Habitat fragmentation can have an impact on a wide variety of biological processes including abundance, life history strategies, mating system, inbreeding and genetic diversity levels of individual species. Although fragmented populations have received much attention, ecological and genetic responses of species to fragmentation have still not been fully resolved. The current study investigated the ecological factors that may influence the demographic and genetic structure of the giant white-tailed rat (Uromys caudimaculatus) within fragmented tropical rainforests. It is the first study to examine relationships between food resources, vegetation attributes and Uromys demography in a quantitative manner. Giant white-tailed rat densities were strongly correlated with specific suites of food resources rather than forest structure or other factors linked to fragmentation (i.e. fragment size). Several demographic parameters including the density of resident adults and juvenile recruitment showed similar patterns. Although data were limited, high quality food resources appear to initiate breeding in female Uromys. Where data were sufficient, influx of juveniles was significantly related to the density of high quality food resources that had fallen in the previous three months. Thus, availability of high quality food resources appear to be more important than either vegetation structure or fragment size in influencing giant white-tailed rat demography. These results support the suggestion that a species' response to fragmentation can be related to their specific habitat requirements and can vary in response to local ecological conditions. In contrast to demographic data, genetic data revealed a significant negative effect of habitat fragmentation on genetic diversity and effective population size in U. caudimaculatus. All three fragments showed lower levels of allelic richness, number of private alleles and expected heterozygosity compared with the unfragmented continuous rainforest site. Populations at all sites were significantly differentiated, suggesting restricted among population gene flow. The combined effects of reduced genetic diversity, lower effective population size and restricted gene flow suggest that long-term viability of small fragmented populations may be at risk, unless effective management is employed in the future. A diverse range of genetic reproductive behaviours and sex-biased dispersal patterns were evident within U. caudimaculatus populations. Genetic paternity analyses revealed that the major mating system in U. caudimaculatus appeared to be polygyny at sites P1, P3 and C1. Evidence of genetic monogamy, however, was also found in the three fragmented sites, and was the dominant mating system in the remaining low density, small fragment (P2). High variability in reproductive skew and reproductive success was also found but was less pronounced when only resident Uromys were considered. Male body condition predicted which males sired offspring, however, neither body condition nor heterozygosity levels were accurate predictors of the number of offspring assigned to individual males or females. Genetic spatial autocorrelation analyses provided evidence for increased philopatry among females at site P1, but increased philopatry among males at site P3. This suggests that male-biased dispersal occurs at site P1 and female-biased dispersal at site P3, implying that in addition to mating systems, Uromys may also be able to adjust their dispersal behaviour to suit local ecological conditions. This study highlights the importance of examining the mechanisms that underlie population-level responses to habitat fragmentation using a combined ecological and genetic approach. The ecological data suggested that habitat quality (i.e. high quality food resources) rather than habitat quantity (i.e. fragment size) was relatively more important in influencing giant white-tailed rat demographics, at least for the populations studied here . Conversely, genetic data showed strong evidence that Uromys populations were affected adversely by habitat fragmentation and that management of isolated populations may be required for long-term viability of populations within isolated rainforest fragments.


As the year 2015 approaches, marking the end of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), while numerous countries have made successful efforts towards achieving a number of the goals, progress towards MDG 3 (promoting gender equality and empowering women) has been relatively weak. Countries have used various ways to promote gender equality and empower women. One specific policy that could have an impact on MDG 3 is paternity leave.  In this paper we research and analyze how paternity leave policy can have an impact on gender inequality and female empowerment through increased male participation in child rearing. We focus the analysis on the post Soviet Union country, the Republic of Georgia, where according to the World Policy Forum, the paid paternity leave is not available to the fathers of newborns (World Policy Forum) while in neighbouring Armenia and Azerbaijan paternity leave can be taken for up to 14 weeks.  Through communication with the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia, the results show that paternity leave is not regulated by the law in the country and as proposed by ombudsman, the ministry is actively working on the revision of parental leave, in order to make it more gender inclusive. In addition, the Ministry is revising the experiences from other countries, to effectively address the issue of the paternity leave and make it available for the citizens of Georgia. The purpose of this research paper is to discuss the paternity leave policy in depth, compare the practices from different countries and serve as a recommendation for the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia in the process of provisioning the law of paternity leave. The paper shares the examples and experiences from the countries with similar development backgrounds, discusses the macro environment related to a woman's constitutional rights and their link to the healthcare, which is the basement for gender inclusive policies and proposes the structure of the policy, which enforces the uptake and usage. Finally, this paper shows the needs for a larger macro-supporting environment with acceptance of overall gender equity, which is associated with a higher level of paternity leave. This relationship is supported using data from 18 countries in the region.  The discussion relates these results to the future steps for Georgia as they begin to formulate a specific policy for parental leave in the country.


A randomised controlled trial was undertaken to compare the efficacy of topical Calendula officinalis (Calendula) versus standard of care (Sorbolene: 10% glycerine in cetomacragol cream) in reducing the prevalence of radiation‐induced dermatitis in women undergoing breast cancer radiotherapy.


We present the design and prototype implementation of a low-cost Hotel Management System. In this system, computing devices are distributed throughout the hotel and connected via Ethernet. A number of central processes dynamically create or destroy processes on each computing device as required. Processes communicate either via JavaSpace or directly through the Jini architecture. Redundancy ensures that the system is robust, while Jini Leases ensure that the system is self-healing. Several services needed for Hotel Management are proposed. One major innovation is the use of biometric authentication tools for identification and access controls. The task of matching a given fingerprint to a lists of possible templates is divided by templates in JavaSpace. Another major innovation is the use of mobile Software Agents for scheduling multiple, bundled events. Our prototype has served well as a "proof-of-concept", and with further work, we are optimistic that this can become a practical system for Hotel Management. Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Amar Gupta Title: Co-Director, PROFIT Program, MIT Sloan School of Management


Bioethanol is an alcohol substance which can be obtained by biomass fermentation process by means of Saccharomyces Cereviceae help. Adsorption is a separation process where the components of a fluid phase moves to the absorbing surface of the solid (adsorbent). This research aims to examine the process of bioethanol purificationusing adsorption and distillation process by the influence of variations of the variables. In the distillation process produces ethanol conyent that is not too high, so it needs to be atudied a process that can increase the purity of bioethanol with distillation adsorption process. Bioethanol purification process using zeolite as adsorbent with 4 variables change in the adsorption process, namely: the type of zeolite, stirring time, residence time, and heavy of zeolite. Whereas ondistillation adsorption process using 4 variables change, namely: the type of zeolite, temperaturem weight of zeolite, and processing time. From the results most effective process for ethanol purification is distillation adsorbtion process with zeolite 4A adsorbent weighing 100 grams, the process temperature 78oC, processing time 50 minutes. Levels of ethanol produced was 98,42%.


