This paper proposes image restoration using interpolation, inpainting and denoising the noisy image by iterative method. The main task of image restoration is to capture a noisy image and estimating the original image. The important scheme of image restoration is to stabilize the defects which can corrupt the original input image. In this paper, restoration of image can be implemented by three methods. First, certain level of noise is added to the input image and the noise can be reduced by iterative method. In this, noise level added is made constant and iteration is performed. Second, the damaged image is selected and the quality image is restored by estimating the local properties of the image (inpainting). Third, restoration is done by using interpolation of up and down sampling. For every method, the quality metrics like PSNR and SSIM are calculated. From these PSNR and SSIM values the tabulation and performance graph are obtained. The improved efficiency of image restoration using image denoising, interpolation and inpainting is achieved and they are compared with all other techniques. Convergence time is also reduced when compared with other techniques.


Epilepsy is defined as recurrent unprovoked seizures.  Initial clinical assessment seldom gives a specific diagnosis and this leads to uncertainty about prognosis and further management. Aim of this study was to evaluate the role and utility of Computerized Tomography Scan and Electroencephalography in the setting of new onset seizures presenting to the emergency department. In this study, all the emergency patients, above 12 years of age, presenting with onset of new seizures within 72 hours prior to presentation, were included for a period of 1½ year. Patients were investigated about any medications taken and EEG was carried out when possible. CSF analysis was done in those seizures patients who had persistently altered mental status, infectious symptoms, elevated WBC count or fever. Patients were subjected to CT scan head and other investigations were carried out based on clinical history and examination. It was concluded that seizures are one of the common presenting complaints in the emergency department. Imaging studies especially CT scan and MRI are an important part of evaluation of patients with new onset seizures and should be done routinely in these patients.


Abstract In the past two decades, China's national oil companies have become new players in the international oil industry. When they first entered the global scene in the 1990s, Chinese NOCs held few competitive advantages over international oil companies. They lacked the organizational capabilities and expertise to manage large projects overseas and had little experience with political and security risk. This article argues that political, social and security dynamics in the host countries of Chinese NOCs can play a transformative role in shaping their competitiveness and global strategy. It demonstrates how experiences in Sudan and South Sudan were instrumental in leveraging the competitiveness of the China National Petroleum Corporation, China's largest oil company, particularly through developing its risk management capabilities, and steering its global strategy towards a more diverse and balanced investment portfolio.


The mining process is responsible for generating knowledge and processes to find from the records that are extracted in information systems. This paper develops this perspective, low integration methodology of business process automation, CRIPS_DM methodology, focused on data mining and process redesign methodology BPTrends. With this combination of methodologies is to identify factors, patterns, variables and bottlenecks that have great impact on cycle times that directly affect the performance of the process control and national and international procurement of goods and services for research projects "of the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana.


View Online Nano-Micro Conf., 2017, 1, 01071 | 1 Published by Nature Research Society http://nrs.org Porous carbon fibers for electromegnetic wave absorption Chun Shan, Linchang Mao, Kang Fu, Guang Li* State key laboratory for modification of chemical fibers and polymer materials, Donghua University, Shanghai, China Corresponding Author. Email: firstname.lastname@example.com Received: 14 June 2017, Accepted: 18 June 2017, Published Online: 31 October 2017 Citation Information: Chun Shan, Linchang Mao, Kang Fu, Guang Li, Nano-Micro Conference, 2017, 1, 01071 doi: 10.11605/cp.nmc2017.01071 Abstract Modern warfare urgently needs radar stealth technology to meet the shelter requirements of weapons and equipment. In this paper, porous carbon fibers were developed as an efficient microwave absorbent filler to prepare microwave absorbing composites. Firstly, polyacrylonitrile (PAN) was used as carbon precursor polymer (CPP), while polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) as thermally decomposed polymer (TDP). PAN/PMMA (70/30) blend fibers were prepared by a wet spinning of PAN/PMMA solutions. Secondly, Porous carbon fibers (PCF) were obtained through carbonization of the blend fibers. The molecular weight of PAN could be used to control the size of pores in PCF, that is, when the average molecular weight of PAN was 51,000 g/mol and 83,000 g/mol respectively, PCF with pores ranging 1-10μm in diameter (designated PCF-L); and the other one with pores with diameter in the range of 0.1-1 μm (designated PCF-S) were obtained. The resultant porous fibers, PCF-L and PCF-S, were used as microwave absorbing fillers to mix with epoxy respectively, the composites containing 2-6 wt% of the filler were fabricated. It was found that PCF-S filled composites showed much better microwave absorption performance than that PCF-L filled one. The composite containing 6 wt% of PCF-S reached the lowest reflection loss of -32dB; and the reflection loss below -10 dB covered the whole X band. The change or destruction of the porous structure in PCF showed great effect on the microwave absorption properties, which demonstrate that the pores in PCF could make great contribution to the microwave absorption.Modern warfare urgently needs radar stealth technology to meet the shelter requirements of weapons and equipment. In this paper, porous carbon fibers were developed as an efficient microwave absorbent filler to prepare microwave absorbing composites. Firstly, polyacrylonitrile (PAN) was used as carbon precursor polymer (CPP), while polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) as thermally decomposed polymer (TDP). PAN/PMMA (70/30) blend fibers were prepared by a wet spinning of PAN/PMMA solutions. Secondly, Porous carbon fibers (PCF) were obtained through carbonization of the blend fibers. The molecular weight of PAN could be used to control the size of pores in PCF, that is, when the average molecular weight of PAN was 51,000 g/mol and 83,000 g/mol respectively, PCF with pores ranging 1-10μm in diameter (designated PCF-L); and the other one with pores with diameter in the range of 0.1-1 μm (designated PCF-S) were obtained. The resultant porous fibers, PCF-L and PCF-S, were used as microwave absorbing fillers to mix with epoxy respectively, the composites containing 2-6 wt% of the filler were fabricated. It was found that PCF-S filled composites showed much better microwave absorption performance than that PCF-L filled one. The composite containing 6 wt% of PCF-S reached the lowest reflection loss of -32dB; and the reflection loss below -10 dB covered the whole X band. The change or destruction of the porous structure in PCF showed great effect on the microwave absorption properties, which demonstrate that the pores in PCF could make great contribution to the microwave absorption. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. © The Author(s) 2017


Recent advances in information technologies create numerous opportunities for retailers to turn customer information into additional pro ts by targeted pricing: charging different prices to di erent market segments based on customer demographic variables. However, rigorous theoretical analysis regarding what is the pro t-maximizing set of variables remains scarce. This study develops a game-theoretic model to investigate this question. Results of this model suggest that a monopoly seller should use pricing variables with high explanatory power of its demand: i.e., variables with large demand coe cient or high variance. In the duopoly case, this model suggests that the value of price discrimination is the same as that in the monopoly case when only one rm uses that pricing variable. When two symmetric rms simultaneously use a pricing variable, the value of price discrimination may be higher or lower. When two rms sell substitutes and the demand is a ected by that variable in the same direction, VOPD is higher. In contrast, when the demand is a ected by that variable in the opposite direction, VOPD is lower. When rms sell complements, these e ects are reversed. This model is applied to horizontal di erentiation and vertical di erentiation to explain the puzzle that in practice similar products are often priced based on di erent variables.


Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) is essential for the integration of the physical world with the virtual electronic world. The only way to provide security to these constrained environment applications is through Lightweight Cryptography. To provide stronger security, with elevated performance and less power consumption, two PRESENT architectures are proposed in this paper. The first architecture provides the option to choose one of the three MEC S-boxes, whereas the second architecture makes use of a single MEC S-box to provide better security and increased performance for encryption and decryption processes. The Standard S-box is replaced with MEC S-box, which has its own advantages, such as, less power consumption, linear time and constant space complexity. To analyse the various parameters of the proposed architectures, they are synthesized using Xilinx Virtex-7 FPGA, in Xilinx Vivado IDE. With respect to Strict Avalanche Criterion (SAC), the standard usage of S-box, nearly gives 50% SAC whereas, at least two orders of MEC S-boxes used in the proposed architectures give more than 50% SAC for the entire algorithm, thereby increasing the security of the whole process. The results depict that the proposed architecture provides a throughput of 1564.02 Mbps whereas with a lesser power consumption.


The emission during cold start process was researched by preheating the coolant of electronic injection gasoline engine with liquid fuel-burned heater.The bench test shows that the emission of engine during cold start process can be greatly reduced by preheating the coolant of automobile engine with liquid fuel-burned heater.According to the Euro Ⅲ standard,the reductions for accumulative emission of the first two 15 conditions cycle not by catalysis translator but by preheating were as follows: HC was reduced by 31.4%,CO was reduced by 2.8%,and NOx was reduced by 59.5%.The proportions that the accumulative emissions of the heater itself occupied in the original engine were as follows: HC was 3.1%,CO was 4.6%,and NOx was 1.8%.The preheating and initiation of the catalysis translator by the exhaust heat of fuel-burned heater was studied for further in the experiment.


Recently, several studies have shown that the addition of a secondary element likes Al, Si, etc. to nitride and carbide binary systems such as Ti–N and Cr–N improved their structural and mechanical properties and also their thermal stability. In this study, we realized a comparison between the effects of aluminium or molybdenum addition on the properties of the Cr–N system. The (Cr,Al)N and (Cr,Mo)N films were deposited by RF dual magnetron sputtering. To control the aluminium and molybdenum contents in (Cr,Al)N and in (Cr,Mo)N films, respectively, we modified the Cr, Al and Mo target bias. The structural, morphological and composition analyses of the deposited films were carried out using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and SEM equipped with an energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) microanalysis. The variation of the residual stresses with the Al and Mo contents has been studied using the Newton's rings method. The obtained Al contents in (Cr,Al)N deposited films varied between 0 and 51 at.% while the Mo contents in (Cr,Mo)N layers varied between 0 and 42 at.%. A morphological change from amorphous to columnar films has been observed with the addition of Al in the case of (Cr,Al)N coatings, while all the (Cr,Mo)N films presented a columnar structure. The residual stresses of the (Cr,Mo)N coatings are higher than the (Cr,Al)N ones but they exhibited a similar behaviour for both coatings.


