Protein function depends greatly on its structure. Based on this principle, it is vital to study the protein structure in order to understand its function. This study attempts to build the predicted model of lipase gene in Rhodococcus sp. NAM81 using homology modelling method. The predicted structure was then used to investigate the function of protein through several bioinformatic tools. The DNA sequence of lipase gene was obtained from the Rhodococcus sp. NAM81 genome scaffold. Blastx analysis showed 100% identity to the target enzyme andthe appropriate template for homology modelling was determined using Blastp analysis. The 3D protein structure was built using two homology modelling software, EsyPred3D and Swiss Model Server. Both structures built obtained LGScore of greater than 4, which means they are extremely good models according to ProQ validation criteria. Both structures also satisfied the Ramachandran plot structure validation analysis. The predicted structures were 100% matched with each other when superimposed with DaliLite pairwise. This shows that both structure validation servers agreed on the same model. Structure analysis using ProFunc had found seven motifs and active sites that indicate similar function of this protein with other known proteins. Thus, this study has successfully produced a good 3D protein structure for the target enzyme.


Abstract Studies that distinguish between exogenous and endogenous peer effects are relatively rare. To separate these effects, De Giorgi, Pellizzari, and Redaelli exploited partially overlapping peer groups where attributes of a student's peers in one group provide instrumental variables (IV) for endogenous effects in another group. We apply this identification strategy to data from a period of transition at a Chinese university: dormitory roommate assignments were changed as students moved between campuses. This transition allows us to measure the endogenous effects between test scores of current roommates, but the traditional IV method suggests the potential for weak IV. We use weak-IV robust techniques to obtain properly sized tests. The S-test, K-test, and QCLR test all reject the null of zero endogenous effects with p-values between 0.01 and 0.05, as compared with 0.003 implied by the traditional IV estimator. The largest 95% confidence interval lower bound is 0.154 from the QCLR test, in contrast to 0.244 from traditional IV. Our findings offer unique evidence that endogenous peer effects influence academic outcomes at an empirically relevant magnitude, and an example where weak-IV robust tests are essential to quantify the relationship. Our results are robust to alternative model specifications.


This thesis explores how emotion was framed, performed, repressed and politicised in textual, oral and visual ex-slave documents produced in the 1930s in the United States: the Florida WPA interviews; sound recordings and photographs created by black American linguist Lorenzo Dow Turner; John Lomax's folklore recordings; and Ruby Lomax's photographs of former slaves. These sources often include profound emotional content, however, few sustained and explicit analyses of feeling within these documents have been undertaken. Building on methodological approaches developed in slavery studies, emotional history, visual studies, critical race studies and oral history; utilising a 'holistic' and integrated approach to the ex-slave documents; and paying particular attention to the personal, cultural and political dynamics at the moment of source creation, this thesis develops and models a critical methodology that can be used to reveal the various complications associated with using these source sets to provide access to the emotional experiences of the enslaved.


A novel, general structure of tunable frequency-selective surface that does not require additional bias networks is presented. Varactor diodes are positioned in the middle of each cell, and no via is required. Inductors between the cells provide DC connections, which also choke high frequency signal. Two FSS patterns are applied in the tunable structure. Simulation results of the two FSS patterns both show that by altering the capacitance of the varactors from 0.3 to 3.0 pF, a wide frequency tunability can be achieved, and at the same time the bandwidth becomes obviously wider.


Fluid and mechanical system is becoming much more integrated. It's difficult to simulate the whole system using traditional modeling method concentrates on establishment of several equations. Object-oriented simulation architecture of complex fluid and mechanical system was investigated. An example based the architecture focusing on the hydro-mechanical control system of the turbofan engine was established and the correctness of the model was verified. Simulation processes indicate this method reduces the difficulty of modeling significantly and the architecture has good reusability and expansibility.


TUEBINGEN, Germany, Nov. 25 – CureVac GmbH, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing a new class of therapies and vaccines based on mRNA, and the German Federal Research Institute for Animal Health, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute (FLI), Germany, today announced that mRNA vaccines (RNActive) based on the company's RNA technology platform have the potential to provide effective protection against infectious diseases. In vivo data published by CureVac and the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute online in Nature Biotechnology show that mRNA vaccines induced balanced, long-lived and protective immunity to influenza A virus infections in various animal models. It is also shown that the production of RNActive vaccines is highly flexible. Thus, RNActive vaccines can be rapidly supplied for a variety of virus strains and subtypes identified in response to pandemic scenarios.


Purpose – The study examines the roles of capital rules, macro variables and bank business models in determining the safety of banks as measured by the "distance-to-default" (DTD) with the purpose of drawing implications for regulation of bank capital and business models. Design/methodology/approach – A panel regression study using pre- and post-crisis data for 108 US and European banks is used to explore the issue empirically. A new technique is also used to back out the amount of capital banks would have needed during the crisis to keep the "DTD" in the very safe zone. Findings – The simple leverage ratio has a strong relationship with "DTD", while the Basel ratio does not. The most important business model features are derivatives and wholesale funding, which have a strong negative relationship with "DTD". Trading and available-for-sale securities have a positive influence. Calculations show that it is not possible for any reasonable capital rule to compensate for the risks created by business model fe...


This literature review aims to describe the theoretical approaches to Didactics as they have emerged in modern literature and the classification of these theories to realize their dynamics in the teaching practice. Didactics, either as a macro-theory or a micro-theory and methodology of teaching, constitutes its theoretical background, thus significantly contributing to decisions made about the models, methods, and means employed in the instructional design. In this respect, it refers to the theory and practical applications which underlie instruction. Its wide range of definitions, which are based on different and often conflicting theoretical approaches, have sustained an ongoing reflection and debate on the epistemological entity of Didactics. The present study views Didactics as the framework for the scientific and theoretical documentation of teaching, which it perceives as a complex multifactorial phenomenon.


This paper reports results from two experimental studies that investigate insurance behaviours in low-probability high-loss risk situations. The first study took place in France and the second one in Germany. These two studies reveal that insurance behaviours may depend on the past-experience related to risk, and also on the duration of the period during which individuals commit themselves to hold the same insurance decision. Non-additive decision models such as Dual Theory and Cumulative Prospect Theory appear to have a higher descriptive power than Expected Utility Theory when explaining subjects' behaviours. This paper presents direct experimental tests of the prediction of Myopic Prospect Theory relative to insurance demand. These theoretical concepts permit to understand many behaviours commonly observed in reality but which remain unexplained within the E.U. framework. In particular, this paper provided new explanations about the puzzling fact that people usually fail to obtain insurance against disaster-type risks such as natural disasters, even when premiums are close to actuarially fair levels.


