The present dissertation meets inserted in the Nucleo de Pesquisa em Cidadania e Gerencia em Enfermagem and in the Nucleo de Pesquisa em Trabalho, Saude e Educacao. It has for specifics objectives: To identify the strategies that Specialists in Theory of Meaningful Learning (TML) develop to achieve meaningful learning (ML) today; To describe factors that influence meaningful learning according to experts; and To build and to validate Guidelines for the meaningful learning by David Ausubel in nursing undergraduate education. Methodology: It's a Delphi methodological research, with a quantitative-qualitative approach, of a descriptive-exploratory, supported by the theoretical reference of the TML by David Ausubel. The participants / scenarios were judges specializing in TML who work in higher education institutions in Brazil. The data were collected in the second half of 2017, through an on-line form, in the ―Google Form‖ application, in two rounds. The size of the sample was performed by Barbetta's calculation, with a tolerable error coefficient of 0.01. In the first round, 41 forms were filled in and in the second, 31. The data were analyzed according to the Delphi Method precepts and the form items received scores, where the items that obtained IVC> 0.78 were considered. It should be noted that the percentage of the degree of item-to-item agreement was also calculated. Results: Five guidelines for AS have emerged at the present time: 1. Guideline related to the characteristics of teachers; 2. Guideline related to specificities of teaching style; 3. Guideline related to the specificities of the choice of teaching material for ML; 4. Guideline related to the specificities of the teaching environment for the achievement of ML; and 5. Guideline related to the specificities of the assessment to assess the scope of ML. It is concluded that, the use of the guidelines will contribute to the formation of more qualified nursing professionals suitable for nursing care and the guidelines will give visibility of the profession. It is believed that the guidelines can also be used directly or adapted to other areas of training and not exclusively for the nursing area. Teachers, beginners or experienced, be they in nursing or other areas, can use these guidelines to rethink and improve their teaching practice and achieve meaningful learning in their students


A wind study was conducted using eight SCAN (Soil Climate Analysis Network) weather stations
and two portable stations in the Mississippi Delta. Correlation and linear regression were used to study
relationships between wind speed and wind direction data sets. Those results were used to determine how far
one could be from a weather station and have confidence that the speed or direction data for the present
location was valid. The regression results were better than the correlation results but with either approach, one
would have to be located within 4-5 km (or less) to have a high degree of certainly about the wind speed or
directions. Wind direction was noted to vary widely at wind speeds < 8 km/h. Aerial applicators and other
users need on-board or on-site weather records in order to be assured about what the speed or direction is at a
given point in time.


The invention discloses a mechanical intelligent needle thrusting device, comprising an electric cylinder, a thimble, a guiding device, a guiding needle tubing and a suture needle. An input end of the electric cylinder is connected to a drive device arranged outside; a front end of an output end shell is connected to the guiding device; and the output end located within the shell is connected with the thimble. The guiding device, the guiding needle tubing and the suture needle are in sleeve joint from outside to inside; a front end of the guiding needle tubing is fixedly connected with the guiding device through a fastener; and the suture needle can move back and forth along the guiding needle tubing. A tail end of the thimble is connected with the electric cylinder; and a front of the thimble extends into the guiding needle tubing to support against the suture needle. The device of the invention has functions of adjusting speed and distance of needle thrusting, and can carry out accurate needle thrusting at a preset speed and distance parameters; besides, the device has characteristics of stable performance and high accuracy, substitutes manual needle thrusting process of a three-dimensional fabric for a related product, realizes intelligent mechanical needle thrusting, avoids hand injuries caused by manual needle thrusting, reduces labor intensity, and improves product quality and production efficiency.


Recently, Cognition has been utilized in marketing research and a new field of neuromarketing has evolved. This new concept gains momentum both in the academic and practical fields. The concept of neuromarketing proves to be hot piece of cake for advertisers in early 2000s. this concept emerges as an effective concept in assessing the buying behavior of today's intelligent buyer. This paper is written with a desire to explore the role of neuromarketing and its measures in assessing consumer buying behavior. The measures taken as neuroimaging, EEG, FMRI, Eye Tracking, Galvanic skin response etc. This paper also assesses consumer buying behavior and further delves into finding the cognitive interference in buying decisions. Assessments were designed on four components of consumers as: physical body, mind, heart and spirit with the help of practices of Neuromarketing. The study is based on primary data and utilized the capabilities of SPSS 20 and Lisrel 8.80 with a sample size of 40 Subjects. Keywords--Neuromaketing, Brain research, Neuroimaging, Eye Tracking, EEG, FMRI


The Gulf of Suez is a prolific rifted hydrocarbon province, but one whose creaming curve peaked around 1989 with generally only small field discoveries and extensions made since that time. Sub-salt seismic imaging remains the most significant barrier to finding new traps but exploration also needs some new ideas to pursue beyond simple 3-way fault and 4-way closures. There remains much to learn about the petroleum system in the basin, despite a number of good regional syntheses published in the last 15 years. It is also clear that the 11 BBO so far discovered is the product of multiple source rocks, with much of the emphasis given to the Cretaceous Brown Limestone and Eocene Thebes Formation. These formations have many of the characteristics required for successful unconventional exploration, with brittle layers interspersed with high quality, mature source rocks. Fractured Thebes production has long been noted in the basin or in oil shows in dry holes. The resource potential in the source rocks plays may be substantial, but there are serious economic and technical hurdles required to make unconventional plays work. Perhaps it is time to openly discuss ways to overcome these barriers and see if some of that potential can be unlocked. With large areas of ramp structural dip in the deep kitchens untested, the potential for large new plays exists. In the spirit of an AAPG GTW, this presentation is designed to generate ideas, look at gaps in understanding and question old paradigms. The author recognizes that many more detailed, and more accurate maps exist in the confines of proprietary work in many oil companies, and presents these interpretations from the best available public data, sparse as good detailed maps may be. Introduction The Gulf of Suez is an Oligocene-Miocene rift formed largely by northeast-southwest extension. The exploration history is covered briefly (Wescott et al., 2016) and the structural geology best summarized by (Patton et al., 1994). Additional information on fields, syn-rift sedimentation and petroleum geology is contained in (Alsharhan, 2003; Dolson et al., 1996; Jackson et al., 2006; Matbouly and Sabbagh, 1996; Moustafa, 1996; Ramzy et al., 1996; Salah and Alsharhan, 1996; Shagar, 2006; Younes and McClay, 2002; Young et al., 2002; Younes, 2012). Structurally, the rift cross-cuts deeper Syrian Arc inverted Jurassic basins. These deeper fabrics create accommodation zones across them which segment the basin into a series of half grabens where the direction of tilt reverses from basin to basin (Figure 1). There are multiple half-grabens in the Gulf of Suez, and their dip direction switches direction in major accommodation zones. The zones are controlled by Syrian-arc related Jurassic inverted rifts which underlay the Oligocene-Miocene rift. These deeper structural grains, at nearly 90 degrees to the Tertiary rifting, exert a strong control on where transfer faults are located (Figure 1). The stratigraphy of the basin is summarized in Figure 2. Multiple source rocks occur, but can broadly be grouped as Miocene age syn-rift and Cretaceous pre-rift stratigraphy. Much of the production is attributed to pre-rift source rocks, but in deeper grabens, there is evidence of syn-rift Miocene shale contributions (yellow colors on the Van Krevelan diagram on Figure 2). While the Miocene source rocks are more localized, deposition of Eocene and Cretaceous limestones and shales covered much of the basin prior to rifting (Figure 3). These strata are thus far more extensive than the Miocene shales and were deposited during global sea-level rises associated with 'hot house' climates. Exploration History The creaming curve shown in Figure 4, shows that the 'golden era' of Gulf of Suez exploration occurred between 1961 and 1989. Since that time, only small fields have been found, despite extensive drilling. The biggest problem in bringing forth new reserves is that the plays have remained the same for over 60 years, with the industry searching for ever-diminishing fault blocks. The exploration growth shown in a more detailed creaming curve (Figure 5) from 1955-1989 was spectacular, with success from exploration offshore for sub-salt fault blocks. The Italian forerunners of IEOC opened up the rift plays with the 1955 and 1961 discoveries of Belayim Land and Belayim offshore fields. Amoco Production Company opened an office in Cairo and drilled the giant Morgan discovery in 1965, sparking a rush to develop the rest of the basin, with remarkable industry success. A more detailed look at that story is chronicled in (Wescott et al., 2016). Figure 6 pays tribute to the vision of Jim Vanderbeek, who fought conventional wisdom and envisioned a giant petroleum province at a time of political upheaval in Egypt (Figure 6). A little-known fact is that Amoco, after earlier failures in the GOS was ready to exit the country, but Vanderbeek staked the Morgan discovery well as a mandatory 'water well', since, by contract, in the event of failure, the company was obligated to at least drill some water wells. Fortunately, this 'last ditch' resulted in discovery of a more than one billion barrel recoverable oil field. One of the definitions of insanity is the idea of 'doing something over and over the same way and expecting different results. This more or less depicts the status today of exploration in the Gulf of Suez (Figure 7). It is highly unlikely additional large fault blocks will be found with the existing quality of seismic data in the basin. New concepts and technology are needed. Pre-Rift vs. Syn-Rift Reserves The 'plumbing' of the petroleum system is not as well understood. With most of mature and widespread source rocks in the pre-rift section, it is surprising that syn-rift reservoirs account for more than half of the proven reserves in the basin (Figure 8). This is shown in map view (Figure 9) where the number of syn-rift fields far out-weigh the pre-rift traps. This requires fairly efficient migration pathways to charge a variety of syn-rift reservoirs. Those migration pathways are not well understood. Some of this has been addressed in El-Ghamri et al., 2002; KhavariKhorasani et al., 1998a, b; and Khavari-Khorasani et al., 1998c. The challenge to finding more fields is the poor quality of the seismic data (Figure 10). Over 20 layers of interbedded salts, anhydrites and sandstones lie above the sub-salt reservoirs. These layers generate many seismic multiples which subsequently mask the deeper reflectivity. Some of the older 3D vintage seismic has resolution as low as 10 hertz in the prospective section. Even when multiples are removed and depth seismic sections compared to dipmeters in wells, only rough shapes are often possible to map. Demonstrating the decrease in field size and repetitive nature of the exploration for only fault traps can be demonstrated in a series of maps over distinct periods of growth and decline shown on the earlier creaming curves. The major growth period in exploration can be seen in stages (Figure 11, Figure 12, Figure 13). As is typical in many basins, the largest fields were found early and the overall shape of the basin understood by 1981, when field size discoveries began to fall. Well control shown in Figure 11 is concentrated almost exclusively on the highs. The depths to the deep basins, where source rock is the most thermally mature, are largely undrilled. From 1982-1994 (Figure 12) the number of dry holes increased and field sizes found decreased. In a three-year period from 1990-1993, for instance, Amoco drilled 32 dry holes in a row. Most companies, by 1994, were starting to shoot large 3D seismic surveys in the hopes of better defining structural and stratigraphic features. The creaming curve did not, however, change substantially, but more economic wells were drilled as integrated seismic, log, oil show and other data were better integrated to reduce risk. The value of such efforts (1994-2009 time period) was documented by Dolson et al., 1997 and Hughes et al., 1997. Ultimately, the Saqqara and Edfu fields, discovered in 2003, resulted from careful data integration and seismic reprocessing (Figure 12 for location). The maps and well penetrations on Figure 13 show that the basin has long ago entered its mature phase, with most discoveries as step-out exploration, with virtually no new play concepts. Well control remains focused around the high blocks, with flank tests less common and virtually no tests purely into the syn-rift synclines. Small companies like Transglobe have made additional small discoveries onshore or in very shallow water on small sub-basins that can be more cheaply drilled and tested. Field size distributions can give an idea of basin maturity. The field sizes in the Gulf of Suez (Figure 14) are dominated by fields smaller than 25 MMBO, with a large number less than 5 MMMBOE. The largest reserves lie in a relative handful of large fields and a few giants. There are large gaps between the 614 fields of 5 MMBOE or less and the big fields with more than 100 MMBOE. This suggests there are large numbers of intermediate size fields left to be found, but they will probably not come from the traditional plays made in the past. Growth in Rift Plays: Other Possible Rifts in Egypt Two areas of lightly tested rifts are known in Egypt. The first is the obvious extension of the GOS southeastward into the Red Sea (Figure 15). An additional rift at Kom Ombo was discovered in 1998 in Upper Egypt. Both these areas lack infrastructure and pipelines for development. A good overview of the Red Sea potential is that of Gordon, 2012; Gordon et al., 2011; and Gordon et al., 2010, summarized on Figure 16 and Figure 17. Oil was recovered in the NRS 1-5 area while drilling into a high basement block, but reservoir was absent. The extent of the Red Sea Rift, shown with an image of the gravity response (Dolson et al., 2001), is comparable to the Gulf of Suez in size, as is the ligh


