I n his epic p o e m Punica (13.475) Silius Italicus describes the visit o f S c i p i o A f r i c a n u s t o the u n d e r w o r l d . T h e r e S c i p i o meets the ghost o f A p p i u s C l a u d i u s , w h o was fatal ly w o u n d e d near C a p u a . A p p i u s l amen t s that h e c o u l d n o t f i n d peace because his f r iends h a d fa i led t o cremate and b u r y his b o d y . S c i p i o wishes t o d o h i m this f avour b u t claims that h e does n o t k n o w accord ing t o w h i c h rites it s h o u l d b e d o n e , so h e lists a n u m b e r o f di f ferent practices: ' A l l over the w o r l d the pract ice is d i f f e ren t i n this matter , a n d u n l i k e n e s s o f o p i n i o n p r o d u c e s v a r i o u s w a y s o f b u r y i n g t h e d e a d a n d dispos ing o f their ashes. I n the l a n d o f Spain , w e are t o ld (it is an anc ient c u s t o m ) t h e b o d i e s o f the dead are d e v o u r e d b y l o a t h l y vu l tu res . W h e n a k i n g dies i n H y r c a n i a , it is the ru le t o let dogs have access t o the corpse. T h e Egypt ians enc lose the i r dead, s tanding i n an u p r i g h t pos i t i on , i n a c o f f i n o f stone, a n d w o r s h i p it; a n d they a d m i t a bloodless spectre t o the i r banquets. '1 T h e tex t goes o n l ike this b u t w e w i l l stop here because o u r interest t oday is directed at the E g y p t i a n practice. W e f i n d c o n f i r m a t i o n f o r this i n Lucian 's De luctu (21): ' U p t o that p o i n t , t h e w a n i n g , t h e s a m e s tup id c u s t o m prevails e v e r y w h e r e ; b u t i n w h a t f o l l o w s , the bur ia l , they have a p p o r t i o n e d o u t a m o n g themselves , n a t i o n b y nat ion , the di f ferent m o d e s . T h e G r e e k burns , t h e Pers ian b u r i e s , t h e I n d i a n encases i n glass, t h e Scyth ian eats, the E g y p t i a n salts. A n d the latter — I have seen w h e r e o f I speak — after d r y i n g t h e d e a d m a n makes h i m his guest at table! '2 T h e s e reports b y t w o authors o f the first and s e c o n d c e n t u r i e s AD s tr ike a m o d e r n reader as b e i n g f a i r l y strange. O n e w o u l d e x p e c t t h e m t o have i n s tan tane  ous ly p r o v o k e d scient i f ic curiosity. Surpris ingly , this is n o t the case, a n d these passages have aroused l ittle o r n o interest. I t is, however , n o t the place here t o e x a m i n e the reasons f o r this a w k w a r d s i l ence w i t h i n t h e academic c o m m u n i t y . 3 First o f all, o n e s h o u l d n o t i c e that there can b e l itt le d o u b t as t o t h e verac i t y o f these s ta tements . Te les , D i o d o r u s , C i c e r o and Sextus E m p i r i c u s c o n f i r m that the Egyp t i ans kep t the m u m m i e s o f the i r relatives at h o m e . 4 T o b e sure, s o m e o f t h e tex ts s h o w great simi lar i ty and therefore m a y d e p e n d o n each o ther o r o n stil l a n o t h e r c o m m o n source . 5 B u t at least t w o a u t h o r s k n e w E g y p t persona l l y . D i o d o r u s v i s i t e d A l e x a n d r i a d u r i n g the 180th O l y m p i a d (60—56 BC) — m o r e o v e r , R . M e r k e l b a c h r e c e n d y c o n f i r m e d t h e general reliabil ity o f paragraphs I 9 1 9 3 b y c o m p a r i n g D i o d o r u s ' d e s c r i p t i o n o f t h e j u d g e m e n t c e r e m o n i a l w i t h ev idence from the papyr i 6 w h i l e L u c i a n spent several years i n E g y p t , w h e r e h e he ld a h i g h p o s i t i o n i n t h e o f f i c e o f t h e pre fec t o f E g y p t . F o r the m o s t i n t r i g u i n g par t i n t h e passage q u o t e d above , t h e par t ic ipat ion o f m u m m i e s at banquets , h e even stresses his t e s t i m o n y as an eyewitness. I n s o m e o f t h e texts the Egypt ians and their strange hab i t s c lear ly f u n c t i o n as ' t h e o t h e r ' o f G r e e k s o r R o m a n s . 7 N e v e r t h e l e s s , this does n o t necessar i l y i nd ica te that the habits used i n this w a y were s i m p l y i n v e n t e d f o r t h e p u r p o s e . I n t h e case o f E g y p t , particularly, there ex is ted e n o u g h bizarre practices t o serve these needs , a n d this applies n o t o n l y t o m u m m i  f i c a t i o n i tself . A n i m a l w o r s h i p , f o r e x a m p l e , p r o v e d t o b e a m a j o r a r g u m e n t i n t h e m o s t l y u n f a v o u r a b l e c o n c e p t i o n s o f E g y p t , as propagated b y n o n E g y p t i a n authors . H o w e v e r , i t was also an actual a n d widespread pract ice i n G r a e c o R o m a n E g y p t i a n p o p u l a r re l ig ion . 8 W e f i n d f u r ther e v i d e n c e i n Chr i s t i an texts w h i c h relate that even the C o p t i c Chris t ians used t o keep the prese rved a n d a d o r n e d b o d i e s o f v e n e r a t e d persons , p r e d o m i n a n t l y m a r t y r s , a b o v e g r o u n d . A c c o r d i n g t o A t h a n a s i u s th is c u s t o m d r o v e St A n t h o n y i n t o t h e desert t o await his death i n sol i tude.9 I t was this c u s t o m again (and n o t m u m m i f i c a t i o n i tsel f ) that p r o v o k e d the censure o f b i shops a n d o t h e r h igher c lergy — an id le censure, as it t u r n e d out , as is s h o w n n o t least b y the display a n d w o r s h i p o f relics u p t o t h e present day. It can hard ly b e i m a g i n e d that the C o p t s ' i nvented ' the hab i t themselves , b u t i t is plausible to p r e s u m e that they a d o p t e d it from the i r pagan predecessors.1 0 S u p p o r t f o r o u r h y p o t h e s i s can b e f o u n d i n t h e m u m m i e s t h e m s e l v e s : F l inder s P e t r i e repor t s that several o f the m u m m i e s h e excavated at H a w a r a ' had b e e n m u c h i n j u r e d b y exposure d u r i n g a l o n g p e r i o d b e f o r e bur ia l ' . T h e ' m u m m i e s had o f t e n b e e n k n o c k e d a b o u t , the s tucco c h i p p e d off. ' T h e y w e r e 'd irt ied, flym a r k e d , caked w i t h dust w h i c h was b o u n d o n b y ra in ' . O n the footcases o f the m u m m i e s ' the w r a p p i n g h a d b e e n used b y ch i ldren , w h o scr ibbled caricatures u p o n it.' Petr ie already c o n n e c t e d his observat ions w i t h the t rad i t ion that the d e a d w e r e kept i n the houses o f the i r relatives a n d also assumed a domes t i c cul t f o r t h e m . 1 1 T h e passage i n H e r o d o t u s w h i c h Petr ie and others s u c c e e d i n g h i m d r e w u p o n canno t , h o w e v e r , serve as p r o o f . H e r o d o t u s reports (2.78) that at banquets p e o p l e i n E g y p t used t o s h o w a r o u n d a w e l l m a d e and n ice l y pa in ted veKpov £ u \ i v o v t o r e m i n d the participants o f t h e t rans i tor iness o f l i fe a n d t o e n c o u r a g e t h e m t o e n j o y the advantages o f the presen t .There are t w o m a i n reasons w h y this c a n n o t poss ib ly have a n y t h i n g t o d o


The Mirror Fusion Test Facility (MFTF) is the largest of the mirror program experiments for magnetic fusion energy. It seeks to combine and extend the near-classical plasma confinement achieved in 2XIIB with the most advanced neutral-beam and magnet technologies. The product of ion density and confinement time will be improved more than an order of magnitude, while the superconducting magnet weight will be extrapolated from the 15 tons in Baseball II to 375 tons in MFTF. Recent reactor studies show that the MFTF will traverse much of the distance in magnet technology towards the reactor regime. Design specifics of the magnet are given. (MOW)