This study investigated the correlations between external loans and poverty elimination efforts in Nigeria from 201o to 2020. Owing to several reasons which include inadequacies of her domestic savings and foreign exchange, Nigeria's macroeconomic space has over time witnessed perennial external borrowings which, for instance, rose from US$4,534.19 billion as at 30th September, 2010 to US$33,348.08 billion as at December 31, 2020 or N12,705,618.48 trillion. The key concern, however, is how the country has leveraged on those borrowings in order to reduce her soaring poverty rates put at over 83 million citizens living below poverty line of $1.90 per day. Consequently, the primary objective of this study was to investigate how impactful the external loans had become on the poverty-alleviation efforts of the developing economy. To achieve the objective, the following hypothesis was posed: how has Nigeria's external borrowings supported poverty alleviation efforts in the country? Anchored on the Big Push Theory propounded by Paul Rosenstein-Rodan in 1943, the study adopted ex-post facto research design and documentary method for data collection. Qualitative descriptive method was used for data analysis. Among other things, the study found out that Nigeria's external borrowings have not offered support for poverty alleviation with its characteristic low disbursements. It equally found out that the loans were not invested in productive sectors for beneficial effects on poverty alleviation. In view of the findings, the study recommended that there is need for poverty alleviation to be made the primary focus of Nigeria's future external borrowings. It also recommended the need for external loans to be massively invested into projects with high capital returns which will produce desired effect on poverty reduction.


Personalization is one of the keys for the success of web services. In this paper we present SeAN (Server for Adaptive News), an adaptive system for the personalized access to news servers on the WWW. The aims of the system are (i) to select the sections (topics) and news in the server that are most relevant for each user, (ii) to customize the detail level of each news item to the user's characteristics and (iii) to select the advertisements that are most appropriate for each page and user. In the paper we discuss the functionalities of the system and we present the choices we made in its design. In particular, we focus on the techniques we adopted for structuring the news archive, for creating and maintaining the user model and for generating the personalized hypertext for browsing the news server.


DMERT (Duplex, Multi‐Environment, Real Time) is a real‐time operating system that supports reliable telecommunications applications. Although DMERT file systems are based on UNIXTM file systems, which suffer robustness drawbacks, DMERT file systems do not suffer these drawbacks. The DMERT file manager uses synchronous writes and file system audits to manage crash resistant file systems. The performance penalty for this crash resistance is minimal. This note describes DMERT's crash resistance policy and shows how UNIX and UNIX‐like file systems can be made crash resistant without sacrificing performance.


The enterprises are facing constant security threats with the emergence of new mobile computing devices like smartphones, smartwatches, and wearables. The existing digital forensic enabled security solutions are not able to match the pace at which these technological advances are evolving. In case of a security incident, the enterprises fail to perform a subsequent digital forensic investigation since their security systems are not designed with required Digital Forensic Readiness capability. Currently, there are no well defined Digital Forensic Readiness frameworks for mobile computing devices. The are some existing frameworks that provide partial support. However, they do not have a provision to learn from the past security violation occurrences. There is a need for an automated forensically ready and secure solution, which could improve efficiency and productivity, while continuously learning and adapting to new and unforeseen challenges. The current thesis is devoted to the design of forensics enabled secure mobile computing systems for the enterprises. The author has focused on developing a 'digital forensic readiness and secure' system, which targets smartphones, smartwatches, and wearables operating in an enterprise environment; while incorporating machine learning capabilities to make it a learning system. The digital forensic readiness solutions include 'Precognition', which performs forensic analysis of suspected mobile applications. Precognition also uses machine learning techniques that utilize feature sets which are extracted from decompiled mobile applications, to identify potential security threats. The author has analyzed over 14151 mobile applications and classified vulnerabilities with an accuracy of 94.2%. The second solution, which concentrates on digital forensic readiness at the operating system level, securely preserves date and time stamps of targeted events running in smartphones, smartwatches, and wearables. These timestamps can be used to validate the digital evidence during a subsequent digital forensic investigation for any of the devices mentioned above. As a third contribution towards promoting digital forensic readiness in the mobile computing devices, the author has presented a novel form of forensic analysis technique, which analyzes over 5498 mobile ads to build the user profile which can be applied to identify the suspect who uses a particular device. The security contribution of the thesis includes an automated security analysis solution for identifying potential mobile security threats. Further, a solution 'SecureRing' has been proposed for securing the mobile applications to provide an additional layer of protection against attacks. The author has also designed 'MobiSecureWrap', which is an automated solution for wrapping mobile application binaries with additional security layer to protect them against potential threats. MobiSecureWrap


OBJECTIVE
The goal of this study was to evaluate the clinical and echocardiographic results of a cohort of patients subjected to aortic valve replacement with pulmonary autograft (Ross procedure).

DESIGN
We studied prospectively with clinical and echocardiographic evaluation all patients subjected to this type of aortic valve surgery, before operation, intraoperatively, before hospital discharge and at the end of this study in September 1994 and we analysed the evolution of the results during the follow-up period.

PATIENTS
22 consecutive patients 12 men and 10 women mean age 48 +/- 14 years subjected to Ross operation between April 1992 and June 1994.

METHODS
Patients were studied with transesophageal echocardiography intraoperatively and transthoracic echocardiography. Two-dimensional and M-mode evaluation, continuous and pulsed wave Doppler and color coded Doppler were performed, with assessment of the morphology and Doppler profile of both the autograft and the homograft in pulmonary position.

RESULTS
No early or late mortality was registered, and apart two patients who were reoperated, all patients were asymptomatic in the last medical visit. There was no incidence of thromboembolic events even though no anticoagulation has been used. Aortic regurgitation was present in 14 patients, grade 1 in 11 patients and grade 2 in three. In the last echocardiogram performed the analysis of aortic flow, demonstrated absence of significant transvalvular gradient (maximal aortic gradient of 5.6 +/- 0.4 mmHg and mean aortic gradient of 1.8 +/- 0.08 mmHg). Pulmonary regurgitation was absent in nine patients, and present in 13, considered trivial in all cases.

CONCLUSIONS
These data suggest that this type of surgery has a low operative risk, with absence of thromboembolic complications and excellent clinical and echocardiographic results.


