In the context of water networks, in order to supply water to consumers without any disruption in service, the state of the system has to be monitored. One way to achieve this is by using simulators algorithms that provide means of combining the water consumptions called also pseudo-measurements by relating them to the mathematical model of the system. Therefore a comprehensive description of the water distribution system should be used to attain a true picture of the state of the system. This implies that all hydraulics elements including non-linear controlling elements such as pumps and valves should be included in the description of the water distribution system. This paper addresses the problem of simulation of water networks containing controlling hydraulics elements by using simulator algorithms constructed with the loop corrective flows equations. It is well known that these controlling hydraulics elements may cause numerical difficulties in the simulations due to their discontinuous properties. It is shown that using the loop equations can provide an adequate mean for handling the discontinuous nature of the controlling hydraulics elements. This is in spite of having to deal with the loop structure of the water network in the simulator algorithm which implies the use of graph theory. The case of non-linear elements check valves, pumps and pressure reducing valves is presented. The main contribution of the paper is that it proposes a partial rebuilding of the spanning tree obtained with the Depth First (DF) search, which partial rebuilding results from the changing of the status of the non-linear controlling hydraulics elements during the convergence of the Newton-Raphson numerical optimization method used by the simulator algorithm. The numerical results are verified with the EPANET software which is an established computer program used in the simulation of water networks.


The bubble-nesting Betta smaragdina Ladiges, 1972 can be distinguished from the 4 other species of bubble-nesting Betta Bleeker, 1850 by being reportedly confined to Northeastern Thailand. We found large populations of fish in Western Thailand that closely resemble those from the Northeastern Region. The new populations inhabit a variety of places encompassing lakes, marshes, and streams. Morphological studies of Betta fish from the 2 well-separated regions, together with DNA analyses, show that the western and the northeastern populations are the same species.


We thank the editor for the opportunity to discuss the article by Huang on Causal mediation of semicompeting risks. Huang draws attention to the important task of defining a scientifically meaningful causal estimand in time-toevent settings. Huang claims to propose an approach to "casting the semi-competing risks problem in the framework of causal mediation modeling," further claiming an "advantage in causal interpretation over existing methods." Although we agree that defining meaningful estimands is crucial, we question both of these claims. We structure our arguments as follows. First, we question whether there is utility in categorizing problems as "semi-competing risks" when a causal effect is the analytic goal (Young et al., 2020). Second, we review well-established concerns over the interpretation of the class of causal effects Huang considers for studying causal mechanisms, which are cross-world parameters related to natural (pure) effects (Robins and Greenland, 1992). We also question the interpretation of these effects within the motivating subject-matter example. Finally, we review recently proposed alternative effect definitions for studying causal mechanisms, the interventionist (separable) effects (Robins and Richardson, 2011; Didelez, 2019; Stensrud et al., 2020c, 2020a; Robins et al., 2020; Martinussen and Stensrud, 2020), which overcome historical concerns related to natural effects and other cross-world estimands, and we consider their possible applicability to Huang's subject matter example.


Over the last fifteen years, Stephen Hess has become a leading and much-quoted authority on Washington government and the media. In this volume, he presents a collection of his best essays on the media written over the past decade.The book includes: "All the President's Reporters" examines the White House press corps and the way it covers the president."Leaks and Other Informal Communications" is an insider's look at why government officials leak information to journalists."The Sex Test" asks whether it makes any difference if the news is written by men or women.Addional collections of Hess' essays published by Brookings include International News & Foreign Correspondence (1996) and Presidents & the Presidency (1996)."


In this Statement, IAB is presenting insights gained from its research on the minimum wage. The minimum wage has not been an obstacle to a positive macroeconomic development in employment. However, the number of persons benefitting from the minimum wage is currently still difficult to quantify. In addition to this, wage effects are likewise difficult to quantify. The Federal Statistical Office has recently published initial findings on this matter. Findings from the IAB-Arbeitsmarktspiegel, a study aimed at monitoring developments after the introduction of the legal minimum wage, show that the number of exclusively marginal part-time employees in January 2015 had dropped to c. 94,000. With about half of these people, employment was converted into employment subject to social security contributions. An initial evaluation using data from IAB's Establishment Panel shows a moderate negative effect on employment which is mainly due to restraint in recruitment and hardly to any extent to dismissals at the establishments in question.


Double Gel'fand states are given explicitly as polynomials of boson operators. The coefficients of these polynomials may be expressed in terms of recoupling coefficients of external products of permutation groups or Kronecker products within the unitary group, as well as in terms of multiple Clebsch–Gordan coefficients of the unitary group.


Antibiotic prescribing feedback with peer comparison has been shown to reduce antibiotic prescription rates in the outpatient setting, but data regarding its impact in community hospitals are lacking. We previously developed novel denominator metrics to control for differences between physician practices such as patient volume or workload. Using these metrics, we provided regular antibiotic prescribing feedback with peer comparison to hospitalists in a community hospital over four years and evaluated its impact on targeted antibiotic prescribing.

 Antibiotic days of therapy (DOT) for all antibacterials and targeted agents (aztreonam, antipseudomonal beta-lactams, vancomycin, and the fluoroquinolones (FQ)) were obtained from electronic medication administration records and linked to the ordering hospitalist. Physician-specific shifts worked data by month were calculated from local administrative datasets. De-identified data were presented in DOT/shifts worked, and trends in facility-wide and hospitalist-specific antibiotic prescribing were evaluated.

 A total of 37,938 antibiotic DOTs were prescribed by hospitalists from January 2018 to March 2022. De-identified feedback was shared in-person (4/2018, 4/2019, 3/2020, 11/2021) or virtually (9/2020) in small group sessions, and education, including local antibiogram data and recommended alternatives, was provided for targeted agents. Of the 31 hospitalists that received feedback, trends in FQ use for 7 hospitalists with longitudinal data are shown (Figure 1). In the month following feedback sessions, hospitalist antibiotic use data demonstrated substantial reductions in FQ prescribing, and similar trends were observed among all targeted agents. A single hospitalist's prescribing trend for targeted agents is shown in Figure 2. Facility-wide, targeted agent use decreased 31% from 2017 to 2021 and was primarily driven by reductions in use by hospitalists.

 Regular antibiotic prescribing feedback with peer comparison and education was associated with a reduction in targeted agent prescribing by hospitalists at a community hospital.

 All Authors: No reported disclosures.


3 SNOW COVER MODELING Figure 1: Settlement and temperatrne sensor laid on top of the snowpack before a snowfall. The sensor is clipped onto the vertical guiding and depth measuring wires. frame across which a continuous tungst is stretched to record temperature. Its side are clipped to two vertical wires serving as guides and electric connectors to deterrn' sensor's depth. As snowfall buries the se the latter settles with the underlying sn (Weilenmann, 1999).


ABSTRACT The present research was conducted to measure the impact of poppy seed extract (PSE) and gamma irradiation on the storage stability and antioxidant profile of beef patties during storage at different packaging. Different doses of gamma irradiation (2.5 kGy and 5 kGy) were applied alone and with combination of 2% PSE. The PSE enriched beef patties were packed (aerobically and vacuum) and kept at refrigeration temperature. The results show that higher value of TBARS and POV was found in 5 kGy aerobically packed samples at 14 day, while the lower value of TVBN was observed in 0 kGy+PSE2% at 0 day. However, the lower value of TBARS, POV and TBVN was found in vacuum packed samples (0kGy +2%PSE) at 0 day. The higher total phenolic contents, ferric reducing antioxidant power and DPPH value were found in 0kGy +2%PSE and lower value was found in samples (5 kGy). The microbial results were observed to decrease with the increase in dose of gamma radiation. The significant changes were observed in the hunter color and sensory attributes of beef patties on different treatment at storage intervals under vacuum and aerobic packaging. Conclusively, PSE, gamma irradiation and both packaging is improved the quality, stability and antioxidants profile of enriched patties.


This study is aimed to look into the craftsmanship non-educated constructors in Korean-style secondary stations(Gong-So) of Naepo region which is located in the northwestern Chungcheongnam-do. Although the area was persecuted as one of three cradles of Korean Catholicism, Catholic activities flourished there. The 13 cases of Korean-style secondary stations were selected through a survey report list about modern cultural assets of Chungcheongnam-do published in december 2004. This study examined the methods of plan layout and framework of Gong-So to look into craftsmanship of non-educated constructors, the results are as follows; The methods of plan layout are divided into three types according to existence and arrangement of inner column(Nae-Ju); 'Layout with Nae-Ju' is considered as the primary form of Korean-style Gong-So with using regular Nae-Ju. 'Layout with the different position of the center between Nae-Ju and exterior column(Oe-Ju)' and 'layout without Nae-Ju' is appeared in Korean-style Gong-So which is important to assembly and alter function. The methods of framework are appeared variously according to different plan layout for securing worship space. The unusal beam(Chung-Ryang) is used to solve different spans of altar and narthex. When space was formed widely without Nae-Ju, diagonal members and M letter type rafters are used, they are influenced by the technique of western wooden roof truss.


In multi-environment trials it is common to measure several response variables or attributes to determine the genotypes with the best characteristics. Thus it is important to have techniques to analyse multivariate multi-environment trial data. The main objective is to complement the literature on two multivariate techniques, the mixture maximum likelihood method of clustering and three-mode principal component analysis, used to analyse genotypes, environments and attributes simultaneously. In this way, both global and detailed statements about the performance of the genotypes can be made, highlighting the benefit of using three-way data in a direct way and providing an alternative analysis for researchers. We illustrate using sunflower data with twenty genotypes, eight environments and three attributes. The procedures provide an analytical procedure which is relatively easy to apply and interpret in order to describe the patterns of performance and associations in multivariate multi-environment trials.


