A b s t r a c t In recent years, a growing interest in properties of nanostructured ion conductors, has been observed. Solid electrolytes for Solid Oxide Fuel cell (SOFC) should be highly dense material due to gas-tight requirement. It is noted that the sintering and densification behavior of ceria-based electrolytes rely on synthetic route and temperature of calcinations. Hence, gadolinium doped ceria samples were prepared, by the cation complexation technique which is a variant of sol-gel technique, using citric acid as complexing agent and also by ceramic route. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and simultaneous TG/DTA technique were used, to characterize the samples. The purpose of this work was to prepare the powders with 10-20 nm of crystallite size at a relatively low temperature. A comparative study of their particle size, densification, thermal expansion and ionic conductivity was carried out.


Since the outbreak of COVID-19, pharmaceutical enterprises have become increasingly important and have played a crucial role in ensuring people's life, health, and safety. Meanwhile, people continuously pay attention to the social responsibility performed by pharmaceutical enterprises. On the one hand, corporate social responsibility can maintain the brand image and improve its popularity. On the other hand, it can form a supervision role for the enterprise itself. Based on the role of stakeholders, does corporate social responsibility have a positive impact on corporate performance? This issue becomes the focus of this paper. Using the case of Pfizer, this paper analyzes corporate social responsibility (CSR) at the level of shareholders, employees, consumers, government, and social groups. Also, this paper compares CSR with corporate performance from the second quarter of 2021 to the second quarter of 2022. This paper found that corporate performance indicators would move in a negative direction when Pfizer did not actively fulfill its social responsibilities, especially at the level of shareholders, consumers, and the government. Therefore, through the case study of Pfizer, it can be concluded that corporate social responsibility has an impact on corporate performance. If an enterprise actively performs its social responsibility, corporate performance would also be improved accordingly, and vice versa.


With red phosphorus flame retardant masterbatch (RPM440H) as halogen-free flame retardant, recycled nylon was flame retardant modified. By means of twin-screw injecting processing and the addition of the flame retardants of different component, electrical leakage resistant and flame retardant reinforced nylon compounds were prepared. The modification results of the recycled nylon by the different variety of the recycled nylon, the content of flame retardant (RPM440H), synergic flame retardant and glass fiber were compared, and the optimum process parameters and formulation were determined. The results showed red phosphorus flame retardant masterbatch RPM440H had better flame retardant effect on various kinds of recycled nylon (PA66, PA6), the flame retardant reinforced nylon compound prepared by this technique showed excellent electric, flame retardant, and mechanical properties. Besides, the compounds satisfied the requirements of the comparative tracking index (CTI) of the low pressure electronics and electrical appliance, and were successfully applied to Zhengtai, Delixi, Renmin Electrical and other low pressure electrical leakage protecting instruments.


In this paper, we analyzed the range of themes and thematic items applied in Chinese language education courses in Korea, and verified their objectivity, in an effort to define referential standards for theme selection for Chinese language education on this basis. In the part of objectivity verification, we firstly examined theme selections of syllabuses for foreign language education including CEFR, the Standard Education Syllabus for Korean Language, and Core Inventory for General English, to probe into common themes among foreign language education in various countries. Afterwards, we examined theme selections of the International Syllabus (2014), the New HSK Syllabus (2015) and the Syllabus for Second Foreign Language Education, to conclude individualized themes of the syllabus for Chinese language education, summarize common themes of foreign language education and individualized themes of Chinese language education. On the basis of these studies, an objective comparative analysis is carried out from three aspects on the range of themes and thematic items of conversational Chinese language textbooks in Korea. Firstly, according to their frequencies, we analyzed thematic items of conversational Chinese language textbooks in Korea. Currently, these text books are divided into four categories based on the degree of difficulty. From level 1 to level 4, Chinese conversations mainly center around universal themes including daily life and various information. While from level 5 to level 6, individualized themes concerning China and Chinese people start to appear in textbooks. Secondly, comparison between conversational Chinese language textbooks in Korea and the Syllabus for Chinese language education formulated by Chinese authorities, to analyze themes in the New HSK Standard Tutorial (2015). There are some common thematic items between Chinese and Korean textbooks. Finally, based on common themes of foreign language education concluded earlier, a comparative analysis is made between individualized themes of the syllabus for Chinese language education and themes that exist in Chinese language textbooks in Korea. Most common themes of foreign language education appeared in Chinese language textbooks in Korea, but the ranges of themes and level arrangements of thematic items are different. Daily life related themes have been accounting for a large part of Chinese language textbooks in Korea until level 5, which lacks diversity and can't reflect the connection and difference among phases of foreign language study. On the contrary, in the New HSK Standard Tutorial (2015), various themes in the syllabus for Chinese language education are properly demonstrated by level. Content in the book is closely related to the New HSK Syllabus (2015), and the themes are diversified, showing characteristics of China and Chinese culture with moderate difficulty and rigorous system. The analyses above show that, Chinese language textbooks in Korea reflected some common themes of foreign language education, but individualized themes related to China and characteristics of Chinese language are underrepresented. In view of this problem, systematic researches are to be made in the future.


Gram-negative bacilli remain major killers of hospitalized patients and continue to evolve new resistance mechanisms. This review describes the mechanisms of resistance to β-lactam antibiotics from those Gram-negative pathogens most often isolated from nosocomial infections.


In the present work, the effect of annealing on dark and photoconductivity of Se-doped amorphous hydrogenated silicon films (a-Si:H) prepared by PECVD method have been investigated. The variation of the dark conductivity and photoconductivity as a function of temperature have been carried out on unannealed and annealed thin film samples at different annealing temperatures (Ta) from 100°C to 500°C. It was found that the values of both dark and photo conductivity vary with doping concentration as well as annealing temperature. The activation energy was calculated from dependence of dark conductivity measured after the samples were annealed at different temperatures. The variation of photoconductivity with annealing temperature for the Se-doped a-Si:H films was also investigated under optimised annealing temperature.


Chang-611 reservoir is a depositional sandbody of the lake-front facies in Wangyao tract,Ansai oil field,the sedimentary facies control physical property and heterogeneity of reservoir.Based on the analyzing of the reservoir of internal rhythmicity,interlayer differences,sandbody continuity in plane,it reveals the macroscopic heterogeneity characteristic of the reservoir.It draws a conclusion that the characteristic of the Chang 611 reservoir has strong plane heterogeneity,strong interbedded heterogeneity and bad inlayer heterogeneity in Wangyao tract,Ansai oil field,Ordos Basin.


ABSTRACT Contamination obsession is the commonest subtype of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and has been found to be higher among Muslim populations. The presentation of clinical OCD is influenced by one's religious belief, practice, and culture. Islamic rituals that emphasise on cleanliness or ritual purity could explain why the common contents of obsessions/compulsions among Muslim population are contamination and religion. We want to examine whether Islamic Integrated exposure response therapy (IERT) is suitable for mental pollution. We report a 27-year-old Muslim lady with an acute onset of contamination OCD, complicated with secondary depression. Her fear of contamination was strongly related to impurity and pertaining to Islamic rituals. Ten sessions of IERT were conducted. The patient improved clinically and objectively following the IERT. IERT is another variant of treatment mode that can be used to treat OCD, especially with contamination themes.


Hybrid integration technology of a laser source on a silicon optical waveguide platform by flip-chip bonding for silicon photonics has been developed. Several types of integrated laser sources were demonstrated, including multi-channel, high-density and high temperature operation.


The people's increasing attention to culture and education has caused vicious competition in the education and training industry, and false propaganda has disturbed the market order, and the education and training market is facing the choice of entry and exit. Based on the evolutionary game model, this paper explores the best strategic choice of the three parties involved in the education market by constructing an evolutionary game model of the strategic behavior choice of the regulator, education institutions and students, and using MATLAB simulation analysis to explore the direction of healthy, orderly and scientific development of the education market. The results show that the stronger the supervisory authority rewards (or punishes) the education and training institutions that adopt benign competition with credibility and credit evaluation, the more the education and training institutions tend to choose benign competition. The smaller the extra loss of training for students, the more inclined they are to choose to enroll. The higher the benefit of benign competition (or the cost of vicious competition) for teaching and training institutions, the more inclined they are to choose benign competition.


We propose a simplified model to directly take into account the contribution of the tensor interaction (SMT) for light nuclei by extending the {alpha}-cluster model. In {sup 8}Be, the energy curve with respect to the relative distance between the two {sup 4}He clusters suggests that the cluster structure persists even though the tensor interaction contributes strongly. In addition to SMT, a simplified method to take into account the strong spin-orbit contribution is introduced and the coupling effects of these two models is shown to be important in {sup 12}C, in contrast to {sup 8}Be.


colonialism titled 'The North-African Crisis', that he published in Espirit in 1935, and which Little provides in Appendix D. Chapters fifteen and sixteen are essays written while Weil was living in New York in 1942. In the first essay she recounted the various abuses perpetrated on the colonised people by the French and the contempt in which they were held, even as the French used them in the war against the Germans. She concluded that this mistreatment could only result in a revolt, or even support for the Germans and Japanese against the French. After having made black friends in Harlem while in New York, Weil described in the briefer second essay, the terrible abuse of black French war-prisoners at the hands of the Germans.


Sentiment Analysis is the Natural Language Processing (NLP) is the active research area due to its vast application like stock market prediction, product re-views etc. The sentiment analysis in the regional languages are required for the film industries to increase their profit. Many existing methods has been applied on the sentiment analysis in the regional languages to increases the performance and still, it lags due in efficiency. In this research, the Bi-directional Recurrent Neural Network (BRNN) is applied to increase the performance of the sentiment analysis in the regional languages. The BRNN method has the advantages of rep-resenting the high and poor resources sentences in the common space and sentiment is analyzed based on the similarity measure. The proposed method is evaluated on the twitter data and compared this with the existing methods such as Random forest and Support Vector Machine (SVM). The proposed BRNN has the overall accuracy of 50.32%, while existing method of SVM has the overall accuracy of 38.73%.