The recent transition from paper to digitally based assessment has brought many positive changes in educational testing. For example, many high-stakes exams have started implementing essay-type questions because they allow students to creatively express their understanding with their own words. To reduce the burden of scoring these items, the implementation of automated essay scoring (AES) systems have gained more attention. However, despite some of the successful demonstrations, AES still encountered many criticisms from practitioners. Such concerns often include prediction accuracy and interpretability of the scoring algorithms. Hence, overcoming these challenges is critical for AES to be widely adopted in the field. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce deep learning AES models and to describe how certain aspects of the models can be used to overcome the challenges of prediction accuracy and interpretability of the scoring algorithms.


Congressional bills are notoriously long and difficult to understand, limiting citizen engagement. As a result, summarizing legislation in a low-resource setting is a foundational step in making our democracy more inclusive. In this project, we propose a novel approach to bill summarization, PIGASUS, that is based off of Google's state-of-the-art summarizer, PEGASUS. PIGASUS makes government bills more accessible by creating quality summaries in low resource settings. Our model differs from PEGASUS by using a state-of-the-art extractive summarization technique, TextRank, to select masked sentences for pretraining. To experiment with this, we implement a second "pretraining" stage that builds off the pretrained PEGASUS model, mimicking the effect of pretraining a large summarization model from scratch. We find that in low-resource settings, PIGASUS is not only more efficient in learning, but also generates higher quality summaries that capture more important information than PEGASUS does in the same settings. This suggests that using TextRank to mask sentences during pretraining may improve the quality of summarization models. 1 Key Information to include • Mentor: Eric Frankel • External Collaborators / Sharing Project: N/A


Platelet antiaggregants are more and more widely prescribed and are encountered in around 13% of patients undergoing digestive endoscopy. Continuing or stopping this treatment depends on the thrombotic risk of the patient and the haemorrhagic risk of the procedure. In most of the cases, endoscopy might be performed under aspirin only and/or after a five-day withdrawal from clodiprogel. Platelet antiaggregant treatment might be taken again two days after endoscopy. In case of major thrombotic risk, excluding the discontinuation of double antiaggregant drugs, one should consider noninvasive alternative to endoscopy or delay the procedure.


[Objective]To understand government distribution equipments in primary health center,discuss related factors to affect equipments utilization then propose coping strategies.[Methods]Combined quantitative survey and key interview to survey the primary professional equipments in laboratory,systematically collected the data about basic equipments,equipment damage and idle condition.[Conclusion]The devices that the government configures have greatly improved the primary health care level,but the idle condition and unused rate of equipments are relatively high,utilization rate is low.It need pay attention and take appropriate measures to realize maximization of the effectiveness of resources.


It is usually assumed that gastro-intestinal parasites cause some derangement of function of the gut, which may in turn lead to a more widespread metabolic impairment and the poorer productivity of the parasitized animal. The primary disturbances most likely to arise from a gastro-intestinal helminth burden are any or all of the following : loss of appetite, impaired digestion, malabsorption and abnormal losses of endogenous metabolites into the gut, It is unfortunate that to date this whole range has not been examined simultaneously in any single host-parasite system. Most workers have tended to select one aspect and to study it in several different helminth infections. This state of affairs is due not so much to narrowness of outlook but to the fact that, apart from anorexia, quantification of the other disturbances requires specialized techniques and a single worker or a small group is unlikely to be proficient in them all. The present paper is also subject to this general criticism. It deals with the effects of certain gastro-intestinal parasites on the protein metabolism of the host, particularly those arising from abnormal losses of plasma protein into the gut. These problems have much in common with the so-called 'protein-losing gastroenteropathies' in man (see Jarnum, 1963) and require many of the same experimental techniques. The methods which have so far proved most useful in animal parasitology are outlined and the results of their application to several economically important parasitic diseases are discussed. Some results on fascioliasis in sheep and rabbits are included. Although Fasciola hepatica is not an intestinal parasite it does bring about substantial losses of whole blood and additional plasma into the gut, and the general situation is therefore not dissimilar to that arising from some purely intestinal parasitic infections.


Abstract— Treatment of neonatal rats with dexamethasone resulted in the appearance of phenylethanolamine‐N‐methyltransferase (PNMT) and numerous small, intensely fluorescent (SIF) cells in abdominal paraganglia and in sympathetic paravertebral ganglia. These cells may be derived from a primitive stem cell precursor, but because of their unusual anatomical features, origin from ganglion cells cannot be altogether ruled out. Associated with the proliferation of the cells was a marked increase in the PNMT activity of the tissues. The PNMT response to the glucocorticoid was limited to the first few days of life, as was the SIF cell response. After discontinuance of dexamethasone, the enzyme activity fell very rapidly, while the number of cells declined at a slower rate.


This articles studies factors that led to the Herzegovina uprising, which was led by the ethnic Serbs against the Ottoman Empire between 1875-77.


We show that a system of quasilinear degenerate elliptic inequalities does not have non-trivial solutions for a certain range of parameters in the system. The proof relies on a suitable choice of the test function in the weak formulation of the inequalities.


Background Whether the loss-of-function allele CYP3A5*3 variant is associated with significantly impaired metabolism of cyclosporine A (CsA) in transplant patients is still controversial because of the lack of prospective, large-scale clinical studies performed among diversely ethnic populations. Objectives This meta-analysis was designed to determine whether the CYP3A5*3 variant could affect CsA blood concentrations and the rate of acute rejection in renal transplant recipients. Methods and results All relevant publications were retrieved online from 1966 to March 2010, in which 14 studies were chosen, and 1821 renal transplant patients were enrolled. The results showed that there were significant differences in the CsA dose-adjusted trough concentration (C0) between the CYP3A5*3/*3 and CYP3A5*1/*1 carriers [weighted mean difference (WMD): 10.06 μg/l per mg/kg, 95% confidence interval (CI): 3.12–17.00, P=0.004] and between the non-CYP3A5*1 allele carriers and the CYP3A5*1 allele carriers (WMD: 8.32 μg/l per mg/kg, 95% CI: 3.16–13.49, P=0.002). In addition, a subgroup analysis stratified by ethnicity indicated that a significant difference in CsA dose-adjusted C0 was observed between the non-CYP3A5*1 allele carriers and the CYP3A5*1 allele carriers in Asian patients, but not in Caucasian patients. Moreover, a significant difference in the mean daily dose was observed between the non-CYP3A5*1 allele carriers and the CYP3A5*1 allele carriers (WMD: −0.19 mg/kg, 95% CI: −0.31 to −0.07, P=0.002). However, the meta-analysis suggested that there was little or no association of the CYP3A5*3 variant with the acute rejection rate in renal transplant patients treated with CsA [odds ratio=0.94, 95% CI: 0.57–1.54, P=0.80]. Conclusion We concluded that the CYP3A5*3 variant could be associated, to a certain extent, with increased CsA dose-adjusted C0 in blood and reduced mean daily doses, but that this genetic variant allele seemed to have little effect on the acute rejection rate in renal transplant patients taking CsA.