of the original article: Blindsight is the term commonly used to describe visually guided behaviour elicited by a stimulus falling within the scotoma (blind area) caused by a lesion of the striate cortex. Such "vision" is normally held to be unconscious and to be mediated by subcortical pathways involving the superior colliculus. Blindsight is of considerable theoretical importance since it suggests that destriate man is more like destriate monkey than had been previously believed and also because it supports the classical notion of two visual systems. It is also of potential clinical importance, since it has been claimed recently that systematic practice in blindsight can lead to the recovery of normal visual function in patients with cortical lesions. From a review of the literature it is concluded that all of the phenomena of blindsight can be attributed either to light scatter into unimpaired parts of the visual field or to residual vision resulting from spared striate cortex. The possible contribution of other factors is also considered. It is concluded that blindsight studies have generally failed to control for such nonblindsight interpretations partly because of poor methodology and partly because of difficulties in defining the term "blindsight." Experiments were carried out to investigate the extent to which subjects can exhibit performance similar to blindsight when they are using scattered light as a cue. This was done both with hemianopic subjects (by manipulating the amount of scattered and direct light coming from a stimulus) and with normal subjects (by presenting targets within their blind spots). Good blindsight performance was observed when only scattered light was available as a cue to the subjects. It is therefore concluded that an adequate case for blindsight has not been made. It is probably impossible to demonstrate the existence of blindsight on purely behavioural grounds. What is required is the establishment of relationships between visual function and independent anatomical evidence. On inferring blindsight from normal vision L Lutzemberger, C. A. Marzi, and G. Tassinari "Istituto di Neurochirurgia, University di Pisa, Pisa, Italy, "Istituto di Psicologia, Universita di Padua, Padua, Italy, and lstituto di Fisiologia, University di Pisa, Pisa, Italy Campion, Latto & Smith (1983) have certainly done a fine job in clarifying the conceptual and methodological framework of blindsight research. Yet, their conclusion that it is impossible to demonstrate the existence of blindsight on purely behavioral grounds seems too pessimistic to us. In this commentary we would like to describe a simple method that avoids one of the major sources of artifacts correctly deemed by Campion et al. to plague blindsight research, namely, shifts in response criteria. In addition, our method employs light stimuli that can easily be shown not to be scattered into the intact field of hemianopic patients. Before briefly describing our experiments we would like to devote a few words to an important point that has perhaps been overlooked in both the target article and the first round of commentaries, namely, the site and the extent of extrastriate damage. Various theories of the neural substrates of visual perception view the primary visual cortex as providing a basis for high-resolution vision whereas attentional and high-order aspects of perception are likely to depend on extrastriate areas (see Marzi 1983). It seems reasonable, therefore, to assume lack of blindsight in a hemianopic patient suffering from concomitant damage in a putative attentional system which orients visual attention to a given portion of the visual field in and around the scotoma. Posner and his associates (see Posner 1980) have shown that visual attention can be allocated to various portions of space without overt movements of the head and eyes, and that this implicit visual orienting is very important for subsequent overt visually guided behavior. Now, part of the variability observed in blindsight experiments might stem from variations in the patient's capacity to shift attention toward his island of blindness. Such an inability might result either as a consequence of the brain lesions involving "attentional" areas or as a consequence of the paradigm used to test residual vision, for example, blocked versus randomized stimulus presentation. In patients with long-lasting field defects this might lead to a "disuse" of the hemianopic side and thus to irreversible total blindness. This might explain why some patients recover part of their vision following extensive training in which they are forced to pay attention to the damaged side (Zihl 1980). As mentioned above, in our laboratory we are trying to verify the existence of true blindsight phenomena by using stimuli and paradigms that prevent light from scattering into the normal hemifield and decisional changes in response from occurring. Subjects are tested in a simple reaction time (RT) paradigm which employs as stimuli very brief (5 msec) light flashes of low suprathreshold intensity generated by small LEDs (light-emitting diodes). Under such conditions, light scattering, as assessed by measuring the blind spot (see Schmielau & Marzi 1983) is 754 THE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1985) 8:4 Continuing Commentary absent. Following testing with normal subjects we were able to ascertain with great reliability (the effect shows up in every subject and usually in every session) that RTs are faster for responses to two flashes presented simultaneously than for responses to one flash alone. The stimuli were presented at 10° and 30° along the horizontal meridian in the same or in opposite hemifields. On each trial the subject was instructed to press a key as soon as possible following the onset of either one or two lights, no matter which hemifield the light or lights appeared in. The various stimulus conditions were randomly alternated, and the subject's fixation on a central point was continuously monitored through a TV system. It is important to point out that the effect of spatial summation was found not only for stimuli presented in the same hemifield but also when the two flashes appeared across the vertical meridian. There are at least two advantages in using such a paradigm to verify the presence of blindsight in hemianopic patients. First, since number and position of the stimuli are randomly alternated, on each trial there is only a one in four chance of not seeing the stimuli (i.e. when both flashes appear in the blind hemifield), and there is no reason for a change in response strategy. In fact, patients are told in advance that they may sometimes fail to see the stimuli. Second, the site of stimulation that is closer to the boundary of the intact visual field is 10°, a distance that, considering the small size and the low intensity of the flashes (not to mention their short duration) makes light scattering into the normal side quite implausible. Eleven patients with homonymous hemianopia caused by an occipital lobectomy or by vascular lesions restricted to the occipital lobe have been tested so far in the same apparatus and with the same procedure as normal individuals. The rationale is as follows: In normal individuals two flashes appearing simultaneously at different points in either the same or opposite hemifields yield faster RTs than a single flash presented in one hemifield. A hemianopic patient should provide the same result as normal individuals only for stimulation of the good hemifield, whereas, unlike what happens with normal individuals, the condition in which the two flashes are on opposite sides should yield the same RT as for single flashes. The presence of blindsight, however, should result in an increase in speed of response even for stimuli in opposite hemifields. Thus, as pointed out in Haber's (1983) commentary, a stimulus of which the patient is unaware should still be capable of influencing behavior in a measurable way. The results so far obtained with our patients show that when the two stimuli fell onto the hemianopic side no responses were obtained, whereas when the double flash appeared on the normal side, RT was faster than for a single flash. No clear-cut evidence for blindsight could be obtained, since stimuli presented to opposite hemifields yielded average RTs not significantly different from those obtained for stimulation of the intact field alone. However, eight out of 11 patients showed a trend toward faster RTs for double contralateral stimulation as opposed to stimulation of the normal field alone. It is possible that using stimuli of higher intensity and duration might be necessary to reveal across-midline spatial summation in our hemianopic patients. In conclusion, even though our efforts to demonstrate the presence of blindsight have so far been unsuccessful, we think that the above paradigm represents a simple, artifact-free approach to blindsight research. At variance with the work reviewed in the target article, which is usually aimed at testing the existence of blindsight in the damaged hemisphere directly, the main thrust of our approach is to infer the presence of blindsight by testing its influence on vision subserved by the normal hemisphere. Broadly similar to ours is the approach followed by Singer, Zihl, and Poppel (1977) and by Marcel (1982 cited by Campion et al.). Singer et al. have reported that increment thresholds in the normal field can be influenced by stimulation in a contralateral scotomatous area. Marcel has instead found semantic priming following stimulation of the hemianopic field. Finally, Pizzamiglio, Antonucci, and Francia (1984) have observed that in hemianopic patients stimulation of the entire visual field with a rotating visual background elicits a greater visual tilt effect than stimulation of the normal side only. A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S The experiments reported in this commentary have been carried out


Active impedance control of linear one-dimensional wave equations is investigated. The proposed control algorithms are based on the concepts of wave propagation and impedance matching. Two control objectives are considered. The first objective is to obtain total reflection, and the second objective is to achieve total absorption (e.g. matched impedance). Both control laws utilize some interesting properties of the wave-type partial differential equation and do not require information about the disturbance and boundary conditions. The resulting controllers, although boundary-independent, contain an infinite number of poles on the imaginary axis and the closed-loop systems are not internally stable. A simple modification is added to the control laws and the stability is analysed. An example of active sound cancellation in ducts with a moving medium is given to demonstrate one of the control algorithms.


Dfallyl-nor-toxtferene is a blocking relaxant made by Hoffmann La Roche under the trade name of "Alloferine". Tests carried out on 247 patients of all ages who underwent a variety of operations confirmed the view of various authors that diallyl-nor-toxiferene is a relaxant drug which is satisfactory for clinical use. In an initial dosage of 0·2 mg. per kilogram of body weight it was found to produce satisfactory relaxation. Increments of one-quarter of this amount restored relaxation when necessary. Relaxation developed in about two minutes from the time of injection, and wore off smoothly. Residual relaxation was in all cases satisfactorily and permanently reversed by an anti-cholinesterase drug. Side-effects on the circulation were not in evidence. Bronchospasm did not occur, and vomiting did not appear to hoe more common than with the use of other relaxants. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


On a GAAP basis, total sales declined 51%, net loss was $334 million, and EPS was ($5.09). On a Non-GAAP basis, Adjusted EPS was ($4.76), which includes a $272 million charge, or $2.77 per share, against aged inventory. This reserve covers the full cost of markdowns that are expected to be taken on this aged inventory in the second quarter. All stores were closed by March 22, 2020, but began to re-open on May 11, 2020; since re-opening, sales in re-opened stores have exceeded prior year levels. Expect to have 402 stores re-opened by May 29, 2020, and most of the balance of the chain re-opened by mid-June 2020.


In this paper we present a new method for selecting blue horizontal branch (BHB) candidates based on color–color photometry. We make use of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey z band as a surface gravity indicator and show its value for selecting BHB stars from quasars, white dwarfs, and main-sequence A-type stars. Using the g, r, i, and z bands, we demonstrate that extraction accuracies on a par with more traditional u, g, and r photometric selection methods may be achieved. We also show that the completeness necessary to probe major Galactic structure may be maintained. Our new method allows us to efficiently select BHB stars from photometric sky surveys that do not include a u-band filter such as the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System.


Multidimensional data collected by large consortia such as The Cancer Genome Atlas Network (TCGA) provides sufficient statistical power for cross-sectional studies to identify cancer-associated genes with the aim to unravel complex cancer mechanisms involving clinically actionable targets. However, current methods employed in cross-sectional studies suffer from two main caveats. First, they do not account for the data's continuous structure when reducing its dimensionality, resulting in possible artifacts. Second, they rely on complex modeling of the mutational background to identify cancer-associate genes which might introduce systematic errors resulting in false positives. We have developed an orthogonal method involving topological data analysis and original statistics, which is not prone to the mentioned caveats. Using topological data analysis, specifically the Mapper algorithm, we map the global gene expression space into a two-dimensional space and apply to it a novel statistical algorithm which does not rely on complex modeling, but rather on mutations association with the disease phenotype, as captured in the twodimensional space. We applied this method to 2,916 tumors spanning seven cancer types and identified in total 85 cancer-associated genes, including 38 novel candidates such as FMN2 mutations in the p53/Rb pathway in lung adenocarcinoma and PTPRD mutations in urothelial bladder cancer. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures .................................................................................................................................... i List of Tables .................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................................... iii Dedications ..................................................................................................................................... iiv BACKGROUND General biology and epidemiology of cancer ............................................................................... 1 Cross-sectional studies and their importance in cancer research ............................................... 3 Common methods for identifying cancer-associated genes and limitations ................................ 4 Topology ...................................................................................................................................... 9 Topological data analysis: a new approach to data analysis ..................................................... 11 Mapper background ................................................................................................................... 12 Mapper algorithm ....................................................................................................................... 14 STRATEGY Motivation for TDA and global gene expression levels as a phenotype .................................... 16 Statistical Analysis Connectivity .............................................................................................. 18 RESULTS ....................................................................................................................................... 19 Lung adenocarcinoma................................................................................................................ 21 Urothelial bladder carcinoma ..................................................................................................... 26 Lower-grade glioma and glioblastoma multiforme ..................................................................... 29 Invasive breast carcinoma ......................................................................................................... 34 Colon adenocarcinoma .............................................................................................................. 37 Stomach adenocarcinoma ......................................................................................................... 40 METHODS Samples collection and preprocessing ...................................................................................... 43 Topological representations ....................................................................................................... 44 Connectivity analysis .................................................................................................................. 45 Genes filtering for connectivity analysis ..................................................................................... 46 Subsampling of hypermutated samples and batch effects ........................................................ 47 Parameter scan and statistical power ........................................................................................ 48 Positive selection control............................................................................................................ 49 DISCUSSION ................................................................................................................................. 51 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................... 55 APPENDIX ..................................................................................................................................... 63