An inverse distance weighted interpolation solid rate filtering method is proposed to plot radar images by echo data of surface X-band navigation radar. The method proposes an algorithm based on inverse distance weighted interpolation filtering according to the characteristics of the echo data, converting the original inhomogeneous 2D echo data into a radially equidistant data format, and thus plots the navigation radar images in polar coordinate system. and then realizes effective suppression of wave clutter via multi-stage DBSCAN clustering-based solid rate filtering. Finally, the single-channel grayscale map is converted into a three-channel pseudo-color map for subsequent detection of the target. The experimental results show that this algorithm has a good denoising function while maintaining the grayscale information of radar images.


shortenedf rorn eight or ten weeks to two or tl'tree weeks. In reply to Dr. Blanch, Dr. Nicholson said he had noticed the peculiar feature of the cerebro-spinal fluid yielding growth of organismsafter long periods of therapy. The reason was obscure. It might be due to pockets in the cerebro-spinal spaces harbouring the organisms, which became active when the administration of the drug had been stopped. In answerto Dr. Southby,Dr. Nicholson said that he had experiencedno difficulty in performing lumbar puncture in these cases. He had struck trouble in other cases,notably in meningococcalmeningitis. He recalled one child from whom no fluid was obtainedby the lumbar route on four occasions. However, after treatment no difficulty was experienced,and there was a free flow of cerebro-spinal fluid. It was a difficult matter to assessthe maximum dosage. Different people required different dosage. The older the child, the more Intolerant he becameto the drug. This was noticeable both with meningococcal and with influenzal infection. Dr. Nicholson said that his experiences were similar to those of Dr. Stokes. He was unable to obtain the high concentrationIn the blood that might be expected. The highestconcentrationobtainedwas 4'2 milligrammesper 100 cubic centimetresIn a child who had been given over 395 grammes. This observationdid not appear to hold in pneumococcalinfections. The terminology frequently used In this diseasewas wrong. These infections should not be called influenzal meningitis, any more than the common cold should be called Influenza. There was no relationshipbetweenthe influenzavirus and the Hcemophilus inftuenece or Pfeiffer's bacillus as It was sometimescalled, except that the two might sometimesbe associatedIn the respiratory tract. In conclusion, Dr. Nicholson said that treatmentwith serum and sulphanilamldehad hadits "ups and downs", and the figures he presentedwere indeed too few for scientific deductionsto be made. However, he was impressed with the good clinical progress and the short duration of the Illness in his cases. If these were consideredalong with Alexander'sfigures, it would appearthat the outlook had been Improved.


Recently, the threats of phishing attacks have in-creased. As a countermeasure against phishing attacks, phishing detection systems using deep learning techniques have been considered. However, deep learning techniques are vulnerable to adversarial examples (AEs) that intentionally cause misclassification. When AEs are applied to a deep-learning-based phishing detection system, they pose a significant security risk. Therefore, in this paper, we assess the vulnerability of a phishing detection system by inputting AEs generated based on a dataset that consists of phishing sites' URLs. Moreover, we consider countermeasures against AEs and clarify whether these defense methods can prevent misclassification.


The deployment of cellular spectrum in licensed, shared, and unlicensed spectrum demands wideband sensing over non-contiguous sub-6 GHz spectrum. To improve the spectrum and energy efficiency, beamforming and massive multi-antenna systems are being explored, demanding spatial sensing, i.e., blind identification of vacant frequency bands and direction-of-arrival (DoA) of the occupied bands. We propose a reconfigurable architecture to perform spatial sensing of multi-band spectrum digitized via wideband radio front-end comprising the sparse antenna array (SAA) and Sub-Nyquist Sampling (SNS). The proposed architecture comprises SAA pre-processing and algorithms to perform spatial sensing directly on SNS samples. The proposed architecture is realized on Zynq System-on-chip (ZSoC), consisting of the ARM processor and Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), via hardware-software co-design (HSCD). Dynamic partial reconfiguration (DPR) allows on-the-fly switching between algorithms depending on the number of active signals in the sensed spectrum. The functionality, resource utilization, and execution time of the proposed architecture are analyzed for various HSCD configurations, word-length, number of digitized samples, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and antenna array (sparse/non-sparse).


Polycrystalline Si (poly-Si) films can be deposited at low substrate temperature by means of a pulsed discharge sputtering of a Si wafer target in pure hydrogen at high gas pressure of about 13 Torr, and microstructures of the films are investigated by using transmission electron microscope. Stable discharge at high gas pressure become possible by the pulsed discharge method. The discharge and non-discharge time at each period of the pulse in the present experiments are 0.35 and 2 ms, respectively. When the deposition time is 0.5 h, both an amorphous SiO2 parent phase and poly-Si grains are exist in the film, and these structures changes to the poly-Si film at longer deposition time due to not only growth and aggregation of the crystalline grains but also structural change of the parent phase. The film is not deposited when the sputtering is performed with an argon gas instead of the hydrogen. These results suggest that the poly-Si is grown by the reactions of SiHx species formed by reactions between the Si target and the atomic hydrogen and elimination of amorphous components by atomic hydrogen.


The invention discloses an E-RNTI allocation method used for user equipment with a reinforced upstream link in a CELL FACH state, wherein, a wireless network controller informs a node B through signaling of one or a plurality of E-RNTI information which can be used by the user equipment with the reinforced upstream link in a CELL FACH state; and then the node B obtains the E-RNTI information. In addition, the invention further discloses an E-RNTI allocation system used for the user equipment with the reinforced upstream link in a CELL FACH state. By the invention, the node B can dynamically allocate E-RNTI to the user equipment with the reinforced upstream link in a CELL FACH state in the allowed scope of the wireless network controller, thus avoiding the conflict with the E-RNTI used by the user equipment in the CELL-DCH state.


Based on the statistics analysis of Hubei team in the 2011 League,combined with all the screening technology,according to the personal characteristics of the athletes,team technical and tactical tradition,as well as 2011 China Football League Hubei team in this year,the offensive and defensive characteristics were analyzed.In order to be able to summarize the technical and tactical characteristics and laws of Hubei team,it hopes to provide a reference for the development of professional football in Hubei.


A copper vapor laser (CVL) acoustic thermometry system is disclosed. The invention couples an acoustic pulse a predetermined distance into a laser tube by means of a transducer and an alumina rod such that an echo pulse is returned along the alumina rod to the point of entry. The time differential between the point of entry of the acoustic pulse into the laser tube and the exit of the echo pulse is related to the temperature at the predetermined distance within the laser tube. This information is processed and can provide an accurate indication of the average temperature within the laser tube.


We describe a case of Mandragora autumnalis poisoning which occurred in a 72‐year‐old female patient who had eaten the venenous M. Autumnalis, picked near her home, mistaking it for the edible Borago Officinalis. M. Autumnalis is a solanaceous plant, common in the Sicilian countryside, which contains a variable concentration of solanum alkaloids, causing gastrointestinal irritation, and tropane alkaloids, with anticholinergic properties. Unluckily, M. Autumnalis is often mistaken for the edible B. Officinalis, likewise widespread in Sicilian countryside. The diagnosis of Mandragora poisoning was made on the basis of clinical symptoms and signs of anticholinergic syndrome associated with a history of vegetable meal of uncontrolled origin, moreover analysing the vegetable obtained from gastric lavage. Decontamination and symptomatic treatment were useful in our patient to control acute poisoning.


This paper presents a approach for measuring the time spent by HPC applications in the operating system's kernel. We use the SystemTap interface to insert timers before and after system calls, and take advantage of its stability to design a tool that can be used with multiple versions of the kernel. We evaluate its performance overhead, using an OS-intensive mini-benchmark and a raytracing mini app.


Embedded systems are a class of computer systems that are typically characterized by a tight interaction with the physical environment. Various methodologies have been adopted for the development of such systems, ranging from traditional waterfall to modern agile techniques. One of the agile techniques that has recently attracted increasing attention is Behavior-Driven Development (BDD). BDD promotes the engagement of all stakeholders in every development iteration to minimize the misunderstanding between technical and non-technical stakeholders and, consequently, to speed up the development process and lower the costs. In this paper, we investigate the application of BDD to the development of embedded systems, especially focusing on the testing of timing requirements for real-time embedded software. In particular, we extend BDD with time-related concepts and propose an approach to generate test code for the verification of timing behavior of real-time embedded systems. Our approach offers more automation for the development of test code compared to existing BDD tools, thus minimizing the risk of timing faults and reducing development costs and time-to-market.


Smallholder farming remains predominant in Chinese agricultural production, despite massive outflows of rural labor to nonfarm sectors. Although a large number of agricultural households in China rent out the farmland for which they hold contract use rights, most of them still partially or seasonally cultivate the contract land. I collected survey data from 512 households in Southwest China to examine the arrangements of farmland, including abandonment, as households make transitory reductions in cultivation sizes. I develop a theory to explain why households tend to maximize the expected income by reducing cultivation sizes partially and seasonally. The theory centers upon the value of farmland as a safety net and an appreciable asset for agricultural households under imperfect land tenure and limited access to social benefit programs. The non-productive, use-based value of contract land is characterized by a function of simultaneous choices of the cultivation size and farm labor. Flexible reallocation of land use rights helps maximize the expected income, but the inefficiency in labor allocation remains considerable. Using the survey data, I find on-farm productivity of part-time farmers to be significantly lower than the opportunity nonfarm wage rate, implying $45 billion nonfarm earnings to be forgone by agricultural households per year. Acknowledgement : I am extremely grateful to Lovell Jarvis, Kevin Novan, Richard Sexton, and Jeffrey Williams for critical and insightful comments on earlier drafts. For helpful discussion and feedback, I thank Timothy Beatty, Steve Boucher, Colin Carter, Michael Carter, Xiaomeng Cui, Travis Lybbert, Xinshen Diao, Xiaopeng Luo, Alex McCalla, Heidi Schweizer, Daniel Sumner, Daniel Tregeagle, Yan Xu, and Xiaobo Zhang. I also thank Jianwei Zhao and Xiaomei Shen among other colleagues and government officials in China for their generous support to my field surveys in Sichuan Province. Funding for this research was provided by Henry Jastro Graduate Research Award and Banner Fellowship.


Flexible transparent and conductive films (TCFs) are essential elements of the next-generation flexible devices, including touch screens and displays, organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), solar cells (SCs), organic field-effect transistors (OFETs), and sensors. Indium tin oxide (ITO) has been the most widely used TCF in optoelectronic devices for almost four decades, owing to its low sheet resistance (Rs 10 W/&) coupled with high transmittance (T 80%). However, ITO suffers from inherent brittleness, which makes it unsuitable for flexible devices. In the race to replace ITO, networks of metal nanowires and carbon nanotubes are leading the pack; however, their high costs of synthesis and high surface roughness hamper their commercial applications. 4] Graphene and graphene-based thin films have been recognized as attractive alternatives because of their outstanding electronic, optoelectronic, and mechanical properties. Although sheet resistance as low as 30 W/& (at T= 90 %) has been obtained for graphene grown on metallic substrates, the multitransfer process associated with the additional chemical doping increases the costs dramatically. The establishment of facile, yet controllable methods for the large-area production of flexible TCFs at low costs remains a challenging task. The molecular precursor approach, namely the production of carbon-based TCFs using aromatic-rich precursors as the carbon source seems to be much less explored. Through the thermal treatment of properly selected organic precursors, this synthetic method offers an intriguing means to lowcosts processing and structural control of highly conductive carbon/graphene films, which are difficult to achieve using methods such as chemical vapor deposition (CVD), epitaxial growth, liquid exfoliation, and reduction of graphene oxide (GO) film. Nevertheless, the bottleneck associated with this method lies in the relatively low electrical conductivity of the produced TCFs (e.g., 206 Scm 1 for a pyrolyzed film of a giant polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon). Recently, inspired by the adhesive proteins secreted by marine mussels, polydopamine (PDA) has proven to be a material for facile and universal surface coating. By selfpolymerization of dopamine, PDA that sticks to the surface of virtually all types of solid materials regardless of their chemical nature, can be produced. 14] The self-polymerization reaction is so mild that simple immersion of substrates in an aqueous solution of dopamine results in the spontaneous deposition of PDA film. 14] The film is layer-structured and the thickness can be tailored at the nanometer scale. PDA is mainly composed of cross-linked indolequinone units (Figure 1, the definitive atomic scale structure of


In order to gain their customers' trust, software vendors can certify their products according to security standards, e.g., the Common Criteria (ISO 15408). However, a Common Criteria certification requires a comprehensible documentation of the software product. The creation of this documentation results in high costs in terms of time and money.
 We propose a software development process that supports the creation of the required documentation for a Common Criteria certification. Hence, we do not need to create the documentation after the software is built. Furthermore, we propose to use an enhanced version of the requirements-driven software engineering process called ADIT to discover possible problems with the establishment of Common Criteria documents. We aim to detect these issues before the certification process. Thus, we avoid expensive delays of the certification effort. ADIT provides a seamless development approach that allows consistency checks between different kinds of UML models. ADIT also supports traceability from security requirements to design documents. We illustrate our approach with the development of a smart metering gateway system.


SUMMARY This work consists of a literature review on the use of Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) as a possible technique to study the hydration of cement. We compared studies in which we studied the hydration of different pastes at early ages. It was also analyzed the growth of the hydration products when the cement is mixed with water. Cement pastes used in two of the works are modified with polymers, which can be seen by the delay in growth of one of the hydration products (calcium hydroxide) in time by action of the polymers within the cement matrix. Major peaks are: calcium hydroxide, gypsum, hydrated calcium silicate, calcium carbonate and the ettringite. The peak at 3643 cm -1 corresponding to calcium hydroxide (Ca(OH)2), which is formed while the silicate phases are dissolved. The gypsum generates a peak at 3550 cm -1 . The peaks at 1796, 2513, 2875, 2983 and 1350-1550 cm -1 were due to calcium carbonate. The carbonates occur for wavenumbers 1428 cm -1 , 878 cm -1 and 736 cm -1 . In the range of 970-1100 cm -1 was observed an increase of calcium silicate hydrate (CSH) as hydration occurs. Peaks were detected at 1225 cm -1 after hydration, which points to the early formation of ettringite.


This paper introduces a monobit RF subsampling technique for digital downconversion in pulse-Doppler radar systems. Design considerations for this application include the level of quantization imbalance given a noise-only input, the relation between input and output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the affect of jitter over the complete dynamic range of operation, and sensitivity to intermodulation distortion. An RF integrated circuit is designed to demonstrate the monobit subsampling approach. Measured results show excellent agreement with theoretical predictions. The device can detect a 495-MHz signal at input SNR levels less than -30 dB using a 1-MHz sampling clock. Excellent performance is maintained even in severe timing environments showing more than 400 ps of rms clock jitter.


According to some researches, in the daily management work, statistical management work, as one of the important basic tasks, is conducive to helping relevant departments to effectively understand and grasp the real level of people's daily life, and has important guiding significance for the development and implementation of related work. In recent years, driven by economic development, great changes have taken place in informatization level and interest pattern. Based on this, the investigation objects and data information involved in statistical work are becoming increasingly complex, which leads to a substantial increase in the difficulty of statistical work in China, and then puts forward higher demands for the professional ability of statistical departments. In this article, the statistical management system in China under the new situation is taken as the breakthrough point, and the shortcomings in the statistical management system are deeply explored and analyzed. At the same time, the corresponding improvement suggestions are put forward, aiming at further improving and perfecting the statistical management system, to lay a solid foundation and guarantee for the further development and prosperity of China's economic and cultural work.


When solving real engineering design problems, exploring the decision space for alternative and near-optimal solutions, and identifying non-unique solutions are useful. An efficient way to conduct this search is to identify alternative solutions that are as far apart as possible in the decision space. This will help not only provide meaningful design choices, if any are available, but also assess the degree of non-uniqueness present in the problem. This paper describes the development and testing of a new evolutionary algorithm that extends evolution strategies to generate simultaneously a set of maximally different alternatives that are efficient solutions for engineering design problems. The new method, niched co-evolution strategies (NCES), is demonstrated for a groundwater pollutant source characterization problem that is known to have a high degree of non-uniqueness. Through an illustrative case study, NCES is shown to successfully assess and address the nonuniqueness for an instance of this relatively complex engineering design problem. Track: Evolution Strategies, Evolutionary Programming


This study investigated the impacts of different notification modalities used in low and high ambient sound environments for mobile phone interaction. Three different notification modalities—Shaking Visual, Shaking Visual + Vibration, and Vibration—were designed and experimentally tested by asking users to conduct a maze task. A total of 72 participants were invited to take part in the experiment through the convenience sampling method. The generated results indicated that (1) the notification modality affects participants' task completion time, (2) the error rate pertinent to the number of notifications is positively related to the participants' task completion time, and (3) the ambient sound level and notification modalities impact the overall experience of the participants. The main contributions of this study are twofold. First, it verifies that the multi-dimensional feature of a Shaking Visual + Vibration synesthesia notification design is implementable. Second, this study demonstrated that the synesthesia notification could be feasible for mobile notification, and it was more perceptible by the users.


Modern portable devices provide many features in a single device—this demands high channel capacity for faster data transmission. This paper communicates the two-element multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) antenna systems operating in ultrawideband (UWB) characteristics. The antenna elements' less than quarter wavelength separation leads to strong mutual coupling. The projected design improves the isolation using parasitic elements loaded on the radiating plane and slots on the ground plane. The inverted T-shaped stubs creates an alternate current channel and slots disturbs the uniform current distribution and neutralize the coupling effect. The overall dimension of the design is 0.2λ×0.3λ×0.02λ. This improved structure has an S11 of 4.9 GHz to 17.4 GHz, with S11 being less than -10 dB and isolation of more than 20 dB over the operating frequency range. Further, MIMO diversity parameters exhibit ECC<0.005, DG ≈ 10 dB, MEG<-6 dB, TARC<-10 dB, CCL<0.2 bps/Hz, and ME<0 dB, and the outcome guarantees that the projected MIMO design is well suitable for wireless communication applications.


The first goal of this work was to determine the relative importance of two regions of flow separation that are caused by a shock wave boundary layer interaction (SBLI) in a rectangular duct. Separation occurs on both the bottom wall and the sidewall; the areas of these two separated regions were measured and compared. The location where separation first begins was also estimated. Most previous studies of SBLI have focused only on a single wall and have ignored interactions where walls meet at corners. A challenging problem that arose was how to best measure separation of 3-D flow that is sufficiently unsteady that the separation has become intermittent. This required that the probability of separation be measured. Two methods were applied to stereo-PIV velocity data in a SBLI occuring at a rectangular corner region of a Mach 2.75 wind tunnel. Method 1 is called the "h-criterion" and Method 2 is called the AVT (Axial velocity threshold) criterion. These methods are used to detect separation regions and provide a separation map at the interaction region. The importance of the side-wall separation regions versus the centerline separation is clearly evident from the results hence presented.


In order to achieve a high numerical aperture (N.A.) in Pr3+- doped PbF2- GaF3-InF3- CdF2- ZnF2 (PGICZ) fiber for optical amplification of telecommuncation at 1.3μm, systematic investigations have been implemented using NaPo3- BaF2- ZnF2- PbF2 (FPG) and ZrF4- BaF2-LaF3- AlF3- Na(Li)F - PbF2 [ZBLAN(Li)Pb] glasses as the cladding materials. The core/cladcompatibilities in the physical properties and chemical composition have been studied. The results of DSC and SEM show that althouth ZBLAN(Li)Pb matchs well PGICZ in main physical parameters,chemical compatibility is poor. Meanwhile the novel FPG cladding glass is compatible both in physical and in chemical factors to PGICZ core gIass. The PGICZ/FPG fibers of a high N.A. vaIue up to 0.47have been successfully drawn.


with the shortage of the raw material oil for producing bio-diesel in China, the oil, recovered from the used bleaching clay which often be discarded by vegetable oil factory, was used to prepare bio-diesel in this trial. Two-step catalyzed process was adopted to produce biodiesel from the oil. The effect of methanol-to-oil molar ratio, alkaline catalyst quantity, reaction temperature and reaction time on the preesterification and transesterification reaction was investigated through orthogonal experiments. Thus the optimal reaction condition came out. Firstly, the optimal pre-esterification condition, under which the end acid value of the product was minimum (i.e. 1.88 mgKOH/g),was to react for 40 h at 60°C,with a methanol-to-oil molar ratio of 12:1, and by adding alkali catalyst 4% based on the oil weight. Secondly,the optimal transesterification condition, under which the maximum yield of bio-diesel can reach up to 98.2%, was to react for 2.5 h at 60°C,with the methanol-to-oil molar ratio of 7:1, and by adding catalyst 1.25% based on the oil weight.


Monodisperse nonepitaxially grown Au@MX (MX = Ag2S, ZnS, or CdS) core/shell hetero-nanocrystals (HNCs) with controlled crystallinity, composition, anisotropically shaped Au cores but isotropic overall morphologies were successfully prepared. By using C18 acid/alkali co-capping surface ligands, the as-prepared Au@MX HNCs can self-assemble into large-scale two-dimensional monolayer and three-dimensional multilayer superlattices (SLs) on both flexible (graphene) and rigid (Si wafer or glass) substrates. Moreover, unprecedented binary nanocrystal SLs can be achieved through synergistic self-assembly of Au@MX HNCs together with Au NCs (or CdS NCs) into different intricate patterns. Experimental evidence and finite-element method theoretical simulations indicate that the Au@CdS HNC SL film taking up a closest-packing mode has a rate of photocurrent generation much higher than that of its disordered–assembled counterpart, probably because of the enhanced plasmon–exciton coupling permitted by the large-scale orde...


The highest infection risk in knee and hip replacement surgery occur within two years.The main pathogenic bacterium of infection is G+ cocci including staphylococcus aureus,staphylococcus epidermidis.It is important to obtain proper specimens and monitor ESR,CRP,iconography and other laboratory parameters.The common treatment is the second stage of revision with infection of prosthetic replacement and combination with antibiotic therapy for 6-8 weeks.Clinical pharmacists exert preponderance during antibiotic therapy.They select the proper antibiotic for patients and design individualized treatment programs according to the age,renal function and pathogen of the patients.They also provide pharmaceutical service when patients discharge from the hospital,which improves compliance of drug use and obtains good therapeutic effect.


PURPOSE • Caring is considered by many as the essence of nursing (Roach, 2002, Watson, 1988). • Caring and caring behaviors are essential in the education of student nurses. • Evidence supporting what students perceive as caring behaviors exhibited by faculty is sparse and/or outdated. • An understanding of what contemporary students perceive constitutes caring behaviors of nurses and, more specifically, caring behaviors of faculty is needed to ensure these behaviors are consistently modeled by faculty in the teaching/learning environment. • Findings from a study related to student perceptions of caring behaviors of faculty has implications for the role of faculty in shaping new nurses' knowledge, skills, and attitude related to caring and caring behaviors within the nursing profession.


The adaptive full-order observers have been widely and successfully applied in sensorless induction motor drives. In the design of the observer, selecting proper feedback gains is the key, and many kinds of feedback gains have been proposed in the past years, but there are very few comparative studies. This paper presents a comparative study of three classical sets of feedback gains: Proportional Poles (PP), Left Poles (LP), Complete Stability (CS). The comparative analysis is based on two aspects: the convergence rate of the flux estimation, and the stability of the speed estimation. The advantages and disadvantages of each set of feedback gains are summarized. Not only computer simulations, but also experimental results are presented to confirm the validity of the proposed analysis. For the comparison tests in the paper, the dynamic parameters of both speed estimation and controlling are set at the same value for different feedback gains.


It is well known that a hearing loss is induced by aging in a high frequency range. It is easy to imagine that the aging also alters characteristics of voice, because you can roughly estimate the speaker's age. In general, those aging phenomena are discussed independently. In speech communication, however, the speech chain [Dense & Pinson, 1993] must dominate the interaction on the aging effects between hearing and speaking. Individual interaction between them is investigated using both his pure-tone audiometry test threshold and his recordings of read utterances. In this study, 21 Japanese elderly males, whose ages ranged from 62 to 85 years old, participated in pure tone audiometry and recording of Japanese sentence and word utterances. Concerning three elderlies with presbycusis, who are aware of hearing loss in daily lives, hearing abilities gradually decrease in proportion to frequency over 2 kHz, and spectral energies increase in the high frequency range over 4.5 kHz. In another case of high-frequen...


A PC-based system has been developed to implement lossless data compression of electrocardiographic signals. Both temporal and amplitude compression are employed to achieve significant compression ratios while minimizing computational intensity in the interests of an ultimate ambulatory realization. Single template comparison, implemented in a complex dynamic registration scheme, serves to compress the amplitude of each beat. The amplitude compression enhances the effects of the second compression stage implemented in a custom VLSI circuit. Temporal compression is achieved with a computationally simple run-length coding algorithm. Lossless compression techniques have been strictly adhered to in the interest of completely faithful signal reconstruction after decompression. While the system currently handles sampling rates of 1 kHz, the algorithms and hardware are capable of achieving rates exceeding 5 kHz, and would therefore be useful in ventricular late potential detection settings.<<ETX>>


A thesis submitted to the School of Business in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the award of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Entrepreneurship Development of Kenyatta University, October 2015


Results of previous studies suggested a role of mitochondria (MI) in an Intracellular Lactate Shuttle. Therefore, using confocal laser‐scanning microscopy (CLSM) we examined the cellular locations of mitochondria, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), the lactate/pyruvate transporter MCT1, and CD147, a purported chaperone protein for MCT1 in rat‐derived L6 skeletal muscle cell line and rat plantaris muscle. As well, the interaction of MCT1 and related proteins was confirmed by Western blotting of mitochondrial (MI) cell fractions and by immunoprecipitation from L6 lysates followed by immunoblotting. CLSM showed that LDH, MCT1 and CD147 are co‐localized with the mitochondrial reticulum in L6 cells and rat plantaris muscle. Western blots showed that cytochrome oxidase (COX), NADH‐dehydrogenase (NADH‐dh), LDH, MCT1 and CD147 are abundant in MI fractions of L6 cells. Interactions among cytochrome oxidase (COX), MCT1 and CD147 in mitochondria was confirmed by immunoblotting after immunoprecipitation in L6 cells. However, we did not find association between NADH‐dh and MCT1 and LDH in L6 cells. These findings further our understanding of the mitochondrial role in cellular lactate oxidation and may be interpreted to indicate presence of a terminal mitochondrial electron transport chain component, the lactate oxidation complex, in mammalian skeletal muscle.


Objective To analyze relationship between MTHFR,β_3-AR,ACE, AGT gene polymorphism and male hyperuricemia.Methods A case-control study was conducted in 91 male cases with hyperuricemia and 81 males were taken as controls.Anthropometric,blood pressure and biochemical variable were measured and MTHFR,β_3-AR,ACE,AGT genotypes were detected by DNA microarray technology.Results The frequency of MTHFR T allele amone the cases(50.5%) was significantly higher than that of controls(38.8%,P=0.028);Uric acid,triglyceride concentrations and body mass index were remarkably higher in subjects with TT genotype than that in subjects with CC genotype(P0.05).Conclusions MTHFR C677T mutation may be considered a risk factors for hyperuricemia in Chinese males.


We present Vital Records, a demonstrator based on deep-learning approaches to handwritten-text recognition, table processing and information extraction, which enables data from century-old documents to be parsed and analysed, making it possible to explore death records in space and time. This demonstrator provides a user interface for browsing and visualising data extracted from 80,000 handwritten pages of tabular data.


Failure localization in a variety of mechanical structures may be ascribed to elevated temperature, which may be effectively analyzed by employing the inclusion model. This work presents an explicit solution to the plane thermal inclusion problem, based on the customized Green's function. A contour integral representation is further developed so as to provide an effective and straightforward approach for treating an arbitrarily shaped inclusion. Several benchmark examples are examined to validate the present solution.


Burst loss is a critical issue in Optical Burst Switching (OBS) networks which restrains its deployment. This article presents a novel routing and wavelength assignment strategy for the Cooperative Clustered OBS (C20BS) network architecture, to proactively avoid contention. In C20BS, the network topology is divided into several manageable overlapping zones/clusters, with a Zone Head (ZH) node keeping an information base of zone resources. The ZH pre-computes a list of alternate k-shortest disjoint paths for every ingress-egress node pair within the zone. The ZH utilizes both the inferred knowledge about wavelength usage at the zone intermediate nodes and a novel poles apart heuristic for assigning wavelengths to incoming bursts. A route is selected among the pre-computed paths where the selected wavelength is available. As a result, traffic is balanced among the set of pre-computed routes, thus proactively reducing probability of contention. This strategy is called Resource Aware Routing (RAR) and Intelligent Wavelength Assignment (IWA).


The recent FDA approval of ganciclovir ophthalmic gel 0.15% for the treatment of acute herpetic keratitis brings to U.S. ophthalmologists an important advance in topical antiviral therapy for a condition that is the leading infectious cause of corneal blindness in the United States.


We present a fluorescence-based sensing scheme for ammonium ion using nonactin as the receptor/carrier. The ammonium-sensitive material consists of a pvc membrane containing the nonactin, a plasticizer, and a proton carrier (lipophilic nile blue). Sensing is based on the selective extraction of the ammonium ions into the pvc membrane, and a concomitant release of a proton from the dye, contained in the pvc membrane, into the sample solution. Upon deprotonation, the dye undergoes a color change from blue to red which is detected via fluorescence intensity measurements. The sensor fully reversibly responds to ammonium ion, with detection limits varying from 0.03 to 10 mM at near neutral pH. Response times are about 1 min for membrane thicknesses of ca. 2 micrometers . The sensor is fully compatible with solid-state electronics (i.e., LED light sources and photodiode detectors) but suffers from a strong pH dependence of the signal so that the pH of the sample must be kept constant. The sensor is of potential utility in monitoring ammonium ion in wastewater and surface water samples, but may also act as a transducer in all kinds of biochemical reactions during which ammonium ion is released or consumed. Examples of biosensors for urea and creatinine are given.


We appreciated reading the article by Khan et al,1 evaluating the impact of intraventricular fibrinolysis (IVF) for intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH). This article represents an interesting update from our previous meta-analysis.2 Notably, the authors underlined several differences between the 2 studies and noted some mistakes in our data extraction.

We think that the identified discrepancies are mainly related to differences in the inclusion criteria. In contrast to Khan et al,1 we excluded from our analysis patients presenting IVH because of other causes than spontaneous supratentorial intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH; ie, aneurysm, arteriovenous malformation, moyamoya disease…). In fact, we consider that IVH caused by deep ICH represents a unique pathological entity which should be differentiated …


The total protein extraction effect of Ganoderma lucidum primordium by Tris-saturated phenol law and trichloroacetic acid (TCA)/acetone precipitation methods were compared. After analyzing the two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) protein atlas by the software of Image Master 2D Platinum 6.0, 565 and 273 protein spots were obtained separately by the method of Tris-saturated phenol and TCA/acetone precipitation; The 2-DE gels of TCA/acetone precipitation showed strong horizontal streaks in the atlas of alkalinity end and low molecular region, while the Tris-saturated phenol law was capable of generating more protein spots, obtaining better effect of isoelectric focusing and reducing salt. Tris-saturated phenol law can be considered as a feasible protein extraction method for Ganoderma lucidum primordium and the results of this study are of great significance for developing effective protein extraction methods in other medicinal mushrooms and will lay the foundation of further study on the discrepancy expression of Ganoderma lucidum treated by bi-directional solid fermentation.


The research aims to compare and analyze the different aspects that appear on the Korean Newsweek version (TT(a)) and the Japanese Newsweek version (TT(b)) through recontextualization as they are translated from the English Newsweek version(ST). English Newsweek articles are selected and translated into Korean and Japanese versions to fit their social atmosphere and perspective as a means of gatekeeping. Narratives undergo positive or negative reframing during the process of translation when their contents vary in context from the Korean and Japanese social atmosphere and perspective. Recontextualization can take place either partially or entirely. Latter cases of recontextualization are determined so according to their use of appraisals based on the Martin & White(2005) evaluation method. It can also be observed how far TT(a) and TT(b) departs from the ST through recontextualization. The more the TT is recontextualized the further it departs from the ST. When the context of narratives in the Korean and Japanese versions take a different course from each other after entire recontextualization, it can hardly be maintained that they have been translated from the same news article. It is an issue to be raised, through comparative analysis, as readers of TT(a) and TT(b) will be given news articles that are distant and distorted in context from the ST.


Factoring Boolean functions is one of the basic operations in algorithmic logic synthesis. A novel algebraic factorization heuristic for single-output combinatorial logic functions is presented in this paper and is developed based on the set theory paradigm. The impact of factoring is analyzed mainly from a low power design perspective for standard cell based digital designs in this paper. The physical implementation of a number of MCNC/IWLS combinational benchmark functions and sub-functions are compared before and after factoring, based on a simple technology mapping procedure utilizing only standard gate primitives (readily available as standard cells in a technology library) and not cells corresponding to optimized complex logic. The power results were obtained at the gate-level by means of an industry-standard power analysis tool from Synopsys, targeting a 130nm (0.13μm) UMC CMOS library, for the typical case. The wire-loads were inserted automatically and the simulations were performed with maximum input activity. The gate-level simulations demonstrate the advantage of the proposed factoring technique in comparison with other existing methods from a low power perspective, for arbitrary examples. Though the benchmarks experimentation reports mixed results, the mean savings in total power and dynamic power for the factored solution over a non-factored solution were 6.11% and 5.85% respectively. In terms of leakage power, the average savings for the factored forms was significant to the tune of 23.48%. The factored solution is expected to better its non-factored counterpart in terms of the power-delay product as it is well-known that factoring, in general, yields a delay-efficient multi-level solution. Keywords—Factorization, Set theory, Logic function, Standard cell based design, Low power.


Objectives: The purpose of the study was to evaluate the anti-inflammatory activity of aloe vera in albino rats and to compare the anti-inflammatory activity of aloe vera with a standard Anti-inflammatory drug indomethacin in acute and chronic inflammatory models. Methods: Anti inflammatory Models used in the present study were carrageenan induced rat paw edema and Cotton pellet induced Granuloma Model. The animals were randomly divided into 3 groups of 6 each. One group would serve as control and would receive 2% gum acacia suspension orally (without drug). Other two groups would receive drug indomethacin and Aloe vera extract orally. Each rat was fed with respective drug, Anti-inflammatory activity was expressed as Percent inhibition (PI). Statistical analysis was performed using One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Scheffe's post hoc test. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The PI with indomethacin and Aloe vera in carrageenan induced paw edema were 51.101% and 48.107% and in cotton pellet induced granuloma were 44.773% and 26.035% respectively. Indomethacin and Aloe vera showed significant anti-inflammatory activity in both the models. Conclusion: The result in this study suggests that aqueous extract of Aloe vera has anti-inflammatory activity comparable to standard drug indomethacin. Aloe vera, thus can be a promising anti-inflammatory agent.


Purpose
A risk, when it occurs, causes negative effects on outputs. Typically, risks are not independent as multiple risks occur simultaneously. The purpose of this paper is to compare the impact various risks have on the performance of manufacturing-oriented and service-oriented firms from a supply chain (SC) perspective.

Design/methodology/approach
First, SC risks were identified and classified into two criteria: context and probability. Then, the different characteristics between manufacturing- and service-oriented firms were distinguished by the theory of goods-dominant logic (GDL) and service-dominant logic (SDL). Structural equations modeling and multiple-group analysis were then used to validate research hypotheses and compare the two groups.

Findings
The empirical evidence, gathered from the Vietnamese construction sector, indicated that in a serious situation all of the five risks proposed occur at the same time, thus the remarkable 87.1% variance in SC performance was explained. Furthermore, this rate is significant when the two groups are compared: manufacturing-oriented firms (88.3 percent) and service-oriented firms (85.6 percent), implying that risks in the manufacturing-oriented group have a greater effect on SC performance. While manufacturing-oriented companies should pay close attention to the operational and demand risks that adversely affect SC performance, they should treat information risk as an opportunity to improve. Service-oriented companies, however, need to manage supply risk which, in their case, can be attributed to a 51.2 percent variance in SC performance. Moreover, service quality can also be improved remarkably if information risk is well managed.

Research limitations/implications
This study provides a detailed picture of the relationship between risks and performance in the SC. Risks are illustrated as affecting the SC performance simultaneously, (not separately) and so the approach outlined here will give firms a comprehensive view of their SCs and provide guidelines for predicting the impact risks will have on the SC performance. Moreover, by comparing manufacturing- and service-oriented firms, a thorough overview of risk behaviors is provided and appropriate solutions for each type of company can be determined.

Originality/value
The "novelty of approach" of this study is in applying GDL and SDL theory to classify the manufacturing-oriented and service-oriented firms. The different characteristics between the two groups are identified and explained in terms of resources, value, network, effectiveness vs efficiency and communication, thus providing an insight into risk management activities in the SC network.


Systems of linear relationships have received an increasing amount of attention in recent years, partly in their own right as mathematical entities, but probably more so because of their frequent occurrence in physical situations. Multilinear systems, however, involving linear combinations of linear expressions, seem to have been almost completely neglected. Yet many physical situations are more adequately described by multilinear than by linear equations. Examples arise in the topological synthesis of electrical networks, and in sensitivity and stability studies of active networks. There is therefore a need for mathematical development in this area. To the end of initiating this, two theorems, based on the representation of a multilinear system as a multi-weighted sum of vectors belonging to some linear space, are presented in this paper, together with an example of their application in the stability analysis of linear systems.


E-waste is a thoughtful ecological and public health problem in India. India is among top five countries in world in terms of production of E-waste. E-waste is a popular name for electronic products nearing the end of their "useful life." Televisions, Computers, VCRs, fax machines, printers and stereos are common electronic products. Due to the advancement in technology there is upgradation in the waste which includes gadgets like tablets, Video games, cameras smartphone etc. there is increment in the E-waste every year which makes it more difficult to manage and recycle


The correlations between coarsening (including grain and pore growth) and densification, and the effects of mass transport on particle coarsening and densification were discussed based on the simple particle array models and for the real particle compacts. Grain boundary motion could cause particle coarsening only under a certain particle size distribution but not densification; mass transport is reasoned to contribute to both grain growth (particle coarsening) and shrinkage for one-dimensional particle arrays. Under a certain limitation for the change of the particle size aspect ratio during sintering, very limited effects of grain grown by itself on the shrinkage of particle a rrays throughreinitiating the sintering could be found. For a real powder compact system, mass transport between the particles, which surround a pore, contributes to the particle coarsening and densification when the pore is thermodynamically unstable and only to particle coarsening when the pore is thermodynamically stable. The mass transport mechanism for both particle coarsening and densification would be the same, which cannot exclude, at least on thermodynamics, the contribution from surface diffusion in the intermediate stage of sintering.


Background:
 Cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk increases substantially during perimenopause. Latinas have a significantly worse CVD risk factor profile than non-Latina White women, potentially due to multiple sociocultural and environmental factors. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the feasibility and initial efficacy of a multi-component intervention to reduce CVD risk in perimenopausal Latinas. Here we report data at a 6-month follow-up.

 Methods:
 This is a randomized two-group, repeated measures experimental study. Forty-nine perimenopausal Latinas (age 40-60 years) were randomized to a 6-month multi-component intervention or wait-list control. The intervention consists of 12-weekly culturally tailored Spanish language-based sessions (education, physical activity, stress management, coping skills training), followed by 3 months of continued support, and 6 months of skill maintenance on their own. Between May 2021 and June 2022, thirty-five participants (18 intervention and 17 control) completed a 6-month follow-up. Primary outcomes at this study visit included weight, body mass index, waist circumference, and blood pressure. Secondary outcomes included health behaviors and psychological factors (nutrition, physical activity, sleep, self-efficacy, perceived stress). We assessed the initial efficacy of the intervention at 6 months using general linear models for continuous outcomes and logistic regression for categorical outcomes. Models adjusted for outcome measures at baseline and baseline group differences (health insurance, vasomotor symptoms). Models were two-sided at a level of significance of p≤0.1.

 Results:
 At baseline, the mean age was 47.8 ± 4.4 years, 37% had less than high school education, 97% were born outside of the United States, and 51% reported it was somewhat/very difficult to pay for basics. Women in the intervention group were more likely to have health insurance (61% vs 24%, p=0.06) and less likely to report any vasomotor symptoms (44% vs 77%, p=0.09). At 6 months (post-intervention), compared to the waitlist control group, the intervention group had lower perceived stress (ß[SE]= -2.15 [1.05], p=0.05) and systolic blood pressure (ß[SE]= -2.72 [1.61], p=0.1) even after adjusting for baseline measures and group differences. There were no other significant differences post-intervention.

 Conclusions:
 This pilot study found that a culturally tailored Spanish language intervention consisting of nutrition education, physical activity, and stress management may be effective in reducing stress and blood pressure in perimenopausal Latinas —key risk factors for CVD.


Plasma simulations are often rendered challenging by the disparity of scales in time and in space which must be resolved. When these disparities are in distinctive zones of the simulation domain, a method which has proven to be effective in other areas (e.g. fluid dynamics simulations) is the mesh refinement technique. We briefly discuss the challenges posed by coupling this technique with plasma Particle-In-Cell simulations, and present examples of application in Heavy Ion Fusion and related fields which illustrate the effectiveness of the approach. We also report on the status of a collaboration under way at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory between the Applied Numerical Algorithms Group (ANAG) and the Heavy Ion Fusion group to upgrade ANAG's mesh refinement library Chombo to include the tools needed by Particle-In-Cell simulation codes.


The article presents the Belarusian experience of ethnopedagogical training of future specialists in the social sphere on the example of the Vitebsk region. Organizational and pedagogical conditions that contribute to the formation of professional competencies of future specialists in the social sphere for work in a multicultural society are determined. It is they who are decisive for a higher educational institution, which is the center for training social specialists in the region. The components of the ethnopedagogical model of the formation of professional competence of future specialists in the social sphere for work in a multicultural society are presented, in particular, competence-based, social, socio-psychological and ethnopedagogical blocks. The results of operationalization of the key parameter and access to the author's methods are shown. The results of the study of the degree of ethnicity of the individual, the attitude of future specialists in the social sphere to traditional ethnopedagogical values, as well as the readiness and possibilities of carrying out professional activities with clients from other nations and cultures are presented. The creation of an optional discipline "Ethnopedagogical foundations of professional activity" is substantiated, its goals and objectives are presented, as well as a list of skills and abilities being formed.


According to the characteristics of multiple loops,close coupling,nonlinear and parameter-changing with time in several coke oven collector pressure control systems,a new control method of SM-YL600A system based on fuzzy control theory is presented.Combining with computer technology,a valid control method is given.The problem of collector pressure stability control for several coke oven with close coupling characteristic is solved.The tesing results show that the intelligent control system ensures the coordination,stability and rapidity of adjusting pressure,and the adaptability to artefact varying and disturbing is improved.


PurposeThe paucity of empirical evidence on the limitations of the industrial attachment programme of technical universities for enhancing students' human capital in Africa tends to thwart concrete policy options.Design/methodology/approachThe study used the convergent mixed methods including 594 surveys, two focus groups and in-depth interviews to assess and accentuate the research gap in this study.FindingsEvidence of constraints linked to the industrial attachment programme for developing students' human capital needs include limited funding, logistics and incentive for supervision, incompatible placement and exploitation and sexual harassment of students. Insufficient duration and intrusion of the industrial attachment programme due to labour unrests, inadequate collaboration and fears of student interns breaching organisations' confidentiality policies were also found to hinder the programme.Research limitations/implicationsThe study's dependence on participants' perspectives has the possibility of being characterised by recollection prejudice. The comparatively limited scope and size of the study participants creates concerns of representativeness and generalisability of the study outcome.Practical implicationsThe outcome of this study could yield significant practical implications for the planning and operations of the industrial attachment programme of tertiary institutions. It also provides information which could serve as the basis for future research and comprehensive evaluation of the programme's planning and implementation.Originality/valueThe authors have delineated empirical evidence on the constraints of the industrial attachment programme of Ghanaian technical universities to inform policy decisions on the planning, operations, funding and evaluation of the programme in collaboration with industry and government.


One distinctive feature of Soldados de Salamina is the frequent intercalation of shots of archival (or apparently archival) material, in black and white, and of re-enactment scenes, usually in greenish tones. Another is the multiplicity of framing effects in the main action, involving still photographs, static and moving images on screens, and observed images and reflections. The interpolations always bring the past into contact with the present, while the framing effects draw from both past and present. Through her investigations, the protagonist Lola undergoes a gradual psychological transformation. All the intercalations and framing effects are marshalled around her, and drive this change, document it, and bring out its implications. Ultimately, Lola's experiences and discoveries have a clear bearing on the situation of the post-Transition generation in Spain, and her efforts to negotiate past and present and Nationalist and Republican legacies point a way forward beyond reductive understanding and attitudes.


Mineral oil saturated hydrocarbons (MOSH) and mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons (MOAH) are main constituents of mineral oil-based lubricants that can find their way into food through various points in the production chain. Studies on contamination of oils and fats with MOSH and MOAH have progressed enough and it is now evident that in the coming years monitoring and mitigation measures will be implemented in the oils and fats industry. Accurate characterization and quantification of these contaminants is now possible, allowing to further study and assess consumer exposure and eventually establish regulatory limits. At the same time, the industry has already started to understand better how to avoid contamination and which unit operations can remove contaminants already present in the raw feedstocks. In this presentation critical information on the nature, analysis, occurrence and regulatory status of MOSH and MOAH as well as possible ways to avoid contamination will be discussed. Furthermore, available technological solutions for mitigation during edible oil refining will be presented.


Purpose – From a synthesis of literature, the purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual risk management framework, showing the effect of logistics outsourcing on the supply chain vulnerability (SCV) of shippers. The framework is designed to assist practitioners and academics in better understanding the key research, management as well as operational aspects involved. Design/methodology/approach – A literature review is conducted and based on these findings a conceptual framework developed. Findings – Logistics outsourcing is increasingly used by shippers, but the specific aspect of supply chain risk management (SCRM) and SCV in this context is rarely covered in research and implementation in practice is limited. Logistics outsourcing can have an ambiguous effect on the SCV of shippers and is influenced by other internal and external factors. Research limitations/implications – Literature directly dealing with logistics outsourcing and SCV/SCRM is rare and thus the framework is built on insights, co...


ZHANG Xian- mo and ZHENG Yu- liang propose the notion of global avalanche characteristics of single- output Boolean functionf,and give the upper and lower bounds of the sum of squares indicatorσfand the absolute indicator Δf.ZHOU Yu et al.popularize the above notions and propose the notion of global avalanche characteristics of two single- output Boolean functions f and g,and define the sum of squares indicator σf,gand absolute indicator Δf,gof global avalanche characteristics of two Boolean function f and g.By changing GF(2) into residue class ring Zqand transferring single- output into multi- output,the above two indicators can be further popularized.Let f and g serve as the functions from Znqto Zmq,indicators ξf,gand ρf,gare defined,and the upper and lower bounds of ξf,gand ρf,gare also given.


Referring to 'lex Eichner' 1 certain scholars 2 teach that the he- of Hittite heu 'rain' (heu-/he-aw- )3 goes back ultimately to the lengthened e-grade (* H- ē y-) of a root *H 2 ey-, the zero-grade of which is attested by the Hittite nasal infix verb stem hinik 'to rain'< *H 2 inek- (cf. heus hinikta, Laroche, RHA. 23, 1965, p. 68f.); a variant form of the stem *H 2 inek- is *sH 2 in( e)k- (with  s-mobile) allegedly underlying Vedic si n c a ti 'pour, sprinkle', Avest. hincaiti 'id.'. Hence, the basic verbal theme from which these nasal infix presents are all ultimately derived, must be reconstructed as IE. *(s)H2ey k-.


