Abstract This paper empirically investigates the effects of transport infrastructure on economic growth in Central and Eastern European Member States (C.E.M.S.) in the period 1995–2016. During the transition period in C.E.M.S., most investments were focused on the roads, while railways have been lagging for decades. The aim of this paper is to estimate the effects of transport infrastructure (road and rail) on economic growth while controlling with other variables such as population growth, gross fixed capital formation and trade openness. We use panel data analysis with three standard estimators: pooled ordinary least squares, fixed effects and random effects. The results show positive effects in case of all estimated variables, except the railway infrastructure where the effects seem to be negative. The results illustrate the long-standing problem of inefficient and outdated railway infrastructure. These results should be seen in a broader context, especially in the light of the ongoing desire to reduce CO2 emissions that are to a large extent produced by road transport, while railway transport is more environmentally friendly. This paper supports the European Union's guidelines for the need to invest in railway infrastructure to ensure effective transport in the long term, create competitive advantages, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thus simulate sustainable economic growth in C.E.M.S.


This paper examines the Aspect Hypothesis based on spontaneous oral production data collected for a longitudinal case study of a child growing up bilingual in Catalan and English in a Catalan environment (see Perez Vidal 1995; Juan Garau 1996). Our main purpose is to focus on the development of the child's tense and aspect morphology, over the period between 2;5 and 3;4, within his overall verbal development. This is done for his two languages at similar stages of development measured in MLU, which correspond to different ages, as the child's bilingual competence is unbalanced. We seek to clarify how developing inflections align with aspect and tense categories, and also whether this association varies for each of the child's two languages and whether it varies with respect to monolingual development. Results indicate that verbal development proceeds on very similar lines for both languages and according to the same pattern as monolingual acquisition. Both progressive and past inflections are initially restricted to verbs of a particular inherent aspect.


The Syro-Ephraimite War occured just before the destuction and deportation of Israel. Most countries of the ancient Near East had been claimed by the expanding Assyrian Empire as provinces or vassal states. Judah was one of the few states which retained her independence. Pekah, king of Israel, and Rezin, king of Syria, endeavored to enlist Judah in a coalition to fight the Assyrians. When Ahaz, the king of Judah, refused to join their coalition, The Syro-Ephraimite War holds a salient position in the history of Ancient Israel. This article explores the causes and conditions of the war and its role in the scattering of Israel.


The frequency of impaired glucose tolerance-turnovered T2DM was 54%(69/127) according to diabetes diagnostic standard of WHO-1985 and 76%(96/127) according to standard of WHO-1999 through a ten-year follow-up of 127 IGT patients in Fushan city.Age,BMI,blood pres-sure and blood glucose were the risk factors for this turnover.


Abstract : The President has declared that the United States must be prepared to assist in the stabilization and reconstruction of at-risk countries and regions to promote the security of the nation. Reconstruction and stabilization operations require a "whole of government" approach with the deployment of both uniformed and civilian personnel from the Department of Defense (DoD) and other departments and agencies. To support these stabilization and reconstruction missions, the President has requested $249.0 million in the fiscal year 2009 budget to build an Active and Standby Response Corps of over 2,000 federal civilian personnel from all 15 civilian agencies and to build a Civilian Reserve Corps comprised of about 2,000 experts from state and local governments and from the private sector. H.R. 1084, which passed in the House on March 5, 2008, authorizes funds and responsibilities for the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization within the Department of State to establish and manage these corps. In a recently issued memorandum and policy, the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness) underscored the need to increase the capacity of DoD civilian volunteers to support these and other contingency operations. The memo highlights the current need to support manning of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) and Ministerial Defense Teams (MDTs) as examples of reasons for building civilian deployment capacity. With regard to the federal civilian employees that have been or will be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, the Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations, Committee on Armed Services, U.S. House of Representatives, has highlighted the following key areas for follow-on actions and further inquiry and investigation: medical care policies vs. practices, the role of the Department of Labor Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, mental health and stress disorders, and equitable and sufficient incentives and benefits.


In order to achieve the full potential of the Internet-of-Things, connectivity between devices should be ubiquitous and efficient. Wireless mesh networks are a critical component to achieve this ubiquitous connectivity for a wide range of services, and are composed of terminal devices (i.e., nodes), such as sensors of various types, and wall powered gateway devices, which provide further internet connectivity (e.g., via Wi-Fi). When considering large indoor areas, such as hospitals or industrial scenarios, the mesh must cover a large area, which introduces concerns regarding range and the number of gateways needed and respective wall cabling infrastructure, including data and power. Solutions for mesh networks implemented over different wireless protocols exist, like the recent Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) 5.1. While BLE provides lower power consumption, some wall-power infrastructure may still be required. Alternatively, if some nodes are battery powered, concerns such as lifetime and packet delivery are introduced. We evaluate a scenario where the intermediate nodes of the mesh are battery powered, using a BLE relay of our own design, which acts as a range extender by forwarding packets from end-nodes to gateways. We present the relay's design and experimentally determine the packet forwarding efficiency for several scenarios and configurations. In the best case, up to 35% of the packets transmitted by 11 end-nodes can be forwarded to a gateway by a single relay under continuous operation. A battery lifetime of 1 year can be achieved with a relay duty cycle of 20%.


Regular control of the electrical transmission lines is important in preventing unwanted accidents and power interruptions. It is very difficult to carry out this process involving the determination of the transmission line, the tower and the plants surrounding the transmission line with human power. Today, there are some studies that use unmanned aerial vehicles to control transmission lines. In this study, the performance evaluation of the algorithms required for monitoring and controlling the transmission lines with image processing is given by using unmanned aerial vehicles. For this, firstly the capabilities of the studies in the literature have been put forward and then inferences have been made on how to overcome the shortcomings of these studies. In addition, some application results on experimental images, necessary hardware architecture and algorithm structure to make line control healthy and highly accurate are given in detail. In particular, the examination of the required stability and control methods performances for the line control realization will contribute to the works in this area.


Dense stereo maps have many useful applications in computer vision. They can help in performing such tasks as background separation, segmentation, and object recognition. Despite the continued exponential advances in the computational capacity of microprocessors, current personal computers are limited in their ability to adequately solve the dense stereo vision problem in realtime. Modern processors now contain a SIMD instruction set architecture that can provide substantial improvements in performance when working with specific data types. This program demonstrates a stereo vision algorithm that implements commonly known methods in computer vision and takes advantage of the Altivec instruction set to achieve realtime performance. Once the stereo data has been processed, the depth map that is produced can be used to provide an additional dimension of data to the user. The software demonstrates a possible use for this data, as an aural aid to people that are blind or vision impaired. The system uses the depth information to identify obstacles in a user's path and alert the user with aural feedback. Thesis Supervisor: David Demirdjian Title: Research Scientist


Contents: Historical and unhistorical gender forms of demonstratives and adjectives - Innovative attributive morphology as a case marker - The development of a tripartite system of defining words, the, that, and this - Implications for the grammatical category of gender.


We present a shared task on automatically determining sentiment intensity of a word or a phrase. The words and phrases are taken from three domains: general English, English Twitter, and Arabic Twitter. The phrases include those composed of negators, modals, and degree adverbs as well as phrases formed by words with opposing polarities. For each of the three domains, we assembled the datasets that include multi-word phrases and their constituent words, both manually annotated for real-valued sentiment intensity scores. The three datasets were presented as the test sets for three separate tasks (each focusing on a specific domain). Five teams submitted nine system outputs for the three tasks. All datasets created for this shared task are freely available to the research community.


Article 16 section (3) of the Copyright Law which stated that copyright can be used as an object of fiduciary is revolutionary in Indonesian law. Copyright is an intangible movable object which has level of difficulty to assess its value. The value of objects is an important thing when it used as objects of fiduciary. The value is equivalent to that of the creditor (fiduciary recipient) will provide a sense of security for the creditor for returning their loan. The application of Article 16 section (3) of the Copyright Law has not been accompanied by an implementing regulation for financing institutions as fiduciary recipients, especially in the standard of assessment of the value of copyright proposed as an object of fiduciary. Financial Services Authority (OJK) needs to formulate regulations that provide copyright standardization used as objects of fiduciary to provide legal certainty for the creditor. Keywords : copyrights, fiduciary, object of fiduciary


Social interactions in groups of three cage laying hens were characterized according to aggressive- ness, association and synchronization of each animal. Individual social profiles could be observed relati-vely independently of the rank. differences between stereotypies differences very important to understand the mechanisms underlying coping. Further they suggest relevant selection possibilities.


A biologically active prototype of antimycin A series has been synthesized. The dilactone moiety was synthesized from a masked L-threonine and γ-hydroxyvalerate and condensed with an O-masked derivative of 3-nitrosalicylic acid N-hydroxysuccinimide ester. Hydrogenation followed by formylation afforded the anti-fungal substance. This synthesis established a possible general synthetic pathway to the members of antimycin A.