Using a recently developed method (Petersen, N. O., W. B. McConnaughey, and E. L. Elson, 1982, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA., 79:5327-5331), we have measured changes in the deformability of lymphocytes triggered by cross-linking cell surface proteins. Our study was motivated by two previously demonstrated phenomena: the redistribution ("capping") of cross-linked surface immunoglobulin (slg) on B lymphocytes and the inhibition of capping and lateral diffusion ("anchorage modulation") of slg by the tetravalent lectin Concanavalin A (Con A). Both capping and anchorage modulation are initiated by cross-linking cell surface proteins and both require participation of the cytoskeleton. We have shown that the resistance of lymphocytes to deformation strongly increased when slg or Con A acceptors were cross-linked. We have measured changes in deformability in terms of an empirical "stiffness" parameter, defined as the rate at which the force of cellular compression increases with the extent of compression. For untreated cells the stiffness was ~0.15 mdyn/pm; for cells treated with antibodies against slg or with Con A the stiffness increased to ~0.6 or 0.4 mdyn/pm, respectively. The stiffness decreased after completion of the capping of slg. The increases in stiffness could be reversed to various extents by cytochalasin D and by colchicine. The need for cross-linking was demonstrated by the failure both of monovalent Fab' fragments of the antibodies against slg and of succinylated Con A (a poor cross-linker) to cause an increase in stiffness. We conclude that capping and anchorage modulation involve changes in the lymphocyte cytoskeleton and possibly other cytoplasmic properties, which increase the cellular viscoelastic resistance to deformation. Similar increases in cell stiffness could be produced by exposing cells to hypertonic medium, azide ions, and to a calcium ionophore in the presence of calcium ions. These results shed new light on the capabilities of the lymphocyte cytoskeleton and its role in capping and anchorage modulation. They also demonstrate that measurements of cellular deformability can characterize changes in cytoskeletal functions initiated by signals originating at the cell surface. Cross-linking lymphocyte surface proteins by multivalent ligands can initiate dramatic changes in the distribution and mobility of cell surface proteins. For example, cross-linking surface immunoglobulin (sIg) ~, the B lymphocyte antigen Abbreviations used in this paper. Anti-IgM, antibody specific for mouse immunoglobulin M; Con A, Concanavalin A; DME-HEPES, Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium with 20 mM HEPES and 0.1% bovine serum albumin; FITC-Con A, Concanavalin A labeled with fluorescein isothiocyanate; IgM, immunoglobulin M; PBS, phosphate-buffered saline; s-Con A, succinylated Concanavalin A; sIg, lymphocyte surface immunoglobulin; 2xPBS, twofold concentrated phosphate-buffered saline. receptor, by bivalent anti-slg antibodies first immobilizes (1) and then causes an active redistribution of the aggregated ("patched") SIg to one pole of the cell to form a "cap." Subsequently the cell shape changes by formation of a uropod at the site of the cap, and cell motility and chemotaxis can begin (2-4). Evidence from a variety of sources suggests that cytoskeletal contractility is involved in these events. They require cellular energy and can be inhibited by cytochalasins, which interfere with the assembly of actin microfilaments (2). Moreover, a morphological response similar to that which is observed after capping can be simulated by adding ATP in the presence of calcium and magnesium ions to glycerinated THE JOURNAL OF CELL BIOLOGY VOLUME 100 MARCH 1985 860-872 860 © The Rockefeller University Press • 0021-9525185/0310860113 $1.00 on A uust 7, 2017 jcb.rress.org D ow nladed fom lymphocytes (5). Immunofluorescence studies have demonstrated co-localization with both patches and caps of many cytoskeletal components which might be involved in cellular contractility including actin (6, 7), myosin (8, 9), alpha-actinin (10, l l), calmodulin (12, 13), and spectrin (14, 15). More recently, evidence for the participation of myosin light chain kinase in these processes has suggested similarities between the regulation of capping and contraction of smooth muscle (16-18). Other multivalent ligands such as the plant lectin Concanavalin A (Con A), which can bind to a wide range of cell surface glycoproteins, can elicit different but apparently related responses. On cells exposed to Con A at sufficiently high concentration the lectin does not cap, and it inhibits the capping of sIg-anti-sIg aggregates in a process called "anchorage modulation" (19, 20). Moreover, exposure to Con A paralyzes cell motility (21). Inhibition of capping by Con A probably results from retardation of the lateral mobility of the slg molecules (22). Although Con A might bind directly to slg, there is good evidence that its inhibitory effect on the mobility of slg is exerted indirectly through the cytoskeleton. The inhibitory effect is reversed by colchicine and cytochalasin B (22, 23). Furthermore, experiments in which the binding of Con A was restricted to local regions on the lymphocyte surface demonstrate that patching and slg mobility can be retarded at locations on the cell remote from the sites at which the Con A is bound (22, 24, 25). (Different responses to Con A can be observed under other conditions. On cells exposed to low concentrations of Con A [<5 #m/ml] or preincubated at low temperatures or with colchicine [which interferes with microtubule assembly] and then exposed to Con A, Con Aacceptor complexes can cap.) In these responses there seems to be a reflexive pattern in the interactions from plasma membrane to cytoskeleton and then from cytoskeleton back to the plasma membrane. The changes in the cytoskeleton and in surface-cytoskeleton interactions which result from the initial cross-linking can, in turn, influence the mobility and distribution of both the crosslinked and other membrane proteins. Although evidence for the involvement of cytoskeletal contractility in these processes comes from a variety of sources, the direction of cause and effect is not thoroughly established. Conflicting interpretations of the role of the cytoskeleton have been proposed (26, 27). In this study we questioned whether the proposed contractile response of the lymphocyte cytoskeleton to cross-linking surface proteins could be detected by direct mechanical measurements. We expected that the development of substantial contractile forces in the lymphocyte cytoskeletal cortex might exert a circumferential tension around the nucleus which would increase the resistance of the cell to deformation. To test this hypothesis, we have compared the resistance to compression of untreated cells with that of cells on which surface proteins have been cross-linked under conditions which lead to capping or anchorage modulation. This has been accomplished using a recently developed method for measuring the viscoelastic resistance of cells to deformation (28). We have found that there was indeed a substantial cytoskeleton-dependent increase in the resistance of lymphocytes to deformation in cells exposed to surface cross-linking ligands. This elevated resistance decreased after capping or exposure to cytochalasin D or colchicine. Certain ligandindependent treatments, such as elevation of the intracellular calcium ion concentration or exposure to azide ion or hypertonic medium, also increased lymphocyte stiffness. These results demonstrate the use of direct measurements of cellular viscoelasticity as a probe of cellular and cytoskeletal function. MATERIALS AND METHODS


A system under development for automated interpretation of oceanographic satellite images includes a Gulf Stream description module which uses a neural network which produces coefficients of an empirical orthogonal function (EOF) series representation of the Gulf Stream directly from processed satellite imagery. The Gulf Stream module consists of the EOF software and the neural network with input from an innovative edge detector. The Gulf Stream is the swiftest and most energetic current in the north Atlantic and meanders with a broad spectrum of variability on several spatial and temporal scales. Satellite observations provide a means to observe the Gulf Stream''s shape although clouds in JR imagery and other types of " noise" complicate interpretation. The Gulf Stream shape at any time may be represented as a series of complex EOFs (CEOFs) i. e. principal components which can be truncated after a relatively small number of terms (10) and still describe Gulf Stream shapes well (to within 10 km). These modes can be optimized from initial values with as few as 21 fixes on the position of the Gulf Stream axis using leastsquares estimation. The CEOFs interpolate between spatially intermittent observations of portions of the Gulf Stream as might come from JR imagery with partial cloud cover. The study described here tested whether a credible Gulf Stream can be produced using a neural network (simulated in software) that has inputs derived from


The present dissertation deals with broad issues of scientific importance to the field of Dietetics and Human Nutrition, crossing the frontiers which lie between what people say they eat, what they actually eat, what they should eat, and the ultimate effects of diet composition on health, which must be translated into advice and guidelines. Firstly it addresses veracity. Dietary mis-reporting and its relation with psychological and eating behaviour variables were assessed in adult women of varied BMI. A questionnaire, comprising several well-established psychological and eating behaviour tests and two questions to assess inclination to mis-report, was compiled and validated for understandability. The eating habits and dietary practices of subjects involved in food related occupations were then assessed. The fact that these food skilled groups are potentially influential in other people's food choice, including that of their own families, invited the hypothesis that these groups may have healthier diets than other occupational groups. The third study was therefore designed to assess the effects of salmon consumption on vascular parameters of the metabolic syndrome. The opportunity was used to study the effect of salmon on serum leptin as well, following a report of lower leptin concentrations amongst fish-eaters, suggesting increased leptin sensitivity.


Two new mononuclear complexes belonging to the series [Cu(sal)(AA)(ClO4)] (sal = salicylaldehydate, AA = aromatic diamines) have been obtained and crystallographically characterized. In the two compounds, [Cu(sal)(Me-2-bipy)(ClO4)] and [Cu(sal)(bipym)(ClO4)] (Me-2-bipy = 4,4'-dimethyl-2,2 bipyridine; bipym = 2,2'-bipyrimidine), the copper(II) ions exhibit a square pyramidal geometry with the chelatic ligands forming the basal plane and the perclorate anion coordinated in the apical position. The spectral properties of the two compounds were investigated in UV, visible and IR domains.


The phenomenon of secondary electron emission is of considerable interest in areas such as particle accelerators and on-board radio frequency (RF) components. Total secondary electron yield (TSEY) is a parameter that is frequently used to describe the secondary electron emission capability of a material. It has been widely recognized that the TSEY vs. primary electron energy curve has a single-hump shape. However, the TSEY–energy curve with a double-hump shape was also observed experimentally—this anomaly still lacks explanation. In this work, we explain this anomaly with the help of a millimetre-scale (mm-scale) silver pillar array fabricated by three-dimensional (3D) printing technology. The TSEY–energy curve of this pillar array as well as its flat counterpart is obtained using sample current method. The measurement results show that for the considered primary electron energy (40–1500 eV), the pillar array can obviously suppress TSEY, and its TSEY–energy curve has an obvious double-hump shape. Through Monte Carlo simulations and electron beam spot size measurements, we successfully attribute the double-hump effect to the dependence of electron beam spot size on the primary electron energy. The observations of this work may be of help in determining the TSEY of roughened surface with characteristic surface structures comparable to electron beam spot size. It also experimentally confirms the TSEY suppression effect of pillar arrays.


A survey was undertaken by the Florida Department of Transportation to determine state policies for lighting urbanized sections of state highway systems. Questionnaires were sent to 50 state highway agencies. There were 45 responses. It was found that interchanges and bridges/underpasses were the most popular areas subject to lighting, followed by tunnels, roadway signs, rest areas, and causeways, in that order. Responses showed that most systems were designed by a combination of in-house forces and consultants, design costs were borne by the states with federal and local agencies participating in proportion to their role or jurisdiction, 43 states paid the construction costs, and 38 states paid the maintenance costs. The results of the survey will be used to formulate changes in highway lighting policies within District 7 of the Florida Department of Transportation.


The battery's lifetime continues to be a critical issue in wireless LAN mobile devices. This paper gives an overview on energy-efficient scheduling strategies in IEEE802.11 WLAN, and proposed three improved polling scheme through a careful analysis of the mechanism of PSM (power saving mode) in 802.11 MAC protocol layer. The modified polling schemes can overcome the limitation that the energy consumption cannot reduce efficiently in conditions of the traffic load is heavy when IEEE802.11 works in PMS mode.