From the fact that ontologies play an important role in sharing knowledge in different domains, we have developed an algorithm that utilities the extracted rules, which are generated from the original dataset, in developing ontology elements. In this paper, the developed algorithm is critically evaluated via set of metrics that have been adopted. In addition, this paper focuses on evaluating the quality of the generated ontology that has been developed using to a well known dataset in the breast cancer domain. The results of this evaluation indicate that the generated domain ontology provides a high degree of accuracy in identifying the substantial domain concepts. The overall conclusion encourages and supports the potential role that this approach can play in providing a suitable starting point for ontology development.


There is little datum related to microstructure and properties of Mg alloys squeeze-casted with pressure over 200 MPa. In this study, the microstructure and properties of Mg-6Zn-1.4Y (ZW61) alloy solidified under 100MPa to 800MPa were investigated. The results show that a remarkable microstructure refinement and porosity reduction can be reached through solidification under high pressure. The average grain size and the volume fraction of second phase, i.e. quasicrystal I-phase, decrease continuously with the increase of applied pressure. The tensile properties, especially elongation, are obvious enhanced because of the microstructure refinement and castings densification under high pressure. The ultimate tensile strength and elongation of ZW61 alloy in as-cast state are 243 MPa and 18.7% when the applied pressure is 800 MPa, which are increased by 35% and 118% respectively, compared with that of the gravity castings.


The paper treats the cultural poetics and the entire critical environment from a realistic and critical point of view.It attempts to check up the mistakes in methodology,dissemination and prejudgment,and criticizes the various malpractices such as alienation,surface state,alien resources,misunderstanding with creation in the current critical field.It also discusses the interaction between the cultural poetics and critical development.


The applied binding mechanism in Marvel for the characteristic function checks all instances of a given class against the binding formula regardless of the actual structure of the formula and its predicates This can cause unnecessary computation overhead while executing a rule This report displays a more advanced mechanism considering relational information between objects the structure of the binding formula and optimizing rewriting of the binding formula


Geochemical investigation of the 1998 and 2004 tephra deposits from Grimsvotn central volcano reveal significant and systematic variations in major and trace element compositions with stratigraphic height. The range in incompatible element concentrations in the 1998 and 2004 products indicate that this compositional variation can be explained by 10-20% fractional crystallisation during residence in the shallow (1-3 km depth) magma storage zone beneath the Grimsvotn volcano. As expected, the 1998 and 2004 products have similar Zr/Nb values (1998, 10.1; 2004, 9.7), indicating a common source. However, they define two distinct trends on a Fe-Ti plot, both intercepting the origin, suggesting independent evolution within the shallow (low-pressure) magma storage zone via fractional crystallization of plagioclase. This result is somewhat surprising considering the small volumes (<0.05 cubic km) of magma erupted, and the short repose interval between these two events. Previous studies of historic Grimsvotn products (e.g. 1983, 1934) give the impression of uniform magma compositions [1,2]. The largest known eruption from the Grimsvotn volcanic system is the 1783-84 AD Laki eruption (15 cubic km), which is characterized by an exceptionally uniform magma composition [3]. Our new results have implications for how we view the magma plumbing system and storage zones beneath Grimsvotn. Firstly, our results imply that the 1998 and 2004 eruptions were fed by physically separate magma pockets residing in the shallow magma storage zone beneath the Grimsvotn volcano. The existence of such a shallow-level storage zone is corroborated by previous geophysical studies [4,5]. Secondly, the observed compositional patterns of Grimsvotn products – variable in small volume eruptions at the central volcano, but uniform in large eruptions out on the fissure swarm – argues against a common magma storage zone for events on these two separate parts of the Grimsvotn volcanic system and, by deduction, refutes the notion that the Laki eruption was fed by lateral flow of magma from a shallow chamber beneath the Grimsvotn volcano.


The properties of a buried epoxy/glass interfacial region were studied by covalently grafting a fluorescent probe to the glass surface. A (dimethylamino)nitrostilbene (DMANS) fluorophore was tethered to a triethoxysilane coupling agent, generating a fluorescently labeled silane coupling agent (FLSCA). The glass surface was coated with a silane layer that was doped with small amounts of FLSCA. The emission maximum from grafted FLSCA was different than when the dye was dissolved in bulk resin, suggesting a different interfacial structure. When the dye was dissolved in bulk cured resin, a red shift in the emission maximum was detected as the resin temperature was increased. A distinct break in the fluorescence maximum vs temperature slope was detected at the glass transition of the bulk resin. The slope became larger at temperatures above Tg. A similar break was observed from grafted FLSCA, suggesting that the grafted dye was sensitive to an apparent glass transition in the buried interfacial region. The temperature of the apparent interfacial transition measured by grafted FLSCA could be lower or higher than the bulk polymer T g , depending on the initial structure of the grafted silane layer.


Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common skin cancer and tends to appear on the face and neck.1 For the complete removal of BCC, a surgical margin of at least 4mm is recommended by the guidelines of various dermatological and oncologic associations.2-4 However, 4mm is not always feasible because of anatomic and cosmetic restrictions. Moreover, these recommendations are based on studies of Caucasian non-pigmented BCCs. In contrast, most Asian BCCs are pigmented and relatively demarcated. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


This brief presents a time-interleaved SAR assisted pipeline ADC with an inter-stage ring amplifier as an energy efficient structure. Ring amplifiers, an alternative to operational transconductance amplifiers, feature low power consumption and large output swing. Due to non-dominant poles in the three-stage structure, conventional ring amplifiers suffer from a bandwidth-limited settling. A bias-enhanced ring amplifier is proposed, which shifts non-dominant poles to higher frequencies and accelerates signal settling. In addition, a 1.5-bit per comparison scheme is adopted in the two time-interleaved SAR sub-ADCs to speed up the DAC settling of sub-ADCs. Prototyped in a 1.2-V 65-nm CMOS process, the 11-bit ADC achieves over 68.5-dB SFDR with a 2.4-MHz input, and a sample rate up to 250 MS/s while consuming 2.28 mW at 200 MS/s.


Based on exist e-learning system's low educational reality and the user experience, we suggest a augmented reality smart learning system by using transparent display to solve those problem. In normal, AR learning system are hard to provide clear transparency to user and weak reality for user experience, the system's input device are webcam so make marker array recognition system is not stability enough. And system has a shortage that the learners are only can running the system in offline environment. In this paper, we designed a system to solve those problem include recognition, external brightness interference and set education service on LMS system based on cloud service to make user connection possible.


The adjustment of ownership structure and the distribution of resources are connected closely which could be reflected through the effect of the distribution of resources. Analyzing the relationship between the industrial ownership structure in Guizhou and the change of the distribution of resources, we could find out that the effect of the distribution of resources is the explanatory change based on the change of industrial ownership structure. Therefore, the ownership structure should be adjusted positively and the efficiency of the effect of the distribution of resources should be improved continuously so as to promote the industrialization of Guizhou province.


The realm of being in common or public sphere is structured itself by freedom which in turn constitutes the foundation for politics. A living together structured by freedom allows both axes of the public sphere to come about: speech and action. Both turn out to be involved one another in such a way that political action remains delimited by language and acts; without these two axes, politics would be a manipulation from power and therefore would bring about violence as its consequence, which in itself is the denial of political action. Opening the sphere for actions and words sets up the world in common that qualifies citizens as responsible speakers with a power that establishes itself horizontally through the exchange of speeches, arguments and acts. Their speeches explain the meaning of their acts. No action would come about without


Neuraminidase was purified from the culture filtrate of Micromonospora viridif aciens in 4 steps. After the last step the enzyme appeared to be homogeneous on polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, and the enzyme was crystallized by the addition of ammonium sulfate. The enzyme did not require Ca2+ ions for the activity and was not inhibited by EDTA. The enzyme was active on various sialocompounds such as N-aeetylneuraminosyl-lactose (Km = 2.1 mm) and colominic acid (Km = 0.3 mm). The activity was strongly inhibited by a sulfhydryl reagent, p-chloromercuribenzoate, and by oxidizing reagents such as N-bromosuccinimide and iodine. Its catalytic properties were compared with those of various microbial neuraminidases. M. viridifaciens neuraminidase was similar in many respects to Clostridium perfringens enzyme.


Introduction: A six-minute nutrition cartoon video "The Magical Pinggang Pinoy in Nutrilandia" was developed and pre-tested to encourage hearing and deaf and mute children to eat a variety of foods by following the Pinggang Pinoy® (Healthy Plate). This study described the development process of the nutrition cartoon video and explored the participants' acceptance towards it. Methods: The video underwent two levels of pre-testing to ensure comprehensibility, attractiveness, acceptability, and self-involvement. The first level was conducted among three DOST-FNRI experts, while the second level was among six deaf-mute school teachers and 30 mothers/ caregivers of 6-9 years old hearing children. Data were collected through an online self-administered questionnaire. Open-ended questions allowed participants to express themselves freely on the given subjects. Data analysis used thematic analysis. Results: The video conveyed clear information on the Pinggang Pinoy®, and the inclusion of animation, subtitles, visuals, and voice-over made the video easier to understand. Participants stated that the message of the video was directed to children, teens, adults, malnourished people, and everyone in general. Pre-testing the nutrition cartoon video before final production identified terminologies and concepts that participants found unfamiliar, confusing and unacceptable; offered suggestions for improvement and made pre-tested video appropriate for hearing and deaf-mute children. Conclusion: Overall, the participants had positive perceptions on the nutrition cartoon video. The video can be used in nutrition education classes among hearing and deaf and mute children, and serves as a tool to measure children's nutrition knowledge on healthy eating.


