays the most widely used network technology in HPC systems. This is due to some limitations in the IB specification, specifically regarding the way Virtual Lanes (VLs), which are considered as similar to VCs, can be assigned to traffic flows. Indeed, none of the routing engines currently available in the official releases of the IB control software has been specifically proposed for Dragonflies. In this paper, we present a new deterministic, minimal-path routing for Dragonfly that prevents deadlocks using VLs according to the IB specification, so that it can be straightforwardly implemented in IB-based networks. We have called this proposal D3R (Deterministic Deadlock-free Dragonfly Routing). Specifically, D3R maps each route to a single, specific VL depending on the destination group, and according to a specific order, so that cyclic dependencies (so deadlocks) are prevented. D3R is scalable as it requires only 2 VLs to prevent deadlocks regardless of network size, i.e., fewer VLs than the required by the deadlock-free routing engines available in IB that are suitable for Dragonflies. Alternatively, D3R achieves higher throughput if an additional VL is used to reduce internal contention in the Dragonfly groups. We have implemented D3R as a new routing engine in OpenSM, the control software including the subnet manager in IB. We have evaluated D3R by means of simulation and by experiments performed in a real IB-based cluster, the results showing that, in general, D3R outperforms other routing engines.


1. The Tudors and Political Thought 2. Machiavelli's Reception in Tudor England 3. 'Politick Religion' (1603-1640) 4. Continuities (1640-1660) 5. Innovations (1640-1660) 6. Harrington, Hobbes, God and Machiavelli 7. Machiavelli and the Trimmers Conclusion. Appedix A: The Atheisticall Polititian. Appendix B: 'Machiavel's Letter' and 'The Works' 1675, 1680, 1694 and 1695.


Most people grow up in a family with at least one brother or a sister. The relationship betweensiblings can be marked with rivalry and conflict, but it can also be one of the closest and mostintimate relationships that a person has in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Unlike parentchildrelationships and children's peer relationships, there is far less empirical research related tothe study of sibling relationships which is very surprising given that it is the longest relationshipof an individual's life. With the exception of a research on a group of adults, in our country, aswe know, there was no systematic study of this relationship in the early stages of development.Accordingly, the aim of the study was to assess the quality of relationships with older or youngersister, in early adolescence. Participants in this study were 352 adolescents (192 girls and 160boys) ranging in age from 13 to 15. The mean age of the participants was 13.9 years. Adolescentassessed the relationship with the sister who is 1-5 years older or younger than them. Onesubgroup of respondents assessed the relationship with older sister (N = 181) and the other witha younger sister (N = 171). The data were collected by anonymous self-report questionnairecontaining the measures of the children's perception of quality of sibling relationship. Resultsof the analysis of gender differences indicate that compared to boys, girls perceive significantlymore intimacy, cooperation, friendship and similarities in relationship with their sister. Therewere no significant differences between boys and girls on measures of negative aspects of thesibling relationship. Age difference proved to be significant in almost all measures of the qualityof sibling relationship. In accordance with the assumptions, adolescents and early adolescencehave better relations with their older sister.


It illustrates the necessity of reinforcement of the maintenance and management of bridge,selectively analyzes the problems exists in current highway bridge maintenance,and puts forward measures and suggestions of the reinforcement of bridge maintenance and management,so as to provide new ideas for improving the level of bridge management.


ABSTRACTThe work which will be reviewed is the product of collaboration between researchers at the University of Wisconsin, the University of Florida, the Organismo Internacional Regional de Sanidad Agropecuaria (Central American Plant and Animal Health Organization), the Interamerican Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture, the USDA Agricultural Research Service Arthropod-borne Animal Disease Laboratory and the Regional Bluetongue Team comprising veterinarians and animal scientists of each of the Ministries of Agriculture of each of the participating countries. Support for this work was provided by the USDA Office of International Cooperation and. Development. A paper published in the American Journal of Veterinary Research will discuss the detailed data (1). Genetic improvement of livestock is enhanced by the free and open international movement of germplasm. Restriction of such movement is sometimes necessary to prevent the introduction of exotic disease. When such restrictions are applied, they shou...