Background/aim Oxidative stress and advanced glycation end products (AGEs) formation are proposed as effective mechanisms in the pathogenesis of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and alcoholic liver disease (ALD). 1,25(OH)2D3 was proposed to have antioxidant, antiinflammatory and antiglycation properties. In this study, the effect of 1,25(OH)2D3 treatment on oxidative stress parameters and AGEs levels together with hepatic histopathology was investigated in high fructose (HFr) or ethanol (EtOH)-treated rats. Materials and methods Rats were treated with fructose (30%) or ethanol (5-20%) in drinking water with and without 1,25(OH)2D3 treatment (5 µg/kg two times a week) for 8 weeks. Insulin resistance (IR), oxidative stress parameters, AGEs, triglyceride (TG), and hydroxyproline (Hyp) levels together with histopathology were investigated in the liver. Results 1,25(OH)2D3 decreased hepatic reactive oxygen species, lipid and protein oxidation products together with histopathological improvements in HFr- and EtOH-treated rats. 1,25(OH)2D3 treatment was observed to decrease significantly serum and hepatic AGEs in HFr group, and hepatic AGEs in EtOH group. Conclusion Our results clearly show that 1,25(OH)2 D3 treatment may be useful in the alleviation of hepatic lesions by decreasing glycooxidant stress in both NAFLD and ALD models created by HFr- and EtOH-treated rats, respectively.


Quantification of the economic impact of psychological programs in organizations requires determination of (a) the size and variability of the resulting increase in job performance, and (b) the economic value of the increase in job performance. The new methods ofmeta-analysis allow attainment of the first of these, and in relation to the second, utility analysis methods enable us to translate job performance increases into estimates of the economic value of the program. In the area of personnel selection, many meta-analytic studies have already been conducted, resulting in precise and genemlizable estimates of the validity of cognitive ability tests and other selection procedures. Utility analyses show that the job performance increases resulting from use of valid selection methods have substantial economic value. Valid selection produces major increases in work-force productivity. State-of-the-art meta-analyses have not yet been carried out for nonselection interventions such as training or motivational programs. Utility analysis of the results of existing reviews suggest, however, that the economic value of many such programs will prove to be large. The combined effects of selection and nonselection interventions can be expected to produce increases in workforce productivity that are large indeed. Applied psychologists have conducted research on a variety of organizational interventions aimed at increasing employee job performance and productivity (Katzell & Guzzo, 1983). The usefulness of this research for business and government has often been bounded by two constraints: (a) the extent to which findings can be made definitive, and (b) the extent to which the impact of findings can be stated in administratively and economically meaningful terms. To render findings definitive, one must reconcile the apparently conflicting results of different studies. To assess the practical impact of findings, one must translate such arcane psychological jargon as "p < .01" into economically meaningful statements such as "a 10% increase in output" or "a reduction of $100 million in labor costs." Recent advances have been made in both areas under the rubrics meta-analysis and utility analysis. This article summarizes, in broad outline, the application of these techniques to the areas of personnel selection and organizational interventions. Meta-analysis is a collection of techniques for quantitatively cumulating results across studies (Glass, McGaw, & Smith, 1981; Hunter, Schmidt, & Jackson, 1982). Meta-analysis has shown that in many areas, there is no real conflict between the results of different studies; the apparent differences are due to sampling error and other artifacts. A stateof-the-art meta-analysis allows the reviewer to correct for the effects of several artifacts that distort findings in individual studies: sampling error, error of measurement, and restriction in range. A review of meta-analysis methods for correlation coefficients and for effect sizes can be found in Hunter et al. (1982). Utility analysis is the assessment of the economic or social impact of organizational programs (Katzell and Guzzo, 1983). A key problem in psychological research is that impact is usually measured on psychological rather than economic scales. For example, job performance is usually measured by supervisor ratings. Thus a special analysis is needed to translate findings into economically meaningful terms, such as dollars of labor savings. In personnel selection, formulas for assessing utility have been available for over 30 years (Brogden, 1949; Cronbach & Gleser, 1965) but have not generally been applied because one parameter in these formulas (the standard deviation of job performance in dollar terms) has been difficult to estimate, Base' line formulas for estimating this parameter now exist (Hunter & Schmidt, 1982; Schmidt, Hunter, McKenzie, & Muldrow, 1979; Schmidt & Hunter, Note 1). Furthermore, the methods of utility analysis have now been extended to the assessment of nonselection organizational interventions such as trainApril 1983 • American Psychologist Copyright 1983 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 473 ing or performance incentive programs (Schmidt, Hunter, & Pearlman, 1982).


To keep psychiatric patients as much as possible in the community rather than have them admitted to mental hospital is a policy which has become more and more favoured and has been shown to work (Leyberg, 1959; Silverman, 1961; Sainsbury et al., 1963 and Hoenig et al., 1965, etc.). This type of management cannot be expected to be equally successful with all groups of patients and is perhaps most open to question as regards the illnesses that affect the elderly.


Food security in the entire Volta Basin is under threat. The erratic rainfall pattern and frequent periods of drought cause significant crop damage. Increasing population and livestock pressure and the growing competition over the use of water for generating hydroelectricity have aggravated water stress in the basin. Declining water quantity and quality has become a critical limiting factor for agricultural productivity. Further, inappropriate management practices (e.g., crop residue/bush burning and intensive plowing) degrade the soil and contribute to the deterioration of soil fertility, which consequently results in crop failure. Water use efficiency holds the key to improving agricultural (Kijne et al. 2001) and livestock productivity in the Volta Basin. In the same way, crop yield is a function of soil fertility. Hence, improved agricultural productivity rests on how water and soil are developed and managed.


A 3D control volume-based finite difference model was developed to simulate an industrial scale low-head direct chill (DC) slab casting process for the intermediate freezing range aluminium alloy AA3003. The model took into account the coupled nature of the turbulent melt flow and solidification heat transfer aspect of the direct chill casting (DCC) process. The model was used to predict the velocity and temperature fields. By post-processing, the temperature results, the sump depth and the mushy thickness at the centre of the slab and the shell thickness at the exit of the mould were calculated. Specifically, three important process parameters, namely, casting speed, melt superheat and effective heat transfer coefficient at the metal-mould contact region were varied in the range of 60 to 180 mm/min, 16 to 64°C, and 1.0 to 4.0 kW/m²K, respectively. Consistent with the industrial practice, in the mould, in the impingement and the free streaming regions, a step-wise increase of the cooling water temperature was considered. The predicted results were then critically analysed and discussed.


The aim of the present article is to examine the most vital problems of classifying religions on the basis of confessional differences and thus to inspire scholars to create a completely different classification compared to the one already existing. In the article the following four problems of religions" classification are discussed. 1) The problem of preserving the principle of unity of the division basis in the classification for more than five thousand religions. The solution to this problem is to build a taxonomy, i.e. a combination of independent hierarchical classifications connected to each other only on the layer of the highest ("root") taxon. 2) The problem of religions" dynamism which it is offered to be solved by completing static classifications with schemes of religions" genesis. 3) The question of the ontological status of the lowest rank taxa. As the lowest taxonomic category it is suggested to choose the "form". Its corresponding taxa of the lowest layers are conventional units (such as, for instance, Adventism in Protestantism) constructed on the basis of least similarity according to confessional characters. 4) The problem of religion definition is regarded to be false. As classification is simply a tool, its basis can be any operational definition of religion. Consequently, there can be built many different classifications and taxonomies of religions.


Today the media and advertising are a pervasive presence in the lives of people either young or old. The behavior of half"s of our country"s population is not remained untouched with the altered social situation in the latter part of the 20 th century i.e. With the revolutionary movements for women equal rights etc. the vulnerable and submissive image of the women has been disappeared and she has gotten a tremendous change in the social status of herself as well as gotten a status of prominent consumer in the present world of marketing. Now, women posses a significant position in present marketing scenario. Even the small cities are also providing a great opportunity to the marketers to sell their products to the women consumers. The study is concerned with the view to know the impact of advertising on urban women consumers and their brand awareness with special reference to Gorakhpur district. And the status of women as consumer influence on buying behavior within a small district like Gorakhpur and their satisfaction with advertising strategies in all product groups. The Primary data has been collected from 200 respondents from Gorakhpur district situated in Uttar Pradesh; India The district occupies the north-eastern corner of the state. In 2011, Gorakhpur had population of 4,440,895 of which female were 2,163,118. Structured questionnaires have been framed contained 12 questions which have been asked to women consumers from all walks of life. The secondary data has been collected from books, websites, articles, television etc. Finally some Finding, limitations, conclusions & suggestion have been written into this paper.


Summary A behavioral testing procedure utilizing a swimming water maze has been reliable in rapidly detecting and quantifying a performance decrement in rats made phenylketonuric by feeding excessive quantities of L-phenylalanine from weaning.


The article evaluates the effectiveness of subsidies provided to agricultural organizations in the period 2006-2018, particularly in the context of the development of the inclusive economy. The latter implies the need to monitor not only economic and production, but also social and environmental performance. The study typifies the regions by the amount of subsidies provided, and evaluates the dynamics of economic, industrial, social, and environmental efficiency in the selected groups. On the basis of the regression analysis for a set of Russian regions, the factors of efficiency of subsidies and production of agricultural organizations are identified.