Professors, students, and anyone who loves to read will want this fascinating and attractive volume. It offers a detailed introduction, beginning with great works from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, this literary timeline gallops from Mesopotamian pictograms and Julius Caesar's "Commentaries on the Gallic" to Renaissance and Baroque masterworks by Machiavelli and Moliere, and on to modernism. Along the way, it presents the birth of the novel, Gothic chills, Thomas Paine's rabble-rousing, as well as landmark French and Russian authors, Emerson's essays. Victoriana, the Aesthetic Movement, Utopian Literature and Naturalism make their appearance, all the way up to today's Tom Stoppard and Tony Kushner.


In recent years a lot of new C-based design languages have been developed. They all promise a smoother transition from a high level to a low level description of a hardware system. A disadvantage of these new languages is that a lot of simulation models of e.g. FPGA-cores are only available in standard languages like VHDL or Verilog. This makes it hard to develop a complete system with one of those new languages. However in a modular design approach this should not cause a problem. Here a distinction is made between application specific and hardware platform specific modules. It is possible to describe the application at a high level with e.g. SystemC and refine its modules with the same language, using simple models of the underlying hardware, until a level where translation to VHDL/Verilog is trivial. The platform specific modules can then be developed bottom up using the available VHDL/Verilog models of the used cores. In this paper the design of an IDWT is taken as a testcase. The design traject starts from a C-description and uses SystemC to arrive at a synthesizable level where an automatic translation to VHDL is done, which allows implementation on an FPGA. One can conclude that although tool support is only emerging recently for these new C-based languages their benefits can already be exploited when using the right language at the right place. Keywords— SystemC, inverse wavelet transformation, modular design, scalable wavelet video decoder, reconfigurable hardware.


The paper reviews the developing task of maintaining the Australian Fleet since its establishment in 1913. A brief account is given of changes in warships, of the local progranmes of construction, and the development of support capability. The current approach to maintenance and its principal elements are described, and likely developments are forecast.


Abstract The 1998 eastern North Pacific hurricane season is reviewed. There were 15 tropical cyclones, consisting of nine hurricanes, four tropical storms, and two tropical depressions. During 1998, two tropical cyclones made landfall; Hurricane Isis made two landfalls in Mexico while Tropical Depression Javier dissipated near Cabo Corrientes, Mexico.


The invention discloses a balance weight mechanism of a small-diameter hole drilling and tapping device. The balance weight mechanism is characterized in that the balance weight mechanism comprises a drilling and tapping power head, a cross bar, a vertical support, an extension arm and a balance weight wheel, the drilling and tapping power head is connected with the cross rod, the balance weight wheel is connected with the extension arm, the extension arm and the cross bar jointly form a lever, a hinge joint between the cross bar and the vertical support serves as a fulcrum of the lever, the balance weight wheel serves as the weight at one end of the lever, the drilling and tapping power head serves as the weight at the other end of the lever, and the lever torque of the end where the balance weight wheel is located is larger than that of the end where the drilling and tapping power head is located. According to the balance weight mechanism of the small-diameter hole drilling and tapping device, the drilling and tapping power head can return under the state of small returning force, the returning force is adjustable, and therefore the work requirement for drilling and tapping of small-diameter holes with the aperture ranging from 0.5mm to 3mm is met.


The Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE) is the big data that need to be stored, processed and analyzed as it trade day-to-day. Analyzing and finding similar components (stock market price) may assist investor. However, it is not easy to find the similar components in the KLSE. This is because the components in the KLSE are changing everyday in the market. This paper focus is on using the Hadoop MapReduce to store and process the KLSE big data, use the kmeans algorithm to perform the calculation, then find the companies that had similar KLSE closing bids pattern to help the investors to predict a company's next closing bid based on another company that have the similar trends. To facilitate the investors, the similar trend among companies will be shown on the Graphical User Interface (GUI). All the storing, processing and analyzing will be run automatically behind the scene of the GUI.


The work describes changes in numbers of selected probiotic cultures in the cheese during its ripening. The technology to manufacture semi-hard low-scaled cheeses used probiotic cultures  Lactobacillus acidophilus ,  Lactobacillus casei  and Lactobacillus plantarum  96. Sampling took place each month from January to June 2009. Samples of cheese were microbiologically analyzed by standard microbiological methods for the numbers ingested probiotic cultures throughout the period. Physico-chemical parameters (fat content, dry matter content of sodium chloride, titratable acidity, and pH and in the last month and lactic acid and protein content) were followed selected during four months of ripening. For each sample analyzed, and the center region of the cheeses. Achieved values observed physico-chemical parameters were significantly changed during the reporting period and amounted to the value required by the applicable legislation for the cheese. The results of microbiological analysis showed that in all evaluated selected probiotic cheeses was observed during a six month minimum storage period of therapy, which sets the value of micro-organisms at the end of the storage order of 10 6  cfu.ml -1 . doi:10.5219/29


OBJECTIVES
To explore how SNA can be used to analyse intra-hospital patient networks of individuals with a HAI for further analysis in a GIS environment.

METHODS
A case and control study design was used to select 2008 patients. We retrieved locational data for the patients, which was then translated into a network with the SNA software and then GIS software. Overall metrics were calculated for the SNA based on three datasets and further analysed with a GIS.

RESULTS
The SNA analysis compared cases to control indicating significant differences in the overall structure of the networks. A GIS visual representation of these metrics was developed, showing spatial variation across the example hospital floor.

DISCUSSION
This study confirmed the importance that intra-hospital patient networks play in the transmission of HAIs, highlighting opportunities for interventions utilising these data. Due to spatial variation differences, further research is necessary to confirm this is not a localised phenomenon, but instead a common situation occurring within many hospitals.

CONCLUSION
Utilising SNA and GIS analysis in conjunction with one another provided a data-rich environment in which the risk inherent in intra-hospital transfer networks was quantified, visualised and interpreted for potential interventions.


The majority processes from nature (in biosphere) take place in wet environments. These processes, in majority situations, are developing by an electrochemical mechanism (for example, the redox processes from the cytoplasm interface/cellular membrane, metals corrosion in various electrolytic media etc.). Kinetics and electrochemical processes mechanism are determined by the electric signals superposed on the reaction media, respectively electrode system (metal or membrane)/electrolyte. In this way, we can consider that any electric signal, which is superposed on the natural electrolytic environments from biosphere, can perturb the developing of the natural electrolytic processes and consequently is a pollutant signal [1]. The electromagnetic pollution consequences on the environment are various. Pollutant electromagnetic fields disturb natural processes, both by heat effect generated in various environments, and by its electric and magnetic components. The electric component disturbs the developing of the natural electrochemical reactions, like the transit of Ca by human cellular membranes, and implicit, the calcium homeostasis (the cause of the high frequency of leukemia at the children systematic exposed to the electromagnetic field [2]), accelerates the corrosion reactions [3], etc. Magnetic component disturbs the biomagnetic systems, like the orientation system of the bees, which was discovered that at signals of 500 V/m become very aggressive and are killing each other [4], and in electromagnetic field of 0.6 ÷ 3.2 GHz, by 0.5 ÷ 1 V/m


The present invention relates to a composition and method for preparing fabric treated in a stable and durable color to washing with more uniform distribution of silver over the treated textile length.


The brief comment looks at the most noteworthy ceramics and objects, discovered in the two tombs of the "Reliquary" Church of Umm al-Rasas, with the completion of the excavations of the summer campaign of 2004. The ceramic fragments with sketches and descriptions, originate from the layers above the pavement level and from the surveys carried out at the level of the mosaic. In harmony with the situation of the layers and homogenous to that of the other churches excavated at Umm al-Rasas, after a period of abandonment the building may have been partially used as a dwelling before the ultimate structural collapse. The two tombs discovered near the western angle of the northern nave and near the eastern angle of the southern nave, contained the bones of more than one individual, buried at different times. Lastly, together with a pair of rings, a cross and various fragments of a pearl necklace of vitreous glass, the discovery was also made of a pair of earrings, a hair pin and an iron belt buckle, objects whi...


In recent years, deep neural networks have been very successful in computer vision, speech recognition, and artificial intelligent systems. The rapid growth of data and fast increasing computational tools provide solid foundations for the applications which rely on the learning of large scale deep neural networks with millions of parameters. The deep learning approaches have been proved to be able to learn powerful representations of the inputs in various tasks, such as image classification, object recognition, and scene understanding. This thesis demonstrates the generality and capacity of deep learning approaches through a series of case studies including image matching and human activity understanding. In these studies, I explore the combinations of the neural network models with existing machine learning techniques and extend the deep learning approach for each task. Four related tasks are investigated: 1) image matching through similarity learning; 2) human action prediction; 3) finger force estimation in manipulation actions; and 4) bimodal learning for human action understanding. Deep neural networks have been shown to be very efficient in supervised learning. Further, in some tasks, one would like to group the features of the samples in the same category close to each other, in additional to the discriminative representation. Such kind of properties is desired in a number of applications, such as semantic retrieval, image quality measurement, and social network analysis, etc. My first study is to develop a similarity learning method based on deep neural networks for image matching between sketch images and 3D models. In this task, I propose to use Siamese network to learn similarities of sketches and develop a novel method for sketch based 3D shape retrieval. The proposed method can successfully learn the representations of sketch images as well as the similarities, then the 3D shape retrieval problem can be solved with off-the-shelf nearest neighbor methods. After studying the representation learning methods for static inputs, my focus turns to learning the representations of sequential data. To be specific, I focus on manipulation actions, because they are widely used in the daily life and play important parts in the human-robot collaboration system. Deep neural networks have been shown to be powerful to represent short video clips [Donahue et al., 2015]. However, most existing methods consider the action recognition problem as a classification


Nowadays, because of the current conditions in our country and globally, in general buildings security and all installations is primary concern for all of us. Primary goal is also energy save, to which there has been given a lot of importance by industry, and not only, as a result of the financial crisis, but also for the protection of the environment. Energy save is an important part of research and implementation sector, which includes methods, specialized systems, informations systems, autonomous control systems, by which the consumed energy can be reduced. In this thesis, the design and implementation of united alarm systems will be presented along with a light control system. This systems will be composed by the main control panel of the alarm and a PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) unit as well as their components. The main idea is for these two systems to be united and installed in an imaginary company whose goal is energy save with least possible interventions. The main part of the project will be covering the explanation of the design of the security and light systems, of the materials, along with the PLC, with the help of the corresponding computer programs. In this part there will be more emphasis given on the simulation of the PLC program for educational reasons and better presentation of its function. Subsequently, the model's implementation process will be analyzed along with her results, which is going to give us the trigger to discuss the advantages and the disadvantages of the system. As a conclusion, possible future optimizations will be proposed as well as the possibility of the implementation in already installed systems. Aim of this thesis is to show the advantages of the systems interconnection, same time with systems ease of use as there is not any other similar system in the market.