In the absence of a national registry, the prevalence of critically ill, morbidly obese patients in the United States is not known. On the basis of a retrospective study spanning 7 years of intensive care unit (ICU) data (1994–2000), it is estimated that the incidence of morbidly obese patients requiring intensive care treatment approaches 14 cases per 1,000 ICU admissions per year (1). However, this figure is likely to underestimate the true incidence because the database was restricted to nonsurgical patients. The growing interest in gastric bypass underlines the increased public awareness of the medical and economic consequences of this epidemic. The latest numbers released by the American Society for Bariatric Surgery indicate that the rate of bariatric surgeries has risen in the United States alone from 37,000 cases in the year 2000 to 62,400 cases in 2001 and it is expected that the total number of cases may exceed 100,000 by the end of 2003 (2). Most of the reviews that have provided data on morbidly obese patients have focused on the impact of obesity on individual organ function. Yet, clinical investigations addressing the care of the critically ill, morbidly obese patient are scarce. A recent review published in the AJRCCM detailed the principles and approach to outpatient treatment of obesity (3). The present commentary is aimed at (1) describing the common challenges of treating morbidly obese patients in critical care settings and (2) reviewing the current concepts and suggestions for therapy.


World Summit on Physical Education was held on the eve of this century, where the outline of "the new physical education" was sketched by those reports and documents on the subject "regarding physical education as human right of all children". In this article, the author offered a review of the summit, including the summit process, the general content of related thesis and documents.


The thermopower S has two contributions. Diffusion thermopower arises from a diffusion of charge carriers opposite to the temperature gradient; phonon drag thermopower results from a quasi-momentum transfer from the phonons to the charge carriers. The latter term is dominant at low temperatures, yields important information about phonon-wall scattering in nanostructures, and has been studied in confined systems such as two-dimensional electron gases and carbon nanotubes. The thermopower of monocrystalline Bi (pure and doped with Te or Sn) microwires with diameters ranging from 0.1 to 3 mum were measured in the temperature range 4-300 K. Samples of Bi nanowires that are monocrystalline were spun as a fiber by the high frequency liquid-phase casting method. The low-temperature diffusion thermopower of Bi is linear with temperature. Instead, the dominant feature of the thermopower at temperatures below 12 K is a peak, which is due to phonon drag. We observe that the phonon-drag thermopower depends on the wire diameter and increases with increasing diameter of the sample, which is qualitatively explained by the suppression of two-step phonon processes in the finer wires due to the shortening of the phonon mean free path for normal (momentum conserving) processes due to diffusive wall scattering [Gitsu, D, et. al., 2005]. We have also studied the dependence of the phonon drag peak with wire length. Thus we have observed considerable decreasing of the phonon drag in the short samples when the length of the samples is smaller than 1 mm. In this case only thick samples d = 2.5 and 1 mum have the appreciable positive peak at around ap5 K. A possible explanation of these experimental results is presented


A fatigue assessment of steel structures based on the safe life approach requires a detail category representing the fatigue strength. For flexible culverts there are no matching details in the gov ...


Dr. Bishop is a researcher in exercise physiology and ergonomics at the University of Alabama. He has studied suspension trauma with regards to fall protection applications . In the course of examining suspension trauma it occurred that this was a viable explanation for the mechanism for crucifixion . Dr. Church is a professor and researcher in exercise physiology at Arkansas State University. The manuscript was written solely by these two authors, and reflects only their own views, and not those of their institutions.


The invention relates to an electrical power emergency repair emergency command wireless video audio monitoring system, which comprises a directive aerial system, a one-point sending and multi-point receiving and internet video transmitting system and an individual soldier vehicle-bone system (COFDM); a plurality of sets of systems are combined to be used for forming a large-scale wireless mobile transmission network, which has important significance for electrical safety production and emergency handling and irreplaceable important function for guaranteeing the power supply and maintaining national security and stability. The monitoring system greatly enlarges the signal cover of a radar jammer, further increases the function of the radar jammer, and well solves the signal transmission problem of complicated environment.