The creation of commercial cord blood banks rests on the promise of stem cell based regenerative medicine and marks the capitalization of human tissues within a future-oriented "regime of hope". This paper will present data from a survey of the international cord blood banking industry and will explore: (a) the way firms seek to commercialize cord blood as a new set of commodities; (b) the expectations and moral economy that are being constructed around this technology; and (c) how firms are acting as mediators of hope in what might be called a "promissory bioeconomy".


In earlier work, Tu and Adams proposed the ERDED method, an effective technique for generating triangle-mesh models of digital images through explicit representation of discontinuities. In this paper, we propose a modified version of the ERDED method that generates a triangle mesh which better approximates the original image using an optimization-based algorithm. The proposed method is shown to produce image approximations of higher quality than those obtained by the ERDED method, both in terms of squared error and subjective quality. Moreover, this improvement in quality comes at a relatively modest computational cost, with the proposed method typically taking only a few seconds of computation time.


Examination of both macro- and micro-morphological characters have shown that Ligularia yui S. W. Liu is conspecific with Senecio spathiphyllus Franch., and is here reduced to a synonym of the latter species.


A method for access control in which a user registers and communicates a first identifier, then the user is identified with the first identifier and is read by an automatic reading device (11), a personal information carrier (21, 22) encoded on a second identifier, after which associates the user the second identifier. Thereafter, the user is identified by reading the carrier personal information by the automatic reading device and then control a control device (15) depending on the reading of the personal information medium.


Public corporations of Korea may opt for either online auction or offline issue of bonds, the latter being a more traditional method using investment banks. These two methods have distinct advantages and disadvantages. Corporations that adopt the online issue method tend to have lower earnings management, use more conservative accounting, and enjoy superior scores on the government's assessment of management performance. This means that corporations that choose online, the more transparent issuance method, are more transparent in their accounting practices.


A sequence of earthquakes (3.4 ≤ Ms ≤ 6.4) occurred from September 15th, 1984 to May 28th, 1986 near the eastern end of the Clarion fracture zone, 30 km to the NNE of Clarion Island in the Revillagigedo Archipelago. The seismic events were located by the ISC between 18.9°-20.4° N and 115.1° -116.9°W. This sequence represents the largest seismic activity during the period 1900-1989 in a region believed to be aseismic. Fault plane solutions for the six larger events were studied using first arrivals. All solutions suggest normal faulting with two possible fault planes, one oriented NE-SW with an small right lateral component and the other almost E-W and left lateral component. The first solution agrees with the trend of the epicenter distribution; however, it is difficult to reconcile with the morphology of the ocean floor since it is oblique to the general trend of the Clarion fracture zone. Several possible explanations of the seismic sequence are discussed.


The investigation results of the processes of phase formation in barium niobate, strontium, and their solid solutions in the conditions of the variability of the thermodynamic background are presented. The formation of a grain landscape and dielectric properties (including relaxation phenomena) in the solid solutions of strontium niobate and their solid solutions and the establishment of regularities in the formation of radio-absorbing properties in them are studied.


Bulk Yb0.19Co4Sb12 skutterudite prepared by hot pressing was found to be a good high temperature thermoelectric material with a high figure of merit ZT (ZT=1.2 at T=650 K). In this contribution the properties of thin layers prepared by pulsed laser deposition from such target are presented. The target was prepared by hot pressing and was proved to be a skutterudite structure. The thin films were deposited on quartz glass substrates using KrF excimer laser. The substrate temperature during the deposition was 200 degC, 250 degC, 300 degC or 410 degC, the energy density of the laser beam was held at 2 J/cm2, 3 J/cm2 or 5 J/cm 2 for individual experiments. The deposition took place in Ar atmosphere of 13 Pa. The layers from 150 nm up to 440 nm were examined by X-ray diffraction method. Depending on the deposition conditions the layers between amorphous and skutterudite structures were obtained. For some samples, CoSb2 phase and mixed CoSb2 phase with skutterudite structure were also observed. For the layer with skutterudite structure the homogeneity and relative quantity of Yb across the 1cm2 of the surface was examined by secondary ion mass spectrometry. The 60 nm thick layers with skutterudite structure were characterized by Seebeck coefficient and resistivity measurements in the temperature range from 300 K to 550 K. The results are compared with the published results for the bulk material


Summary Objectives The present study was designed to determine the most applicable FRAX® model for the Iranian population. Methods: Seventy four men and women (with the mean age of 70 years), who had experienced at least a fragility fracture in their life, along with 162 individuals with no such an experience (with the mean age of 66 years), were enrolled in this study. Fracture probabilities were calculated using FRAX® models from Jordan, Lebanon and the US. Results We found a significant difference in the probability rate between the fracture cases and the controls; the rate, however, was lower than the recommended threshold for intervention, especially for the Lebanese and the Jordanian models. Conclusion As for women all the three models had a good discrimination value, while the Lebanese and the Jordanian model needed to be revised. As for men, on the other hand, the Jordanian model had a low discriminative value. The Lebanese model, despite its acceptable discrimination value, needed a revision regarding its threshold. The US model was the most compatible.


Noise is an inherent characteristic of electronic circuits. In this Letter, the authors propose a novel estimation technique for a noise influenced electronic circuit. Stochasticity is accounted for by utilising Ito's stochastic calculus. This novel estimation technique unifies the Carleman linearisation with the Fokker–Planck equation for the Ito stochastic differential equations. To show the effectiveness of the proposed method, numerical simulation results are presented for a benchmark tunnel diode oscillator circuit. This method is beneficial to other electronic circuits for estimating the state trajectories under the influence of randomness when observations are not available.


Study logistics demand forecasting problems.Logistics demand is related to many factors and has complicated nonlinear relation to the factors,therefore,it is difficult to use simple mathematical model to describe the traditional forecasting model,and the prediction precision is low.In order to improve the prediction accuracy of logistics demand,this paper proposes a logistics demand forecasting model based on support vector machine.Firstly,the historical data of logistics demand is pretreated,then support vector machine is train by logistics demand data,and the parameters of SVM is optimized by particle swarm algorithm to obtain the optimal logistics demand forecasting model.Then the optimal forecasting model is used to predict logistics requirements test set,and logistics demand forecasting results are obtained.The model performance is tested with agricultural logistics demand data,which shows that the support vector machine can improve the logistics demand forecasting accuracy and has important theoretical and realistic significance for logistics management.


The invention relates to a method for operating a supercharged combustion engine (2) of a motor vehicle, during operation of the internal combustion engine (2), an open timing of at least one exhaust valve (3) of at least one cylinder (4) of the internal combustion engine (2) is varied in such a way that the outlet valve (3) opens with respect to a work cycle of the cylinder (4) in a normal reception mode to a normal opening timing, and in a preferred opening mode to a preferred opening time point which is prior to the normal opening timing and before an end of a working stroke of the cylinder (4) , An internal combustion engine (2) to operate a motor vehicle such that a quicker build-up of a charge pressure by means of an exhaust gas turbocharger of the motor vehicle is possible in a simple manner, it is proposed with the invention that the respective opening mode of the exhaust valve (3) in dependence on a respective requested torque of the engine (2) is selected.


The utility model provides a current controller, which comprises an 8412 dial switch, a controller and a digital display tube. 8, 4, 2 and 1 sections of the 8412 dial switch are connected to an I/O interface of the controller together with the digital display tube; and each bit in the 8412 dial switch is connected to the I/O interface of the controller. With the 8, 4, 2 and 1 sections of the 8412 dial switch being connected to the I/O interface of the controller together with the digital display tube, and with the 8412 dial switch sharing the connecting interface of the controller with the digital display tube, the current controller realizes reduction of interfaces of the controller and reduces production cost.


Correspondence between pixels is an important problem in stereo vision. Several algorithms have been proposed to carry out this task in literature. Almost all of them employ only gray-values. We show here that addition of primary or secondary evidence maps can improve the correspondence computation. However any particular combination is not guaranteed to provide proper results in a general sitiuation. What one needs is a mechanism to select the evidences which are apropriate for a particular pair of images. We present an algorithm for stereo correspondence that can take advantage of different image features adaptively for matching. A match measure combining different individual measures computed from different features is used by our algorithm. The advantages of each feature can be combined in a single correspondence computation. We describe an unsupervised scheme to compute the relevance of each feature to a particular situation, given a set of possibly useful features. We present an implementation of the scheme using dynamic programming for pixel-to-pixel correspondence.


Approximating the recent phylogeny of N phased haplotypes at a set of variants along the genome is a core problem in modern population genomics and central to performing genome-wide screens for association, selection, introgression, and other signals. The Li & Stephens (LS) model provides a simple yet powerful hidden Markov model for inferring the recent ancestry at a given variant, represented as an N × N distance matrix based on posterior decodings. However, existing posterior decoding implementations for the LS model cannot scale to modern datasets with tens or hundreds of thousands of genomes. This work focuses on providing a high-performance engine to compute the LS model, enabling users to rapidly develop a range of variant-specific ancestral inference pipelines on top, exposed via an easy to use package, kalis , in the statistical programming language R . kalis exploits both multi-core parallelism and modern CPU vector instruction sets to enable scaling to problem sizes that would previously have been prohibitively slow to work with. The resulting distance matrices enable local ancestry, selection, and association studies in modern large scale genomic datasets.


The ac conductivity and dielectric relaxations of PEO-CdS system were studied using impedance at different frequency & temperatures. The Fourier Transform Infra red (FTIR) used for confirm the complexation. The dielectric constants & modulus (real & imaginary) have been determined. It was observed that the dielectric constant decreases with increasing of frequency. The frequency dependence of ac conductivity slowly increases in lower frequency, whereas rapidly increases at the high frequency and it obey power law.