Sulci, the indentations in the brain, develop over childhood (Zilles et al., 1988; Alemán‐Gómez et al., 2013), and demonstrate individual differences linked to cognition (Cachia et al., 2018; Im et al., 2011). Previous neuroimaging work implicates prefrontal cortex (PFC) in working memory, a key facet of cognition. In particular, maintaining items in working memory (e.g., keeping a series of digits in mind) engages ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), whereas maintaining items in working memory (e.g., reversing a series of digits) engages both VLPFC and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC; Crone et. al, 2006). We propose to examine the relationship between sulcal depth in these regions and working memory for two tasks: Digit Span Forwards, which taxes maintenance, and Digit Span Backwards, which taxes manipulation and maintenance. Sulcal morphology of the PFC has been classically proposed to be functionally relevant to cognition that engages this region (Sanides, 1964). Thus, we hypothesized that there would be a relationship between sulcal depth and behavioral performance, whereby greater sulcal depth would predict better working memory. Cortical morphometric analyses were performed on high resolution T1‐weighted MPRAGE anatomical scans in 60 participants ages 6–18, from a previously published dataset (Wendelken et al., 2017). Cortical surface reconstructions were generated using Freesurfer. Sulci in lateral PFC were manually defined based on recently proposed definitions (Petrides & Pandya, 2012; Petrides, 2019), resulting in 2,157 labels (~18 labels per hemisphere, per subject). Mean sulcal depth was extracted for each sulcus. Relevant sulci for task performance were determined using a least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression, fit separately for each hemisphere with each task condition using leave‐one‐out cross‐validation. Our analysis approach revealed four main findings. First, there is a relationship between PFC sulcal depth and Digit Span Backwards, but not Digit Span Forwards scores. Second, the depth of eight sulci (five in the left hemisphere and three in the right hemisphere) predict working memory manipulation. Third, while greater sulcal depth predicted better performance for six of these sulci, shallower sulcal depth predicted better performance for the other two sulci, which were restricted to the right hemisphere. Finally, these sulci are located around the contours of functionally‐defined DLPFC and VLPFC as proposed by Amiez and Petrides (2007). Taken together, these findings reveal that the depth of specific sulci in the lateral PFC can predict behavioral performance on a working memory manipulation task. Importantly, using a data‐driven approach we show that these sulci are also boundaries for functional regions known to be engaged in working memory manipulation. These results begin to shed light on the complex relationship between sulcal morphology in lateral PFC, functional parcellations of lateral PFC, and the development of working memory skills in children.


Prebiotics are non-digestible molecules produced by probiotic microorganisms [1]. Probiotic microrganisms are generally bacteria or fungi recognized as safe, with their properties based on the production of organic acids, reduction of biogenic amines, digestion/breakdown of carbohydrates and proteins, immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory responses, reduction of carcinogenic amines, and production of antimicrobial peptides, among others [2]. These days probiotics are mostly consumed as probiotic yogurts and other probiotic dairy products, dietary supplements, spoonable forms, and probiotic cultured drinks for daily dosage packaging, among others. Prebiotics are also claimed to enhance wellbeing through immunomodulatory and metabolic activities, and act as a natural barrier against pathological processes [1]. These molecules are considered to be a targeted for human and animal production and health, and represents a multimillionaire market of the functional foods. Furthermore, the increasing market of prebiotics counts today with a thousands of patented invention, related to isolation, production, preparation, methods of use, or application of newly health enhancing molecules. The global production and consumption of functional foods is a multi-billion industry, with an estimated market size around US$ 60 billion in 2008-9, several times greater than the health treatment costs only in USA in that years, in the order of US$ 832 million (Figure 1). As a comparison, the global market of probiotic products was US$ 15.9 billion in 2008 and US$ 19 billion in 2009, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.7 % (2009-2014). Furthermore, the probiotic market predicted by 2014 for Europe and Asia comprises, respectively, US$ 12.9 billion (11.1 % CAGR), and US$ 8.7 billion. Japan, a global leader of functional foods, devoted US$ 4.5 billion to the study and commercialization of prebiotics, with US$ 1.5 billion verted exclusively for the oligosaccharide commerce in 2009 [3]. The USA have occupied the second position in the last decade, with a commercialization of US$ 110 million for functional oligosaccharides (35 % inulin, 20 % mannan oligosaccharides, and 10 % fructan), and with a CAGR rate of 20 % The European and the U.S. market for prebiotics is projected to reach nearly US$ 1.2 billion and US$225 million, respectively, by the year 2015 [3]. This has reached nearly US$ 21.6 billion in 2010 and is expected to reach US$ 31.1 billion in 2015, and at a CAGR of 7.6 % for the 5-year period.


This paper presents a new method based on an immune-tabu hybrid algorithm to solve the thermal unit commitment (TUC) problem in power plant optimization. The mathematical model of the TUC problem is established by analyzing the generating units in modern power plants. A novel immune-tabu hybrid algorithm is proposed to solve this complex problem. In the algorithm, the objective function of the TUC problem is considered as an antigen and the solutions are considered as antibodies, which are determined by the affinity computation. The code length of an antibody is shortened by encoding the continuous operating time, and the optimum searching speed is improved. Each feasible individual in the immune algorithm (IA) is used as the initial solution of the tabu search (TS) algorithm after certain generations of IA iteration. As examples, the proposed method has been applied to several thermal unit systems for a period of 24 h. The computation results demonstrate the good global optimum searching performance of the proposed immune-tabu hybrid algorithm. The presented algorithm can also be used to solve other optimization problems in fields such as the chemical industry and the power industry.


This study analyzes a single-phase hybrid multilevel dc-link (MLDCL) inverter, in which a dc-link with two capacitors is integrated into a single dc source. When controlled under the conventional modulation scheme, the MLDCL inverter synthesizes a five-level output voltage. As the capacitor-voltage balancing depends on the fundamental period, the output voltage may contain unsolicited low-order harmonics. Moreover, in the conventional scheme, this inverter requires large dc-link capacitors. To avoid these problems, the present paper develops a simple phase-shifted pulse-width modulation scheme based on redundant switching states, which controls the MLDCL inverter and balances the capacitor voltage within each carrier period. The proposed modulation scheme also minimizes the dc-link capacitance by a factor of the frequency modulation ratio while reducing the total harmonic distortion of the output voltage and current. Unlike the conventional method, the proposed scheme considerably reduces the capacitor-voltage ripples and can be regulated by increasing the carrier frequency, thereby reducing the voltage stress on the switches and improving the reliability of the inverter. The feasibility of the proposed scheme over the conventional scheme is confirmed in a comparative study. Finally, the steady-state and dynamic performances of the proposed strategy are demonstrated in simulations and validated in experiments.


Growth and bone mineralization of sheep fed with high fluorine phosphates To evaluate the effect of phosphate with high levels of fluorine on growth and bone mineralization of sheep, triple superphosphate (SPT) and two raw rock phosphate, Riecito (RIO) and Monte Fresco (MONTE) vs dicalcium phosphate (DICAL), 24 West African sheep with an initial body weight 14.5 kg were assigned to the phosphorus sources in a complete randomized design. The animals were fed with forage, Pennisetum purpureum, ad libitum and supplemented with one kg/animal/day of a concentrate with 36.2 % corn cobs, 38.2 % corn, 9.3 % molasses, 6.3 % soy, 2.9 % urea and the different phosphates sources to provided 0.2 % total phosphorus. The diet were isocaloric (2.2 Mcal EME/kg) and isoproteic (24 % PC), with 1 % of calcium. The duration of the experiment was 15 months with the body weight controls every 28 days, forage intake every two weeks and water ad libitum. At the end of the experimental period 4 animals/treatment were injected trough the jugular vein with 200 mCi 32 P and a oral dose of 200 mCi 45 Ca. Seven days later biopsy of ribs were carried out to measure bone mineralization and the uptake of the radioactive material. The final weight (kg/animal) was higher (P < .05) for DICAL (34.4) and RIO (33.3) in relation to MONTE (30.5) and SFT (29.9). The daily body gain (g/animal/ day) was 113.62, 108.56, 89.38 and 73.53 for DICAL, RIO, MONTE and SFT, respectively, being the values significantly higher for DICAL and RIO. The intake of the supplement (g/animal/day) was higher (P < .05) for DICAL (883.0) with no significant differences with RIO (818.6) and MONTE (830.2) and lower for (SFT). Bone mineralization measured in terms of density (g/cc), bone ash, calcium, phosphorus (%, mg/cc) was grater for DICAL and SFT in relation to RIO and MONTE. Bone specific activity was lower for DICAL (9.13 and 0.72) than RIO (17.82 and 1.52), MONTE (29.28 and 2.15) and SFT (12.24 and 1.54), both for 32 P (x10 -4 cpm) and 45 Ca (x10 -7 cpm), respectively. The accumulation of fluorine in the bone tissue was higher (P < .05) for SFT


Thermal degradation of low density polyethylene(LDPE) due to laser action is presented. Chemiluminescence determinations at 210 8C were performed on purified LDPE and stabilised material with triazines [2,6-thio-bis-(lauryl-4-(4


A detailed study of the near-surface structure and composition of Nb, the material of choice for Superconducting Radio Frequency accelerator (SRF) cavities, is of great importance in order to understand the effects of different treatments applied during cavity production. By means of surface-sensitive techniques such as grazing incidence diffuse X-ray scattering, X-ray reflectivity and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, single-crystalline Nb(100) samples were investigated in and ex-situ during annealing in UHV as well as in nitrogen atmospheres with temperatures and pressures similar to the ones employed in real Nb cavity treatments. Annealing of Nb specimens up to 800°C in vacuum promotes partial reduction of the natural surface oxides (Nb2O5, NbO2, NbO) into NbO. Upon cooling to 120°C, no evidence of nitrogen-rich layers was detected after nitrogen exposure times of up to 48 hours. Oxygen enrichment below the Nb/oxide interface and posterior diffusion of oxygen species towards the Nb matrix, along with a partial reduction of the natural surface oxides was observed upon a stepwise annealing up to 250°C. Nitrogen introduction to the system at 250°C neither promotes N diffusion into the Nb matrix nor the formation of new surface layers. Upon further heating to 500°C in a nitrogen atmosphere, the growth of a new subsurface Nb$_x$N$_y$ layer was detected. These results shed light on the composition of the near-surface region of Nb after low-temperature nitrogen treatments, which are reported to lead to a performance enhancement of SRF cavities.