Information management major of higher vocational colleges should be built according to the social requirement. This major's development should also focus on computer major and carry out a "picked troops approach" to demonstrate its characteristic. The offered courses should comply with a proper order and teachers should value the practices and examples in their teaching. In this way, the student's practical ability can be improved and they could become qualified personnel as well.


A flow through anaerobic microbial fuel cell (MFC) was designed and optimized for efficient treatment of recalcitrant textile wastewater. The membrane-less MFC was first time fabricated with a unique combination of electrodes, a novel bioanode of synthesized lignin-based electrospun carbon fiber supporting a biofilm of Geobacter sulfurreducens for acetate oxidation and an air-breathing cathode, consisting of a pyrolyzed macrocycle catalyst mixture on carbon bonded by polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). The effects of different organic loadings of acetate along with Acid Orange (AO5), operation time and ionic strength of auxiliary salts (conductivity enhancers) were investigated and responses in terms of polarization and degradation were studied. In addition, the decomposition of the organic species and the degradation of AO5 along with its metabolites and degraded products (2-aminobenzenesulfonic acid) were determined by chemical oxygen demand (COD) analysis, UV-Vis spectrophotometry and high-performance liquid chromatography (UV-HPLC) techniques. SEM and TEM images were also used to find out the biocompatibility of the microbes on lignin-based electrospun carbon felt anode and the morphology of the cathode. Reduction and breakage of the azo bond of AO5 occurs presumably as a side reaction, resulting in the formation of 2-aminobenzenesulfonic acid and unidentified aromatic amines. Maximum current density of anode 0.59 Am−2 and power density of 0.12 Wm−2 were obtained under optimized conditions. As a result, decolouration of AO5 and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency was 81 and 58%, respectively. These results revealed that the low-cost MFC assembly can offer significant potential for anaerobic decolouration of recalcitrant textile wastewater.


Objectives: A clinical study to evaluate a five-week usage of stannous-based sodium fluoride toothpastes relative to a marketed positive control toothpaste on established gingivitis. Methods: This was a randomized, double-blind, parallelgroup, single-center, five-week clinical study. A total of ninety-four (94) healthy subjects with more than twenty-five (25) gingival bleeding sites as measured by GBI were enrolled into the study. Subjects were stratified into three groups based on age, number of bleeding sites, smoking status and gender. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of the test toothpastes: 1) Experimental stabilised stannousbased sodium fluoride toothpaste (prototype of Crest ProHealth®, China) 2) Experimental stabilised stannous-based sodium fluoride toothpaste or 3) positive control (Colgate® Total toothpaste) to use over the next 5 weeks. Subjects were instructed to brush twice daily (morning and evening) for 2 minutes each time using only their assigned dentifrice and a soft manual toothbrush that was provided. Tooth brushing was supervised 3 times a week. Gingivitis examinations using the Mazza modification of the Papillary Bleeding Index were conducted at baseline and at week 5. All subjects were examined by 2 examiners in this study. Results: Eighty five (85) subjects completed the study. The three groups were well balanced on age, gender and smoking (P>0.711). Baseline means were balanced among the three groups (p≥0.180). After five weeks usage, all three test dentifrices provided statistically significant reduction in gingivitis relative to baseline (p 0.600). The two examiners reported virtually identical outcomes. All test products were well tolerated. Conclusions: The research demonstrated comparable antigingivitis efficacy of the experimental stannous-based sodium fluoride toothpastes relative to the positive control as assessed by two independent examiners.


Novel targeted therapies have substantially improved the prognosis of patients with B cell malignancies. However, a substantial fraction of patients still relapse, even after initially achieving deep remissions. Many studies have characterized the interactions between tumor cells and their microenvironment as integral to leukemia/ lymphoma homeostasis and for the provision of survival signals, also contributing to drug resistance (referred to as environment-mediated drug resistance (EMDR)). Therapeutic efforts to antagonize microenvironment-emanating survival cues have predominantly focused on perturbation of tumour cell adhesion enabling the physical displacement from protective niches (e.g. BCR-inhibitors). In an effort to address whether direct stromal targeting could more precisely mitigate EMDR, we recently characterised the molecular mechanisms underlying tumor-stroma interactions in B cell malignancies and identified a protein kinase C-β (PKC-β) as an essential kinase, required for activation of NF-κB in mesenchymal stromal cells (Lutzny et al Cancer Cell 2013). The dependency on stroma PKC-β was uniformly found for acute (ALL) and chronic (CLL, MCL) B cell malignancies. Importantly, our data further demonstrate that targeting stroma PKC-β is of key importance for multi-drug resistance of malignant B cells and can be used for therapeutic interventions (Park et al Science Trans Med 2020).
 Here we demonstrate novel mechanistic insights into stroma-mediated drug resistance in B cell malignancies. We identified that stroma PKC-β drives a transcriptional program in tumor cells, dependent on the activation of TGF-β and BMP-signaling, which ultimately leads to the stabilisation of BCL-XL. Our data show that BCL-XL expression in tumor cells is associated with SMAD1-induction by cytotoxic therapies, which simultaneously suppress SMAD4 expression. Importantly, SMAD1 expression was strictly dependent on stromal PKC-β activity. Antagonizing stroma signals with TGF-β inhibitors inhibits SMAD1 induction, abrogates the up-regulation of BCL-XL and overcomes stroma-dependent resistance to Venetoclax and conventional chemotherapy. The TGF-β pathway operates in parallel to the activation of the transcription factor EB (TFEB) as a down-stream target of PKC-β. Interference with these signaling pathways impairs plasma membrane integrity of stromal cells by down-regulation of numerous adhesion and signaling molecules, such as ADAM17, required for the reciprocal stabilization of BCL-XL in tumor cells.
 The significance of microenvironment PKC-β for drug resistance was demonstrated in vivo, using C57B/6 mice, diseased with EμTCL-1 driven B cell tumors and treated with Venetoclax in combination with or without PKC-β inhibitors. Combined treatment significantly prolonged survival, based on PKC-β mediated impairment of EMDR. Similarly, concurrent treatment of PKC-β inhibitors with chemotherapy also improved survival in an ALL-PDx model
 Our data demonstrate that mitigating EMDR with small molecule inhibitors of PKC-β or TGF-β signalling enhance the effectiveness of both targeted and non-targeted chemotherapies and moreover, has the ability to overcome Venetoclax resistance in B cell malignancies. Clinical trials with repurposed drugs inhibiting the here described pathways mediating EMDR are in planning.

 No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

 Midostaurin as inhibitor of stroma PKC-β


NHS leaders in England are seeking a fresh "mandate" to speed up the greening of healthcare, warning that targets on reducing greenhouse gas emissions will not be met by current means.

Experts launching a consultation on a new sustainable development strategy for 2014-20 said that a new strategy needed to be far broader in scope and more radical than its predecessor, the NHS carbon reduction strategy of 2009.

Although reducing carbon emissions should remain a core objective, the new strategy should seek "transformational change" and foster genuinely sustainable models of care, they said.

David Nicholson, chief executive of the NHS Commissioning Board, launched the document on 29 January alongside Duncan Selbie, chief executive of Public Health England, and other senior figures.

Nicholson said, "This is an ideal moment for everyone in the NHS to come together to create a far …


In the present study, the main purpose is examination of relative and incremental information contents of EVA and REVA for prediction of incomes. For that purpose, the relation between the operating income of the next period and variations in the data on EVA, REVA, operating income and operation cash flows for the companies listed in Tehran Stocks Exchange from 2001 through 2011 were tested. The results of testing the hypotheses show that still the operating income as the most important accounting variable in financial and investment decisions are paid attention by decision makers in the stocks exchange and in most cases it has more content information than other variables. According to the findings of this study, EVA, REVA and OCF could not show a significant relation with the operating income or incremental information content.


 Identify the author's purpose in this article—persuade, inform, or entertain. Cite two pieces of evidence from the text to support your answer. _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________


The Instagram Activism Slideshow helps undergraduate students bridge theory and practice by connecting the media arguments they see in their daily lives to the principles of policy argument they learn in argumentation courses. Students use a relevant argumentation theory or concept to argue for a public policy in a concise and palatable Instagram "slideshow" format. The Instagram Activism Slideshow engages students with a highly relevant media context, equips students with a meaningful product for their professional portfolios, and teaches students how to leverage argumentation for advocacy. Courses This assignment is suitable to relevant upper-division undergraduate communication courses related to argumentation, social and digital media messaging, civic participation, social justice, and public policy. Relevant courses might include argumentation and debate, argumentation and advocacy, argumentation and public policy, and social media campaigns. Objectives The purpose of this assignment is to assist students in: (1) understanding how stock issues arguments apply to public policy rhetoric; (2) effectively planning, creating, and presenting multimedia arguments; and (3) analyzing and evaluating public policy arguments.


Even in large systems, the effect of noise arising from when populations are initially small can persist to be measurable on the macroscale. A deterministic approximation to a stochastic model will fail to capture this effect, but it can be accurately approximated by including an additional random time-shift to the initial conditions. We present a efficient numerical method to compute this time-shift distribution for a large class of stochastic models. The method relies on differentiation of certain functional equations, which we show can be effectively automated by deriving rules for different types of model rates that arise commonly when mass-action mixing is assumed. Explicit computation of the time-shift distribution can be used to build a practical tool for the efficient generation of macroscopic trajectories of stochastic population models, without the need for costly stochastic simulations. Full code is provided to implement this and we demonstrate our method on an epidemic model and a model of within-host viral dynamics.