Occult spinal bifid is a common deformity in clinic. It is often found through roentgenogram examination when patients visit the doctor due to lumbocrural pain. Except surgical operation, it is treated mostly with analgesics but the therapeutic effect is not ideal. In recent years, we employ acupuncture and moxibustion therapies to treat it and have achieved a better effect in relieving pain, regional sore and distending sensations. Here is the summary.


Interpolation algorithms as applied to observed and synthetic (obtained by solving the forward problem) magnetic, gravity and electric fields are considered. Discrepancy between the reference field and field obtained by interpolation decimated source reference field is analysed. Estimate of applicability conclusions on basis of 1D data interpolation analysis for the same interpolation algorithms in case of 2D data is given. The growth of discrepancy between the reference field and interpolated field depending on the reduction of interpolation step (exceeding the number of points in interpolated field over the number in the source field) is demonstrated also. A software realizing the interpolation algorithms, the evaluation discrepancy between the reference field and interpolated field and compute the statistical characteristics reflecting discrepancy between fields is created. Observed and synthetic field example data, the results of data processing, including the statistical characteristics are given. Research results are prome to apply geophysical data interolation procedures more reasonably.


Quantitative studying the characteristics of Intra-urban residents' trip would provide helpful insights into urban human activity and optimizes the urban transportation networks. In this paper, we investigate the characteristics of Intra-urban patterns through analyzing approximately 600 thousand taxi trips extracted from seven consecutive days in Lanzhou, which is a typical valley city in West China. We focus on three statistics: pick-up point, drop-off point and trip distances. The pick-up point and the drop-off point are extracted based on grid cells and taxi trajectory O-D matrix. The distributions of city hotspots and trip distances are investigated. The selected statistical distributions are fitted to trip distances and the parameters are estimated using the maximum likelihood estimation. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test suggests that the trip distances distribution follows a lognormal distribution.


The lowest energy consumption was chose as the optimization goal in this paper,and the flow rate of cooling water?the outlet temperature of chilled water and the flow rate of cooled water were chose as optimization parameters in this paper.With the help of MATLAB programmable language the procedure of optimizing to the mathematics model was built. Finally, through the analysis of actual refrigerating system′s energy consumptioa under the load ratio of 80%, the result shows that it can control the operating parameters rationally and save large anount of energy.


A method of controlling a robot according to the present invention, in particular a robot manipulator, comprising the steps of: the actual drive force ([tau]) and dynamic models of the robot (Md2q / based dt2 + h (q, dq / dt) = τModell) driving force (τModell) measured by the robot and the workpiece (2; contact force between the 20); and comprising the steps of at least one of: based on the contact force is measured by measuring the position of the workpiece (2) in multiple stages ( S40, S70); in particular, comprising the steps of: determining a contour is not on a straight line on which the contact force by measuring the posture of the robot action and, in particular, the position of an edge of the workpiece (2) is (2.1, 2.2) in (S40 ); (2.1, 2.2) towards the recess in particular by a (3.1,3.2,3.3) defined by the workpiece (2) a reference point (S50) based on the profile of the workpiece thus measured; and by measuring the movement acting in the contact force on the robot to determine the position of the reference point (S70); and / or b) fitting the workpiece (4 in compliance control; 40) (S130; S230), wherein based on the contact force is measured, reach under the compliance control the machine Hand end position, and / or robot speed or higher derivative in time to monitor the assembled state; in particular comprises the following steps: With the robot holds the workpiece at a force of at least two contact points (1.1, 1.2); base assembly position placing the workpiece (FIG. 3A); to move by releasing the at least one force contact points (1.2) of the workpiece to the fitting end position (FIG. 3B); rigid control and / or c) to start the posture (S10; S110; S210); and based on the measured contact force is switched to the compliance control (S30; S130; S230).


We investigate singular Hermitian metrics on vector bundles, especially strictly Griffiths positive ones. $L^2$ esitimates and vanishing theorems usually require an assumption that vector bundles are Nakano positive. However there is no general definition of the Nakano positivity in singular settings. In this paper, we show various $L^2$ estimates and vanishing theromes by assuming that the vector bundle is strictly Griffiths positive and the base manifold is projective.


We investigate the stability of noncomposite fractional vortex states in a mesoscopic two-band superconductor within the two-component Ginzburg-Landau model. Our analysis explicitly takes into account the relationship between the model parameters and microscopic material parameters, such as partial density of states, fermi velocities and elements of the electron-phonon coupling matrix. We have found that states with different phase winding number in each band (L1 not equal to L2) and fractional flux can exist in many different configurations, including rather unconventional ones where the dominating band carries larger winding number and states where |L1-L2| > 1. We present a detailed analysis of the stability of the observed vortex structures with respect to changing the microscopic parameters, showing that, in the weak coupling case, fractional vortex states can be assessed in essentially the whole range of temperatures and applied magnetic fields in which both bands are active. Finally, we propose an efficient way of increasing the range of parameters for which these fractional vortex states can be stabilized. In particular, our proposal allows for observation of fractional vortex structures in materials with stronger coupling, where those states are forbidden at a homogeneous field. This is accomplished with the help of the stray fields of a suitably prepared magnetic dot placed nearby the superconducting disk.


Study of the electronic state in α-Ga using Compton scattering technique is reported in this paper. The isotropic Compton profile has been measured using a γ-ray Compton spectrometer, which employs a 5 Ci annular 241 Am source. The measurement is compared with the available augmented plane-wave (APW) and non-local model potential calculations. Comparison with the present calculations based on renormalised-free-atom (RFA) model for 4s and 4p electrons is also made. It is seen that APW (with Lam-Platzman electron-electron correlation) calculation is in better agreement with the experiment. The Fourier transform of experimental Compton profile confirms the free-electron like behaviour of Ga.