Unsteady numerical simulations of a counter-rotating axial compressor are performed to investigate the unsteady effects of rotor–rotor interaction process and the tip flow unsteady behavior near the stall operating condition. The results show that potential effects from the rear rotor have a more pronounced influence on the front rotor. Because of the interaction between the two rotors and the unsteady flow behaviors, the strongest fluctuant regions are different for the two rotors. Additionally, the oscillation on the pressure side is generally much stronger than that on the suction side. Frequency analyses show that self-unsteadiness occurs with the frequency of 0.76 blade passing frequency due to the impingement of the tip leakage flow on the pressure side near leading edge of the adjacent blade. An interesting phenomenon, i.e., the emergence of a local high pressure spot, is observed in the tip region. As a whole, it is concluded that there are two key effects of the emergence of the local high pressure zone in the tip region: (a) more leading edge spillage of tip leakage flow and increasing the risk to trigger stall; and (b) a decrease in blockage associated with double-leakage of tip clearance flow within the influenced region of the local high pressure zone.


In an age obsessed by 'keep fit' programmes, it seems appropriate to ask whether urban history is in 'good shape'. The quantity of articles published in the field during the later months of 1983 and early 1984 suggests vitality. However, urban history's critics such as J. A. Gillespie in 'Class in urban history: a review article', Comparative Studies in Society and History, xxvi (1984) detect flabbiness in the subject's alleged lack of analytical rigour, theoretical clarity and coherence. The following selection of the year's output in periodicals may provide a test of these accusations.


Abstract With increasing demand for mobile devices to be lighter and thinner and consume less power while operating at high speed and high bandwidth, many equipment suppliers and assembly participants have invested great efforts to achieve fine-line fan-out wafer-level packaging (FOWLP). However, the inherent warp of reconstituted wafers, which can contribute to poor die placement accuracy and/or delamination at the interface of the build-up layer and carrier, remains a major challenge. In this study, the interactions among laser release layer, glass carrier, and build-up layer were evaluated for optimization of redistribution layer (RDL)–first FOWLP as a foundation to move toward fine-line FOWLP. In this study, a series of experiments incorporating glass carrier, laser release layer, and build-up layers were carried out to determine the optimal setup for RDL-first FOWLP. First, glass carriers (300 mm × 300 mm × 0.7 mm) with coefficients of thermal expansion of 3 and 8 ppm/°C were treated with 150-nm lase...


The aim of this research is seeks a better understanding how mobile technologies can be used to improve educational access, equity and quality around the world. Literature has provided in-depth evidence of the uses, advantages, disadvantages, impact, consequences and concerns about the use of mobile phones. The usage of mobile phones has re-shaped, re-organised and altered several social facets. Examine how mobile technologies can support teachers; improve their practice and how mobile technologies are likely brings impact for the education in the future.


Carbon monoxide gas is colorless, odorless, tasteless, gas is lighter than air. Carbon monoxide if inhaled will be absorbed through the lungs following the circulation of the blood will bind to hemoglobin to form carboxyhemoglobin in the network, and prevent the entry of oxygen needed by the body. This study aimed to determine the effect of exposure to ambient air HbCO and SaO2. Design research was a comparative observational analytic. The data measured was the effect of air on HbCO levels of CO and SaO2 on traders who were inside and outside the terminal. Then characteristics include age, years of service, smoking habits, and duration of exposure.
Subjects were 40 traders who trade in 2 different places, inside the terminal and outside terminal. The normality test data with the Kolmogorov Smirnov test. Data were analyzed using Pearson bivariate with α=0.05 and to determine the relationship between levels of HbCO and SaO2 with the characteristics, the data were analyzed using multiple linear regression. CO measurement results of the air inside the terminal (5 ppm) is higher than outside the terminal (2 ppm). Whereas COHb relationship with the traders at the terminal SaO2 (r=-0.59) indicating a strong relationship than traders outside the terminal (r=0.2). Moreover, the direction of the negative relationship, meaning the lower the levels of HbCO, the higher the value of SaO2.


Background: Knee osteoarthritis is one of the most prevalent and disabling diseases worldwide, which decreases patients' quality of life (QoL). However, pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments, apart from complications, could not desirably control the disease. Objectives: The current study aimed at evaluating the effect of two methods of intra-articular injection of Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) and corticosteroid on pain control of knee osteoarthritis. Methods: A randomized clinical trial was performed on 67- patients with grades II-III of knee osteoarthritis (OA) referring to pain clinic of a referral, university-affiliated hospital, Rasht, Iran, from April 2016 to June 2017. Patients were randomly divided into two groups: Triamcinolone (T) (n=34) and PRP (P) (n=33) by quadruple block. In the group T, 40 mg Triamcinolone and in the group P, PRP was injected intra-articularly, under ultrasound- guidance, once a month, for three consecutive months. Patients' pain intensity was evaluated based on the Visual Analog Scale (VAS), and their outcome was determined based on the Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) monthly for three consecutive months, as well as six months after the treatment. Results: There were no significant differences between the groups regarding demographic characteristics. VAS assessments indicated lower pain scores in the group P than group T; the difference between the groups was statistically significant two, three, and six months after the injections. In the group P, the mean initial VAS was 7.36 ± 0.92 compared with 7.12 ± 1.29 in the group T (P = 0.385). After six months, the scores dropped to 3.45 ± 0.86 and 4.81 ± 1.4, respectively (P = 0.0001). Examination of the KOOS parameters showed a significant association between treatment outcomes in the group P than the group T. Therefore, the test showed a significant difference between the groups regarding relief of pain, improvement of symptoms and activities of daily living (ADL) two, three, and six months after treatment. There was also a significant difference between the groups in terms of the quality of life (QoL) and doing sport activities three and six months after the treatment (P < 0.05). Based on the repeated measures analysis, a significant inter- and intra-group differences in the mean score of KOOS parameters was observed between the intervals (P = 0.0001). Conclusions: The current study results showed that three intra-articular injections of Triamcinolone and PRP could reduce pain and improve articular function in patients with grades II-III knee osteoarthritis. However, pain relief and improvement in the outcomes were more effective and more prolonged secondary to PRP injections than corticosteroids.


To improve scientific knowledge of boundary-layer transition physics on increasingly complex geometries, the Air Force Research Laboratory/Air Force Office of Scientific Research has sponsored the ...


PURPOSE:  To determine whether Descemet stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty (DSAEK) outcomes differ between precut or surgeon-cut donor tissue and the Horizon or Moria systems. DESIGN:  This study was a randomized, prospective, double-masked clinical trial. METHODS:  Sixty-three consecutive DSAEK surgeries underwent tissue randomization. Thirty-three eyes underwent DSAEK using precut donor tissue prepared with the Horizon system (Group 1) and 30 eyes underwent DSAEK using tissue prepared by the surgeon with the Moria system (Group 2). Main outcome measures included visual acuity, mean endothelial cell loss, graft clarity, and complication rates. RESULTS: The mean patient age was 70 +/- 10 (range, 55-87), with 52 eyes (83%) having Fuchs endothelial corneal dystrophy and 11 eyes (17%) with pseudophakic bullous keratopathy. Mean preoperative best spectacle-corrected visual acuity (BSCVA) was 20/96 (0.68) in Group 1 and 20/130 (0.81) in Group 2 (p value =0.19), and the mean postoperative BSCVA was 20/39 (0.29) in Group 1 and 20/47 (0.37) in Group 2 (p value = 0.25). Mean endothelial cell loss at 12 months was 30.9% in Group 1 and 28.2% in Group 2 (p value = 0.28). Mean induced astigmatism at 6 months was -0.01D in Group 1 and 0.17D in Group 2 (P = 0.59). Group 1 had 3 (9.1%) tissue dislocations and Group 2 had 2 (6.5%) tissue dislocations (P = 0.1). Group 1 had 1 (3.0%) primary graft failure (PGF) and Group 2 had none (P = 0.1). Endothelial graft rejection and pupil block glaucoma were not observed. CONCLUSIONS:  No statistical difference was observed in DSAEK outcomes regardless of whether the tissue was precut or surgeon-cut or whether prepared by the Horizon or Moria devices.


The influence of a potassium carbonate (K2CO3) additive on the base catalyzed hydrolysis of polyimide (Kapton†) film in aqueous potassium hydroxide (KOH) was determined experimentally. The etch rate is significantly greater for KOH/K2CO3 solutions compared with solutions composed of KOH only. The experimental order of the reaction with respect to the KOH concentration was found to be 1.5. In addition, the rate was found to increase linearly with respect to the K2CO3 concentration at a fixed KOH concentration. Visual observations of a thinner gel layer on the surface of the film, combined with increased solubility of the etch by-products in KOH/K2CO3 relative to KOH, help to explain the difference in etch rate. It appears the ability of K2CO3 to enhance the solubility of the hydrolyzed polyimide (polyamic acid salt) results in faster etch rates.


BaTiO3-based ceramics with a core–double shell structure were fabricated by precipitation and the sol–gel method. Bi(Zn1/2Ti1/2)O3-BaTiO3 (BZT-BT) or Nb oxide was chosen to be the shell-I (inner layer) or shell-II (outer layer) composition. The structure and dielectric properties were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), HRTEM (High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy) and electron probe micro analysis (EPMA), with different core to shell ratio (nc/ns). Compared with the designed composition BT–Nb-(0.2BZT-0.8BT), BT-(0.2BZT-0.8BT)–Nb was found to possess improved dielectric temperature stability, where the capacitance variation ΔC/C ≦ ±15% was achieved over a temperature range of −60–155 °C, with the dielectric constant and dielectric loss being in the order of 1860 and 0.011 at room temperature.