In this paper we examine a novel approach to the difficult problem of querying video databases using visual topics with few examples. Typically with visual topics, the examples are not sufficiently diverse to create a robust model of the user's need. As a result, direct modeling using the provided topic examples as training data is inadequate. Otherwise, systems resort to multiple content-based searches using each example in turn, which typically provides poor results. We propose a new technique of leveraging unlabeled data to expand the diversity of the topic examples as well as provide a robust set of negative examples that allow direct modeling. The approach intelligently models a pseudo-negative space using unbiased and biased methods for data sampling and data selection. We apply the proposed method in a fusion framework to improve discriminative support vector machine modeling, and improve the overall system performance. The result is an enhanced performance over any of the baseline models, as well as improved robustness with respect to training examples, visual features, and visual support of video topics in TRECVID. The proposed method outperforms a baseline retrieval approach by more than 18% on the TRECVID 2006 video collection and query topics.


In the current information era, all kinds of information are communicated. One method of communication is radio broadcast. The most used technical means until now has been AM and FM reception. Digital Audio Broadcasting or DAB is a digital radio standard for transmitting CD quality stereo audio together with all kinds of extra information. It could be called the multi-media radio, for also video and computer data can be transmitted via DAB. Furthermore, DAB is intended for mobile error-free reception that discards well-known reception problems like multi-path, fading and Doppler effects. The theory behind the Digital Audio Broadcasting system is investigated to provide a background for understanding time synchronisation in DAB receivers. A high-level system modelling and simulation tool, DSP Station is used to describe a DAB system of encoder, channel and decoder. This DAB system description is setup in order to study time synchronisation in DAB receivers. DSP Station is evaluated for its use as a high level system modelling and simulation tool, based upon the experiences of the author and several other DSP Station users. Several aspects in DSP Station need improvements in order to get a full-fledged time-saving, design-supporting CAD/CAE tool. Several methods for time synchronisation are looked at and this author has proposed a new promising time synchronisation algorithm for implementation in a new DAB receiver chip-set. This proposal has made it into the DAB V3 receiver chip-set that will be available at the end of this year. Field tests then can show the better performance due to this algorithm, relative to previous used algorithms.


The present investigation entitled "Effect of drying techniques and embedding media on dried flower quality of Rose (Rosa chinensis Jacq.) and Water lily (Nymphaea alba L.)" was conducted in the Laboratory of Department of Floriculture and Landscaping, College of Horticulture & Forestry, Jhalarapatan, Jhalawar during October 2015 to March 2016.The experiment had 22 treatments studied on Rose and Water lily, including drying conditions viz. air drying without embedding (control), hot air oven drying (At 400 C, 500 C and 600 C for 24 hours) and microwave oven drying (2 minutes, 3 minutes and 4 minutes at 350 Hz) in a combination with three different embedding media was sand, borax and silica gel. The experiment was laid out in completely randomized design (CRD) with three replications The results obtained show that the Minimum pigment loss in dried flowers of rose (20.27 %) was recorded in silica gel in microwave oven at 350 Hz for 2 minutes and maximum (63.14 %) in without embedding (control). Among the different drying conditions, temperature and duration the flowers dried in silica gel in microwave oven at 350 Hz for 3 minutes had the highest sensory scores for shape (8.57 and 7.87) for dried flowers of rose and water lily, respectively whereas the minimum scores for shape (5.04 and 4.93) were recorded with T1 (control). Keyword: Rose, Water lily, embedding media, silica gel, sand, sensory score Introduction Today floriculture is seen as a profession of higher potential returns per unit area as compared to the other horticultural crops. Commercial floriculture has attracted attention in India due to enormous export potential and increased domestic use of flowers in daily life with the improvement in living standards of people. There is an increasing demand all over the world for the decoration of living and working places with eco-friendly things like fresh flowers and foliages, dried plant parts and dry flowers. Fresh flowers though exquisite in their beauty are highly expensive. Also, they are perishable and delicate in nature and cannot retain their beauty and fresh look for a long time in spite of using best chemicals for enhancing vase life. Moreover, there is a non-availability of fresh flowers and foliages all round the year in all places. The dried flowers are near to natural, having beauty as well as an everlasting value, if preserved and processed with appropriate dehydration technology. Hence, the dried flowers are extra special as they can be kept and cherished for years together (Singhwi, 1996) [14]. The dry flower industry in India is about fifty years old and was introduced by the British. India stands fourth in dry flower exports worldwide. Potpourris being the major segment of drying flower industry valuing at Rs. 55 crores in India alone (Nirmala et al., 2008) [8]. In recent floriculture trade, the export of dry flowers from India during 2013-2014 was Rs. 363.3 crores (Periban et al., 2014) [9]. Rose is one of the top ranking cut flowers in the international flower trade and the dry cut flowers of roses are the most expensive and exquisite of all dried flowers traded in the international market (Barnett and Moore, 1999) [2]. Similarly, white water lily is a beautiful aquatic plant. It is a very popular plant for cultivation in ornamental ponds. Hence, considering the premium potential of rose and water lily in dry flower industry, the present study was planned to find out the most effective drying techniques and embedding media on dried flower quality of rose and water lily.


Marmura H, et al. Br J Sports Med Month 2021 Vol 0 No 0 Infographic. Sex differences and ACL injuries Hana Marmura , Dianne M Bryant, Alan MJ Getgood Infographic BACKGROUND Females are 2–10 times more likely to suffer an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury than males when playing the same sports, a discrepancy which has garnered significant research effort and warrants further attention. It is critical to understand the sexrelated differences influencing ACL injuries to improve research and care. The Sex and Gender Equity in Research Guidelines provide instructions for incorporating sex and gender differences into health research and emphasise the need to explicitly discuss the associated implications for interpretation of study results and clinical application: https://wwweaseorguk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/ Sagerfor-webpdf. While traditionally presented as dichotomous, biological sex is a nuanced topic with variations across the population. However, we are currently unable to draw any evidencebased conclusions regarding biological sex variations and ACL injuries, with rigorous research required in this area. PREPUBERTY There are no known sex differences relevant to ACL injury risk prior to puberty. PREVENTION Strong evidence supports the use of multicomponent prevention programmes to reduce ACL injury risk by up to twothirds. Research on ACL injury prevention has focused mainly on correcting modifiable neuromuscular deficits in females. A neuromuscular spurt similar to that commonly experienced by males during puberty can be induced in females through training programmes. While the optimal timing is unclear and a large commitment is required for adequate compliance, the benefits of implementing ACL injury prevention programmes are well worth the efforts. Changes that occur throughout male maturation, such as increased joint stiffness, strength, power and coordination, are likely to be protective of ACL injuries, whereas females may develop generalised ligamentous laxity, quadricep/leg/ trunk dominance, higher knee abduction moments and more coronal plane knee motion during maturation which increase the risk of ACL injury. More research is Prevention Sex Differences & ACL Injuries


The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of positive emotions on the quality of life (QOL) of college students in China using the Positive Emotion Scale (PES, eight items) and The World Health Organization's Quality-of-Life Brief Scale (WHOQOL-BREF, 24 items) to conduct a questionnaire survey of 961 college students in China. The study's results show that female college students have significantly higher positive emotions than their male counterparts, but there is no difference in the QOL between men and women. Positive emotions have a significant positive effect on the QOL of Chinese college students. The findings identified the relationship between college students' positive emotions and QOL, taking gender differences into account.


The purpose of this study is to move a flexible structure quickly and accurately by controlling the vibration of a periodical moving flexible structure such as conveyance equipment. In order to reduce the vibration of the flexible structure actively, a hydraulic actuator is installed on the motion transmission path from a drive system to a flexible structure. Generally, it is possible to obtain effective reduction of the residual vibration by feedback control. However the vibration displacement during motion is mainly the forced vibration which is caused by motion acceleration, so it is difficult to reduce the vibration displacement by feedback control. Thus, by considering that the flexible structure moves periodically, we use the repetitive control method to reduce the vibration displacement during motion. In this study, the repetitive control method with step response, which does not require the model identification, is shown. Furthermore, the validity of this method is examined by simulation and experiment.


Based on the substrate integrated waveguide(SIW) technology and the standard PCB process,a SIW slot array low side lobe circular polarized antenna is implemented.The radiator is SIW top-wall matched slot pair for generating circular polarized field in traveling wave mode.The slots are improved to make the reflection of a single radiating element less than-30 dB.SIW low side lobe power divider is adopted in the planar array.Detail of the design formulas,process and simulation results are presented in the paper.The final 16×16 prototype planar array is fabricated.30 dB gain,0.7 dB axial ratio and-20 dB side lobe level are measured at 16.1 GHz.


Abstract:Within college choice literature, there is little research related to admissions professionals. A case study at a small university in Texas focused on interactions between college recruiters and prospective students. Identified themes included: taking on the role of the recruiter, translating the college message, linking across organizational barriers, teaching critical mindset and application-related skills, talking with parents, and transforming future college students. Strategies are suggested for enhancing the role of recruiters in student learning.


We present experiments on mono-lingual and cross-li ngual articulatory feature recognition for English and German speech data. Our go al is to investigate to what extent it is possible to derive and reuse articulator y feature recognizers, whether particular features are better suited to this task. Fi nally whether this goal is practically achievable with the chosen machine learning techniq ue and the selected set of speech signal descriptors.