[PROBLEMS] provides a photosensitive resin composition for microlens. [MEANS FOR SOLVING PROBLEMS] (A) component, (B) component and a photosensitive resin composition for microlens containing solvent. Component (A): the following formula (1), the maleimide structural unit and the formula (2) the copolymer (B) having a repeating structural unit represented by the component represented by the: of the photosensitive agent (the above formula (2), R


This paper proposes an encoder-decoder based sequence-to-sequence model for Grapheme-to-Phoneme (G2P) conversion in Bangla (Exonym: Bengali). G2P models are key components in speech recognition and speech synthesis systems as they describe how words are pronounced. Traditional, rule-based models do not perform well in unseen contexts. We propose to adopt a neural machine translation (NMT) model to solve the G2P problem. We used gated recurrent units (GRU) recurrent neural network (RNN) to build our model. In contrast to joint-sequence based G2P models, our encoder-decoder based model has the flexibility of not requiring explicit graphemeto-phoneme alignment which are not straight forward to perform. We trained our model on a pronunciation dictionary of (approximately) 135,000 entries and obtained a word error rate (WER) of 12.49% which is a significant improvement from the existing rule-based and machine-learning based Bangla G2P models.


The orebody is formed in the skarn contact alteration between Upper Triassic Tumugou Formation and Indosinian composite intermidiate-acid porphyry(porphyrite) body.The ore deposit is controlled by the magmatic rock,carbonate wall rock and structural space of migration of thermal fluid and precipitation of ore material,which belongs to the typical Cu deposit of skarn type.


Background Only eleven paediatric intensive care units (PICUs) in UK have cardiac surgical services on-site. Small proportion of patients admitted to non-cardiac surgical PICUs require transport to surgical centres. North West and North Wales Paediatric Transport service (NWTS) provides PIC transport service, including ability to conference call specialists. Alder Hey Children's hospital (AHCH) is the cardiac surgical centre and Royal Manchester Children's hospital (RMCH) only has cardiology on site. Methods Retrospective review suspected cardiac cases transferred in 12 months:- assessing if time critical surgical patients underwent single transfer to surgical centre- interventions by referring hospital or NWTS. Results Total 29 patients of suspected cardiac diagnosis. Abstract 508 Graph 1 Abstract 508 Table 1 Interventions INTERVENTIONS REFERRING HOSPITAL NWTS Intubation 22 4 Central Venous Access 6 7 Dinoprostone (PGE2) 20 2 Inotropes 7 10 Inhaled Nitric oxide 0 3 Seven patients had time critical cardiac surgical lesions. One patient required a second immediate transfer to surgical centre. Retrospectively, this could have been predicted from clinical picture. 68% patients had dinoprostone started by referring team following advice from cardiologist or NWTS. Inotropes initiated on advice or by NWTS. Conclusions Regional cardiac network can work effectively with improved communication particularly in acute scenario. Potential surgical cases may be predicted from clinical picture, especially if not resolving with full medical treatment.


Extensive hypertrophy occurs in an adrenal gland transplanted to the portal circulation of the adrenalectomized female rat. This hypertrophy is prevented not only by oophorectomy, but also by the administration of testosterone. Ordinarily, this phenomenon does not occur in the male rat, but can be induced in this sex by the administration of estrogen. It is inferred that estrogen is essential for, and androgen is inhibitory to, the production of this unusual hypertrophy in the transplanted adrenal.


There are, contends Joel Rosenthal, two suppositions that have achieved almost full and unquestionable acceptance in contemporary social history and family studies. The first is that at any given time in any given culture one particular form or model of the family dominates; the second is that historical changes in the family operate in a single and compelling direction. In Patriarchy and Families of Privilege in Fifteenth-Century England, the author joins quantitative and legal evidence with case studies to yield a depiction of the family as something at once corporeal, fictive, and symbolic.


The mainstays of treatment in endogenous eczema (EE) are topical corticosteroids (TCS) and moisturisers. This study aimed to survey the factors correlating with adherence to treatment for EE outpatients. Forty-nine-item cross-sectional interviews with 110 adult EE outpatients from the dermatology clinic at the National University Hospital, Singapore revealed that improving adherence in the non-geriatric population can be further explored; steroid phobia affects adherence to TCS; lifestyle and personal preferences affect adherence to moisturisers. Patient education on the safe and correct use of TCS and the development of moisturisers with more comfortable texture and ease of application should be considered.


A check-list of new species, descriptions of other sex of previously described species, redescriptions, proposals of synonymy, and new status for species previously in synonymy or described as subspecies for american sand flies (Diptera, Psychodidae, Phlebotominae), for the period 1975-1993, and not included in the revision of Martins el at. (1978), are presented.


Pickling radish was produced by direct vat set starter of Lactobacillus spp.. The effects of the starter of L. plantarum B4, or L. curvatus A8, or original microbes from the radish (the control group) on the sensory evaluation, total viable count (TVC), the level of lactic acid and nitrite, and fermentation period of pickling radish was researched. The results showed that the radish pickled by the starter of L. plantarum B4 or L. curvatus A8 was more TVC, over 100 times, higher of lactic acid, lower of nitrite to 0.2mg/kg than that of the control group for two days, and short the fermentation period to three days. And there was no different in sensory evaluation. Moreover, the nitrite count was positive correlation to TVC.


In contrast to behavioural approaches that attempt to explain creativity, social practice theories commonly emphasize aspects of the material world that shape and reproduce how people engage with them. How might social practice theory clarify how making affects millions of hobbyist creators – and what makes making matter to them? This article examines the theoretical work tying creativity to social practice. It then reports on a project in which small groups of everyday creators in the United Kingdom (n = 95) gathered in workshops to discuss their experiences and opinions regarding the materials, meanings, and competences of making. A model-making research method instigated peer discussion revealing both individual and shared accounts of practice. The data indicated that participants, regardless of practice, experienced creating as an ongoing performance providing many benefits that promote personal and societal transformation. With our graphic iteration of the elements of making, we assert that the meanings these makers attached to their various do-it-yourself practices were underscored by the materials they worked with and the competences they built in creating.


We investigated the concept of a critical masking interval, the time period during which noise is effective in masking a brief signal. The signal was a 100‐μsec click temporally placed in the center of a gated‐noise masker. Both the click and the noise were lowpass filtered so that the power spectra of signal and noise have similar shape. The duration of the noise masker was varied from 100 μsec to 100 msec and two noise levels were employed. Like the estimate of the critical bandwidth, the estimate of the critical masking interval can be made in two independent ways. First, for long durations of the noise masker, the ratio of click energy to over‐all noise power, adjusted for energy resolution, indicates that the critical masking interval is about 14 msec. Second, progressively shortening the duration of the noise masker did not improve detectability until the duration was less than approximately 10 msec. The near agreement of these two independent estimates supports our interpretation of the data in ter...


Thin hard coatings deposited by physical vapour deposition (PVD), e.g. titanium nitride (TiN) are frequently used to improve performance in many engineering applications In this paper, we present the results of a study of TiN films which are deposited by a Physical Vapor Deposition and Ion Beam Assisted Deposition. In the present investigation the samples with duplex coating was studied, and subsequent ion implantation was provided with N ions. The ion implantation was applied to enhance the mechanical properties of surface. The most successful and widespread model for nanoindentation data analysis is one in which the unloading data are assumed to arise from a purely elastic contact. The form most often used is known as the Oliver and Pharr method. This paper describes the successful use of the nanoindentation technique for determination of hardness and elastic modulus. In the nanoindentation technique, hardness and Young's modulus can be determined by the Oliver and Pharr method, where hardness (H) can be defined as: H=Pmax/A, where Pmax is maximum applied load, and A is contact area at maximum load. In nanoindentation, the Young's Modulus, E, can be obtained from: 1/Er=(1-ν)/E+(1-ν)/Er, where vi=Poisson ratio of the diamond indenter (0.07) and Ei=Young's modulus of the diamond indenter. Therefore, in recent years, a number of measurements have been made in which nanoindentation and AFM have been combined. Indentation was performed with CSM Nanohardness Tester. The results are analyzed in terms of load-displacement curves, hardness, Young's modulus, unloading stiffness and elastic recovery. The nanohardness of coating measured by Berkovich indenter is about 42.4 GPa. The analysis of the indents was performed by Atomic Force Microscope. The stress determination follows the conventional sinψ method, using a X-ray diffractometer The analyzed AE signal was obtained by a scratching test designed for adherence evaluation. AE permits an earlier detection, because the shear stress is a maximum at certain depth beneath the surface, where a subsurface crack starts. The critical load Lc2 corresponds to the load inducing the partial delamination of the coating. Coating is often in tensile stress with greater microhardness. The film deposition process exerts a number of effects such as crystallographic orientation, morphology, topography, densification of the films.The evolution of the microstructure from porous and columnar grains to densel packed grains is accompanied by changes in mechanical and physical properties. A variety of analytic techniques were used for characterization, such as scratch test, calo test, SEM, AFM, XRD and EDAX. Therefore, by properly selecting the processing parameters, well-adherent TiN films with high hardness can be obtained on engineering steel substrates, and show a potential for engineering applications. The experimental results indicated that the mechanical hardness is elevated by penetration of nitrogen, whereas the Young's modulus is significantly elevated. The deposition process and the resulting coating properties depend strongly on the additional ion bombardment.