We consider a one-dimensional continuous (Kronig-Penney) extension of the (tight-binding) Random Dimer model of Dunlap et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 65, 88 (1990)]. We predict that the continuous model has infinitely many resonances (zeroes of the reflection coefficient) giving rise to extended states instead of the one resonance arising in the discrete version. We present exact, transfermatrix numerical calculations supporting, both realizationwise and on the average, the conclusion that the model has a very large number of extended states. Typeset using REVTEX 1 The question as to whether Anderson localization [1] occurs for any one-dimensional, disordered system, has been considered solved for many years. However, a number of recent papers strongly suggest that the widely held view that disorder prevents long-range transport in one-dimension is not always true. This is the case with the work by Dunlap, Wu, and Phillips [2–4] (see [5] for a review). These authors studied a tight-binding model (so called Random Dimer model, RDM) in which each on-site energy can have only one of two possible values, one of these values being assigned at random to pairs of lattice sites. They showed that for a certain energy the reflection coefficient of a single defect vanished, and that this resonance was preserved when a finite concentration of defects were randomly placed in the chain. This gave rise to a set of delocalized states proportional to the square root of the number of sites. As a consequence, in such a system electronic transport can take place almost balistically. Similar results have been also shown to hold true for dilute binary alloys by Flores [6]. Besides, the arguments of Dunlap et al. to conclude that such a large number of states were not localized have been further confirmed by perturbative calculations by Bovier [7]. The RDM has been generalized recently by Wu, Goff, and Phillips [8] to include more complex arrangements of defects. In this work, they also considered the continuum limit of their model, given by square barriers and wells randomly placed on a line, and it appeared to exhibit the same kind of localization-delocalization transition. In this letter, we concern ourselves with an even simpler continuous model, which we call continuous Random Dimer model (henceafter, CRDM). This system is the natural continuum version of the RDM of Dunlap et al., although it is not its continuum limit as studied in [8]. We build our model in the following way: We start from a usual KronnigPenney model, given by a potential of the form


To improve the approach of discretizing the geometries without thickness, and to simulate lossy reverberation chambers(RC) in a fast and convenient way, an improved approach based on the surface triangular patch model is presented, and losses originated from aperture leakage and skin effect are substituted by packing internal lossy media. Whereas the equivalent method, all the finite conductive materials including cavity walls and stirrers can be assigned as perfect electric conductor without thickness. Combined the FDTD mesh generation algorithm with 3-D rotating matrix, the handy model can be realized. In order to validate the lossy RC model via energy storage ability and statistical characteristics inside the cavity and to compare the normalized electric field intensity and the Q-value between simulation and experimental results, the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test is performed to analyze the CDF fitness of normalized electric field given by simulation and experiment. The numerical results which the most P-value is higher than 0.5 are well in accordance with the experimental ones.


Abstract— Northwest Africa (NWA) 1500 is an ultramafic meteorite dominated by coarse (˜100–500 μm) olivine (95–96%), augite (2–3%), and chromite (0.6–1.6%) in an equilibrated texture. Plagioclase (0.7–1.8%) occurs as poikilitic grains (up to ˜3 mm) in vein‐like areas that have concentrations of augite and minor orthopyroxene. Other phases are Cl‐apatite, metal, sulfide, and graphite. Olivine ranges from Fo 65–73, with a strong peak at Fo 68–69. Most grains are reversezoned, and also have ˜10–30 μm reduction rims.


The economic crisis has shown a situation that had been happening on strategic communication for years: the undermining of the established advertising model. Organizations face a progressive loss of communicative effectiveness of advertising, to the difficulty of connecting emotionally with consumers, the decline of conventional media, to the explosion of the era of personal relations and the hegemony of a citizen, proactive, critical, that it questions the very concept of communication. All this context means that businesses and organizations to redefine their advertising strategies, changing objectives, public values, languages, ways and means to connect with their audiences. The aim of this paper is the study of the major strategic choices that are developing advertising for their brands organizations in the current crisis. To do so, it addresses the analysis of the advertising strategy of a significant sample of the main advertisers on the national scene, representing various sectors of consumption. Through content analysis, discourse analysis combined with the advertising strategies of major brands proceed to the establishment of analytical variables and the categorization of the objectives, strategies, actions and discursive constructions that brands develop their communication policies. The main results of the research are that makes betting on four main types of advertising strategies: the strategy of the U-brands, the defense of traditional brand equity, the strategy focused on price as their main argument and strategy offensive dealer marks around quality.


Methyl viologen radical cation reduces the 2E excited state of trans-Cr([14]aneN4)(NH3)23+ in acidic solutions to yield a novel chromium(II) macrocycle, trans-Cr([14]aneN4)(H2O)22+, as a final product.


Since the advent of the robots, they are widely applied in many areas of industry all over the world. With the advancement of the robot, many new research theories and technologies are developed on it. The single one impacted much more quickly and significantly is the application of computer offline simulation technology nowadays. Based on some relevant theories of robot, this paper takes the approach of computer simulation toward the offline research for the industrial robot rather than the traditional teaching demonstration method. It built a 3-D model for a kind of Panasonic 6-DOF welding robot in SolidWorks, and imported it into ADAMS to simulate the motion further with the simulation results of expected processing trajectory planning for the six links by using MATLAB. The kinematics simulation produced the processing motion course and relevant kinematics curves. Its results indicate that the manipulator could implement the welding process according to the expected trajectory successfully and the total welding motion process and the poses of the robot just in time could be observed intuitively and dynamically. Also, this simulation lays a foundation for other virtual offline kinematics researches on robot by using relevant computer softwares without the actual robot.


After a detailed description of the earliest Triassic thrombolite at the Dawen section,Guizhou Province,South China,four mesostructural categories were distinguished: spotted,layered,dendritic,and reticular mesostructures of thrombolite.The sedimentary characters and the lithologic statistics of the four types of thrombolites indicated that those thrombolites were formed in a subtidal environment,where the spotted and layered thrombolites usually in a lower-energy,deep-subtidal environment,in contrast with the dendritic and meshed thrombolites in a shallow-subtidal environment.The stacking pattern of eighteen shallowing-upward cycles in the microbialitic succession showed that this area experienced a relative fall in sea-level during the Hindeodus parvus Zone,and its minimum appeared during the Isarcicella staeschei Zone and the earliest period of the I.isacica Zone,then the sea-level began to rise.The fall of sea-level in the latest Permian are found at various sections in the world,and the pattern of sea-level changes during the earliest Triassic(the H.parvus,the I.staeschei,and the I.isacica zones) are correlated with some areas in Palaeo-Tethys.Those fluctuation patterns probably indicated the eustatic sea-level changes to a certain extent.


Aiming at the energy constrained of wireless sensor network (WSN) and the low detection accuracy of intrusion detection mechanisms in WSN, an intrusion detection model based on improved Particle Swarm Optimization (IPSO) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the improved LEACH algorithm is applied to our intrusion detection model to cluster the nodes to reduce energy consumption. Nextly, Anomaly detection based on SVM algorithm is used in this model to ensure that detector has a high detection accuracy. Finally, the SVM algorithm is optimized by using the IPSO algorithm to obtain the optimal SVM parameters, so as to improve the detection precision and convergence speed of the model. The experimental results show that the intrusion detection model mentioned in this paper has higher detection precision, faster convergence speed and more balanced use of node energy compared with other detection models.


BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death worldwide. Overweight and obesity are strongly associated with comorbidities such as hypertension and insulin resistance, which collectively contribute to the development of cardiovascular disease. Although high-fat diet shows increased vascular senescence and vascular dysfunction, it remains unclear how obesity could induce cellular senescence and whether vascular dysfunction is associated with senescence of cells in the vasculature. p21 is one of the major regulators and most recognized cellular markers for senescent cells. Recent evidence demonstrated that high fat diet induces the accumulation of p21 high cells in the endothelial cells. However, the relationship between p21 high cells and vascular function is not identified yet. Therefore, this study investigated the linkage between vasodilation and p21 high cells in aging or high-fat diet-induced vascular dysfunction. METHODS: Five p21-Cre/+; +/+ (P) and p21-Cre/+; DTA/+ (PD) obese mice fed by high fat diet were administrated with tamoxifen for twice. Five P lean mice fed by normal chow were adopted as normal control. We previously demonstrated that p21high cells accumulate in obese P mice, and can be eliminated in obese PD mice by tamoxifen treatment. Using pressure myography, vasodilation in femoral arteries was assessed in response to flow-induced shear stress, acetylcholine (ACh), and sodium nitroprusside (SNP). Free Radical Production were measured by Amplex Red Assays. One-way ANOVAs with Bonferroni post-hoc were used to determine differences between groups (P < 0.05). RESULTS: Endothelium-dependent vasodilation was significantly attenuated in the old, induced by both flow (Lean P: 62 ± 4, Obese P: 23 ± 3 %; p < 0.05) and ACh (Lean P: 77 ± 4, Obese P: 35 ± 4 %; p < 0.05). However, the clearance of p21 high cells using tamoxifen enhanced vasodilatory function response to both flow (Obese P: 23 ± 3 %, Obese PD: 58 ± 3 %; p < 0.05) and ACh (Obese P: 35 ± 4 %, Obese PD: 70 ± 3 %; p < 0.05) while endothelium-independent vasodilation was not altered by high fat diet. Also, high fat diet increased free radical production, but the clearance of p21 high cells using tamoxifen attenuated free radical production (Lean P: 10.16 ± 0.41 pmol·s-1·mg-1; Obese P: 26.83 ± 0.54 pmol·s-1·mg-1; Obese PD: 12.23 ± 0.54 pmol·s-1·mg-1; P<0.05). CONCLUSION: These results demonstrated that p21high cells may play a causal role in vascular dysfunction with obesity and other chronic disease. Therefore, targeting p21high cells may enhance vasodilatory function through decreasing oxidative stress. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2023 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.