FIELD: metallurgy. SUBSTANCE: functional gradient item (20) from composite material with metal matrix (CMM) has solid central layer (18) enriched with solid particles (10) enclosed between external covers (6, 8). Item is obtained by supplying the molten metal (M) containing solid particles (10) to a pair of moving casting surfaces (D1, D2), curing of molten metal (M) and removing of item (20) from CMM from the gap between casting surfaces (D1, D2). Solid central layer (18) has higher concentration of solid particles (10) than any of external layers (6, 8). EFFECT: item from composite material with metal matrix combines easy metal processing and improved mechanical properties. 13 cl, 5 dwg


A total of 441 Chilean jack mackerel(Trachurus murphyi) were collected by two large-scale trawlers named "KAIXIN" from September to October 2010 and "KAIFU" in August 2011 in the southeast Pacific Ocean.In this paper,the histology of ovary was studied.The main results are:(1) The development of oocytes of Chilean jack mackerel was composed of five phases.In the phase 2 of oocyte development,there appeared a transparent layer in the outboard of nuclear membrane.A lot of yolk granules and lipoid vesicles formed in the cytoplasm during the phase 3 of oocyte development.Some of the nuclear membranes began to dissolve when the phase 4 came and we could find micropyle near the animal polar.The mature oocytes were apart from follicle membrane in the phase 5 of oocyte development.(2) The size distribution of eggs showed there were varied oocytes in the ovary of stage Ⅳ and there were two obvious pinnacles in the figure.(3) The spawning pattern of jack mackerel is multiple spawning that we could find more than one phase of oocytes in the same ovary at the same time.(4) The gonads were developing at a high speed from late August to early October.


Country life may not be as healthy for children as we would like to think. More rural children under five years of age die as the result of accidents than their city counterparts. To raise awareness of this problem, the Child Accident Prevention Foundation of Australia is conducting a Rural Child Safety Project with the Southern Mallee Councils Group in Victoria over a twelve month period. The project was launched in Swan Hill on 21 August 1991 by the Hon. Caroline Hogg, Minister for Ethnic, Municipal and Community Affairs. The launch took place at a local Primary School and was attended by local government representatives and community leaders.


The invention relates to a joystick comprising a handle (12) movable relative to a base (11) at least in rotation around two axes, and first biasing means mounted between the base (11) and a movable member acting on the handle, tending to return the handle (12) in a neutral position. According to the invention, the joystick includes compensation means, mounted between the base (11) and the movable member, and applying thereon a force compensating at least partially the force applied by the first biasing means, at least when the handle (12) close to the neutral position.


The design of teaching aim is the prerequisite of effective teaching,while the narrating strategy of teaching aim is key to the scientific and reasonable design of teaching aim.The author in this paper put farward some narrating strategies of teaching aim based on the World's three most influential ones.Namely,behavioral externalizition and measurable behaviral result with reference to the teaching aim narrating strategies clearly stated in Middle School Geographic textbook under the principle of " taking a simplified view in where it should be simplified,and taking an overelaborate view in where it should be overelaborated."


The utility model relates to the technical field of education teaching, in particular to a novel multimedia teaching system, which comprises a multimedia central control system, an education information obtaining sub system and an education processing sub system, wherein the multimedia central control system comprises a server and a display, the education information obtaining sub system comprises a video display table, a recorder, a video compact disc (VCD) player and a microphone, the video display table comprises a camera, a display stand, lamp light and an auxiliary jack, the education information processing sub system comprises a projector, an interactive electronic white board and a megaphone, and the megaphone equipment comprises a power amplifier and a sound box. The novel multimedia teaching system disclosed by the utility model has a reasonable structural design and is convenient to operate, the defects of single teaching form and inflexible control mode of the existing electric teaching equipment can be overcome, the visual and sound effect is improved, and in addition, the interactive function is provided.


The WWW VL - World Wide Web Virtual Library
is a collection of subject related Websites maintained by institutions throughout the world, each
administering a different subject. For more information on the project, go to
[http://vlib.iue.it/history/about/about.html].


The role of asset prices in monetary policy has been widely debated. This paper examines the role that stock prices play in the monetary policy of the ECB. For this purpose, standard and augmented forward-looking Taylor rules are estimated for the ECB using monthly data between 1999 and 2005. Of special interest is the impact of adding stock prices to the standard Taylor rule of the ECB. The GMM estimations of a standard Taylor rule and augmented Taylor rules for the Euro area indicate that the ECB considered stock price developments in setting interest rates. Monetary policy of the ECB stabilized asset prices by raising interest rates when the stock market index was above average and lowering rates when the index was below average. Stock prices are not only relevant as instruments but also as arguments in the ECB policy rule. The empirical plausibility of the Taylor rule improves when it allows for a reaction to the stock market. These results challenge previous studies.


A Monte-Carlo (MC) simulation is applied to the quantitative microanalysis of a film/substrate system. The characteristic X-ray intensity is used in this simulation. However, it is difficult to determine the film thickness for a multilayer/substrate system which consists of two elements in this method using characteristic X-ray intensity only. In order to overcome this difficulty, we utilized the characteristic Si–L2,3 soft X-ray emission band spectra which have their own spectral shapes for silicides and Si, and are expected to be superior to the conventional method using band X-rays only. In the measurement of the Si–L2,3 spectrum for a silicide/Si system at a certain incident energy, the obtained Si–L2,3 spectrum exhibits the increasing characteristic of the film material spectrum with the increase in film thickness. By using this characteristic, quantitative analysis using both MC simulation and Si–L2,3 emission band spectra is demonstrated for the CoSi2/Si system in this study.


Although precise prevalence figures regarding amblyopia and strabismus are not easily obtained, most studies suggest that at least 5% of the population is affected by these disorders. 1,2 In a large percentage of patients, they go undetected and untreated. A survey of 6768 youths 12 to 17 years old showed that more than 5% had strabismus, yet only 1.4% had ever received treatment. 3 The need for early detection and treatment of these disorders has been emphasized by both clinicians and basic scientists interested in the plasticity of developing visual systems. 4 Although some authorities have questioned the efficacy of preschool screening programs, 5 a policy statement by the American Academy of Ophthalmology, Infant and Children's Eye Care, in part asserts that "The American Academy of Ophthalmology strongly endorses the concept of early screening and treatment of eye and visual problems of infants and children." See also p 1528. It


This article examines aspects of A. S. Makarenko's style of leadership through an historical retrospective of his work and writing. His use of personal charisma as well as groupwork, shared adversity and delegation techniques as leadership methods is discussed. The ethos perpetuated by his disciplined and regimented approach to his charges does seem outdated in' today's climate, and a search of the literature pertaining to the leadership role and function reveals some current opposition to a charismatic style.