The current learning process of students is directed in a one way process. The teachers have to explain and the students are listening to them instead of being actively involved. It degrades their cognitive learning outcome. The application of Think Pair Share affects the students to become actively involved and giving an opportunity for those who want to comprehend their argument into the class. The additional approach of the method may support to make the students feel their own learning method which goes meaningful. The goal of this research is to know the role of Think Pair Share learning method toward the cognitive learning outcome of senior high school students. The research uses quassi experiments in terms of control class and experiment class approach. The result shows that the reduction of them are 33,53 and 17,21. The normality test result defines that the significance value is 0,0066 (>0,05). It means they have accepted H0, meanwhile the pretest and posttest mark of each class control and experiment distribute normally. The homogeneity test results show a value of 0.439 (> 0.05) so that H0 is accepted, which means that the pretest and posttest values from the experimental and control classes come from the same or homogeneous population. The result of ANACOVA test show that SPSS result is 0,000 (>0.05) so the H1 is accepted. It proves that Think Pair Share method using observation experiment is effectively significant towards the cognitive learning outcome of the students. From this situation, it concludes that the approach is having an impact into the cognitive learning outcome of the students


The application and popularization of LNG in China are discussed, and the development direction is put forward. Attention should be paid to the unification of practicality and economy.


The modern education initiated early in Joo Oda League and Jostu League.It has certain characteristics in the history of the upsurge and development of the modern education in Inner Mongolia.According to the records in various documents and archive,the modern education of the West,which took science and democracy as its connotation,was approached and acknowledged in Joo Oda League and Jostu League.Meanwhile,many new schools were set up and the educational activities were launched widely in these two Leagues.The education became more reasonable and scientific from form to content so that a lot of talents were trained for establishing industries and saving the nation with science and technology.As a result,it had performed tremendous function in the liberation of ideology,the awakening of the people and the development of society as well.However,due to the effects of the time and the historical sources,the development of the modern education in Joo Oda League and Jostu League had distinct regional characteristics.


The cluster structure of a Zr–Ti–Cu–Ni–Be bulk metallic glass is investigated by the methods of high-resolution field emission microscopy. Internal interfaces are revealed, having a density of ∼106 cm−1 and a width of approximately 1 nm. It is shown that the binding energy of the atoms at the intercluster boundaries is lower by 0.13–0.43 eV than in the interior of a cluster. Subcluster heterogeneities of the structure of the bulk amorphous alloy are observed, with a characteristic scale of the short-range order equal to 1.5–3 nm, attesting to the diversity of the short-range order in glassy melts.


The author critically examines the evidence for the effectiveness of the behavior therapies as described in the American Psychaitric Association's task force report on behavior therapy. He concludes that current attempts to evaluate behavior therapy suffer from inadequate methodology and that the claims for its therapeutic efficacy are excessive and unsupported by the controlled clinical evidence.


Today there is a huge gap in students' interest in STEM related subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Faced with this latent need, educational robotics is postulated as a means to bring these young people closer to technical-scientific knowledge. There are several types of robot and educational robotic kits on the market but they still fail to keep up with society and implement a teaching methodology that is attractive to young people. Facing this challenge, the HORIZON2020 STIMEY project is presented, in which a robot will be developed to meet these needs and increase students' motivation for technical careers. This motivation depends on several factors including form and capacity for interaction. Based on these factors the need arises to evaluate how a robot can generate emotions found in a student. Perhaps they can associate a human form with a person with authority to fear, or perhaps they can expect a completely human interaction and not find it rejection generator however elaborate and complex it may be. On the contrary, it may be that a robot with forms that are more neutral but with a greater capacity for interaction with the user generates a bond with a stronger bond when being associated as a companion or a mascot. This article aims to study and analyse the different types of reactions that a young person can experience when first encountering a robot. Based on a research it is intended to enhance the physical and functional characteristics of the educational robot mentor who can teach in an attractive and fun way in an underlying way. Technological design, pedagogical approach, colour combination, materials, voice recognition, humanoid or non-humanoid form, sensory and cognitive response, and some other aspects will be addressed in this paper.


T he science-to-service problem continues to taunt the field of education (Fixsen, Blasé, Naoom, & Wallace, 2009). As an academic discipline, the field requires knowledge generation that adds to or deepens theoretical understandings. As a profession, knowledge generation that solves local problems and supports continuous improvement is necessary. Using design-based research (DBR) provides a means of serving theoretical and practical needs in education, addressing the complexity of education by informing immediate practice while simultaneously contributing to theoretical understandings in the field of education. Using Stokes' (1977) model of scientific research and knowledge generation, we situate DBR within Pasteur's quadrant, describe how to increase its use, and recommend a new means for dissemination


Two cases of giant-cell arteritis with cerebral arteritis are presented. The clinical situation and the suggestive but nonspecific angiographic features make the anternortem diagnosis possible. Greater awareness of this entity will facilitate its diagnosis and the institution of effective steroid therapy.


Abstract Questions: Can a statistical model be designed to represent more directly the nature of organismal response to multiple interacting factors? Can multiplicative kernel smoothers be used for this purpose? What advantages does this approach have over more traditional habitat modelling methods? Methods: Non-parametric multiplicative regression (NPMR) was developed from the premises that: the response variable has a minimum of zero and a physiologically-determined maximum, species respond simultaneously to multiple ecological factors, the response to any one factor is conditioned by the values of other factors, and that if any of the factors is intolerable then the response is zero. Key features of NPMR are interactive effects of predictors, no need to specify an overall model form in advance, and built-in controls on overfitting. The effectiveness of the method is demonstrated with simulated and real data sets. Results: Empirical and theoretical relationships of species response to multiple interacting predictors can be represented effectively by multiplicative kernel smoothers. NPMR allows us to abandon simplistic assumptions about overall model form, while embracing the ecological truism that habitat factors interact.


In order to understand the effect of different vegetation restoration patterns on soil physical and chemical properties,the main soil physical and chemical properties( water content,organic matter,total nitrogen,total phosphorus and p H value) of three kinds of different vegetation restoration patterns( spruce forest,poplar forest and mixed forest) and different recovery stages of Dingxi Chankou forestry experimental farm from October 2011 to September 2012 were studied. The results show that soil water content shows the succession of mixed forest poplar forest spruce forest,the succession of organic matter,total nitrogen and total phosphorus content is mixed forest spruce forest poplar forest,but p H value shows the succession of poplar forest spruce forest mixed forest. The soil water content of spruce forest and mixed forest shows the trend of first increasing and then decreasing with prolonging of restoration years,the maximum value of soil water content appears in 30 a forest,however,that of poplar forest gradually increases. The organic matter,total nitrogen and total phosphorus content of mixed forest increases obviously in the first 15 a,that tends to be stable after 15 a,and the spruce forest increases gradually in the first30 a,showing a downward trend after 30 a,but them of poplar forest shows a slightly decreasing trend. The soil p H value of three kinds of vegetation restoration patterns all shows a slightly decreasing trend with prolonging of restoration years. The results indicate the soil organic matter,total nitrogen and total phosphorus of poplar forest are at the lowest level in Dingxi Chankou forestry experimental farm,and decrease gradually with prolonging of restoration years,however,the mixed forest has strong capacity of water storage and improves greatly the soil environmental quality,that is suitable for the ecological restoration in the region.


A study task is reported which is directed towards developing a conceptual design of a small, lightweight range and range rate radar sensor system to meet NASA's requirements for accurate short-range and velocity measurements in an orbital environment. Within the context of the requirements, the short range implies system operation at 0 m to 1850 m (6000 ft) and accurate implies a range measurement to within 1 sigma accuracy of 0.20 m (0.67 ft) and a range rate (velocity) measurement to within 1 sigma accuracy of 0.01 m/sec (0.033 ft/sec).


Transforming proteins into signals, and analyzing their spectra using signal processing techniques (e.g., the Discrete Fourier Transform), has proven to be a suitable method for extracting information about the protein's biological functions. Along with imaging, sound is always found to be one of the helpful tools that have been used to characterize and distinguish objects, particularly, in medicine and biology. The aim of the current study is therefore to sonify (read "render with sound") these signals, and to verify if the sounds produced with this operation are perceived as similar if generated from proteins with similar characteristics and functions, therefore if the information gathered through sound can be considered biologically and medically meaningful, and perceived as such. The approach taken was applied to distinguishing the influenza related proteins, namely H1N1 and H3N2 protein sets. The study, for the first time, reveals that sonification of the proteins allows to clearly separate the protein sets. This promising approach could be further utilized to open new research fields in biology and medicine.


A large number of marketing decisions are based on "expert" judgments. In the emerging field of expert systems, techniques are being developed for systematically representing and using expert knowledge in computer systems. The computerization of marketing expertise will enhance decision support to marketing managers. The authors evaluate the opportunities and difficulties associated with building marketing expert systems by discussing the development of NEGOTEX (negotiations expert), a system that provides guidelines to individuals or teams preparing for international marketing negotiations. Possible benefits of this methodology in other areas of marketing are identified.


Fundamental factor in communication of humans is nothing but Emotions. It would be ideal to have human emotions automatically recognized by machines, mainly for improving human machine interaction. Most of work in field of emotion recognition is done using recorded or offline database. Very selective research work is carried in real time high performance emotion recognition. In application of human computer interaction Real-time high performance emotion recognition is necessary for analyzing and responding to the user's emotions while he or she is interacting with an application. The proper choices of features and classifiers are important for a real-time high performance emotion recognition system. In this paper smart phone based real time emotion recognition system is proposed, which quantifies the sparseness in speech recorded on a smartphone and use it to obtain a highly accurate and sparse approximation of a widely used feature of speech called the Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) efficiently. The new feature extracted is the sparse MFCC or sMFCC. Classification of emotions performed using Multidimensional SVM and testing real time speech samples with training databases with emotional speech. Keywords—Smartphone, Emotion recognition, sMFCC, Support vector machine __________________________________________________*****_________________________________________________


Ionic liquid-based aqueous biphasic systems succeed in one-step clean-up, microextraction, and preconcentration strategies for biomarkers in saliva. These novel platforms improve the saliva bioanalysis in terms of simplicity and greenness.


Objective To establish an overall haemostatic potential assay and evaluate its ability to indicate the hypercoagulable state and the coagulopathy. Methods In the present of plasminogen activator (UK) the plasma clotting was triggered by the low concentration of tissue factor. The time course of fibrin formation and the fibrin degradation was measured by a spectrophotometer at 340 nm. The opacity curve obtained for coagulation-fibrinolysis was processed by a personal computer. The related parameters including the overall haemostatic potential (OHP), overall coagulation potential (OCP) and the overall fibrinolysis potential(OFP) were established. Results It was found that OHP and OCP were increased and/or OFP was decreased in the patients of cancer, normal pregnancy and coronary heart disease. The significant decreased OCP and OHP was found in the hemophilia patients. Conclusion It is therefore concluded that the overall haemostatic potential assay may indicate the body haemostatic balance. It is not only used for evaluation of the hypercoagulable state, also for the screening of coagulopathy


The introduction of [Mn(salen)(H2O)]2(ClO4)2.H2O ({Mn(III)2}) into the polyoxometalate (POM) systems Na3[XMo6(OH)6O18] (X = Al and Cr) led to the isolation of new {Mn(III)2}-POM composite materials with single-molecule magnetic behaviour.


• The common carotid artery arises from the aortic arch on the left side and from the brachiocephalic trunk on the right side at its bifurcation behind the sternoclavicular joint. The common carotid artery lies in the medial part of the carotid sheath lateral to the larynx and trachea and medial to the internal jugular vein with the vagus nerve in between. The sympathetic trunk is behind the artery and outside the carotid sheath. The artery bifurcates at the level of the greater horn of the hyoid bone (C3 level?). • The external carotid artery at bifurcation lies medial to the internal carotid artery and then runs up anterior to it behind the posterior belly of digastric muscle and behind the stylohyoid muscle. It pierces the deep parotid fascia and within the gland it divides into its terminal branches the superficial temporal artery and the maxillary artery. As the artery lies in the parotid gland it is separated from the ICA by the deep part of the parotid gland and stypharyngeal muscle, glossopharyngeal nerve and the pharyngeal branch of the vagus. The I JV is lateral to the artery at the origin and becomes posterior near at the base of the skull. • Branches of the ECA: A. From the medial side one branch (ascending pharyngeal artery: gives supply to glomus tumour and petroclival meningiomas) B. From the front three branches (superior thyroid, lingual and facial) C. From the posterior wall (occipital and posterior auricular). Last Page 437 and picture page 463.


Down syndrome (DS) is a condition in which the genes on chromosome 21 occur in three copies. This is supposed to influence the growth in the tissues of the body and this could lead to a decreased mitotic index. In view of this, the present investigation was carried out using peripheral lymphocyte culture to find out whether there is a change in mitotic index in DS patients. Mitotic index in male and female patients was reduced to an average of 3.64 and 3.82 respectively. Thus, the index could be an indicator of the reduced immunological status of the individual with DS.


Aiming at the problem of motion accuracy caused by dispersive dispersion in the design of the aero-engine rear variable area bypass injector, a multi-body dynamics model mapping dimension tolerance, part flexibility, and collision contact is established based on multi-body dynamics theory and ADAMS. The simulation results are verified with the theoretical solution, which is calculated in MATLAB to ensure the correctness of the simulation's results. The effect of key design variables on the motion accuracy of the mechanism is analyzed by the parametric module. The reliability calculation method is studied based on the improved Latin hypercube Monte Carlo method mapping the dimension dispersion. The method provides the relevant basis for the structural design of the RVABI.


The in ter na tional uni fi ca tion of pri vate law avails it self of sev eral types of le gal in stru ments. In some ar eas we find uni form com mer cial terms drafted by pri vate in sti tu tions like the In ter na tional Cham ber of Com merce; ex am ples are the In ter na tional Com mer cial Terms or Incoterms re lat ing to sales of goods and com mod i ties or the Uni form Cus toms and Prac tices for Let ters of Credit. In more re cent years model laws such as the Uncitral Model Law on In ter na tional Com mer cial Ar bi tra tion have been sub mit ted to the global busi ness com mu nity. Yet an other type of uni fi ca tion in stru ment is the cat a logue of Prin ci ples for In ter na tional Com mer cial Con tracts drafted by the Unidroit In sti tute for the In ter na tional Uni fi ca tion of Pri vate Law. But the in ter na tional treaty is by far the most im por tant ve hi cle for the uni fi ca tion of pri vate and com mer cial law. At first sight this ob ser va tion is sur pris ing since trea ties es sen tially pro vide for rights and ob li ga tions be tween states and other sub jects of in ter na tional law while pri vate law deals with le gal re la tions be tween in di vid u als and un der tak ings. It may be ques tioned whether a treaty is an ap pro pri ate in stru ment for this pur pose. The


Acquiring language provides a ubiquitous mode of communication, across humans and robots. To this effect, distributional representations of words based on co-occurrence statistics, have provided significant advancements ranging across machine translation to comprehension. In this paper, we study the suitability of using general purpose word-embeddings for language learning in robots. We propose using text-based games as a proxy to evaluating word embedding on real robots. Based in a risk-reward setting, we review the effectiveness of the embeddings in navigating tasks in fantasy games, as an approximation to their performance on more complex scenarios, like language assisted robot navigation.


The Northern Guam Lens Aquifer (NGLA) presents unique challenges to modelers due to the complex hydrologic properties of its thick karst vadose zone. To meet these challenges, we developed VADOCHARGE, an analogue model based on the US Army Corps of Engineers' Streamflow Synthesis and Reservoir Regulation (SSARR) model, to produce the effect of attenuated and lagged recharge through the vadose zone to the water table. It incorporates a soil moisture model to account for soil moisture storage, evapotranspiration, and recharge determined by a soil moisture curve relationship. To simulate flow through limestone bedrock, the model applies time storage routing technique in a series of reservoirs, to simulate the time arrival of both fast and slow recharge past the soil to the water table reach. The model is implemented by assigning recharge from the portions of the surface watershed to each node of an underlying coupled phreatic model. Several simulations were performed and adjustments to hydraulic parameters were made until a close match with observation well data was achieved. The results improved upon all former models of the NGLA, and provide the tool for sophisticated and accurate coupled vadose-phreatic models of the NGLA and similar karst aquifers. Copyright © IJESTR, all rights reserved.


Parathyroid hormone (PTH) activates an unidentified isoform of adenylyl cyclase (AC) thereby retrieving Na+/phosphate cotransporters from the proximal tubule membrane and increasing phosphate (Pi) excretion. Fibroblast growth factor (FGF) 23 is a novel AC‐independent phosphaturic hormone. To test for a role of AC6 we studied wild‐type (WT, n=10) and AC6 knockout (AC6−/−, n=9) mice under different Pi intake (low: <0.02% Pi; control: 0.6% Pi; both 0.8% Ca2+). Plasma Pi was similar on control diet (both 1.6±0.1 mM) but AC6−/− had lower urinary Pi/creatinine (Crea) (7±1 vs 17±1 mM/mM, P<0.05) despite of higher plasma PTH and FGF23 vs WT (1057±223 vs 140±23 and 923±124 vs. 629±119 pg/ml, P<0.05). Low Pi intake (7 days) suppressed PTH (11±5 and 7±7 pg/ml); despite of higher FGF23 (629±119 vs 302±78 pg/ml, P<0.05) AC6−/− had lower urinary Pi/Crea (0.09±0.01 vs 0.13±0.01 mM/mM, P<0.05) and maintained higher plasma Pi vs WT (1.3±0.1 vs 0.9±0.1 mM, P<0.05). Acute oral phosphate loading (0.5 M NaH2PO4, 1% of bw) under low Pi diet induced higher plasma Pi in AC6−/− vs WT (Δ change 30 min: 1.3±0.2 vs 0.8±0.1 mM; 60 min: 2.1±0.3 vs 1.4±0.2 mM, P<0.05) but urinary Pi/Crea tended to be lower in AC6−/− (60 min: 35±14 vs 63±16 mM/mM). Dissociation of PTH and urinary Pi excretion in AC6−/− is consistent with AC6 mediating PTH‐induced inhibition of renal Pi reabsorption, while upregulation of FGF23 may compensate.


Objective:Understand the intestinal bleeding E.coli 0157:H7 animal host carrier situation of Xishuangbanna state,in order to provide the basis for the development of control strategies.Methods: Use immunomagnetic enrichment method,collected 282 households of pigs,cattle,chickens,ducks,geese,sheep,pigeons fresh stool samples for EHEC O157: H7 detection.Results: 27 samples were found O157:H7 positive and the carrying rate in animals was 9.57%.Carrying rate was highest in cattle(15.05%) and the carrying rate in duck,pig and chicken was 13.64%,9.41% and 3.45%.Geese,sheep,pigeons were not detected in animal reservoir of EHEC O157: H7.Conclusion: EHEC O157:H7 infection exist in the animal reservoir in Xishuangbanna state,which is a potential pandemic threat.


Multiple sequence alignment is an important tool for computational analysis of nucleotide or amino acid sequences. It is also a challenging combinatorial optimization problem in computer science. As a large amount of sequence data is becoming available from genome and other large-scale sequencing projects, efficiency, as well as accuracy, is currently required for a multiple sequence alignment program. Several new programs are being developed aiming at improving both efficiency and accuracy. We overview the algorithms and performances of new programs including that by ourselves.


Thirty diverse genotypes of long melon (cucumis melo var. utilissimus) were studies during zaid 2002. All the replications were sown in 3 rows each of 5 meter long. Space as 1 meter between row-to-row 60 cm between plant to plant in three replications at department of vegetable science Kalyanpur Kanpur. The observation were recorded on five randomly selected· plant for middle row for nine quantative traits viz. days to flower length of vine, number of primary branches, number of nodes per vine, length of inter node, length of fruit, width of fruit, number of fruits per plant and yield per plant the various plant parameters to assess their genetic divergence using D2- statistics genotypes were grouped into five clusters. The inter cluster distance was greatest observed between I and II cluster followed by I and IV, suggesting wide diversity between these groups. The maximum divergence was provided node at which first female flower opened while minimum diverence was provided by total yield per plant.


While colleges and universities carry out the spirit of the Sixteenth Party Congress and overall construct the comparatively well-off society, they must be devoted representative of advanced culture;they must strengthen the teachers' and students' ideal and faith education; they must improve the teachers' and students' scientific and cultural quality; they must strengthen the construction of campus ideas and culture and they must strengthen the team of teaching staff.


The purpose of this study was to evaluate city amenity and to analyze factors affecting amenity environment by establishing the index system of amenity evaluation and comparing them among six cities of Kyonggi-do. We conducted a study of posing questionnaire for residents in six cities, including Ansan, Anyang, Sungnam, Suwon, Uijongbu, Puchon, There was a considerable difference in the degree of satisfaction by residents to amenity indices among six cities, in the order of Ansan>Sungnam> Suwon>Anyang>Uijongbu>Puchon, Based on the results, environmental load by destruction of natural resources adversely affected not only air and water quality conditions but also overall amenity environment among 6 cities. Especially, Suwon residents showed relatively high degree of satisfaction in indices of regional history and culture. The analysis of weighted values indicated that clean air and history and culture parameters were most important in the preparation of amenity plan in Uijongbu and Puchon, respectively.


To analyze the motives and features of students'suicide, the author put forward some suggestions to create a better campus surroundings by setting up a preventative network for psychological health and then some countermeasures to improve the students'ability in undertake the frustration in mental so that college students'mental health and life safe can be insured.


In this paper, we propose the structure of the 3D vertical cross point memory (3DVXP) having byte-addressability and discuss the possible challenges and requirements from the structural point of view. The necessity of a poly-Si vertical transistor for column selection and the feasibility of current drivability are presented. The structure driven parasitic resistance and capacitance problems on the device performances are discussed, and the resulting trade-off between the operation speed and the cell density is provided. We also demonstrate the advantage and the feasibility of the selectable memory, based on the memory-selector duality, for the application of 3DVXP.


The dislocation features in polysynthetically twinned (PST) TiAl crystal deformed at room temperature have been investigated by TEM. Large amount of microtwins,1 / 2 110] ordinary dislocations, 011] and 1 / 2112] superlattice dislocations have been found. The 011] dislocations often dissociate according to the following mode:[101]→1 / 2[101] + APB + 1 / 6[211] + SISF+1 / 6[12] The 1 / 2 112] dislocations often dissociate to form faulted dipoles bounded by 1 / 6 1 12]partial dislocations. The effects of these features on the deformation of PST TiAl crystal at room temperature have been discussed.


Sun Yat-sen's natural force theory of the formation and distinction of nations laid the foundation for his view of nationalism.Sun's formation of nationalism was a dynamic process,adapting Zhu Yuanzhang's concept and adjusting it according to the changing situations.The process embodied the flexibility and strategy characterizing Sun as a statesman,thinker and revolutionary.


Summary The article is the attempt to answer the question: what physical injury could cause the Crown of Thorns, which was placed on the head of Jesus. Analysis of this event and its effects, was carried out on the basis of the study of the Shroud of Turin, Sudarium of Oviedo, Sainte Coiffe. In addition, there has been included information on Jewish funeral procedures and the study of plant species, which served the soldiers to make the crown of thorns for Jesus.


During the passage of trypanosomes through mammalian and insect hosts, the surface of the trypanosome must withstand a variety of strategies that its hosts have evolved to try to eliminate it. The Paper of the Week from Bianca Loveless et al. sheds light on the proteins that coat and protect the trypanosome T. congolense and the dynamic reorganization of the coat that occurs as the parasite traverses its life cycle. The major coat protein that protects the parasite against proteases in the insect midgut in the insect phase is named the Gluand Ala-rich coat surface protein (GARP). The corresponding protein that coats the trypanosome in its mammalian phase is VSP (variant surface protein), a protein that has developed several variants to evade host immune responses. Using a suite of experimental approaches that includes crystallography, immunofluorescence, and epitope mapping, the authors have defined GARP's three-dimensional structure. An extended core of twisted helices allows GARP to pack tightly on the trypanosome cell surface to form a dense protective shield. The structure of GARP also explains how the parasite is able to exchange GARP for VSP without ever being exposed to the host's defenses. Because the surface of GARP is also complementary to the surface of VSP, individual molecules of GARP and VSP can exchange without disrupting the packing of the protective shield that protects the parasite.


In this paper, we report on our investigation of environmental sound recognition using a deep neural network (DNN). Preparing a sufficient amount of training data is generally important in machine learning On the other hand, different environmental sounds such as cicada and ambulance sounds occur while overlapping each other. As a result, training data including mixtures of different sounds are necessary for environmental sound recognition. However, it is difficult to obtain all combinations of different sounds in real-recorded data. In this study, we increased the amount of training data using artificially-mixed sounds. First, some distinctive single sounds which were recorded on different days near the sound sources individually were selected, or others were separated from the real-recorded data by extracting appropriate parts in the time domain. Those sounds which mainly consisted of a single sound source were applied filters to reduce other sounds in the frequency domain. Next, they were mixed with different ratios of sound levels, simulating a variation of possible mixings in the real environment. Finally, both the real-recorded data and the artificially-mixed sound data were used for training the DNN and we then conducted on environmental sound recognition. We show that this approach achieves more accurate results than the ones using only real-recorded data.


A novel chromium resistant and reducing bacterium was isolated from tannery waste contaminated soil. On the basis of different morphological, biochemical characteristics and 16S rRNA gene analysis the strain was identified as Enterobacter amnigenus EA31. The strain reduced Cr(VI) under a wide range of concentrations from 100 to 400 mg/L with a maximumat 100 mg/L. Optimum temperature and pH being 37°C and 9 respectively for maximum chromium reduction. The bacterial culture were repeatedly added with 25 mg/L Cr(VI) until saturation in Cr(VI) reduction was observed. Repeated detoxification of 25 mg/L Cr(VI) could be achieved up to three consecutive inputs. The suspended culture repeatedly reduced 25 mg/L Cr(VI) within 6 h up to three consecutive inputs. The reduction of chromium occurred even in the presence of high concentration of other heavy metals. Assay with resting and permeabilised cells (treated with toluene and Triton X-100) demonstrated that Cr(VI) reduction activity was soluble and not tightly bound to the cell membrane. Inoculation with E. amnigenus improved the growth parameters of wheat and clover under chromium stress. The results suggest that E. amnigenus can be exploited for bioremediation of chromium under various environmental conditions.


To evaluate long‐term progression‐free survival and overall survival, quality of life, and cognitive function in primary central nervous system lymphoma after systemic and intraventricular chemotherapy without radiotherapy.


The transition of the conventional power grid into the smart grid requires continuous monitoring of integrated grids speared over wide-area through Phasor Measurement Units (PMU). These PMUs additionally perform protection and state estimation functions in the smart grid. This paper discusses implementation of a new phasor estimation method to eliminate the effects of Decaying DC (DDC) component and off-nominal frequencies during the extraction of the phasors from a relaying signal. The practical implementation of the proposed method in a low-cost microcontroller (ESP32-WROOM-32 development board) in compliance with the requirements of IEEE C37.118.1a-2011 standard is also demonstrated. The analysis of various existing algorithms estimating the phasors is carried out. The microcontroller is programmed with the best among the analysed algorithm and its feasibility to function as a proper Phasor Measurement Unit is tested. The newly designed PMU is rigorously tested with different estimation methods compliant with IEEE C37.118a-2011 standard. The comparison of the proposed method with different phasor estimation algorithms is also discussed.


The Age-Layered Population Structure (ALPS) paradigm is a novel metaheuristic for overcoming premature convergence by running multiple instances of a search algorithm simultaneously. When the ALPS paradigm was first introduced it was combined with a generational Evolutionary Algorithm (EA) and the ALPS-EA was shown to work significantly better than a basic EA. Here we describe a version of ALPS with a steady-state EA, which is well suited for use in situations in which the synchronization constraints of a generational model are not desired. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our version of ALPS we compare it against a basic steady-state EA (BEA) in two test problems and find that it outperforms the BEA in both cases.


Device for cylinder identification, comprising: - several cylinders of a reciprocating internal combustion machine, - a plurality of ignition coils, wherein each cylinder is associated with an ignition coil, -, each ignition coil is associated with a circuit means and connected to a plurality of circuit devices and wherein the respective circuit means is constructed such that it charges the associated ignition coil to a predetermined value which is smaller than the value of a fully charged for a normal ignition coil, characterized in that each of these circuit means detects the duration of ionization of each associated cylinder and having - at least one detector (415) for the rising edge of the ionization signal with at least one input; - at least one detector (420) for the trailing edge of the ionisation signal with at least one input; - at least one flip-flop (425) having a first input connected to an output of the detector (415) for the rising edge, and a second input connected to a ...


The paper proposes a medium voltage Z-source ac-dc-ac converter for mining application. It could provide buck-boost function and make the role of frequency changer. Compared to the traditional ac-dc-ac converter, it has higher efficiency and better circuit characteristics. The circuit topology, operating principle, simulation results will be given in this paper, and the rationality and feasibility is verified.


As design review and multicultural constituencies become more and more prevalent, planners will have increasing needs to make aesthetic decisions that may be contingent on social or cultural factors. Accordingly, it would be useful for planners to have access to the body of empirical literature that has been published on the demographic effects in environmental aesthetics. A literature review found 107 relevant references. These references covered more than 19,000 respondents and 3,281 environmental scenes. Overall, the correlation of preferences between different demographic groups was r = .82. Correlations are also reported for the following factors: multiculturalism, designers and other people, students and other people, children and adults, gender, and special interest groups. Correlations were very high except for children, designers and others for avant-garde architecture, and special interest groups.


The translational symmetric associated with photonic crystal is absent in the rotationally symmetric quasiperiodic photonic crystal (QPCs), and the quasiperiodic photonic crystal has more defect modes than photonic crystal because of it. In this paper, we investigate the defect modes in the 12-fold quasiperiodic photonic crystal by the multiple scattering method. We find that there is a directional defect mode in quasiperiodic photonic crystal. When the defect rotates against the centre of the symmetry, there emerges a new defect mode.


Objective:To analysis of our hospital drug withdrawal for out-patients and emergency to reduce the occur-rence of irrational drug withdrawal.Methods:Statistical analysis the distribution of the reasons for drug withdrawal,the distribution of departments for drug withdrawal and the distribution of drug withdrawal on drugs.Results:Patients' condition changes,adverse drug reactions and treatment of patients with mismatch were the top three reasons;pediatrics,emer-gency department,neurology were the top three departments for the number of drug withdrawal;withdrawal of drugs primar-ily for drug injection with antibiotics and Traditional Chinese Medicine injections.Conclusion:Irrational drug use and lack of communication between doctors and patients are the main reason for unreasonable drug withdraw,we should strengthen the patient-centered services in promoting the rational use of medicines to reduce the occurrence of the phe-nomenon of drug withdrawal.


Opsonic activity of dialysis effluent predicts those at risk of Staphylococcus epidermidis peritonitis, by C. A. Coles, H. M. M. Alobaidi, N. Topley, and M. Davies. Nephrol Dial Transplant 2:359–365, 1987


A lightly doped n- type semiconductor layer (12) is epitaxially grown on a heavily doped n- type semiconductor substrate (11), and a heavily doped n-type impurity region (13), a lightly doped p- type deep guard ring (15) and a heavily doped p- type shallow impurity region (14) are formed in said lightly doped semiconductor layer (12) in such a manner that a diode (20) has a major p-n junction (a) between the heavily doped n- type impurity region (13) and the heavily doped p-type shallow impurity region (14) and other p-n junction (b) between the lightly doped n- type semiconductor layer (12) and the lightly doped p- type guard ring (15), wherein the other p-n junction (b) is wider in area than the major p-n junction (a) so that the breakdown voltage is adjustable without increase of parasitic capacitance dominated by the other p-n junction (b).


1: Promoting the Media, Scope & Goals 2: Commercial Radio Production 3: Local TV Station Promotion, News, Syndication and Sales 4: Management, Research and Budgeting for Production 5: Designing Promotional Messages 6: Network TV Promotion 7: Cable TV Promotion 8: New Media Promotion 9: Promotion in Public TV and Radio 10: Global Marketing and Promotion of TV. Glossary.


It has already been reported by the author that the production of antibodies is distinctly accelerated when a bacterial vaccine is applied in combination with the purified vaccinia lymph. Furthermore, a prompt suppression of paroxysms especially in the case of whooping cough, which can never be explained by the said rapid formation of antibodies alone, ha led us to assume the existence of antiallergic action inherent to the living vaccinia virus. An experiment to ascertain such influence proved a marked desensitizing action by the anaphylactic shock test upon guinea pigs. Namely, when guinea pigs, sensitized to horse serum, were treated with a small amount of purified vaccinia virus prior to the provocative dose of horse serum, proved to be exempt from the anaphylactic shock. Purified vaccinia lymph inactivated by heating showed no such effect1-8 The author has also observed that Vitamin B2 shows antianaphylactic efficacy but not as active as the purified vaccinia lpmph, but superior to Vitamin C9). These findings have led us to examine the effect of purified vaccinia virus on bronchial asthma. On 85 Patients who have been treated by the author in Tokyo since 1942 will be described at this time. Of this group, one was a case of cardiac asthma, and 3 were the cases of so called asthmatic tuberculosis. The age of the treated patients varied from 2 to 66 years old. Among these cases 34 had anamnesis of so-called infantile asthma, and 11 others were suffering from at the time of treatment. Congenital predisposition to asthma was perceived in 11 cases, the tact which suggests that there may have been a still greater number of similar instances. Disposition or causes of the seizure considered were exudative constitution, autopoisoning, eczema, nasal catarrh and angina, also inhalation of gases (of charcoal, poisonous, pyrethrinic, etc.), post-operational, exhausting labour, colds, bronchitis, measles, whooping cough and pneumonia. Change of climate, rain or shine, humidity, chill, topographical and housing defeat, malnutrition and especially excessive eating. Mental and physical-exhaustion, menstruation in women, pregnancy, influence of specific allergen, etc., have also been regarded as the possible direct factors. Seasonal influence seemed to be of special importance ; spring and autumn, when a


The paper analyzes the design cases for the justification of geotechnical structures according to the Eurocodes in terms of soil-structure interaction conditions and compares implications of three cases of the draft Eurocode 7.


The current condition and peculiarities of Russian shipbuilding industry are revealed. The necessity of government support of domestic shipbuilders is substantiated. Using the example of the establishment and development of national shipbuilding in the USA, the priorities in the government support of domestic shipbuilding industry are considered.


Popular culture becomes an arena for identity negotiations, including femininity and masculinity in social spaces. Many people in society have their own views on the issue of femininity and masculinity, so there are various opinions that arise from it. One of them is about the representation of real men who have various opinions from various parties, as discussed by one of Emil Mario's content on tik tok. This study aims to describe real men according to Emil Mario and responses from other parties with different perspectives, such as from the point of view of religion, psychology and ordinary people on this issue. The method used in this research is qualitative using the theory of John W. Creswell. The data was collected by using the observation technique on Emil's video and responses from several other parties, then recording their opinions. The results of this study indicate that there are different points of view because there are many cultural aspects that appear, especially on Tik Tok content.


We define the notion of a relative matrad and realize the free relative matrad as a free H_\infty-bimodule structure on cellular chains of bimultiplihedra JJ={JJ_{n,m} = JJ_{m,n}}. We define a morphism G:A => B of A_\infty-bialgebras as a bimodule over H_\infty and prove that the homology of every A_\infty-bialgebra over a commutative ring with unity admits an induced A_\infty-bialgebra structure. We extend the Bott-Samelson isomorphism to an isomorphism of A_\infty-bialgebras and identify the A_\infty-bialgebra structure of H_*(\Omega\Sigma X; Q). For each n>1, we construct a space X_n and identify an induced nontrivial A_\infty-bialgebra operation \omega_2^n : H^*(\Omega X_n; Z_2)^2 -> H^*(\Omega X_n; Z_2)^n.


In a number of field studies in which the conflict-observation method was used there was some doubt how long the observation should be continued. Two main problems were analyzed: (1) how long should an observation be made before casual as well as systematic fluctuations can be eliminated as much as possible (representative measuring period), and (2) how long should a period be to get a fair idea of the situation if the conflict observations are being carried out to make a diagnosis or to determine the effects of countermeasures in before and after studies. Specific questions also play a role. There is a difference depending on whether all conflicts at a junction or only driving to the left manoevres are to be evaluated. Methods used in different countries are discussed. (TRRL)


Introduction In contemporary China, conditions for doing fieldwork are increasingly dependent on locality. The sensitive border region of Xinjiang, historically dominated by minority nationalities resistant to incorporation within the Chinese polity, has long been difficult.' Researchers gained unprecedented access to the region following the re-emergence of the social sciences as officially sanctioned disciplines in China in 1979. Yet that access has been under continual threat. The pro-democracy campaign and the Tiananmen incident of 1989, the collapse of Marxist-Leninist parties in Eastern Europe in 1989, the Baren uprising of April 1990 in south Xinjiang and the collapse of the USSR and formation of independent Central Asian states in 1991 fueled a growing desire for independence among Xinjiang's majority Uyghur nationality.2 Uyghur-Han tensions climaxed in the Ghulja [Ch. Yining] riots of 5-6 February 1997, leading to a sharp intensification of the "Strike Hard" anti-separatist campaign.3 Subsequently, the events of 11 September 2001 and the "war against terror" have in the view of some observers provided the state with a means of repackaging disaffected Uyghurs as "Islamic terrorists". Under these steadily worsening conditions, field research in the region has come under intense state scrutiny/ State politics, moreover, are only one facet of the difficulties faced by researchers in the social sciences in Chinese Central Asia. The interpersonal politics of gender, culture, religion and values intertwine with state politics during the negotiation of research roles. This paper examines the intersection of state and interpersonal politics during fieldwork through the lens of shifting margins: the margins of the state, gender margins, intercultural and religious margins. It draws on a total of fifteen months' research conducted between 1995 and 2004. After a brief discussion of the difficulties of survey research and secondary sources, I focus on the more informal methods I chose to rely on to collect my data. Domestic Politics and Data Collection In Xinjiang, official documents, scholarly sources, statistical information and media reports must be treated with caution. Since 1949, state censorship has meant that much published literature is little more than a vehicle for promoting CCP policy. As one Chinese scholar put it: "The publishing houses in China are in fact governmental ministries ... Basically the conditions are that you can't oppose the Communist Party ... "5An unusually high degree of censorship and self-censorship pervades official and academic publications in Xinjiang, where Chinese officials and scholars are extremely reluctant to discuss politically sensitive topics such as conflict between ethnic groups.6 This is especially true in the field of history, where China's scholars have generally been obliged to mold their interpretations according to the interests of the Communist state. In Xinjiang, the problem is exaggerated since the state must represent history so as to legitimize its colonial presence.7 The dangers of drawing predominantly from official and scholarly Chinese accounts can be seen in Michael Dillon's recent book. Dillon relies heavily on translated extracts from Xu Yuqi's History of the Struggle against Ethnic Separatism in Xinjiang. While undeniably rich, these extracts present a "handful of separatists" as caring little about their people while Chinese security forces are presented in an artificially positive light. Dillon neither problematizes these passages nor compares the perspectives of Chinese officials with those of Uyghur actors. The lack of engagement seems to result from the author's wish to approach the Xinjiang question with balance and objectivity, a task he admits is not easy given the "extreme partisanship of the protagonists".s In China, officially released statistics are often incomplete, and the researcher must question whether data has been politically generated or edited. …


The direct amperometric detection of low levels of formaldehyde in the gas phase with an acidic electrochemical cell based on a gold coated Nafion membrane as working electrode was investigated. The sensor was found to show a linear response from the detection limit of 13 ppb up to at least 10 ppm. Influences of the flow rate and the humidity of the gas stream were studied. Also determined were the cross-sensitivities to a number of organic and inorganic gases. A new approach to overcome the interferences from NO, NO2 and SO2 is proposed whereby formaldehyde is selectively adsorbed from the sample stream with an aluminum oxide filter. By forming the difference for the measurements with and without filter a net signal for formaldehyde could be obtained in presence of the interferants.


PDF Version March 15, 2017 TO THE ADMINISTRATOR ADDRESSED Re: Competitive Letter of Interest (LOI) for Texas Virtual School Network (TXVSN) Grants to Rural Schools Grant Overview TEA is preparing to award Texas Virtual School Network (TXVSN) grants to Texas public rural schools a


Smart grids are forever huge in size and complicated in topology; big data analytics and data-driven approach become natural solutions for the long run grid. Driven by information analysis in high-dimension, big data technology works out information correlations indicated by applied mathematics parameters to achieve insight to the inherent mechanisms. Actually, big data technology has already been with success applied as a robust data-driven tool for various phenomena, like quantum systems, monetary systems, and biological systems in wireless communication networks. For good grids, information-driven approach and data utilization are current stressing topics, as proven within the special issue of big data Analytics for Grid Modernization. This paper provides unique methodology for modeling the spatio-temporal (Phasor measure Units) PMU information. It illustrates the structure of the spatio-temporal PMU information.


The growing internationalization of business and social interactions poses significant challenges in implementing multilingual information systems. For applications requiring retrieval, clustering, and categorization of multilingual document collections, cross-lingual application of latent semantic indexing (LSI) has a number of characteristics that make it potentially attractive. However, this technique is dependent upon the availability of applicable parallel corpora. Historically, such corpora have been quite limited in size and scope. In this paper, we provide new results regarding implementation of cross-lingual LSI text processing systems employing parallel corpora produced using modern machine translation (MT) products. We present measurements using the Reuters 21578 test set to demonstrate three key points regarding this combined LSI/modern MT approach: (1) for some languages, this approach can create parallel corpora of sufficient fidelity to support effective multilingual and cross-lingual LSI applications, (2) the technique is not particularly sensitive to details of LSI parameters, and (3) multiple languages can be represented in a single LSI space with little degradation in performance.


This dissertation investigates and extends the mathematical foundations of logics and automata for the interleaving and synchronous noninterleaving view of system computations with an emphasis on decision procedures and relative expressive powers, and introduces extensions of these foundations to the emerging domain of noninterleaving asynchronous computations. System computations are described as occurrences of system actions, and tractable collections of such computations can be naturally represented by finite automata upon which one can do formal analysis. Specifications of system properties are usually described in formal logics, and the question whether the system at hand satisfies its specification is then solved by means of automata-theoretic constructions. Our focus here is on the linear time behaviour of systems, where executions are modeled as sequence-like objects, neither reflecting nondeterminism nor branching choices. We consider a variety of linear time paradigms, such as the classical interleaving view, the synchronous noninterleaving view, and conclude by considering an emerging paradigm of asynchronous noninterleaving computation. Our contributions are mainly theoretical though there is one piece of practical implementation work involving a verification tool. The theoretical work is concerned with a range of logics and automata and the results involve the various associated decision procedures motivated by verification problems, as well as the relative expressive powers of many of the logics that we consider. Our research contributions, as presented in this dissertation, are as follows. We describe the practical implementation of the verification tool Mona. This tool is basically driven by an engine which translates formulas of monadic second-order logic for finite strings to deterministic finite automata. This translation is known to have a daunting complexity-theoretic lower bound, but surprisingly enough, it turns out to be possible to implement a translation algorithm which often works efficiently in practice; one of the major reasons being that the internal representation of the constituent automata can be maintained symbolically in terms of binary decision diagrams. In effect, our implementation can be used to verify the so-called safety properties because collections of finite strings suffice to capture such properties. For reactive systems, one must resort to infinite computations to capture the so-called liveness properties. In this setting, the predominant specification mechanism is Pnueli's LTL which turns out to be computationally tractable and, moreover, equal in expressive power to the first-order fragment of monadic second-order logic. We define an extension of LTL based on the regular programs of PDL to obtain a temporal logic, DLTL, which remains computationally feasible and is yet expressively equivalent to the full monadic second-order logic. An important class of distributed systems consists of networks of sequential agents that synchronize by performing common actions together. We exhibit a distributed version of DLTL and show that it captures exactly all linear time properties of such systems, while the verification problem, once again, remains tractable. These systems constitute a subclass of a more general class of systems with a static notion of independence. For such systems the set of computations constitute interleavings of occurrences of causally independent actions. These can be grouped in a natural manner into equivalence classes corresponding to the same partially-ordered behaviour. The equivalence classes of computations of such systems can be canonically represented by restricted labelled partial orders known as (Mazurkiewicz) traces. It has been noted that many properties expressed as LTL-formulas have the "all-or-none" flavour, i.e. either all computations of an equivalence class satisfy the formula or none do. For such properties (e.g. "reaching a deadlocked state") it is possible to take advantage of the noninterleaving nature of computations and apply the so-called partial-order methods for verification to substantially reduce the computational resources needed for the verification task. This leads to the study of linear time temporal logics interpreted directly over traces, as specifications in such logics are guaranteed to have the "all-or-none" property. We provide an elaborate survey of the various distributed linear time temporal logics interpreted over traces. One such logic is TLC, through which one can directly formulate causality properties of concurrent systems. We strengthen TLC to obtain a natural extended logic TLC and show that the extension adds nontrivially to the expressive power. In fact, very little is known about the relative expressive power of the various logics for traces. The game-theoretic proof technique that we introduce may lead to new separation results concerning such logics. In application domains such as telecommunication software, the synchronous communication mechanism that traces are based on is not appropriate. Rather, one would like message-passing to be the basic underlying communication mechanism. Message Sequence Charts (MSCs) are ideally suited for the description of such scenarios, where system executions constitute partially ordered exchanges of messages. This raises the question of what constitutes reasonable collections of MSCs upon which one can hope to do formal analysis. We propose a notion of regularity for collections of MSCs and tie it up with a class of finitestate devices characterizing such regular collections. Furthermore, we identify a monadic second-order logic which also defines exactly these regular collections. The standard method for the description of multiple scenarios in this setting has been to employ MSC-labelled finite graphs, which might or might not describe collections of MSCs regular in our sense. One common feature is that these collections are finitely generated, and we conclude by exhibiting a subclass of such graphs which describes precisely the collections of MSCs that are both finitely generated and regular.


Abstract The PairWork mini-unit discussed in this article combines the importance of middle school students learning how to work successfully with another student to accomplish a common goal while incorporating essential principles of social studies curriculum. The mini-unit utilizes six picture books featuring history's Dynamic Duos, or pairs of historical figures who have had a lasting impact on the world as we know it by working together. I present a framework for the mini-unit along with other unit essentials for middle level educators to consider during implementation. The article continues with a description of the three phases of the mini-unit, which include lessons and recommendations on how to incorporate students practicing social skills to effectively work with a partner while learning how historical Dynamic Duos did the same.


in terms of a sharp break between two vastly different worlds, the objective of the former being to prepare young people for the latter. This image-and the ways of thinking associated with it-is in the process of becoming largely obsolete. At the university level, the increasing proportion of students holding part-time and fulltime jobs reflects a significant blurring of the division between school and work. In some countries, more so in North America than in Europe, large numbers of highschool students get a full-time job while attending the last year of secondary education. Arrangements for providing part-time schooling at post-compulsory education level have been set up in the Netherlands and in the Federal Republic of Germany, in an attempt to smooth out the transition between school and work. The Belgian case provides another interesting example. When it was decided in 1983 to extend compulsory schooling from 14 to 18 years of age, a two-step approach with full-time schooling up to 16-which confirmed the de facto enrolment situation-and part-time schooling between 16 and 18 years of age, was adopted. Its aim was again to make gradual entry into the labour force possible for young people. In the technical/vocational streams of the educational system, combining schoolbased instruction and work experience was always the basic principle of traditional apprenticeship. This principle is now being extended to other forms of technical/ vocational education in the form of working periods in firms, which are integrated into the school curricula. Most 'transition education' schemes set up recently for school-leavers at the end of compulsory schooling are designed according to this principle of alternation between work and training periods, the main objective of which is to ease the transition from school to work. It is thus abundantly clear that the latter has been subject to profound changes in recent years. The traditional separation between the world of school and the world of work is gradually giving way to closer integration following a number of institutional changes whose far-reaching consequences have not yet been fully spelt out. The purpose of this article is to examine and discuss more closely of the consequences of the emergence of "transition education", meaning by this the wide array of schemes recently set up by European governments to ease the transition from school to work at the end of compulsory schooling.


Currently network users, especially the number of internet users, increase rapidly. Also, high quality of service is required and this requirement results a sudden network traffic increment. As a result, an efficient management system for huge network traffic becomes an important issue. Ontology/data engineering based context awareness using the System Entity Structure (SES) concepts enables network administrators to access traffic data easily and efficiently. The network traffic analysis system, which is studied in this paper, is designed and implemented based on a model and simulation using data engineering methodology to be avaiable in evaluating large network traffic data. Extensible Markup Language (XML) is used for metadata language in this system. The information which is extracted from the network traffic analysis system could be modeled and simulated in Discrete Event Simulation (DEVS) methodology for further works such as post simulation evaluation, web services, and etc.


Six diets were prepared using Bonanza barley (B, 1.78% N), Neepawa spring wheat (SW, 2.50% N) or Norstar winter wheat (WW, 2.11% N) with canola meal (CM, 5.70% N) or soybean meal (SBM, 7.62% N) as the protein supplement. Four of the diets (B-15%SBM, B-22%CM, SW-5%CM and WW-15%CM) were formulated to contain 16% crude protein (CP, N × 6.25), while the other diets (SW-15%CM, 18% CP; WW-5%CM, 14% CP) were included to facilitate comparison of both CM inclusion rates in diets based on each wheat. One pen, containing two females and two male castrates, was assigned to receive each diet, ad libitum, from two initial weights (averaging 22.6 and 31.7 kg) to market weight (91 kg). Among pigs receiving the 16% CP diets, growth rates favored the barley-fed groups (802 g∙pig−1∙day−1) and were lowest for those fed the SW-5% CM diet (732 g∙pig−1∙day−1, P < 0.05). Feed:gain ratios ranged from 3.48:1 (B-22%CM) to 3.93:1 (SW-5%CM). Carcass measurements revealed a corresponding pattern with barley-fed pigs producing the lean...


Since the late 19th century, different taxonomic views have been reported for Carpobrotus species occurring in the Maltese Islands, where the latest treatments imply two varieties of C. edulis and the doubtful occurrence of C. acinaciformis. Taxonomic inconsistencies are possibly derived from the poor understanding or misinterpretation of morphological characters. Moreover, the hybridogenous morphotypes resulting from horticultural advances make the determination of Carpobrotus even harder, especially with the application of outdated identification keys which do not take hybrids into account. The difficulty in determining Carpobrotus spp. has been expressed in several recent accounts within the Mediterranean region. A taxonomic investigation was carried out by applying eleven morphological characters adopted from recent monographs on 25 populations present in Malta. Three taxonomic units have been retrieved from the analyzed sample, where C. acinaciformis s.l. has been confirmed to represent all the purple-flowering populations and C. edulis s.s. for the yellow-flowering ones. Emphasis was given on the interpretation and understanding of distinctive morphological characters by employing a standardized method of assessment aided by images.  This comparative morphological study resulted in a new characteristic in the leaves of C. edulis, by which it could be easily distinguished from C. acinaciformis in the vegetative state. A detailed discussion about the two different morphotypes of C. acinaciformis s.l. and dichotomous keys to distinguish Carpobrotus taxa are also provided.


The controllable factors inducing excessive fermentation and yield drop in the production of Jiugui liquor in Summer were analyzed.In order to realize normal production of Jiugui liquor in Summer,a series of technical measures was adopted as follows: shortening the saccharifying time of raw materials,increasing grains amount,reducing starter use level,100% pits-stepping,stopping production in altithermal period,and attending to sanitary conditions etc.The production practice proved that such technical improvement was effective and could almost realize normal production of Jiugui liquor in summer,which had produced satisfactory economic benefits.(Tran.by YUE Yang)


- A study was made of the effect of filament diameter on the charge transferred between filaments rubbed together under controlled ambient and mechanical conditions. Filaments of various diameters and of medium resistivity (nylon, ∼ 1012 ohm-cm.) were rubbed against a filament of low resistivity (tantalum, ∼ 10-5 ohm-cm.) and one of high resistivity (polyethylene, ∼ 1015 ohm-cm. ) at different normal forces between the fila ments. For nylon against tantalum, the charge transferred was found to be proportional to the square root of the product of the diameter and the normal force between the filaments. For nylon against polyethylene, the charge transferred was ound to be proportional to the square root of the normal force, but nearly independent of the diameter. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the charge transferred is proportional to the true area of contact (that is, the area over which interpenetration of molecular fields occurs) swept out on the object of lower conductivity.


Abstract The following facts may serve to provide a feeling about how restrictive the assumption of an exponential family is. (a) A one-parameter exponential family in standard form with respect to Lebesgue measure is a location parameter family iff it is normal with fixed variance. (b) It is a scale parameter family iff it is gamma with fixed shape parameter. Both facts are known (see Borges and Pfanzagl 1965; Ferguson 1962; Lindley 1958) but may not have received as much attention as they deserve. Under the assumption of differentiable densities, short and elementary proofs are given.


Through study on performance of air-cooled condenser and air cooling fans for direct air-cooled units,a calculating model of operating performance for air-cooled island system has been established,the thermodynamic characteristic curve of condenser performance under different atmosphere temperature,different cooling air speed,and different load of unit being obtained.Based on the operating mode of air cooling fans,an operation-optimizing model for air-cooled island of the air-cooled unit has been put forward,and directing against the air-cooled island of 600 MW direct air-cooled unit,calculation for performance and optimization being carried out,and the optimized operation mode and optimal back pressure of air-cooling fans in system of air-cooled island being given.


To understand the phytoextraction of heavy metals from contaminated soil, eighteen seasonalvegetable crops were investigated. The soil was artificially contaminated each with 300 mg kg-1CuCl2, 500 mg kg-1 Pb (NO3)2, 800 mg kg-1 ZnCl2 or their mixed metal (1600 mg kg-1). Lowestcopper (Cu) accumulation was recorded in Brassica juncea and highest in Vicia faba, while lowestlead (Pb) accumulation in Solanum tuberosum, and highest in Allium fistulossum; and lowest zinc(Zn) accumulation in both Allium fistulossum and Solanum tuberosum, and highest was in Vicia fabafrom the single metal contamination. Similarly, lowest Cu, Pb and Zn was recorded in Brassicajuncea, Brassica caulorapa and Allium fistulossum, respectively; and highest accumulation of Cu andPb was in Spinacea oleracea and Zn in Spinacea oleracea from their mixed metal treatments. DOI:  http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/eco.v20i0.11469 ECOPRINT An International Journal of Ecology Vol. 20, 2013 page: 81-88


Background: Vulnerable populations, including those with low income and literacy, are less likely than the general population to participate in cancer education programs and screenings. It is therefore crucial to examine the role of a cancer educational intervention in increasing the suboptimal cancer screening rates in France. Objectives: We aimed to evaluate the effect of an eight-week cancer educational intervention on self-efficacy, cancer, and cancer prevention knowledge. We also aimed to study the uptake of colorectal, breast, and cervical cancer screenings among low-income immigrant women with low levels of literacy in France. Materials and Methods: Between January 2019 and March 2020, we implemented a cancer educational intervention and followed up with a mixed-methods study in the Ain Department in the east of France, triangulating quantitative survey data with qualitative interview data. Participants completed a survey assessing their knowledge and self-efficacy of cancer and cancer screenings before and after an eight-week in-person cancer educational program. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were also conducted with each participant. Screening outcomes were obtained two years after the interviews. Appropriate quantitative and qualitative analyses were performed. Results: Study outcomes in our cohort (n = 164 women) improved following the cancer educational intervention as shown in pre- versus post-survey results: self-efficacy (8 [9.4%] to 48 [56.5%]), cancer knowledge (14 [16.5%] to 72 [84.7%]), screening knowledge (4 [4.7%] to 54 [63.5%]), and screening outcome (25 [30.6%] to 61 [73.6%], P < 0.0001 for at least one screening). The interview data were consistent with the quantitative results. Conclusions: Developing specific cancer educational initiatives for vulnerable low-income and low-literate populations can significantly improve knowledge about cancer and cancer prevention, and increase cancer screening rates. The provision of audience-tailored cancer educational interventions is an effective strategy to eradicate cancer inequities in France.


The mechanism-based approach which corresponds to the target-based approach screens for compounds with a specific mode of action. The highly effective nature of high-throughput screening (HTS) for identification of highly target specific compounds is attributed to its precise focus on single mechanism. This logical development of receptor technology is closely connected with the changes in strategy of chemical synthesis. The vast number of compounds produced by combinatorial chemistry and the possibility of testing many compounds, including natural products, in a short period of time by HTS attracted attention of many workers. Various detection techniques like fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET), Homogeneous time resolved fluorescence (HTRF), etc are available, and the screening of more than 100,000 samples per day is possible. With the introduction of robotics, automation and miniaturization techniques, it became feasible to screen 50,000 compounds a day with complex work-stations. High-throughput screening methods are also used to characterize metabolic and pharmacokinetic data about new drugs. With the use of Cassette dosing techniques even the pharmacokinetic data can be assessed for large number of drug candidates, though not free of drawbacks, yet an effective technique to further increase the drug discovery and development rate. The objective of this article is to give an overview to the High-Throughput screening methodologies used in industries as well as in academic research programmes.


This research was designed to determine whether musicians' learning is affected by the time intervals interposed between practice sessions. Twenty-nine non-pianist musicians learned a 9-note sequence on a piano keyboard in three practice sessions that were separated by 5 min, 6 hr, or 24 hr. Significant improvements in performance accuracy were observed in Session 2 only in the group whose sessions were separated by 24 hr. There were significant increases in performance speed in Session 2 in all three practice conditions, results which likely were attributable to the inclusion of all Session 1 data in the analysis. Additional significant speed increases were observed in Session 3 only in the groups whose sessions were separated by 6 and 24 hr. These results suggest that sleep-based procedural memory consolidation may enhance performance accuracy in music skill learning, whereas enhancements in performance speed may be attributable to both wake- and sleep-based consolidation processes.