From the Publisher:
The Waite Group's Visual Basic 6 Client/Server How-To is the definitive problem solver - designed to answer your "How do I" questions. It is intended to be a reference for visual programmers. Organized by individual questions, this exhaustive reference addresses practical, real-world programming issues in a clear, easy-to-follow language. The authors present definitive answers in a step-by-step format followed by concise descriptions of the outcome of each step. The Waite Group's Visual Basic 6 Client/Server How-To covers the vital areas like RDO and ADO, Active Server Pages, IIS, and object-oriented programming.


Advanced wastewater treatment targeting water reuse is currently an important research topic and the heterogeneous photocatalysis processes represent potential candidates. Most of the photocatalysts are aqueously stable metal oxides as TiO2 or ZnO; however, their use is limited due to the processes costs as these oxides are wide bandgap semiconductors that are activated only by UV radiation. Many alternatives are investigated to develop VIS- or solar-active photocatalysts among which most effective proved to be the diode type composites that associate the n-type semiconductor (TiO2) with a p-type semiconductor with lower band gap as CZTS or CIS. The challenges raised in developing thin films photocatalysts of diode type are discussed considering the advanced treatment under VIS and simulated solar radiation of a wastewater polluted with methylene blue (standard pollutant). Further on, new composites of TiO2 – Graphene oxide are presented considering the same application


Complex system simulation conceptual model(CSSCM) is the model that set up by doing first abstraction on the complex system' structure and behavior,and is used to guide simulation system' design,development and evaluation.In this paper,Development and actuality of CSSCM is introduced,and several evaluation index of the modeling method of CSSCM is put forward,then five research problems about CSSCM: modeling language,description method,modeling process,validation method and assistant tools,is summarized,and the research methods and direction is discussed separately.


Non-stoichiometric silicon nitride (SiN x ) thin films are deposited on p-type crystalline silicon substrates at low temperature (200 ℃) using ammonia and silane mixtures by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The evolutions of Si-N, Si-H and N-H bonding configurations, the variations of Si 2p and N 1s electron binding energy and the ratio R of nitrogen to silicon atoms in SiN x films annealed at temperature in a range of 500-1100 ℃ are investigated at room temperature by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), respectively. The relationship between the evolutions of FTIR and XPS spectroscopy of the samples at different annealing temperatures and the variations of bonding configurations of Si, N and H atoms is discussed in detail. According to the arguments about FTIR and XPS spectroscopy we conclude that when the annealing temperature is lower than 800 ℃, the breakings of Si-H and N-H bonds in the SiN x films lead mainly to the formation of Si-N bonds; when the annealing temperature is higher than 800 ℃, the breakings of Si-H and N-H bonds are conducible to the effusion of N atoms and the formation of silicon nanoparticles; when the annealing temperature equals 1100 ℃, the N 2 react on the SiN x films to cause the ratio R of nitrogen to silicon atoms to inerease. These results are useful for controlling the probable chemical reaction in SiN x films under high annealing temperatures and optimizing the fabrication parameters of silicon nanoparticles embedded in SiN x films.


*Members of the international study group were from six countries: Canada (J Acres, E Amer, M Balter, G Bishop, S Blackie, J Bouchard, C Chan, K Chapman, G Cournoyer, A Denys, A Dhar, S Field, G Ford, R Goldstein, R Hodder, M Lertzman, P LeBlanc, GF MacDonald, R Maleki-Yazdi, DD Marciniuk, DG McCormack, D Morrison, D O'Donnell, L Passerini, P Renzi, D Stubbing); Denmark (JP Kampmann, P Faurschou, H Harving, M Christensen, H Rickers, J Heinig); the Netherlands (AF Kuipers, PW Oosterling, P Oostinge, HEJ Damste); Russia (VE Nonikov, BM Blokhin, AG Chuchalin, GI Drinov); Sweden (P Arvidsson, BA Hermansson, U Hero, E Piitulainen); and the United Kingdom (GS Basran, DP Dhillon, HSR Hosker, R O'Driscoll, JF O'Reilly, R Stevenson, A Stewart) 1Toronto Western Hospital, Toronto, Ontario; 2Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden; 3Pulmonology Research Institute, Moscow, Russia; 4Walsgrave Hospital, Coventry, United Kingdom; 5Kas Gentofte Lungemedicinsk Afeling Y, Hellerup, Denmark; 6West Park Hospital, Toronto, Ontario; 7Isala Klinieken, Zwolle, the Netherlands Correspondence and reprints: Dr KR Chapman, Suite 011, Edith Cavell Wing, Toronto Western Hospital, 399 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario M5T 2S8. Telephone 416-603-5499, fax 416-603-3456, email@example.com KR Chapman, P Arvidsson, AG Chuchalin, et al. The addition of salmeterol 50 μg bid to anticholinergic treatment in patients with COPD: A randomized, placebo controlled trial. Can Respir J 2002;9(3):178-185.


Seven years ago in these pages I interrogated the recent discov eries made by a number of New Historicist, feminist, and cultural materialist critics that people in Renaissance (now early modern) England were unable to think of five ideas widely held today?that dramatic characters could serve as foils, that the drama could be illusionist and empathetic, that there was a category of valued writing which we now call "literature," that there was a biological basis for gender division, and that humans possessed a self or identity persisting through time and change.1 I presented evidence to show that each of these "unthinkable" ideas was in fact thought during this period, and I am happy to report that soon after the article appeared several of my arguments were endorsed by Lee Patterson and David Aers, and I also learned that two years earlier one of them had been anticipated by Natalie Zemon Davis.21 cannot report, however, that the objections of Patterson, Aers, Davis, and myself have had any discernible effect on the unthinkability enterprise: none of the critics we criticized, so far as I know, has modified his or her views and more discoveries of this kind keep cropping up. I want to move on, then, from a description of the enterprise, which is all I attempted in my earlier article, to propose some explanations for it, but before doing so I will list a few of the additional discoveries that have been announced, or have come to my attention, since I wrote the article, and to correct the impression that they are limited to the Renaissance, I am including two from other periods. Linda Chames claims that "in early modern England, Love with a capital L" (which she defines as the idea of a love the "transcends" any "specific material, political, and social conditions") "would not have been thinkable"; but she goes on to say that Antony and Cleopatra "examines the implications" of transcendent love and "subversively insists on" questioning it,3 so Shakespeare and his audience had to think of this unthinkable idea.


Background Amidst recent trends in rising rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea among Singaporean adolescents, there are limited data on risk factors associated with these infections that may inform prevention strategies in this population. Methods A cross-sectional study of chlamydia and gonorrhea positivity was conducted among 1458 sexually active heterosexual adolescents between 14 and 19 years old attending the national public sexually transmitted infection clinic from 2006 to 2013. The association with demographic and behavioral characteristics was assessed by crude prevalence ratio, and negative binomial regression modeling was used to obtain adjusted prevalence ratios (aPRs). Results Chlamydia positivity was found in 23.6% of males and 36.6% of females, gonorrhea positivity in 33.1% of males and 15.9% of adolescent girl, and coinfection positivity in 10.2% of males and 10.1% of females. In multivariable analysis, chlamydia was positively associated with being Malay (aPR, 1.6; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.1–2.1) and inconsistent condom use for vaginal sex (aPR, 6.5; 95% CI = 2.4–17.4) in males and with being Malay (aPR, 1.9; 95% CI = 1.5–2.4), inconsistent condom use for vaginal sex (aPR, 2.0; 95% CI = 1.1–3.9), and number of lifetime partners in females (aPR, 1.1; 95% CI = 1.0–1.1). Gonorrhea was positively associated with being Malay (aPR, 3.2; 95% CI = 2.4–4.4), inconsistent condom use for vaginal sex (aPR, 5.4; 95% CI = 2.1–14.4), and number of lifetime partners (aPR, 1.1; 95% CI = 1.0–1.1) in males and with being Malay (aPR, 3.7; 95% CI = 2.4–5.7) in females. Malays had a higher proportion of sexual risk behaviors compared with the non-Malays. Conclusions Ethnicity and high-risk sexual behaviors are important determinants of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and coinfection for adolescents attending this clinic. Targeted interventions are needed to lower the prevalence of high-risk sexual behaviors for the Malay adolescents in this clinic.


We demonstrate a near-field sub-wavelength light confinement probe tip comprised of compact embedded metallic focus grating (CEMFG) coupler and photonic crystal (PhC) based λ/4 nano-slot tip, in terms of its far-field radiation directivity and near-field sub-wavelength light enhancement. The embedded metallic grating coupler increases the free space coupling at tilted coupling angle of 25° with over 280 times light intensity enhancement for 10 μm coupler size. Further, 20 nm air slot embedded in single line defect PhC waveguide are designed, using the impedance matching concept of the λ/4 "air rod", to form the TE mode light wave resonance right at the probe tip aperture opening. This leads to the light beam spot size reduction down to λ/20. The near-field center peak intensity is enhanced by 4.2 times from that of the rectangular waveguide input, with the total enhancement factor of 1185 from free space laser source intensity. The near-field fluorescence excitation and detection also demonstrate its single molecular enhanced fluorescence measurement capability.


The presence of the woman priest presiding at the Eucharist causes a `collision' with traditional phallocentric Christian rites, not least around blood sacrifice. Sociological, philosophical and psychological research has found this to be a male-only practice designed to control women. I argue that the woman priest brings new and recovered meanings and possibilities relating to the maternal divine that revivify and enrich old interpretations associated with the Eucharist. A doubly gendered priesthood symbolically connects bloodshed not only with violence and death but with birth and nurturing, with nature and with community. Women's priesthood calls for sexual difference to be acknowledged and celebrated within the Christian narrative in a way that allows both women and men to flourish as children of God.