Wolbachia is a widespread endosymbiotic bacteria with diverse phenotypic effects on its insect hosts. Wolbachia also commonly infects social insects, where it faces unique challenges associated with its hosts' caste-based reproductive division of labor and colony living. Here we dissect the benefits and costs of Wolbachia infection on life-history traits of pharaoh ants, Monomorium pharaonis. Pharaoh ants are relatively short-lived and show natural variation in Wolbachia infection between colonies, thereby making them an ideal model system for this study. We quantified effects on the lifespan of queen and worker castes, the egg-laying rate of queens across queen lifespan, and the metabolic rates of whole colonies and colony members. Newly-infected queens laid more eggs than uninfected queens but had similar metabolic rates and lifespans. Surprisingly, infected workers outlived uninfected workers. Infected colonies were more productive due to increased queen egg-laying rates and worker longevity, and infected colonies had higher metabolic rates during peak colony productivity. While some effects of infection, such as elevated colony-level metabolic rates may be detrimental in more stressful conditions, we did not find any costs of infection under laboratory conditions. Overall, our study emphasizes the beneficial effects of Wolbachia on colony-level growth and metabolism in this species.


The solution space of detailed placement becomes intractable with increase in thenumber of placeable cells and their possible locations. So, the existing works either focus on the sliding window-based optimization or row-based optimization. Though these region-based methods enable us to use linear-programming, pseudo-greedy or dynamic-programming algorithms, locally optimal solutions from these methods are globally sub-optimal with inherent heuristics. The heuristics such as the order in which we choose these local problems or size of each sliding window (runtime vs. optimality tradeoff) account for the degradation of solution quality. Our hypothesis is that learning-based techniques (with their richer representation ability) have shown a great success in problems with huge solution spaces, and can offer an alternative to the existing rudimentary heuristics. We propose a two-stage detailed-placement algorithm RLPlace that uses reinforcement learning (RL) for coarse re-arrangement and Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT) for fine-grain refinement. With global placement output of two critical IPs as the start point, RLPlace achieves upto 1.35% HPWL improvement as compared to the commercial tool's detailed-placement result. In addition, RLPlace shows at least 1.2% HPWL improvement over highly optimized detailed-placement variants of the two IPs.


Tunable mid‐infrared laser sources are the key to precision optical trace gas detection. Difference‐frequency generation (DFG) based laser sources are among a few practical laser sources that have demonstrated ultra‐high detection sensitivities during real‐world applications when combined with appropriate signal enhancing and noise reduction spectroscopic techniques. This article will discuss the technical approaches, illustrate application examples of DFG sources, and offer perspectives to competing technologies.


In this project a strategic model for sustainable community development through tourism is designed. A pilot research in Ljusnarsberg, a deteriorating rural community in Sweden, is performed to develop the strategic model to come to a final concept. The result is a final strategic model based on literature research, insights from the pilot research area's context analysis and experiences of implementing the strategic model in the pilot community. The final concept of the strategic model presents a local organization that connects its community to the ecotourism market to change the economical, socio- cultural and environmental deterioration into sustainable development. The organization facilitates active tourism development and reactive community development towards a strongly sustainable paradigm. In this paradigm all development is done within planetary boundaries. Though still highly developmental, the strategic model could turn a deteriorating rural area into a developing community that is attractive to live and sustainable for the future. Next to that can the model make rural living a more viable option, combating not only rural deterioration, but also the negative effects of urbanization.


The electrochromic behaviour of α-[Fe(pc)] and [Fe(pc)Cl] has been studied, using cyclic voltammetry, electronic absorption spectroscopy and Mossbauer spectroscopy, the latter on 57Fe-enriched [Fe(pc)] films. [Fe(pc)] films have been shown to cycle reversibly ca. 103 times between neutral (blue) and reduced (purple-red) states (negative voltages), but decompose when oxidised repeatedly (positive voltages) in aqueous KCI electrolytes. When oxidised then reduced in < ca. 1 s [Fe(pc)Cl] is formed. This indicates that the Cl– ion adds as a ligand during the electrochromic oxidation and this takes place concomitantly with a lattice reorganisation. [Fe(pc)] films on oxidation produce red [FeIII(pc˙)Cl2] and contain a (pc˙) phthalocyanine radical anion. On reduction to neutral they become [Fe(pc)Cl].[Fe(PC)Cl] films have been shown to reduce electrochromically from an initial green film to a purple reduced film without first becoming [Fe(pc)]. However, on reoxidation to neutral, a blue [Fe(pc)] film is formed; this then behaves like a normal [Fe(pc)] film. These studies show that the axial Cl–on [Fe(pc)Cl], once removed, passes out of the lattice during the electrochromic reduction, and that under the influence of the field the lattice reorganises, assembling predominantly as the α-[Fe(pc)] phase.This is the first attempt to explain widespread lattice reorganisation that involves metallophthalocyanines with axial ligands attaching and detaching under controlled voltage.


The dendritic morphology of cells in the lateral superior olivary nucleus was studied with the Golgi method in adult and postnatal ferrets. The lateral superior olivary nucleus in the adult ferret is a convoluted structure with an M‐shape in frontal sections. The major cell type appears to have disk‐shaped dendritic trees. Most dendritic trees appear to be approximately orthogonal to the curved medial‐lateral axis of the nucleus. Depending on their position in the limb and on the plane of section with respect to the dendritic tree, the disk‐shaped cells are either bipolar or radiate in orientation. One subclass of disk‐shaped cells has secondary dendritic branches that end as tufts of tendril‐like processes. In a second subclass of cells, the dendrites exhibit several orders of dichotomous branching and lack obvious tufts of terminal processes. Marginal cells are observed at the border of the nucleus and have dendrites restricted to the margins of the cell plate.


The majority of current societal and economic needs world-wide are met by the existing networked, civil infrastructure. Because the cost of managing such infrastructure is high and increases with time, risk-informed decision making is essential for those with management responsibilities for these systems. To address such concerns, a methodology that accounts for new information, deterioration, component models, component importance, group importance, network reliability, hierarchical structure organization, and efficiency concerns has been developed. This methodology analyzes the use of new information through the lens of adaptive Importance Sampling for structural reliability problems. Deterioration, multi-scale bridge models, and time-variant component importance are investigated for a specific network. Furthermore, both bridge and pipeline networks are studied for group and component importance, as well as for hierarchical structures in the context of specific networks. Efficiency is the primary driver throughout this study. With this risk-informed approach, those responsible for management can address deteriorating infrastructure networks in an organized manner. SAND2014-17778R


The invention relates to a quantitative feeding device applied to a stuffing coated ball machine which comprises a feed pipe, a gear pump and a transmission device. The feed pipe is connected with a feed system and used for providing materials for the gear pump, the materials can enter the gear pump from the feed pipe, and the transmission device extends out of the lateral side of the gear pump to be connected with a power providing device to provide power for the gear pump. The gear pump is formed by a valve body, a driving gear, a driven gear, a driving gear shaft and a driven gear shaft; the driving gear, the driven gear, the driving gear shaft and the driven gear shaft are contained in the valve body; the power providing device can drive the driving gear shaft through the transmission device; the driving gear shaft can drive the driving gear to rotate and further drive the driven gear; the driving gear and the driven gear can generate quantitative mesh clearance when in mesh. According to the quantitative feeding device applied to the stuffing coated ball machine, quantitative feeding of the materials of the stuffing coated ball machine is achieved.


On the basis of previous research, This article studies the structure and working principle of recurrent fuzzy neural network. The traditional fuzzy controller is not precise enough, does not have simple algorithm but poor timely traceability. The use of the fuzzy neural network is good for fully integrating the fuzzy control feature and neural network control feature. And we can improve the fuzzy neural network into recurrent fuzzy neural network, and apply this in the power flow control of the power converter. Through simulating and contrasting, the experiments show that it can achieve the UPFC trend of dynamic real-time monitoring, it has better tracking control capability and robustness, and preferable effect of power control.


Body weight support (BWS) systems are widely used in gait rehabilitation. These systems allow patients to gradually increase training intensity and promote independent walking. Currently, there is no standardized method to assess the performance of BWS systems. This work proposes methods and metrics that can be used to assess and compare any overground, force controlled BWS systems. The RYSEN, a novel, cable-driven, three-dimensional overground BWS system, developed by Motek Medical B.V., Delft University of Technology, GTX Medical and Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, is used as a case study throughout this work. Analytical methods are proposed that allow to (1) define the non-linearity bounds of static spring systems and (2) select the most important configurations for performance evaluation using sensitivity analyses on weighted stiffness matrices. These analytical methods resulted in testing the system in one direction at a time for a limited number of configurations. Furthermore, experiments are proposed based on three modes of operation: static force tracking, sinusoidal force tracking and disturbance rejection. The input signals for these experiments are based on human walking and support strategies. A test setup, equipped with an external sensor and reciprocal mechanism, was used to objectively obtain the frequency response, tracking and estimation error of the RYSEN. The experiments were successful in characterizing the RYSEN in the chosen configurations.


[Objective]The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of rice and wheat straw-returning on soil fertility and available nutrients in wheat field.[Method] Under rice-wheat double cropping system,three treatments of straw application,rice-straw(RS) and wheatstraw(WS) returning in single season,rice-wheat straw(WR) returning in double season and no straw application(CK) were conducted.Nitrate and ammonium nitrogen,available phosphorus and available potassium in wheat field were determined.[Result] The results suggest that straw-returning could improve soil fertility through increase of organic matter,total nitrogen and available nutrients in wheat field.The contents of available nutrients were increased in varying degrees during what growing.The straw-returning make full use of the complementary role of available nutrients supply in wheat field.Moreover,the straw-returning enhanced available nutrients supply at middle and late stages of wheat growth so as to lay a good foundation for soil fertility in next season.The increasing was obvious under the treatment of rice-straw returning in single season and rice-wheat straw returning in double season.[Conclusion]The study can provide a scientific basis for high yield cultivation of wheat and scientific straw-returning.


