FIELD: information technologies. SUBSTANCE: physical access control (PAC) information is extracted, which is then recorded into recording medium. Then PAC identification is extracted from PAC information. Control of access to recording medium is effected with application of the first control information, which is included into PAC information, when PAC identification is available. As an alternative, control of access to recording medium is effected with application of the second control information, which is included into PAC information, when PAC identification is not available. EFFECT: initialisation and repeated initialisation of recording medium by application of recorded data. 29 cl, 8 dwg


D uring recent years important developments have been made in the field of high-risk or vulnerable plaque. The advances in understanding the mechanisms of acute coronary syndromes have been impressive and have led to the formation of a new terminology for describing high-risk or vulnerable plaque. In addition, new detection modalities and therapeutic proposals for atheromatic plaque stabilisation, or even regression, have been presented. In this article we summarise recent important advances regarding the pathophysiology, the diagnosis and the therapy in this exciting area. The terminology of high-risk atheromatic plaque, often referred to as vulnerable plaque, has been changed since the consensus of the first International Vulnerable Plaque Meeting held in Santorini, Greece, in 2003. During this meeting a first attempt was made by the community of scientists working on atherosclerosis, to adopt a common nomenclature for describing high-risk or vulnerable plaques. The consensus was that a high-risk plaque should be described as thin-cap fibroatheroma (TCFA), based on retrospective pathological studies of plaque rupture with thrombosis. The main components of TCFA were as follows: lipid-rich atheromatous core, thin fibrous cap with macrophage and lymphocyte infiltration, decreased smooth muscle cell content and extensive remodelling of the arterial wall. These characteristics were found Advances in Vulnerable Plaque Detection and Treatment: How Far Have We Gone?


This paper presents the results of an empirical research that explores the extent to which a new management perspective is practiced in nonprofit organizations — failure management (FM). Specifically, it presents the results of an empirical test of a conceptual framework of failure management derived from a review of the strategic management literature. The findings show support for the practice and systematic patterns and benefits from nonprofit management of failure. The paper concludes with limitations and next steps in the research.


The educational alliance is argued to be at the heart of supervision in medical education. This review aims to map the research field and develop a conceptualisation of the nature of such educational alliances within postgraduate supervision for general practitioners.


The effect of the Al2O3 additive on the densification behavior, microstructure and mechanical properties of the B4C–xwt%Al2O3 composites sintered by means of spark plasma sintering (SPS) process were investigated. It was found that addition of Al2O3 improve the sinterability of B4C at temperatures between 1700 and 1800°C remarkably. The composite samples which with an addition of 4 wt% Al2O3 and sintering at 1750°C exhibits excellent mechanical properties (relative density: 98.82%, hardness: 90.6 HRA).


The incremental internet usage triggers the rising of e-commerce, a burgeoning shopping mode. Unlike other papers which focus primarily on the technical construction of a sentiment classification model, this paper combines machine learning techniques with business strategies. It aims to determine how sentiment analysis facilitates businesses' improvement of offerings on e-commerce platforms, increasing customers' buying power. First, the paper defines consumer sentiment analysis, summarizes the methods different scholars used when classifying sentiment on aspect level, and points out how sentiment analysis is valuable to both businesses and customers. Second, the paper describes an e-commerce notebook, which covers how sentiment analysis can be carried out using data from Olist online retailing store in Brazil. Naïve Bayes and Logistic Regression are utilized when implementing sentiment classification. Finally, according to the word cloud for positive and negative words in reviews, the paper gives some coming-up suggestions for tackling with the most frequently appeared complaint - the delivery time. Businesses can decompose the supply chain into six sub-systems, and adopt computer vision and GIS system in the packaging management system and delivery management system respectively to squeeze the delivery time.


Adult Ureteroceles are uncommon, majority of which are asymptomatic and commonly found incidentally. Surgical deroofing is indicated in patients with bothersome symptoms or complications secondary to ureteroceles. Several deroofing techniques has been described in the literature including nephroscopic scissors, collin's knife, and use of lasers in the last two decades became popular.  Herein we report a case and demonstare our technique of using Holmium laser to treat an adult with symptomatic obstructive unilateral ureterocele.


This paper develops a class of equilibrium-independent predictions of competitive equilibrium with indivisibilities. Specifically, we prove an analogue of the "Lone Wolf Theorem" of classical matching theory for the Baldwin and Klemperer (Econometrica 87(3):867–932, 2019) model of exchange economies with transferable utility, showing that any agent who does not participate in trade in some competitive equilibrium must receive her autarky payoff in every competitive equilibrium. Our results extend to approximate equilibria and to settings in which utility is only approximately transferable.


The study evaluated nutritional and organoleptic properties of Clarias gariepinus pre-treated with aqueous leave extracts of Ocimum gratissimum and Vernonia amygdalina before processing. Thirty-six (36) C. gariepinus (live weight = 1.2± 0.2kg) samples were procured and processed for the study. Fish samples were divided into three parts of twelve fish each. Each part was grouped into three treatments having four fish in each group using a completely randomized design. Treatment one (T1) had fish immersed in 5% brine without herbal extract (control). In Treatment two (T2), fish were soaked in mixture of 5% brine and 5% O. gratissium (scent leaf) extracts while Treatment three (T3) had fish soaked in mixture of 5% brine and 5% V. amygdalina (bitter leaf) extracts all for 30 minutes. Treated fish samples were smoke-dried using charcoal kiln for 5 hours at temperature of 80 – 90° C. Samples were then cooled under ambient condition (30+3oC) for 4 hours. The smoke-dried fish samples were labeled according to treatments and stored for 7 days under aseptic condition. Organoleptic properties of the samples were conducted at every 24-hour of storage using a 9-point hedonic scale. Mean values of proximate composition of samples were significantly different (p<0.05). Protein content (70.01%) in T3 was higher than 68.31% and 66.62% in T2 and T1 respectively. Similarly, fat (5.12%) and ash (4.68%) levels for T3 were higher than 4.85% and 4.46% fat with 4.36% and 3.98% ash contents for T2 and T1 respectively. Results of mean scores for each organoleptic property decreased significantly (p<0.05) during storage period with no consistent trend in score pattern.
Keywords: Clarias gariepinus, extract pretreatment, Ocimum gratissimum, organoleptic, Vernonia amygdalina.


: Free jet nozzle with variable area and variable attitude, for their ability to maximize test cell capacity, reduce costs and adjust quickly, etc., had become the new trend of ground wind tunnel test research. To resolve the contradiction between the airflow capacity requirements that to meet the different propulsion systems ground test required in the wide angle of attack range and the physical space requirements of test chamber, moreover, it had the ability to simulate true altitude, Mach number and attitude, an attitude simulation jet nozzle based on asymmetry robotic manipulator was proposed. According to the test chamber structure and modern aircraft flight envelope, the free jet nozzle design specifications and initial flow field layout were identified. A 2-RRR robotic manipulator mechanism mathematical model was built, and the computation via Deanvit-Hartenberg (D-H)method and solving research of mechanism was carried out. Finally, through the simulation, the jet nozzle functional fulfillment was analyzed, and the design scheme feasibility was validated for the jet nozzle investigate and development established foundation.


Knowledge graph reasoning is the fundamental component to support machine learning applications such as information extraction, information retrieval and recommendation. Since knowledge graph can be viewed as the discrete symbolic representations of knowledge, reasoning on knowledge graphs can naturally leverage the symbolic techniques. However, symbolic reasoning is intolerant of the ambiguous and noisy data. On the contrary, the recent advances of deep learning promote neural reasoning on knowledge graphs, which is robust to the ambiguous and noisy data, but lacks interpretability compared to symbolic reasoning. Considering the advantages and disadvantages of both methodologies, recent efforts have been made on combining the two reasoning methods. In this survey, we take a thorough look at the development of the symbolic reasoning, neural reasoning and the neural-symbolic reasoning on knowledge graphs. We survey two specific reasoning tasks, knowledge graph completion and question answering on knowledge graphs, and explain them in a unified reasoning framework. We also briefly discuss the future directions for knowledge graph reasoning.


Studies on the influence of storm winds of 1995 on the cross sectional area increments of birch, spruce and fir trees of different cenotic position have been conducted. The long-grown, high-grass-ferny birch grove in the Visimsky forest reservation of Sverdlovsk region was studied. It is found that increments reduction was most often observed with single spruce trees of the 1st story, the year following the trees' storm exposure. This was conditioned by the fact that trees having been shaken heavily by the storm wind were weakened. Significant increment reduction in birch trees was observed in the year of storm winds on the background of positive tendencies development after the hurricane. The increments increase in spruce and fir trees of the 2nd floor has been determined by their positive age trend since 1991.


Depth profiling of RuO{sub 2}/TiO{sub 2} mixed oxide coatings supported on titanium foil, was performed by means of Rutherford backscattering spectrometry and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Results of the two techniques indicate the occurrence of surface segregation of the valve-metal oxide and a general enrichment with it across the first 100-150 nm. The segregation phenomenon takes place for all of the coating compositions investigated. However, it seems less pronounced for Ru contents higher than 60/ac. The nature of the ruthenium salt used in the coating preparation seems to affect the extent of the surface enrichment.