The Guayas estuary in Ecuador is the largest estuarine ecosystem on the Pacific coast of South America. This estuary provides nurseryand fisheries habitats, as well as filtering and detoxification services provided by suspension feeders, vegetation, and wetlands. Weused oceanographic and meteorological observations to understand the hydrodynamic variability of two areas in the inner part ofthe estuary, Manglares de Churute and Estero Salado, from February 2016 to February 2017. Churute has less anthropogenic impacts thanEstero Salado, which is currently uncoupled from river flow and highly influenced by Guayaquil, the second largest city in Ecuador, andadjacent shrimp pond effluents. The influences from the ocean and river on Churute include higher dissolved oxygen (DO) and lower salinity,temperature and phosphates than in Estero Salado, particularly during the wet season when the river is the dominant mode of forcing inthose warm and rainy first months of the year. Hypoxic levels (DO below 2 mg L-1) were found in Estero Salado in several stations duringthe hot, rainy season. These data suggest seasonal variability (dry/rainy season) influences the hydrographic conditions in the inner Guayasestuary mostly, adding variability to salinity, turbidity, nutrients and DO of the whole water column.


Abstract This article examines the Popular Front campaigns in 1938 and 1939 at grassroots level. It does this by taking the North-East region as a case study. The north-eastern labour movement was traditionally moderate and loyal. Substantial support for the policy in regions like the North-East was vital if the labour movement as a whole could be won over to the Popular Front. The article concentrates on Sir Stafford Cripps's 'Petition Campaign' launched in February 1939 and compares it with the earlier United Peace Alliance campaign. It discusses the individuals and organizations that supported or opposed the Popular Front project, and the problems with the nature of their reaction. The explanation of the failure of the Popular Front campaigns in the North-East necessitates the exploration of the attitudes of Labour, Liberal and Conservative Party supporters and grassroots activists, thereby throwing light on the political culture of the region.


Real-world recommendation datasets have been shown to be subject to selection bias, which can challenge recommendation models to learn real preferences of users, so as to make accurate recommendations. Existing approaches to mitigate selection bias, such as data imputation and inverse propensity score, are sensitive to the quality of the additional imputation or propensity estimation models. To break these limitations, in this work, we propose a novel self-supervised learning (SSL) framework, i.e., Rating Distribution Calibration (RDC), to tackle selection bias without introducing additional models. In addition to the original training objective, we introduce a rating distribution calibration loss. It aims to correct the predicted rating distribution of biased users by taking advantage of that of their similar unbiased users. We empirically evaluate RDC on two real-world datasets and one synthetic dataset. The experimental results show that RDC outperforms the original model as well as the state-of-the-art debiasing approaches by a significant margin.


Researchers are increasingly turning to machine learning (ML) algorithms to investigate causal heterogeneity in randomized experiments. Despite their promise, ML algorithms may fail to accurately ascertain heterogeneous treatment effects under practical settings with many covariates and small sample size. In addition, the quantification of estimation uncertainty remains a chal-lenge. We develop a general approach to statistical inference for heterogeneous treatment effects discovered by a generic ML algorithm. We apply the Neyman's repeated sampling framework to a common setting, in which researchers use an ML algorithm to estimate the conditional average treatment effect and then divide the sample into several groups based on the magnitude of the estimated effects. We show how to estimate the average treatment effect within each of these groups, and construct a valid confidence interval. In addition, we develop nonparametric tests of treatment effect homogeneity across groups, and rank-consistency of within-group average treatment effects. The validity of our methodology does not rely on the properties of ML algorithms because it is solely based on the randomization of treatment assignment and random sampling of units. Finally, we generalize our methodology to the cross-fitting procedure by accounting for the additional uncertainty induced by the random splitting of data.


healthcare services (consultant/speaker bureau for Hospira, HillRom, and she is owner of Critical Care Learning Curves business focused on critical care continuing education) and disclosed other healthcare professional organization activities (active member of Old Salem AACN and National Member as well). Dr. Pino disclosed family relationships with makers of healthcare products (spouse employed by Genentech). Dr. Rochwerg disclosed healthcare professional organization activities (Guideline meth- odologist for ATS, Candian Blood services, American Hematology Soci-ety). Dr. Friederich Murray disclosed healthcare professional organization activities with the Hypersomnia Foundation (with providers of healthcare services). Dr. Mehta disclosed healthcare professional organization activities (Guideline committee membership ATS ACCP liberation from Mechanical Ventilation). The remaining authors have disclosed that they do not have any potential conflicts of interest. For infusions of neuromuscular-blocking agents. The Task Force developed 10 weak recommendations. 1) We suggest that a neuromus-cular-blocking agent be administered by continuous intravenous infusion early in the course of acute respiratory distress syndrome for patients with a Pa o 2 /F io 2 less than 150. 2) We suggest against the routine administration of an neuromuscular-blocking agents to mechanically ventilated patients with status asthmaticus. 3) We suggest a trial of a neuromuscular-blocking agents in life-threat-ening situations associated with profound hypoxemia, respiratory acidosis, or hemodynamic compromise. 4) We suggest that neuro-muscular-blocking agents may be used to manage overt shivering in therapeutic hypothermia. 5) We suggest that peripheral nerve stimulation with train-of-four monitoring may be a useful tool for monitoring the depth of neuromuscular blockade but only if it is incorporated into a more inclusive assessment of the patient that includes clinical assessment. 6) We suggest against the use of peripheral nerve stimulation with train of four alone for monitoring the depth of neuromuscular blockade in patients receiving continuous infusion of neuromuscular-blocking agents. 7) We suggest that patients receiving a continuous infusion of neuromuscular-blocking agent receive a structured physiotherapy regimen. 8) We suggest that clinicians target a blood glucose level of less than 180 mg/dL in patients receiving neuromuscular-blocking agents. 9) We suggest that clinicians not use actual body weight and instead use a consistent weight (ideal body weight or adjusted body weight) when calculating neuromuscular-blocking agents doses for obese patients. 10) We suggest that neuromuscular-blocking agents be discontinued at the end of life or when life support is withdrawn. study Task Force the bedside implement measure to attenuate the risk of unintended extubation in patients receiving neuromuscular-blocking agents. 5) Optimal clinical practice suggests that a reduced dose of an neuromuscular-blocking agent be used for patients with myasthenia gravis and that the dose should be based on peripheral nerve stimulation with train-of-four monitoring. 6) Optimal clinical practice suggests that neuromuscu-lar-blocking agents be discontinued prior to the clinical determination of brain death. ( Crit Care Med 2016; 44:2079–2103)


With the development of information technology, for the outspread need of management function of China Tobacco Zhejiang Industrial, to reinforce company standardization management is an important way to improve company market competitiveness, and realize cost decreasing and benefit increasing. Aim at the current management situation and practical demand of standardization, the China Tobacco Zhejiang Industrial do some research about the design and implementation technique of standard management workflow. In the paper, we present a framework based on component technology to support dynamic reconfiguration for the standardized Process workflow of Zhejiang Tobacco Industrial; whose workflow engine plays the role of a global coordinator to control different agents to fulfill the standardized process functions according to a predefined process model. And the Zhejiang Tobacco Industrial realized its' Standardized Process based on NPsuite. Work flow engine, which also optimized its' the process of standard audit, examination and approval, distribution. Keywords—standardization management; information system; standard; workflow


provocations than as prototypes in the conventional sense, because their most important role is to spark discussion rather than to test proposals. The chairs are not to be taken literally. It's not about chairs at all—they are really just illustrations of principles, more so even than sketches of user interfaces. Each illustrates what might otherwise be a rather esoteric mental model, making it accessible to experts and non-experts alike and engaging both in conversation and reflection [1]. There are some commonly held assumptions about the future of speech technology, and our interactions with it, that we wish to challenge. Our goal with "Six Speaking Chairs" is to explore alternative perspectives rather than to converge on solutions at this first stage. We would therefore describe this activity as design research, even though it involves our practice as interaction designers. We have built a collection of objects, each of which embodies a different way of thinking about [1] Pullin, G. and Cook, A. "Six Speaking Chairs." August 2008. http://www.imd.dundee. ac.uk/sixspeakingchairs/ Design and Usability


To apply Kingview software to the experiment of PLC.With the control object of PLC simulated on computer,problems which often arise in the experiment of PLC such as having no control object,process and results unperceivable,hard to comprehend etc are avoided.The simulating systems that the experiment of Mitsubishi FX2NPLC developed are also given.


Different modes of operation of solid waste incinerators at present generally used abroad and within the country,are described,together with an analysis of problems like: high temperature corrosion,control of pollutant emission,etc.to be met with in waste incinerator operation.Different kinds of abrasion resistant refractories,used in differents parts of grate furnaces and circulating fluidized bed furnaces,are systematically elucidated together with an explanation of their properties.


More than 350.000 individuals annually die in Germany from diseases related to the circulatory system, underlining a crucial health problem within modern societies [2]. Besides possible prevention measures, effective first aid is considered crucial when saving lives. An estimated 65,000 to 97,000 German cardiac arrests annually occur out of the hospital, with a 14% survival rate [3; 4]. Bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) was administered in only 40% of the cases in 2018 [4]. However, until professional help arrives, immediate first aid from bystanders has been shown to lead to at least a doubled chance of survival [5; 6; 7].


Directives are one of several instruments that are used in EU social policy. This chapter puts them into perspective, outlining the wider context of the EU's social dimension over time and the important role played by Directives. The main finding is that the role of binding regulative action has not been diminished, despite the debates on the open method of co-ordination (OMC). Therefore, we argue, studying social Directives is crucial not only for understanding the past, but also the present and, very likely, the future of European social integration. Competences and decision modes The 1957 EEC Treaty basically left social policy in the hands of the member states. The Treaty did not provide for an outright Europeanisation of social policies since too many national delegations had been opposed to such a move. The dominant philosophy of this Treaty was that welfare would be provided by the economic growth stemming from the economics of a liberalised market, and not from the regulatory and distributive capacity of public policy (see, for example, Leibfried and Pierson 1995; Barnard 2000). It is indicative of the Treaty's pro-market bias that its only explicit legislative competence in the field of social policy related to the free movement of workers, which for the most part even allowed measures to be adopted on the basis of qualified majority voting (Articles 48–51 EEC Treaty). However, the European Community's action capacity was incrementally increased in day-to-day politics.


To understand the biological effects of ionizing radiation on lymphomagenesis, we reared AKR/J mice for 130 days with exposure to either high-dose-rate (HDR, 0.8 Gy/min, a single dose of 4.5 Gy) or low-dose-rate (LDR, 0.7 mGy/h, a cumulative dose of 2.1 Gy) irradiation. After 130 days, we compared the mean thymus weight, analyzed the histological changes, and measured apoptotic cell numbers using the terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP-end labeling (TUNEL) assay. We also used microarrays and quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis (qPCR) to analyze the expression profiles of cancer pathway-related genes in the thymuses of the mice. The mean thymus weight of the LDR-irradiated mice decreased relative to Sham- and HDR-irradiated mice. Histopathological examination revealed that the neoplastic cells in the thymuses of the Sham- and HDR-irradiated mice were pleomorphic, with marked anisocytosis and anisokaryosis, whereas the cells and their nuclei were relatively small and uniform in size in the LDR-irradiated mice. Furthermore, TUNEL assays showed that the number of apoptotic cells was higher in the LDR-irradiated mice than in the Sham- and HDR-irradiated mice. Microarray analysis showed differentially expressed genes according to carcinogenic stage (DNA repair/genomic instability, DNA damage signaling pathway, cell cycle, cancer pathway, p53 signaling pathway, apoptosis, and T- and B-cell activation). qPCR data for cancer pathway-related genes showed that Cds1 gene expression was upregulated in the LDR-irradiated mice, whereas expression of the Itga4, Myc, and Itgb1 genes was upregulated in the irradiated mice. However, the functions of cancer pathway-related genes require further study and validation.


: This paper used responses from an online discussion forum to investigate people's opinions towards the use of hand held devices for young children and their impact on children's social and emotional development. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) was used as analysis methods in three-dimension framework via micro, meso and macro multi-level interpretations. Although online response showed different opinions towards the impact of hand held devices, all the 125 online responses agreed that young children should not overuse the devices, and they should have both technology time as well as non-technology time to meet development needs. Educators and parents, who are interested in the areas of whether or not young children should be exposed to and use hand held devices, will find this paper useful.


A pivotal question in global change science is what role the biosphere plays in ameliorating the rate of climate change and what risks exist that there may be possible tipping points in the Earth System where the biosphere switches from being a brake to an accelerator of climate change [1]. Of the potential major global tipping points, the fate of the tropical forests is among the most important and iconic, with some studies suggesting that climate change could lead to extensive dieback of tropical forests (and the Amazon forest in particular), resulting in further carbon release, major loss of biodiversity, drying of regional climates and thereby further forest dieback and intensification of global warming [2]. However, these scenarios have been the subject of much debate, with questions about whether existing biosphere models sufficiently capture the consequences for key ecological processes, which are dependent on complex system attributes such as species' functional diversity and demography, and on factors such as forest fire that are poorly described [3].

One issue of particular concern is the interannual variability of the tropical land carbon cycle, in particular during El Nino events. During such events, a pool of warm surface water migrates across from the Western Pacific to the Central and Eastern Pacific, disrupting global atmospheric circulation patterns associated with the Walker circulation and causing warming of the tropics in particular. The El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the largest mode of interannual variability both in the climate system [4] and in the global carbon cycle [5]. It has long been noted that El Nino events correlate with a surge in the rate of rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations (e.g. [6]). Global studies of the spatial pattern of carbon dioxide concentration tend …


Steel wire having a diameter d, expressed in mm, the percent carbon content by weight C, expressed in units are 0.5% ≦ C ≦ 0.6%, the maximum tensile strength R is A = 1, expressed in units of MPa in when it is R ≧ 2950MPa, an R ≧ a (920C + 500) / d 1/2. .The


There is accumulating evidence that HIV-1/AIDS cancer patients have more severe tissue reactions and often develop cutaneous toxic effects when subjected to radiotherapy. Here we explored the effects of the HIV-1 Tat protein on cellular responses to ionizing radiation and related mechanism. Two Tat-expressing cell lines TT2 and TE671-Tat were derived from human rhabdomyosarcoma cells by transfecting with the HIV-1 tat gene. Radiosensitivity was determined using colony-forming ability. Gene expression was assessed by RT-PCR and immuno-hybridization. The Comet assay and γ-H2AX foci were employed to detect DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) and repair. The radiosensitivity of TT2 and TE671-Tat cells was significantly increased as compared with parental TE671 cells or the control TE671-pCI cells. The comet assay and γ-H2AX foci detection revealed a decreased capacity to repair radiation-induced DNA DSBs in Tat-expressing cells. Depression of DNA-PKcs in Tat-expressing cells was further confirmed by RT-PCR and immuno-hybridization analysis. HIV-1 Tat protein sensitizes cells to ionizing radiation via, at least partially, depressing DNA-PKcs expression and DNA repair. These observations provide new information into the increased tissue reactions of AIDS cancer patients to radiotherapy.


The aim of this study was to determine the chemical composition, minerals and antioxidants of heart of date palm from three Saudi cultivars. Moisture (ranged from 80.44% - 82.82%) was the predominant component in the heart date palm. Sukkari cultivar had the highest protein (5.27%) and ash (7.9%) compared to the other two cultivars. Fat was low in the three cultivars. Sucrose was the predominant sugar in the heart date palm and ranged from 7.65% - 20.25%. Potassium was the predominant mineral in the heart date palm and was significantly (p ˂ 0.05) higher in Sukkari and Solleg compared to the Naboat Saif cultivar. Sulfur and chloride were next to potas- sium in abundance in the three heart date palm cultivars. Total phenols and flavonoids were higher in Solleg compared to the other two cultivars. IC50 for Solleg, Sukkari and Naboat Saif were 0.12, 0.13 and 0.29 mg/ml, respectively. The results of the present study may highlight the poten- tial importance of heart of date palm as a product rich in essential minerals and antioxidants. Fu- ture researches are needed to explore other characteristics of heart of date palm which could be considered for human nutrition.


The relationship of the works of the Nobel prizewinner Louis de Broglie (1892–1987) to cybernetics and information theory is discussed by the Director‐General of the World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics.


A method for switching between multiple spin polarization of the electric current injected into a semiconductor is proposed, based on injecting spins from a diluted magnetic semiconductor through a multiferroic tunnel barrier. We show that it is important to combine a diluted magnetic semiconductor electrode with a multiferroic barrier to realize multiple switching of spin polarization on wide range. The reversal of either electric polarization or magnetization in a multiferroic barrier results in a sizable change in the spin polarization of the injected current both in magnitude and in sign, thereby providing a four-state electrical control of spin polarization. The electroresistance and electromagnetoresistance effects can be also realized in this structure. Our investigations may stimulate experimental studies of the multiferroic tunnel junctions.


We examine the efficiency of emissions trading in bilateral and clearinghouse markets with heterogeneous, boundedly rational agents making decisions under imperfect and asymmetric information, and transaction costs. Results are derived using a stochastic agent-based simulation model of agents' decision-making and interactions. Trading rules, market structures, and agent information structures are selected to represent emerging water quality trading programs. The analysis is designed to provide a strong test of the efficiency of trading occurring through the two market structures. The Differential Evolution algorithm is used to search for market trade strategies that perform well under multiple states of the world. Our findings suggest that trading under both bilateral and clearinghouse markets yields cost savings relatively to no trading. The clearinghouse is found to be more efficient than bilateral negotiations in coordinating point–nonpoint trading under uncertainty and transaction costs. However, the market under both structures is unlikely to achieve or even approximate least-cost pollution control allocations. Expectations of gains from water quality trading should, therefore, be tempered. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. ∗ Corresponding author at: Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES), GPO Box 1563, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia. E-mail addresses: email@example.com, email@example.com (N.P. Nguyen), email@example.com (J.S. Shortle), firstname.lastname@example.com (P.M. Reed), email@example.com (T.T. Nguyen). 0928-7655/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.reseneeco.2012.09.002 N.P. Nguyen et al. / Resource and Energy Economics 35 (2013) 60–90 61


Japan Koi,a large ornamental fish,was cultured to study its considerable economic benefits in pond.The results showed that the average fish weight increased from 4.68g to 126g(daily gain 0.837g/fish·day) after 145d.The net yield and average cost per 667m2was 670kg and 7405.60 yuan respectively and the pure income was 7958.65yuan per 667m2(1∶2.07 of input-output ratio),4978.09 yuan higher than conventional culture,which indicates that culturing Japan Koi with high density in pond is of the better economic benefit.


Based on the data of the total amount of investment,cargo,passenger and national economy from 1985 to 2006 in west area,the paper points out that there is long relationship between the economic growth and traffic infrastructure.The effect that the investment on traffic infrastructure has on the development of economy is very obvious,and the distribution changes of investment affects the performance of economic growth greatly.Meanwhile the total cargo plays positive role on the GDP of west area,but the passenger has negative impact.