[Objective]The purpose of this program was to confirm the best fertilization modes to plant sweet sorghum in gray desert soil in Xinjiang.[Method]The different fertilization modes to the yield and sugar brix were studied.[Result]The result showed that the different varieties made the yield of sweet sorghum at significant level,but sugar brix inconspicuous;and that the influence of fertilization modes made the sugar brix of sweet sorghum at significant level,but yields inconspicuous.Variety - fertilizer interaction made the yields and sugar birx all at significant level.[Conclusion]Equal fertilization received better effect for the yield and brix of sugar sorghum.


—This paper explores the risks prevalent in the poultry farming industry, drawing upon an extensive examination conducted by researchers over the past decade. Employing a bibliometric analysis approach, a comprehensive search of the Scopus database was conducted using relevant keywords related to poultry farming risk and technology utilization. The search spanned from 2002 to 2022, yielding 345 pertinent documents. This study presents an overview of the current state of publications concerning poultry farming risk and its intersection with technology utilization. It delves into citation patterns, prevalent themes, and authorship analysis, focusing on the role of technology in mitigating risks. The comprehensive citation analysis highlights the impact of technology-related studies in the field. Frequency analysis employed Microsoft Excel, while VOSviewer facilitated data visualization. Harzing's Publish or Perish software was used for citation metrics and analysis. The findings reveal a consistent increase in publications on risk in poultry farming since 2002, particularly in relation to technology utilization. The United States emerges as the most active country in this area of research, with Wageningen University from the Netherlands identified as the most prolific institution contributing significantly to risk in poultry farming research, including technology applications. The research involved 32 scholars from 70 different countries and 32 distinct institutions, reflecting the multi-authorship and multicultural nature of the research. It is important to note that this paper focuses solely on the Scopus database, while future researchers may consider alternative databases for new studies, recognizing the expanding role of technology in addressing risks in the poultry farming industry


Frazer scarifies frequent instances of local dynamism, co-operation, and peace. At times, because of his reliance on an English and imperial source base, his narrative supports a caricature of middle easterners by treating identities as facts. For example, from the beginning of the book, Fraser outlines the various groups that have coexisted on the territory of the Middle East. Arabs, he explained, shared a religion with their Turkish conquerors from the sixteenth century (3). Shi'a were disadvantaged because they did not have the same religious bond between "rulers and ruled" as the Sunnis did (3). Defining Kurds as nomadic, Frazer discounts the powerful Kurds in Istanbul and those serving in the Hamidye Light Cavalry Regiments. For Frazer, Maronites existed mainly on Mt. Lebanon, and "ancient Jewish communities" (3) had been "expelled from their homeland by the Romans" (13). Frazer does not seem to consider recent works that challenge these primordial characterizations of ethnic and religious identities. Historians of the Middle East, beginning with Aaron Rodrigue, have pointed to the fluidity of identities under the Ottomans and the absence of minoritymajority distinctions for much of the empire's existence, particularly due to the ubiquity of a type of Ottomanism that coexisted alongside other burgeoning nationalisms in the region. Kurdish political periodicals in Istanbul, for instance, provide the basis to argue that there was not a unified Kurdish political identity prior to World War I. Similarly, new work on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by Areej Sabbagh-Khoury not only points to the oversimplification of ArabZionist binaries, but also argues that, until 1948, co-operation and neighborly interactions between the kibbutzim and Arabs was, in fact, the norm. Frazer's focus on conflict ends up producing a static Middle East in the vein of modernization theory. In Contested Lands, imperial powers are dynamos of change. They are responsible for amplifying conflict, creating artificial borders, and bringing modernity to the Middle East. Fraser's Arab subject relied on "subsistence agriculture ... for millennia" (4). He lived in places like the "relative backwater of Baghdad" (6). He also was not responsible for imagining a nationalism of his own. This claim goes against some of Sara Pursley's new work on Iraq, for instance. Pursley suggests that imperial powers were forced to reckon with Arab nationalist leaders, such as those of al-Ahd in Iraq, who pushed for their own vision of a post-Ottoman Middle East. It also repeats a fiction of the Middle East map as empty and, thus, artificial, when, in fact, mythmaking and struggle were never unique to Iraq but, rather, were defining characteristics of all nations and nationalisms everywhere. Contested Lands is suitable for high school and college courses. It is also a book for history enthusiasts, particularly those interested in military and imperial history. T. G. Frazer's book is a solid introduction to many of the conflicts in the region and to the impact of imperialism on the people of the Middle East. Though this reviewer would have liked even more nuance and local voices to be included in this tome focused on war and conflict, Fraser's work is a solid and digestible imperial history that can be read alongside social and economic accounts to achieve a much fuller and more multidimensional description of the region.