Since 2005, Madagascar has committed itself into a deep land reform, based on modernization of the land administration and on decentralization of the land management to the Communes. This paper outlines the original context and the orientations of the land reform, by highlighting the process implementation, its achievements and its limits. It emphasizes the expectations of land reform and reports the first observable outcomes. Lastly, this paper addresses the process for evaluating the land reform, related to different economic and social sectors. (Resume d'auteur)


Background: Pincer nail was described, first by Cornelius and Shelley in 1968, as the deformity of nail with excessive transverse curvature of nail plate that increased from proximal to distal along the longitudinal axis. It may cause severe pain, inflammation and dissatisfied appearance. Aim and Objectives: The aim of this study is to collect the results of a simple, effective and nail matrix-sparing technique to treat the pincer nail deformity. Materials and Methods: From Jan. 2007 to Dec. 2007, twelve toes in ten patients with the pincer nail deformity were treated by using the technique of expanded onycho-cutaneous flap after burring of dorsal osteophyte of phalangeal bone. By evaluating the shape, relief of pain and inflammatory status, results were graded as excellent, good, fair, or poor. Results: Nine nails (75%) achieved excellent result, one (8.3%) good result, one (8.3%) fair result and one (8.3%) poor result. Conclusion: Satisfied results were achieved in most nails treated by this surgical technique without any severe complications. Onycho-cutaneous flap is easy to perform, with low morbidity and can be a good option for treatment of pincer nail deformity.


The article describes different methods of reuse in software development, and makes a comparison on these methods. With an instance of a project practice ,it concluded that design pattern realizes reuses design and,improves software's flexibility and robustness.


We have examined the mechanism of activation of c-raf-1 and the expression of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGF-R) gene in the three relatively radiation resistant human squamous cell carcinoma-derived cell lines (SCC-35, JSQ-3, and SQ-20B). The human c-raf-1 sequences were observed in the primary G418r, human Alu+ NIH/3T3 clones transfected with these tumor cell DNAs. The human raf-1-related sequences were truncated, rearranged, and amplified in the primary NIH/3T3 transfectants, and a majority of the clones revealed sequences corresponding to the carboxy-terminus of the protein product of human raf-1 (Raf-1). A highly tumorigenic potential of transfectant clones correlated with expression of the new (human) raf-1-related sequences. By contrast, the EGF-R gene was amplified and aberrantly overexpressed in only the SQ-20B tumor cells. The human EGF-R-related sequences were not detected in the human Alu+ NIH/3T3 transfectant clones, including those derived following the SQ-20B tumor cell DNA transfection. The levels of Raf-1-associated serine/threonine kinase activity were comparable in SCC-35 and SQ-20B cells. We have previously reported that the antisense c-raf-1 cDNA transfection is sufficient for the down regulation of tumorigenicity and radioresistance in SQ-20B cells. The present data suggest that the role of c-raf-1 in the development of the tumor phenotype may be unrelated to the amplification and activation of EGF-R in these squamous carcinoma-derived cells. © 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc.


1. A New Set of Postulates. In the development of a Boolean Algebra, Boole's Law of Development f(x) = / ( l ) * + ƒ « ) ) * ' , stands out as a basic relationship. This law is so all embracing that the question naturally arises, if this is set as a postulate, what postulates in addition to it are needed to define a Boolean Algebra? Using as undefined a class K and the Sheffer stroke function, we shall show that, in addition to a form of Boole's Law, only two "trivial" postulates are required.


classifications, and analysis; direct and indirect limitations on mostfavored-nation treatment; various exceptions to the clause; evaluation, criticism, summary, and conclusions. The study, being based on this type of agreement as expressed in treaty provisions, concentrates to a large extent on legal aspects. The discussion ends with the outbreak of the last war, the author explaining that it is too early to analyze developments in most-favorednation clauses during the past few years. He does suggest, though, that three alternative future developments seem possible in the light of the recent onslaught of economic and political change. These are: first, abandonment of the principle in favor of the principle of bilateral bargaining; second, application of the clause to quotas, exchange controls, etc; third (if the world economy returns to prewar practices), restoration as the basis of commercial policy. The nature of the subject and the full table of contents make the lack of an index only a minor criticism; and the bibliography is probably the best compiled on the subject. (French treatises are numerous). The book is made up in photo-offset lithography by King's Crown Press, a division of Columbia University Press organized for the purpose of making certain scholarly material available at minimum cost. The manuscript contains much of the academic paraphernalia associated with a Ph.D. thesis; it is hard going at times. Professor Snyder, however, while modest in his pretensions in giving us what he calls an introductory analysis, has certainly written one of the most complete and up-to-date discussions of this subject.


The aim of this work is to continue the analysis, started in [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b10">10</xref>], of the dynamics of a point-mass particle <inline-formula><tex-math id="M1">\begin{document}$ P $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> moving in a galaxy with an harmonic biaxial core, in whose center sits a Keplerian attractive center (e.g. a Black Hole). Accordingly, the plane <inline-formula><tex-math id="M2">\begin{document}$ \mathbb{R}^2 $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> is divided into two complementary domains, depending on whether the gravitational effects of the galaxy's mass distribution or of the Black Hole prevail. Thus, solutions alternate arcs of Keplerian hyperbolæ with harmonic ellipses; at the interface, the trajectory is refracted according to Snell's law. The model was introduced in [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b11">11</xref>], in view of applications to astrodynamics.

In this paper we address the general issue of periodic and quasi-periodic orbits and associated caustics when the domain is a perturbation of the circle, taking advantage of KAM and Aubry-Mather theories.


The preliminary findings of the ASCE/EWRI Task Committee on Runoff Curve Numbers are presented, and review comments, contributions, and critique are solicited prior to final submission. The major findings are given in condensed form in the major topic areas of: A review and restatement of the method; Development, analysis, and study results from field data; Current use and professional applications; Critique, and Summary.


The one-dimensional discrete ordinate (1D SN) transport equation with even-order Gauss-Legendre quadrature sets are commonly used in large radiation transport problems. [1] The source iteration (SI) approach is a standard technique to solve the SN equations because the in-scattering source term appeared in equation couples angular fluxes in all directions. While accurate, the SI method requires excessive flux solution convergence-time in problems with higher scattering ratios, higher quadrature order, and larger nodal mesh densities. In this summary, we develop a transport solution method with the objective to eliminate the conventional SI procedure in transport solvers. This is achieved by decoupling the transport operation terms and converting the original SN transport equations to a number of decoupled equations. We end up achieving a semi-analytic solution for the SN transport equation without no spatial truncation errors. Many efforts on 1D analytic transport solutions for various computational purposes can be identified in literatures. In 1960s and early 1970s, neutron transport experts such as Siewert and Zweifel [2] developed a concert of full analytic solution forms for transport equation, providing excellent analytic computational benchmarks but limited to very simple applications. Barros and Larsen published an analytic transport solution using auxiliary Green's function to obtain homogeneous solutions [3]. This approach can achieve accurate analytic solutions for 1D transport equation with linear anisotropic scattering but may involve algebraic complexity in cases with higher degree of anisotropy. Warsa [4] developed an analytic SN solution for transport equation in heterogeneous slabs with the assistant of symbolic algebra computer tools. Segattto et al. [5], and continued by Ganapol [6], solved the transport equation analytically using Heaviside expansion technique and directly yield the homogeneous solutions to the equation. Roberts [7] implemented a direct solution using a built-in MATLAB Krylov-solver with ILU preconditioning to bypass the SI procedure in transport solver, however, with Legendre quadrature orders over N = 8, the usefulness of the method diminishes due to matrix construction time. And most recently, Wang [8] developed an analytic transport solution through a matrix inversion process by constructing the transport equation in a matrix-vector form. The semi-analytic solution we developed in this summary more or less has differences from all the previous developments. Our approach appears to use a similar fundamental idea as the ones in Ref. 3, 5 and 6, but employ a rather different realization process and implementation procedure, making it more advantageous to handle high order of anisotropic scattering scenarios and more readily to be extended to multidimensional cases. In this summary, we will present the recently developed semi-analytic (SA) method that is relatively faster with low quadratures ( 16 N < ) and can be easily generalized. We will focus on the one-group transport model with isotropic scattering and a fixed source to demonstrate its efficacy. By linearly transforming the transport operator as demonstrated in our previous paper [9], we can bypass the standard source iteration that is usually required by the transport solver and isolate the iteration scheme to region boundaries only. This becomes possible because each angular component of the 'new' flux (we referred to it as 'fake' flux) yielded with the linear transform of the scattering operator is no longer coupled to other angular components. The computational benefits, as will soon be seen, are derived from needing to solve only one analytical equation per mesh, per quadrature direction.


The observation and analysis of 187 lines in the 2–0 band of the A 2Πi ← X 2Σ+ system of the SiN radical are described. The 2–0 band, which lies near 3.3 μm, has been recorded with a tunable difference frequency system and discharge amplitude modulation. The analysis gives improved molecular constants for the ground and first excited states, including the first lambda doubling parameters for the A 2Π state.


A study into the possibility of extreme turbulence occurring in a particular synoptic situation is discussed here. The synoptic weather data are reviewed, and the magnitude of turbulence that might be expected is computed by two different methods. The limitations of each method are discussed. While it might be concluded that thunderstorm updraft velocities were of the order of those producing extreme turbulence, the assumptions are so restrictive that it is not possible to assign confidence limits to the computed gust velocities.