In this note, we first generalize the notion of the interactor (Wolovich and Falb [1]), and modify the input-output structure algorithm of Silverman [2], in order to obtain simple relations between the dimension of supremal output nulling invariant subspace V*and the degree of the determinant of the interactor \partial_{T} and the integers obtained from the structure algorithm. Then, we show that these relations can be used to derive a new set of necessary and sufficient conditions for a linear multivariable system to be prime (Morse [3]).


Introduction: Oral health is considered to be a mirror of systemic health and vice-versa. Medical professionals are considered to be the primary caregivers in a given population and as such a vast majority of the population visits them for health-related problems. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the level of knowledge and awareness of dentistry among first-year medical students, residents, and medical practitioners. Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was carried out to assess the knowledge and awareness of dentistry among MBBS first-year students, medical residents, and medical practitioners of Bhairahawa city, Nepal. Data analysis was done with SPSS version 11. Results: As per the demographic characteristics out of 147 subjects 82 (55.8%) were male and 65 (44.2%) were female. Most of the participants were from the age group of 21–30 years, 66 (44.9%) and 115 (78.2%) of them were married. Among 147 subjects every respondent (100%) knew about the profession of dentistry giving statistically significant results. Conclusion: The present study shows that medical professionals had better knowledge of dentistry as compared to medical students and residents. This unnecessary gap between dental and medical professionals can only be fulfilled by including dental education in both undergraduate and postgraduate medical curriculum.


Complex problems need a freeing-up of formal and informal rules and relations that guide problematic standard actions and routine practices. This could take place in an interactive learning process. Several evaluation approaches have emerged to actively support system innovation from a reflexive perspective. The current conceptualisations of reflexivity however, provide insufficient clarity and hence no guidelines for such evaluations. In our paper, we first make a case regarding the need for reflexive evaluation approaches and their key features, based on an earlier paper. We then present a framework to operationalise and investigate reflexivity and its relation with learning empirically, with the purpose of informing reflexive evaluation approaches addressing complex problems. The potential value of this framework is illustrated with a case of a sustainability initiative in the Dutch greenhouse sector, which we supported with Reflexive Monitoring in Action. With an ex-post, secondary analysis of all the data collected, the changes in reflexivity as well as the associated outcomes of learning were traced from a temporal perspective. We conclude that learning among the actors in a system innovation process may indeed contribute to reflexivity. However, the relation between the two is weak; reflexivity is clearly also the outcome of the interactions between initiative and context. This has implications for reflexive evaluation approaches.


Quality is an essential characteristic for web success. Several authors have described different methodologies, guidelines, techniques and tools in order to assure the quality of web sites. Among them the WQM model (Web Quality Model), which distinguishes three dimensions related to web features, lifecycle processes and quality characteristics. This last dimension is based on the ISO 9126 standard being usability one of the defined quality characteristic. In this paper, we classify some usability metrics using this framework.


In previous works, Weyl's equation for neutrino has been written in tensor form, in the form of non-linear Maxwell's like equations, through isotropic complex vector F=E+iH. It has been proved, that the complex vector F=E+iH satisfies non-linear condition F.F=0 , equivalent to two conditions for real quantities E.E-H.H=0 and E.H=0 , obtained by separating real and imaginary parts in the equality F.F=0. In this work, in the development of this new formalism for description of fermions, we elaborated the Lagrange formalism for neutrino field in tensor formalism, in terms of complex isotropic vectors.


Back ground: As per the world health organization (WHO), Health Information System (HIS) is one of the six building blocks of the health system. Nations establish their HIS as per their context. Generally HIS regarding data management (the ability to collect, store, analyze and distribute data) is limited in Sub Saharan African countries (1).However, literatures found were not able to show the magnitude of the problems of the program implementation status. As the result of the announcement of WHO "health for all", global health initiatives started to improve community health aligned with millennium development goals which emphasized the need to strengthen the primary health care to decrease child mortality, improve maternal health, and combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other communicable and non-communicable diseases. So community health information System became public health issue in Ethiopia (2).Cognizant of the importance of health information Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) started reform of health information system and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) components to solve the data collection, reporting gaps and to strengthen the information Utilization (2).As the result of the above scenario, FMOH started to strengthen the HMIS and its principles standardization, specification, integration so as to improve the data collection, summation, analysis and dissemination for decision and action. Here Community Health Information System was scaled-up along with HMIS (2). Community Health Information System (CHIS) was designed to standardize data collection and integrate data systems to provide relevant information for decision-making at the health posts and to feed the HMIS on a regular basis. Family folder is a pouch, which is the main part of CHIS, is a data collection tool designed by the FMoH for Health Extension Workers (HEWs) to document both individual and household level data to be utilized as a source of information at the grass root level(3)Unlike the health centers` and hospitals` in health post there were different types of unorganized registers which were used to collect information on services provided within a single health domain, sometimes requiring a large group of registers to cover all health domains related to population. In addition, there was no any mechanism to identify which group of people needs, which type of health care services .But family folder informs patient care through the data contained in individual and family records, identifies patients in need of care through a set of tickler files, and enables reporting through supplementary tally sheets and family folder cards. The overall design of the FF innovation was to simplify the workflow of the community health worker and focus health care delivery at the community level (4).Methods: The study focused on process evaluation, on the implementation of CHIS in South-East Zone in Tigray. South East Zone was purposely selected due to the short distance to Mekelle that indirectly helped to reduce cost. Process evaluation, normative evaluation approach was used; Quantitative data was used to assess the implementation of CHIS in south east zone Tigray. A descriptive evaluation designs also used to describe activities which the program carried out. The sampling area was health posts found in south-east zone Tigray which were randomly selected from the nearest kushet to the health post and the Sample size was 634 family folders & respective houses. The dimensions used for the evaluation were: availability, compliance, completeness and consistency. These dimensions were helped to assess the CHIS implementation status in the south-east zone in Tigray.Results: Generally the result of this study is very good (87.48%), the availability of CHIS tools is 88.7%, compliance 92.54%, completeness 95.8% & consistency is 68.16%. The availability of Inks & brushes was 29% which is very low. 30% of the HEWs were using field book as a replacement of FF, 64.7% of health posts used more than 10 parallel recording and 76.4 % of health posts used reporting formats. In some health posts there was difference between expected and actual households registered in family folder. The consistency of the data between family folder and master family index was 97.7% and between family folder and households was 80%.Conclusion & recommendation: the implementation status of CHIS is very good but TRHB & stakeholders should give attention to strengthen the program and to stop parallel recording & reporting tools and CHIS should be revised and transformed in to e-CHIS.