Objective To evaluate the value of helical CT for diagnosing the etiology of acute intestinal obstruction.Methods CT findings of 60 cases of acute intestinal obstruction were analyed and correlated with the surgical results.Results In 60 cases of acute intestinal obstruction,the etiopathology was:adhesion (19cases),neoplasm (20 cases),hernia (6 cases),intestine torsion (7 cases),intussusception (3 cases),inflammation (4 cases),and intestine stone (1 case).The accuracy rate of helical CT for acute intestinal obstruction was 95% (57/60).Conclusion Helical CT is valuable in detectiing the etiology of acute intestinal obstruction.


The yeast with effective use of xylose,Pachysolen tannophilus 1771,was selected as a tester strain.Its culture medium was optimized by single factor and orthogonal experiments.The optimal medium(g/L) was:D-xylose 100,(NH4)2SO4 21,urea 6.0,yeast powder 4.0,MgSO4 1.1,K2HPO4 1.0,KH2PO4 2.5.Utilization rate of D-xylose,yield of dried yeast and yield of yeast protein was 90.02%,14.56 g/L,and 7.61 g/L respectively when the conditions were:liquid-installed of 250 mL conical flask 100 mL,inoculum size 10%,rotate speed 160 r/min,temperature 30 ℃ and time 20 h.It has extensive reference value for proportion of high yielding medium which produces yeast or yeast protein and uses xylose from degradation of cheap raw materials as carbon source.


The government providing rural migrant workers with training to promote skills suitable for non- agricultural sector,is considered to be important initiatives to promote the transfer of rural labor force. This paper analyses the effectiveness of government- funded transfer training and the vocational education on the rural migrant workers under the framework of human capital investment,using the survey data about rural migrant workers employed in 2013 by manufacturing,construction and service firms in Tai'an City,Shandong Province. This paper reveals that the government-funded transfer training not only can not change the skill condition of rural migrant workers,but also can not increase their wage level,and in contrast,the vocational education is an efficient human capital investment modes actually. It can be concluded that for promoting the transfer of rural migrant workers,the government should pay attention to the both of system construction and the ability construction,weaken the short- term transfer training and strengthen the vocational education to the youth labor force who just finished the compulsory education in the future. It is right for government to implement a free secondary vocational education policy.


A large number of studies have used firm‐level data to examine whether foreign direct investment (FDI) generates knowledge spillovers to domestically owned firms in less developed countries. However, the results are mixed. In this study, Indonesian plant‐level panel data are used to test whether the often‐ignored local R&D activities of foreign‐owned firms in the host country enhance knowledge spillovers from FDI. The analysis found positive spillovers from R&D‐performing foreign‐owned firms, while spillovers from non‐R&D‐performing foreign‐owned firms were absent.


The composition,concentration and size of particles were three main factors for aerosol fungal harm.The aerosol fungi were collected at the entrance of the chicken house by means of Andersen 6-stage air sampler and common fungal counting media.After incubation and purification,78 fungal species were identified,among which more than 50 species were reported to be potentially pathogenic to animal according to literature,including Aspergillus flavus, A.fumigatus,A.niger and Fusarium sp.The result indicates that no significant difference was found on the fungal contamination level of air between the collecting sites at the entrance and inside the chicken house.The concentration of aerosol fungi in morning was lower than those at noon(P=0.007) and in evening (P=0.005),while it was much higher in summer and autumn with the peak value in July.The annual average concentration of aerosol fungi in the chicken house was 2.3×10~3 CFU/m~3.The concentrations of A.flavus,A.fumigatus and A.niger were relatively higher in chicken house air,surpassing the average concentration of fungal aerosol composition respectively by 77.7 CFU/m~3,63 CFU/m~3 and 57.1 CFU/m~3.Fusarium species were also found to be a frequently occurring group of aerosol fungi in chicken house.The total average concentration of Fusarium species was 74.6 CFU/m~3,surpassing the average concentration of fungal aerosol composition by 45.3 CFU/m~3.Average count median diameter(CMD) was 3.1μm,and geometric standard deviation(GSD) 2.1 in sampling place. The amounts of living fungi inhaled into the bronchia and invaded to alveolus per minute in the feeding environments were 3.4 times and 3.3 times bigger than those in common indoor rooms.The changing law for aerosol fungi with time and season was discussed.The potential harm of aerosol fungi in sampled chicken house was quantitatively evaluated in the aspects of aerosol fungal composition,concentration and particle size,which could serve as a scientific basis and alerting reference for effectively controlling avian mycosis prevalence.


Pre-harvest climatic conditions and genotype may have important effects on head quality and post-harvest performance of fresh-cut broccoli. The present work evaluates the effect of the growing cycle (summer–autumn (SA), winter (W), winter–spring (WS), and spring (S)) and genotype on qualitative (dry matter, concentration of chlorophylls, carotenoids, and color) and antioxidative (ascorbic acid, dehydroascorbic acid, total phenol concentrations, and antioxidant capacity) traits of broccoli heads and minimally processed florets. The WS raw product showed the best color indices (L* = 38.6, C* = 9.3 and h° = 123.8) as well as the highest chlorophyll (0.23 µg mg−1 fresh weight) but the lowest total phenol concentration (5.5 µg mg−1 dry weight - DW), whereas the ascorbic acid level (2.3 µg mg−1 DW) was comparable to or lower than that the other growing cycles. The WS florets confirmed their best visual quality, even showing an improved total phenol level after 14 days of cold storage. The climatic conditions experienced by broccoli plants grown in SA, W, and S periods were stressful as they resulted in a slight reduction in the visual quality of the heads, though only the SA florets showed a distinctive decay during storage. The lower post-harvest performance of SA grown broccoli was confirmed in all the tested cultivars, despite 'Naxos' seeming more tolerant. On the contrary, the greatest content of ascorbic acid (3.2 µg mg−1 DW) in the W heads and of phenols (11.1 µg mg−1 DW) in S heads was maintained during storage, thus preserving floret color.


Background: supracondylar fractures of the humerus are very common fractures in paediatric age groups. If displaced, preferred treatment is close reduction with percutaneous K-wire fixation. This study compares the functional outcome of cross K-wires Vs lateral K-wires in Gartland type III supracondylar humerus fractures in paediatric age groups Methods: 60 cases of supracondylar fractures of the humerus Gartland type III in children operated with closed reduction and pinning of which 30 were of lateral and 30 were of cross K wire groups from January 2015 to June 2017 with minimum 4 months follow-up period were included. Results: Functional outcome of the patients was assessed by Flynn's criteria. Results were excellent 13.33 %, good 40% fair 46.6% in cross K wire group and excellent 6.6 %, good 46.6%, fair 40% and poor 6.6 % in lateral K wire group. Conclusion: Both lateral entry pin fixation and crossed pin fixation are effective in the treatment of Gartland type III extension supracondylar fractures of the humerus in children.


The 2017 operation of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) involved the running of only a single experiment at STAR with PHENIX offline in the process of the upgrade to sPHENIX. For this run there were several notable changes to machine operations. These included, transverse polarization, luminosity leveling, a testing of a new approach to machine protection and the development of new store and ramped lattices. The new 255 GeV store lattice was designed to maximize dynamic aperture. The new lattices on the ramp were designed to maximize polarization transmission during the three strong intrinsic spin resonances crossings. Finally we are also commissioning new 9 MHz RF cavities during this run.


Globalization involves much more than our newfound ability to telephone friends on the other side of the world. It involves more than the complex network of trade relations that bring coffee and tea to our breakfast tables. These connections both support and depend on an increasingly globalized culture, one that imagines the world much differently than was the case in previous eras. This chapter explores certain aspects of this emerging global culture, focusing on the role that religions have played and are playing in it. New is the idea that all people have a religion, and that they have a certain kind of relationship to this religion. The chapter outlines how religion has aided such ideas' growth, as well as the role that such ideas have played in shaping contemporary religion. It examines the quasi-religious nature of some of these ideas-and the social consequences of such quasi-religiosity. Keywords: global culture; religious conflict; Self-Conscious World; social system


ABSTRACT Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) strains that carry the EPEC adherence factor (EAF) plasmid were screened for the presence of different EAF sequences, including those of the plasmid-encoded regulator (per). Considerable variation in gene content of EAF plasmids from different strains was seen. However,bfpA, the gene encoding the structural subunit for the bundle-forming pilus, bundlin, and per genes were found in 96.8% of strains. Sequence analysis of the per operon and its promoter region from 15 representative strains revealed that it is highly conserved. Most of the variation occurs in the 5′ two-thirds of the perA gene. In contrast, the C-terminal portion of the predicted PerA protein that contains the DNA-binding helix-turn-helix motif is 100% conserved in all strains that possess a full-length gene. In a minority of strains including the O119:H2 and canine isolates and in a subset of O128:H2 and O142:H6 strains, frameshift mutations in perA leading to premature truncation and consequent inactivation of the gene were identified. Cloned perA, -B, and -C genes from these strains, unlike those from strains with a functional operon, failed to activate the LEE1 operon and bfpAtranscriptional fusions or to complement a per mutant in reference strain E2348/69. Furthermore, O119, O128, and canine strains that carry inactive per operons were deficient in virulence protein expression. The context in which the perABC operon occurs on the EAF plasmid varies. The sequence upstream of theper promoter region in EPEC reference strains E2348/69 and B171-8 was present in strains belonging to most serogroups. In a subset of O119:H2, O128:H2, and O142:H6 strains and in the canine isolate, this sequence was replaced by an IS1294-homologous sequence.


In this paper, we investigate the generalized Hyers-Ulam stability of reciprocal type functional equation   (0.1) where  is a mapping with  is the space of non-zero real numbers,  and  for all  We also illustrate geometrical interpretation of the functional equation (0.1).


The paper presents the concept of chemicometerage and the characterstics of chemicometric standards and measured magnitude transfer, and introduces the applications of the standard materials, standard methods and standard measurement instruments in solid propellant profession. Its important role for the quality assurance in development of solid propellant is also discussed.


" transferred" alibi. This false defence materialises when those speaking to it have conspired to substitute for the events of the day of the offence charged the events of another day. Instead of detailing what happened between 2 and 4 p.m. on, say, Saturday, March zoth, they speak of what happened between these hours on Saturday, March 13th. Naturally, the statements tally meticulously; but all are false. The moral for police officers is that, in interviewing witnesses appearing on a notice of alibi, they should be particular to discover to what date the witnesses are applying their minds. The writer recalls one case, a number of years ago, in which the accused had contrived to give his witnesses the impression that he was charged with committing an offence on the day of a particular football match, which he had attended along with a number of his friends; the truth being that his offence was committed a week later. Bya lucky accident in cross-examination, the truth came to light, the alibi was blown sky-high and the accused was convicted.


Objective:To study the relateion between the psychological instruction after the training care for hypertention patients and the condition of blood pressure controlling.Method:In this article to observe the effect of training care for 50 cases hypertention patients by comparative study,50 cases of compared group after the therapy with medicine.Result:The therapy of medicine care combined with training care and psychology instruction is superior to the pure medicine therapy for hypertention patients(P0.05).Conclusion: There is a better effect if the hypertention patiens treated by medicine and training care plus psychology instruction,more over,this combination therapy may improve the patient's mood condition.


Ni_xCo_1−_xO/ZrO_2(CaO) directionally solidified eutectics (DSEs) form a ductile metallic interphase after they are chemically reduced at high temperatures. Vickers indentation tests have previously shown a significant change in the crack propagation behavior of the reduced composites due to plastic deformation and strain energy absorption mechanisms operating in the system after reduction. This paper focuses on structural and chemical characterization of Ni_xCo_1− x O/ZrO_2(CaO) DSEs after reduction. Analytical transmission electron microscopy techniques such as energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDXS) and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) show elimination of oxygen and formation of nanoscale Ni(Co) solid.


The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of the Nationalization of Automated Teller Machines (ATM) in Indonesia that is reflected by the National Payment Gate (GPN) logo of the economy market in ATM card business in Indonesia. The research method is normative legal research. The type of research data uses secondary data. The data collection technique use library research. The data analysis technique in this study is deduction data analysis techniques by confirming secondary data with empirical findings. The results show that the National Payment Gateway as a new product is not matched with new governing regulations of the customer's rights. The implementation of GPN is based on PBI No. 19/8 / PBI / 2017, which requires payment industry players to integrate retail payment systems in Indonesia. GPN is a system consisting of Standard, Switching, and Services. The three systems in GPN are built through a set of rules and mechanisms to integrate various payment instruments and channels. The GPN policy shows an improvement in the government's efforts to move the cash transaction system more non-cash. However, various weaknesses need to be corrected in its implementation, so that this policy does not necessarily hamper the performance of the payment industry in Indonesia, and at the same time provide maximum benefits and protection for customers.


Purpose To investigate the antihypertensive effect and mechanism of rutaecarpine(Rut) in hypertensive rats.Methods The spontaneously hypertensive rats(SHR) and two-kidney,one-clip(2K1C) hypertensive rats were used in our research.After dividing into normal group,model group,positive group and Rut(10,20,40 mg/kg),Rats of the drug groups were intragastrically administrated the corresponding drugs by once daily for 4 weeks,and pressure was measured once a week.After the last administration,the blood was collected from abdominal aorta to measure the plasma thromboxane B2(TXB2),6-Keto-PGF1α,plasma renin activity(PRA),and atrial natriuretic peptide(ANP).Results Rut can decrease blood pressure in both SHR and 2K1C hypertensive rats,it can also reduce the TXB2 level,increase the 6-Keto-PGF1α level in SHR rats,and increase the PRA and ANP level in 2K1C rats.Conclusion The Rut can effectively decrease blood pressure.It′s antihypertensive effect may be related to the regulation of plasma PGI2 and TXA2 level and the increase of plasma ANP.


The development of new methods for linking sugars to peptides or proteins is an active I area of research because natural glycopeptides or neoglycoconjugates play important roles in biology and medicine and are indispensable tools for probing several biological processes. Herein we report a novel one-pot, three-component process for the synthesis of peptide-urea conjugates incorporating a hexafluorovaline residue under very mild conditions and high yields using commercially available starting materials such as carbodiimides, α-amino acid derivatives and 4,4,4-trifluoro-3-trifluoromethylcrotonic acid. The reaction has been exploited for the synthesis of a library of structurally diverse peptide-sugar conjugates incorporating hexafluorovaline through a four-component, one-pot sequential process by generating the carbodiimides in situ from easily accessible sugar containing azides and commercial available isocyanates through the Staudinger (aza-Wittig) reaction.


Today's society is characterized by a mobility shift in the usage of media, which influences the ways people communicate and express themselves. This paper explores the basic correlation between mobility and creative ways of mobile phone usage. The results of a study conducted among 597 students at the University of Paderborn show how mobile phone users adopt creative ways of communicating in their daily life. Furthermore, different special subgroups of mobile us- ers and their creative actions could be identified. The analysis also reveals a correlation between creative mobile usage and mobile gaming. All in all, this paper aims at highlighting the creative ways in which young adults use mobile technologies.


To study the emission of NO(subscript x) coal water slurry (CWS)-fired boiler in detail and decrease the emission of NO(subscript x), experiments were carried out on a 220 t/h CWS-fired boiler Optimal operation modes of lowering NO(subscript x) for coal water slurry-fired boiler in utility were proposed, including optimum temperature of CWS and atomization steam pressure, optimum preheat air temperature, optimum frequency and Length of time of soot blow, etc. The result showed that fuel NO(subscript x), is the most principal resource, and the relation obtained between the NO(subscript x), emission and the boiler load, temperature, excess air ratio, soot blow and the characteristic of coal water slurry are complex. The low concentration of oxygen can decrease the emission of NO(subscript x), when it has NO(subscript x) negative effect on combustion.


M orphological, structural, and mechanical characteristics of SCB of the distal metacarpal condyles of Thoroughbred racehorses and their relationship with ex-Analysis


The critical behaviour of the two-dimensional bond-diluted transverse Ising model is investigated by an approximate decimation transformation. The full critical surface is obtained and the behaviour of the correlation length in various scaling regions is also presented.


Notes in Maori and shorthand, correspondence, printed waiata.
There are two letters; one is from Kerehoma Tuwhawhakia of Wanganui dealing with the settlement of the Wanganui area, and the process for collecting traditional information; the other letter is from Tutakangahau of Maungapohatu and includes a karakia.
There are also notes dictated by Tamarau Waiari of Ruatoki, dealing with Tuhoe history, whakapapa and land tenure (possibly associated with the Urewera Commission), notes about various Maori vocabulary items, notes about customary concepts and practices, waiata and karakia (from Tuhoe?), there are also notes in shorthand that are headed `Te Amiowhenua' and may discuss that military excursion by Ngapuhi and their allies.
Quantity: 1 folder(s).
Finding Aids: Detailed listing available in inventory.


This s tudy had been done on 15 medicated chronic schizophrenics, 12 of their first degree relatives and 12 normal subJects. Smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEM) study was the target of this work. The results showed that schizophrenics definitely do poorly on this task. Incidence was around 90% on most of SPEM measurement parameters. First degree relatives of schizophrenics showed nearly similar performance to the sample of normal people. SPEM dysfunction in schlzophrenlcs was not correlated to the age of patient, age of onset of Illness, duration of illness, nor to the degree of neuropsychoiogical impairment. Various possibilities of the interpretation of SPEM dysfunction In schlzophrenla was discussed and a conclusion of the selective attention impairment is most probably behind this dysfunction was reached. (E6ypt.J. Psychiat.,1994,17:193-202).


Considering the importance of national competitiveness to economic development and social progress, it is also fundamental to follow how it evolved in regional terms. The present study undertakes this issue using as reference a group of national competitiveness indicators and applies them at the Portuguese regional level. The objective is to verify the subjacent clusters that derived from the group of indicators and the differentiation of the principal factors of the groups found. The results reflect the existence of three regional groups, determined in function of the considered indicators. The first group constituted by the North Region, Center and Alentejo and Azores; the second group encompasses the Algarve and Madeira, and a third region that emerges solidly correspondent to that of Lisboa and Tejo Valley.


ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to Fulbright–LASPAU, the scholarship program that made my studies in the United States possible. I would also like to thank my thesis advisor, Dr. Michael E. Shin, for his great patience, trust, and support. I am grateful to my parents for their endless love and support. Finally, I want to express my gratitude to all the friends and colleagues who encouraged me each day.


How do shortfalls in crude oil production caused by wars and other exogenous political events in the oil producing countries affect oil prices, economic growth and inflation in major ASEAN countries? In this study we try to estimate and compare the effect of these shocks on Inflation rate and Real Growth rate of five major ASEAN countries. These countries are Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Beside that we try to study the stagflationary effect of those shocks on the economies of these countries. This study is useful for us to be aware of effects of future exogenous oil shocks.


Objective
The present study is to investigate the expression of IGFBP2 mRNA in glioblastoma (GBM) and its clinical relevance.

Methods
Tissue microarrays and RNAscope in situ hybridization were used to detect the expression of IGFBP2 mRNA in 128 cases of GBM tumor tissues. The correlations between the expression and clinicopathological parameters as well as some other biomarkers were analyzed.

Results
High expression of IGFBP2 mRNA was observed in 22.7% of tumor tissues tested. No expression of IGFBP2 mRNA was detected in normal or edematous tissues. High expression of IGFBP2 mRNA was negatively correlated with patients' KPS scores and IDH1 mutation (P=0.007, 0.033). The high expression rate of IGFBP2 transcript in primary GBM was significantly higher than that in secondary GBM (P=0.040). Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that the patients with high expression of IGFBP2 mRNA had shorter survival time than those with low expression of IGFBP2 mRNA(P<0.001). Both univariate and multivariate regression indicated that the expression of IGFBP2 transcript level was an independent prognostic factor.

Conclusion
IGFBP2 mRNA expression status detected by RNAscope in situ hybridization is an independent prognostic biomarker in glioblastoma, and it might be served as a prognostic indicator for glioblastoma patients.

Key words:
Glioblastoma; RNA in situ hybridization (RISH); IGFBP2; Biomarker


This paper describes a new approach for urban land use management by using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). Experimental result covers 121 ha (1.21 km2) at Binh Tho ward, Thu Duc district of the Ho Chi Minh city and shows that UAV technology is most suitable and cost effective for cadastral mapping and updating the database with high accuracy. In this research, 36 GCPs (Ground Control Points) and 2433 parcel boundaries (GIS data) were used to compare the achieved accuracy of UAV method in which 10381 orthophoto imageries produced had a resolution of 1.8 cm (with flying altitude 70 m) to be used to inform urban database. This technology opens a new way that is most suitable and cost effective for small areas, where digital maps and 3D models need to be produced in a short period of time with high data quality and accuracy. There are no significant barriers to imbed the technology at the local level and it can speed up the process of updating database in developing the Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) of the smart city.


Our living and work spaces are becoming ever more enriched with all kinds of electronic devices. Many of these are too small to provide the possibility to control or monitor them. Ambient intelligence is integrating many such devices in what are called smart environments to form a network of interweaved sensors, data displays and everyday devices. We present a method to intuitively issue control over smart objects in such an environment, to display data that smart objects provide and to manage the flow of information between objects in a smart environment. This is achieved by using touch-enabled mobile phones as readily available multi-purpose devices which are used to overlay real objects with virtual controls. We evaluated the system with a first qualitative user study.


The authors analyze the radiological aspects and the staging problems of the retroperitoneal lymphangioma, a rare neoplasma of infancy. Echography and computer-assisted tomography contributions are particularly emphasized.


Objective: During interventions, firemen are exposed to fire smoke. Fire smoke contains many air pollutants. Smoke exposure may increase the risk of pulmonary and cardiovascular diseases. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of long-term occupational smoke inhalation on respiratory functions and related risk factors in working firemen.


Through the study of the domestic and foreign research literature,we found there is lack study on ACM method-based service outsourcing industry from the ecosystem angle of view.This paper first reviews the theoretical basis of service outsourcing,service outsourcing development,application of ACM method and the research of ecosystem angle of view four aspects,then systematic elaborated the major points of service outsourcing ecosystem,and give the evaluation from the aspects of research content,angle of view and technique and so on.Finally we prospect the research perspective.


We report a zero-bias photovaractor that operates up to 60 GHz. The capacitance change is based on the decrease of depletion width and the steep increase of the effective area after illumination. With photocurrent of 12 mA, the reactance at 60 GHz is changed by 280 times relative to the dark condition. S11 parameter fitting shows that the capacitance of a 50-μm diameter device increases by 37 times after illumination. Good agreement is achieved between theory and measured results.


The principle of parallel light projection method for diameter measurement is to image the workpiece on the photosensitive units of CCD by parallel light. The object size can be obtained according to the shadow area projected on CCD. Considering the limitation of the lens' caliber and the effective length of CCD, the single light path system is incapable to measure a large size. Hence the double light paths method is presented. The left and right edges of the workpiece are respectively imaged on two CCDs. The diameter is achieved by calculating the length of the shadow field on two CCDs, plus to the distance between two parallel light paths. In order to make the object illuminance uniform, and to diminish the influence of optical errors on the measurement accuracy, the Kohler telecentric illumination system and the object plane telecentric imaging system are applied. The parallel light projection method with double light paths can amplify the measurement range while ensuring the measurement accuracy. The optical measurement theory, the parameter design and adjustment of the system will be introduced in detail.


The characteristics of outsourcing-software and current testing situation of medium and small enterprises are reviewed.Secondly,combining software Testing Maturity Model(TMM),three different stages of testing improvement model is presented.Then each model of the application environment,and its advantages and disadvantages are analyzed in order to guide enterprises to do their testing improvement work.


The geological condition of western North America is very complex because of the encounter of three major plates namely North America, Juan de Fuca, and Pacific Plate. The process of Juan de Fuca subduction and Pacific transform against North America plate created many mountains and produced Great Basin that we can see extending across California, Nevada, and Utah. The varied natural condition causes the varied value of gravity anomaly distribution. Using Topex free-air anomaly analyzed with second vertical derivative (SVD), we can analyze the fracture structures that occur in the Great Basin. The results show that the maximal SVD anomaly value is higher than the minimal SVD anomaly value at the western and eastern border of Great Basin. This explains that the two of Great Basin border are normal faults with trend direction NW-SE in the western boundary and NE-SW trending in the eastern boundary. This research result corresponds with the high seismicity data along the fault. Through this research, we can know that topex free-air anomaly data can be used to determine the type and trend of fault on a regional scale.


In the year 2016, relevant data of the Panamanian legal firm Mossack Fonseca came to the public's attention. This data included information about hundreds of natural and legal persons around the world who used tax havens to design business structures that reduce the tax burden of their declarations or to commit felonies...


Internet of Things (IoT) is a growing computing trend that encompasses every connected thing. Over the recent years, IoT has recorded an exponential growth, leading to billions of smart devices, and still increasing. In contrast to other computing devices, some IoTs generate large amount of data, however, this has become a source of concern as data could contain users' privacy which should be protected at all costs against any potential security breach incident. Securing IoT is very significant with its continuous adoption and use, hence, researchers have proposed several security mechanisms and techniques to safeguard and protect IoT systems and devices. Notwithstanding, there are some research gaps that are yet to be addressed irrespective of the relevant contributions made in protection of users' privacy and confidentiality using IoTs. In this paper, the researcher solely focused on a review of AI approaches leveraged by researchers in protecting the device and data security aspects of privacy specifically for de-centralised architecture based industrial IoT systems (IIOTs) as they are generating large amount of data and are safety critical. The results achieved, unresolved issues and recommendations for future research are contained in this review.


Fine‐needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) is important in the diagnostic establishment of suspicious thyroid nodules. In thyroid neoplasms, mutation of the BRAF gene occurs rather exclusively in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) and results in > 98% of the cases in V600E amino acid substitution. In the current study, the authors investigated the diagnostic value of a recently described monoclonal antibody that detects this specific mutation on FNAB specimens from patients with PTC.


This article chronicles the story of the author's role as a U.S. Congressman in the effort to repeal the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. Through a first-hand narrative, it discusses highs and lows in the fight, from President Obama's commitment in his State of the Union Address to lift the ban to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' plea for Congress to delay a vote, and shares his personal feelings upon achieving victory.


The ground surface settlement due to twin-parallel-tunnel excavation is considered a stochastic process and the stochastic medium theory is applied to predict and analyze the ground settlement due to tunnel construction.The corresponding calculation formulas are derived.An example shows that the prediction method can get good results and has some practical value.It can providereference for similar engineering.


AbstractSidydrassus shumakovi (Spassky, 1934) is reported from eastern Azerbaijan. Both the species and the genus are new to Azerbaijan and the entire Caucasus. A detailed redescription of the female is provided. The genus has never been found west of the Caspian Sea before, and its new sampling location (Azerbaijan) represents the westernmost limit of the genus range.


Objective To observe the mechanism of chronic renal failure related with serum leptin levels. Methods Serum leptin levels of chronic renal failure were determined by isotopic radioimmunoassay. Serum creatine, hemoglobin were determined by biochemical measurements. Results Compared with the control group and normal renal function group , serum leptin levels was higher in non - dialysis and dialysis uremia patients. There were nagtive relationship between leptin and hemoglobin . There are no significant in non - dialysis and dialysis uremia patients. Serum leptin levels are no related with Alb,TG,LDL,HDL. Conclusion Serum leptin levels are higher in the uremia non- dialysis patients and the dialysed patients. Primary dialysis may not able to clean leptin from blood.


This paper investigates the cooperative platoon control problem of heterogeneous vehicles. Under a leader and predecessor following communication structure, each following vehicle tracks the state of the leader while maintaining a constant spacing between successive vehicles. To reduce the utilization of communication resources, a new event-triggered communication strategy (ETCS) is proposed, where the current data of the following vehicle is transmitted to its direct successor only when the difference between the current data and the last transmitted data exceeds a state-dependent threshold. By properly designing the threshold, the number of data transmissions near the steady state is greatly reduced. The tracking errors of all vehicles are shown to be bounded while Zeno behavior can be avoided under the ETCS. The advantages of the proposed ETCS are discussed by comparing with the existing strategies. Moreover, to deal with the heterogeneity of the vehicles' dynamics, a decentralized and computationally efficient method is presented to solve the non-identical control gains of all the vehicles. The numerical simulations have been conducted to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.