This document outlines roles and responsibilities for the education sector in supporting young people living with HIV to realize their personal social and educational potential. It provides practical recommendations for all those involved in the education sector and further suggested actions for those in the health sector and for civil society. It is a tool for networks of people living with HIV and specifically young people living with HIV to advocate for more appropriate conducive and supportive education systems.


Nanocrystalline Bi2O3 has been prepared by a ball milling process. The particle size of the ball-milled Bi2O3 powder has been determined by the x-ray powder diffraction method and transmission electron microscopy. The absorption spectra, in the spectral range 300–1300 nm, indicate an increase of the optical bandgap for both the direct and indirect transitions due to the reduction of grain size. The defects introduced in Bi2O3 during grinding have been investigated by the positron annihilation technique. Positron annihilation results indicate an increase of defects due to ball milling.


This paper is a book review of Multimodal Pragmatics and Translation: A New Modal for Source Text Analysis. It first depicts an overview of the whole picture of the book with a brief summary of each chapter, and then discusses how it develops a model for textual analysis of multimodal source texts applicable to translation studies from a pragmatic perspective. Finally, the merits and demerits in this book are pointed out.


Laser-ultrasonic applications provide outstanding examples of how advanced sensors can help the steel industry in its challenge to improve quality and increase productivity.


The women in the cooperative are living within multiple economies simultaneously and intervening in the brutality of the global capitalist system. This chapter examines the issues in solidarity relationships including unequal power, ideological and cultural differences and conflicts, big international nongovernmental organizations (BINGO) financial and ideological hegemony, and academic theory vs. praxis. In 1994, a new wave of Zapatista opposition erupted and added to long standing civil society resistance movements. When the author first arrived in Chiapas, her focus had been on Jolom Mayaetik the large, politicallyindependent, Mayan womens weaving cooperative with whom she had begun to work. Civil society has stepped up to the organizing challenge and indigenous and mestiza women have been at the heart and in the leadership of this work. Members of the civil society in resistance share with the Zapatistas the basic goals of indigenous rights, social justice, and ending militarization.Keywords: big international nongovernmental organizations (BINGO); Chiapas; civil society resistance movements; global justice; transnational solidarity


PURPOSE: A multimode bag of swing type and shoulder straps assembly of swing type for the same are provided to enable switching from one mode of carrying a bag to another without much increasing load on the bearer's shoulders in each mode. CONSTITUTION: A multimode bag of swing type (100) comprises a storage part (110) which contains receipt space, upper straps (130), and lower straps (150). The upper straps consist of a first body (152) with double ends, a connecting part (132) which constitutes one of the double ends and is connected to the top of the storage part, and a first connection module (133) which is connected to the other of the double ends. The lower straps include a second connection module (153) which is connected to the first connection module and kept rotatable. The lower straps maintain the first condition or the second in arrangement with respect to the upper straps according to the second connection module's rotational condition with respect to the first connection module. The shoulder straps assembly includes upper straps and lower straps.


Neoproterozoic magmatic rocks, especially granitic intrusions, are widespread in the western margin of the Yangtze craton. Recent studies have also confirmed that there occurred intense Neoproterozoic basic magmatism in the area. Advance in the study of Neoproterzoic mafic-ultramafic rocks in the western margin of the Yangtze craton has been reviewed in this paper. These rocks consists of 0.95-0.90Ga orogenic rocks and 0.86-0.74Ga anorogenic rocks, which reflect Neoproterozoic tectonic evolution from arc to intra-continental rift in the area.