The present study used a sample of thirty-two preschool children to evaluate the temporal stability and the concurrent validity of the Cognitive Levels Test (Algozzine, Eaves, Mann & Vance, 1988), which was recently developed as a cognitive assessment tool. The Stanford-Binet: Fourth Edition (SB:FE) (Thorndike, Hagen & Sattler, 1986) was used as the criterion instrument for the concurrent validity study. The results indicated good temporal stability for the CLT-Cognitive Index. In addition, high and significant correlations between the SB:FE and the CLT-Cognitive Index were found within the sample.


This paper presents validation work on MA nuclear data by PIE analyses in the framework of fast‐reactor cycle system development. The PIE analyses are in progress on MA samples (237Np, 241Am, 243Am, 244Cm) irradiated at the experimental fast reactor "JOYO." The preliminary analysis results showed that the isomeric ratio for 241Am capture reaction lies at around 0.85 (g/(g+m)) in the fast‐neutron spectra, which suggested the necessity of re‐evaluation of the data both in ENDF/B‐VI and in JENDL‐3.3. From the results on curium isotopes, overestimations could be pointed out for the capture cross section of 244Cm in ENDF/B‐VI and that of 245Cm in JENDL‐3.3.


In the University Hospital of Groningen since 1981 pregnant women with type-1-diabetes are treated with Continued Subcutane Insuline Infusion (CSII). We studied the psychological development of 40 infants of these women to investigate if there is a delay in development despite the tight metabolic control during pregnancy. At the time of the study the ages of the infants varied from 9 months to 4 years. A control group was selected by the method of matched pairs. The items on which we focused the examination of the infants are: assessment of mental and motor development; assessment of the environment of the infants by means of a questionnaire about the functioning of the family and by scoring (at home) of the Home Observation Scale; furthermore assessment of the temperament of the children with the help of questionaires according to the theories of Thomas and Chess. The first results regarding 25 study- and 25 control infants showed no difference between infants of diabetic mothers (I.D.M.) and control infants in their mental and motor development. Our preliminary inspection of the data showed a significant difference between the two groups in favour of the I.D.M.'s with respect to their "Rythmicity" which can mean that the I.D.M.'s are "easier to handle". The tendency to form a too strong cohesion was found to be less in the diabetic families than in the control families. This can mean that members of diabetic families are more free to live as they like and show more respect for each other. It is possible that these findings indicating a good development of I.D.M.'s are due to protective factors (origin unknown as yet).


We report for the first time the laser-printer-based fabrication of vapor-and pressure-resistant microfluidic single-use valves and their implementation on a centrifugal microfluidic "lab-on-a-disc platform". As an extension of this technology, we implemented long-term storage of liquids for up to one month with no signs of evaporation. This simple technology is compatible with a range of polymer microfabrication technologies and should facilitate the design and fabrication of fully integrated and automated lab-on-a-chip cartridges that require pressure-resistant valves or long-term reagent storage.


The objective – to presents the observation of combined treatment of a patient with arteriovenous malformation of the lower jaw.A man, 21 years old, was hospitalized in the Scientific-Practical Center of Endovascular Neuroradiology NAMS of Ukraine with complaints of bleeding from a tooth socket after an attempt to remove the 6th tooth (first painter) of the lower jaw on the left. According to the performed survey radiography of the lower jaw, an aneurysmal bone cyst was revealed in the body of the lower jaw on the left, corresponding to the localization of bleeding. According to cerebral angiography, an arteriovenous malformation of the lower jaw was revealed on the left, the afferent arteries of which were: the right facial artery (a branch of the right external carotid artery (ECA)), the left facial artery (a branch of the left ECA), the lower alveolar artery, the superior-posterior alveolar artery (branches of the maxillary artery ‒ the terminal branch of the left ECA) with drainage into a vein, which was located in the body of the lower jaw. In order to exclude the malformation from the bloodstream and prevent bleeding, a controlled embolization of the malformation was performed using non-spherical emboli – polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) particles from Cook, USA. Using a transfemoral approach, a guide catheter was inserted into the orifice of the ECA, then a Headway 27 microcatheter (Microvention, USA) was passed through it along a Traxes 14 guide wire (Microvention, USA), the afferent arteries of the malformation were selectively cathete-rized in turn, and embolization was performed after superselective angiography. The patient was discharged in a satisfactory condition. Two weeks after the operation, the bleeding resumed. The performed control cerebral angiography revealed a relapse of the malformation with a change in its angioarchitectonics ‒ the filling of the malformation in the late arterial and venous phases of cerebral blood flow was noted. Re-embolization was performed using PVA emboli (Cook), which was supplemented by transcutaneous puncture of the drainage vein in the mandible and its embolization with histoacryl (B. Braun, Germany) and lipiodol (Guerbet, France) in a 1 : 1 ratio. Results. As a result of using this technique, it was possible to turn off the malformation completely. For 6 months from the moment of surgery, no bleeding was noted, and subsequently the patient had a tooth removed without complications.Conclusions. The proposed method for treating arteriovenous malformation of the lower jaw, proposed in this case, showed the effectiveness of a combination of endovascular embolization in combination with transcutaneous embolization of the draining vein and can be successfully used to treat this pathology.


Among ten extracts of indigenous medicinal plants, the MeOH extract of Terminalia triptera Stapf. (TTS) showed the most efficient mammalian α-glucosidase inhibition for the first time. The data of screening bioactive parts used indicated that the TTS trunk bark and leaves extracts demonstrated comparable and higher effects compared to acarbose, a commercial anti-diabetic drug, with half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) values of 181, 331, and 309 µg/mL, respectively. Further bioassay-guided purification led to the isolation of three active compounds from the TTS trunk bark extract and identified as (−)-epicatechin (1), eschweilenol C (2), and gallic acid (3). Of these, compounds 1 and 2 were determined as novel and potent mammalian α-glucosidase inhibitors. The virtual study indicated that these compounds bind to α-glucosidase (Q6P7A9) with acceptable RMSD values (1.16–1.56 Å) and good binding energy (DS values in the range of −11.4 to −12.8 kcal/mol) by interacting with various prominent amino acids to generate five and six linkages, respectively. The data of Lipinski's rule of five and absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion and toxicity (ADMET)-based pharmacokinetics and pharmacology revealed that these purified compounds possess anti-diabetic drug properties, and the compounds are almost not toxic for human use. Thus, the findings of this work suggested that (−)-epicatechin and eschweilenol C are novel potential mammalian α-glucosidase inhibitor candidates for type 2 diabetes treatment.


The invention relates to a make-up water quality adjusting device. A water pipe of the make-up water quality adjusting device is connected with a water inlet pipe, a filtering device, a softening device, a water quality hardness regulator, a pH detector, a total hardness detector and a water outlet pipe in sequence. The water pipe forms a passageway passing through or not passing through the devices. Diverse requirements of different systems can be met by setting functional parameters of the device according to the different requirements of the different systems for make-up water quality and the difference of the actual water quality of the make-up water. The make-up water quality adjusting device has the advantages that the filtering precision is high; hardness adjusting is flexible and convenient; the pH value is monitored in real time, and the pH value of the make-up water of the system can be adjusted conveniently later; installation and use are convenient.


Business success can be measured in different ways and defined in many ways. Business success indicates the ability of the business to achieve its goal. Business success is a desired outcome of business. It is the achievement of a business in relation to its business goals. Business has formulated goals and their attainment. Business success shows that business is growing, that it is effective, efficient and profitable. Managing business performance is the act of formulating company goals, analyzing the methods for achieving those goals, and then creating ways for managers to achieve those goals more effectively. There are different methods of measuring business success that include different factors for measuring business success. Businesses do not only achieve the stated goals, but certain factors have an important role to play. Factors commonly used as a measure of business success are: profitability, turnover growth, market research, productivity analysis, clear company strategy, employee retention, innovation, commitment and more. Sales revenue and sales growth are also widely used to measure business performance and as external communication with stakeholders. Businesses use financial and non-financial methods for measurement of their business success. The most commonly used financial methods to measure business success are sales, costs and investments. The most popular method of measuring a company's business success is EPS. Earnings per share (EPS) is calculated as the ratio between company profits divided by ordinary shares. In addition to the previous ones in the group of financial methods companies also use the growth of earnings, cash flow growth and return on invested capital. It is understood that companies also use non-financial methods to measure business success, such as product quality, workplace safety, customer loyalty, employee satisfaction and customer readiness to promote a product. Companies that combine nonfinancial methods with financial methods are more likely to improve performance. Sustainability is the business approach of managers towards creating long-term value taking into account the environmental, social and economic environment. Created sustainability based on key pillars is the foundation for long-term success and long-term survival of the company, fostering the longevity of the company. Sustainability is becoming increasingly important for all companies, in all industries. In today's context, business sustainability addresses issues such as climate change, corruption, the rule of law, women's empowerment, human rights, consumption, and supply chain practices. Questions from investors and shareholders about the sustainability of business success are constantly growing. Considering the foregoing, the paper explores the key factors that use the methods of measuring business success in the interests of stakeholders. Special emphasis is placed on managerial approaches to measuring the sustainability of business success.


Alcionio published a volume comprising several translations of Aristotle. This chapter assesses Alcionio's strategy of self-presentation in the letters that accompanied the translations, and in particular the missive dedicating the books on animals to Ottaviano Fregoso. It provides a brief description of Sepulveda background and training, and an analysis of the dedicatory letter to Alberto Pio. The chapter treats the text of the Errata, in which Sepulveda explicitly compares passages from his own translations and from Alcionio's with the Greek text, to assess both the grounds and the cogency of the critique. Finally, it considers the professional and political contexts of the feud, which may further our understanding of a key transitional period in the history both of humanism and of Renaissance Italy. Alcionio's underestimated the importance of tempering his quest for scholarly renown with an appearance of moderation, restraint, and judiciousness. Keywords: Alcionio; Aristotle; Humanism; Sepulveda; translations


28 Humans are lucky to have two closest relatives and not just one. While chimpanzees 29 have been the focus of far more research and are thought to more closely represent 30 our last common ape ancestor, the bonobo will be as important as the chimpanzee 31 in reconstructing our past. Understanding human evolution requires not only 32 knowing what traits are derived but also identifying what process may have shaped 33 these traits as they evolved. We suggest in this paper that while chimpanzees may 34 be best suited to help identify derived traits, bonobos will be crucial to testing ideas 35 regarding how selection shaped the human lineage. We base our argument on the 36 self-domestication hypothesis that has generated a host of recent studies comparing 37 the development of morphology, physiology, behavior and cognition in bonobos and 38 chimpanzees.


The goal of this project is to see how well a different algorithm can predict customer loyalty in the telecom industry. The customer information dataset used to train and test the proposed prediction model includes 7043 customers with 21 different traits. It is done by adapting Random Forest (RF), Logistic Regression (LR), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), and Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithms to Figure out how many people will leave. Logistic Regression classifier is (80%), KNN classifier is (78%), and SVM classifier is (90%). (75 percent). With a significance value (p0.05), there is a big difference between the study groups. People who did this experiment say it's clear that the Logistic Regression classifier does better than Random Forest, KNN, or SVM in terms of both precision and accuracy.


Processor designers have been utilizing more processing elements (PEs) on a single chip to make efficient use of technology scaling and also to speed up system performance through increased parallelism. Networks on-chip (NoCs) have been shown to be promising for scalable interconnection of large numbers of PEs in comparison to structures such as point-to-point interconnects or global buses. This dissertation investigates the designs of on-chip interconnection networks for many-core computational platforms in three application domains: high-performance network designs for applications with high communication bandwidths; low-cost networks for application-specific low-bandwidth dynamic traffic; and reconfigurable networks for platforms targeting digital signal processing (DSP) applications which have deterministic inter-task communication characteristics.
An on-chip router architecture named RoShaQ is proposed for platforms executing general-purpose applications with dynamic and high communication bandwidths. RoShaQ maximizes buffer utilization by allowing sharing of multiple buffer queues among input ports hence achieves high network performance. Experimental results show that RoShaQ is 17.2% lower latency, 18.2% higher saturation throughput and 8.3% lower energy dissipated per bit than state-of-the-art virtual-channel routers given the same buffer capacity averaged over a broad range of traffic patterns.
For mapping applications showing low inter-task communication bandwidths, five low-cost bufferless routers are proposed. All routers guarantee in-order packet delivery so that expensive reordering buffers are not required. The proposed bufferless routers have lower costs and higher performance per unit cost than all buffered wormhole routers — the smallest proposed bufferless router has 32.4% less area, 24.5% higher throughput, 29.5% lower latency, 10.0% lower power and 26.5% lower energy per bit than the smallest buffered router.
A globally asynchronous locally synchronous (GALS)-compatible reconfigurable circuit-switched on-chip network is proposed for use in many-core platforms targeting streaming DSP and embedded applications which show deterministic inter-task communication traffic. Inter-processor communication is achieved through a simple yet effective source-synchronous technique which can sustain the ideal throughput of one word per cycle and the ideal latency approaching the wire delay. This network was utilized in a GALS many-core chip fabricated in 65 nm CMOS. For evaluating the efficiency of this platform, a complete IEEE 802.11a baseband receiver was implemented. The receiver achieves a real-time throughput of 54 Mbps and consumes 174.8 mW with only 12.2 mW (7.0%) dissipated by its interconnects.
A highly parameterizable NoC simulator named NoCTweak is also proposed for early exploration of performance and energy efficiency of on-chip networks. The simulator has been developed in SystemC, a C++ plugin, which allows fast modeling of concurrent hardware modules at the cycle-level accuracy. Area, timing and power of router components are post-layout data based on a 65 nm CMOS standard-cell library. NoCTweak was used in many experiments reported in this dissertation.


This paper presents a new unequal error protection (UEP) image transmission system that incorporates a Lifting Wavelet Transform (LWT) and Reed Solomon (RS) coded cooperation scheme to increase image transmission diversity, as well as save transmission bandwidth. Having a partner to assist direct communication increases the resilience of low frequency subband data against an error-prone fading channel. Low frequency subbands are partitioned into two sets of data and transmitted using the RS coded cooperation scheme. High frequency subbands data are transmitted directly to a base station. Results show that the new UEP image transmission system using LWT based RS coded cooperation scheme achieves diversity gains of around 10dB, with channel SNR from 10 to 20dB, compared with the image transmission system with non-cooperative system under slow Rayleigh fading channel for all levels of LWT decomposition. In addition, the new UEP image transmission system using LWT based RS coded cooperation scheme with one level of wavelet decomposition offers around 37.5% bandwidth gain (s), compared with the system without LWT, which incurs a reduction of 3dB in reconstructed image quality.


Transforming print culture and the public sphere The colonial state and repression of the printed word Three realms of print: Buddhism, Confucianism, and communism Confucianism and Vietnamese culture Printing revolution: communist attempts tochange worker and peasant consciousness From popular visions of paradise to the Buddhist revival Conclusion.


A process for growing protein crystals encapsulated within membranes has been invented. This process begins with the encapsulation of a nearly saturated aqueous protein solution inside semipermeable membranes to form microcapsules. The encapsulation is effected by use of special formulations of a dissolved protein and a surfactant in an aqueous first liquid phase, which is placed into contact with a second, immiscible liquid phase that contains one or more polymers that are insoluble in the first phase. The second phase becomes formed into the semipermeable membranes that surround microglobules of the first phase, thereby forming the microcapsules. Once formed, the microcapsules are then dehydrated osmotically by exposure to a concentrated salt or polymer solution. The dehydration forms supersaturated solutions inside the microcapsules, thereby enabling nucleation and growth of protein crystals inside the microcapsules. By suitable formulation of the polymer or salt solution and of other physical and chemical parameters, one can control the rate of transport of water out of the microcapsules through the membranes and thereby create physicochemical conditions that favor the growth, within each microcapsule, of one or a few large crystals suitable for analysis by x-ray diffraction. The membrane polymer can be formulated to consist of low-molecular-weight molecules that do not interfere with the x-ray diffraction analysis of the encapsulated crystals. During dehydration, an electrostatic field can be applied to exert additional control over the rate of dehydration. This protein-crystal-encapsulation process is expected to constitute the basis of protein-growth experiments to be performed on the space shuttle and the International Space Station. As envisioned, the experiments would involve the exposure of immiscible liquids to each other in sequences of steps under microgravitational conditions. The experiments are expected to contribute to knowledge of the precise conditions under which protein crystals form. By enhancing the ability to grow crystals suitable for x-ray diffraction analysis, this knowledge can be expected to benefit not only the space program but also medicine and the pharmaceutical industry.


This project will improve the understanding of key aspects of the coupled thermal-mechanical-hydrologic response of granular (or crushed) salt used as a seal material for shafts, drifts, and boreholes in mined repositories in salt. Consolidation of granular salt in response to creep closure of excavations in salt is a fundamental element of the long-term waste isolation strategy, and it is critical that the process is sufficiently understood to confidently predict consolidation under all likely conditions (stress, temperature, and moisture regimes). Granular salt consolidation will be investigated through an integrated program of laboratory measurements and observations, and constitutive model development and evaluation. This project focuses on the deformation and corresponding permeability reduction of granular salt as it consolidates to fractional densities greater than 0.90 since this is when the permeability of granular salt is expected to dramatically decrease to a condition comparable to intact salt, that is, it becomes nearly impermeable. Measurements of salt consolidation along with thermal properties and permeability measurements will be conducted under a range of conditions expected for potential mined repositories in salt, including temperatures up to 250 oC. Consolidated samples will be characterized using microscopy to gain insight into the consolidation mechanisms. Data from the consolidation testing and microstructural characterization tasks will be used to evaluate, calibrate, and verify a mathematical model of granular salt behavior that describes the effect of consolidation on mechanical, thermal and hydrologic properties. Specific objectives of the project are: 1. Measure the consolidation (pore volume reduction) and corresponding changes in hydrologic and thermal properties of granular rock at the critical range of conditions expected for nuclear waste repositories. 2. Interpret deformation mechanisms as a function of moisture, temperature and stress conditions from microstructural observations on consolidated samples. 3. Extend an existing constitutive model to include coupled thermal-mechanical-hydrologic behavior of consolidating granular salt for application in simulations of repository performance. The outcome of this study will be an improved understanding of and ability to predict granular salt consolidation as it compacts to high fractional densities and very small permeabilities, and will result in greater confidence in granular salt consolidation as a principal strategy for permanent isolation.


1.Introduction With the development of the globalization,companies facemany challenges.Pricing strategy is a part of their marketingefforts.Price is the only element in the marketing mix thatproduces revenues;all other elements re present cost.So pricingand price competition is the number-one problem facing manymarketing executives.To select an initial price,companies should


North Pacific spiny dogfish (Squalus suckleyi, Girard 1854) are aged with annuli count on the second dorsal spine. As this spine grows, enamel at the distal tip is worn away producing a zone of missing annuli. Sixty-seven male and 115 female dogfish specimens were randomly selected from captured specimens taken off the Washington coast in 2005-2006 and their fork lengths measured and spines taken. For the second dorsal spine from each specimen, five measurements were recorded. These measurements permit the estimation of the missing annuli count before the "no wear point" based on the known statistical distribution of annuli count after the "no wear point." Three diameter measurements were then modeled with nonlinear mixed effects (NLME) models that treated the number of missing annuli count as random effects. Resulting models were compared against Ketchen's (1975) "no wear point" method. The estimated missing annuli count and the measured spine base diameter fits well with the assumptions of an existing von Bertalanffy growth curve for this species. Ketchen's method produced an apparent underestimate of the mean missing annuli count for all dogfish with spine diameter at the no wear point less than 1.2 mm and greater than 4.6 mm. The NLME models provide an alternative method to estimate the missing annuli count of north Pacific spiny dogfish based on both sound biological and statistical properties.


In this contribution an image classification by uncoupled Cellular Nonlinear Networks (CNN) is proposed and evaluated on typical datasets, like CIFAR-10 and MNIST. The algorithm is based on the application of backpropagation for the training of synaptic coupling weights and is capable of binary classification by means of a threshold-based classifier. The design is inspired by recent deep neural network architectures, but can be implemented on a CNN Universal Machine, enabling complex image recognition on low-power embedded devices.


To improve the luminescent signal in nonlinear optical imaging of biological specimens, specific coated standard microscope cover glasses were utilized to test a variety of specimens. Results demonstrated image quality can be exactly improved.


Purpose : The purpose of this study was to find the effect of foot bath on blood pressure(BP) following treadmill exercise. Methode : Subject of study were forty healthy males without any cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and neurologic diseases. Following twenty minutes walking at a speed of 5m/s on the treadmill, ten twenty subjects in experimental group received foot bath, on the dominant lower limb while sitting in chair. Foot bath was applied to the level of the lateral and medial malleoli keeping the temperature of the paraffin bath at . Twenty subjects in control group took a rest sitting in chair in a comfortable position. BP was measured in right brachial artery. BP was measured five times(before exercise, immediately after exercise, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and fifteen minutes after exercise). Results : The study showed that for diastolic blood pressure, there was no significant difference between the experimental and the control group. However, systolic blood pressure(SBP) increased significantly after exercise compared with SBP before exercise (p


Microfluidic systems, which handle fluids in very small quantities, are becoming increasingly popular in biomedical applications. This research aims to develop a wireless power supply module which can drive microfluidic sensor and actuator systems using inductive power transfer (IPT) with super capacitor storage. The main challenge is to source a variety of microvalves which have different power requirements ranging from micro-watts to couple of watts. An IPT solution is proposed where the primary side is external to the microfluidic system while the secondary coil will be housed within the microvalve, which is very challenging as miniaturization is vital. Supercapacitors are used as a backup to source high power requirements of the system.


The elements to influence auditing teaching effectiveness are analyzed and some methods to improve auditing teaching effectiveness are put forward: stimulating students' learning interests through the application of hueristic teaching,enhancing the combination of theory and practice through the case teaching,choosing the textbooks carefully and fully playing the tool function of textbooks.


FIELD: chemistry. SUBSTANCE: invention relates to a method of obtaining aromatic compounds from ligroin as a raw material. The method includes: supply of the raw material flow into a fractioning installation and with obtaining the first flow, which contains light hydrocarbons, and the second flow, which contains heavy hydrocarbons; supply of the first flow into the first reforming installation, which works under the first set of reaction conditions, with obtaining the first product flow, with the first reforming installation having an input for the catalyst and an output for the catalyst; supply of the second flow into the second reforming installation, which works under the second set of the reaction conditions, with obtaining the second product flow, with the second reforming installation having an input for the catalyst and an output for the catalyst, in which the first set of the reaction conditions includes the first reaction temperature, and the second set of the reaction conditions includes the second reaction temperature, and the first temperature of the reaction is higher than the second reaction temperature, and in which the second pressure is lower than 580 kPa; supply of the second product flow into the first reforming installation and obtaining the first product flow; supply of the catalyst from the regenerator into the second reforming installation; supply of the catalyst from the second reforming installation into the first reforming installation; and supply of the first product flow into the installation for the separation of aromatic compounds, with the claimed catalyst containing a noble metal of VIII group on a carrier. EFFECT: obtaining aromatic compounds from ligroin. 8 cl, 5 dwg, 2 tbl


Cyclic di-GMP \[bis-(3′-5′)-cyclic di-GMP\] (Fig. [1][1]) is a novel second messenger in bacteria that was first described as an allosteric activator of cellulose synthase in Gluconacetobacter xylinus ([49][2]). It is now established that this nucleotide is almost ubiquitous in bacteria, where


In this paper we developed the Improved Runge-Kutta Nystrom (IRKN) method for solving special second-order ordinary differential equations. The methods are two step in nature and require lower number of function evaluations per step compared with the existing Runge-Kutta Nystrom (RKN) methods. Therefore, the methods are computationally more efficient at achieving the higher order of local accuracy. Algebraic order conditions of the method are obtained and the third and fourth order method are derived with two and three stages respectively. The numerical results are given to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed method compared to the existing RKN methods.


This paper discusses the method of calculating the predicted power use of the MSP430 systems, characterizes the system's power supply requirements and power management, and introduces several methods of lowering the rate of power consumption without sacrificing performance and their sticking points.


Abstract: Innovation is an inherent and fundamental phenomenon for the prosperity of the textile industry. One of the factors that can stimulate the propensity for innovation is the organizational culture. This is due to the fact that by influencing employees' behavior, one can achieve that they accept innovation as a fundamental value in the organization and commit to it. Therefore, it is opportune to deepen the relationship between organizational culture and innovation and organizational performance. That way, the objective of this study was to analyze the influence of the organizational culture on the internal and external environment of innovation and organizational performance in an organization of the textile sector. The research was descriptive quantitative, transversal, with a sample of 186 respondents. The data were analyzed by means of Structural Equation Modeling. As a main result, the collaborators highlighted the Results dimensions; Processes and Internal relationship of the innovation group as present in the environment conducive to the development of innovations. The Organizational Culture of the company is congruent with the smallest distance of power and high collectivism. The theoretical model was adhered to in the textile organization studied, with respect to the influence of Organizational Culture on the internal and external Environment to the development of innovations contributing to the application of new studies. With this, it is possible to infer that there is a favorable influence of the organizational culture on the environment of development of innovations and organizational performance in the organization researched.


Eubacterium saburreum is one of the human oral pathogens and has been proved to play a significant role in the development of periodontal diseases. The cell-surface polysaccharides expressed by this microorganism are attractive targets for the development of carbohydrate-based diagnostic tools or therapeutics against oral bacteria. Here, we report the first chemical synthesis of a structurally unusual hexasaccharide repeat 1 found in the cell wall polysaccharide of E. saburreum strain T19. This linear oligosaccharide is composed of two parts: one is an α-(1 → 2)-linked D-fucofuranosyl disaccharide, and the other is an alternating β-(1 → 3)- and (1 → 6)-linked D-glycero-D-galacto-heptopyranosyl tetrasaccharide. The two fragments are connected via an α-D-fucofuranosidic linkage. A number of synthetic challenges had to be addressed, including the development of new chemistry for efficient formation of D-galactoheptopyranoside, the development of stereoselective glycosylation methods for the construction of 1,2-cis-α-D-fucofuranosidic bonds, and the screening of appropriate conditions for the assembly of the sterically congested trisaccharide portion at the non-reducing end of the target molecule. Through a convergent [3 + 3] coupling strategy, the left trisaccharide thioglycoside donor 17d and the right trisaccharide 3,4-diol acceptor 26 were efficiently forged together to generate the whole molecular backbone, thus leading to the total synthesis of 1.


The optical properties of Te suboxide type optical memory disk media have been analyzed in terms of the Maxwell Garnett theory of particulate composites. Using the optical indices reported in the literature for amorphous and polycrystalline Te the essential features of the reflectivity spectrum of an optical disc consisting of tellurium suboxide have been simulated. This result supports the interpretation that these suboxide films have extremely fine granular structures. This composite structure has been speculated to be an important factor which enables some of this type of storage medium to repeat numerous amorphous‐crystalline transition cycles.


Cold plasma is used as a novel technology for food decontamination. The cold plasma process is claimed to offer a number of advantages over thermal technology for several fruits, vegetable. Non-thermal plasma technologies are relatively simple, inexpensive in design, short processing times, absence of toxicity and lack of residue formation. Cold plasma systems used for the food applications are atmospheric pressure plasma jet (APPJ), microwave-powered cold plasma treatments (CPTs), dielectric barrier discharge (DBD), low pressure cold plasma (LPCP). Atmosphere plasma system is more efficient for decontamination of food which offers new opportunities to decontaminate biological materials, including fresh foods. In this paper, types of plasma systems, mechanism and effect of plasma sources on fruits, vegetables and spices are reviewed.


The aim of this paper is to present a realization of a device for displaying,
 monitoring, and recording non-electrical quantities relevant to the
 determination and examination of weather conditions. The main unit of this
 device is the Arduino platform, which controls digital sensors and the GSM
 module used for communication with user. To accomplish that, the GSM module
 responds to SMS with the current values of parameters that are being
 monitored. Also, it uses the GPS service, which allows an Internet connection
 and sends data back to the Web application. When the Web application receives
 these data, it processes them and saves them in a MySQL database. The device
 has the ability to record data on an SD card. A user application is created
 in C# programming language and allows reading of the recorded data from the
 SD card and handling of such data. All of results obtained by this device is
 compared with the results gathered by the Republic Hydrometeorogical Service
 of Serbia.


This research aimed to examine the potential of increasing the shelf life of Hypophthalmichthys molitrix (silver carp) fillets using basil seed gum-based film enriched by various concentrations (0, 0.5, 1, 1.5, and 2% /dry matter) of Echinophora platyloba extract (EPE) during a 16-day storage period. Each characteristic of basil seed gum-based films enriched by EPE followed a specific trend. The results showed that with increasing EPE, the film thickness, length to the rupture point, and antioxidant activity of film increased; however, the film with the highest concentration of EPE had the lowest solubility (19%) and tensile strength (15 MPa). The film loaded with 2% EPE overall presented acceptable physicchemical properties and was used for wrapping (optimum film). The fillets wrapped by the optimum film on the 16 th day of storage indicated a lower total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N) value (36 mg N/100 g meat) compared to the nonenriched film (60 mg N/100 g meat) as well as the control sample (65 mg N/100 g meat). The fillet sample wrapped by basil seed gum-based film enriched with 2% EPE had lower pH and thiobarbituric acid index, peroxide index, and microbial load after 16 days of storage compared to the basil seed film sample without the extract and control sample. The obtained results encourage the use of basil seed gum-based film containing EPE in active food packaging systems to extend the shelf life of silver carp fillets.


An abrupt increase in duct cross-section is often found in pressure-reducing devices, valves of internal-combustion engines, flow control devices in pipe systems of power plants, launch tubes of the ballistic ranges, thrust augmentation systems for cruise missiles, zero secondary flow ejectors, etc. The objective of this study is to revisit the classical base flow fields in a wall-bounded supersonic flow past a sudden expansion, to study and exploit their dependence on the size of the enlarged part – termed as the base size. Two-dimensional numerical simulations are performed for a nozzle flow, which is suddenly expanded in a larger rectangular channel. Five different turbulence models have been utilized in this study. Flow determination near the base is influenced by the proper selection of the turbulence model. The numerical solutions are compared with available experimental data and good agreement is achieved with renormalization group k–ε turbulence model. This investigation is concerned with the determination of the base size, for which the jet characteristics and the base pressure become independent of the size of the enlarged part. For a given duct, base pressure tends to a minimum for a particular pressure ratio. In this study, the authors have been able to link the jet characteristics to the base size by both analytical and numerical methods. This has led to the conclusion that for a constant driving pressure, the base pressure asymptotically decreases when the base size is increased up to a critical value, and it becomes independent of the base size thereafter. It is believed that the results of this study can provide a better understanding of the wall-bounded supersonic flow past a sudden expansion. The relevance of the present observations in some of the engineering applications is also discussed.


Oncopeltus fasciatus sequesters cardiac glycosides from seeds of Asclepias syriaca, and in the adult, concentrates these chemicals in the dorsolateral spaces of the thorax and abdomen; 60 to 95% of the cardenolide in such adults is stored in the dorsolateral complex. Very little cardenolide is detectable in the haemolymph of adults and larvae, but cardiac glycosides do occur in the adult ventral metathoracic gland secretions and in the larval middorsal abdominal gland fluid.O. fasciatus sequesters cardenolides throughout its life cycle. The complement of cardenolides acquired by feeding throughout the development is not related simply to increase in body weight. Unknown factors during late larval development are important in the accumulative uptake of the heart poisons.It is shown that O. fasciatus sequesters polar but not non-polar cardenolides into the dorsolateral complex in the adult. The accumulation of the polar cardenolides in both the larva and adult appears to be, at least in part, associated wit...


Abstract In this study, a new method called improved Bernoulli sub-equation function method has been proposed. This method is based on the Bernoulli sub-ODE method. After we mention the general properties of proposed method, we apply this algorithm to the (2 + 1)-dimensional Boiti–Leon–Pempinelli equation system. This gives us some new prototype solutions such as exponential and rational function solutions. Then, we have plotted two- and three-dimensional surfaces of analytical solutions. Finally, we have submitted a comprehensive conclusion.


Conventional methods of text feature extraction are inadequate at distribution quantification, which to a large extent affects the efficiency of classification. Aiming at this problem, a scheme of Least Document Frequency (LDF)is proposed, which can quantify the concentration and dispersion among feature classes through LDF, thus can reflect the characteristics of the distribution more accurately. Through experiments, TF-LDF algorithm can ac- quire a better result.


In the course of studies on the human deciduous dentition I have found a clear difference in the relative size of the upper deciduous canines between the Japanese and the American Whites (HANIHARA, 1955). The new metrical issue presented here is the ratio of the mesiodistal crown diameter of the deciduous upper canine (c') against that of the deciduous upper central incisor (i1) The figures are in each case given an arbitrary figure of 100, which is alloted to the mesiodistal diameter of i1. Thus, the relative size is calculated by the following formula :


Objective. To examine associations of vaginal Ureaplasma urealyticum (UU) and bacterial vaginosis (BV) with preterm delivery (PTD), small for gestational age (SGA), and low birth weight (LBW). Material and methods. A population‐based, prospective cohort study of 2,927 pregnancies. After exclusion of multiples and antibiotic use sample size was 2,662. BV (Amsel's criteria) and UU (culture) were assessed in week 17. Gestational age was determined by last menstrual period, confirmed by ultrasound measurement in 97.5%. SGA infants were calculated from intrauterine fetal growth measurements. Results. There was no increased risk for spontaneous PTD among women with BV only (crude odds ratio 1.0, 95% CI 0.4–2.7), among women with UU only (1.3, 0.8–2.0), nor among women with UU + BV (0.9, 0.4–2.3) compared to women without UU and BV. However, there was a threefold increased risk of a LBW birth in women with UU + BV (3.1, 1.8–5.4), a twofold risk of a LBW birth among women with UU only (1.9, 1.3–2.9), but no increased risk among women with BV only (0.8, 0.3–2.2). Similarly, women with UU + BV had over a twofold increased risk of an SGA birth (2.3, 1.3–4.0), women with UU only had a 70% increase (1.7, 1.1–2.5), whereas a nonsignificant increase was found in women with BV only (1.3, 0.6–2.9). Adjustment by established confounders (smoking, previous PTD, previous LBW, and Escherichia coli) did not affect risk estimates. Conclusion. This analysis suggests that UU is independently associated with fetal growth and LBW and that BV with UU may enhance the risk of these outcomes.


Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) selectively kill bacteria, fungi, and some cancer cells, either by membrane permeabilization or by translocation across the membrane and interference with intracellular processes. Lipid vesicles provide an effective model of cell membranes that can be prepared in various sizes to examine the effect of local membrane curvature on AMP activity. Magainin and buforin II are well‐characterized permeabilizing and translocating peptides, respectively, and DesHDAP1, DesHDAP3, and DesHDAP3 P13A are designed histone‐derived peptides that are translocating (DesHDAP1) or permeabilizing (DesHDAP3 and DesHDAP3 P13A). We performed fluorescence assays to measure the membrane permeabilization and translocation of these peptides with different sized lipid vesicles. Magainin and DesHDAP3 P13A permeabilized smaller vesicles more effectively than large ones. Buforin II and DesHDAP1 translocated more readily with increasing vesicle size. We also found that DesHDAP3 showed translocating activity with larger vesicles but not smaller vesicles, highlighting the potential effect of membrane curvature on antimicrobial mechanisms.


Abstract:  Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune syndrome where different organs may individually or simultaneously be affected. Whether SLE is one disease entity or represents a variety of intrinsically unrelated organ manifestations is unknown. Variability of clinical presentations of SLE argues against the former. This does not, however, exclude that certain organ manifestations may be pathogenetically linked. It is believed that in situ binding of anti‐dsDNA antibodies by nucleosomes is involved in organ manifestations in SLE. This review will focus on nature and origin of target structures for anti‐dsDNA and anti‐nucleosome antibodies in glomerular capillary and mesangial matrix membranes. We will particularly discuss the potential role of apoptosis and release of apoptotic chromatin in terms of their putative impact in SLE.


Housing security is a major social problem which related to the national economy, during the implementation of affordable housing projects, because of the obvious game relationships between stakeholders, which includes the central government, local government, developer and the low-income group, in their game relationships, each will demonstrate its "economic man" characteristics. This topic provides a theoretical analysis of the objective phenomenon by the use of the theory of stakeholders and game theory, which aims at the problems and disadvantages during the implementation of affordable housing. By making use of the game theory, analyzing the game relationships between stakeholders of affordable housing, exploring the origin reasons of the inefficiency of the affordable housing policy, proclaiming the problems between the stakeholders in the game, meanwhile, based on the game theory analysis, give the optimization ways and advices upon stakeholders and the affordable housing policy.


One of the breeding processes is influenced by reproduction factors. Herbal therapy can relieve male infertility, such as red ginger. This study aimed to determine the effect of red ginger extract on aphrodisiac activity. Methods: This study was designed to evaluate the effect of red ginger extract on aphrodisiac activity in Wistar rats. Twenty-five male Wistar rats and fifteen two-month-old females weighing 150-200 g were purchased and placed in cages at the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Muhammadiyah Surabaya.


Skatteverket (The Swedish Tax Authority) has by order from the Swedish government investigated the possibility of instituting a national law to regulate Advance Pricing Agreements, APA:s or ''Prissattningsbesked''. The investigation has led to a law proposal that will standardize the application and giving of such Advance Pricing Agreements. The reason for this initiative is the problems with internal pricing. A business person who utilises internal pricing not consistant with market prices could use this discrepancy to freely transfer income between different tax jurisdictions. In this way choosing in what country the income should be taxed and minimizing income tax by choosing a country with low income taxation. There are both national and international laws that aim to combat this form of tax evasion. Such legislation can lead to international economic double taxation wich can impose significant costs for the business person concerned. Hence there are benefits for both the state and the tax payer in an APA. It guarantees that the prices utilized by the business person are at arms length while at the same time removes the risk for the tax payer of being targeted by legislative measures that could potentially lead to significant costs. An APA could be described as an agreement between the business person and one or more national tax authority. By establishing a row of conditions regarding the business persons internal pricing policies, for example the price setting method used, the APA can guarantee that the internal prices of the business person are at arms length. As mentioned above there is a lot of international legislation, for example from the OECD and the European Commission, that advocate the usage of APA:s as a means for eliminating the problem with incorrect internal pricing. The presented Swedish law proposal has taken the international law sources into account and is in accordance with their recommendations. According to the proposal, Skatteverket will be the authority in charge of administering the APA-system. The administering will be conducted within the normal administration of the Swedish tax system. The basis for the questions discussed in this thesis is that information concerning the applicants business, which will need to be disclosed to Skatteverket in the negotiations, must be handled in a way so that the disclosure does not place the applicant in a more burdensome position as a consequence of the application. There is a risk that this disclosure of information could lead to a more thorough inspection of the applicants business by the tax authority. The details regarding the applicants business that will be required for the creation of an APA will in no small part be such that they do not fall under any statutory information obligation. The law proposal suggests that Skatteverket, to be able to verify the information handed over by the applicant in APA procedings, is given the mandate to carry out audits in the form of ''taxeringsbesok'' and ''taxeringsrevision'' as laid down in chapter 3 Taxeringslagen. Out of these two control instruments, especially ''taxeringsrevision'' allows extensive inspection of the applicants business. ''Taxeringsbesok'' on the other hand is always carried out in collaboration with the audited party. Several of the parties to whom the law proposal has been referred for consideration has been critical of the suggestion that the law will allow ''taxeringsrevision'' for the control of gathered information. The suitability in the utilization of ''taxeringsbesok'' and ''taxeringsrevision'' are two of the issues examined in this thesis. The conclusion is that the needed level of control can be maintained even if the administrating authority is not given the right to conduct ''taxeringsrevision''. This way the balance between the applicant and the administering authority will also be maintained. Apart from the suitability questions regarding the suggested control instruments, the law proposal is also analysed with regards to its secrecy rules. Information that is handed over in the course of an APA-application shall, according to the proposal, be regarded as confidential just as all other information concerning the economic conditions of private individuals. The surrendered information is not confidential to the extent that it cannot be communicated within Skatteverket. Because of this there is a risk that the information could also be used within Skatteverket to establish and charge income tax. This fact is also critizised by the parties to which the proposal has been referred. Theese parties maintain that information handed over in APA proceedings should be classified to the extent that it can not be used for other purposes than establishing and maintaining the APA. A solution to this problem could be that the body within the tax authority in charge of handling the pricing agreements is organized in a way that would make it an independent branch (''sjalvstandig verksamhetsgren''). Doing this would bring intraorganizational confidentiality into play. This would prevent the communication of surrendered information to the branch of the tax authority in charge of the enforcement of other tax legislation. The conclusion of this thesis is that there are elements of the suggested law that could deter business persons from applying for an APA. The usage of APA:s is in many ways favourable for society and business persons alike. Legislation regarding APA:s should with this in mind be shaped in a way that creates balance between the applying business person and the administering authority to maximize the efficiency of national legislation regarding Advance Pricing Agreements.


BACKGROUND
Combination of different chemotherapy drugs and nanoparticles as a carrier have shown promising delivery system in cancer treatment. Doxorubicin is considered as a potent anticancer drug. However, it's off target activities and possible side effects, make its use limited. Recently, in the field of nanomedicine, different nanoconjugates have been developed as a unique platform for the delivery of therapeutic drugs.

OBJECTIVE
The aim of present study was to evaluate the best possible combination for efficient delivery of DOX with combination of gold, silver and zinc oxide nanoparticles to target site against carbon tetrachloride induced rat hepatotoxicity.

METHODOLOGY
Effect of different conjugates administrated for 14 consecutive days was evaluated.

RESULTS
In comparison to DOX, Au:DOX, ZnoO:DOX and Ag:DOX showed less sign of liver fibrosis as evaluated by serum enzymes and histo-pathological analysis. However, among all the conjugates, Ag: DOX conjugate showed most significant results. The serum alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase values were (111.2 ± 38.21, 323.2 ± 46.88 and 303.6 ± 73.80 respectively) very close to control group (72.2 ± 19.41, 368 ± 59.78 and 259.4 ± 61.54 respectively).

CONCLUSION
Our results demonstrated that Ag: DOX may exhibit hepato-protective activity against CCl4 induced liver damage.


Recent direct numerical simulations (DNS) and computations of exact steady solutions suggest that the heat transport in Rayleigh–Bénard convection (RBC) exhibits the classical 1/3 scaling as the Rayleigh number Ra→∞ with Prandtl number unity, consistent with Malkus–Howard's marginally stable boundary layer theory. Here, we construct conditional upper and lower bounds for heat transport in two-dimensional RBC subject to a physically motivated marginal linear-stability constraint. The upper estimate is derived using the Constantin–Doering–Hopf (CDH) variational framework for RBC with stress-free boundary conditions, while the lower estimate is developed for both stress-free and no-slip boundary conditions. The resulting optimization problems are solved numerically using a time-stepping algorithm. Our results indicate that the upper heat-flux estimate follows the same 5/12 scaling as the rigorous CDH upper bound for the two-dimensional stress-free case, indicating that the linear-stability constraint fails to modify the boundary-layer thickness of the mean temperature profile. By contrast, the lower estimate successfully captures the 1/3 scaling for both the stress-free and no-slip cases. These estimates are tested using marginally-stable equilibrium solutions obtained under the quasi-linear approximation, steady roll solutions and DNS data. This article is part of the theme issue 'Mathematical problems in physical fluid dynamics (part 1)'.


In this study we have made an attempt by introducing the notion of bipolar anti intuitionistic fuzzy graph and bipolar interval valued anti intuitionistic fuzzy graph. Some basic concepts such as composition, Cartesian product, union on bipolar anti intuitionistic fuzzy graph and bipolar interval valued anti intuitionistic fuzzy graph has been discussed.


This paper presents a VLSI implementation of One Dimensional Direct Discrete Wavelet transform (1-D DWT). The DDWT can be viewed as a multi-resolution decomposition of a signal. This means that it decomposes a signal into its components in different frequency bands (octave bands). We propose a new architecture using parallel filters. We consider the implementation of 1-D three levels DWT. The proposed architecture is simple and offers 16-bit precision on input and output data. It is constituted of three basic units: one register bank, four filters, and a control unit. The filters are of different lengths and with new coefficients derived from Daubechies filter coefficients. The designed processor architecture requires no interface circuitry for interconnection to a standard communication bus. The architecture can compute DWT at a data rate of 12×106samples/s corresponding to a typical clock speed of 12 MHz. The architecture is simulated at the gate level in VLSI.


Although no satisfactorily complete grammar has yet been built for any natural language, human beings continue to learn natural languages, starting a t a n early age. The acquisition of a first language by a human being has been studied extensively. We know well the rates of acquisition, the various stages of learning the language, and so on. But we still d o not understand well theprocesses used by a child that make the learning of the language possible. Our approach toward solving the mystery regarding which processes the child uses would be to argue that language acquisition possesses many similarities to problem-solving techniques used by humans and computer programs. Our arguments would be considerably stronger if we could exhibit a computer program that could learn a language given such problem-solving capabilities as matching, generalization, special case handling, and others. No such program exists today, nor is one feasible in the immediate future. We shall describe a programmed experiment to implement a very incomplete language-learning system. We shall argue that the limitations of the program lie not so much with the information processing techniques used, but rather with the great difficulties that we experience in trying to represent large amounts of dynamic information about the world, coupled with the difficulties we have in manipulating this information. A twelve-to-eighteen-monthold child already has a highly sophisticated representation of his environment. Our present computer representations of similar environments are far less sophisticated than the infant's representation.


The Expanding Finance for Productive Purposes Project of Mexico, which is being prepared with the WB, aims to increase the availability of financing to the rural economy through the National Agricultural, Rural, Forestry and Fisheries Development Fund (FND) and the Financial Intermediation Companies (EIF). This project is unlikely to result in significant negative environmental impacts and any adverse impacts are identifiable, mostly temporary and easily mitigated with known management techniques. Since the exact projects will not be known prior to appraisal, although will be relatively small credits for medium, small and micro enterprises to enhance productivity, an ESMF will be prepared.


Query optimization is considered as an important part of Data Base Management Systems (DBMS) and plays a major role in database research community (e.g. SQL, Spark, Map-reduce). Generally, this optimization is done using Cost Base Optimization (CBO), which is difficult to understand due to the complexity of platform, database, query and DBMS. Moreover, database query optimizer is usually a very complex process, with difficult concepts depending on the behaviour of the query engine of DBMS. Therefore, users (e.g. novice user, developer, DB administrator) have difficulties to understand and build a mental image of database query optimizer in order to produce more efficient queries. In this paper, we propose a Framework based on the model-driven engineering (MDE) paradigm to facilitate understanding and improving query performance. Indeed, MDE approach has been proven useful for developing new software applications, and its adoption for a teaching perspective presents a major challenge. We illustrate our proposal with use case and proof-ofconcept prototype for the whole provided process.


Motivated by the move of Germany away from imputation and the objective announced by the EU Commission to provide EU businesses with a consolidated corporate tax base for their EU-wide activities, this paper proposes an analysis of the properties of alternative systems for taxing multinational enterprises, first under separate tax base and then under consolidation with apportionment. In particular it investigates whether those tax systems can become perfectly integrated, i.e. neutral with respect to financial, organisational and location decisions of a multijurisdictional firm; the transfer pricing issue also deserves a special attention.


Internet Grateful Med, the United States National Library of Medicine
(NLM) Medline search service that we have grown to love and rely on for
many years, will almost be fully retired by the time you read this column.
All databases searched by Grateful Med have not been updated since December
2000.


Multi-user multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MU-MIMO-OFDM) is a promising technology to improve the spectrum efficiency of fixed wireless broadband access systems in rural areas. When MU-MIMO is deployed in predominantly line-of-sight (LoS) environments, for instance in rural areas, the problem of ill-conditioned channels may occur. This letter investigates the effects of capacity degradation with user distribution angle from 10° to full azimuthal angle, based on the results of a deterministic model. The deterministic model developed for rural MU-MIMO-OFDM has been validated with the experimental data. Furthermore, the validated deterministic model has been used to study the optimal distribution of users in a rural MU-MIMO-OFDM system. The optimum capacity has been observed for a user distribution with an angle between 180° and 360° around the access point.


An investigation on the quality of pomfrets transported to Bombay from Gujarat coast and its subsequent changes during storage at room temperature and low temperature were carried out and the results reported. The pomfrets transported in boats having insulated holds were in better condition than those having non insulated holds. In general, the transported fish can be effectively stored in ice for 2 days, while the fish is in acceptable condition up to 4 days.


RESPONSE: All of the offense reports involving a victim/suspect pair were analyzed. Tailored responses were developed for each case, including zero tolerance of criminal behavior of suspect and the use of other criminal justice and social service agencies. Victims were encouraged to use a Police Watch Program and Domestic Violence Hotline. Case files were used to create a base for victim/offender data, which was used to track victims and offenders as moving 'hot spots" across district boundaries.


Introduction: This tutorial article explicates some of the 2017 updates to the 1991 Common Rule. Implemented in January 2019, these changes impact the evolving landscape of research with human participants in the US. The introduction provides context for the article as well as framing research questions. Key concepts: These include a brief definition of research for the purposes of the article; a discussion of the foundational ethical principles of autonomy (respect for persons), beneficence, and justice; and a brief overview of the recent policy revision process and its impact on scholarship in the field. After establishing this context, readers are provided five key lessons from the policy revisions. Key lessons: The lessons for researchers working with human participants include discussion of the impact of policy changes in the Common Rule associated with broad consent, single Institutional Review Board (IRB) mandate/cooperative review, updated exemptions, modified definitions of vulnerability, and international research. These are all contextualized within a specific example for professional communication researchers. Implications for practice: Although educative efforts are underway at both the federal and institutional levels, it is important for disciplines and researchers to understand how policy changes will impact the IRB review process. Attendance to the infrastructures that guide our research design and development warrants attention.


Purpose – This study aims to examine changes in the strength of attachment to role models (strong, weak) and in the levels of commitment to the brands endorsed by role models (high, moderate, low) by exposing young athletes emulating sport stars to celebrity-engendered negative messages (CeNM). Design/methodology/approach – Two studies were conducted with footballers ranging in age from 13 to 18 years. Study 1 explored emulated football stars, attachment strength and commitment levels (n = 1,425). Study 2 exposed purposively selected 853 young footballers to four types of CeNM by content (social attribute, moral conduct, game performance, physical condition). A combination of non-/parametric t-tests was run for the paired comparisons of before–after exposure to CeNM. Findings – All CeNM contents weakened the ties to emulated football stars across the entire sample. Similarly, commitment to endorsed brands was diminished in all three categories after exposure to CeNM. When further examined, it appeared tha...


There is growing debate about the release of genetically modifed organisms to the Australian environment, and current concern about the lack of a national approach to biotechnology regulation. The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology set up an inquiry into genetically modified organisms in October 1990, and called for public submissions. The submissions are a valuable resource for research into the public perception of risk with respect to a new technology which has developed very rapidly, and in advance of an adequate regulatory framework.


The genus Haemaphysalis Koch is poorly represented in the New World. Cooley (1946) recognized four species, leporis-palustris (Packard), 1869, chordeilis (Packard), 1869, kochi Aragao, 1908, and juxtakochi which he described as new. The only nomenclatural change since that time has been the substitution by Aragao and Fonseca (1951) of the name kohlsi for kochi because of long overlooked preoccupation of the latter name by H. concinna var. kochi Neumann, 1905. In the present paper, additional distributional and host data are provided, kohlsi is reduced to a synonym of juxtakochi, and the nymph and larva of the latter are described for the first time. The collections examined were received from various individuals and institutions. Those of the Chicago Natural History Museum (CNHM) were sent by Dr. R. L. Wenzel, and one from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) was received through the courtesy of Dr. W. J. Gertsch. Panama collections by P. Galindo, G. Hartmann, and L. C. Dunn were made available by Dr. G. B. Fairchild, Gorgas Memorial Laboratory, and others from Panama were sent by Major G. Field and R. M. Altman, U. S. Army. Dr. Pierre Fauran, Pasteur Institute, Cayenne, permitted me to examine the one nymph of H. juxtakochi recorded from French Guiana. Dr. Harry Hoogstraal, U. S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 3, Cairo, Egypt, supplied the illustrations which were prepared by R. Strekalovsky.


Energy‐dependent full‐field transmission soft X‐ray microscopy is a powerful technique that provides chemical information with spatial resolution at the nanoscale. Oxygen K‐level transitions can be optimally detected, and we used this technique to study the discharge products of lithium‐oxygen batteries, where this element undergoes a complex chemistry, involving at least three different oxidation states and formation of nanostructured deposits. We unambiguously demonstrated the presence of significant amounts of superoxide form ing a composite with peroxide, and secondary products such as carbonates or hydroxide. In this chapter, we describe the technique from the fundamental to the observation of dis charged electrodes to illustrate how this tool can help obtaining a more comprehensive view of the phenomena taking place in metal air batteries and any system involving nanomaterials with a complex chemistry. i.e., an image without the sample, is recorded. An energy range of 515–580 eV ensures the most reliable spectral normalization and allows EXAFS analysis. The energy step can be adjusted between 0.1 and 0.5 eV depending on the spectral features to record. The objective zone plate lens (outermost zone width of 40 nm, 937 zones) and the CCD detector positions are automatically adjusted to maintain focus and constant magnification. The CCD motion is the slowest part of acquisition which typically requires between 1 and 2 h.


From its beginning the church has always provided instruction in the Christian faith, especially as preparation for baptism in the early centuries when it was administered chiefly to adults. As infants were baptized instruction in the content of faith had to happen at a later date. The term"catechism" was first used in the Middle Ages for collections of the most important teachings of faith. The real breakthrough, however, occurred in the sixteenth century. MartinLuther's two catechisms of 1529the SmallCatechism written for congregations and the Large Catechism for pastors were regarded even by Roman Catholics as the first classic examples of a catechetical text. Around the middle of the sixteenth century several Roman Catholic counterparts to Luther's work were produced, the Catechisms of Petrus Canisius and the Catechismus Romanusof 1566/67, a result of the Council of Trent.


The increase of wet web solid content in wet pressing will save drying energy greatly. We applied wood flours as spacers to increase the old corrugated container (OCC) solid contents in wet pressing. The mixed furnish of OCC and wood flours of 3-5% (wt/wt) increased bulk and drainage rate, and by increasing wet pressing pressure, its solid content started to be higher than 100% OCC furnish at more than 50% solid content level. Addition of cationic starch and drainage aid to the mixed furnish increased solid content further up to around 2%. Cationic starch addition compensated or exceeded the loss of tensile and compressive strength caused by the addition of wood flour, but drainage aid did not. Cationic starch also improved the stretch of the OCC, which could mitigate cracking at folding in boxboard.


Strong institutional constraints and better-informed voters may lead re-election seeking incumbents to shift the use of political business cycle mechanisms away from monetary and fiscal policy towards other policy domains that are more easily manipulable, targetable, and timeable. We investigate teacher employment patterns at the state level in Germany and find strong evidence of cycling mechanisms, in the form of electioneering and honeymooning. Against a backdrop of a continuously shrinking total teachers' pool, German state-level incumbents accelerate the hiring of new teachers during election periods and partly reverse this during politically safer points in the electoral cycle. Cycles are mediated by issue salience: heightened attention to German public schooling after the notorious PISA-2000 tests further strengthens the manipulation of new teacher hiring for electoral purposes.


A preliminary paper on this instrument was published in this journal for June, 1904. (Vol. IX, p. 69.) Under the auspices of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution two portable declinographs have since then been constructed under the writer's direction, one of which is at present installed at the Solar Observatory on Mt. Wilson, California. As these instruments embody several features not contained in the original experimental apparatus, a short description of them is here given.

It will be remembered that the principle of the instrument consists in the transmission of the movements of a suspended magnetic needle, through a delicate suspended glass lever to a pen situated at the end of a long arm. The lever system is therefore somewhat similar to that in the Bosch-Omori seismograph, except that no pivots are used. The directive force acting on a magnetic needle in the Earth's field, is so much feebler than that in the case of a massive horizontal pendulum, that it was thought best to avoid the slight but uncertain friction of pivots. The pen is caused periodically to print a dot upon a long strip of paper, which is advanced by means of clockwork. The most radical departure from the original apparatus is in the manner of printing dots: the pen is no longer drawn down to the paper by means of a solenoid, but the paper is automatically lifted up so as to touch the pen. This avoids the danger of magnetic disturbances caused by having a solenoid plunger mounted on the pen arm, and also reduces the moment of inertia of the moving system to a minimum. Owing to the additional energy required to raise the paper as well as to advance it, this double function is performed by an electro-magnet mounted at a suitable distance below the instrument. The clock that periodically closes the electric circuit may then be located at any distance from the instrument. Other changes and new features are described in the following paragraphs. With the exception of the enclosing cases and the clockwork, practically the entire work of construction was carried out by Mr. F. H. J. Newton, the college mechanician, to whose ingenuity and skill acknowledgement is here made.


Chemical and a biological sample processing apparatus b. Anti comprising a high-pressure, wide and shallow area microfluidic chambers, the microfluidic chamber has at least one wall is formed by a removable slide, which slides containing fixed entity such as a sample or a biological sample molecules, c. comprising means for injecting a fluid into the microfluidic chamber access holes and collecting fluid from the chamber arrangements, d. in the formed outside the chamber inlet port and a microfluidic channel joined, e. configured to slide may be formed such that the chamber, f the device in contact with and adapted for the interior of the chamber in a rapid embodiment is preferably within less than 15 seconds, and because of the microfluidic arrangement of the access holes at regular or uniform manner the fluid delivery and transport of materials and reagents.


During operation, an outdoor high voltage insulator may come under various stresses. One of them is environmental pollution, where pollutants stick to the insulator surface. The polluted condition may produce leakage currents or even electrical discharges. Their waveforms are normally non-pure sinusoidal. To understand the correlation between insulator condition and its leakage current phenomenon, we will, in this study, investigate various equivalent circuits for representing insulator under different conditions. This paper presents the proposed equivalent circuit models of three main conditions of insulator, i.e. clean, polluted and polluted with dry-band discharge. In general, the model consists of capacitor(s) and non linear resistor(s). By using the models, the leakage current simulations have been done using ATP/EMTP software package. The simulations show that a clean low capacitance insulator yielded a pure sinusoidal current waveform, whereas that of a high capacitance yielded an oscillating sinusoidal current waveform. On the other hand, the polluted insulator simulations produced distorted sinusoidal current waveforms. At the end, the polluted insulator with dry-band discharge simulations showed chopped sinusoidal current waveforms. It was also showed the harmonic amplitudes, where third harmonics were usually the second highest amplitudes, a part of the fundamental ones


Objective To study the therapeutic effect of diabetes with Maher Bbe Chatain in the treatment of hypertension. Methods 77 cases of diabetic patients with hypertension were admitted to the hospital as the research object, the patients were randomly divided into two groups, one group was the experimental group, a total of 39 cases, one was control group, a total of 38 cases. The treatment of irbesartan in the experimental group; in the control group treated by amlodipine. After treatment, changes of blood pressure and urine protein, satisfaction of two groups of patients, the rate of incidence of adverse reactions were observed. Results the experimental group and the control group of patients after treatment for one month after the drug, the patients in the experimental group satisfaction rate was 97.44%(38/39), the control group of patients satisfaction rate of 78.95%, the contrast between the two groups had significant difference. In experimental group, the adverse reaction rate was 0%, control group, the adverse reaction rate was 7.89%, the adverse reaction in the experimental group was significantly lower than that of the control group. Conclusion the application of irbesartan in the treatment of diabetes, hypertension, the curative effects and adverse reactions were significantly better than the application of amlodipine, and the patient's satisfaction rate is higher, but also the urinary protein of patients with diabetes mellitus and hypertension and renal damage also have a regulatory role, therefore it has an important application val-ue in clinical practice.


The paper deals with the evaluation of line-start interior permanent magnet synchronous motor (LSIPMSM) model parameters using finite elements. A lumped parameter dynamic model with current-dependant variable parameters is used in LSIPMSM dynamic performance evaluation. By a dynamic model determined run-up responses under different supply and load conditions were confirmed experimentally in the case of four pole 1.1 kW LSIPMSM.


In Japan, use of transplanting machines has been tested for vegetable crops like cabbages. In such cascs, however, attention was payed mainly to efficiency of machines but not to overall efficiency of workers when taking account of hand work of pricking out seedlings.In this report it was tried to calculate theoretically the working rate per day of transplanting machines under different numbers of workers on the supposition that a gang of workers performs both pricking out seedlings by hand and planting them by machines each day and that all members have the same hours of duty.The working hours per day of a machine increase linearly when the number of workers increases, but level off beyond a certain gang, of which number of workers is estimated by NP+(WP/WS), where NP, number of planting workers on the machine; WP, working rate of planting per hour per machine; WS, working rate of pricking per hour per worker. Reverse is the case for the actual working hours of workers of a gang per day.When overall efficiency of workers consisted of hand pricking and machine transplanting is expressed as working hours of machine per sum of hours of duty of a gang, it is directly proportional to per cent of hours of duty occupied by actual working hours of a gang. On the other hand, when expressed as working hours of machine per sum of actual working hours of a gang, overall efficiency maintains a constant value irrespective of different numbers of workers.


Loyal alumni are a key ingredient for overall universities success. In highly competitive and advancement of higher education market, it is paramount important not only to understand how relationship marketing promote students' satisfaction but to extend the boundary of knowledge on how later (as alumni) they could enhanced overall university success. As alumni donors and giving behaviors had received considerable attention in the past studies, this study attempts to propose alumni supportive behaviors that goes beyond donors and giving and seeks to examine how and why they behave towards their alma mater. As such, this study proposed that alumni supportive behavior could be conceptualized as alumni citizenship behaviors (ACBs). Grounded with Social Exchange Theory and Relationship Marketing, this study seeks to examine how both institutional and individual predictors could arouse ACBs. More importantly, this study hopes to profile and develop a multidimensionality of ACBs conception that goes beyond donors and giving and examine the effect of alumni community engagement on the proposed relationship. The results using PLS-SEM 3.0 based of 193 alumni from eight public universities in Malaysia revealed that university reputation and university engagement significantly influenced alumni citizenship behaviors. Personal & social responsibility influenced university engagement. Beside, university engagement partially mediate the relationship between personal & social responsibility and alumni citizenship behaviors. This study extend the body of knowledge that alumni citizenship behaviors is best explained by multidimensional construct i.e. donor behavior, alumni loyalty and alumni support. Contribution, limitation as well as future research direction also highlighted at the end of the report.