In Africa, the Sahel is increasingly susceptible to climate shocks such as droughts, sandstorms (winds), and floods. Through a systematic review this work tracks the frequency with which these shocks are reported in the literature during the period 1975–2020. This work examines trends to identify which shocks are most reported, documenting their spatial distribution and evaluating the impacts of climatic and non-climatic drivers. In general, 388 shocks were reported in 164 relevant peer review papers. Southern Niger recorded 15.97% of all the shocks while Ethiopia and Senegal recorded 11.85% and 10.85% respectively. Also, West African Sahel saw about 49.97% of all shocks followed by East African Sahel with 29.89% and Central African Sahel with 12.11%. Generally, droughts (n = 219), appear to be the most frequently reported shocks followed by floods (n = 123) and winds (n = 46). The 1975–1985 decade recorded the most shocks (n = 207), followed by the 1997–2007 decade which saw (n = 80) shocks while between 1986 and 1996 a total of 52 shocks were recorded. 52% of the shocks are driven by climatic factors while 47% are driven by non-climatic drivers.


We report the performance of a dense frequency division multiplex (FDM) coherent optical fiber star network. This system uses random digitally tuned optical frequency synthesizers for generating the optical carriers for the transmitters. It also utilizes digitally tuned heterodyne receivers which can randomly select the desired channel from the received FDM signal (Fig. 1). The system consists of six transmitters, FSK modulated at 200 Mbit/s, tunable (by computer command) to the same fifty optical frequencies spaced by 2.5 GHz (Fig. 2). Monolithic multicontact tunable MQWDBR lasers,1,2 operating at 1.5 μm, are used to generate the optical signals. The comb of frequencies is obtained by storing in a personal computer (PC) the tuning current values to set each laser frequency to a resonance of a single fiber Fabry-Perot (FFP) cavity3 (Fig. 1). Each laser is frequency locked to its selected resonance by an independent error signal.4 The error signal is obtained by photodetecting the output of the FFP fed by the FDM signal (Fig. 1). The amplified photocurrent is then correlated with the six different modulating FSK signals. The result yields the separate error signals needed for independently locking each transmitter.4 This is the first reported network that utilizes digitally tuned transmitters and receivers, to our knowledge.


This paper presents the first detailed mathematical analysis of the ripple compensation technique for reducing audio distortion in a class-D amplifier with negative feedback. The amplifier converts a relatively low-frequency audio signal to a high-frequency train of rectangular pulses whose widths are slowly modulated according to the audio signal (pulse-width modulation, PWM). Distortion manifests itself through unwanted audio-frequency harmonics that arise in the output due to nonlinearities inherent in the design. In this paper, we first develop a small-signal model, which describes the fate of small-amplitude perturbations to a constant input, and demonstrate how this traditional engineering tool may be extended to allow one to infer the most significant contributions to the full output in response to a general audio input. We then compute the audio output of the amplifier through a perturbation expansion based on the ratio between audio and switching frequencies. Our results explicitly demonstrate ho...


The policies relating to hospital care during delivery occupy an important space in the healthcare agenda of most countries. The delivery involves a high degree of emotional intensity and deeply affects women, babies and families, producing important and long-lasting effects on society as a whole. Emphasizing the value of humanized delivery and birth is a crucial step in increasing women's autonomy and decision-making powers. Although models that include emotional and social support as key components are thought to contribute greatly to care services, in practice highly interventionist care models are observed in medical obstetrics, with no substantive evidence as to their benefits. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the main delivery care services in the public health system in the Rio de Janeiro municipality, verifying some of the results obtained in the implementation of the institutional processes and care practices advocated by the policy of humanizing delivery in these establishments. The study also assessed this policy's degree of penetration in the perception of local management staff, and undertook a grass-roots evaluation of user's real access to these practices as well as their level of satisfaction with the received care. The study adopted a transversal approach and consisted of interviews with all managers from
the 20 main NHS maternity hospitals, combined with interviews with a representative sample of service users. The study assessed items relating to the clinical and organizational procedure protocols for pre-natal and birth care services, particularly those referring to the humanization agenda. It also included items relating to aspects of service evaluation through client and management reports. The study's main results included confirming key areas of progress in the implementation of
the delivery and birth humanization policy. Pre-natal care presented a high degree of uptake and the professional staff's adhesion to care protocols. In terms of hospital care, the study discovered a high level of advice on the importance of maternal breast-feeding and a low incidence rate in relation to some practices known to be harmful, such as performing enemas, precocious amniotomy and the routine use of oxytocin. Also observed was the introduction – albeit still partial – of practices involving certain readjustments of the care model, such as hierarchicalization of care through the introduction of delivery performed by obstetric nurses, and the right to the presence of a companion during delivery. User satisfaction with the received care was also high. The study discovered that adoption of the advocated procedures took place selectively: it was more widespread in cases where technical consensus between the medical professionals is more firmly established, and less intense in relation to aspects such as the reduction of imbalances in the
relationship with users, reduction of medical interventions, creation of a welcoming environment and emotional support.


According to the powerful sparse representation ability for the image of contourlet transform,a new compressed sensing algorithm based on contourlet transform was proposed.The images were firstly represented sparsely by contourlet,and then Gaussian random matrices was used to measure the high-pass coefficients in order to realize data compression.For the reconstruction,by using the Orthogonal Matching Pursuit(OMP) algorithm,coefficients can be recovered by the measurements.Then the image can be reconstructed by the inverse contourlet transform.As the experiments show,compared with the old compressed sensing algorithm,the proposed algorithm improves the quality of the recovered image significantly.


Background : Through analyzing 1998 National Health Nutrition Survey (NHNS) data, we investigated the prevalence of diabetes mellitus (DM) and several basic factors reflecting the status of DM control: health behaviors, HbAlc level and the prevalence of hypertension among DM patients. Methods : The NHNS selected 200 districts which represented the national population of Korea and surveyed all inhabitants within the districts. National Health Examination Survey (NHES) and National Health Behaviors Survey (NHBS) surveyed all inhabitants within the related districts. We analyzed the prevalence and management status of DM through analyzing the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data of 39,331 responders and NHES data of 10,876 participants. Results : According to NHIS the prepalence of DM was 2.26% for male, 2.03% for female. 11.0% of DM patients exercised more than three times per week. 32.7% were current smokers. 43.1% were drinkers. 30.0% of DM patients and hypertension, but only 15.8% of them controlled blood pressure. From NHES the prevalence of DM was 9.73% for male, 7.95% for female. 10.5% of DM patients exercised more than three times per week. 36.5% were current smokers. 57.4% were drinkers. 45.3% of DM patients had >8% of HbAlc level. 38.1% of DM patients had hypertension, but only 5.3% of them properly controlled blood pressure. Conclusion : Considering the results of previous studies, the prevalence of DM have increased rapidly. The level of recognition of patients to control DM, however, was not enough to prevent late complications. Therefore national health policy should be reset to register DM patients and manage them properly.


The equation I = atb + Kst is proposed as a model of infiltration. This is a combination of the Lewis-Kostiakov equation and Philip's two-term infiltration equation, but it has the advantage of eliminating the lapses of both those equations. The formulas by which a and b can be predicted in advance are also presented.


In City of Strangers, Andrew M. Gardner explores the everyday experiences of workers from India who have migrated to the Kingdom of Bahrain. Like all the petroleum-rich states of the Persian Gulf, Bahrain hosts an extraordinarily large population of transmigrant laborers.


Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) has been shown to play an important role in numerous processes of functional and structural synaptic plasticity in the mammalian central nervous system. In this work, we report a novel immune microelectrode array (MEA) for electrochemical detection of BDNF without labeling step. The chitosan-thionine-multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CS-THI-MWCNTs) composite films as the bio-sensitive film are modified onto the MEA by electrochemical deposition and successfully adopted to immobilize anti-BDNF for the fabrication of electrochemical immune MEA. The THI acted as an electrochemical indicator for the immune response of BDNF. Due to surface-controlled process of THI redox reaction, the increasing formation of anti-BDNF-BDNF immunocomplex resulted in the decreased response currents of THI and the response currents were inversely proportional to the concentrations of corresponding BDNF. The test results of performance revealed that the label-free electrochemical immune MEA had a good stability, selectivity and the limit of detections for BDNF is 5 pg/mL. A linear calibration plot for detection of BDNF was obtained in a wide concentration range from 0.01 ng/mL to 100 ng/mL (r = 0.9995). This novel electrochemical immune MEA has potential applications to detect BDNF for neuroscience research.


NTT Communication Science Laboratories Open House 2021 was held online, the content of which was published on the Open House 2021 web page at noon on June 3rd, 2021. The videos of 5 talks and 29 exhibits presented our latest research efforts in information and human sciences and were played more than 6000 times within the first month after the event.


Bringing together many of the biggest names in the study of media and sport, this powerful new collection examines how the media influences our understanding of the world's most important sports events. It sheds new light on how these events have been changed by, and have used, media to extend their brands and wield cultural influence. Focusing on the central concept of 'mediatization' – the infusion of a media logic across all spheres of contemporary life – the book presents original case studies of major events including the Olympics, the World Cup, Masters golf, Tour de France, the Super Bowl, the World Series and Wimbledon. This is a seminal work in the media, sport and cultural studies.