Through the use of regime-switching models, recent empirical research has essentially shown that the dynamics of stock returns depend on the state of one stock market. The present paper extends this analytical framework by allowing the dynamics of returns to depend on the joint-states of two different stock markets. Such an extension is natural given the globalisation of financial markets and the rapid transmission of news from one international stock market to another. In an application involving the S&P500, the FTSE100 and the NIKKEI225 over the period January 1984 - October 2003, UK stock returns are found to depend on the joint-states of the US and UK stock markets three months back. Moreover the contemporaneous dependence of UK stock returns on US stock returns increases with a rising US market and a falling UK market but decreases with a falling US market and a rising UK market. This is consistent with a `rapport de force" effect whereby the relative strengths of the US and UK stock markets matter in determining the degree of contemporaneous dependence of the UK stock market on the US stock market.


Th e authors carried out a retrospective study based on the clinical processes of 21 children followed for laryngomalacia in the Service of ORL, CHVNG/E - EPE, between January of 2003 and January of 2009. The objective was to define the population, characterize the disease, and value the setup treatment and the infiuence of the presence of co-morbidities. The characteristics of the disease were similar to that described in the literature. lt was registered a high incidence of gastro esophageal refiux. Anti-refiux treatment was prescribed in 62 % of the cases with clinical improvement and surgery (supraglottoplasty with laser CO2} was performed in 29% without registered complications. lt was conclude that the children followed in the Service do not refiect the incidence of this pathology in this geographical area. lt is advised to consider nasofibrolaryngoscopy as the technique of choice in the diagnosis of the laryngomalacia.


An abstract for each study will appear in the Abstract Section of the Journal. When available, the original journal abstract will be used, otherwise, an abstract will be written by the reviewers. Research Outcome Citation This citation will appear under one of the three Primary Research Questions. A single study can generate more than one outcome, and each outcome will be handled individually and will be presented under the appropriate research question heading. The Research Outcome Citation will begin with a topic heading (e.g., Exercise, Smoking Cessation, Cholesterol, etc.) for easy access to specific research topic area. The Research Outcome Citation will include the following components: 1. A concise statement of the outcome. 2. The research rating, using five star system. 3. A statement of research significance, as necessary. 4. The sample size of the experimental and control groups (ne= , nc= ). 5. The duration of the study (t = ). 6. The measurement tool employed for this outcome (mt=). 7. The source citation number (s = ). The research rating system, the significance, the measurement ools, and the source citation are described in detail below. The Database entries will be cumulative from issue to issue, with the current entries appearing in bold print. Accordingly, each source citation will be added in numerical order, and the entire source listing will be printed each issue. Research Rating System The research design of each study will be rated using a modified version of the criteria developed by a Canadian Health Task Force, and subsequently adopted by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to rate the quality of evidence in a breast cancer screening program. The rating system is based on the quality of scientific evidence presented in the study. There are five catagories of quality ranging from the best, most systematic evidence (five stars *****) to the least systematic (one star *) -see key below. Health promotion studies will initially be screened and chosen on the basis of their significance in the field. Therefore, some studies may have a lower research rating than would optimally be desirable, but covered in-depth because pragmatically, they are significant studies. Evidence that has been obtained from a properly conducted study with a randomized control group. Evidence that has been obtained from a properly conducted study with a control group but without randomization. Evidence that has been obtained without a control group or randomization but that includes an evaluation. Evidence that has been obtained without intervention but that might include long-term or dramatic results from general dissemination of information or a medical agent into a population'. Evidence that is descriptive, anecdotal, or authoritative. Research Significance The purpose of this component is to provide the reader with insight into the significance of the study as a contribution to the health promotion literature and/or for the practice of health promotion. Examples of typical significance issues are: To what extent are theoretical propositions supported. To what extent are the findings generalizable to other populations. To what extent are the protocols or methodology applicable to other research areas in health" promotion. In what way was the program or study design innovative. How practical is the program in terms of costs, time,


It seems that recently there has been a shortage of good quality martial art movies that focus on old China. To be honest, I haven't seen too many recent movies in China and so I'm probably not the best person to ask about Chi- nese cinema. I think the last Chinese movie I saw was The Promise directed by Chen


The author considers the consequences of Q-reducibility of a point group for the structure of a corresponding space group. First he shows that the space group is a subgroup of a direct product of two Euclidean groups of lower dimensions. He introduces the so-called separation diagram from which follows that (i) the space group is a subdirect product of space groups of lower dimensions, (ii) its point group is a subdirect product of point groups of lower-dimensional groups, (iii) the space group has two complementary normal translation subgroups of lower dimensions and the corresponding factor groups are complementary subperiodic groups. The latter conclusion enables us to classify space groups into finer classes than the point classes. The most important fact is that the space groups in higher dimensions can be constructed from Q-irreducible groups of lower dimensions unless they are themselves Q-irreducible.


Abstract : The paper describes a program of research in the application of scalogram analysis to the validation of learning hierarchies, together with the development of an alternative method for assessing hierarchical relationships among tests of instructional objectives. The relationship between scalability of tests and positive transfer between objectives in the course of learning is discussed and experimental transfer studies testing hierarchical hypotheses are described. Related research by developmental and learning psychologists and by test designers is discussed along with the authors' own research. (Author)


Calibrating the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) time–frequency transfer system is crucial for accurate GNSS time–frequency transfer. The most commonly used relative calibration method relies on the common-clock to eliminate clock differences. However, it cannot eliminate the changes in clock signal reference point delay (REFDLY). The changes in REFDLY during calibration could not be ignored, especially for ordinary users in an unstable environment. To address this issue, we use the GNSS real-time single-difference time synchronization calibration based on clock-steering, which can detect the change in REFDLY. According to this method, the clock differences and REFDLY are eliminated simultaneously. We installed two GNSS antennas on the roof of the Xinghu Building of Wuhan University and designed a clock synchronization terminal to evaluate the performance of this method. The data were collected on Day of Year 152–156, 167–171, 222–226, 231–235, 244, 258, 260, and 262 in 2022. In accordance with the calibration results, the standard deviation better than 100 ps, and the stability reaches 10−15@10000s . Also, the time variance better than 60 ps, and the uncertainty uCAL better than 0.5 ns. Compared to the common-clock calibration, one of the most significant benefits is the elimination of REFDLY, which leads to decreased uncertainty and better stability over both the short-term and long-term.


Standard inversion techniques, such as least-squares Gaussian methods, tend to smooth the resulting images compared to the actual geological media. Here we report a novel use of the null space, defined by singular value decomposition (SVD), for resolving share discontinuities in the anisotropic vetocity field, and for allowing more realistic vetocity models. Since any linear combination of the null space model eigenvectors will have no effect on the modelled traveltimes, we search over the magnitudes of these eigenvectors for an optimum solution. By restricting our search to the null space, we achieve a more efficient optimization route than searching the full model spare.


This research endeavored to provide basic data for the use of the honey plant as a resource by investigating the characteristics of the ecological structure of the Hovenia dulcis var. koreana Nakai population through an analysis of its vegetation structures, such as the conditions of its location, its vegetation density, distribution, and diversity of species, and by comparing it with other species of trees that thrive along with it. Towards this end, 25 plots were selected, the vegetation types were divided according to plant sociology, and their ecological traits were grasped. As a result, the community of H. dulcis var. koreana Nakai was divided into the Quercus mongolica and the Sambucus sieboldiana var. pendula groups, and the former was divided again into the Platycarya strobilacea and the Fraxinus rhynchophylla subgroups. The forest vegetation of H. dulcis var. koreana Nakai was thus classified into one community, two groups, and two subgroups appearing as three units of vegetation in all. The results of the analysis that was conducted show that the importance value of this species is high in the tree, shrub, and herb layers of all the forested parts of the 25 regions that were investigated in this study, whereas the index of species diversity, which was mostly around 2.05 for other regions, was shown to be the lowest (0.52) for Jangsung. The species diversity index by vegetation unit was shown to be high (over 2.53) for the regions of Mt. Odae, Gapyeong, Mt. Wolak, and Goesan, which is considered due to the characteristics of mountainside regions as stable communities among the places that were investigated in this study.


aking into account the necessity of taking into account the peculiarities of the thermoregulation behavior of the investigated biological objects (Kaufman, 1995; Scheiner 2015; Zolotarev, 2002; Szopek, 2013), the search for an optimal methodological approach to the determination of temperature preferences of the model species was made. The thermal preferences of the five species of Pholcidae were studied using a device manufactured in cooperation with the faculty of the Department of Radio Engineering and Information Security, the Institute of Physical and Technical and Computer Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences (Patent 122808UA, IPC (2017.01) G01N25 / 00).It has been proved that the sexual-age characteristics may affect the thermopreference descriptions of the Pholcus genus. This should be taken into account when developing methodological approaches to the use of Pholcus for biotesting or biomonitoring purposes.It is established that the method of direct averaging is not only easier to calculate compared to the method of stepwise averaging, but also more sensitive in determining the thermal preferences of spiders in conditions of artificially created temperature gradient. The thermal preferences of the species Pholcus phalangioides of Chernivtsi were determined using a substantiated methodological approach.


Accurate detection of vehicle position plays an important role in many intelligent transportation systems, especially vehicle-to-vehicle applications. In this paper, we propose an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) based method to detect Global Positioning System (GPS) errors for such vehicle-based applications. A machine learning methodology is presented for Kalman filter parameter tuning with application to GPS error correction in vehicle positioning. We also present a model free neural network that is trained on past vehicle GPS trajectories to predict the current vehicle position. Experimental results on real-world data show that the proposed system is effective for detecting and reducing GPS errors. The machine learning algorithm for EKF parameter tuning can be implemented through in-vehicle learning, and the proposed GPS error detection method can be implemented for in-vehicle applications.


Through analysis of the theory in "coffino Musculature"chapter,combined with modern research in the musculature to summarize musculatur theory in the acupuncture clinical practice.


For the purposes of this discussion, globalization may be defined as a form of imperialism in which consumption and consumer values are extended, imposed upon the oppressed to fully assure identification with metropolitan values and to create the world in its own economic and cultural image. From the beginnings of European colonialism in the eighteenth century up to the decolonization movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the metropolis created a colonial elite for the commandeering of labor, minerals, foodstuffs from underdeveloped nations and regions. This elite, in turn, necessarily developed and scorned a "wretched of the earth." Thus excluded, this group could become fully dedicated to resistance with a minimum of equivocation. But the theme under globalization is "become the 'blessed of the earth': buy McDonald's, buy Nike, watch Oprah, use AT&T and go to Disneyland." Globalization's potential for a great coordination of human and material resources is frustrated by its imperialist dynamic, which employs fragmentation and reductionism as strategies. With respect to media, globalization has transformed the traditional role of media as a reflective force. Now media has become a generative force, an engine of the economic and political ruling class. Once the province of patriarchal capitalists and their families, the Hearsts, McClatchys, Pulitzers, and others, it has become part of huge corporate conglomerates such as General Electric, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation Ltd., AOL Time Warner, CBS Corporation. Its business now is creating both popular culture and elite culture as commodities and molding political opinion, as Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky have pointed out in their book, Manufacturing Consent (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988). The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) voted last December (2007) to allow companies that own television stations in the country's twenty largest markets also to own newspapers. This overturned a thirty-two-year-ban on such multimedia ownership with three Republicans in favor and two Democrats vehemently opposed.


We present a method for finding the overlays of a set of polygons that uses the doubly-connected edge list structure. We first detect all intersections between polygons using a brute-force method. We then build the doubly-connected edge list, maintaining information about the original polygons, from which we can easily perform shapefile overlay operations: intersection, difference, and union. Our algorithm runs inO(n) time. Our doubly-connected edge list construction algorithm runs in O(n log(n)) time, with the bottleneck being the brute-force O(n) line segment intersection. Once that list is built, any given overlay operation isO(n).


An ion-associate phase (IAP) microextraction/ back-microextraction system was applied for the enrichment, separation, and detection of trace amounts of nickel from environmental water samples. Thenoyltrifluoroacetone (HTTA) acted not only as a chelating reagent for nickel, but also as a component of the extraction phase, i.e., IAP. Nickel in a 40 mL sample solution was pH-adjusted with phenolsulfonate (PS−) and tetramethylammonium hydroxide and converted by chelation reaction in the presence of thenoyltrifluoroacetonate (TTA−). When benzyldodecyldimethylammonium ion (C12BzDMA+) was added, a suspension of IAP formed in the solution. The IAP consisted of TTA−, a chelating reagent, the PS−, a component of pH buffer, and C12BzDMA+, which helps extract the chelating complex. When the solution was centrifuged, the IAP separated from the suspension and the nickel-TTA chelate was extracted into the bottom phase of the centrifuge tube. After the aqueous phase was taken away, 100 µL of nitric acid (2 M) solution containing phosphate was used to back-microextract nickel from the IAP. The acid phase was measured via graphite-furnace atomic-absorption spectrometry (GF-AAS). The proposed method facilitated a 400-fold enrichment. The limit of detection was 0.02 µg L−1. The proposed method was applied for the determination of nickel in river water and seawater samples.


A peripheral crack in a steel rounded pipe beneath periodic bending loading is studied in this paper. The analysis of the fatigue crack growth is done in accordance with Paris law. The growth of fatigue crack is also analyzed with various initial crack "α" beneath periodic loading. The weight of the Paris exponent on fatigue crack propagation is presented as well. Furthermore, the "fatigue crack growth" progression of several specimens is evaluated experimentally by an invented setup. Conclusively, the experimentally achieved results are compared with the numerical results. This comparison demonstrates good compliance with the theoretical results.


gence gathering. Technology has also had an influence on the missions performed by the P-3, adding digital imaging sensors, precision GPS navigation, satellite communications and the power of modern computer processors. Gone are the stand-alone operator/sensor stations. Now the keys to future operations are multi-functional workstations, data fusion and the ability to operate with With the beginning of the new millennium, most pause to take stock and evaluate the potential for the future. But it is also a period that provides us an opportunity to look back to see how we got to where we are now, and from this, perhaps, learn from the past. This is the case with the P-3 Orion. It was forty years ago that the YP3V-1 prototype Orion aircraft made its maiden flight. Development of this prototype and the P-3 in the intervening years is now having a profound effect on the aircraft's future. Factors affecting the Orion's original service life and those impacting on the future extension of its service life, have been related to the aircraft's manufacturing, and have prompted recent studies and programs to evaluate, sustain and extend the P-3's operational use far into 21st Century. The other effects driving the potential operation of the P-3 in the future are related to geo-political influences associated with changes within the last decade. The end of the Cold War with the former Soviet Union, the Gulf War with Iraq and the instability in the Balkans have combined to shape the future of the P-3 and missions it performs. Gone are the "blue water" ASW missions hunting for quiet nuclear submarines. Today, multi-mission capabilities are paramount, including maritime and littoral surveillance, over-land reconnaissance and real-time intelli(Lockheed via P-3 Publications)


In this article, the potential of Satellite Remote Sensing (SRS) for large-scale monitoring of archaeological sites is analysed. This analysis focuses on the Portuguese Lower Alentejo region, where multiple sites have been destroyed over the last years, mainly due to intensive agriculture. The development of a surveillance system based on data from the Sentinel 1 and Sentinel 2 satellite constellations, named SENSEOS, had its pilot application in this region during the first half of 2019. In a vast region where authorities lacked the proper resources to timely detect events endangering the integrity of heritage sites, this system tried to overcome these issues. By using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and optical data, it was possible to detect such events through a technique labelled Normalized Difference Amplitude Index (NDAI). The identification of these changes on the surface, associated with potentially destructive events, contributed to minimize the damage and destruction of archaeological sites..


The Internet of Things is a wide-ranging concept that applies not only to objects but also in our everyday life. Home networks utilizing smart devices, automobile technology, and treatment at medical institutions are typical examples of implementations of the Internet of Things in everyday life. However, there are issues about fragile security that stand in stark contrast to the rapid popularization of the Internet of Things. There was a case of a hacked chip in a user device that spread malignant code and spam mail followed by a data leak. Besides, Internet of Things devices like the ones used as domestic smart home devices are found to be more prone to be the target of distributed denial of service attacks. Therefore, in this paper, we present a plan for the registration of a device, the formation of a session key, and user authentication to ensure secure communication. Additionally, we present a plan for a message communication protocol. The communication scheme proposed here is also analyzed for data stability and encryption efficiency.


The present invention discloses a terminal access method, network device and communication system, which relates to the field of communication. The present invention solves the problem of that a plurality of terminals with the same identifier can not be accessed in a network at the same time. The terminal access method include that: when a accessed terminal with the same public identifier as a terminal to be accessed exists in a network, a control network element obtains a public identifier of the terminal to be accessed as information shared with a plurality of terminals (101); the control network element accesses the terminal to be accessed into the network according to the public identifier of the terminal to be accessed as the information shared with a plurality of terminals, and keeps providing services for the accessed terminal (102). The embodiments of the present invention can be applied in the communication system such as GERAN, UTRAN or E-UTRAN and so on, thus realizing M2M application and so on.


In 1939 W. E. Chamberlain (1) called attention to the syndrome of basilar impression, which had been described in the European literature (2–4) years before. The syndrome includes symptoms mimicking syringomyelia, progressive spastic paralysis, or multiple sclerosis in the region of the upper cervical cord and medulla, and a shortening of the neck. The roentgenogram shows deformities of the foramen magnum and anomalies of the base of the skull, the atlas, and axis, sometimes including fusion of the bodies of some of the upper cervical vertebrae, and often fusion of the anterior arch of the atlas to the occipital bone. Since 1939 enough additional cases have been reported to indicate that the condition is not excessively rare. The symptoms can often be relieved by surgery. It becomes a matter of some importance, therefore, to set up proper diagnostic criteria. Chamberlain points out that the final diagnosis must usually be made by the radiologist on the basis of changes in the relations at the base of the ...


Optical measurement techniques such as laser scanning, structured light scanning and photogrammetry can be used for accurate shape control for aluminum extrusion and downstream processes. The paper presents the fundamentals of optical shape measurement. Furthermore, it focuses on how full‐field in‐ and off‐line shape measurement during pure‐bending of aluminum extrusions has been performed with stripe projection (structured light) using white light. Full field shape measurement is difficult to implement industrially, but is very useful as a laboratory tool. For example, it has been clearly shown how moderate internal air pressure (less than 5 bars) can significantly reduce undesirable cross‐sectional shape distortions during pure bending, and how buckling of the compressive flange occurs at an early stage. Finally, a stretch‐bending set‐up with adaptive shape control using internal gas pressure and optical techniques is presented.


In this paper a range of methods for measuring the phonetic distance between dialectal variants are described. It concerns variants of the frequency method, the frequency per word method and Levenshtein distance, both simple (based on atomic characters) and complex (based on feature bundles). The measurements between feature bundles used Manhattan distance, Euclidean distance or (a measure using) Pearson's correlation coefficient. Variants of these using feature weighting by entropy reduction were systematically compared, as was the representation of diphthongs (as one symbol or two). The dialects were compared with each other directly and indirectly via a standard dialect. The results of comparison were classified by clustering and by training of a Kohonen map. The results were compared to wellestablished scholarship in dialectology, yielding a calibration of the methods. These results indicate that the frequency per word method and the Levenshtein distance outperform the frequency method, that feature representations are more sensitive, that Manhattan distance and Euclidean distance are good measures of phonetic overlap of feature bundles, that weighting is not useful, that two-phone representations of diphthongs mostly outperform one-phone representations, and that dialects should be directly compared to each other. The results of clustering give the sharper classification, but the Kohonen map is a nice supplement.


The first part of this paper addresses the question whether the new terminology that came into use after the Salamanca Statement meant only a linguistic shift or a new educational policy agenda. The answer given in the paper is that the shift to inclusion served a double purpose: Unesco's actions in the field in the early 1990s implied a policy vision for a global context and needed a new term to avoid giving the wrong signals to significant actors on a wider international arena. In the west, the two notions are frequently mixed, mostly considered as overlapping and without due recognition of the different cores of the two terms after Salamanca, that is a shift of policy focus, from special education to responding to the diversity within a common school for all students. This focused interpretation of inclusion, not to be mixed with integration, it is argued in the paper, is described and illustrated by reference to some recent innovations in the UK. As an instrument for moving practice towards more inclusive schools, the English Index for Inclusion has also obtained a certain international attention. However, tensions concerning reform priorities, that is whether focusing strategies and innovations on special education or on diversity in the common school, continuously seem to exist in the western societies. In the second part of the paper, the question whether inclusion has had any noticeable effect on the school systems in the western societies is therefore raised and examined in relation to two sets of statistical data reported for 14 European countries (obtained about 1990 and 1996). The analyses and discussions of the data have been inspired by the socio-historical perspective and related concepts (inclusiveness, segmentation, vertical vs horizontal divides) used by Fritz Ringer and colleagues in analysing the rise of the modern educational system in Europe.


AbstractThis study examines precipitation and convective characteristics of summer deep convection for five distinct regions (plateau, foothill, lowland, south China, and ocean) in East Asia using 13 yr of Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM)-based precipitation features. Every region has its own unique features in terms of elevation, rainfall amount, and dynamic/thermodynamic environments. Results show that large, deep convective systems contribute the majority of precipitation totals over all regions except the plateau. Mixed-phase precipitation processes are more important in the south China and the lowland regions than in the foothill and ocean regions. The plateau region also shows substantial dependence upon mixed-phase processes, though the mixed-phase region has a smaller depth than the other regions. Most metrics indicate that the south China region has the most intense storms, followed by the lowland, plateau, foothill, and ocean regions. However, ice scattering signatures do show that the...


This preliminarily study aims at increasing our understanding of an assemblage of coastal batoids on the northern coast of Peru by determining species composition, body size structure and its behaviour in Los Órganos bay, Piura. During 20 field trips in Los Organos Bay, Piura region, between the years 2016, 2017, and 2019, eighty-six individuals were sampled belonging to eight species: Zapteryx xyster (n= 22), Narcine entemedor (n= 11), Urobatis tumbesensis (n= 7), Urotrygon chilensis (n= 40), Pseudobatos planiceps (n= 1), Urobatis halleri (n= 1), Gymnura crebripunctata (n= 2), Aetobatus laticeps (n= 2). In the study area, a predominance of adult females was observed for Z. xyster, N. entemedor and U. chilensis. These preliminary results suggest that during the morning some batoid species (i.e., Z. xyster, N. entemedor, U. chilensis) use the coastal zone to rest since they are found inactive and partially or totally buried in the sand – N. entemedor could be also hunting through ambush. Future studies should determine if this is a gestation area for some of these batoid species.


Background: Although neighborhood-level socioeconomic deprivation has been associated with obesity, its relationship with diabetes, a cardio-metabolic risk factor and determinant of cardiovascular health, is poorly understood. Methods and Results: We examined the relationship between neighborhood-level socioeconomic deprivation and prevalent diabetes in the Dallas Heart Study (DHS), a multi-ethnic, population-based sample of Dallas County residents aged 18-65 (N=1621). Participants underwent detailed examination between 2000-2002. Geo-coded home addresses defined neighborhood block groups; a neighborhood-level deprivation index (NDI) for Dallas County was created using factor analysis based on 21 Census block-group characteristics (higher scores=greater neighborhood-level deprivation). Diabetes was defined by self-report, use of anti-hyperglycemic medication, or fasting glucose≥126 mg/dl. Logistic regression modeling was used to determine odds of prevalent diabetes for those in highest vs. lowest NDI tert...


In one embodiment, a fault control circuit of a switching power supply controller is configured to disable an operating voltage of the switching power supply controller responsively to a fault condition and to subsequently decouple the fault control circuit from another operating voltage.


The authors have considered the specifics of financial and economic analysis of the motor transport enterprises' activity. The functional and value type can be considered as the most full and objective type of financial and economic analysis of motor transport activity. As researches show, at conducting financial and economic analysis using the theory of marginal utility, it is able to consider not only financial, but also social and economic results of the motor transport activities.


Background: The thermotolerant species of Campylobacter, mainly C. jejuni and C. coli, are as important agents of human gastroenteritis worldwide, being a serious public health problem. They are widely distributed in the environment and the animal kingdom having as reservoirs a wide variety of animals, including dogs, which in turn can act as a source of infection for humans. The Campylobacter isolation rates found in dogs are heterogeneous with few available data in Latin American countries. However Campylobacter diarrhea in humans is a self-limited clinical process being antimicrobial treatment not always necessary, it is necessary to know their antimicrobial susceptibility/resistance pro- fi les in clinical and reservoirs isolates, especially in C. jejuni and C. coli strains isolated from animals close to man as dogs are. The aims of this work were to determine the isolation frequency of C. jejuni and C. coli and their biotypes in healthy dogs and the susceptibility/resistance profiles of the isolated strains to six antimicrobial drugs. Materials, Methods & Results: Fecal samples from 141 healthy dogs were obtained, seeded into the TEC transport medium. In the laboratory, each sample was plated out on modified Skirrow medium and incubated at 42°C for 48 h under microaerobic conditions. The isolated strains were identified to species and biotype levels through their phenotypic characteristics using the API Campy® procedure (bioMerieux, Marcy/Etoile, France) and the method described by Lior, respectively. The antimicrobial susceptibility patterns to ampicillin, ciprofloxacin, chloramphenicol, erythromycin, gentamicin and tetracycline were determined by means of the E-test method, considering as the minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) the lowest antibiotic concentrations yielding no growth. Ampicillin resistant strains were tested for β-lactamase production with the chromogenic cephalosporin test and the disc diffusion susceptibility test for ampicillin-sulbactam. The recovery rate of Campylobacter was 31.2% (C. jejuni 22.7%, C. coli 8.5%). Three of the four biotypes described for C. jejuni and the two described for C. coli were found being C. jejuni biotype I the most frequent one (53.1%). None of the strains showed resistance to chloramphenicol, erythromycin, gentamicin and tetracycline. Resistant strains were found for ciprofloxacin (6 strains, 13.9%) and ampicillin (4 strains, 9.1%). All the ampicillin resistant strains were found to be s-lactamase producers. Discussion: The Campylobacter isolation rate (31.2%) found is not negligible. It may provide an epidemiological insight about the risk of zoonotic infection for individuals maintaining contact with dogs, especially for children. Direct contact with pets is a risk factor for acquiring campylobacteriosis, which was also observed in Latin-American countries. Ampicillin resistance is related to s-lactamase production and was reported in different countries, including Chile. Campylobacter resistance to quinolones has been increasingly reported in strains of human and animal origin, especially from animals related to husbandry. The ciprofloxacin resistant strains found in this study probably could be a reflection of their spread to human pets. Because dogs have been identified as a potential source of human Campylobacter infections, exposure to animals carrying fluoroquinolone-resistant microorganisms could be a risk factor for acquiring this kind of strains.


The paper presents the results of the inventory of databases for the registration of data on the ecological sites. The area of research concerns the administrative borders of Krakow. The research materials ware obtained on the basis of analyzes of existing databases recording ecological sites, which constitute the basis of a district database Register of Land and Buildings (EGiB) and database District Water Management Board (Regional Board) in Krakow city, responsible for the Water Cadastre. The compatibility of the achieved data were compared with the data of the Municipal Information System (MSIP), and the Regional Directorate for Environmental Protection (RDOŚ), and then a descriptive specification for all (registered till April 2016), 12 of ecological sites was performed. In the first stage the analysis of the detailed data in the databases of the ecological water cadaster and EGiB was performed, then in other databases of descriptive and spatial available for the research area. In the research part of the paper the authors carried out the inventory of the selected object in the studies area and the documentation descriptive and graphical natural curiosities was created. The main aim of this study was to draw attention to natural and tourism potential, which is for the big city in an ecological site and obtaining the data to develop the concept of an interactive thematic map natural curiosities, using integrated techniques of surveying GPS and GIS. Such a map will be the next stage of research and is not the subject of this paper.


A strong RF focusing experiment to be performed at the DAΦNE Φ-factory has been proposed to create and observe a bunch length modulation along the ring. The very large RF gradient required to reach the strong focusing regime can only be obtained by using a multi cell superconducting cavity. Moreover, in order to demonstrate the feasibility of a high luminosity collider based on this principle, a total multibunch current of the order of 1A has to be stored under stable conditions in this regime. A 1.3 GHz 7-cells cavity has been designed for this purpose, based on the TESLA geometry with small modifications of the basic cell to comply with the DAΦNE revolution frequency. The number of cells has been changed from 9 to 7 to reduce the number of the cavity HOMs, while the beam tubes have been enlarged to let most of the HOMs propagate and be damped by room-temperature ferrite rings. The modes of the first longitudinal band, which include the accelerating TM010-π, do not propagate in the beam tubes and have been studied with special care to prevent the overlap with the bunch revolution harmonics and to cure the effects of coupling to the synchrotron tune sidebands.


This paper explores the link between monetary policies of large industrial countries and international credit cycles. Based on an overinvestment framework, we show that in the prevailing asymmetric world monetary system, monetary policies of large centre countries can fuel credit booms in emerging markets. We argue that the absorption of inflationary pressure by emerging markets during boom periods as well as the fear of feedback effects of crises in emerging markets encourage delayed monetary tightening in centre countries. The paper helps explain asymmetric monetary policy patterns in centre countries and why the current global low interest rate environment is likely to prevail.


One of the most important factors in a teenager's life is career exploration. Career is a choice of work that is a goal for an individual or can be interpreted as the development of a person's life journey. Career planning that is mature will be greatly influenced by the results of career exploration carried out by adolescents. Because in career exploration, teenagers carry out career tracking activities in a planned and systematic way towards what they are interested in and what suits their talents. Career exploration in the perspective of Holland's theory is how individual and environmental characteristics lead to career choices. There are six types of environment according to Holland's theory, namely Realistic, Investigative, Aristic, Social, Active and Conventional. This article uses a literature review research method. Literature review is a library research that is obtained through searching various books, journals and other publications that can support the research topic.


The paper reports empirical evidence of diverse organizational factors determining the implementation of Just-in-Time (JIT) purchasing practices. A theoretical framework distinguishing basically between operational practices, inherent in JIT environments, and complementary practices, characteristic of partnership sourcing arrangements, is proposed and used to test the relevance of a number of variables related to the interacting organizations over a sample of 152 Spanish auto components manufacturers. This approach, whose internal consistency is supported by the data analysis, reveals distinctive effects of the variables on each group of practices and helps towards the understanding of the dynamics of JIT purchasing. It also points out that the implementation of this purchasing strategy is associated to specific organizational features and requires certain attributes from suppliers.


Water is most essential and necessary climatic factors that determine the growth and development of crops and ultimately the yield. Crops need huge amount of water through out there crop period in different time. Crop needs water for the different functions like photosynthesis, absorption, respiration, translocation, nutrient uptake, cell division, etc. farmers have different sources of water to fulfill the water requirement of crop like, Borewell, canal, well, tank, rivers, rain, farm ponds, etc. Each source has its own limitation and period of availability due climatic factors. According to FAO (2011), irrigation typically doubles farm yields and the number of crops grown in one year is increased from one to two. In India out of 159.6 million hectare of total cropped area only 58.13 million hectare is irrigated i.e. 36.42 per cent and remaining 63.58 per cent International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 9 Number 11 (2020) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com


Wehaveperformedasetofnonlinearpulsatingmod- els for post-AGB stars and have reconstructed the spectral lines for two chemical elements (BaII, CI). The present analysis is devoted to the interpretation of recent spectroscopic observa- tions of the pulsating post-AGB star SAO96709. We conrm our earlier result (Jeannin et al. 1996) that the dominant pul- sation mode is the rst overtone and nd an increase of the second overtone in the Fourier spectrum with decreasing mass and metallicity Z. The Doppler velocities deduced from the the- oretical line proles vary from 10 to 15 km.s 1 and are in a good agreement with observations. In order to reproduce the observed line broadening, a very large microturbulent velocity has to be introduced, probably with some variations during the pulsational cycle.


A polyelectrolyte complex micelle (PECM)‐based delivery system for targeting folate (FOL) receptor overexpressing tumor cells is demonstrated using poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG)‐conjugated oligonucleotide (ODN). The tumor targeting property was conferred to the PECM by tethering a folate moiety to the distal end of the PEG segment in an anti‐sense green fluorescent protein (GFP) ODN‐PEG conjugate. Nanoscale PECMs were spontaneously produced from ionic interactions between the ODN‐PEG‐FOL conjugate and a cationic lipid, lipofectamine (Lf). When treated with FOL receptor overexpressing cells (KB), the PCEMs caused a significant reduction in GFP expression in a dose‐dependent manner. This effect was not observed in FOL receptor deficient cells (A549). The enhanced transfection of ODN‐PEG‐FOL/Lf PECMs to KB cells was caused by FOL receptor mediated endocytosis. The efficiency of target‐specific gene suppression by ODN‐PEG‐FOL/Lf PECMs was maintained even in the presence of 10% fetal bovine serum in the transfection medium.


Commercialization of energy conversion technologies, such as water electrolysis or fuel cells, has become a common prioritized goal in academia and industry due to the accelerated environmental crisis caused by the rapid increase in demand for fossil fuel‐based energy resources. However, these state‐of‐the‐art technologies require the use of expensive noble metal‐based electrocatalysts, which significantly undermine the feasibility of their commercial success. The introduction of less expensive elements into the noble metal‐based electrocatalysts, namely, doping, has become common in nanocatalysis research because of the lower catalyst preparation costs. Interestingly, recent studies have revealed additional roles of dopants in noble metal catalysts; doping can enhance the catalytic activity and selectivity by modulating the band structure, optimizing the surface energy of the catalysts, controlling the binding strength of adsorbates, and thus affecting the reaction kinetics. Dopants can also intervene in the nanocrystal growth mechanism, leading to shape‐ and phase‐controlled nanocrystals. This review discusses the great versatility of dopants in nanoparticle‐based catalysis in all aspects, from nanocrystal growth to nanocatalyst performance. The future challenges and outlook for dopants in nanocrystals and their applications are further discussed.


A theoretical analysis using an impact-parameter description of the collisions of deuterons with nuclei is carried out in the high-energy diffraction approximation. It is used to obtain the intensities and integrated cross sections for elastic scattering, for the emergence of the two incident nucleons from the collision whether they appear as an elastically scattered deuteron or as two unbound nucleons, and for the diffraction-induced dissociation of the deuteron into a free neutron and a free proton, as well as the total cross section. The cross section for collisions in which one or both of the nucleons is absorbed is derived in terms of the sum of the neutron-nucleus and proton-nucleus effective phase shifts. Expressions for the cross section for processes in which the proton (or neutron) is absorbed whether the neutron (or proton) is absorbed or not, and for the cross section for processes in which the neutron (or proton) is absorbed and the proton (or neutron) remains free are derived. A reduced form of a two-particle density matrix is introduced to directly derive expressions for the cross section for two-particle absorption in which both the proton and neutron are absorbed and for the cross section for stripping processes in which the proton (or neutron) is absorbed and the neutron (or proton) emerges as a free particle. The expression for the cross section for the breakup of the deuteron and the resulting emergence of one or two free nucleons is also derived. The mechanism by which the diffraction dissociation of the deuteron is induced is understood in an approximate semi-quantitative basis in classical terms (primarily the radial derivative of the radial impulse), allowing an estimate of where in the nuclear potential (beyond the "radius", near the "surface") the dissociation process tends to predominantly occur.


The representation of short-haired women, also called pelonas, in the work of Diego Rivera is a subject that has not been studied much when compared to the numerous critical studies of the murals where they represent the mythical bodies of indigenous women. The objective of this article is to study the representation of women who appear in a panel that was created in the Ministry of Public Education in 1925, which is part of the Visión política del pueblo mexicano series and is located in El Patio de las Fiestas. This study develops a formal and aesthetic analysis of the work that is based on gender-study approaches to muralism and the analysis of chronicles and historical events of the time.


This thesis builds on the real estate lease model of Grenadier which consists of the Black Scholes PDE and an upper reflecting boundary condition. Extending the method of images of Buchen, a new technique was developed to solve this class of problems. Problems that previously required difficult integration can now be solved with algebra and simple integrals. In addition, the compound option in this framework is solved using this new technique. To the best of our knowledge the solution of the compound problem has not been published. An interesting symmetry between this class of problems and the lookback option was also discovered and described in this thesis. The extension of the method of images to include problems with the reflecting boundary condition in the context of real estate leases was presented at the Financial Integrity Research Network Doctoral Tutorials at the University of Technology, Sydney, in 2006. The presentation was awarded the "FIRN Best Paper Award". This paper has been submitted to the Journal of Financial Mathematics for publication. The solution to the compound problem in the context of the upward-only market review option is the subject of the next paper.


Phytic acid is a kind of material with widely used in food,medicine,chemical industry and so on. In this article the quantitative method for phytic acid, inorganic phosphor,chloride,sulfate,calcium,arsenic and heavy metal were developed based on predecessors'research.


The objective of this research was to verify how the composition of tocopherols can help to reveal adulteration in samples of sesame seed oils commercialized in Brazil. Five samples have been analyzed. One sample presented the composition of fatty acids, tocopherols and desmethylsterols of authentic sesame oil. Another one presented only non complying parameters. Three other samples showed the fatty acid composition of pure sesame oil, but the tocopherol and desmethylsterol profiles did not comply with those for sesame seed oil. The results indicate that samples could be adulterated by other vegetable oils like soybean, lauric and corn oils.


The effective control of viral diseases is a difficult problem and necessitates the exercise of opportunism to explore and utilize all possible approaches. Certain of the viruses for which there is a single or few serotypes lend themselves well to control by vaccines as, eg, poliomyelitis, measles, mumps, rubella, yellow fever, influenza, and smallpox. Other viruses, such as the rhinoviruses which cause the common cold, and the enteroviruses which cause systemic, respiratory, and enteric diseases, are of such diverse antigenic composition as to be unlikely of control by vaccines within the foreseeable future. The interferon mechanism has excited great interest with respect to control of these viruses, especially since the process has the outstanding characteristic of broad-spectrum of activity against essentially all viruses. The promise of the chemical approach (ie, chemoprophylaxis and chemotherapy) is still to be tested, but this avenue is likely to be pursued with increasing vigor as


Learning in extremely hazardous operations requires organizations to rely on other forms of organizational knowledge mechanisms than experimentation and trial-and-error. Studies of high-risk organizations reveal that despite the trying conditions they are operating within, some of these organizations display outstanding safety records (LaPorte & Consolini, 1991). Research that integrates studies of high-risk organizations with mainstream organizational literature is relevant because it provides a window into organizational effectiveness under trying conditions (Scott, 1994; Weick et al, 1999). In adherence with this, the paper reports results from a contingency study on organizational knowledge within the emergency organization of a petroleum production company operating in the North Sea. Results show that there are multiple organizational knowledge activities within an emergency organization. This broad action repertoire includes different levels of information richness, collective practice, and pro-active focus. Despite this variability, employees may experience a lack of consistency in practicing the organizational knowledge activities. The lack of consistency is grounded in a set of overall restricting mechanisms such as priority, competence, and variation.


The task of seeking a general static solution to the Einstein–Maxwell equations representing ''semi‐plane‐symmetric'' metrics yielded by plane‐symmetric electromagnetic fields is reduced to solving a single ordinary differential equation. A special solution is given, showing that there does exist some electrovac metric that does not share some of the symmetries of the electromagnetic fields.


The observable features of hydrodynamic wakes can be put into correspondence with those characteristic surfaces of tangential discontinuities upon which the solutions to the evolutionary equations of hydrodynamics are not unique. Only the robust minimal surface subset, associated with a harmonic vector field, will be persistent and of minimal dissipation. Surprisingly, those minimal surfaces generated by iterates of complex holomorphic curves in four dimensions are related to fractal sets. Introduction A remarkable feature of hydrodynamic wakes and coherent structures in stratified flows is that their associated "instability" patterns seem to belong to two broad equivalence classes of spiral shapes. These two patterns are epitomized by the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability pattern (Figure 1a) and the Rayleigh-Taylor instability pattern (Figures 1b). The two basic experimental patterns are often replicated and deformed by the fluid motion, but otherwise they have vividly sharp visible boundaries and remarkably long persistent lifetimes in what otherwise would be considered to be a diffusive and dissipative environment. Note that the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability pattern is characterized by a replication of the primitive pattern of a Cornu spiral. The RayleighTaylor instability pattern is characterized by a replication of the primitive pattern of a Mushroom spiral. Although an analytic description of the Cornu spiral has been known for more than 100 years, only recently has the present author become aware of a closed form analytic description for the mushroom spiral. This work was presented at the August 1992, IUTAM meeting at Poitier, and is summarized in section 4. The essential questions are: Why do these spiral patterns appear almost universally in wakes? Why do they persist for such substantial periods of time? Why are they so sharply defined? What are the details of their creation? As H.K.Browand said [Browand, 1986] "There does not exist a satisfactory theoretical explanation for these wake patterns." Although the theory and ideas presented in this article were initiated and motivated by topological arguments, the presentation will utilize only the most fundamental of topological notions to describe the basic physical phenomena. 2. Two Remarkable Observations. Although the ubiquitous mushroom pattern and its topological features have fascinated this author for many years, it is important to note that there were two (relatively recent) experiments, Figure 1a. The pattern of the KelvinHelmholtz instability. Figure 1b. The pattern of the RayleighTaylor Instability.


Inclusive Language in the Church is a good introduction to questions about language use today that fairly addresses the issues of the language debate. Nancy Hardesty sets out to convince us that inclusive language is appropriate in Christian theology and worship.


Background: In 2001, the Committee on Standardization of Laboratory Testing Related to Diabetes Mellitus of the Japan Diabetes Society (JDS) prepared and certified a new reference material for haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), Lot 2. The standardization programme for HbA1c measurement in Japan is currently based on Lot 2, although some laboratories still use the previous material (Lot 1). The values assigned to Lot 2 were based on the consensus values for Lot 1 and should give the same results. Therefore, there should be no difference in the measured values no matter which calibrators are used. The Committee conducted a domestic survey in order to confirm this relationship. Method: In November 2002, four samples for HbA1c assay were sent to 795 laboratories as part of a national survey in Japan. Assays were performed using the laboratories' routine clinical methods. The coefficients of variation (CVs) of the reported values from all laboratories for the samples were calculated in order to determine the current level of standardization in Japan. Results: The overall CVs in the measured values for the four samples ranged from 2.7% to 4.0%. Values from laboratories using calibrators based on Lots 1 and 2 were similar. Conclusion: The present state of standardization for the routine measurement of HbA1c in Japan, as indicated by the 2002 survey, is excellent. This should aid in the eventual conversion of Lot 2 to IFCC-based values from the results of the 2002 national HbA1c survey.


their This study constructs numerical models to simulate the hydrological processes in the Middle Heihe River Basin in response to glacier loss, permafrost degradation, and temperature increase. The topic is interesting and the study area is an important area. However, there are some problems in the


Introduction: 1. Is cultural diversity under threat? 2. Theoretical framework Part I. Firewalls: 3. Markets 4. Poverty 5. Classifying societies Part II. Consequences: 6. Citizens: nation and cosmopolitan identities 7. Consumers: economic values 8. Morality: traditional values, gender equality, and sexuality 9. Activists: support for democracy, self-expression values, and human rights Part III. Conclusions: 10. Cultural convergence over time? 11. The implications for cultural policies Technical Appendix A. Concepts and measures Technical Appendix B. List of countries Technical Appendix C. Methods.


There is increasing evidence that nonselective betablockers (NSBB), particularly carvedilol, have benefits reaching beyond the prevention of variceal bleeding. A recent long term followup study of a previous randomised controlled trial comparing carvedilol versus endoscopic band ligation for primary prophylaxis of variceal bleeding demonstrated a significant survival benefit for patients on carvedilol.1 Importantly, this could not all be explained by a reduction in liverrelated mortality and further study into the underlying mechanisms is needed. The PREDESCI study examined the role of NSBB in preventing decompensation, with patients allocated to propranolol, or carvedilol in HVPG nonresponders, versus placebo.2 They demonstrated a reduced incidence of cirrhosis decompensation in the NSBB group with no difference in adverse events. Prompted by a study by Sersté et al showing increased mortality in patients with refractory ascites on NSBB, the "window hypothesis" suggests that NSBB are deleterious in advanced liver disease with refractory ascites, with additionally no benefit seen in those with early cirrhosis.3,4 More recent evidence has disputed this however, with NSBB, including carvedilol, shown to be safe and conferring a survival benefit even in patients with significant ascites and endstage liver disease.5,6 Karn Wijarnpreecha et al have conducted a retrospective populationbased cohort study of over 100,000 patients investigating the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in cirrhotic patients on NSBB.7 They demonstrated a consistently lower incidence of HCC in patients treated with any of propranolol, nadolol or carvedilol versus no betablocker. Significant effort was made to minimise confounding factors and the protective effect of a NSBB was maintained after propensity score matching, multivariate analysis and additional subgroup analysis. The authors discuss evidence for a number of mechanisms that may be responsible including carvedilolinduced inhibition of tumour angiogenesis and a reduction in oxidative stress/IL6 pathway. A previous study has also demonstrated that carvedilol has antifibrotic activity, raising the possibility that it could slow the progression of the underlying liver disease.8 There are some limitations to this study which are acknowledged by the authors in that it was retrospective with the possibility of disease coding variability and the inability to control for factors not electronically recorded. Of note, the characteristics of the carvedilol group were significantly different to both the nadolol and propranolol groups; only 23% of the carvedilol group had documented portal hypertension, with only 14% reported varices compared with >70% for both in the other two groups. It would therefore be interesting to understand the indication for commencing carvedilol in the majority of this cohort. With the restrictions in endoscopy capacity during the COVID19 pandemic, some units have reevaluated the criteria for when to start carvedilol, from endoscopic to criteria including fibroscan, platelets, previous variceal size and Child Pugh score. If carvedilol slows down disease progression, starting before decompensation seems sensible in those with progressive disease. However, the results from this recent paper regarding potential protection from HCC suggests that perhaps carvedilol should be commenced in all patients with cirrhosis. Ideally, this should be the subject of a large randomised controlled clinical trial.


There is much to agree with in Ben Saunders' article.1 He is right to say that presumed consent is only one, shaky, justification for opt-out organ retrieval. I believe he is also right that the value of altruism is of relatively little importance in morally assessing organ procurement schemes.2 But I am not so sure about his opt-out proposal.

Saunders would, I think, describe his proposal as an improvement on the existing system in that it would increase the supply of organs while still securing adequate consent. (I should add that he does not, however, explicitly claim that the supply would increase.) This description invites two questions: (1) would the consent be adequate? and (2) would the supply of organs increase? Before saying a few things in answer to these questions, I want to make what I think is the most important point in trying to sort through all the tangled debate about opt-in and opt-out systems: the UK system, in common with nearly all other 'opt-in' systems, does not require the consent of the …


Precocity, stagnation and phenomenon of long time convergence often emerge from classical genetic algorithm or ant colony algorithm. At the same time, they have different features of convergence in each algorithm. So, a coevolutionary model is presented based on genetic algorithm and ant colony algorithm, which runs one of the above two algorithm and exchanges another by estimating the state of their running. In order to search optimal result of problem, genetic algorithm and ant colony algorithm can run conjunctly in the model. Through the experimentation on symmetric and asymmetric TSP, the outcome shows that compared with other algorithm, the algorithm of the model takes a great improvement in the convergent speed, result optimization and also the avoidance of the precocity and stagnation.


This paper examines path planning strategies in partially unknown dynamic environemnts and introduces an approach to learning innovative routes. The approach is verified against shortest path planning with a distance transform algorithm, local and global replanning and suboptimal route following in unknown, partially unknown, static and dynamic environments. We show that the learned routes are more reliable and when traversed repeatedly the robot's behaviour becomes more predictable. The test results also suggest that the robot's behaviour depends on knowledge about the environemnt but not about the path planning strategy used.


This paper describes the reduction of computation time of a large sparse linear equations obtained by discretization of a three-dimensional Poisson's equation using the finite difference method. The equation is induced from wind field calculations, which are needed for evaluation of environmental consequences due to radioactive effluents.Various iterative methods, such aS ICCG, MICCG, ILUCR and MILUCR methods, are applied to solving linear equations and are compared with SOR method. The optimum value of the acceleration factor of SOR method can be obtained numerically according to atmospheric stability for each nuclear site, and the iterations are minimized by using this optimum value.The computation time for MICCG or MILUCR method is a half of that for SOR method. The ILUCR method is better than SOR method, because it does not use acceleration factor and the computation time is shorter. The use of vector computer drastically reduces the computation time, and all the iterative methods are applicable. A scalar computer, however, favors the use of MILUCR or MICCG methods because of a half of the computation time for SOR method.


AbstractIn this article, a project of on-board control system with fuzzy efficiency of air-task estimation subsystem for UCAV rockets is presented. Moreover, some features allowing the use of fuzzy logic subsystems in unmanned aviation will be described as well. Complexity of the project and some mathematical calculations required relevant assumptions which are also reported. Finally, prognosis about operation of the system and conclusions are provided. This article is an integral part of authors' scientific research.


This paper studies the effect of nonlinear left-hand polarized waves supported by a proton beam on the linear circularly polarized instabilities driven by the same beam. It shows that the nonlinear wave can either stabilize or destabilize the linear instabilities. The effects depend on the amplitude of the nonlinear wave and on the temperature of the system. It also shows that purely electrostatic ion-acoustic-like waves, can be destabilized by the large amplitude wave. The latter instabilities do not occur in the absence of the nonlinear waves.


ABSTRACT Contemporary consumer trends in America are profoundly influenced by the enduring religious values of Puritanism and the more secular spiritual values of Transcendentalism. Both belief systems have deeply penetrated American collective memory. While they share common historical roots, the tensions that emerge from their differences describe a typology of three enduring collective myths of American culture – the Myth of the American Dream, the Myth of the American Adam and the Myth of American Exceptionalism. These myths, in turn, define three contemporary consumer movements – Voluntary Simplicity, Transformational Consumption and Radical Consumption.


Is capital allocated so that its marginal product is equated to the market interest rate? Is the marginal product of capital equalized across its alternative uses? This paper attempts to answer both of these questions using data from India, and concludes that both these standard properties fail by a wide margin. (JEL: O16, G2) Well-functioning markets are supposed to allocate capital so as to equate its marginal product in all its uses to the interest rate that is paid to savers for their savings. While the prima facie evidence suggests that capital markets in most developing countries do not come close to this ideal, hard evidence is hard to come by, in part because the marginal product of capital is notoriously difficult to measure. This paper argues that there is a lot that can be said about these issues without ever directly measuring the marginal product of capital: Our strategy makes use of some simple implications of the theory of credit markets, in combination with data that is expressly collected for this purpose. Here we present results from two recent studies based on Indian data, that together create a strong presumption that things on the ground are nowhere near the neoclassical ideal. These results are particularly striking since in both cases the firms in question are large, compared to most Indian firms, and, moreover, have access to credit from the formal banking sector. 1. Are Firms' Credit Constrained? The Strategy: A firm is credit constrained if the marginal product of capital in the firm is higher than the rate of interest that firm is paying on its marginal E-mail addresses: Banerjee: email@example.com; Duflo: email@example.com; Munshi: munshi® econ.upenn.edu © 2003 by the European Economic Association This content downloaded on Sat, 12 Jan 2013 11:04:02 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Banerjee et al. The (Mis)allocation of Capital 485 rupee of borrowing. Our identification of credit constrained firms is based on the following simple observation:1 If a firm that is not credit constrained is offered some extra credit at a rate below what it is paying on the market, then the best way to make use of the new loan must be to pay down the firm's current market borrowing, rather than to invest more. This is because, by the definition of not being credit constrained, any additional investment will drive the marginal product of capital below what the firm is paying on its market borrowing. It follows that a firm that is not facing any credit constraint will expand its investment in response to additional subsidized credit becoming available, only if it has no more market borrowing. By contrast, a firm that is credit constrained will always expand its investment to some extent. A corollary to this prediction is that for unconstrained firms, growth in revenue should be slower than the growth in subsidized credit. This is a direct consequence of the fact that firms are substituting subsidized credit for market borrowing. Therefore, if we do not see a gap in these growth rates, the firm must be credit constrained. Of course, revenue could increase slower than credit even for nonconstrained firms, if the technology has declining marginal returns to capital. Our test of these predictions takes advantage of a recent change in the so-called priority sector rules in India: All banks in India are required to lend at least 40 percent of their net credit to the "priority sector," which includes small scale industry (SSI), at an interest rate that is required to be no more than 4 percent above their prime lending rate. If banks do not satisfy the priority sector target, they are required to lend money to specific government agencies at low rates of interest. In January, 1998, the limit on total investment in plants and machinery for a firm to be eligible for inclusion in the small scale industry category was raised from Rs. 6.5 million to Rs. 30 million. Our empirical strategy focuses on the firms that became newly eligible for credit in this period, and uses firms that were always eligible for priority sector credit as a control. Data: The data we use were obtained from one of the better-performing Indian public sector banks. We have data, obtained from the loan folders maintained by the bank, on profit, sales, credit lines and utilization, and interest rates. We have data on 253 firms (including 93 newly eligible firms), which includes 175 firms for which we have data from 1997 to 1999. Specification: Through much of this section we will estimate an equation of the form y» ~ Vit-i = cCyBIG, + f3yPOSTt + yyBIGt * POSTt + eyit, (1) with y taking the role of the various outcomes of interest (credit, revenue, profits, etc.) and the dummy POST representing the postJanuary 1998 period. 1. This is based on Banerjee and Duflo (2002). This content downloaded on Sat, 12 Jan 2013 11:04:02 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 486 Journal of the European Economic Association April-May 2003 l(2-3):484-494 We are in effect comparing how the outcomes change for the big firms after 1998, with how they change for the small firms. Since y is always a growth rate, this is, in effect, a triple difference we can allow small firms and big firms to have different rates of growth, and the rate of growth to differ from year to year, but we assume that there would have been no differential changes in the rate of growth of small and large firms in 1998, absent the change in the priority sector regulation. Using, respectively, the log of the credit limit and the log of next year's sale (or profit) in place of y in Equation 1, we obtain the first stage and the reduced form of a regression of sales on credit, using the interaction BIG * POST as an instrument for sales (or profit). We will present the corresponding instrumental variable regressions. Results: The change in the regulation certainly had an impact on who received priority sector credit. The credit limit granted to firms below Rs. 6.5 million in plant in machinery (henceforth, small firms) grew by 11.1 percent, during 1997, while that granted to firms between Rs. 6.5 million and Rs. 30 million (henceforth, big firms), grew by 5.4 percent. In 1998, after the change in rules, small firms had 7.6 percent growth while the big firms had 11.3 percent growth. In 1999, both big and small firms had about the same growth, suggesting they had reached the new status quo. This is confirmed when we estimate Equation 1 using bank credit as the outcome. The result is presented in column (2) of Table 1, for the sample of firms where there was a change in credit limit. The coefficient of the interaction BIG * POST is 0.24, with a standard error of 0.09. In contrast, column (1) shows that the probability that the credit limit was changed is not affected by the reform (this corresponds to the general observations that whether or not a file is brought out for a change in limit has nothing to do with the needs of the firm, but responds to internal dynamics of the bank). Therefore, partitioning the sample into two groups on the basis of whether there was a change in the credit limit does not introduce a sample selection bias, and the sample where there was no change in limit can be used as a "placebo" group, where we can test our identification assumption. This increase in credit was not accompanied by a change in the rate of interest [column (3)]. It did not lead to reduction in the rate of utilization of the limits by the big firms [column (4)]: The ratio of total turnover (the sum of all debts incurred during the year) is not associated with the interaction BIG * POST. The additional credit limit thus resulted in an increase in bank credit utilization by the firms. This additional credit in turn led to an increase in sales. The coefficient of the interaction BIG * POST in the sales equation, in the sample where the limit was increased, is 0.21, with a standard error of 0.09 [column (5)]. By contrast, in the sample where there was no increase in limit, the interaction BIG * POST is close to zero (0.05) and insignificant [column (8)], which suggests that the This content downloaded on Sat, 12 Jan 2013 11:04:02 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Banerjee et al. The (Mis)allocation of Capital 487


This chapter discusses the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in global ocean governance. It first traces the history of the IMF, from its inception at Bretton Woods in 1944 to the late 1970s and beyond, and highlights the factors that have influenced its institutional development as well as its current institutional profile. It then describes the IMF's membership, structure, main functions, and decision-making processes before analysing the possible input of the Fund to matters related to ocean governance. In particular, it considers the ways in which the IMF is involved in global ocean governance through its three main functions: economic surveillance, lending, and capacity building. Although the Fund has no direct relevance to global ocean governance, the chapter shows that the IMF may contribute to its improvement by providing technical assistance and policy advice, as well as a better interaction with other, more competent, international agencies.


The formation of folic acid compounds from pteridines and p-aminobenzoic acid by whole bacterial cells has been studied by Korte et al. (1, 2), who reported that C%xanthopterin (2-amino4,6-dihydroxypteridine) could be incorporated into folic acid by several bacterial species, and by Weygand et al. (3), who found that certain strains of bacteria can be adapted to utilize 2.amino-4-hydroxy-6-formylpteridine for folate production. The initial experiments concerned with folate synthesis in cellfree extracts were done by Katunuma.1 His evidence indicated that extracts of Mycobacterium awium could convert either xanthopterin or 2-amino-4-hydroxy-6-carboxypteridine and paminobenzoylglutamic acid to folate. Evidence was also presented to show that these extracts were able to catalyze the formation of p-aminobenzoylglutamic acid from p-aminobenzoic acid and glutamate with p-aminobenzoic acid-adenylate as an intermediate in the system. Somewhat later, Shiota (4) found that extracts of Lactobacillus arabinosus contained enzymes which, in the presence of adenosine triphosphate, could utilize as substrate either 2-amino-4-hydroxy-6-hydroxymethylpteridine or 2-amino-4-hydroxy-6-formylpteridine (or the corresponding tetrahydro forms of these compounds) for the synthesis of either pteroic acid (from p-aminobenzoic acid) or folic acid (from paminobenzoylglutamic acid). Brown (5) found that extracts of Escherichia coli contained a similar enzyme system for the synthesis of either pteroate or folate. The E. coli system could utilize as substrate only 2-amino-4-hydroxy-6-formylpteridine or reduced forms of this compound and 2-amino-4-hydroxy-6hydroxymethylpteridine (6, 7) ; reduced diphosphopyridine nucleotide and flavin adenine nucleotide, as well as adenosine triphosphate, also were necessary components of the reaction mixtures (7). Because p-aminobenzoic acid was a much more effective substrate for pteroate synthesis than was p-aminobenzoylglutamic acid for folate synthesis, it was postulated that pteroic acid (or a reduced form of pteroate) is an intermediate in the biosynthesis of folate in E. coli (6,7). The reduced forms of pteridines appeared to be used more effectively as substrate than


The World Wide Web is witnessing an increase in the amount of structured content--vast collection of structured data are on the rise due to the deep web. Such Internet-scale deep web data integration tasks are becoming increasingly more common. In Internet-scale deep web data integration tasks, a primary challenge is to determine in which web database to be include d in the integration system. This paper presents a utility maximization model for resources selection of deep web data integration. This new model shows an efficient and effective way to estimate the approximate utility of the web database bringing to a given status of an integration system by integrating it. The utility of the web databases is synthesized by positive and negative utility. With the estimated utility information, web database selection can be made by explicitly optimizing the goal of high-utility(include as m uch and important data as possible in the selected databases, and the query cost of which as low as possible) in an iterative manner, where web databases are integrated incrementally. We experimentally demonstrate that our approach is efficient and finding high-utility data integration solutions.


Wiener filtering is one simple method to delete the noise,and this filtering can minimize the mean standard error.In this article,the author extents the noise to be the ordinary multiplicative noise,by using the method of Wiener filtering,can also obtain the filtering which minimizes the mean standard error.At last,the author validates the method by two simulated examples.


Liver involvement in systemic lupus erythematosus is common and in most cases clinical course is asymptomatic, that makes diagnosis difficult. Determination of the cause of the liver involvement is important to select treatment and to evaluate the prognosis of the disease. The aim of the research was to characterize the clinical features of liver involvement in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus and identify the most significant clinical and laboratory parameters for the differential diagnosis of lupus hepatitis. Materials and methods . The study included 313 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus observed in the E.M. Tareev Clinic of Rheumatology, Internal Medicine and Occupational Diseases of I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University (Sechenov University) in the period from 2001 to 2019. The verification of diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus was based on the criteria of the American College of Rheumatology (1997). Patients examination included complete blood count, biochemical and immunological blood tests and an abdominal ultrasonography. In 13 cases hepatic autoantibodies (ASMA, anti-LKM-1, LC-1, SLA-LP, AMA-M2) were analyzed, in 4 – magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography and in 6 – liver biopsy were made. Results . Liver involvement were represented by an increase of liver enzymes in 58 (18.5%) cases. Chronic viral hepatitis C was diagnosed in 4 (1.3%) patients. Drug-induced hepatitis was found in 17 (5.4%) patients. Autoimmune liver diseases occured in 2 (0.6%) patients. In 2 (0.6%) patients, liver damage was associated with thrombotic microangiopathy (atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome, hereditary thrombophilia). In 15 (4.8%) cases, the most likely diagnosis was NAFLD. Lupus hepatitis was the most likely cause in 18 (5.7%) patients. Differential diagnosis in cases of liver involvement in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus requires assessment of risk factors for various liver diseases, age of the patients, level of liver enzymes, lupus activity, ultrasound signs of liver steatosis and secondary antiphospholipid syndrome. Determining the cause of the liver involvement for the patients with the systemic lupus erythematosus allows establishing better treatment tactic and improvement of the prognosis.


Abstract The increase in the standard partial molar volume of a symmetrical electrolyte on ion-pairing, ΔV∞, calculated from the experimental association constant at ambient pressure, the isothermal compressibility, the dielectric constant of the solvent and its pressure coefficient, is as good a measure of this quantity as values calculated from more elaborate experimental procedures, such as the pressure coefficient of the association constant or high precision density determinations in dilute solutions.


Tamarindus indica (tamarind), Garcinia atroviridis, and Curcuma longa (turmeric) are widely used in food preparation. This study was conducted to determine the aluminium leachability in acidic food flavors Tamarindus indica and Garcinia atroviridis and tumeric powder. The results showed that aluminium contents were increased accordingly to the dosage of these acidic food flavors. The results showed that aluminium leaching was higher in solutions without Curcuma longa compare to the present of Curcuma longa. The effect of the presence of Curcuma longa powder in Tamarindus indica and Garcinia atroviridis solutions were indicated by the decreasing of aluminium solubility at 67.5% and 64.7% respectively.


Control of acoustic systems is a challenging problem for several reasons. Some primary reasons include computational complexity resulting from very high-order models, nonminimum phase behavior introduced by finite dimensional approximations and transportation delays, uncertainties introduced by non-uniform boundary conditions, and acoustic interaction with the dynamics of the enclosure structure. Until recently, most active noise control techniques focused on feedforward cancellation. It is only in the last few years that attempts have been made to use feedback for active noise control. Work by Hu and co-workers is remarkable for its thoroughness in setting up the system model, the theoretical analysis, and providing experimental demonstrations. 1-3 The work by Bernstein and co-workers also provides a solid analysis and application of feedback control. 4 Other examples of feedback control approaches are direct-rate feedback 5 and pole placement. 6 Much work continues towards the design and analysis of feedback control methods for achieving broadband reduction which is also robust to uncertainties. Acoustic ducts have certain dynamic characteristics that make it difficult to design an active feedback controller. Firstly, the model has no natural roll-off at high frequencies and it is modally very rich. Also, the frequency response is characterized by resonant peaks which dominate the dynamics. In the presence of these characteristics, any uncertainty in the system model has a significant affect on closed-loop stability. Much of the design of feedback controllers for acoustic systems is based on models identified using experimental frequency response. Acoustic ducts in the form of heating, ventilation, air-conditioning, and exhaust ducts form a significant category of systems which need active noise control. An ability to derive analytical models for this class of systems will be most helpful in developing controllers for active noise control. A simple method using symbolic computation is presented in Ref. 7 to derive models for virtually any configuration of an acoustic duct. The analytically derived model for an acoustic duct is linear, time-invariant, and infinite-dimensional. For most control designs, however, a finite-dimensional approximation is needed. In this paper, a finite-dimensional approximation model is obtained using an assumed modes approach. A detailed discussion of the modelling and identification of acoustic ducts can be found in Ref. 7. The control design methodology used in this paper is based on passivity theory. An experimental validation of the passivity-based robust control design methodology based on the ideas given in Refs. 8-12 is presented. It is shown that controllers designed using passivity theory can achieve broadband reduction of noise. It is also shown that the controller design is not only robust to unmodelled dynamics (higher order modes) and modelling errors, but also to parametric variations. The experimental verification demonstrates the efficacy of the controller. To facilitate understanding of passivity-based control design as presented in later sections of this paper a brief review of passivity-based control is given next.


The following quaternary indole alkaloids have been isolated from the root bark of the Apocynaceae species Pleiocarpa tubicina Stapf: huntrabrine methochloride, kopsinic acid methochloride, N(a)-methyl-sarpagine methochloride and macusine B chloride.