Rusby's� milkvetch� ( Astragalus rusbyi Greene) is endemic to basaltic soils northwest and west of Flagstaff, Arizona. Recent interest in this species is due in part to its addition to the U.S. Forest Service Region 3 sensitive spe- cies list in 1999 and its occurrence in ecological restoration projects and proposed fuels reduction projects that in- volve tree thinning and prescribed burning. Some of its habitat has been subjected to large wildfires over the last few decades, and other areas have undergone ecological restoration treatments, while much of its range in ponderosa pine forest is slated to undergo such treatments in the near future. In a ponderosa pine restoration study area northwest of Flagstaff, A. rusbyi was an indicator species of remnant grass patches and increased following tree thinning and pre- scribed burning. However, in an area less than 3 km away, there appeared to be no relationship to restoration treat- ments, trees per ha, pine basal area, or canopy cover, but A. rusbyi did appear to be sensitive to an extreme drought event in 2002 and may have remained dormant in that year, a pattern that has been observed in other rare Astragalus species. A. rusbyi has a foliar nitrogen content of 4.4% and a foliar C:N mass ratio of 11. It is classified as a competi- tive ruderal species, meaning it is able to compete well with other understory species, but is not very tolerant of stresses, such as deep shade. We currently do not have a thorough understanding of the ecology of this species, or the effects of ecological restoration or fuels reduction treatments. In this paper we will discuss ecology of other members of the genus Astragalus and explore the relationships of A. rusbyi to moisture, vegetation treatments and overstory mortality.


Perpendicularly magnetized films showing small saturation magnetization, $M_\mathrm{s}$, are essential for spin-transfer-torque writing type magnetoresistive random access memories, STT-MRAMs. An intermetallic compound, {(Mn-Cr)AlGe} of the Cu$_2$Sb-type crystal structure was investigated, in this study, as a material showing the low $M_\mathrm{s}$ ($\sim 300$ kA/m) and high-perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, $K_\mathrm{u}$. The layer thickness dependence of $K_\mathrm{u}$ and effects of Mg-insertion layers at top and bottom (Mn-Cr)AlGe$|$MgO interfaces were studied in film samples fabricated onto thermally oxidized silicon substrates to realize high-$K_\mathrm{u}$ in the thickness range of a few nanometer. Optimum Mg-insertion thicknesses were 1.4 and 3.0 nm for the bottom and the top interfaces, respectively, which were relatively thick compared to results in similar insertion effect investigations on magnetic tunnel junctions reported in previous studies. The cross-sectional transmission electron microscope images revealed that the Mg-insertion layers acted as barriers to interdiffusion of Al-atoms as well as oxidization from the MgO layers. The values of $K_\mathrm{u}$ were about $7 \times 10^5$ and $2 \times 10^5$ J/m$^3$ at room temperature for 5 and 3 nm-thick (Mn-Cr)AlGe films, respectively, with the optimum Mg-insertion thicknesses. The $K_\mathrm{u}$ at a few nanometer thicknesses is comparable or higher than those reported in perpendicularly magnetized CoFeB films which are conventionally used in MRAMs, while the $M_\mathrm{s}$ value is one third or less smaller than those of the CoFeB films. The developed (Mn-Cr)AlGe films are promising from the viewpoint of not only the magnetic properties, but also the compatibility to the silicon process in the film fabrication.


Pulverized (36−75 μm) samples from three coals were fed to a drop tube furnace (DTF) operated at 1300 °C under different O2/N2 mixtures. From the obtained set of char samples, one low burnout char from each parent coal was re-entered into the DTF under varying gas compositions. The aim of this work is to monitor the textural changes of the chars along pulverized coal combustion, with special care to isolate the variations of surface area attributable to char combustion from those arising from early char/oxygen interactions during the pyrolysis stage. The burnout, helium density, and CO2 and BET surface areas of the combusted and refired chars were determined, and the patterns of variation of the textural parameters were established for these two types of unburned material. It was found that the presence of oxygen in the vicinity of pyrolyzing coal particles affected the development of surface area of the newly formed chars and that this effect was both rank- and maceral-dependent.


This thesis sets out a characterisation of the effects of the sulphydryl agent N-ethylmaleimide (NEM) on water flow across the urinary bladder of the toad, Bufo marinus . and compares the effects of NEM with those of vasopressin (VP). This has been done using functional, biochemical, and ultrastructural studies of bladders treated with NEM or VP. The introduction reviews the action of VP in the toad bladder, and summarises the previous experiments with NEM in this tissue. The results show that NEM causes a specific, irreversible, increase in transepithelial osmotic water flow, but inhibits sodium transport. The increase in water flow does not appear to be mediated by cAMP, or changes of pH or calcium ion concentration, but can be inhibited by low pH, raised calcium, or disruption of the cytoskeleton or cellular metabolism. NEM-induced water flow is additive with that induced by a sub-maximal, but not a maximal, VP dose. NEM treatment leaves the overall epithelial structure intact, while causing changes consistent with increased water flow through the granular cells. Membrane fusion profiles, similar to those seen after VP stimulation, are visible at the apical plasma membrane, and particle aggregates morphologically identical to those believed to mediate the hydrosmotic response to VP can be visualised by freeze-fracture electron microscopy. These results suggest that NEM induces a specific increase in transepithelial water flow by activating, via one or more sulphydryl reactions, the cellular apparatus stimulated by VP. This activation must occur distal to cAMP production, but proximal to cytoskeletal involvement. NEM may prove valuable in understanding the action of vasopressin, by providing an agonist that acts later in the pathway than others currently available. The implications of the experiments reported here, and suggestions for further work, are discussed.


A dynamic Walrasian economic equilibrium problem introduced in [3] is considered and, by applying the duality theory in infinite dimensional spaces, a characterization of equilibrium in terms of Lagrange variables is obtained. Thanks to this characterization we are able to give a description of the behavior of the economic market during the evolution in time.


Following the introduction of quantifiable number theoretic, reflection phase grating diffusing surfaces by Schroeder [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 57, 149–151 (1975)], several approaches have been used to measure and characterize them. In the early 1980s, time delay spectrometry, developed by Heyser, was used to measure the temporal, spatial, and spectral responses of diffusing surfaces. Once maximum length sequences were introduced as an excitation signal, they were adopted in the late 1980s. These explorations led to the creation of a measurement standard for the diffusion coefficient, which is the circular autocorrelation of the third octave polar responses. The limitations of periodic number theoretic surfaces, namely, bandwidth, grating lobes, and flat plate effects, were addressed by computer optimization, which combined the power of boundary element and multi‐dimensional minimization techniques, and modulation. Both one‐dimensional (phase variation in one direction) and two‐dimensional (phase variation in ...


10524Background: Dependence on the prosurvival protein B-cell lymphoma 2 (BCL-2) occurs in certain pediatric solid tumors, resulting in tumorigenesis and resistance to therapies. Venetoclax (VEN), ...


Recent indications of neutrino oscillations raise the question of the possibility of incorporating massive neutrinos in the formulation of the Standard Model (SM) within noncommutative geometry (NCG). We find that the NCG requirement of Poincare duality constrains the numbers of massless quarks and neutrinos to be unequal unless new fermions are introduced. Possible scenarios in which this constraint is satisfied are discussed.


AbstractStudies have shown that fine-aggregate matrices (FAM) are a good tool to assess fatigue cracking and moisture damage of hot-mix asphalt (HMA) mixtures. However, there is no consensus on the...


The Ohlone, the original settlers of the San Francisco region, were violently dispossessed by successive colonial regimes, first Spanish, then US American. The colonial trauma was written out of history, and by the 20th century anthropologists pronounced the Ohlone to be 'extinct'. In this article, I explore how the dispossession of the Ohlone haunt one of the greatest movies of all time: Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958). Although Vertigo is one of the most-analysed films ever, no one has noticed that Carlotta Valdes – the dispossessed woman who comes back from the dead to take possession of the living – would have been Native American. A hauntological reading reveals Vertigo as an unwitting witness of colonial dispossession.


Abstract Background Schizophrenia is a disabling disorder with tremendous individual burden, reduced quality of life, leading to intense costs for society. Paranoia is a central feature of schizophrenia. In particular, paranoid experience is thought to be associated with aggressive behaviour, and poor social and functional outcome. Since paranoid threat is sometimes hard to detect in the clinical interview, a simple bedside test to identify patients suffering from paranoid experience was recently proposed: the interpersonal distance test. Methods For measuring interpersonal distance in patients with schizophrenia and age-, gender- and education-matched healthy controls, we performed a stop-distance paradigm. To accomplish the paradigm, we positioned experimenter and participant at opposite ends of the room with a distance of seven meters facing each other. The stop-distance paradigm contained four different conditions; two active conditions (i.e. participant is approaching experimenter) and two passive conditions (i.e. experimenter is approaching participant) both, with and without eye contact. Participants were instructed to stop or tell the experimenter to stop at a distance, at which they would start to feel less comfortable. Moreover, we assessed paranoid threat with the Bern Psychopathology Scale. We compared the interpersonal distance between patients with current experiences of paranoid threat, schizophrenic patients without paranoia and healthy controls. Results Patients with higher ratings in paranoid experience presented with higher interpersonal distance than patients without paranoid threat and matched healthy controls. This effect was most prominent in the passive conditions. Patients without paranoia did not differ from healthy controls in the interpersonal distance test. Discussion Interpersonal distance is a reliable indicator of current paranoid threat in patients with schizophrenia. In fact, interpersonal distance is not generally altered in schizophrenia. However, paranoid threat leads to impairments in interpersonal space regulation. This is of particular relevance as interpersonal distance might be predictive of social and functional outcome and aggressive behaviour in schizophrenia.