Quantitative assessments of the possibility to improve the energy resolution of detectors based on CdTe crystals with two Ohmic contacts by varying the crystal thickness, applied voltage, temperature and lifetimes of charge carriers are presented. It is shown that a super-linear increase in the conductivity of Pt/CdTe/Pt detectors at larger voltages is caused by the space charge limited current, and the excess component over the linearly approximated current is virtually temperature independent. Due to such behavior of the excess current, cooling of the detector does not give the desired result. The calculations show that the effect of charge carrier recombination at the crystal surfaces can be ignored when V < 9-10 V, while trapping carriers in the crystal bulk for thick CdTe detectors can significantly degrade the charge collection efficiency. Thinning the crystal and lowering the applied voltage to maintain the same current value leads to considerable improving of the charge collection efficiency. In the case of the detector thickness of 0.25 mm, the collection efficiency is higher than 97-98% in the photon energy range of 10-1000 keV. The collection efficiency could exceed 99% if to perfect the crystal growth technology and thereby increase the charge carrier lifetime by one order of magnitude as compared to that in the currently used CdTe crystals (2-3 μs)


Assessment of the safety impacts of travel demand management (TDM) policies must be conducted proactively. Because TDM policies are typically implemented at an aggregate level, crash prediction models should also be developed at a similar level. The resolution of these models should better match that at which evaluations of TDM policies are performed. Therefore, in this study zonal crash prediction models were considered to establish an association between observed crashes and a set of predictor variables in each zone. This analysis was performed with the generalized linear modeling procedure and the assumption of a negative binomial error distribution. Different exposure, network, and sociodemographic variables for 2,200 traffic analysis zones were considered predictors of crashes in the study area of Flanders, Belgium. An activity-based transportation model framework was applied to produce exposure measurements for crash data that consisted of injury crashes recorded between 2004 and 2007. Network and sociodemographic characteristics were also collected. Different zonal crash prediction models were developed to predict the number of injury crashes, including crashes involving fatalities and severe and slight injuries. These models were classified into three groups: (a) flow-based models, (b) trip-based models, and (c) a combination of the two. The results showed considerable improvement of model performance when both trip-based and flow-based exposure variables were used simultaneously in the formulation of the model. The main purpose of this study was to develop a predictive tool that could be used at the planning level to evaluate the impacts of different TDM policies on traffic safety.


Adsorbents obtained from waste of plant origin are capable of replacing the traditional sorbents for removing of heavy metal ions from wastewater. The raw materials for the production of these sorbents are the chemically modified sunflower husks, as well as husk waste after industrial extraction of melanin. Experimentally determined the adsorption capacities and removal efficiency for copper and iron ions. Depending on the concentration, adsorption capacities varied from 5 to 25 mg of metal per gram of adsorbent. The use of the proposed adsorbents can also solve the problem of utilization of sorption material waste. The plant basis, and the neutral pH (in the order of 6-7) allows for the spent sorbents to be introduced into the soil as a component of the system of trace elements containing copper and iron.


PURPOSE: A postoperative nomogram for prostate cancer was developed at Baylor College of Medicine. This nomogram uses readily available clinical and pathologic variables to predict 7-year freedom from recurrence after radical prostatectomy. We evaluated the predictive accuracy of the nomogram when applied to patients of four international institutions. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Clinical and pathologic data of 2,908 patients were supplied for validation, and 2,465 complete records were used. Nomogram-predicted probabilities of 7-year freedom from recurrence were compared with actual follow-up in two ways. First, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) was calculated for all patients and stratified by the time period of surgery. Second, calibration of the nomogram was achieved by comparing the predicted freedom from recurrence with that of an ideal nomogram. For patients in whom the pathologic report does not distinguish between focal and established extracapsular extension (an input va...


Education researchers often study count variables, such as times a student reached a goal, discipline referrals, and absences. Most researchers that study these variables use typical regression methods (i.e., ordinary least-squares) either with or without transforming the count variables. In either case, using typical regression for count data can produce parameter estimates that are biased, thus diminishing any inferences made from such data. As count-variable regression models are seldom taught in training programs, we present a tutorial to help educational researchers use such methods in their own research. We demonstrate analyzing and interpreting count data using Poisson, negative binomial, zero-inflated Poisson, and zero-inflated negative binomial regression models. The count regression methods are introduced through an example using the number of times students skipped class. The data for this example are freely available and the R syntax used run the example analyses are included in the Appendix. Count variables such as number of times a student reached a goal, discipline referrals, and absences are ubiquitous in school settings. After a review of published single-case design studies Shadish and Sullivan (2011) recently concluded that nearly all outcome variables were some form of a count. Yet, most analyses they reviewed used traditional data analysis methods designed for normally-distributed continuous data.


SUBSTANCE ABUSE DURING pregnancy has been recognized asa major national health problem for both women and children. Medical complications including anemia, cardiac disease, cellulitis, edema, hepatitis, phlebitis, and pneumonia, are seen in 40 to 50 percent of drug-dependent pregnant women, while drug exposure in utero is now known to be a primary source of developmental delays, birth defects, and fetal death.1 Major effects on the fetus can include overwhelming infection, chorioamnionitis, premature rupture of the membranes, poor fetal growth, mental retardation, and low-birthweight with associated complications.2 In addition, infants born to drug-abusing parents are at heightened risk for physical abuse and neglect, learning disabilities, lowered IQ, and behavioral problems. The longer-term emotional and behavioral effects of prenatal drug exposure are uncertain. However, a recent study by Dr. Judith Howard at UCLA, which compared a group of drug-exposed and unexposed 18-month-old toddlers from low-income families, found that the drug-exposed children exhibited notably less affect (pleasure, anger, distress), were more apt to scatter or batter their toys, were more nervous in handling toys, and were less attached to their caregivers. A number of substances have been implicated as sources of poor birth outcome. Since they were initially described in 19733, hundreds of cases of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and fetal alcohol effects (FAE) have been documented in the medical literature. The long-term effects of FAS, including deficits in


The authors present photoluminescence results from amorphous Ge quantum dots formed using buffer-layer-assisted growth. Their sizes, shapes, and densities were controlled by varying the thickness of the Xe buffer layer, with sizes varying from 2to8nm. A relatively weak signal was observed at ∼3K at ∼0.91eV that was independent of size and was insensitive to laser intensity. Its temperature-dependent magnitude showed a Berthelot-type behavior that they associate with hopping of carriers between radiative tail states and shallow nonradiative states. These findings are similar to those from porous semiconductors.


In chapters 18 and 19 of the book "Sources of the Self", Charles Taylor seeks to understand the origins of the main elements that form contemporary identity, which leads to a historical analysis towards the end of the middle ages and the beginning of the modern era. Despite the diversity of the elements that form the moral identity found in these periods, one question appears unusual to all of them: the sense of life. This article aims to discuss this topic and show, with Taylor, that this question goes beyond understanding about God's purposes, nature, rationality and utility – but not without drag together characteristics from each of these periods - and culminates in a new way of thinking.  This new conception, in fact, is directly related to the development of individual's ability to accept their limitations and, like this, seek to understand its irremediable tendency to attribute meaning to all things.


The industry under consideration uses chiefly the phthalate plasticizers: predominantly dibutyl phthalate (DBP) and higher alkyl phthalates (DAP-789); periodically dioctyl phthalate (DOP), diisooctyl phthalate (DIOP), and benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP). Some formulations contain small amounts of one of the sebacates (dibutyl sebacate, DBS, or dioctyl sebacate, DOS) or adipates (dibutyl adipate, DBA, or dioctyl adipate, DOA). Tricresyl phosphate (TCP) was a component of the incombustible materials produced in 10-20% of machines assigned to various workers. The literature data on the toxicity of phthalates are sparse and contradictory (1-9). In order to clarify the question of the possibility that chronic occupational intoxication could arise under manufacturing conditions and to ascertain the role of phthalate plasticizers in this connection, we studied 147 persons (87 women and 60 men), the majority of them (75%) not more than 40 years old. The duration of occupational contact with the plasticizers was 1/2-5


With our focus on twenty-first-century art history, we asked John Clark, Professor of Asian Art History, University of Sydney, to convene an email Q-and-A on the topic of world art history. The possibility of such a history has been thrown up in the wake of the seeming decline of the Euro-American art history that dominated twentieth-century thinking about art. For an overview of the world-art-history idea, readers are referred to James Elkins's book Is ART HISTORY GLOBAL? Clark invited four respondents: Parul Dave Mukherjee, Professor of the School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; Omuka Toshiharu, Professor and Vice-Provost of the Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences at the University of Tsukuba, Tokyo; Patrick Flores, Professor of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines, Quezon City; and Woo Jung-ah of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, South Korea.


The design method of cam contour shape by geometic on AutoCAD is introduced. The method solves the error problem of drawing cam contour,and improves the design accuracy and efficiency of cam contour.


Engineering of devices and systems such as magnets, fault current limiters or cables, based on
High Temperature Superconducting wires requires a deep characterization of the possible
degradation of their properties by handling at room temperature as well as during the service
life thus establishing the limits for building up functional devices and systems.
In the present work we report our study regarding the mechanical behavior of spliced joints
between commercial HTS coated conductors based on YBCO at room temperature and
service temperature, 77 K.
Tensile tests under axial stress and the evolution of the critical current and the electric
resistance of the joints have been measured. The complete strain contour for the tape and the
joint has been obtained by using Digital Image Correlation. Also, tensile tests under external
magnetic field have been performed and the effect of the applied field on the critical current
and the electric resistance of the joints has been studied.
Finally, a preliminary numerical study by means of Finite Element Method (FEM) of the
mechanical behavior of the joints between commercial HTS is presented.


Using ethnographic data gleaned from a foreign-managed Christian school in Indonesia, this article situates the ethnic prejudices of Indonesian Chinese parents and students toward Filipino teachers within the organizational and cultural politics of private schooling. It is argued that the commoditization of education as a form of market consumption alongside the masculinized international curriculum help shape the feminization of teachers from the Philippines. Catering to the aspirations of the country's minority ethnic Chinese, privately managed schools actively recruit trained teachers from the Philippines, many of whom are female and are perceived by students and their parents as exhibiting negative symbolic capital. In the process of their employment, they encounter occasional moments of less than complete success and challenges in their jobs. This article situates this prejudice within the cultural politics of masculinized Chinese schooling in Indonesia, while seeking to shed light on the role of Filipino work migrancy in Indonesia's formal employment sector.


Product-based companies are consumer suppliers that can meet the customer order and consumption. Service-based operation is a company offering an intangible and non-including sales and satisfactions type of product. This work aims to summarize the strength of time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) implementation in product- and service based operation using selected criteria. There are 8 criteria to be discussed are cost allocation, determination of drivers, transparency, cost consideration for implementation, transparency, overestimation of cost, oversimplification of activities and capacity forecast and planning. For product-based operation, this work is conducted at the plantation located in Prosper Palm Oil Mill Sdn. Bhd., Muadzam Shah, Pahang. The estate is divided into three main activity centers which are nursery, replanting and ramp. For service-based operation, data are taken from academic library in Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Pekan, Pahang. However in this work, only two activity centers are been used which are acquisition and cataloging. In this work, the application of TDABC in product- and service-based operations does not present any substantial differences in unused capacity. However, the activities in a product-based company depend on one another in terms of process dependence. While activities are independent in service-based operations.


A personal computer (12) executes an information processing program (43) to start a shooting process. Under the shooting process, a judgment circuit (48) reads an allowable range of each shooting parameter from a HDD (42) and judges whether all the shooting parameters sent from a digital camera (10) via a communication I/F (47) are within the allowable range. A monitor (13) displays shooting parameter information (64) sent from the digital camera (10) on a picture window (60). The shooting parameters that are judged to be outside of the allowable range by the judgment circuit (48) are displayed distinguishably.


It is introduced that hydraulic manipulator and drifter control transportation of material in each of working procedure by PCL in automatic product line.It is also introduced that software and hardware of this system implement what function..


Xi Jinping put forward the strategic deployment of"four comprehensiveness"when he did investigation in Jiangsu province,among which"strictly governing the party in a comprehensive way"is the latest requirements of party construction.How to maintain the purity of the party members' thought is particularly important in party construction.Without exaggeration,maintaining the pure thought is the premise and foundation to keep party members and cadres pure,honest and upright style.Based on Xi Jinping's"four comprehensiveness"perspective,establishing the mechanism of maintaining ideological purity of the majority of party members and cadres should be carried out from the following three aspects:firstly,we should establish the party's propaganda and education mechanism of the party's ideological purity;secondly,we should establish and improve the party's ideological purity of learning mechanism;thirdly,we should establish and improve the long-term mechanism to strengthen the ideological and moral construction.


The giant grouper Epinephelus lanceolatus is a highly valued finfish. In past years, some propagation techniques such as induced spawning and sexual reversal were achieved. However, for hatcheries, the seed production is still unstable, and mass mortality often occurs. Serious intracohort cannibalism is one of the reasons for this. This fish exhibits type II cannibalism, and this type of cannibalism usually begins when growth heterogeneity among the fish appears. For hatcheries, routine size grading is themost commonly usedmethod to prevent this type of cannibalism. To establish an effective grading method, Hseu et al. developed a cannibal-prey length relationship from morphometric measurements for giant grouper fry:


Withania somnifera, also known as 'Ashwagandha', is an important medicinal plant that has been used in Ayurvedic and indigenous medicine for over 3,000 years. In view of its varied therapeutic potential, it has also been the subject of considerable modern scientific attention. The present study was performed to evaluate the phytochemicals and in vitro antioxidant activity of 70% methanolic extract of W. somnifera roots. The extract was used to determine the antioxidant potential using different tests including total antioxidant activity; efficiencies for scavenging of hydroxyl, superoxide, nitric oxide, singlet oxygen radicals, hypochlorous acid and inhibition of lipid peroxidation. The results obtained indicate that although W. somnifera has been widely used for centuries as immunostimulants in different ailments including neurodegenerative disorders, the 70% methanolic extract of the same also has possibility as an antioxidant and free radical scavenging agent.


Results of daily maximal and minimal serum levels of griseofulvin are presented on subjects taking b.i.d. oral doses of micronized fulvind 500 mg.) and of common griseofulvin (500 and 1,000 mg.) for a 7-day period. The results show that on prolonged b.i.d. administration the micronized preparation produces concentrations in the serum which are not cumulative and are indistinguishable from those of double the dose of common pharmaceutical grade griseofulvin.


chamber, or by movement of a tiny air bubble at the hub of the needle towards the epidural space.3,4 We have used this technique in more than 2,000 infants and children at our institution.4 In 1,385 infants and children, lumbar epidural puncture was successful on the first attempt (90.2%) and on the second attempt in an additional 8.0%. The survey1 also failed to include another method to identify the epidural space as reported by Suwa et al.5 In place of a drip infusion set, these authors connected the epidural needle via an iv extension tube to a pressure-transducer. They identified the epidural space in 25/25 (100%) children without dural puncture by observing a sudden decrease in pressure when the epidural space was accessed. As a control, they used the loss-of-resistance to saline, and their success rate was 84% (21/25), with a dural puncture incidence of 4% (1/25). This pressure-guided method is also objective, but may be too expensive for some clinical settings. I hope that by drawing the readers' attention to these methods of identifying the epidural space, more clinicians will consider replacing the loss-of-resistance techniques to saline and air, with these alternative objective techniques.


Apparatus for forming a sheet metal pulley from a cup-shaped blank in a single hydraulic forming operation. A pair of die holding members supports a plurality of groove-forming inner dies and is movably mounted on a base for horizontal reciprocal movement between open and closed die positions for capturing a pulley-forming blank therebetween. Tapered pins extend vertically through aligned openings formed in overlapping shelf members of the die holding members to wedgingly clamp the dies toward each other and to lock them in a horizontally closed position. A ram plate is mounted on a plurality of vertical posts for reciprocal vertical movement with respect to the captured blank. The ram plate has a top die which exerts axial pressure on the hub portion of the blank during the hydraulic bulging of the blank side wall by a confined fluid within the blank in cooperation with the groove-forming inner dies. A plurality of pistons mounted on the vertical ram plate cammingly engage mating surfaces provided on the posts and adjacent cam shafts to mechanically lock the ram plate die in a vertically closed position. A burst of high pressure is applied to the trapped, partially formed pulley to final form the pulley by setting the metal of the pulley against the inner dies by exceeding the elastic limit of the metal, eliminating springback after the pulley is removed from the dies. Certain of the groove-forming inner dies are movable vertically independently of the top ram plate and hub die by hydraulic pistons to permit variation in the groove-forming sequence during the pulley forming procedure.


Safety systems used to be the preserve of a small group of specialist companies. Now, however, mainstream automation vendors are getting in on the act, preaching a new gospel of closer integration.


In this article, a centrifuge shaking table model test of anchored stabilizing piles for strengthening landslides was established, and the dynamic response characteristics of the pile–anchor–slope under earthquake action were analyzed. On this basis, combined with the fuzzy gray relational analysis and the rank-sum ratio method, the correlation between the amplification of the acceleration response of the heterogenous slope and the dynamic response of the support structure was explored. Based on the obtained results, relevant suggestions for engineering design were proposed. The results showed that the seismic amplification of the complex soil–rock slope reinforced by the pile–anchor structure was not uniform and the amplification coefficient had strong variability. Among them, the amplification coefficient of the slope, dynamic earth pressure, and dynamic bending moment of the pile near the connection of the pile–anchor cable continued to increase; the correlation between the seismic amplification and the seismic behavior of the pile–anchor structure is different at different positions of the slope. The measurement points with a higher comprehensive ranking of correlation are mainly concentrated in the pile–anchor connection, the middle of the slope, and the high-angle soil–rock interface. It is related to the geometric characteristics of the model and the high seismic amplification of the slope; for the pile–anchor connection part and the high-angle soil–rock structure surface of the slope, the shock absorption measures and grouting strength of the anchor cable's anchoring section should be considered in the engineering design.


Objective To construct eukaryotic expression vector of rat liver regeneration related gene Tax1-binding protein 1(Tax1bp1),fused into green fluorescent protein and transferred into regenerating liver and expressed efficiently,and to observe the expression of Tax1bp1 gene.Methods ORF of Tax1bp1 gene in rat regenerating liver was cloned by using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR) method.Then restructuring expression vector pEGFP-N1-Tax1bp1 was constructed by subcloning to expression vector.Fusion expression of green fluorescent protein in regenerating liver was observed by tail vein hydrodynamics-based transgene method.Results The ORF of Tax1bp1 cloning was corrected and fusion green fluorescent protein restructuring expression vector pEGFP-N1-Tax1bp1 building was successful;There were fluorescent expression after part liver resection transgenic 6,12,24 and 48 hours;Cell carrying rate of green fluorescent fusion protein in Tax1bp1 fusion protein at the above time point were 8.7%,11.2%,14.5% and 1.2% respectively.Carrying rate trend was consistent with expression of empty carrier green fluorescent protein.Conclusion The restructuring expression vector pEGFP-N1-Tax1bp1 is constructed successfully and realizes efficient expression of green fluorescence fusion protein,to lay a foundation for the further research of Tax1bp1 gene functions related to regenerating liver.