A wideband Dielectric Resonator Antenna (DRA) has been designed using a C shaped Aperture Slot. A gain value of 7.2dBi has been achieved with an impedance bandwidth of 10 %. The slot Aperture designed has been analyzed over different slot dimensions with input impedance. This antenna can be used for wideband applications at 5G frequency band. A bandwidth of 2.8GHz have been achieved through this design.


Streamflow and water-quality data were collected throughout the Little Scrubgrass Creek basin, Venango and Butler Counties, Pennsylvania, from December 1987 to November 1988, to determine the prevailing quality of surface water throughout the basin. The data will assist the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources during its review of coal mine permit applications. A water-quality station on Little Scrubgrass Creek near Lisbon, provided continuous-record of stream stage, pH, specific conductance, and water temperature. Monthly water-quality samples collected at the station were analyzed for total and dissolved metals, nutrients, major cations and anions, and suspended sediment concentrations. Fourteen partial-record sites, located throughout the basin, were similarly sampled four times during the period of study. Streamflow and water-quality data obtained at these sites during various base flow periods are also presented.


A large body of data gathered over the past couple of years has identified the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPAR) , , and / as transcription factors exerting modulatory actions in vascular cells. PPARs, which belong to the nuclear receptor family of ligand-activated transcription factors, were originally described as gene regulators of various metabolic pathways. Although the PPAR , , and / subtypes are 60% to 80% homologous in their ligandand DNA-binding domains, significant differences in ligand and target gene specificities are observed. PPAR is activated by polyunsaturated fatty acids and oxidized derivatives and by lipid-modifying drugs of the fibrate family, including fenofibrate or gemfibrozil. PPAR controls expression of genes implicated in lipid metabolism. PPAR , in contrast, is a key regulator of glucose homeostasis and adipogenesis. Ligands of PPAR include naturally occurring FA derivatives, such as hydroxyoctadecadienoic acids (HODEs), prostaglandin derivatives such as 15-deoxy -prostaglandin J2, and glitazones, insulin-sensitizing drugs presently used to treat patients with type 2 diabetes. Ligands for PPAR / are polyunsaturated fatty acids, prostaglandins, and synthetic compounds, some of which are presently in clinical development. PPAR / stimulates fatty acid oxidation predominantly acting in muscle. All PPARs are expressed in vascular cells, where they exhibit antiinflammatory and antiatherogenic properties. In addition, studies in various animal models as well as clinical data suggest that PPAR and PPAR activators can modulate atherogenesis in vivo. At present, no data are available relating to possible effects of PPAR / agonists on atherogenesis. Given the widespread use of PPAR and PPAR agonists in patients at high risk for cardiovascular disease, the understanding of their function in the vasculature is not only of basic interest but also has important clinical implications. This review will focus on the role of PPARs in the vasculature and summarize the present understanding of their effects on atherogenesis and its cardiovascular complications. (Circ Res. 2004;94:1168-1178.)


Welfare reforms enacted in 1996 require that recipients work to receive benefits. Advocates for battered women feared that abusive men would escalate violence in response to independence brought to women by employment. Yet research on employment, domestic violence, and welfare reform has yielded mixed findings. The authors review those findings and propose that a context-sensitive social-psychological perspective identifying relevant dimensions of culture and measuring partner's employment may be more useful than a focus only on characteristics of women. Findings suggest that inclusion of generous work supportsin welfare legislation may help reducepoverty and domestic violence.


Evidence suggests that many FSR programmes have faced 'institutional problems'. We argue that these have arisen largely as a result of the way in which FSR programmes have been planned. Too much emphasis has been attached to developing a methodology for FSR, and too little given to understanding the research environment for which the FSR programme is supposedly designed. An alternative approach to the planning of FSR programmes is proposed: one which is based upon a dialogue between the planners and researchers and which takes explicit account of the needs of the client research institution.


This paper first analyses the principle of online auditing according to the conditions of online auditing in China,and then discusses the cost and benefit of online auditing and the feasibility of online auditing,which can be decided through comparing the cost with benefit,and finally puts forward a decision-making method to implement online auditing.


Abstract The measurement of density, speed of sound and viscosity of an amino acid and its dipeptide i.e., glycine and glycylglycine in aqueous solution of antibiotic drug cefepime has been carried out at various temperatures. The density and speed of sound data has been used to obtain partial molar volume partial molar expansion coefficient second derivative hydration number ( ), isentropic compressibility partial molar isentropic compressibility partial molar volume of transfer and partial molar isentropic compressibility of transfer The viscosity data have been used to calculate the viscosity B–coefficients, its temperature derivative dB/dT, viscosity B–coefficient of transfer ( ) and various thermodynamic parameters of activation of viscous flow i.e., and for amino acid/peptide in cefepime solutions. The dependence of these parameters upon concentration and temperature clearly suggests the role of amino acid/peptide and cefepime in solute-solvent interactions. The obtained results have been explained on the basis of competing pattern of interactions between the co-solute and solute in the studied ternary system in order to deduce important information regarding drug-amino acid/peptide interactions. Graphical Abstract


ABSTRACT In the preparation of mathematics teachers both similarities and differences exist between the United States and the USSR. The vast majority of mathematics graduates in the USSR are females, primarily because most mathematics graduates will become teachers and most males do not want to teach because of low salaries and lack of respect for teachers. This problem is shared by the U.S. In the USSR, mathematics majors will take approximately 146 U.S. credit hours of mathematics during their 5-year program as compared to 45-50 credits at U.S. institutions. General education receives a great deal of emphasis in U.S. schJols, whereas in Soviet schools very little, if any, emphasis is placed on general education since so much is done at earlier levels. It is apparent that Soviet educators in grades 1-10 are better prepared in mathematics than their American counterparts. This lack of preparation of U.S. teachers could be one of the factors which leads to the discouraging comparisons as between the achievement of American students and students of other nationalities. (JD)


Progressive land development increases the imperviousness of an area which disrupts the water balance and results to the degradation of water quality, high peak flow, and excessive volume of surface runoff. One efficient approach to address this issue on water is the application of Low impact development (LID) technologies. LID helps improve the water quality and water quantity of an area to maximize its land-use. In this study, the eight LID technologies available in SWMM namely, bio retention cell, infiltration trench, rain garden, green roof, permeable pavement, rain barrel, rooftop disconnection, and vegetative swale were applied in simulating the area of the De La Salle University - Laguna Campus, a pre-developed area in Binan, Laguna which currently undergoes land-use change. This study area was simulated without the use of LID, with the use of varying LID, and capturing the 80, 90, and 95 percent of all the rainfall from 1989-2018. Digital elevation model and disaggregated rainfall data were used as input in SWMM. The ArcMap 10.4 was utilized to delineate and produce the three sub catchments with an area of 24.13 ha., 10.18 ha., and 4.34 ha., respectively while Storm Water Management Model (SWMM) software was used in analyzing these sub catchments to produce water balance values. Results showed that more than 60 percent of the disaggregated rainfall was under the one-year return period. Also, bioretention cell with 80th percentile rainfall maximizes the reduction of runoff while infiltration trenches with 95th percentile rainfall were the most effective in increasing the infiltration among the eight LID technologies. It was also indicated that the surface runoff in first sub catchment was reduced to more than 80% using bioretention cell, infiltration trench, rain garden, or rooftop disconnection. Finally, the area of a sub catchment has a positive correlation in its reduced runoff while a negative correlation in its infiltration when integrating the LID technologies. This research can be a resource for further studies and in to support SDGs 6, 9, and 11 to have a better water management, resilient infrastructures, and attain sustainable cities and communities.