Metabolic mechanisms involved in heart protection of myocardial infarction (control = C, diabetic = D, myocardial infracted = MI and diabetic myocardial infarcted = DI) rats were investigated. After 30 days of diabetes and 15 days of MI, the left ventricle (LV) function and energy substrate levels were evaluated by echocardiogram and biochemistry methods. The infarcted area in DI was 36% lower than in MI and the ejection (DI: 82  3 vs 55 3% in MI) and shortening (DI: 48  2 vs MI: 25  2%) fractions were improved. Plasma levels (mg/dl) of free fatty acids (21 ± 3) and triglycerides (252 ± 44) were increased in D vs DI (12 ± 0.9; 110 ± 19), respectively. In the LV, the contents of free fatty acids (mg/g of tissue) and glycogen (mg of glucosyl unit/mg of tissue) were reduced in D (0.45 ± 0.09 and 91± 12) vs DI (1.1 ± 0.2 and 31 ± 2), respectively. LV activities (umol/min/mg protein) of citrate synthase in the MI were reduced (3.6 ± 0.2) and in D were similar (D: 5 ± 0.9; DI: 4.3 ± 0.6) to C (6.2 ± 0.3); CPT 1 content in DI was 46% lower than in the D; hexokinase activity was 50% reduced in D vs C. The phosphofructokinase and glucose‐6‐phosphate dehydrogenase activities were not changed. The content of coenzyme A (μmol/ g tissue) was increased in DI (4.2 ± 2.9) vs MI (3.6 ± 0.1). These findings suggest an increase in the heart capacity for ATP generation maintaining the cardiac function in infarction. Support: CAPES, CNPq, FAPESP, UNEMAT


The paper discusses the problem of trust in the context of the World Wide Web. It argues that identity is not the fundamental question for trust on the web. Trust evolves in the context of CONSTANTIN VICĂ 88 local relations on the web, such as social networks and on-line communities. Using the metaphor of the web as an information highway, the paper emphasizes the idea that individuals play fair on the web because costs for incorrect playing are too great. On the highway, respecting the rules, may travel various people: those who know how to hack their cars and those who don't. Trust in others is reliance, not personalized trust. As, when crossing the border between states, the road code changes, trust is local, specific to a given fragment of the digital space.


The concept of duality is generalized to three-body elastic scattering. The intermediate region where both a Regge and a resonance description exist is discussed, and through a comparison of the two processes information about elastic and quasielastic scattering is obtained. The dual-resonance model is considered as an example of this generalized duality. The theoretical results are applied to $\mathrm{pp}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\mathrm{pp}$, $\mathrm{pp}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}p{N}^{\ensuremath{'}}(1520)$, $\mathrm{pp}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}p{N}^{\ensuremath{'}}(1670)$, and $\mathrm{pp}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}p\ensuremath{\Delta}(1236)$, which are all shown to have a universal behavior.


A study of the catalytic membrane contactor operated in pore-flow-through (PFT) mode was carried out for hydrogenation of α-methylstyrene (AMS) to cumene over palladium as a test reaction. By applying a metalorganic chemical vapour deposition method, the catalyst was deposited as nanoparticles on the pore walls of porous alumina capillaries. Experiments were performed with up to six individual Pd-activated capillaries in a laboratory-scale reactor set-up and with capillary bundles in a small pilot plant. The influence of the operating parameters on the reactor performance such as temperature (303–333 K), hydrogen pressure (5–10 bar), transmembrane flux (up to 200 l·m−2·min−1), pore size of the capillaries (0.6–3.0 µm) and concentration of AMS in n-heptane used as solvent was investigated. Moreover, the performance of the PFT-system was compared to that of conventional reactors (e.g. fixed bed, trickle bed, bubble column, stirred tank) and novel reactor designs (catalytic membrane contactor in diffuser mode, monolith reactor) based on published data. It is shown that the PFT principle enables very high activity, comparable with a suspended powder catalyst in a stirred tank reactor and, at the same time, an excellent space time yield. Copyright © 2009 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Axial flux topology machines are extremely advantageous when used in electric vehicles. The machine design of this topology presents some challenges, considering that it must meet the vehicle's and tracks prerequisites. This work presents a design methodology for axial flux machines focusing on electrical traction based on the comparison between the analytical and computational resolution by the finite element method. Based on the pre-established resistant torque and power, as well as the rated data of the vehicle, an analytical method is used that allows the determination of the main parameters of a permanent magnets axial flux machine. Then, the principle of magnetic circuit theory was applied to determine the flux densities in the ferromagnetic material of the armature, rotor, permanent magnets and air gap, the latter, as a starting point, is adopted at its maximum value and from this, the flux densities on other parts of the machine are estimated. After flux densities estimation, it is verified that the induction levels achieved are under the saturation induction level in ferromagnetic material, enabling the development of a model in computational simulation software with numerical resolution by the finite element method Ansys Maxwell in magnetostatic regime. Once the simulation was done, the inductions were compared with those obtained by analytical method. It is verified that the absolute errors obtained between the two methods present values less than 10%, resulting in the construction of a 3 kW prototype for installation in a vehicle for educational purposes. The bench tests carried out on the prototype and the test on the track up to the adopted maximum limit speed indicated that the torque results reached the prerequisites of 30 km/h on the track.


K eith Block, MD, Medical Director of the Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Education and the Block Center for Integrative Cancer Care in Evanston, IL, notes that he often evaluates patients for IGF-1, sex hormone, leptin, and insulin markers to obtain baseline levels and then intervene with novel endocrine and integrative therapies. "Not everyone has the same biological blueprint," he said. "Before developing a strategic plan for a patient, it is first important to understand each patient's unique biological features, thus making it possible to target them." This approach may be beneficial in breast cancer patients who undergo chemotherapy, since there is a tendency for patients to gain weight, which can be associated with a poor prognosis. "Our research is demonstrating that it is possible in these patients, through specific integrative interventions, including nutrition and fitness, to improve lean muscle mass and decrease fat mass. This may have a favorable impact on prognosis."


Lu You was a famous patriotic poet in Southern Song Dynasty and he created almost ten thousand poems in his all life.He loved flowers,in particular,plum blossom.He created more than thirty poems to laud the plum blossom during he stayed in Sichuan.These poems contained the poet's own sense of life and expressed a national greatness and eternal spiritual beauty,and also they had a kind of common representative significance.For this purpose,the writer will shortly discuss Lu You's "Odes to the Plum Blossom" in Sichuan from four aspects.


Schauer, Ch m. R, 359, (1978)Methods 399-406 ~ n z ~ , n r o , . 50, 64-89 Schauer, K. (1982) The analysis of the interactions has identified those features in both 5-HT and sialic acids that are important for establishing the specificity of binding. These findings have implications for biological systems and, in addition, identify aspects of the specificity that affect the use of imniobilized 5-HT in the affinity chromatography of Taniir. I!., Bebirian, K., Muller, I;. & as per. I). (1980) J. Ncurosialic acids. clzem. 35, 1033-1044 Carhohyd,., C/,em, Biochc,,ll, 40. 1 3 , p 234


Since 1998, when Jim van Etten's team initiated its characterization, Paramecium bursaria 14 Chlorella virus 1 (PBCV-1) had been the largest known DNA virus, both in terms particle size and 15 genome complexity. In 2003, The Acanthamoeba-infecting Mimivirus unexpectedly superseded 16 PBCV-1, opening the era of giant viruses, i.e. with virions large enough to be visible by light 17 microscopy and genomes encoding more proteins than many bacteria. During the 15 following 18 years, the isolation of many Mimivirus-relatives, have made the Mimiviridae one of the largest and 19 most diverse family of eukaryotic viruses isolated from aquatic environments. Metagenomic studies 20 keep suggesting that many more remain to be isolated. As Mimiviridae members are found to infect 21 an increasing range of phytoplanckton species, their taxonomic position compared to the traditional 22 Phycodnaviridae (i.e. etymologically "algal viruses") became a source of confusion in the literature. 23 Following a rapid history of the key discoveries that established the Mimiviridae family, we 24 describe its current taxonomic structure and propose a set of operational criteria to help in the 25 classification of future isolates. 26


Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) have been increasingly used as an alternative or adjunctive treatment option for musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) like fractures, arthritis and osteoporosis. The electromagnetic based treatments can be divided into four main groups based on their physical characteristics and consequent biological effects: Direct current, capacitive coupling, inductive coupling (pulsed EMF), and combined magnetic fields. Despite the wide range of treatment modalities and various applications of EMFs in MSDs, the mechanism of actions of each modality are not yet completely understood. In addition, there was no comprehensive comparative study on different modalities to determine the appropriate technique for each MSD. The present study aims to review the most common EMF based therapeutic methods for MSDs and compare their therapeutic efficiency for each disorder. Furthermore, the mechanisms of action of each method are discussed.


In order to explore causes of crack emerges in concrete of servant bridge,alkali-aggregate reaction was thought one of the possible causes and then carried out to investigate.In situ,crack feature of number,scale,width,distribute and relation with structure were inspected.So did characteristic of educts along cracks and structural deformation.Concrete cores were drilled for petrography study,electron-probe microanalysis and determine of alkali activity in coarse aggregate.The results revealed that difference of cracks in various pier and structural position was evident.There were less mineral with alkali activity on petrography.Rims of aggregates were clear,and cracks in matrixes of concrete were elongated besides borders of aggregates or stopped till borders of aggregates.There no indication on assemble of alkali constitute near borders of aggregates by electron-probe microanalysis.Coarse aggregate was implied to be potential nuisanceless on alkali activity due to lower expansibility measured by method of JGJ52-2006.Finally,that was concluded that there was no alkali-aggregate reaction in the concrete of bridge.