In the present investigation we have studied a tangent hyperbolic fluid in a uniform inclined tube. The governing equations are simplified using long wavelength and low Reynold number approximations. The solutions of the problem in simplified form are calculated with two methods namely (i) the perturbation method and (ii) the homotopy analysis method. The comparison of the solutions show a very good agreement between the two results. At the end of the article the expressions of the pressure rise and the frictional force are calculated with the help of numerical integration. The graphical results are presented to show the physical behaviour of Weissenberg number We, amplitude ratio φ , and tangent hyperbolic power law index n.


Beauty industry has become one of the largest growth industries. The most famous service for beauty clinic is acne treatment. The first process of acne treatment is acne counting and classification which is manually done by dermatologist. In this paper, an automatic acne detection system was proposed and developed as an acne detection device. The system acquired facial image of the patient via web camera then converted the image into suitable color model. The system recognized and extracted patient's face using Haar Cascade classifier and marked as the Region of Interest (ROI). Background was removed using GrabCut and only patient's face was extracted. Then, the system visualized patient face through Heat mapping and did Adaptive Thresholding. Finally, the system did BLOB detection and marked each BLOB on the image using box shape.


This article uses survey data on marital history and divorce statistics to estimate the proportion of children affected by marital disruption. Over the century, about 25–30% of all children experienced a marital disruption; in the next few decades, perhaps 40% of all children will be affected. These large numbers raise questions about how best to meet the special needs of the affected children. A review of the literature suggests that opposition to divorce reform "for the sake of the children" cannot be justified, and an examination of the economic problems of single-parent families leads to proposals for income support.


t is a key problem in geology prospecting todedde a reasonable coalfield prospeCting minute net extent accordal to gabed coalfield geOlogy data. This paper states theoptical process of coalfield ProspeCting minute net extent using quantitative method emphatically. Tbo system balldsmathematical is using geology statistkal method. It is anew try in concrete method processal of ballling and searchal analog board and Program deSks. Tthe Paper also test thesystem analogily hoed on the data Of cod layer Of AntheaoNumber two drithet of Sbach boshuo coal ho and all tabsget a gab result.'


The vulnerable group is the bottom class in a society which holds little or none of the organizational, economic and cultural resources. At present in the transition period of China, the negative influences on the stableness of society caused by vulnerable group should not be neglected. The solution to this problem should move from the relocation of resources to the relocation of rights. During the period of establishing the socialist market economy and country governed by law, it is essential to consummate the system for protecting rights and interests of the vulnerable group, and the key is to consummate the insurance system, the redress system and the income distribution system of the country.


The performance of a direct sequence spread spectrum multiple access (DS/SSMA) indoor radio system with binary phase shift keyed (BPSK) modulation is analysed over a log-normal fading channel. BER results are presented for measured channel data and the performance of a DS/SSMA indoor radio system using selection diversity is investigated.


Progress in the development of confocal microscopy and the advantages of this technique over conventional microscopy have led to a new technique known as confocal micro-PTV. This technique combines a manual tracking method with a spinning disk confocal microscope. By combining its spatial filtering technique with a multipoint illumination system, this technique has the ability to obtain in-focus images with optical thickness less than 5 μm. The present study shows the ability of our confocal micro-PTV system to obtain detailed qualitative and quantitative information on the blood flow behavior in both glass capillaries and polydimethylsiloxane(PDMS) microchannels. By labeling the blood cells with a lipophilic carbocyanime derivative it was possible to measure both translational and rotational motion occurring during flow. Our results demonstrate the ability of our confocal micro-PTV system to obtain both translational and rotational motion of individual RBCs flowing in concentrated suspensions. Owing to its optical sectioning ability and consequent improvement of the image contrast and definition, the proposed confocal system can provide additional detailed description on the blood cells motion not obtainable by other conventional methods.


Psychological research demonstrates that overconfident behavior is inclined to
emerge when people encounter uncertain situations. It is presumed that some
investors practice overconfident behavior in the capital market. The purpose of this
study is to investigate the role of the overconfident investors in predicting the value of
the securities when they receive no market information, good news, and bad news. In
this quasi experimental research, the participants were grouped into two categories
based on the level of their overconfidence, namely the less and the more informed
investors. The result shows that the less informed investors tend to overestimate the
values of the securities that produce higher prediction errors than do those more
informed investors in all experimental markets except that in the presence of good
news. The phenomena reflect that the less informed investors practice self deceptive
behavior.


The Quenching and Partitioning (Q&P) process is known as a promising method for producing steels with superior mechanical properties. Developing Q&P steels with optimized mechanical properties requires well understanding of the relation between their microstructural and mechanical properties. The microstructural evolution during different Q&P processes in a 0.3C-1.5Si-3.5Mn (wt.%) steel was analysed. Mechanical properties of the developed microstructures were measured by using microtensile test. The influence of volume fractions and carbon contents of the phases on the ductility and strength of the microstructures was investigated. Furthermore, the effect of the specimen size on the tensile properties was discussed and a correction procedure was applied to convert the measured microtensile properties to the standard ones. A comparison with the measured mechanical properties of other type of Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS) shows the improved properties of the Q&P steels.


We apply the MIMO layered space-time architecture to MB-OFDM UWB system supporting streaming multimedia content and full motion video in WPAN for low cost and high performance. And also we address a channel estimation based on the time-domain windowing and its imperfectness in MB-OFDM with MIMO antenna systems.


The invention relates to a power battery with the anode made of a hybrid material of lithium manganate and lithium iron phosphate. The anode comprises an active substance, a conductive agent, a binder, and solution, wherein the active substance adopts a hybrid material of lithium iron phosphate and lithium manganate, and according to the weight ratio, the lithium iron phosphate accounts for 5-95 percent, the conductive agent accounts for 1-20 percent, and the binder accounts for 2-10 percent. The conductive agent comprises acetylene black or carbon black; the binder is polyvinylidene fluoride; and the solution is N-N-2-methyl-pyrrolidone. Compared with the traditional lithium iron phosphate or lithium manganate power battery, the invention has the advantages that: 1, the operating voltage is 2.75-4.2V, which is consistent with the lithium manganate battery and superior to the lithium iron phosphate; 2, the energy density is high, wherein the compaction density of lithium iron phosphate is 2.0-2.1, and the compaction density of the lithium manganate is 2.9-3.1; 3, the safety property is excellent, and the safety of the invention inherits the properties of the lithium iron phosphate, in particular the overcharge resistance, which is consistent with the lithium iron phosphate.


A precise method is given for measuring the transconductance of an MOS transistor (MOST) and also its value and rate of variation. The measuring setup uses a differential amplifier, in which the output voltage of a sample MOST operated as a common-source amplifier is compared with the reference voltage derived from the attenuators used as a standard, and also a synchronous demodulator, with which the difference signal obtained from the differential amplifier is converted into corresponding dc voltage used in determining the null point. The transconductance from the 0.1 to 100-m? range is measured with an accuracy of less than two percent, over the frequency range of 0.1-10 kHz. The transconductance variation in excess of 1 ?? and also the percentage variation of transconductance in excess of 0.2 percent for an MOST with a transconductance of 1 m? is measured. Measured examples are also given.


This paper discusses three main projects and their related activities that students do in a Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) classroom at English Language Education Study Program, Dunia University Indonesia. The practical discussions in this paper will be an interest of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in Indonesia who look for practical ideas to teach the use of CALL in EFL classrooms, feel interested in integrating CALL into their classroom practices, and wish to explore ideas about how their students can benefit from technology. At the end of the paper, I address voices to support the use of CALL in teaching and learning in Indonesia.


This paper investigates the patterns of variation in food availability and nutritional status among small‐scale farmers from highland and coastal regions of Ecuador. Dietary adequacy is greater among households of the highland sample and appears to be associated with higher consumption of foods from subsistence production. Energy consumption is marginal in the coastal sample where farmers are involved in the production of coffee as a cash crop. Households on the coast rely on inexpensive market foods and obtain less than a quarter of their energy from home‐produced items. Early childhood growth is poor in both regions. In the highland sample, older children have relatively better nutritional status, whereas nutritional status declines in the older cohorts of the coastal sample. Children's nutritional status (weight‐for‐age and weight‐for‐height) is correlated with household dietary adequacy in the highland sample; in the coastal group, per capita income is the strongest correlate of nutritional status. Th...


A system is provided to monitor health care hygiene compliance. The system includes a plurality of personal tags for a plurality of patients and a plurality of medical personnel in the facility, a sensor carried by the medical personnel that recognizes the personal tags of the patients within a distance of 1 meter, and 0 A washing place with a tag recognized by the sensor within a distance of 5 meters, and a control device carried by a medical worker, the control device carrying one of the plurality of personal tags Programmed to detect whether a health care worker has accessed the washroom before contacting a patient carrying one of the plurality of personal tags.


A 75-year-old woman presented with subacute visual loss and subretinal fluid in the left macula (Fig. 1). Her medical history was significant for a chronic cough, headaches, fatigue of 4 months' duration, and recent weight loss. Ocular history was significant for pseudophakia in both eyes and open-angle glaucoma. Visual acuity was 20/25 in the right eye and 20/250 in the left eye. Intraocular pressures were 11 mmHg in the right eye and 9 mmHg in the left eye, and slit-lamp examination revealed well centered posterior chamber intraocular lenses. The right fundus was unremarkable. Fundus examination of the left eye disclosed a macular neurosensory retinal detachment, which was demonstrated by optical coherence tomography (Fig. 2). Fluorescein angiography showed stippled hyperfluorescence with diffuse leakage (Fig. 3). The patient returned 12 days later with decreased vision in the previously unaffected right eye to 20/126, with clinical and optical coherence tomography evidence of subretinal fluid in the macula. Differential diagnosis included atypical central serous retinopathy, occult choroidal neovascularization, and infiltration of the choroid from a metastasis. Systemic workup and subsequent bone marrow biopsy revealed precursor B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. She received induction chemotherapy with doxorubicin, vincristine, L-asparaginase, and prednisone and was subsequently readmitted for induction therapy with high-dose cyclophosphamide and etoposide. She returned 1 month later with visual acuity of 20/40 in both eyes and resolution of the subretinal fluid in both eyes. She returned 5 months later with a decrease in visual acuity in the right eye to counting fingers from an exudative detachment involving the macula. A lumbar puncture revealed leukemic blast cells, and she underwent chemotherapy with cytarabine for a central nervous system relapse, followed by intrathecal cytarabine treatment. Visual acuity in the right eye briefly improved to 20/50 and then decreased to hand motions from optic nerve head infiltration (Fig. 4). The patient was transferred to a hospice and died 1 year after her initial presentation. No histopathologic analysis was performed.


Abstract : Activity instrumentation applications is supporting activities that strongly supports the achievement of the effectiveness of counseling services organized by BK teacher. Goals to be achieved by the researchers is to determine how the level of mastery of instrumentation applications teacher guidance and counseling junior at Metro City. The quantitative Descriptive research design used. The results showed mastery of instrumentation applications BK junior high school teacher in the city of Metro is quite good, with the percentage of 64.81% . In all four aspects studied lowest percentages are aspects of the execution and reporting that is 15.46%, and which has the highest percentage is the aspect of evaluation ie 17.13%. Suggestions put forward, namely upgrading of instrumentation in guidance and counseling teacher training and seminars on instrumentation activities. Keyword : Instrumentation Applications, Master of Guidance and Counseling


A new Bayesian modeling method is proposed by combining the maximization of the marginal likelihood with a momentum-space renormalization group transformation for Gaussian graphical models. Moreover, we present a scheme for computint the statistical averages of hyperparameters and mean square errors in our proposed method based on a momentumspace renormalization transformation.


A study was carried out to determine the incidence of accidental poisoning in children admitted to Riyadh Governmental Hospitals during 1988. Drugs were the most common poisoning agent and accounte...


It is very important that discharges of nitrogen and phosphors in wastewater are controlled to prevent eutrophication in water bodies such as lakes and rivers. According to some problems in traditional processes for nitrogen and phosphors removal from wastewater by biological technology, a few of new technologies were investigated, such as, a biofilm and activated sludge combined system, a nitrosofication and denitrosofication process for nitrogen removal, a membrane bioreactor and a integrated oxidation ditch process with vertical circle. These processes and technologies can increase the efficiency and decrease the cost for wastewater treatment, and their operation is simple.


Nowhere is this more important than in the Ranching business. The profit formula (Profit = Price (Total Production)-Costs} requires us to examine all aspects of our operation. Which of these elements-price, production, and costs can you most easily influence? Price is usually dictated by market conditions which is not easily influenced. Many people believe that production and cost can be influenced. Improving herd genetics and feeding to increase the amount of beef or lamb are two methods to increase production. But, how often is the cost per pound of beet or lamb weaned considered? Many times efforts on the cost side of the formula are limited to not replacing that worn out baler, tractor or pickup; or being resourceful in the


Abstract A bainite sheaf does not have a simple geometry, making it difficult to characterise or calculate its fundamental properties, such as the total amount of interfacial area per unit volume. The sheaf is, in the language of fractals, a rough object in which the area is a function of how the measurements are made. Micrographs taken at a variety of resolutions have been analysed to reveal how the area scales with resolution. It is found that although the interface is rough, it is far less so when compared with what might be expected from a fractal object. In other words, the ideal fractal, where self-similarity propagates over an infinite range of observation does not apply to the bainite sheaf.


An increasing number of anthropologists have turned their attention in recent years to the topic of altered states of consciousness, with the result that an extensive list of pharmacologically active substances capable of inducing such states has now been compiled. However, virtually all hallucinogenic materials reported so far in ethnographic contexts have been botanical in origin, even though the wide range of substances and techniques (e.g., sensory deprivation, pain, etc.) used in various areas of the world argues for lengthy and extensive experimentation with most facets of the environment on the part of many generations of native scholars. Reports of apparent hallucinogenic agents of a non-botanical nature should therefore be of more than passing interest, particularly when the ethnographic context involved is California.


### Preparing for war

The successful outcome of so many patients managed at Camp Bastion Hospital, including the unprecedentedly high proportion of unexpected survivors discussed in the previous articles in this series,[1][1] ,[2][2] owed much to the high-calibre multidisciplinary and collective


Evaporation from the skin The source of the moisture evaporated f r o r n t h o s k i n . . . . . The numbor and volume of the sweat glands Regional distribution of cutaneous evaporation Relation of cutaneous evaporation to respiratory evaporation Factors affecting cutaneous evaporation . Environmental temperature Air humidity Air movement . . . . . Non-climatic factors . . . . Genetic differences in cutaneous evaporation . . . . . . .


THYROID REGISTERSAN INDECENT OBSESSION? Thyroid disease is common. The prevalence of treated and untreated hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism in the community is about 40 per 1000 (1). The problem lies not with the treatment which is effective, but with the follow-up of patients known to be at risk of developing hypothyroidism after iodine-131 therapy, or recurrence of thyrotoxicosis or thyroid failure some year after an apparently successful subtotal thyroidectomy or a course of carbimazole. In addition, drug compliance is not ideal in approximately 10 per cent of patients prescribed thyroxine replacement therapy. Two questions arise from these wellestablished facts. Firstly, what is the most effective method of ensuring surveillance over many years of this large group of patients; and secondly, and perhaps more important in these days of financial restraint, is it possible to reduce the follow-up commitment by challenging established treatment practices and by encouraging the patient to accept more responsibility for health care? The initial concept of a computerprompted follow-up of patients with thyroid disease in the Grampian area, with its widely scattered population, was attractive (2). It was introduced in the mid-60's when not everyone appreciated that patients with thyroid disorders often required life-long review and there was, therefore, an early repayment in terms of reduction of morbidity. There was also the advantage in a rural area of saving patient time by transferring responsibility for review from hospital to general practitioner. The Scottish Automated Follow-Up Register (SAFUR) now provides a service for over 8000 patients derived from endocrine clinics in five main hospital centres. The majority of patients in Scotland, however, who are eligible for registration with SAFUR still attend hospital clinics or general practitioners. Should the scheme be extended? The protagonists argue that, when compared with a hospital based follow-up in the Nottingham area, SAFUR is cheaper and more efficient (3). In this study the cost to the NHS of a hospital out-patient visit was calculated at £9 and that of a register-prompted visit to a general practitioner was £7. But how does one compare the patient benefit of a consultation with an experienced endocrinologist with the wide range of thyroid function tests and other appropriate investigations immediately available, with that of a visit to a general practitioner inevitably less experienced in thyroid disease and a limited biochemical assessment? The high proportion of patients lost to follow-up or with unrecognised hypothyroidism in Nottingham, does not necessarily represent all hospital care (4). It is not our experience in a hopefully efficient endocrine service, from which approximately one per cent of patients are 'lost', a figure which compares favourably with SAFUR. In the final analysis there probably is no 'better buy' between review by national computer schemes and endocrine clinics for those living in urban areas, but perhaps the supporters of each method are too narrow in their outlook. Why not consider a change in our management of thyroid disease and in the current philosophy of everlasting care that encourages patient dependence? In the past, in most centres, it has been the practice to administer modest doses (185 MBq) of iodine-131 to patients with Graves' disease, in an attempt to induce euthyroidism, accepting that in the great majority hypothyroidism will occur unpredictably anything from three months to 20 to 30 years after treatment. Surely it is reasonable to advocate a larger ablative dose (555 MBq) of radio iodine, ensuring thyroid failure in 90 per cent of patients at six months (5), and perhaps no longer to restrict its use to those beyond 35 to 40 years of age. It would be wise to keep such patients under hospital review


Free energy functionals are described that describe the phase behavior of polymers of arbitrary flexibility in solution and in binary blends. The functionals were calculated from a microscopic model of wormlike chains and depend only on a small set of parameters, most of which can be measured from the pure components. These parameters are the Flory χ parameter, which measures the strength of isotropic interactions, the Maier-Saupe parameter, which measures the strength of anisotropic interactions, and the pure-component bending rigidities and molecular weight. The free energy expressions provide the basis for bulk and interfacial thermodynamic analysis of liquid crystalline and conjugated polymer solutions and blends


Background:
 Focal ischemia is thought to have global effects on the brain. Chronic cerebrovascular disease is associated with blood-brain barrier (BBB) disruption. We aimed to determine if ischemic stroke has a remote effect on the BBB.

 Methods:
 Patients with acute ischemic stroke who were imaged with MR perfusion weighted imaging (PWI) on presentation and again 24 hours later were included in the study. PWI source images were used to measure BBB disruption as a percentage of the signal that is due to gadolinium leakage. BBB was averaged within a region of interest (ROI) consisting of supratentorial white matter (WM) contralateral to the ischemic stroke. The ROI was defined using a group-averaged diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) fractional anisotropy map. For infratentorial strokes the ROI consisted of bilateral supratentorial WM. For bilateral strokes, the ROI consisted of WM in the less affected hemisphere after removal of the infarct. Segmentation algorithms were used to define infarct volume in mL on DTI at 24 hours and WM hyperintensity volume (WMHvol) on the initial FLAIR image. Average percent BBB disruption was compared with age, baseline modified Rankin scale (mRS), NIHSS, stroke volume, and WMHvol using linear regression.

 Results:
 44 patients were included with a median age of 74, 39% female. Median NIHSS was 4; mean stroke volume was 10 mL. The baseline mRS ranged from 0-3 with a median of 0. The median BBB was 0.86% (IQR:0.72%-1.09%). Higher average BBB disruption measured in the WM remote from the acute stroke was associated with larger stroke volumes (p=0.006, r
 2
 =0.17, beta 0.410, CI:0.003-0.018), larger WMHvol (p<0.001, r
 2
 =0.26, beta 0.51, CI: 0.10-0.32), and higher NIHSS (p=0.039, r
 2
 =0.01, beta 0.312, CI:0.002-0.064) but not with age (p=0.447), sex (p=0.729), or baseline mRS (p=0.093). In multiple linear regression stroke volume (p=0.008) and WMHvol (p<0.001) were independently associated with remote disruption of the BBB but not NIHSS (p=0.684).

 Conclusions:
 Focal ischemia resulted in a proportional disruption of the BBB in the WM remote from the acute lesion. This effect was independent of the severity of WMHvol, a measure of cerebral small vessel disease. These findings support the concept of ischemic stroke having global effects on the brain.


Hydrated cement paste, composed for the most part by calcium silicate hydrate (C-S-H), is a fragile material with low tensile strength. It is also well known that the addition of silica fume to concrete increases its strength and, consequently, makes it more durable, though also more fragile. To produce more ductile C-S-H, one alternative is the synthesis of C-S-H/polymer nanocomposites or hybrids. The intercalation of organic molecules in C-S-H nanostructure and other cement hydrates can promote radical changes in their properties of all magnitudes, producing cement based materials with greater strength that are also more ductile. The main objective of this work was to study the possibility of intercalation of organic compounds within C-S-H nanostructure, aimed at the synthesis of nanocomposites with atypical properties. Thus, C-S-H gels were synthesized with various Ca/Si molar ratios using two synthesis methods (precipitation synthesis and pozzolanic synthesis), with or without the presence of polymers. The effect of poly-diallyldimethylammonium chloride (PDC used as the basis for superplasticizers for concrete) was evaluated, indicated by the literature as capable of intercalating between the C-S-H lamellae [1-5], and copolymer poly(ethylene-co-vinyl acetate) (EVA), indicated by the literature as a modifier of C-S-H morphology [6,7]. The PDC polymer promoted alterations in C-S-H synthesis nanostructural bonding, influencing the interlayer distance and the type of bonding in the dreierketten and wollastonite chains. However, this modification was partial and occurred at rates that require further investigation, since they are probably influenced by the complex characteristics of formation, both by the type of bond and by the irregular and minimally crystalline formation of C-S-H.


To observe the protection of ligan compounds in fructus forsythiae from free radical injury in ischemia/reperfusion mice models,and to study the relationship between antioxidation mechanism of ligan compounds and calcitonin gene-related peptide.Dividing the experimental mice randomly into three groups:(1) Ischemia/reperfusion group(IR),the mice were subdivided into 1,6,24,120 h subgroups according to reperfusion time after 7 min BCCA occlusion;(2) Ligan compounds in fructus forsythiae treatment group(LG),the mice were given ligan compounds in fructus forsythiae pre-operation and post-operation;(3)Sham-operated group (ShO) which was control group.Measuring the content of erythrocuprein (SOD), malondialdehyde (MDA) and calcitonin gene-related peptide(CGRP)in plasma of mice.The results showed that the activity of SOD in plasma of IR mice decreased,the content of MDA decreased and that of CGRP increased;compared with models group,the activity of SOD in plasma of LG mice increased,the content of MDA increased and that of CGRP decreased.So we can conclude that it is one of important pathological processes in ischemia/reperfusion mice models that free radical formation and lipid peroxidation occur.Ligan compounds in fructus forsythiae can protect neurons in ischemia/reperfusion mice models from injury,and its antioxidation mechanism is perhaps related with the expression of calcitonin gene-related peptide.


Two thioxanthone‐derived isomeric series of thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitters 1,6‐2TPA‐TX/3,6‐2TPA‐TX and 1,6‐2TPA‐TXO/3,6‐2TPA‐TXO are developed for organic light‐emitting diodes (OLEDs). Blue emission devices based on symmetrical 3,6‐2TPA‐TX with common vertical transition route realize an extremely high external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 23.7%, and an ever highest EQE of 24.3% is achieved for yellow emission devices based on 3,6‐2TPA‐TXO by solely changing the sulfur atom valence state of the thioxanthone core. In contrast, their corresponding asymmetric isomers are affected by intramolecular energy transfer and more severely by a nonradiative deactivation pathway, to give much low EQE values (<5%). By utilizing 3,6‐2TPA‐TX as a blue emitter and 3,6‐2TPA‐TXO as a yellow emitter, an ever highest EQE of 20.4% is achieved for all‐fluorescence white OLEDs.


According to the different characteristics and the different need for undergraduate and graduate teachings,in terms of the basic concept in creative education,the creative education necessity in safe engineering lessons' teaching of undergraduate and graduate is researched in this paper,and the contrast analysis between them is also probed into.Firstly,the necessity and availability of implementing creative education during the professional courses' teaching of safety engineering are studied.Secondly,in accordance with the different employment characteristics of bachelor and master,in combination with the author's teaching experience for the course fire and explosion prevention,for the purpose of reforming and innovating the teaching,a series of things should be done:on the one hand,stirring up the student's creative consciousness,educating student's creative thought,improving student's creative ability,reforming teaching mode and examine mode etc.On the other hand,it is different in the teaching mode and teaching extents and the contrast between them is analyzed.The application results show that it is necessary and feasible to implement the innovational teaching in safe engineering lessons' teaching.


This essay from a book on the communalization of womens sexuality in South Asia examines the institutions beliefs and ideologies surrounding widow immolation in contemporary Rajasthan India. The introduction distinguishes the terms "widow immolation" from "sati" the belief structure that makes widow immolation possible and discusses the role of institutions such as sati temples that sanctify the violence and organize the interests it serves. The main part of the essay consists of three sections. The first section describes the Shekhawati region of Rajasthan and provides a detailed account of the immolation of the 16-year-old widow Om Kunwar in 1980. This account illustrates how local acceptance of the presence of "satt" a type of godliness entrusted only to widows enables and demands community participation in the violence. Once satt is declared a widow only has the ability to direct and consent to the immolation. All of the enabling activities performed by her neighbors and relatives are purported to have been "miraculous" occurrences (thus rendering legal intervention useless or even sacrilegious). After describing the socioeconomic benefits accruing to the widows family and village after her immolation similar circumstances are shown to surround the immolation of Roop Kunwar in September 1987. The second section of the essay reveals how various socioeconomic forces collude to support widow immolation and analyzes contemporary popular narratives generated to support the influence of the Rani Sati temple which commemorates a medieval immolation. The essay ends with a discussion of how regional and metropolitan systems of ideological formation overlap and are distinguished as well as how patriarchal values gain communal consent.


In this paper, we obtain some P-Q eta-function identities of Ramanujan on employing some modular equations in Ramanujan's alternative theory of elliptic functions of signature 4.


The invention discloses a method and a device for controlling a flashlight of an intelligent device. The method comprises: obtaining the operating condition of the flashlight in the intelligent device; triggering an operation of detecting an proximity value of an obstacle according to the operating condition; and controlling the operating condition of the flashlight in the intelligent device according to the proximity value. The method is used for solving the problem that the flashlight is constantly on due to false triggering when the intelligent device is put into a bag or a pocket, and achieves the effect of avoiding the increase of power consumption and the heating quantity of the intelligent device due to that the flashlight is falsely triggered to be constantly on.


In resolving choice of law problems, LaForest J has stressed, a court is not concerned with "interest balancing" in the substantive tort law sense, but with the "structural problem" of allocating law making authority among territorially-defined sovereigns. In the case of an interprovincial tort claim, "constitutional imperatives and other structural elements" made interjurisdictional harmony of result more desirable and more feasible so as to justify an exclusive lex loci delicti rule. Although no one questions that reform was overdue, the general reaction of Canadian commentators to the new centrality of territorial connections in choice of law for tort has been largely critical. Part I begins with a review of the reasons for the extraordinary tenacity of the traditional lex fori rule in Canadian law and the changes in the surrounding tort law environment that eventually created pressure for reform. I then analyse the criticisms advanced against Tolofson in light of developments in other common law jurisdictions, concluding that the Supreme Court's territorial orientation is consonant with significant currents of reformist thinking in the United States and Australia. Part II takes the analysis to a more concrete level and examines the implications of the Court's lex loci delicti rule in products liability claims, a particularly fertile source of choice of law problems.


Abstract In this manuscript, linear and positive operators described on bounded and unbounded intervals that fix the function sets {1, φ} and {1, φ2} such that φ ∈ C[0, 1] are presented. Then we present different types of operators by choosing different functions and values. Finally, Voronovskaya type theorems are given for this newly defined sequences of linear and positive operators.


The paper presents the results of the development of the technology of centrifugal-die forming of biologically active fibrous materials. The modification of biologically active polypropylene fibers was carried out directly at the process of their production in the field of centrifugal forces of rotating reactor during their molding from polypropylene melt. The properties of the obtained ion-exchange and biologically active polymer fibers are studied. It is shown that obtained and modified by the centrifugal-die method polypropylene fibers can be used as biologically active fibers.