Ethnic contestations are inherent congenital discontents of Nigeria's federalism. From 1999, the assertion of freedom of expression reinvigorated ethnic tensions effectively transforming political expression from national dialogue to vitriolic ethnic diatribes. These diatribes divert attention from nation building objectives while neglecting the substantive feat of Nigeria's survival for over a century in spite of the 'artificiality' of the amalgamation. In this paper four overlapping these namely; the so-called failed state thesis, the socio-economic thesis, the amalgamation, and quest for hegemony thesis and the democratic space thesis are interrogated to identify drivers of ethnic diatribes. Analyses of these theses indicate functionality of diatribes in furtherance of elite and ethnic ends diametrically opposed to the goals of national integration. The argued imperative is elimination of diatribes and promotion of national dialogue to expedite national integration and development.


The major concern of health care professionals regarding the value of teaching self-care for management of side effects of radiation therapy of head and neck cancer patients is the improvement of their clinical outcomes. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of self-care teaching module on radiation-induced side effects and clinical outcomes among head and neck cancer patient. Subjets: a quasi-experimental randomized controlled study design was used . Asample of (50) adult patients with head and neck cancer undergoing recent radiation therapy were divided into two equal groups; control group did not receive self-care teaching module about acute side effect whereas these self-care teaching module was provided by the researcher to the study group.Three tools were utilized to collect data. Tool I was structured patient assessment interview questionnaire. Tool (II) Modified Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance scale (ECOG). Tool (III) was Self-care questionnaire. Results: The main results revealed that there were improvement of mean scores regarding change of quality grade of functional ability of the study group II in one and three months after receiving self-care teaching module with very high statistical significance difference. Also, the occurrence and severity of acute side effects was improved in the study group II compared to control group I.Conclusion and recommendations: It was recommended that teaching self-care module to the patients before receiving radiation therapy should be used as routine intervention for all head and neck cancer patients.


One of the most extraordinary and in some ways totally unexpected phenomena in the recent history of language teaching has been the "method boom" of the seventies (Krumm 1983). This development is extraordinary and unexpected because around 1970 there was every indication that the profession had finished with methods. It looked as if the controversy between cognitivism and audiolingualism would be the last of the great method debates, and that from then on the profession would resolutely turn its back on this century-old obsession. Instead, there would be research on learning and teaching and a more sophisticated analysis of pedagogy that would no longer be satisfied with the global and ill-defined method concept. And then, suddenly, a whole spate of new methods appeared: Total Physical Response, Silent Way, Dartmouth Method, Counseling Learning, Suggestopedia, and a few others. Some of these were not entirely new; but it was only in the seventies that they were "discovered." The second surprise has been the tolerant and positive reception the new methods were given by sophisticated methodologists and applied linguists in North America. One could have expected them to be slaughtered one by one under the seering light of theory and research. Far from it. It was probably Earl Stevick who set the tone. He was among the first to see through the somewhat arcane oddities of some of the new methods and to recognise significant new avenues which deserved to be explored. Stephen Krashen, too, found in them valuable allies and even associated himself with one of the methods, the Natural Approach. Then, in 1982, Robert Blair produced a book which attempted to interpret the new methods sympathetically and to integrate them into a broader view of language teaching. In the book under review, John Oiler, Jr., joining forces with an ESL teacher, Patricia Richard-Amato, has continued in the same vein by assembling a new anthology of these methods together with other accounts of techniques, experiments, and projects in order to present a mix that in their estimation makes theoretical and practical sense. Oiler and Richard-Amato do not claim that their collection of papers is a theoretically tight and unified whole. Their intention was to offer a book that, by bringing together success stories of language teaching, would encourage and stimulate young teachers and counteract what the editors regard as the prevailing gloom-and-doom outlook among methodologists. They wanted to create a text that presents a positive and optimistic image. They describe their collection of papers as a "smorgasbord" of ideas which they have loosely fitted together according to a few orientations and themes. They set out with four papers that introduce and illustrate their own pragmatic orientation. John Oiler's opening paper offers indeed a highly interesting and fruitful set of hypotheses: (I) comprehensible input (derived from Krashen), (2) textuality, (3) expectancy, and (4) episodic organisation. In other words, the editors put forward a promising theory which opposes "pattern drill nonsense" (p. 1 7) and recommends basing language teaching on well-motivated texts, the logic of experience, chunking of texts, and gradual approximation to the full meaning of texts. This view of language teaching can be


Heterostructures comprised of two two-dimensional electron systems (2DES) separated by a dielectric exhibit resonant tunneling when the band structures of both systems are aligned. It is commonly assumed that the height and width of the resonant peak in the tunneling current is determined by electron scattering and rotational misalignment of crystal structures of the 2DES. We identify two fundamental factors limiting the maximum height and steepness of the resonance: coupling to contacts and tunnel splitting of energy levels. The upper limit of the tunneling current is the number of electrons available for tunneling times half the tunnel coupling between the 2DES. As a result of a tradeoff between the contact-induced level broadening and contact resistance, the maximum current is only achievable when the coupling to contacts equals the tunnel level splitting. According to our model calculations, the limiting behavior can be observed in double-gated graphene/few-layer hexagonal boron nitride/graphene heterostructures.


This paper investigates and evaluates coupled inductors in interleaved multiphase three-level DC-DC converters. If non-coupled inductor is used and maintaining the inductance of inductor, multiphase three-level DC-DC converter interleaving operation will increase the inductor current ripple, although the overall output current ripple and common mode voltage will be smaller. To reduce the inductor current ripple, inverse-coupled inductor is employed. The current ripple in the coupled inductor is analyzed and verified by simulations. By adding coupled inductor and interleaving, we can achieve smaller inductor current ripple, smaller total output current ripple as well as smaller CM voltage simultaneously.


Influenced by postmodern philosophy, economists have held that substantive propositions made by rival schools of economics are parts of 'incommensurable paradigms'. The incommensurability thesis implies that one cannot cross evaluate or adjudicate between substantive propositions made within rival paradigms. This paper provides a framework to examine the tenets of the incommensurability thesis through a comparative case study of the rival monetary theories of Ludwig von Mises and Karl Marx. Section 1 presents the case for the incommensurability of economic paradigms as postmodernists and their predecessors assert. It defines three elements that constitute an economic paradigm− starting points, methodological procedures, and conceptual schemes. Sections 2, 3 and 4 examine whether the three paradigmatic elements in the monetary theories of Mises and Marx are incommensurable. Section 5 concludes by drawing implications for paradigm (in)commensurability.