In this study, we develop a model that allows to combine gravimetric and geometric data. By the combination, we improve the spatial resolution of the resulting mass balance estimate compared to a purely gravimetric one. The equivalent ice or firn density of the changing ice volume is estimated within a mathematical inversion model, which includes geometric information about the volumetric change of the ice sheet and the resulting gravity change. This gravity change is computed from monthly GRACE gravity fields. They have a limited spatial resolution of a few 100 km, but allow direct conclusions about the true mass changes over Greenland. The ice-volume changes are described by a product by the Climate Change Initiative of European Space Agency, which is based on altimetry data. They have a very fine spatial resolution (down to a few km), but are not directly sensitive to mass changes. By combining both datasets in a common mathematical model, the advantages of both data types (direct sensitivity to mass vs. high spatial resolution) are made use of. In this way, we improve the spatial resolution of mass balance estimates over Greenland. This leads to a map of mass trends, which has the same spatial resolution as the input map of geometric changes, but which is consistent with the input gravity fields. It will enable improving the localization of mass change signals of ice sheets and glaciers, which are usually rather small-scale. We compare our estimates to the results of complementary studies regarding the total mass loss of the Greenland ice sheet and its surrounding land surface. Our study leads to a value of −213 ± 37 Gt/a in the time span from 2011 to 2015. We also discuss the problem of separating the mass contribution of the Greenland ice sheet itself and its surrounding region.


Objective We aimed to investigate the level of anti-Hp-IgG,IL-6 and IL-17 in helicobacter pylori (Hp) patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) to determine whether there is an association between Hp infection and COPD.Methods We evaluated 31 COPD patients [20 males and 11 females,aged (62.74 ± 4.27) years] and 30,age and sex-matched,control subjects.All subjects enrolled underwent an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test for antiHp-IgG,IL-6 and IL-17.We also test forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) values,which indicate the severity of COPD.Results Serum levels of Hp-specific IgG were significantly higher in the patients with COPD than in the control subjects (P =0.042).Inaddition,Hp serum IgG levels were correlated with FEV1 values(r =-0.662,P <0.001);Serum levels of IL-6 and IL-17 were significantly higher in the patients with COPD than in the control subjects (P <0.001,P =0.036,respectively).Moreover,serum IL-17 levels were correlated with FEV1 values(r =-0.615,P <0.001)and Hp serum IgG levels (r =0.671,P <0.001).Conclusions The results suggest that there is an association between Hp infection and COPD.Mybe the reason is associated to IL-17 actived.

Key words:
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease;  Helicobacter pylori; Interleukin-6;  Interleukin-17 ; Lung function


Africa is always in the headlines. The stories are rarely positive, and that-s a terrible shame given the extraordinaire richness and diversity of this vast continent. But this review is a positive story, and our first stopping point is Mauritania.


With the quickening pace of urbanization, the social problems of villages in cit ies, which are the results of civic expansion, become more and mor e prominent. The article analyses the political and existing problems in the cou rse of transforming for villages in cities and considers that the main difficul ty of transformation for villages in cities is the backwardness of social econom ic policy. It puts forward the countermeasurs to adjust policy and promote trans forming for villages in cities.


We address the problem of pedestrian detection in still images. Many current pedestrian detection systems limit their performance by ignoring the underlying 3D geometric context in the image. We can estimate the geometric context by learning appearance-based method. We propose a novel context feature and local integrable features. These features are used for building many candidate weak classifiers by using linear SVM. Finally, MPL-Boost method selects the best weak classifiers suited for detection and construct the rejector-based cascade detector. We provide a thorough quantitative evaluation of our method on TUD-Brussels dataset and demonstrate that it outperforms the state-of-the-art pedestrian detector in recall rate, meanwhile, shows faster speed than other context incorporation method.


PurposeThe purpose of this research was to study the accuracy of measurements that rely on Littmann curves to determine the real size of fundus images. MethodsRetinal tacks of known dimensions were placed near the optic disc in one eye of each of two cynomolgus monkeys. Images of the retinal tack and optic nerve head of these two eyes were then obtained with a Zeiss Fundus camera. The dimensions of the retinal tacks and optic discs were measured directly on the film from the Zeiss fundus camera. These measurements were then corrected with Littmann's mathematical approximations. ResultsIn the cynomolgus eye with 19.9 mm axial length, Littmann's mathematical approximations of the real sizes of the retinal tack and optic disc from measurements on the Zeiss film had median percent bias [(calculated size – real size)/real size] of −0.2% (range, −3.2% to 3.9%). In the other eye with 17.9 mm axial length, the median percent bias was 14.7% (range, 5.1% to 29.7%) ConclusionThe estimation of the real size of fundus images with Littmann's mathematical approximations from images on Zeiss film have <4% bias if the eye's dimensions fall in the range over which Littmann's curves were produced.


In order to recommend products or services to customers, many organizations are very interested in knowing the needs of their customers. For that reason, recommender systems become more required in many areas, especially in e-commerce and intelligent business. In this paper, we propose to use the similarity search in transaction databases for improving the efficiency of recommender systems based on similar-like. The efficiency of the proposed system is relying on the use of metric access methods for minimizing the searching cost and for supporting the high dynamicity of transactions databases. That is, a modification of D-index method is proposed to support the search in the high dynamic environment such as transactions databases. The experiments show that the proposed method significantly reduces the search cost against the sequential search, and that the proposed method is more resistant to the databases dynamicity compared with the classical D-index.


An experimental vocabulary article compiled by the authors is presented that describes the arrangement of the semantic structure of a multi-valued relative adjective. Some figurative meanings characteristic of the adjectives of the thematic group "Birds" are revealed and fixed. Attention is paid to the method of metaphorical transfer, the result of which is new lexico-semantic variants of qualitative semantics and stable phases containing figurative meanings as semantic components.


Run-up, plant and take-off directly affect the aerodynamics and the bar clearance in the pole vault event. The purpose of this study was to show the biomechanical features of the last two strides of run-up and take-off performed by China's elite women pole vault athletes. Two synchronized PEAK video cameras operating at 25 Hz were used to film the pole vaults of the subjects and films were digitized by an Engine 3D Video Analysis System. Kinematics data was obtained on change of length in two last strides, velocities of last foot in contact with ground, take-off parameters and body position during foot pushing-off ground. Comparing their performance with that of world elite athletes, all subjects in the study should improve the run-up velocities in order to be more successful.
Based on the results from this study, it is suggested to increase the horizontal velocities during take-off and to reduce the take-off angle. In addition, the poles should be lowered earlier and the knee angles should be increased.


By combining the capabilities of the OCLC M300 Workstation or an IBM PC with Personal Bibliographic Software's Biblio‐Link to OCLC Pro‐Cite software, you can readily reformat data from OCLC records. You can produce bibliographies, acquisitions lists, standardization lists, library guides, reference lists for researchers, bibliographies for library instruction—almost any bibliographic listing you might require. You can even create a formal, fully annotated book‐length bibliography, complete with author, title, and subject indexes. You can also do some database analysis, for example, to standardize abbreviations or count the number of items published in a given year. By adding Pro‐Search, to the process, you can also get help searching BRS and DIALOG databases and merge these records into your database to create a stronger and more varied citations list.


The invention discloses a carburizing method for martensite stainless steel containing 10-19% by weight chromium, and a heat treatment method for the product after carburization. Carburization is carried out under 95-1000 DEG C in a methylbenzene atmosphere, pre treatment is carried out before carburization, oily dirt and passivation film is removed. The heat treatment procedures after the carburization are: 1. normalizing; 2. high temperature annealing; 3. tempering in vacuum under 950-1000 DEG C; 4. cold treating; 5. low-temperature annealing, then passivating 5 minutes in a passivating liquid of the following formula: 20-25% (volume) nitric acid and 3-4% (by weight) sodium dichromate. The technical indexes of the product: depth of carburized layer: 0.7-1.0 mm; surface hardness of the carburized layer: HRC>=55; surface hardness of the non-carburized layer: HRC33-45; metallographic structure: the class of carbide in the carburized layer, the residual austenite and central structure of the carburized layer are acceptable per HB5492-91; and the high-temperature annealed hardness: HRC<=30.


Abstract: The inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) nurse specialitis plays a key role in the management of IBD patients who undergoing biological therapy. Aim: Assess the effect of educational program about biological therapy on nurses' performance in caring of patient with IBD and its activity grade. Subjects and methods: All nurses (40) in the Tropical Medicine and Gastroenterology department and outpatient clinic at Assiut University Hospitals, in addition to a sample of 80 IBD patients (forty patient with crohn's disease and another forty patient with ulcerative colitis) who underwent biological therapy, all were assessed before and after the implementation the nursing educational program. Tools: Tool 1: Structured questionnaire to assess nurses` demographic data and knowledge about biological therapy, Tool 2: observation checklist for nurses` practice. Tool3: Patient disease activity scales, and Nursing educational program about biological therapy administration. Results: It found that a highly statistically significant improvement in nurses' knowledge & practice scores after implementing the nursing educational program P<0.001. There was a highly statistically significant difference regarding the IBD activity grade in the studied patients' pre/post program implementation (p < 0.001). Conclusion: The nursing educational program had a highly statistically significant positive effect on nurses' performance and promoting IBD activity grade of patients following the biological therapy administration. Recommendations: Nurses should have a written clinical booklet on safe biological therapy administration is recommended to be established.


Differential distributed space-time coding (DDSTC) has been proved to be suitable for wireless relay networks, since it can provide spatial diversity without the need for channel state information at neither the transmitter nor the receiver side. However, DDSTC suffers from significant error floor in fast-fading channel conditions with high Doppler frequencies due to rapid time variations. For this reason, multiple-symbol differential detection (MSDD) has been proposed in the past, where the detection process involves a larger window size of the received symbols. So far, differential detection for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) networks has been studied only for single Rayleigh channels. However, experimental and theoretical studies report that double Rayleigh can be considered as an appropriate fading channel model for V2V networks. In this paper, we assess the error performance of a DDSTC scheme operating in a V2V network using MSDD. Simulation results confirm that the error performance of such a system can be improved significantly with MSDD under different channel time-variation scenarios.