As network centric operations (NCO) deploy in military missions on the land, sea and in the air, bandwidth demands dictate exploitation of available electromagnetic spectrum. This valuable warfighter resource must deliver timely information across various communication networks in the most efficient and reliable manner. Internet protocol version4/6 (IPv4/6) intends to achieve such bandwidth utilization but the more important question of latency and reliable information delivery stands paramount for swift and decisive actions. This bandwidth utilization comes to the warfighter in terms of available data rates and subsequent to that, information rates. Overall, the paper describes the major aspects desired in a reliable NCO communications system as well as the required element performances. This paper offers typical scenarios for various networked links, their associated data and information rates, expected latencies, and typical link closure distances. Analysis couples realistic example network formations to present a representative foundation for performance prediction, evaluation and measurement. This includes realistic constraints in representative environments producing analytical results suitable for communication system lay-downs. The paper concludes with system observations and a look to future efforts that would benefit the warfighter when completed.


The effect of mechanical stress on the electrical properties of Ag/silica nano‐composite sol–gel films, fabricated using an ultra‐violet (UV) photo‐reduction process, is studied over a large range of Ag volume fractions, φ. The ability to finely tune φ in situ by varying the UV exposure time enables the direct identification of the critical volume fraction, φ* ≈ 13.1%, around which the resistance changes by 6 orders of magnitude and the average piezoresistive gage factor, , peaks at 4330. is orders of magnitude larger than that of bulk silicon and φ* is close to the value expected for percolation in 3 dimensions. It is shown experimentally that this giant piezoresistance is the result of a stress‐induced change in the average Ag cluster size that significantly modifies the sample resistance when φ ∼ φ*. In terms of the potential use of any composite material as a sensitive strain sensor, a sensor figure‐of‐merit (F) that accounts for both and for the measured, expected divergence in resistance fluctuations close to φ* is defined. It is shown that maximum F is achieved in composites slightly to the metallic side of the percolation transition. In the case studied here, the maximum value of F, which is 5–10 times larger than that measured on commercial strain gages under the same conditions, is obtained for φ ≈ 13.4%. The ability to finely tune φ in‐situ therefore suggests that Ag/silica nano‐composites could be the basis for a highly sensitive, low power, strain sensing technology.


of Doctoral Dissertation Degree requested Doctor of Life Science Applicant's name: Hongdi Wang Title of Doctoral Dissertation Transcriptional regulatory divergence underpinning species-specific learned vocalization in songbirds [鳴禽類(ソングバード)の種特異的な歌行動に関わる遺伝子発現制御の研究] Species-specific behaviors are shaped by evolutionary forces to adapt to environment diversity. As an important factor for species co-occurrence, species-specific behavior contributes to a variety of interand intra-specific interactions including communication, sexual selection and predator avoidance. Species-specific behavior exists in most animal taxa, such as alarming gaits behavior between deer species, pair-banding behavior between vole species, and different courtship song behavior between Drosophila species. Figuring out the physiological and molecular difference in the neural systems that induced species-specific behavior between closely related animal species can help to understand how the neural mechanisms regulate behavior. Evolutionary pressures shape organisms to produce species-specific behavior during speciation, which suggests neuronal changes exist among evolutionally closely related species. The nervous system incorporates the changes to generate novel species-specific behavior during speciation. The differences in structure and development of neural circuits among evolutionally-closely related species are the basis for species-specific behavior formation. Such structural and developmental differences can be caused by the genetic difference in closely related species. With development and application in the life science of genomics, finding out the genetic differences which induced species-specific behavior between closely related species is possible to explore the mechanisms of animal behavior on the molecular level. Genomic researches of species-specific behavior have been performed in some animal species. For example, the sin and pulse song, two features of species-specific courtship song of Drosophila simulans and D. mauritiana, were correlated with different genomic locus. In addition, quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping found that species-specific nest digging behaviors of two closely related mice species, Peromyscus polionotus and P. maniculatus, were highly associated with a few genome regions. These two studies narrow down the candidate genomic regions by using backcross hybrid offspring between closely related species. F1 hybrids between closely related species are also useful to select candidate genomic regions related to species-specific behavior. For instance, genes related with parental nest building behavior were figured out by using biased allele expressed genes in F1 hybrid comparing with QTL mapping and species differentially expressed genes. Furthermore, the allelic expression ratio in the F1 hybrid and expression ratio between their parental species can be used to evaluate the transcription regulatory difference between closely related species. These studies suggested that genomic analysis utilizing hybrid offspring is powerful to explore genes/genome alleles which contributed to species-specific behavior formation. The structure and development differences in the neural circuits between species are mainly caused by the expression difference of orthologous genes in conserved neural circuits. Previous research found that different expression levels of orthologous genes between closely related animal species induced species-specific behavior. For instance, the vasopressin 1a receptor (V1aR) gene show different expression levels in the ventral pallidum which induced species difference in pair-bonding behavior between monogamous (Microtus ochrogaster) and polygamous (M. pennsylvanicus) vole species. Further research found that the different length of microsatellites at the upstream of the V1aR changes the gene expression level, in turn, which generates different behavioral traits between the two vole species. These issues suggest that gene transcriptional regulatory difference which induced species different expression patterns of orthologous genes potentially contributes to the generation of species-specific behavior. Gene expression is driven by transcriptional regulatory elements which mainly contain two kinds, cisand transregulatory elements. Transcriptional regulatory divergences of closely related species could induce the expression level difference of orthologous genes in the brain. Orthologous genes in closely related species are inherited from their ancestral species, while cisand/or transelements may change during evolution among species. Such mutations can affect transcription initiation, transcription rate, and transcript stability which induced species-specific expression patterns. Mutations such as single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and insert and deletion (indels) in the cissequence could induce expression level difference of orthologous genes. Transregulatory elements are genes that regulate the expression of distant genes through an intermolecular interaction. The different expression levels or amino acid substitutions of transregulators can drive different expression levels of their downstream genes between closely related species. However, little is known about how transcriptional regulatory divergence contributes to the generation of species-specific behavior, especially for learned behavior, by changing the expression level of orthologous genes. There are more than 4,000 songbird species in the world and they produce species unique songs which play important roles for mating interaction and habitat declarin. Species-specific birdsongs are complex vocal signals acquired through vocal learning, which makes songbird species become an excellent model to explore the mechanism for vocal learning behavior. The species-specific songs as an important characteristic of speciation raised along with the evolution of songbird species. The species-specific songs are developed and produced by conserved neural circuits called the song pathway in the brain of songbirds. The song pathway consists of two major neural circuits: the anterior forebrain pathway (AFP) and the vocal motor pathway. There are two features of birdsong, the sound characteristics of song elements (syllables) featured as "syllable acoustic", and the arrangement of each song syllable order featured as "syllable sequence". The AFP contributes to song learning and vocal plasticity during song development, but it is not crucial for the production of the bird's learned song. Species-specific songs of adult songbirds are produced by the vocal motor circuit of the song pathway. The robust nucleus of arcopallium (RA) and the song nuclei HVC (as a proper name) in the vocal motor circuit control the syllable acoustic and sequence features of birdsong, respectively. Both acoustic and sequence of the birdsong show species-specific differences, which suggests that the structure and physiological activity of RA and HVC are different among songbird species. That further meant these two nuclei could be important for determining species-specific song traits of adult songbirds. However, how the transcriptional regulatory differences of orthologous genes in the vocal motor pathway induce species differential expression which driven species-specific songs among songbird species is still unknown. Against this question, I hypothesized that gene expression difference induced by cisand/or transchanges in HVC and RA among songbird species is one of the potential reasons for the generation of species-specific birdsong. Identification of the transcriptional regulatory divergence which induced gene expression difference in the motor pathway can enhance our understanding of the molecular mechanisms for species-specific vocal learning behavior. Based on the above information, I predicted that orthologous genes with different expression levels are regulated by cisand/or transregulatory divergences among songbird species in HVC and RA. To verify this hypothesis, I used zebra finch (ZF; Taeniopygia guttata), owl finch (OF; T. bichenovii) and their reciprocal first-generation (F1) hybrids to analyse gene expression difference and regulatory divergence. In Chapter I, I examined differences in song phenotypes between ZF and OF. To test whether the song difference between ZF and OF was genetically constrained, I analysed the vocal learning behavior of ZFs and OFs which were tutored by conspecific and cross-specific songs. To identify genes with potential contribution to the generation of species-specific songs, I analysed gene expression differences between ZF and OF in both HVC and RA. In Chapter II, I analyzed the expression ratio between parental species (ZFs and OFs) of all detectable genes and the allelic expression ratio in the F1 hybrids. Depending on these two sets of values, I identified cisand/or transregulatory difference between ZF and OF. To explore the biological function of genes with cisand/or transregulatory divergences, I performed function analysis of genes belongs to all categories of regulatory divergence. In Chapter III, depending on the candidate upstream regulators of trans-regulated different genes in RA, I performed a correlation analysis in F1 hybrids between parameters of acoustic and sequence features and ASE, or expression level of the most significant candidate trans-mediator, BDNF. To test the expression level of BDNF maintaining species-specific songs, I further performed pharmacological over-activation of BDNF receptor and RNA-seq (RNA sequencing) of the song nucleus RA of adult ZFs. Based on the results obtained through a set of experiments, I will discuss the potential contribution of cisand/or transregulatory differences for the generation of species-specific vocal learning behavior among songbird species.