The daily inverter power supply system of ship DC network is connected with ship daily load and shore power grid through daily load converter. When the ship DC netting daily inverter power supply system is connected / disconnected from the shore power grid, it will produce impulse current and impulse voltage at the moment of connection / disconnection. Moreover, ship DC network parallel / off is a complex process with multiple operating conditions and multiple working modes. Most previous studies have not taken this into account. Only one control strategy is used in the process of parallel / off-grid, which is difficult to achieve good results. In this paper, the flexible parallel / off-grid control technology of daily inverter power supply system is studied according to various working states of daily load converter in ship DC networking. The technology adopts different control strategies in different periods to stabilize the impulse voltage and impulse current at the moment of parallel / off grid. Finally, the effectiveness of the control method is verified by building a simulation model. The simulation results show that the voltage distortion can be suppressed by adding synchronous control; The introduction of grid connected control can alleviate the impact current at the moment of grid connected. According to the different working conditions of ship docking / offshore grid connection process, synchronous control and grid connection control are adopted in time-sharing, which can realize the smooth connection / separation of DC network electric propulsion ship from shore power.


ABSTRACT A content analysis was conducted of the top 10 most popular Korean films of each year between 1995 and 2003. The study examines to what extent and in what context brands have been placed in Korean films over the nine-year period. Results indicate that brands are prevalent and occurrences have increased over time. Comedy and action were the most popular genres for placement. In terms of product/service categories, non-alcoholic beverage, alcoholic beverage, automobile, clothing, and food brands appeared most often, and Coca Cola was the most frequently occurring brand. Marketing and public policy implications and future research directions are provided.


This paper reviews a project at the University of Colo- rado at Boulder Libraries utilizing the AMC format to u grade the P accessibility of a collection of Spanish plays cataloged in 956 as an unanalyzed set. The project used the original finding aid as a tool to create records providing access at box level to a collection of 3700 plays kept in 145 boxes. Results show 58 percent of authors traced in the project are unique to Colorado's on-line holdings, while another 12 percent are represented by just one other entry. Therefore, an en- richment of the coverage of Spanish literature at CU has been ac- complished.


Acidic cations such as Al, Fe, and Mn tend to fix P in soils, and this reaction make P unavailable for plant uptake. Several conventional strategies for farmers had been proposed to ameliorate Al toxicity either via liming or continuous P fertilization. However, these approaches are not only expensive but are also environmental unfriendly. Thus, a sorption study was carried out using charcoal and sago bark ash as soil amendments to determine their effects on P sorption characteristics of low pH soils. Phosphorus sorption determination was based on standard procedures and the P adsorption data for the samples tested in this study were fitted to the Langmuir equation. The results suggest that the combined use of charcoal and sago bark ash decreased P adsorption and increased P desorption relative to the untreated soils. Organic matter in the charcoal reduced P sorption by providing more negatively charged surfaces, thus increasing anion repulsion. Apart from increasing the amount of P adsorbed in the soil, the use of the sago bark ash increased the amount of P desorbed because the primary reaction between the sago bark ash and soils is an acid neutralization reaction. These improvements do not only reduce P fixation in acid soils but they also promote the effective utilization of nutrients via the timely release of nutrients for maximum crop production. In conclusion, the incorporation of charcoal and sago bark ash to the soil had a positive effect on replenishing the soil solution's P. The organic matter of the charcoal reduces P sorption capacity by blocking P binding sites, increasing the negative electric potential in the plane of adsorption, causing steric hindrance on the mineral surfaces and decreasing goethite and hematite-specific surface areas. However, there is a need for the inclusion of more soil chemical, physical, and mineralogical properties in predicting soil P sorption to enhance the reliability of the findings.


Сorrespondence was established between the compressive strength grades of concrete numerically equal to the guaranteed compressive strength of a standard concrete cube and a standard concrete cylinder. Designated concrete resistances are assigned for the limiting states of the first group with a compressive strength grade of concrete. For the corresponding concrete grades, the reduction to unambiguous strains values at the base diagrams points is justified: at the top and at the end of the falling branch of the curvilinear diagrams. In accordance with the regulatory requirements, restrictions are imposed on the stress levels at the end of the falling diagrams branch at the maximum normalized strains values. Mathematical models establishing a uniform format for calculating single-valued strains values at base points of concrete diagrams have been developed taking into account accepted functional relations and the their assignment rules using the requirements documents tables. It is shown that with equal strains values and stresses at base points, analytical expressions describing diagrams recommended by requirement documents, different in their structure, give their identical outlines, the diagrams branches are the same. Relation between design models in the edition of Russian and foreign regulatory documents is correlated by the comparison of integral diagrams parameters and breaking stresses obtained with the calculation of reinforced concrete element under the deformation mode. As integral parameters of concrete deformation diagrams, it is recommended to use the areas bounded by diagrams branches and diagrams fineness coefficient. The diagram area for given values of the element curvature is equivalent to the magnitude of the breaking stress in the compressed concrete zone in the bent and compressed elements, and the stress diagram in outline corresponds to this diagram.