Objective To isolate the causative pathogens on onychomycosis in recent years in Guangzhou. Methods From 1997. 11 - 1998. 11, direct microscopic examination and culture were performed on 1045 samples from patients with clinical sus- pected onychomycosis in six hospitals which located in different area of the city. Results 915 strains of pathogenic fungi were iso- lated. The most frequently isolated fungus was dermatophytes(64. 81 % ), followal by yeasts(28. 09 % ) and saprophytic molds (7. 1 % ). Conclusion Dermatophytes, yeasts and saprophytic molds are causative pathogens of onychomyasis in GuangZhou, T. rubrum and C. albican are the most common fungi.


Expanded tracts of CNG-triplet repetitive sequences in human genome cause many diseases. We think that repeats cause diseases through RNA silencing pathway (RNAi) due to formation of the double helical RNAs, containing mismatches at each third position. To be recognized by RNAi machinery, such RNAs have to be structurally similar to the canonic A-RNA helix. To test if all CNG-repetitive RNAs form A-RNA double helices that can be easily recognized by an A-RNA binding protein and explore structural behavior of these double-helices upon variation of mismatches, strand-alignments and CNG-repeat regularity, multiple crystal structure determinations have been carried out. Various CNG-repetitive RNAs, designed to contain all possible mismatches Na?Nb in double-helical structure, were studied by X-Ray crystallography in complex with RNA-silencing suppressor p19 that is known to bind RNA duplexes of a 19 base pairs length in a sequence unspecific way. Comparative structural analysis of the p19/RNA complexes elucidated the important role of the CNG-triplet repetition in the RNA sequences for the double helical structure stability. In turn, the `structural? adaptability of the CNG-repetitive RNAs seems more dependable on mismatch pairs. The second part of the work deals with the attempt to find and introduce mutations into p19 that would allow it to recognize one of the CNG-triplets in CNG-repetitive RNA duplex. For the first time, i) the structural behavior of various CNG-repetitive RNAs was studied upon complex-formation with an A-RNA binding protein and ii) RNA sequence specific mutations of p19 were structurally described.


At the same time with the time information of the existing recording medium, and also have an address represented by a binary number corresponds to a higher capacity. Conventional CD-ROM has, as a Q channel of the sub code has time information expressed in BCD is recorded, and, the same time information is written in the header of the data (Fig. 10a). That the address representing portion of 24 bits is used because. Writes the address of the binary expression instead of the BCD time information of the address representing portion of the header (Fig. 4b). Thereby, compared to the address represented by the BCD, it becomes possible to display a more address may correspond to enlarge the capacity of the disk. In addition, since the time information recorded as a sub code, can be performed, such as when an existing schedule of the player.


Some aspects of your sub-topics involve finding factual answers to questions about current or historic events, people, and places. Sources for finding this kind of information will vary; here are some resources to explore.


A numerical scheme is presented tor the solution of the shallow water equations in a single radial coordinate. This can prove useful when testing codes for the two-dimensional shallow water equations. The scheme is applied with success to problems involving converging and diverging bores.


Dominant approaches for the study of the evolution of technologies are based on processes of competitive substitution of a new technology for the old one. However, new perspectives based on a multi-mode interaction between technologies in a complex system provide a much richer theoretical framework for technology analysis. A main theoretical framework in this new research stream is the theory of technological parasitism to explain the evolution of technology in society, considering the parasite-host relationship between technologies that generates the coevolution of overall complex system of technology. The theoretical background of this theory is based on a "Generalized Darwinism" for framing a broad analogy between technologies and evolutionary ecology of parasites that provides a logical structure of scientific inquiry. This approach is illustrated with realistic examples using empirical data of product and process technologies (farm tractor, freight locomotive, aircraft and bicycle technology). Overall, then, the proposed theory of technological parasitism here can be useful for bringing a new perspective to explain and generalize the evolution of technology and predict which innovations are likely to evolve rapidly in society.


Phylogenetic supertree is a collection of different phylogenetic trees combined into a single tree forming tree of life. Many smaller overlapping phylogenetic trees are combined in such a way that no branching information is lost. There may exist an exponentially large number of supertrees for a given set of trees. The optimal tree is a selected based upon different optimality criteria. In this paper we present a polynomial time heuristic algorithms for merging the trees, checking their optimality based on the ordinary least square criteria. The out come of the algorithm is an optimal agreement super tree.


Nine new police officers were welcomed to North Yorkshire Police last week. The new recruits were awarded their Certificate of Knowledge in Policing ...


Supply response models for fed beef incorporating risk by including both the mean and variance of output price are developed, estimated, and compared. Six different estimates of the mean and variance are obtained from futures prices; ARIMA processes; and naive, adaptive, and rational expectations models. Empirical estimates are compared using nonnested testing procedures and indicate that the choice of the expectations model significantly influences elasticity estimates and whether supply response is positive or negative. Empirical evidence does not support any one model in particular, suggesting that expectations are heterogenous rather than homogenous.


Currently, the management theory of tourist-recreational areas mainly use concepts such as «tourist complex», «tourist area», «tourist destination», «destination recovery», «tourism and recreation area», «touristrecreational special economic zone», «tourism and recreation cluster» and «tourism and recreation cage». In turn occurring processes of globalization and economic integration have led in recent years to promote the use of the cluster approach in the modern world, so were specified basic characteristics and the most important task of creating clusters. In this article, the author presented a visual ratio considered tourist and recreational entities and their definitions. In connection with this issue in the test data were structured concepts analyzed conceptual apparatus, as well as the conditions for the formation of clusters of tourist and recreational services in the region.


The objective of this study was to report our experience in the management of patients with advanced‐stage supraglottic laryngeal carcinoma and to identify factors predictive of outcome.


Media show different positions about reporting news and daily interests. Through content analysis, authors investigate leading daily newspapers regarding positions about various leisure and tourism news involving editorials. Not many editorials on leisure and tourism could be found in the media for the last decade. It may show that the media does not have much interest in leisure and tourism fields. For example the Hankyoreh, a rather progressive newspaper, had dealt with tourism fields only thirteen times for the last five years before the IMF crisis and it was strongly critical. However, on the other hand in the case of the Chosun Ilbo known as one of conservative newspaper, it had rather positive stance about leisure and tourism and this trends were more clear after the financial crisis.


This in-vitro study assessed micro shear bond strength of two different adhesive systems bonded on different dentin substrates. Fifteen freshly extracted human molars with coronal dentin caries were collected for this study. The roots were sectioned to expose the pulp chamber. The crown segment was then centrally glued using a cyanoacrylate adhesive to a circular Teflon plate of 10 mm diameter and 2 mm thickness. The occlusal portion of crown segments were ground flat to expose flat dentin surface parallel to the occlusal plan. Caries detector dye was used to identify caries-infected, caries-affected (CAD) and normal dentin (ND). For further confirmation, dye permeability test was applied to detect CAD. Specimens were divided into two main groups (30 each) according to the type of the adhesive system used: A1 (Adper Scotchbond Multipurpose adhesive) control group and A2 (Universal adhesive system). Each group was subdivided into two subgroups (15 specimens each) according to the type of dentin substrate used: D1 (ND) and D2 (CAD). Four resin composite microcylinders were built over each specimen in both substrates. A total of 60 composite microcylinders with prepared dentin surface containing both ND and CAD were used in the study. Each was polymerized using light curing unit. All specimens were subjected to micro-shear bond strength (μSBS) testing using a special universal testing machine (Model LRX-plus; Lloyd instruments Ltd., Ferham, UK). Data was then recorded, tabulated and statistically analyzed. Single bond Universal adhesive system (20.0 ± 96.7 MPa) showed statistically significantly lower mean μSBS than Adper Scotchbond Multipurpose adhesive systems (22.0 ± 10.4 MPa) (P=0.008). Micro-shear bond strength (μSBS) of ND substrate (24.3 ± 8.4 MPa) showed higher statistically significant values than that of CAD (19.4 ± 7.8 MPa) (P=0.001*). Two way ANOVA results showed statistical significant effect for the adhesive systems (Adper Scotchbond Multipurpose and Single bond Universal Adhesive) [p=0.008], dentin substrates (ND and CAD) [p<0.001] and the interaction between the variables had a statistically significant effect on the mean micro-shear bond strength. In conclusion, the type of substrate and bonding strategies affects the bonding performance and durability of restorations in dentistry


Purpose Tubes are a common geometrical structure that occur at multiple scales throughout the body and are visible in a variety of medical imaging modalities. Examples of anatomical tubular structures include blood vessels, nerves, bile ducts and bronchi. Quantifying tubular structures extracted from medical images provides a way of measuring anatomical response to disease status. We have shown, for example, that vascular tortuosity can be used to grade both tumor response to treatment [1] and the progression of retinopathy of prematurity. Also, preservation of vasculature structures is a common treatment goal that also motivates tube segmentation. Furthermore, the geometry of tubes equates to image features that are insensitive to noise, contrast, and imaging modality [2], and therefore not only support anatomic quantification but also provide a basis for image registration [3]. We have shown, for example, that tubes in computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasound support image registration for longitudinal change detection, image-guided interventions and statistical atlases formation to distinguish populations. With these applications in mind, our goal is to develop a software toolkit of algorithms for images depicting tubular structures. Driving clinical applications for our toolkit include using vascular features to (1) align intra-operative ultrasound with pre-operative images during image-guided brain tumor resection and abdominal ablation interventions, (2) achieve image-based quantification of retinal diseases and of tumor progression, and (3) parameterize populations to identify biomarkers for stroke and schizophrenia. Methods We have developed an open-source software library ''TubeTK'' for segmentation, registration and analysis of images depicting tubular structures (www.tubetk.org). TubeTK currently includes software for: