Current investigations on neuronal or cardiac tissues call for systems that can electrically monitor cellular activity in three dimensions as opposed to classical planar approaches. Typically the fabrication of such 3D microelectrode arrays (3D MEAs) relies on advanced cleanroom fabrication techniques. However, additive manufacturing is becoming an ever versatile alternative for rapid prototyping of novel sensor designs due to its low cost and material expense. Here, the possibility of fabricating high‐resolution 3D MEAs is demonstrated by using electrohydrodynamic inkjet printing. The height and aspect ratio of the 3D electrodes can be readily tuned by adjusting the printing conditions and number of deposited ink droplets per electrode. The fabrication of pillar electrode arrays with electrode diameters of sintered structures below 3 µm is shown. The functionality of the array is confirmed using impedance spectroscopy and extracellular recordings of action potentials from HL‐1 cells.


Among William Wordsworth's acquaintances in Bristol was John Peace (1785–1861), the head librarian at Bristol City Library. Peace's copy of the original edition of Lyrical Ballads (1798), held by the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of South Carolina, contains striking marginal comments that stand to enhance histories of reading during and after the Romantic period. The volume is an exceptional piece of evidence, and it has never received scholarly notice. Surrounding "Tintern Abbey" are annotations that mobilize and modify Wordsworth's treatment of place, time, and intimacy. Long considered an iconic expression of the Romantic individual and the Wordsworthian "egotistical sublime," the poem has alternatively been understood to convey the necessity of community. In Peace's marginalia, the experience that "Tintern Abbey" charts becomes resolutely social through the form and practice of writing alongside print. Specifically, his notes shift Wordsworth's insistence on the "here and now" to a bibliographic register, to the presence and immediacy of print and script instead of the persistent spatial deixis that is articulated in "thesewaters," "these . . . cliffs," and "thesehedge-rows" (lines 3, 5, 15). Peace's additions to his copy of Lyrical Ballads warrant attention because they share details about his friendship withWordsworth and the composition of the poem, but they are significant because they identify elements— deixis, sympathy, and the emotional capacities of print—that make writing alongside lyric poetry a vital form of expression for nineteenth-century readers. Peace's annotations attempt to craft and preserve human intimacy


The introduction of cellular phones in January 1985 provided users with the opportunity of making a phone call from (almost) literally anywhere in the UK for the first time. The introduction of this new good raises significant public policy questions and also interesting questions of business strategy. Our objective in this article is to examine the decisions made by both public policy-makers and the businesses participatin in this new market during its development over the last five years.


This paper deals with the general situation and the present status of forest resources,and the dynamics characteristics of forest quality in Sichuan for about 60 years,including the rapid development of forest resources,and the rapid growth of forest acreage,volume,and cover rate,and especially the establishment of plantations in nearly 20 years.However,forest has significantly declined in its quality,and its good seed degree is low.The density of afforestation is unreasonable,including single species composition,and low volume and low increment per units.In addition,plant diseases and insect pests are very serious.To improve the quality of forest resources,some measures should be taken to strengthen the monitoring of forest resources,carry out classified management,give prominence to ecological improvement,implement the afforestation projects,optimize stand structure and improve the fragmentary and secondary forest,set up the project of collective forest,constitute the demonstration zones,adhere to the government support,refine the policy security system,and rationally manage the existing secondary forest resources in combination with the circulation of forest resources in order to enhance the forest quality.


Most community-level development assistance projects fail to achieve their stated objectives. With frustrating regularity, new projects repeat the mistakes that defeated their predecessors. If development assistance organizations are to become effective, they must develop the capacity to learn fr~>m their experiences and the experiences of others. There is evidence that conmunity-level forejtry projects sponsored by several nationai and international organisations in Kenya have begun to develop this capacity. I propose to undertake a comparative analysis of six Kenyan efforts (Kenya Woodfuel Development Program, Kenya Renewable Energy Development Project, Rural Afforestation Extension Scheme, CARE Agroforestry Extension Project, the Greenbelt Movement, and the Kenya Energy Non-Governmental Organization Association), to determine what, these organizations have learned about the design and implementation of sustainable projects and how they learned it.


Over the past decade string theory has had an increasing impact on many areas of physics: high energy and hadronic physics, gravitation and cosmology, mathematical physics and even condensed matter physics. The impact has been through many major conceptual and methodological developments in quantum field theory in the past fifteen years. In addition, string theory has exerted a dramatic influence on developments in contemporary mathematics, including Gromov - Witten theory, mirror symmetry in complex and symplectic geometry, and important ramifications in enumerative geometry. This volume is derived from a conference of younger leading practitioners around the common theme: 'What is string theory?' The talks covered major current topics, both mathematical and physical, related to string theory.


Summing up, we believe that using techniques of this paper can provide good practical algorithms for dealing with large applications involving databases with disjunctive information. Acknowledgements: I thank Peter Buneman for his comments on 11] that innuenced this paper, Jon Riecke for a careful reading of an earlier draft, Lal George for the ML code for the random number generator, and anonymous referee for many helpful suggestions. A functional database programming language for disjunctive information and its applications. Incomplete objects | a data model for design and planning applications. In Proc. Int. Conf. on Management of Data (SIGMOD-91), pages 288{297. 10] T. Imielinski, R. van der Meyden and K. Vadaparty. Complexity tailored design: A new design methodology for databases with incomplete information. The rst one produces a random annotation of type A(t; s). The second, select best, selects the best element from a bag of type fjsj g with respect to the criterion F. It is undeened on empty bags, and, if more than one element of a bag have nondominated F-values, selects one nondeterministically. The semantics of gen is given by gen(n) = fj1; : : :; nj g (this function plays an important role in establishing equivalences between set and bag languages with structural recursion and power operators 13, 14]). Now opt pnorm rand is deened in two steps. First, we deene one iteration step iter opt pnorm rand s (P)(o; T) = opt apnorm time s (P)(random s (o); T) and then opt pnorm rand s (P)(o; T; n) = if n 1 then iter opt pnorm rand s (P)(o; T) else select best(2 ; F)(b map(x:iter opt pnorm rand s (P)(o; T))(gen(n))) Summing up, to obtain the list of desirable normalization primitives, we do not have to add them all to the language. Instead, it is enough to have one general iteration scheme apnorm cont and a limited number of auxiliary functions. In this way it is easy to add new variations of normalization primitives. 5 Implementation project The collection of normalization primitives discussed in this paper has been implemented as a library in the system OR-SML 7], which itself is a database programming language on top of Standard ML of New Jersey 8]. In OR-SML, complex objects are SML-values, and one can take advantage of combining the features of a query language with the features of a fully-edged programming language. For example, we can use …


One of the major goals in high school Informatics is for students to develop creative problem-solving abilities based on knowledge on computer science. Thus, the contents of the textbooks should be accurate and appropriate. However, we discovered that the current Informatics textbooks contain the untrue and/or inappropriate descriptions of main memory and virtual memory. The textbooks describe that main memory is composed of RAM and ROM. The virtual memory is described as a technique in which a part of the secondary storage is utilized as main memory to execute an application of which size is larger than that of main memory. In this study, we attempted to uncover the root causes of the fallacies, and suggest the accurate explanations by comparing with renowned books adopted in most schools worldwide including USA. Our study reveals that it is inappropriate to include ROM in main memory from the memory hierarchy perspective. Virtual memory is a technique that provides convenience to programmers, through which an operating system loads the necessary portion of a program from secondary storage to main memory. As for the advantages of virtual memory in the current computer systems, the focus should be on providing the effective multitasking capability, rather than on executing a larger program than the size of main memory. We suggest that it is appropriate to exclude virtual memory in textbooks considering its complexity.


Due to simple implementation, non-preemptive scheduling has the advantage over preemptive counterpart when it comes to deployment of real-time systems. Accordingly, many feasibility techniques have been established to answer schedulability of the task set for non-preemptive case. The time complexity of exact condition for non-preemptive under dynamic priority assignment is of pseud-polynomial nature. Recently, efforts are made to decrease the computation cost of existing exact solutions. However, the time complexity class remains the same. In such systems, feasibility is tested by starting with highest priority task and test continues in that order until the last task is analyzed in the set. Normally, higher priority tasks rarely miss the deadline and hence, when a system is determined infeasible, it is mainly because of the low priority tasks as these tasks are assigned low priorities and can claim CPU time only when there is no pending higher priority task in the queue. In this study, we propose a mechanism that reduces the computation cost of feasibility for non-preemptive earliest deadline first scheduling algorithm by testing the infeasibility of the system in reverse priority order. In worst case, the proposed technique is not inferior for a system with low utilization that scans a task set from feasibility perspectives. On the other hand, our test exhibits better performance when the system infeasibility is tested for the system demanding higher CPU utilization. Our experimental results show that the overall computation cost, especially for the larger task sets with higher CPU demands, is significantly reduced with the proposed solution by evaluating a system from infeasibility perspective.


1. Foreword and Acknowledgments 2. Chomsky's Atavistic Revolution (with a little help from his enemies) (by Joseph, John E.) 3. The equivocation of form and notation in generative grammar (by Beedham, Christopher) 4. Chomsky's paradigm: What it includes and what it excludes (by Radwanska-Williams, Joanna) 5. Part I. The young revolutionary (1950-1960) 6. "Scientific revolutions" and other kinds of regime change (by Murray, Stephen O.) 7. Noam and Zellig (by Nevin, Bruce E.) 8. Chomsky 1951a and Chomsky 1951b (by Daniels, Peter T.) 9. Grammar and language in Syntactic Structures: Transformational progress and structuralist 'reflux' (by Swiggers, Pierre) 10. Part II. The cognitive revolution 11. Chomsky's other Revolution (by Harris, Randy Allen) 12. Chomsky between revolutions (by Hyman, Malcolm D.) 13. Part III. Evolutions 14. What do we talk about, when we talk about 'universal grammar', and how have we talked about it? (by Thomas, Margaret) 15. Migrating propositions and the evolution of Generative Grammar (by Tomalin, Marcus) 16. Universalism and human difference in Chomskyan linguistics: The first 'superhominid' and the language faculty (by Hutton, Christopher) 17. The evolution of meaning and grammar: Chomskyan theory and the evidence from grammaticalization (by Christy, T. Craig) 18. Chomsky in search of a pedigree (by Hamans, Camiel S.J.N.) 19. The "linguistic wars": A tentative assessment by an outsider witness (by Graffi, Giorgio) 20. Part IV. The Past and Future Directions 21. British empiricism and Transformational Grammar: A current debate (by Leon, Jacqueline) 22. Historiography's contribution to theoretical linguistics (by Andresen, Julie T.) 23. Name index 24. Subject index 25. Index of cited works


SA Objective SRA's MKSA1: WEA Expansion MKSA2: East of M1 north MKSA3: East of M1 South MKSA4: Land following south A421 with small part north. MKSA5: Principally South of A421 consuming Wavendon & Cross End MKSA6: The area abutting the existing city, wrapping around Wavendon MKSA7: The area abutting the existing city and extending south, crossing the railway line MKSA8: The area south of the Marston Vale Line and north of the Woburn Sands Road MKSA9: land at Eaton Leys and land south of A5.


James A. Worthey In an article last month, I listed six reasons why theory is important for lighting research and practice: 1. Theory is what engineers do. For instance, all electrical engineers-must understand circuit theoty 2. It's hard to vary light source size. Theory can isolate the effects ofsource area. Experiments to vary size while controlling other parameters would be hard. 3. It's also hard to vary spectral power distribution. 4. Optics is not controversial. Much of the theory needed for the discussion of lighting quality is simple optics as applied to the interaction of light and objects. 5. Theory guides experiment Theory helps in the design of experiments. 6. More speculative theories may also have a place. Theory lets you move forward from the simple to the complicated. These six reasons for the use oftheory all come down to this: Lighting is complicated, but theory can help you to understand it step by step. In this article, I want to look at one more rationale for the use of theory. In a final article, I'll talk about the payoffs that a more theoretical approach to lighting may give. I believe that better use of theory may lead to solid advances in the design ofluminaires and systems, but that's for next time.


Implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (crc) hinges on appropriate data collection to clarify actors' accountability and the impact of this on children. In spite of widespread ratification and revised legislation, most State Parties have not adequately implemented the crc. The evidence demonstrates that indicators can assist with implementing and monitoring human rights. We present an account of a decade of work conducted under the auspices of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, towards developing indicator sets which map the degree of rights implementation. The work started with the rights of young children, outlined in the Committee's General Comment No. 7. It will culminate in a comprehensive monitoring platform, called GlobalChild, to improve State Parties' accountability to children through pointing at crucial aspects of the process of compliance with the crc for which the State Party and its administration are accountable.


We present a family of certification methods with applications to attribute certification, which in turn has ample applications to ad hoc networks by way of the use of centrally managed recommendation mechanisms. Our construction is based on a Merkle tree consisting of subtrees, each of which corresponds to some aspect of an attribute. We study how the ordering of these subtrees can impact the cost of representing, maintaining, and verifying attribute certificates. We describe the applicability of our construction to vehicle ad hoc networks, detail our proposed methods, and evaluate their suitability to the proposed settings.


Boron particles have several major burning problems, such as incomplete combustion, poor ignitability, and a complex burning process in solid propellants. It is documented that the low ignitability and combustion efficiency of boron are caused by the oxidation of its surface. In order to improve the combustion efficiency of boron particles, a precipitation method was employed to prepare nanometer-sized NiO and coat it on boron particles. The morphology and coating results of the B/NiO nanocomposite thermite were characterized using different approaches such as SEM, X-ray Diffraction (XRD), and EDS. The results indicated that the boron particles were well distributed and coated completely by nanocomposite NiO. The B/NiO nanocomposite thermite reaction process was tested by TG-DTA. The results showed that the reaction temperature of B/NiO particles is about 30 °C lower than that of boron particles. The B/NiO thermite and boron powder were added to Mg/PTFE propellant to be measured for their respective combustion performance. The results showed that the burning rate of the B/NiO-Mg/PTFE propellant increased by 22.8–25.2 %, mass burning rate by 26.7–30.8 %, and combustion temperature increased by 8–56 °C compared to the B-Mg/PTFE propellant. The above results indicate that NiO coating of boron particles has a significant effect on the combustion behavior and increases the combustion performance of the propellant compared with uncoated particles.


one of the important steps is to well regulate the quality of different food items. Food safety has now become a major health issue since lots of cases have been found so far round the globe whereby mass people suffer from various disease outbreaks only due to microbiologically contaminated foods1-3. A range of microbiological study on different food items by different research groups round the globe revealed the association of food borne microorganisms with the studied samples. The predominant bacteria within the food samples has been reported to be Staphylococcus spp., the enteric bacteria, Vibrio spp., Aeromonas spp., Pseudomonas spp., Acinetobacter spp., Streptococcus spp., Bacillus spp., Listeria spp., Brucella spp., Campylobacter spp., Arcobacter spp., and Cronobacter spp., which were responsible for the food borne infection, intoxication and the toxicoinfection2,4.


A 34-year-old African American man presented with bilateral hand arthritis and a flesh growth at the tip of his nose that appeared at the age of 27 years and gradually increased in size. Skin biopsy revealed noncaseating granulomatous dermatitis, consistent with the diagnosis of cutaneous sarcoidosis. Two years later, the patient developed dry cough; physical examination revealed dactylitis and bilateral proximal interphalangeal joint synovitis (Fig. 1) and a shiny, soft tissue growth over the tip of the nose (Fig. 2), consistent with lupus pernio. Chest radiography revealed paratracheal and bilateral hilar lymphadenopathy. Laboratory evaluation revealed borderline elevation of erythrocyte sedimentation rate and angiotensin-converting enzyme titers. Hand radiographs showed several circumscribed, corticated digital lytic bone lesions. The patient responded initially to a combination of methotrexate 15 mg weekly and prednisone 10 mg daily. However, the arthritis and dactylitis progressed, and the infliximab 5 mg/kg was added with resultant decrease in the activity of the arthritis and the lupus pernio lesion size.


As a source for biofuels, aquatic microbial oxygenic photoautotrophs (AMOPs) are as much as 10-fold more productive than are land-based crops such as corn, switchgrass, soybeans, sugarcane, and sunflowers, according to chemist Charles Dismukes of Princeton University in Princeton, N.J., and his collaborators at the Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI). Their analysis appears in the June Current Opinion in Biotechnology (19:235–240).


Antenna array active impedance is conventionally determined via direct S-parameter measurements. This approach is impossible to implement for optical nano-antenna arrays. This paper describes a technique for evaluating antenna array active impedance based on scattering measurements. This technique can also be used for optical sensor applications, since the scattering data of a nano-antenna array, loaded with unknown loads, can be used to determine the reflection coefficient of the loads. The theoretical formulation, followed by simulations and measurements demonstrate the advantages and limitations of this technique.


Abstract : Tables are presented of elliptic integrals of the first and second kinds as functions of the modulus (k) and modulus squared for values of the amplitude ranging from phi = 5 degrees to phi = 90 degrees, inclusive, and values of k and k squared between 0 and 1.0. Tables of the elliptic integral of the third kind are given. The ranges of k and phi are as above, while the range of alpha squared extends from alpha squared = -1.0 to alpha squared = +1.0. (Author)


3D point cloud recognition is still a challenge task since the shape implied in irregular points is difficult to capture. Standard convolution is inherently limited for these tasks due to its isotropy about features. In this paper, a novel graph convolutional network is introduced for point cloud classification and segmentation task. The proposed convolution adds an additional layer on the basis of relation-shape convolutional neural network, which can obtain more information and make the representation of point cloud more robust. At the same time, a feature relation method is proposed instead of the coordinate relation used in relation-shape convolutional neural network. The experimental results on challenging classification and segmentation datasets shows that the proposed method can learn discriminating features for recognition and semantic segmentation.


Objective:To evalvate the curative effect of DSG-I instrument of liver disease(DSG-I ILD) combined with point spreading on virus hepatitis.Method:250 patients with virus hepatitis were randomly divided into two groups,132 patients of experimental group treated by DSG-I ILD combined with point spreading,118 patients of the control group treated by routine therapy.After treatment,the curative effect were observed.Result:The total efficiency rate of the experimental group(93.18%) was better than that of control group(72.88%)(P0.01).Conclusion:DSG-I ILD combined with point spreadingis obvious on virus hepatitis.It also is a brief therapy means can be accepted.


The kinetics of oil absorption into cotton-phenolic ball-bearing retainer material was determined. The results fit a model of two-step absorption in which the first step can be described by capillary rise and the second step by diffusion of oil from the capillaries into the bulk phenolic resin. The capillaries are associated with the cotton threads and are on the order of several micrometers or less in radius. The model successfully describes data for two cotton-phenolics with different cloth weaves, and five nonpolar liquids (four lubricating oils and heptane) with viscosities that vary over 3 orders of magnitude. The total amount of oil absorbed at the completion of the first step (1.5 to 3.4% v/v in this work) is proportional to the volume of the sample, not its surface area, suggesting that the entire volume of the material stores oil and not just the surface region. If the material is not completely dry when submerged in oil, the capillaries are blocked and only surface absorption of oil can take place. The saturation amount of oil in the resin after diffusion is complete at about 2 to 3% v/v (not including the amount of oil stored in the capillaries). The diffusion coefficient calculated using our model is 3 × 10^−12 cm^2/s, which is reasonable when compared with available literature data on large and small molecules diffusing into polymers.


Alkaline phosphatase is anchored to the plasma membrane by a carboxyl-terminal phosphatidylinositol glycan moiety. To investigate the biosynthesis of mature alkaline phosphatase, nascent human placental alkaline phosphatase was expressed in a cell-free system and used as substrate for in vitro processing by microsomal extracts. By monitoring the processed product with three site-directed antibodies, it was shown that microsomal extracts from CHO cells that contain other recognized processing activities also remove the carboxyl-terminal signal peptide from the preproenzyme in an apparently selective manner. This peptidase-like cleavage may be brought about by the action of a specific transamidase acting on the nascent protein in the absence of an appropriate phosphatidylinositol glycan cosubstrate.


We calculated apparent increment values based on the radiocarbon dates of 21 Estonian ombrotrophic mires (raised bogs). For short periods, the values vary significantly, but the integrated increment for the total complex of ombrotrophic peat shows a strong increasing tendency with decreasing peat age. This is probably due to the decay of accumulated organic matter. Our hypotheses concern the mechanisms of decay and methods for increasing the reliability of the interpolation and extrapolation of 14C data.


The present study was made to evlauated of Mid Day Meal Scheme in Punjab State. According to the consitution of India, the government ensures to make elementary education free and compulsory for all the children. For this purpose Government has introduced many scxhemes like exclusively for girls, sarva shiksha abhiyan, mid day meal scheme to enhance elementary education. Mid Day Meal Scheme is widly known to help allure an increasing number of children towards literacy. In the state of Punjab various scheme like Parrho Punjab, mid day meal schemes etc have been emphasized to bring improvement in elementary education. Cooked mid day meal has become very successful in government schools of Punjab as it is highly useful for lower middle class families. For all round development of body and mind it is necessary that the students get proper nutrition. So a scheme like Mid Day Meal is the need of the hour. As the scholars pointed out in their studies that the scheme has a good impact on child nutrition, school attendance and social equity.


To study the influence of different protein sources on rumen inner environment and the ruminal microbial flora in northern Shaanxi cashmere goat.This experiment used four northern Shaanxi cashmere goats with same body size,one of each was fitted with a permanent rumen fistula,and a 4 × 4 Latin square was designed.The goats were separately fed with four protein diets in groups,including cottonseed(group A),corn gluten meal(group B),soybean(group C) and rapeseed(group D).The pH values,ammonia nitrogen concentration,degradation rates of feed protein,MCP concentration and microbial population structure in the rumen were determined.The results indicated that the pH values were distributed between 6.07 and 6.61,each group was not significant.The range of NH3-N concentration was 99.1 to 265.6 mg/100 mL,groups A and D showed no significant difference according to the average comparisons of each group(P0.05),other groups all showed significant differences(P0.05) or highly significant differences(P0.01) at a different time.The CP digestibilities of the four different protein were significant,soybean showed the highest digestibility.MCP concentration in the rumen decreased first after food intake,then increased and then decreased again with the passage of time.There were no significant differences between the groups before food intake(P0.05),group C maintained a high level compared with the other three groups after food intake,showing significantly different(P0.01) in each group.It was found that four different protein sources had no influence(P0.05) on the rumen microbial structure through the comparisons of the protozoa and bacteria protein concentration.


The introduction of chymopapain and chemonucleolysis raised hopes that a relatively noninvasive treatment for her niated lumbar disk had been developed. However, injection of chymopapain into the lumbar nucleus pulposus is not an innocuous procedure. Hypersensitivity to the drug is a major problem; the current anaphylaxis rate is estimated to be about 1% and even higher among women patients [1]. Recent reports of transverse myelitis and subsequent paraplegia associated with chymopapain injection have raised serious questions about its use in young and otherwise healthy persons. Percutaneous lumbar diskectomy has been offered as a relatively noninvasive means of disk decompression involving removal of the disk by mechanical rather than enzymatic action. Previous attempts at percutaneous diskectomy, al though yielding preliminary results comparable to those of chymopapain, have required insertion of relatively large can nulas (~ 6 mm diam) into the disk space, which has raised concern about possible nerve injury on introduction of the cannula [2-4]. In addition, the disk material had to be removed with a modified pituitary forceps, which was tedious and time consuming. For these reasons, acceptance of the procedure has been slow. We report a percutaneous diskectomy using a new auto mated disk-aspiration probe. The probe's small size (2 mm diam) minimizes the risk of nerve root injury while its auto mated action allows rapid removal of disk material. Technique The patient is placed in the right lateral decutibus position . Using fluoroscopy, a lateral view of the patient's spine is obtained and the L4-L5 disk interspace identified. An entry point for the probe is selected on the skin about 10 cm from the midline as identified by the spinous processes. The patient is then prepped, draped, and given local anesthesia. A 25cm-Iong, 18-gauge hubless stainless steel sheath with a central trocar is aimed obliquely toward the posterior margin of the intervertebral disk as seen on the lateral view. The patient is monitored continously. If he experiences radicular pain, the sheath is redirected . When the sheath is correctly positioned against the disk in the lateral view, its position is confirmed in the anteroposterior view. The trocar is then removed, and a 2.5-mm cannula with an inner blunt-ended sleeve is placed over the hubless sheath . This cannula and sleeve are advanced to the disk while the patient is again monitored for radicular pain . When the cannula appears to be in the correct position, the sleeve and 18-gauge hubless sheath are removed, leaving the 2.5-mm cannula against the anulus of the disk. A 22-gauge needle is then inserted into the center of the disk through the large cannula to confirm that the trajectory of the cannula will bring the final instrument into the center of the disk. The needle is removed, and a hole


Abstract— The population and photosynthetic responses of a microscopic green alga (Selenastrum capricornutum) to realistic levels of UV radiation (UVA and UVB) were assessed in natural lake waters of different dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration. Specific growth rates and photosynthetic competence (as reflected by Fv/Fm [measure of maximal quantum efficiency of photosystem II] and t1/2 [estimate of electrons transported to the plastoquinone pool] measured by in vivo variable chlorophyll a fluorescence) were compared between two exposure levels of UVR and two concentrations of DOC (2.5 mg C L−1 7.7 mg C L−1). Exposure periods of 6–9 days (five to nine generations) were used. Exposure to UVA primarily affected the efficiency of photosystem II, as evidenced by significant decreases of Fv/Fm but not growth rates or t1/2 Exposure to UVB, in the presence of UVA, did not cause significant additional decreases of Fv/Fm but did diminish growth rates. In the low DOC water, t1/2 was also diminished, suggesting different proximate sites of action from those for UVA. The high DOC water decreased the effective exposure to both UVA and UVB and diminished the negative impact of UV radiation on the cells, but the apparent protection was not explicable solely by the shading action of the DOC. Control values for Fv/Fm, growth rates and t1/2 were all lower in the high DOC water, suggesting a negative side effect to the apparent protective action of the DOC against UVB.


Based on the exact solution of the time-dependent Schrodinger equation for two-species Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) consisting of two hyperfine states of the atoms coupled by a tuned adiabatic and time-varying Raman coupling, we obtain analytically the entanglement dynamics of the system with various initial states, particularly the SU(2) coherent state, for both of cases with and without the nonlinear interactions. It is shown that the effect of nonlinear interaction on the entanglement appears only in a longer time period depending on the BEC parameters.


Shi Ping-mei was an active literature in the 1920s. At that time, she enjoyed equal popularity with theother famous women writers,e.g. Bing-xin, Lu-yin, Bai-wei, Feng Yuan-jun and Luo Jing-qing etc. However, as aresult of her own love tragedy and many different social causes, she couldn't depart from her pessimistic life. This article explains the images of the women abandoned in Shi Ping-mei's novels; moreover, it expounds her thoughts and feelings and social culture background at that time. This shows offense and combat, aspire and vanish in multilevel consciousness of the women's psychology during the social change, and analyses the women's psychology and the causes of tragedy deeply at that age.:


We present a unique camera setup for capturing simultaneously visible and thermal data when filming live-action scenes. Developed for the film project "Lys", this system complements visible information with the non-visible spectrum. This data can be used as a surprisingly efficient method for rotoscoping or as an alternative approach to traditional keying techniques.


EARLIER experiments indicated that the intramuscular injection of synthetic desoxycorticosterone acetate in oil rapidly induced striking dilution of the blood in adrenalectomised dogs (1). Previous studies in normal dogs (2) indicated that long–continued administration of excessive quantities of desoxycorticosterone acetate was followed by undesirable consequences. Direct plasma volume measurements were not reported in these experiments. In the present study an attempt has been made to follow the changes in plasma volume which occur during a relatively short period of therapy with desoxycorticosterone acetate. The efficacy of intramuscularly and sublingually administered hormone has been compared with and without supplementary sodium chloride medication. Normal male dogs (approximately 10 to 15 kg. in weight) were kept in metabolism cages and fed a constant diet consisting of 350 gm. of raw, ground beef and 50 cc. of irradiated evaporated milk to which was added 25 cc. of 10 per cent sodium chloride solution.


Two new assemblages of Mississippian pelagic chondrichthyan microremains were recovered from the pelagic limestone of the area of Krzeszowice, NW of Kraków, Poland. The older assemblage represents the upper Tournaisian of Czatkowice Quarry and the younger one the upper Viséan of the Czernka stream valley at Czerna. The teeth of symmoriiform Falcatidae are the major component of both collections. A comparison of the taxonomic composition of the assemblage from Czerna (with the falcatids and Thrinacodus as the major components) to the previously published materials from the Holy Cross Mountains (Poland), Muhua (southern China), and Grand Canyon (Northern Arizona, USA) revealed the closest similarity to the first of these, probably deposited in a deeper water environment, relatively far from submarine carbonate platforms. A short review of Mississippian falcatids shows that the late Viséan–Serpukhovian period was the time of the greatest diversity of this group.


The use of a temporary colostomy is essential in the management of trauma, carcinoma, iatrogenic perforations, diverticulitis, and a number of congenital anomalies of the colon. Closure of a colostomy can be associated with a signifiant complication rate and even mortality and should not be considered a minor procedure. This is a retrospective study of 114 patients undergoing closure o f colostomy, in which an attempt was made to investigate and single out the factors determining complications of colostomy closure. The results point toward timing and technique of closure as the two main factors determining complications associated with eolostomy closure. [


The aim of this study is to identify the giving effect of brown rice (Oryza nivara) compared with white rice (Oryza sativa) on litter size and birth weight of Mice (Mus musculus) that alive. This study using 54 female mice and 18 male mice (adult) with an average weight 25 – 35 grams. This study using completely randomized design with 5x2 factorial with six replications. The first factor is white rice, with a ratio of 75% commercial feed and 25% white rice (A1), 50% commercial feed and 50% white rice (A2), 25% commercial feed and 75% white rice (A3) and 100% white rice (A4). The second factor is the brown rice, with a ratio of 75% commercial feed and 25% brown rice (A1), 50% commercial feed and 50% brown rice (A2), 25% commercial feed and 75% brown rice (A3) and 100% brown rice (A4). The control is giving 100% commercial feed. Mice is mating and pregnancy examinations in two weeks. After birth, calculating the litter size and birth weight. The result showed that brown rice increase the litter size but decrease the birth weight. However, statistically it is not showed significant differences (P> 0,05).


Experiments on heating of spherical targets wth the high-power ''Kal'mar'' laser installation revealed a group of fast ions with energy 9 or approx. =0.5 MeV. The possible generation mechanisms are discussed.


The solid phase epitaxial growth technique appears to be a promising method for achieving junction depths and sheet resistance values low enough to meet the performance specifications of the 65 and 45 nm node for boron, BF 2 , and BF 3 doping profiles in amorphous silicon. Room-temperature implants of these three dopant species into Si(100) preamorphized by 7 4 Ge + (30 keV, 1.0 X 10 1 5 cm - 2 ) lead to boron concentration profiles that fulfill the technological requirements. It was found that even for ultrashallow junctions the time for the regrowth process at 650°C has to be optimized with regard to the implanted species in the range between 5 and 60 s, especially when fluorine is present. The thermal stability of the boron profile distribution that meets 65-nm-node requirements was evaluated by subsequent thermal anneals simulating the thermal effects expected for typical silicidation processes. For a more detailed investigation, the postannealing temperatures ranged from 250 to 1050°C with times from a few to several hundred seconds. All the junctions were analyzed by four-point probe and selected samples by secondary ion mass spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and high-resolution electron microscopy.


NAND flash memory has some advantages including small size, high access performance, low power consumption, non-volatility, and shock resistance, so it has been extensively used as the dominant storage medium that serves as consumer electronics. Nevertheless, it has intense different physical hardware constraints with hard disks. Hence, buffer replacement algorithms used in hard disks has bad performance in NAND flash-based solid-state disk. In this article, we devise an excellent clean-first adaptive buffer replacement algorithm for NAND flash-based consumer electronics, which is named CF-ABR. It maintains four-page lists in LRU (Least Recently Used) order, which are a first used page list, a frequently used page list, and two replacement page lists. The first used page list holds the pages, which have been referenced once. The frequently used page list stores the pages, which have been referenced at least twice time. The other two replacement page lists are utilized to store the pages, which have been replaced from the buffer. To capture the frequency and recency of pages, CF-ABR assigns a variable called reference to each page in order to record its hit count and adjust the lengths of four-page lists dynamically. A battery of trace-driven experiments has been carried out in simulation environment and experimental results demonstrate that the devised CF-ABR algorithm performs better than existing buffer replacement algorithms containing the hit ratio, the number of read or write operations.


In this article, we develop a novel indirect second kind integral equation formulation for the solution of the mixed boundary value problem for Stokes flows in a multiple-connected domain, where at the exterior surface the fluid surface traction is given (boundary condition of the second kind), and at the interior surfaces the fluid velocity is specified (boundary condition of the first kind). The theoretical background to the proposed technique is explained in detail, including mathematical proofs of existence and uniqueness of solution. Numerical results of test examples are included to validate the formulation.


The purpose of the present invention is to provide an electronic pen which is capable of responding to both an electromagnetic-induction type position detecting device and a capacitive-coupling type position detecting device. Provided is an electronic pen, comprising: a magnetic body core provided with a through hole and whereupon a coil is wound in a direction in line with the through hole; a conductive center body which is inserted into the through hole of the magnetic body core; capacitors for configuring a resonance circuit together with the coil; a signal generation part which generates a signal, for detecting a position, which is transmitted via the center body; an electricity accumulator part; and a charging circuit which charges the electricity accumulator part by an induced current which is generated in the coil in response to an external magnetic field. The electronic pen is capable of being provided with a state in which the resonance circuit is operating and a state in which the signal is transmitted from the signal generation part via the center body.


This article makes reference to the historical process that took place in Holguin during the 18th century. In this work the ethnical, economical and cultural phenomena are analyzed, as well as, the origen of Holguin as a creole–based society due to the emigration from neighbouring territories. The work explains that the 18th century is the starting point of the historico–cultural region of Holguin, with its peculiar features within the Eastern context of the nation.


We show that all the past attempts to formulate particle theory in a pure S-Matrix setting failed either on providing sufficient structure for starting calculations (the bootstrap setting) or on misunderstandings about the central issue of causal localization (dual model, string theory). In fact already the birth of QFT in the aftermath of the 1925 "Einstein-Jordan conundrum" was affected by an incomplete understanding of this property which had however little effect on the formulation of covariant perturbation theory. Recent progress about "modular localization" revealed that as a result of the S-Matrix in its role of a "relative modular invariant of wedge-localization" one obtains a new non-perturbative constructive setting of local quantum physicis which only uses intrinsic (independent of quantization) properties. As the Wigner representation theoretical approach to particles together with the second quantization functor leads to an intrinsic description of free fields and their algebras, the new setting aims at interacting algebras by replacing the functorial relation by "emulating" particles (free fields) inside the interacting wedge algebra. It is deeply satisfying that the arguments which deconstruct string theory are also the seeds for a new project in which the S-matrix plays a key role.


The liberalization of the natural gas market in the European Union has created incentives for the development of hubs and gas-to-gas competition. With increasing spot trading, there has been a progressive shift in pricing mechanisms from the traditional oil-linked pricing towards hub-linked pricing. In 2014, the share of gas traded that was indexed to hubs reached 61%, which can be compared to 15% in 2005 and 36% in 2010 (IGU, 2015). In addition, as energy companies respond to their exposure to the spot market, a greater use of forward contracts is made. In this context, liquidity, which can be described as the ability to match buyers and sellers at the lowest transaction cost (O'Hara, 1995) is of particular interest for researchers, participants and policy makers. Liquidity affects the cost of hedging and investment decisions and is a barometer of market quality. The importance of liquidity is reflected in a vast literature that focuses on different classes of financial assets such as stocks and bonds (e.g. Chordia et al. 2000, 2005) or foreign exchanges (e.g. Bessembinder, 1994; Danielsson and Payne, 2012). There are reports that liquidity may impact other measures of market quality, as for example, price volatility (e.g. Subrahmanyam, 1994) and trading activity (e.g. Chordia et al., 2002). Nevertheless, when academic studies of energy markets are considered, to date liquidity appears to have been neglected. In the present study, what may drive liquidity in the European natural gas market is considered. The National Balancing Point (NBP) forward market, which is the largest in Europe, is used as a proxy for the European natural gas forward market. The link between liquidity, trading activity and volatility is examined within the period 2010-2014, which includes when the EU Regulation on Market Integrity and Transparency (REMIT) came into effect. Therefore, the question of whether changes in link between these measures of market quality could reflect REMIT is also investigated. A unique dataset consisting of tick-by-tick indicative quotes (best ask and best ask) and transaction prices and volumes, obtained from the inter-deal broker Tullett Prebon http://www.tpinformation.com) is used. The data correspond to approximately a third of the NBP month-ahead forward market in the period studied. In order to account for the discrete and irregular nature of the data, cleaning and resampling procedures based on Brownlees and Gallo (2006) and Barndorff-Nielsen et al. (2009) is adopted. The focus is on the trading time interval 7:00-17:00, and observations outside this interval are discarded, as well as entries with negative spreads. Simultaneous quotes and transaction prices are aggregated using their respective medians, volumes and transaction counts are aggregated by using their respective totals. Outliers are detected. In all, approximately 2% of the observations are discarded. The data are then resampled at regular time intervals of 60 minutes leading to a sample size of 12,870 observations. Furthermore, the expected effect of the yearly seasonality of the demand for natural gas on the link between these measures is also addressed, and, in the spirit of Chordia et al. (2005), adjustment regressions are performed on the raw series. A vector autoregressive (VAR) model is adopted to investigate the link between liquidity, volatility and trading activity in the NBP month-ahead forward market. This approach has been used by Chordia et al. (2005), to investigate the correlation between liquidity, volatility, returns and order imbalance in the stock market, and Danielsson & Payne (2012), to analyze the correlation between volume, volatility and spread in the foreign exchange markets. Compared to previous research, a time-varying approach is used in this study, so that any change in the links between the market quality measures can be assessed. Parameters are estimated over rolling windows of fixed size (252 days, m=2,268) through the sample in order to evaluate their stability. Consistent with microstructure theory on asymmetric information (Glosten & Milgrom, 1985, Kyle, 1985; Easley & O'Hara, 1987), we find a positive correlation between trading activity and volatility plus a negative correlation between volatility and subsequent liquidity. The analysis suggests, however, these correlations are time-varying and follow changes in the fundamental values of demand, supply and inventory. Overall, the present study suggests increases in market transparency and competition over time. These findings are reassuring for policy makers and regulators. Nonetheless, no significant differences in correlations appear to have followed the entering into force of REMIT. References Barndorff-Nielsen, O., Hansen, P., Lunde, A., & Shephard, N. (2009). Realised kernels in practice: Trades and quotes. Econometrics Journal, 12, C1-C32. Bessembinder, H. (1994). Bid-ask spreads in the interbank foreign exchange markets. Journal of Financial Economics, 35, 317-348. Brownlees, C. & Gallo, G. (2006). Financial econometric analysis at ultra-high frequency: Data handling concerns. Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, 51, 2232-2245. Chordia, T., Sarkar, A., & Subrahmanyam, A. (2005). An empirical analysis of stock and bond market liquidity. Review of Financial Studies 18, 85–129. Chordia, T., Roll, R., & Subrahmanyam, A. (2002). Order imbalance, liquidity, and market returns. Journal of Financial Economics, 65, 111-130. Chordia, T., Roll, R., & Subrahmanyam, A. (2000). Commonality in liquidity. Journal of Financial Economics, 56, 3-28. Danielsson, J. & Payne, R. (2012). Liquidity determination in an order driven market. The European Journal of Finance, 18, 799-821. Easley, D. & O'Hara, M. (1987). Price, trade size, and information in securities markets. Journal of Financial Economics, 19, 69-90. Glosten, L. & Milgrom, P. (1985). Bid, ask and transaction prices in a specialist market with heterogeneously informed traders. Journal of Financial Economics, 14, 71-100. IGU, (2014): International Gas Union, Whole Sale Gas Price Survey Report, June 2015. Available on 28 January 2016: http://www.igu.org/sites/default/files/node-page-field_file/IGU%20Whole%20Sale%20Gas%20Price%20Survey%20Report%20%202015%20Edition.pdf. Kyle, A. (1985). Continuous auctions and insider trading. Econometrica, 53, 1315-1335. Subrahmanyam, A. (1994). Circuit breakers and market volatility: A theoretical perspective. Journal of Finance, 49, 237-254.


Preparation of Phenolic nanocomposites with the help of solvent casting technique was carried out by dispersing the chitin nano particles in water soluble phenol formaldehyde (PF). The nanocomposites were prepared by using water suspended chitin whisker as the reinforced phase and water soluble phenol formaldehyde (PF) as matrix. In the present work, crab shell originated chitin whisker was processed by acid hydrolysis method to prepare the chitin whiskers. The whiskers suspension consists of parallelepiped slender rod shape which can be used for mixing it with any water soluble thermosetting cross linking polymer. The suspension can be mixed with the water soluble aqueous solution of PF so that the suspension quantify for the varying fraction of chitin whisker particles ranging from 1 to 20 percent. Thus the varying fraction, whisker chitin reinforced phenol formaldehyde composites can be prepared by solvent casting process.


Progress is divided into 4 sections: substrate morphology studies (TiO{sub 2}(001)), fragments synthesized by thermal activation (hydrocarbon fragments, role of K on surface activity, N compounds), fragments synthesized by electron activation, and fragments synthesized by photon activation.


Paul Gochet raises several interesting issues about my Chapter 13 discussion of productivity, compositionality, the context principle, meaning, and formalization. In my response I concentrate on the question of units of meaning in relation to the context principle, and on the question of infinity and formalization. Resumo: Paul Gochet levanta varias questoes interessantes sobre minhas consideracoes, no capitulo 13, sobre produtividade, composicionalidade, o principio do contexto e formalizacao. Concentro minha replica na relacao das unidades de significacao em relacao ao principio do contexto e na questao de infinitude e de formalizacao. Palavras chave: Linguagem. Composicionalidade. Principio do contexto. Significado. Produtividade.


This is the list of original contributions to the Comptes Rendus Physique Issue on Coarsening Dynamics (Vol. 16, Issue 3, 2015).


In the EAP classroom, both teachers and students tend to focus on details. From time to time, it is good for students to see the big picture. We describe activities in which students accomplish complex tasks, giving a sense of achievement and an understanding of the whole. We offer a formula for such activities and invite participants to devise their own.


In this work,we conducted surveys on the fish resources in the Xushui River in September 2009 and May 2010.A totally of 29 fish species were found existed in the river basin,which belonged to 4 orders and 10 families.There were mainly the mountain,streams and cold water fish type at Taibai section in the river upstream,and the fish species were relatively fewer.At Chenggu section in the river downstream,where the elevation was low,the fish species were abundant.The two river sections showed significant differences in composition and mass density of fish species in different seasons.In compared with the adjacent mountain rivers,the fish resources in Xushui River were relatively abundant.However,external factors have begun to affect the survival and reproduction of the fish species.River pollution and other anthropogenic interference may cause irreversible ecological impact on the fish resources in the Xushui River.


A brief overview of the origins of modern accounting are examined with it's genesis in the Italian Renaissance. During this time period, trade and commerce expanded and new methods for tracking and recording transactions became necessary. Double entry bookkeeping was first documented by Luca Pacioli in 1458. Innovative Italian merchants and scholars of this time period have become known as the fathers of modern accounting. eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is currently the revolutionizing concept in the modern accounting world. Originally, known as Extensible Financial Reporting Markup Language (XFRML) in 1998, it was a prototype language created by the early users of eXtensible Markup Language (XML). The origins of XBRL will be examined in greater detail as the paper progresses, as well as, some of the underlying framework regarding the coding structure and technologies. The implementation of XBRL in industry will be addressed and how it is compared to any new technology in respect to market adoption and timeliness. The Technology Adoption Curve allows for one to estimate which stage and what time frame is associated with widespread acceptance and utilization. Taxonomies add complexity to the process, but cost savings and data accuracy and reliability are benefits derived via XBRL adoption and implementation.


A novel simple and selective electrochemical procedure is utilized for the determination of Dinoprostone (DIN) in drug substance and pharmaceutical preparation with good recovery and without interference with other excipient. Herein, the electrochemical sensing platform based upon preparing gold nanoparticle sensor on silica modified carbon paste electrode. The surface morphology of the modified electrode was characterized by scanning electron microscope. Different experimental conditions, including electrode composition, effect of pH and scan rate were estimated carefully by cyclic voltammetry to obtain the highest electrochemical response. By using square wave voltammetry a good linear response was obtained in the range of, 2 x 10-5-4 x10-4 mol L-1, and 2 x 10-7-1.6 x 10-4 mol L-1, with low detection limit of 5 x 10-6 mol L-1, and 4.9 x 10-8 mol L-1 by CPE and GNP/SMCPE respectively. The obtained results are in good agreement with those obtained by official method. No electrochemical method was reported before for determination of DIN. The developed method was simple, rapid, economic and challenging to green analytical chemistry.


The Drosophila eye is consisted of approximately 800 ommatidia and is subdivided into symmetrical dorsal and ventral domains. Its larval precursor, the eye imaginal disc, grows by cell division, increasing in number from about 130 cells at the end of the first instar to 9700 cells at the third instar (Wolff and Ready, 1993). Signaling events that occur at the DV boundary are required to coordinate this extensive amount of growth. Dorsal and ventral domains are distinguished by the asymmetrical expression of dorsal-specific wingless (wg) and ventral-specific decapentaplegic (dpp) in early eye disc (Cho et al., 2000). Dorsal wg activates the dorsal-specific iroquois (iro) gene complex whose products restrict fringe (fng) expression to the ventral domain (Heberlein et al., 1998; Cho and Choi, 1998; Dominguez and de Celis, 1998; Yang et al., 1999; Maurrel-Zaffran and Treisman, 2000). Opposing fng +


Motivated by the fundamental model of a collisionless plasma, the Vlasov-Maxwell (VM) system, we consider a related, nonlinear system of partial differential equations in one space and one momentum dimension. As little is known regarding the regularity properties of solutions to the non-relativistic version of the (VM) equations, we study a simplified system which also lacks relativistic velocity corrections and prove local-in-time existence and uniqueness of classical solutions to the Cauchy problem. For special choices of initial data, global-in-time existence of these solutions is also shown. Finally, we provide an estimate which, independent of the choice of initial data, yields additional global-in-time regularity of the associated field.


This paper outlines the design and tradeoffs of a compact custom capacitive charging and discharging circuit. The system has a maximum charging voltage of 10 kV at 2 mA and utilizes an external capacitor which can be chosen by the user. To maintain the user's set voltage a microcontroller (MCU) in conjunction with feedback from voltage monitoring is used to make real-time voltage adjustments until the user triggers the discharge. The discharge sequence is initiated by the user via a tethered switch that isolates the user from the high voltage components and has an option to abort the discharge by bleeding the capacitor through an internal resistor. The discharge circuit is capable of handling current surges up to 5 kA and voltage spikes up to 15 kV. The design metrics are discussed, and recommendations are presented.


The two-step crystal growth model has been employed to analyze the crystal growth rate data and much useful kinetic information is revealed. This report summarizes the important findings existing in the literature. Firstly, experimental methods are suggested to determine the parameters in the two-step model and the factors which influence the mass-transfer and surface-reaction coefficients are identified. Then the controlling step of a crystal growth process is judged from the effectiveness factor. Finally, the secondary nucleation rate data are correlated with the interfacial supersaturation, which is a variable appearing in the two-step model. Therefore, the crystal growth rate and secondary nucleation rate are closely related. As a conclusion, crystal growth and secondary nucleation may be considered as coupled phenomenon.


In India a strong son preference exists. This study quantifies the intensity of preference for sons over daughters in terms of its adverse effect on the probability of having more children. The author analyzes the demand or desire for additional children through a logit model estimated by maximum likelihood procedure. The study conducted in urban Delhi in 1970-1971 uses a sample of 1052 once ever but currently married women under age 40. The analysis indicates that the intensity of son preference over daughters is 3 to 1 among Indian mothers. The probability of having additional children among women with 1) no children is 85.5% 2) surviving sons is 53.2% and 3) 2 daughters is 77.9%. Intensity of desire for an additional child is much higher among mothers with more daughters among surviving children. Respondents with similar socioeconomic status education and occupation but who have a higher permanent income are less likely to desire additional children. Age and spacing of children have significant and negative influence on demand for additional children. Life style score which characterized the extent of modern outlook in the household respondents occupation and type of family have no significant influence on the desire for additional children. In conclusion the policy of postponing pregnancy among early parity women and overall progress in female education and employment will reduce the desire for additional children. These measures will also reduce the economic and sociological importance of having a son.


This is an introductory work to analytical properties of the futures market platform's main parameters. The underlying mechanism of this market structure is formulated into a mathematical dynamical model. Some mathematical properties of traders' positions, their potential and realized wealths, market open interest and average price, are stated and demonstrated.


The number of mothers who opt for artificial milk is growing. Therefore, to change this situation, strategies centred on educative aspects and forming opin...


Since March 1, 2017, third-party funding in international arbitration and related proceedings has been permitted in Singapore.This has brought Singapore into closer alignment with practices in other major centers of international arbitration. This article will discuss the development of third-party funding in Singapore and how this method of funding may develop in the future.


Background. The oxygen is the ultimate electron acceptor in the electron flow system that produces energy. Problems appears when the electron flow becomes uncoupled thus, generating free radicals. While the majority of processes require oxygen, the last is a highly reactive molecule that can damage cells by producing reactive oxygen species, such as hydroxyl radical, superoxide radical, hydrogen peroxide and hypochlorous acid, all together defined as triggers of oxidative stress. The last is involved in many types of pathologies, such as cancer, atherosclerosis and rheumatic arthritis. Antioxidants can stop formation of free radical by giving hydrogen atoms or scavenging them. The antioxidant can be defined any molecule capable of preventing or blocking oxidation of lipids, proteins and nucleic acids. The reduced glutathione (GSH), as well enzymes, glutathione peroxidase (GPO), glutathione reductase (GR) and glutathione S-transferase (GST) represent antioxidants which prevent the formation of new free radicals, converting them into less harmful molecules. The present study was conducted to assess the antioxidant activity of Taraxacum officinale (TO) ethanolic extracts with different bioactive contents. This experiment was conducted with extracts prepared from dandelion (Taraxacum officinale F. H. Wigg) leaves. A series (10%, 20%, 25%, 40%, 50% and 80%) of ethanolic extracts were made. The influence of TO extracts on RBC's GPO, GR, GST, glutathione (GSSG, GSH and total-GSH) and thiols (native and total) was evaluated by measuring absorbance spectrophotometrically. Conclusions. Taraxacum officinale ethanolic extracts exhibit a strong antioxidant activity. This plant is capable of preventing damage of cells during oxidative stress process, by using different targets of glutathione system. But, this activity depends of ethanol concentrations, maybe due to different bioactive content.


Crab meat (Second-grade) is a sort of meat produced by crab processing industry which has export quality. Crab meat (second-grade) used to a product which has value added but has not been optimal. One of effort to develop this product is substitute the crab meat with catfish meat into crab nugget product. Catfish is one source of animal protein which is cheaper but it has high nutrient. So the substitution is expected to be an affordable price of processed product. The research object is a product with a substitution crab nugget into catfish meat (Clarias gariepinus). The independent variables in this research were variations of substitution and dependent variable is the proportion of protein and flavor in crab nugget product. Chemical analysis is carried out quantitative analysis of protein and flavor. The design used completely randomized design in three replication. The results showed that there are effects of substitution catfish meat and crab meat on protein crab nugget product. While flavor of aroma, flavor and texture except color there are not effect on protein crab nugget product. The highest protein of crab nugget product is product with substitution L0: R100 is 10.06% while product with substitution L95: R5 has little protein about 8.15%. The result showed that favorite flavor of crab nugget product is a product which has substitution L65: R35 about 2.95 and substitution of product with L0: R100 has the smallest value about 2.56. Key words: crab nugget, protein, substitution catfish.


On the basis of introducing the basic principle and advantages of fiber Bragg grating(FBG)sensing technology,the layout schemes of FBG and temperature compensation technology in the Bainijing Tunnel No.3 in Kunming City are put forward.After 24-hour continuous monitoring,the influence of daylong maximal difference in temperature on the changes of the Bragg wavelength is discussed;and reliability estimation of the Bragg wavelength obtained by temperature sensing system on each monitoring tunnel cross-section is carried out.The calculation results validate the reliability of the FBG measurement system as a result that the standard errors of the Bragg wavelength are less than 14 pm.Then,the eight-month strain monitoring data illuminate that alternation of dry season and rainy season as an important factor is the reason in strain fluctuation of monitoring spots and rainy season as the main reason for the increase of strain change.Finally,an important monitoring position is determined;and the secondary lining of the tunnel is stable at present.The achieved results show that the FBG is good at measuring strain distribution of tunnels due to its excellent characteristics compared with traditional electromotive sensors and other optical fiber sensors.As a result,it is a feasible and effective method for structural health monitoring and damage detection of tunnels.


The alginate lyase-encoding gene aly of Streptomyces violaceoruber was cloned and inserted into the expression vector pET23b(+) with genetic engineering technology.Recombinant vector pET23 b(+)-aly was transformed into host Escherichia coli BL21(DE3).The expression parameters of pET23b(+)-aly in the E.coli BL21(DE3) were optimized for maximum alginate lyase activity with respect to IPTG concentration and incubation time.The cell free extract of E.coli BL21(DE3) harboring pET23b(+)-aly exhibited a alginate lyase activity of 6U/mg crude protein,when induced with 0.1 mmol/L IPTG and incubated at 16 ℃ for 8 hours.Furthermore,the ALY was deduced as a member of Alginate lyase-2 family by protein structure analysis.The theory pI of ALY is 8.85,theory molecular weight size of ALY is 28 500,and chemical formula of ALY is C1252N1920H356O394S9.The molecular weight size of ALY protein was detected on SDS-PAGE,which is closed to 28 500 of calculation.


This paper is dedicated to the problems of flight mission data automatic formation solution by the way of specialized software using.


Since the mid-1990s, Americans have been made more aware of chronic sleep deprivation and sleep disorders exacerbated by dominant temporal regimes of work, school, and family life, primarily through increased medical and media attention. Concomitantly, Americans have turned to medical treatments and pharmaceutical cocktails to achieve normalcy rather than attending to the social and cultural causes of sleep sickness. This turn toward pharmaceuticalization is aided in part by the proliferation of medical disorders and the pharmaceuticals marketed to treat them (e.g., "excessive daytime sleepiness" requires treatment once reserved for narcoleptics). These cocktails have explicit and implicit components: the former consist of pharmaceuticals, the latter of capital dependencies, including ties to medical insurance companies, stable employment, and familial networks. In this article, I examine the proliferation of pharmaceutical cocktails through the concept of the pharmakon—something simultaneously remedy and cause—to illuminate the causes and effects of such pharmaceutical regimens in contemporary American society, specifically those relating to sleepiness. Specific cases of this struggle between chemical dependence and normalcy are offered from my ethnographic work with patients who suffer from sleep disorders.


ABSTRACT With its accession to the European Union (EU) in 2004, Malta became a part of a European dispositif of border control. Maltese policy-makers are now charged with preventing migrants from reaching the EU mainland. Malta has thus implemented a mandatory detention policy towards people rescued at sea. When migrants arrive on the island, they are detained in military barracks for a period of up to 18 months. Subsequently, they are released from detention. Some settle in Malta, while others manage to leave the island. This paper combines critical security studies with borderlands studies to examine the construction and reinforcement of a border through social practices and government apparatuses. It explores migrants' own experiences of what is conceptualized as a securitized borderland. The securitized borderland concept, which simultaneously refers to a space of control, a zone of transit and a place of living, is ambivalent enough to capture the ambiguous situation of migrants in Malta. Empirical data is based on fieldwork carried out in Malta and Brussels, which included observations and interactions with migrants, and interviews with national and European policy-makers, as well as with representatives from international and non-governmental organizations. Finally, this paper offers an ethnography of the social construction of an island-border which epitomizes the concept of a securitized borderland.


Rotating bending fatigue tests were carried out on carbon steels and a nickel-based super alloy, Inconel 718, for investigation of the effect of CBN wheel grinding on the fatigue strength at room temperature and 500°C. The results are discussed from several view points, including surface roughness, residual stress and work hardening or softening due to grinding. The fatigue strength increased upon CBN wheel grinding at room temperature, primarily because of generation of compressive residual stress due to the CBN wheel grinding. However, this marked increase in the fatigue strength due to CBN wheel grinding tended to disappear at elevated temperature.


It is vital for governments at all levels in the process of making budgets whether their budgetary procedure is advanced or not, scientific or not. The "zerobased budgetary procedure", now on a trial in some regions in China, is one that takes no account of past budget items and income and expenditure levels, bases all the income and expenditure on the analysis of cost effectiveness so that everything starts from zero. This method is conducive to enhance budget management and restraint, optimize the use of capital and increase its yielding, control expenditure and balance income and expenditure, raise budget management level and boost the economic development. It satisfactorily overcomes the faults in the making of the national budget in the old planned economy. In the new socialist market economy, the "zerobased budgeting procedure" is not only scientific, but also rational and feasible in the making of budgets.


Diamond and AlN are, respectively, the non- piezoelectric and piezoelectric materials showing the highest acoustic velocities. So, SAW devices based on AlN/diamond are a promising candidate to operate at the highest frequencies. In this work we analyze both theoretically and experimentally the propagation along this structure of the 0 th and 1 st SAW modes and of the 1 st PSAW mode. The phase velocity and leaky propagation loss were calculated vs. AlN film thickness h, normalized to the acoustic wavelength λ, for different electrical boundary conditions at the AlN surfaces. For AlN/diamond, two different low-loss PSAW conditions have been observed in the 1 st PSAW mode at h/λ ≈ 0.09 and 0.15, where the leaky loss is below 0.001 dB/λ, i.e. it is possible that fast PSAWs degenerate into SAWs, at these points. The corresponding velocities are ≈ 15.9 and 13.4 km/s. Experiments on both SAW and low-loss PSAW propagation have been done using the same delay line configuration on AlN/diamond, at different AlN thickness. A good accordance between experimental data and theoretical predictions was observed for both phase and group velocities.


【The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of soybean varieties on the physicochemical and sensory characteristics tofu. Five varieties of soybeans(Daewon, Jinpoung, Hwanggum, Jinmi, and Manni) were selected for these experiments. Proximate composition and total phenolic acids in the soybeans, and the moisture, turbidity, lightness, yield rate, texture characteristics, and sensory characteristics of the tofu were measured. The Hwanggum soybeans had the highest levels of crude lipid and crude ash. There was a significant difference in the moisture and yield rate of the tofu(p】


Based on the survey of public signs in Hangzhou,The problems of their translations mostly result from the excessive dwellings on language structure caused by the discrepancy between Chinese and western thought mode.The translation has the distinguished feature of Chinglish which makes the version inaccurate or impure.The differences of the structure and usage of both Chinese and English should be taken into account in the translation of the public signs from Chinese to English,and the version should be directed by the culture and thought mode of the recipient and put emphases on the functional equivalence rather than formal one.


Historical and cultural landscapes are a promising basis for the development of tourism and the formation of tourist routes in different regions of the world. The study investigates the influence of cultural landscapes, their values and conditions on the urban development of the territories of ethnographic tourism on the example of the Belgorod region. The areas of archaeological landscapes of the Belgorod region are considered and analyzed, the promising areas for the organization of objects of rural and ethnographic tourism are identified, the principles of their planning organization taking into account the preservation of cultural landscapes are proposed.


Leaf secondary metabolites production and physiological leaf traits were analyzed in Corylus avellana wild type (WT) and cultivar (cv.  ́Tonda Gentile Trilobata ́, TGT) under different nutrient supplies. Three treatments were applied: control treatment with no fertilizer supply (WTC and TGTC), low nutrient treatment (WTLN and TGTLN) and high nutrient treatment (WTHN and TGTHN). The analysis of leaf extracts showed a higher concentration of Quercitrin and Myricitrin, with the highest concentrations of both the compounds in WT than TGT. This result can be related to the ecological role of flavonoids, including also antimicrobial properties, which resulted more useful in the understory forest form which hazelnut wild type originates. Therefore, their lower concentration in TGT can be relate to the genetic background of TGT cultivar with a lesser intrinsic need to produce such compounds and justified by a usual growth under more controlled environmental conditions, including also pest and disease control. Experimental Section Plant material and experimental design Experiment was carried out from April to July 2018 at the Botanical Garden of the University of Pavia (WGS84 UTM 32N 512814 m E 5003584 m N). Saplings of C. avellana cv.  ́Tonda Gentile Trilobata ́(TGT) (n= 30; mean height = 70 ± 5cm) from Alba (CN, Piedmont) and saplings of C. avellana wild type (WT) (n = 30; mean height = 65 ± 4 cm) from the understory of a deciduous forest, were grown in pots (diameter = 20cm, volume = 6L). Pots contained an organic commercial substrate (COMPO BIO, COMPO GmbH, Germany) with the following composition: organic carbon (C) 35%, humic carbon 11%, organic nitrogen (N) 1.4%, carbon on total nitrogen ratio of 25, peat (65%). The pH was 6.0–7.0. At the beginning of April 2018 saplings were randomly assigned to three different nutrient treatments defined on the basis of the nutritional needs of the species. A complete randomized design (CRD) with ten replicates per treatment was established and an organic mineral NPK fertilizer (Nutri ONE Universal liquid fertilizer) was applied twice a month. The fertilizer composition was: total N 5.5%, total P 5%, total K 7.5%, total C 4.5%, soluble Fe 0.1%, soluble Mg 0.03% and soluble Zn 0.04%. In particular, thirty saplings of TGT and WT were split in ten with no nutrient treatment and used as control (TGTC and WTC, respectively), ten were subjected to low nutrient treatment (TGTLN and WTLN, respectively, 0.5 ml equal to 0.62 g of fertilizer applied per pot twice a month) and ten were subjected to high nutrient treatment (TGTHN and WTHN, respectively, 2 ml equal to 2.48 g of fertilizer applied per pot twice a month). Microclimate measurements were carried over the study period. In particular, air temperature (Ta,°C) and relative humidity (RH, %) were recorded at 5 min intervals by HOBO data loggers (H08-003-02, Onset HOBO Data Loggers, Cape Cod, MA); the photosynthetic photon flux density [PPFD, μmol(photons) m −2 s –1 ] was recorded at 5 min interval by Sunshine SensorBF3 (Delta-T Device, UK).Over the entire period, Ta ranged between 10.8°C to 28.4°C, RH from 48% to 97%, PPFD from 1226 to 1600 μmol(photon) m −2 s −1 . HPLC-UV/PAD analysis C. avellana leave extracts were analyzed using a ThermoFinnigan(Japan) high performance liquid chromatography-photodiode array system (HPLC-UV/PAD) equipped with Surveyor autosampler, a Surveyor pump and a Surveyor PDA Plus Detector. Experimental data were acquired and interpreted exploiting XCalibur software. Each sample was dissolved in 50% water and 50% MeOH (5 mg mL -1 ) and filtered with a 0.45 μm GH Polypro (GHP) membrane before injection into the HPLC-system. The samples were analyzed on a Chromolith Performance RP-18endcapped (4.4 × 50 mm) column. The mobile phase is composed by Water (A) and MeOH (B), both containing 0.1% (vv -1 ) formic acid and the composition gradient was: from 15 to 30% B in 8 min, to 45% B in 7 min, to 52% B in 5 min, to 100% B in 2 min,15% B until 4 min followed by a re-equilibration step of 4 min. The flow rate was 2 mL min -1 and the elution was performed at room temperature. The UV detection was fixed at 264 nm. The analytical conditions reported above ensure a good resolution of Quercitrin, Myricitrin and Afzelinwith respect to the other metabolites present in the extract. A representative chromatographic profile of the extract is reported in Figure 4. Their peaks were unequivocally identified comparing their UV spectrum with those of the standard analyzed in the same conditions and by analyzing the chromatographic fingerprints of the extracts spiked with pure standards. Quantitative determinations of Quercitrin and Myricitrin were performed using the external standard procedure by means of a six point calibration curve with three replicate measurements for each calibration point. By contrary, Afzelin quantification was not possible because its content in the extracts was below the limit of quantification. Data related to HPLC method validation are reported in the SI. Extraction Procedure Dried C. avellana leaves were ground with a blade-mill (A10 IKA-Werke GmbH & Co. Staufen, Germany) to obtain a homogenous powder, just before performing the extractions. The so obtained raw material was then washed with both Hexane (100mL/2g of raw material, overnight) and Dichloromethane (100mL/2g of raw material, 7h) at room temperature under magnetic stirring. Matrices were then filtered and dried. Then, 500mg of the so obtained powder were dispersed in 15mL of solvent and subjected to microwave heating (2 min ramping, 5 min hold time, maximum pressure 120 psi, maximum potency 200W, temperature 80°C, 1 cycle) using Discover® SP instrument, CEM Corporation, Matthews, NC, USA. The considered solvents were Ethyl Acetate, Ethanol 80% and Ethanol 100%. The mixture was left to cool at room temperature filtered and concentrated under reduced pressure. Results are summarized in Table 1. The best procedure in term of extraction yield and chromatographic profile was achieved using Ethanol 100% as solvent. This solvent coupled with the microwave conditions previously described was exploited to extract all the different matrices previously washed with Hexane and Dichloromethane. S.1 HPLC-UV/PAD analysis Quantitative determinations of Quercitrin and Myricitrin (Figure S1) were performed using the external standard procedure by means of a six point calibration curve with three replicate measurements for each calibration point. Results are summarized in Table 2. The statistical control of the method was assessed by performing three injections of reference standard at the beginning of every measurement session on different days. The method accuracy was evaluated by assessing the analytes recovery by single-point standard addition method, spiking 3.00 g of samples with 0.1 mg of quercitrin and, then with 0.3mg of myricitrin. The recovery found by comparison of the spiked amount of analytes to the amount found in the non-spiked samples was as high as 97% and 98% respectively.


In this paper, we introduce the notion of intuitionistic fuzzy ideals, Artinian and Notherian - near- rings and study some of its properties and structures. Mathematics Subject Classification: 16D30, 16P99, 03E72


Many high-impedance ground faults (HIGFs) that happen in low-voltage (LV) systems often cause customer supply loss, fire, and human safety hazards. Traditional ground-fault protection is provided by the residual current circuit breaker (RCCB). The RCCB is usually employed in an analogue measuring circuit and often causes nuisance tripping due to capacitive leakage current and load-switching operations. It offers only ground fault protection to a certain extent and has difficulty in detecting HIGFs associated with a dielectric material defect. In this paper active power variation–based protection for HIGFs is developed, and a dissipation factor (DF)–based criterion for identifying load-switching operation is proposed. They are implemented by cross-correlation analysis between phase voltage and residual current in single-phase networks. A digital protection scheme is also designed. EMTP simulation results show that the new protection can remove the influences of capacitive leakage current and load-switching operations and is able to detect HIGFs and prevent electric shock with high sensitivity and robustness.


Epilepsy is a neurological condition affecting 50 million people worldwide. Patients suffer from recurrent seizures that disrupt various aspects of normal life and lead to brain damage and other comorbidities. Unfortunately, up to 40% of epilepsy patients have medically refractory epilepsy (MRE), which is unresponsive to medication. For these patients, the only solution is surgical removal of the region of the brain causing the seizures, or the epileptogenic zone (EZ). However, surgical resection is contingent upon correct identification of the EZ, a challenging task that is currently done by visual inspection of hundreds of channels of information. Unsurprisingly, resection has a 50% long-term failure rate, largely due to misidentification of the EZ. Repeated invasive monitoring to increase the accuracy of EZ identification is also not a desirable option because it is both dangerous and expensive. We have developed a computational tool, EZTrack, to help clinicians identify a patient's EZ using intracranial EEG data. EZTrack employs a novel algorithm to analyze the brain as a network during different seizure and non-seizure time periods in order to isolate the likely location of the EZ. In preliminary testing of EZTrack on data from 19 patients who underwent surgical resection, we were able to correctly predict all of their outcomes. EZTrack holds far-reaching implications for epilepsy patients, including reduced hospital stays, decreased costs, lowered risk of comorbidities, and better surgical outcomes. With EZTrack, patients who undergo the formidable procedure of surgical resection will have a significantly greater chance of actually living life seizure-free.


It is well known that porous ceramics have higher heat-resistance and larger specific surface area. So, porous ceramics are suitable for applications to functional components such as refractory, filters and catalysts. Even if applications of porous ceramics are functional, their strength properties should be adequately evaluated to guarantee long-term durability with satisfying the required functions. In previous studies (Yoshida et al., 2006) (Fujii et al., 2007), strength properties of porous ceramics were discussed by considering bulk porosity only. It has been recognized that the strength of porous ceramics with higher bulk porosity becomes lower in general. It should be noted, however, that not only bulk porosity but also spatial and size distributions of pores affect strength properties of porous ceramics; e.g., there is possibility that the strength of a porous ceramic material with higher bulk porosity increases by decreasing sizes of individual pores within the material. Actually, such an irregular behavior was confirmed in a porous alumina (Miyazaki and Hoshide, 2018). From a viewpoint of material design, it is desired that the strength properties can be predicted for pore characteristics resulted from a specified processing of porous ceramics. The strength properties are usually obtained by experiments. However, if the strength properties are determined experimentally, various ceramic materials with different porosities should be produced and a lot of specimens for respective materials should be prepared because very large scatter of strength is well-known in ceramics. Consequently, it is convenient that virtual porous ceramics with various porosities can be made and strength Abstract Porous ceramics are expected to be applied as filters, catalysts, etc. in energy related structures, because they have higher heat-resistance and larger specific surface area. Even for such functional applications, their strength should be adequately evaluated to guarantee long-term durability with fulfilling the required functions. However, it is very difficult to investigate strength for porous ceramics with various pore characteristics experimentally. In this work, an analytical procedure was proposed for estimating strength in porous ceramics by taking account of the pore characteristics, such as porosity, pore density and pore radius. In the procedure, porous ceramics were assumed to have the same characteristics of crack distribution as those of pore distribution, and pores were presumed to be surrounded by virtual cracks. For several materials with different pore characteristics, numerical simulations based on the proposed procedure were carried out to estimate their strength and to clarify effects of pore characteristics on strength. It was reconfirmed that the strength of porous ceramics had a general tendency to decrease drastically as increasing porosity. It was also revealed that the strength of porous ceramics were affected by porosity, pore density and average pore radius, respectively. Based on the simulated results, it was suggested that porous ceramics with higher strength can be obtained by including many small pores in producing porous ceramics with a predetermined bulk porosity. In other words, for porous ceramics with the same bulk porosity, various strength characteristics can be attained by controlling the pore size.


Objective: To investigate the anti-tumor effect of Phytosterol Acetate (PSA) and Phytoste-rols Oletate(PSO). Methods: PSA and PSO(10,50mg/kg·d) were given respectively to mice bearing transplanted tumor S180 by intraperitoneal injection for 9 days. The inhibiting rate of tumor growth, thymus index, spleen index, activity of catalase were detected. Results: Both PSA and PSO group could inhibit the growth of S180 cell efficiently and increase the activity of catalase in erythrocyte of S180-bearing mice. Compared with cyclophosphamid, they did not decrease the immune viscera weight and interference the growth of S180-bearing mice. Conclusions: To some extent, Both PSA and PSO could inhibit the growth of S180 cell in mice.


The invention provides a method for quantitatively discriminating nephrite production areas. The method includes the steps that firstly, nephrite samples of known production areas are prepared; secondly, the content of microelements of the samples is quantitatively tested, and test points are divided into a training group and a testing group; thirdly, the content of the microelements is subjected to significance level analysis to detect whether statistic differences exist between different production areas; fourthly, by means of the binary iteration linear discriminant analysis (IB-LDA) method, data of the training group are discriminated two by two, and feasibility of the method is tested through the testing group; fifthly, the production areas of the samples to be tested are predicted through the IB-LDA method. The method quantitatively discriminates the nephrite production areas on the basis of binary iteration linear discriminant analysis of the microelements, the mode that multiple traditional groups are compared at the same time is simplified into the mode that the groups are compared two by two, and the discrimination probability of each production area relative to other production area is obtained. Besides, the discrimination ability of a discrimination function is remarkably improved. Compared with the naked eye qualitative discrimination method and a traditional linear discriminant analysis method, the method has obvious advantages.


A Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation was carried out using MC method, to predict the microstructure of copolymer and investigate the effect of reactivity ratio on variation of microstructural properties, randomness and monomer sequence length, during copolymerization reaction in a batch process. For this purpose copolymerization of acrylonitrile (AN) with methacrylic acid (MAA), acrylic acid (AA) and itaconic acid (IA) were investigated. According to the simulation results, reactivity ratio had a strong effect on the randomness, monomer sequence length, homogeneity and blockiness of obtained copolymers. Considering the randomness and monomer sequence length versus conversion for these three systems, there was a certain value of conversion where the difference between reactivity ratios of each pair monomers had a positive effect on the randomness and homogeneity, while beyond this point it affected negatively. In addition an individual value of conversion for each copolymerization process, in which block formation suddenly increased, was obtained.


For more than a century expressions have been approached as bidimensional, static, instantaneous, self-contained, well-defined, and universal signals. These assumptions are starting to be empirically reconsidered: this special section of Emotion Review includes reviews on the physical, social, and cultural dynamics of expressions, and on the complex ways in which, throughout the lifespan, facial behavior and emotion are perceived and categorized by primates' and humans' brain. All these advances are certainly paving the way for new exciting approaches to facial behavior more likely to strike an appropriate balance between description and explanation.


Executive Overview Without question empowerment is THE topic of the day. Articles, books, consultants, and seminars all offer the practicing manager ideas, techniques, methods and reasons to immediately put this new powerful employee motivation/productivity tool to work. Yet, there is still a fair amount of ignorance as to what exactly employee empowerment is, how it might be implemented, and exactly what can be gained through its implementation. In this article we attempt to define empowerment, lay out a process by which it can be assessed, and offer an implementation strategy for managers.


Students of counterinsurgency warfare long have realized that its very nature leads the forces of order into some unusual places and subjects. In the declassified documents from the Vietnam era in the Kennedy Administration, there is a hilarious—because it was deadly serious—conversation between the President and his aides on whether to maintain a condensed milk program in South Vietnam or to cut it off to put pressure on the Vietnamese government for military and political reform. The leader of the Free World discussing condensed milk with top advisers! This incident demonstrates the interrelated nature of counterinsurgency programs: social, economic, political, and military factors very often are programmatically inseparable. This may drive many a professional soldier and diplomat to distraction (it did in Vietnam), but it is a type of challenge that is still with us. In addition to these material factors, the current Global War on Terror (GWOT) includes ideational factors that will be crucial to victory over the Islamists, that is, politicized, violent Muslim terrorists. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine General Peter Pace put it in October 2005, in this war "ideas are as important as bullets." The major goal of the Islamist strategy is to alter the social identities of the Muslim world to the point that their first loyalty will not be communal (family, tribe, clan, sect, region) nor national, but Islamist, transnational, and civilizational. Thus unified, the Muslim world will be ready to confront other civilizations, especially the West. Because secular schools are major transmitters of nonreligious, nationalist social identity, they are often the targets of the Islamists. This can be seen in Thailand, which has one of the most violent insurgencies in Southeast Asia. The provinces in southern Thailand that are in revolt are primarily Muslim and ethnically Malay, and have a long tradition of localism. The public school system is secular and national, and becoming more so, with much of the culture and history taught consisting of the culture and history of Buddhist Thailand, and in the Thai language. The Muslim reaction over time has been to create their own religious schools, called pondoks, to maintain their Muslim and Malay identity. When violence broke out in January 2004, the Thaksin government's response was to begin closing down some pondoks and arresting some of the Muslim teachers, based on the belief that they were hotbeds of Islamist radicalism. In retaliation, the insurgents began attacking public schools. One study found that, as of mid-2005, 27 percent of insurgent attacks have been against public schools and teachers, while only 19 percent were aimed at military or police targets. Buddhist teachers are quitting in droves, and those remaining now are allowed to carry weapons to class. With neither side seemingly in a mood for compromise, it is likely the violence will continue. The insurgent attacks increasingly are centering on Buddhist Temples and


This document describes how the alternate marking method can be used
for performance measurement method in a Network Virtualization
Overlays (NVO3) Domain. The description aims to be general for NVO3
encapsulations, but is focused to Geneve, recommended by the NVO3
design team [I-D.ietf-nvo3-encap].


Various types of orange sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas (L) Lam) are grown in Brazil and worldwide having different shapes and sizes and, especially, provitamin A carotenoids A contents. Given this diversity of the species of Ipomoea the study aims to analyze and compare the total carotenoid and β-carotene contents and, its isomers 9 and 13 cis (Z) from raw samples: cv Cenoura (Organic), the lineage (75) and cv Beauregard. The determination of total carotenoids was carried out by spectrophotometry in the range to UV / visible and beta-carotene by HPLC, according Rodriguez-Amaya (2008). Sweet potato lineage 75 presented the highest content of βcarotene as well as the 9 and 13-cis-β-carotene isomers between all studied samples being a good source of provitamin A, to be cultivated and consumed mainly in the areas of the low-income populations and the where this deficiency is common among children.


In this thesis I examine the numerical methods used in option valuation with analysis focusing on the more complex options associated with investment decisions. Two options implicit in many projects are identified and analyzed: i) the option to halt construction of a project, and ii) the option to shut down the production lines once the project is complete. The partial differential equations governing the values of these two options are derived, discretized, and solved using numerical techniques. Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Robert S. Pindyck Title: Mitsubishi Bank Professor of Applied Economics