In order to study the slope stability in rainfall,explore the process of rainfall infiltration in loess embankment,an artificial simulation of rainfall device and embankment geotechnical model were developed.With test of wetting peak and infiltration rate at the different conditions on the loess road slope,this paper studied the sensitivity of loess slope stability to raining time and raining intensity,and the infiltration rate of the loess embankment in rainfall.The result shows that: the infiltration rate at the beginning is fast,but is slow at the end of raining,the wetting peak will change from regular to irregular;the infiltration rate is independent on raining intensity,but it has inverse relation with initial water content of slope,subgrade compaction and raining time.


The hydrogen generation from renewable sources in photoelectrochemical cell under visible light is a promising way to produce clean and sustainable green energy. The photoelectrochemical water splitting process using semiconductor photocatalyst received highly favourable reviews. The most effective photocatalyst for hydrogen generation is TiO2. The surface and structure of TiO2 photocatalyst used was characterized by SEM, XRD and UVVis analysis. Economically, a way in reducing the production cost of this process is using palm oil mill effluent in the electrolyte that are not costly, easily available in this country besides increase the performance due to its high energy content. Palm oil mill effluent is a waste from palm oil mill industry has gain many interest due to its capability of photocatalytic degradation. Water or 0.5M Na2SO4 with the addition POME solution are used as electrolyte and the efficiency of photoelectrochemical cell show that water are more efficient. In the photoelectrochemical cell, the highest photocurrent density obtained is 300 μA/cm2 at 0.33 vol% of filtered POME solution added to the water electrolyte.


We investigated the efficacy and safety of empagliflozin over 24 weeks in Asian patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) using pooled data from four phase III trials. In these trials, patients were randomized to receive empagliflozin 10 mg, empagliflozin 25 mg or placebo as monotherapy or add‐on to metformin, metformin plus sulphonylurea or pioglitazone ± metformin. In total, 1326 patients from Asia received ≥1 dose of study drug. At week 24, adjusted mean differences versus placebo in change from baseline in glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) were −0.66% [95% confidence interval (CI) −0.76, −0.56] and −0.73% (95% CI −0.83, −0.64) and in weight were −1.6 kg (95% CI −1.9, −1.3) and −1.8 kg (95% CI −2.1, −1.5) with empagliflozin 10 and 25 mg, respectively (all p < 0.001). Empagliflozin significantly reduced systolic and diastolic blood pressure. The proportion of patients reporting ≥1 adverse event was similar across treatment groups, but events consistent with genital infection were more common in patients treated with empagliflozin 10 mg (3.4%) or 25 mg (2.3%) than placebo (0.9%). Thus in Asian patients with T2DM, empagliflozin reduced HbA1c, weight and blood pressure, and was well tolerated.


This thesis aims to characterize functions of the secondary somatosensory cortex SII in humans by means of neuromagnetic recordings. It starts with a review of literature about methodological considerations concerning the generation of neuromagnetic fields and how they can be measured and modeled. Then follows a brief overview of the somatosensory system, its receptors, ascending pathways, and cortical regions. The main part of the text summarizes the individual publications. Studies I and II show a strong interaction at SII between inputs of the two hands and of different fingers in the same hand, suggesting that SII plays an important role in integrating sensory information from the two body halves. Studies III and IV reveal left hemisphere-dominant SII activation for median nerve stimulation and passive movements of the index finger, suggesting hemispheric specialization for the processing of somatosensory information. Study V analyzes functional connectivity between SI and SII cortices by means of phase-locked activity. Study VI shows that SII activation is distinctly affected by contraction of different muscles. Altogether these studies provide an insight in to the role of SII in somatosensory processing.