We have been swamped, for quite some time now, by a pernicious discourse in education that emphasizes what is, rather than what should and can be. It is a discourse that, in regarding ''the present as definitive of that which is possible,'' exalts technical-rationality and marketability at the expense of a concern with issues regarding social justice and life-sustaining values.1 This discourse is, of course, reflective of the current stage of capitalist reorganization and the misplaced triumphalism of capitalism itself in the wake of the demise of existing socialism marked by the collapse of the Berlin Wall (together, one might add, with such occurrences as the electoral defeat of the Sandinistas in 1990).2 In keeping with this climate of resigning oneself to what is, we are swamped by the hegemonic neoliberal ideology and such inanities as posed by those theorists who tell us that we are witnessing the end of ideology and that we need to think/act beyond left and right. Alas, this thinking has also been embraced by parties in government that have historically been socialist, thus testifying to neoliberalism's hegemonic nature.3 This scenario has led to widespread cynicism, often bordering on nihilism, regarding attempts to dream of a world that, in Paulo Freire's words, would be ''menos feio, menos malvado, menos desumano'' [less ugly, less cruel, less inhumane].4 Certain strands of postmodern-


In virtual reality (VR) applications, humans experience the provided content not only through the visual and auditory systems but also through the somatosensory system. Thus, we decided to conduct a VR study to further explore the just noticeable difference (JND) of tactile feedback to understand humans' perceptions of tactile stimuli. Our VR study examined the JND in terms of the intensity, duration, and frequency of tactile feedback provided through commercially available vibrotactile motion controllers, the Oculus Quest 2 controllers. We instructed participants to report whether they perceived a difference between a reference (variation) and a testing stimulus at each point in the experiment for a different property (intensity, duration, and frequency) of tactile feedback. We report both positive and negative JND values for the three properties of tactile feedback. We discuss our findings and limitations and provide directions for future studies regarding tactile perception for commercially available tactile feedback devices.


The valuation process for ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) and optical shops is different from the process for an ophthalmology practice, but both require little work if handled properly. Sandra E.D. McGraw, president of Health Care Consulting and president of Health Care Law Associates PC, Plymouth Meeting, PA, said that ophthalmologists could derive income from either owning interest in an ASC and performing cases there or owning an optical shop and encouraging sales.


Using cinchonine(CN) as template molecule,spherical cinchonine imprinting polymers were synthesized by precipitation polymerization.Their mechanisms of recognition and binding selectivity were explored,which could give an impetus to investigate the application of MIP further.The separation factor(α) between CN and cinchonidine(CD) got to 1.90 by the MIPs of CN,but the factor only 1.01 by non-imprinted polymer(NIP),indicating MIP of CN had an excellent separation effect of CN and CD.


Abstract Local, regional, and global atmospheric, hydrologic, and ecologic models used to simulate weather, climate, land surface moisture, and vegetation processes all commonly represent their computational domains by a collection of finite areas or grid cells. Within each of these cells three fundamental features are required to describe the evolution of seasonal snow cover from the end of winter through spring melt. These three features are 1) the within-grid snow water equivalent (SWE) distribution, 2) the gridcell melt rate, and 3) the within-grid depletion of snow-covered area. This paper defines the exact mathematical interrelationships among these three features and demonstrates how knowledge of any two of them allows generation of the third. During snowmelt, the spatially variable subgrid SWE depth distribution is largely responsible for the patchy mosaic of snow and vegetation that develops as the snow melts. Applying the melt rate to the within-grid snow distribution leads to the exposure of ve...


Please cite this paper as: Moseley et al. (2010) Peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor and AMP‐activated protein kinase agonists protect against lethal influenza virus challenge in mice. Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses 4(5), 307–311.


Objective To observe radiation effects on the blood of hyperthyroidism patient undergoing 131I radiotherapy.Methods The blood contents,including red blood cell,white blood cell or leukocyte,hemoglobin and platelet series,were measured by full automatic hemocyte analyzer in 20 normal subjects and 128 hyperthyroidism patients (before 131I radiotherapy,7 days and 3 months after 131I radiotherapy).The changes of blood contents were compared between two groups.Results The levels of hemoglobin and platelet decreased (t=-40.177,t=-4.363,P0.01),and the leukocyte level increased (t=4.281,P0.01).Among leukocyte,the granulocyte level increased (t=10.114,P0.01),and lymphocyte level decreased significantly (t=6.667,P0.01) 7 days after 131I radiotherapy.Three months after 131I radiotherapy there was no significant difference in the levels of blood contents between two groups.Conclusion 131I radiotherapy has radiation effects on the blood of patients with hyperthyroidism.The influence was light and transient,and the blood will arrive normal as the time delays.


The vertical annular separation and pumping system (VASPS) is an innovative concept for two-phase subsea separation and pumping. The full-length paper details the installation, commissioning, and startup of the 9,000 bbl/D VASPS that was brought onstream in the Campos basin.


Anadromous fish of the Alaskan Beaufort Sea overwinter for eight to nine months in isolated pools of coastal rivers where water remains unfrozen through the winter. Available overwintering habitat represents only about 3 percent of the total water volume available during the short summer. Although current fish impact assessment and mitigation planning tends to focus on summer distribution and abundance, the availability of suitable overwintering habitat may be one of the major limiting factors of anadromous fish populations. This paper describes changes through the winter in water quality and in anadromous fish species composition and density in overwintering pools of the Sagavanirktok and Colville river deltas, along with population estimates, food habits, growth and mortality.


The optical resolution of ten racemates by supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) was investigated using phenylcarbamates of cellulose and amylose and 4-methylbenzoate of cellulose as chiral stationary phases (CSPs) and carbon dioxide–alcohol as a mobile phase. The optical resolving abilities of phenylcarbamates of both cellulose and amylose in SFC were low compared with those in high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). However, 4-methylbenzoate of cellulose showed a slightly better optical resolving ability in SFC than in HPLC.


BACKGROUND: The role of laparoscopy in reducing the rate of non-therapeutic laparotomies and the morbidity in patients sustaining penetrating abdominal trauma has been widely discussed over the last years. The aim of this article is to report the initial experience from a university hospital in the laparoscopic management of penetrating abdominal traumas. METHODS: In a 3-year period, laparoscopy was performed in 37 patients who were hemodynamically stable and sustained penetrating abdominal trauma. Medical records were reviewed and the evaluation was conducted to determine indications for laparoscopy, associated injuries, the need for exploration, lenght of hospital stay and complications. RESULTS: There were 18 (48.6%) positive and 19 (51.4%) negative diagnostic laparoscopies (DL). In patients with positive DL, 8 (44.4%) underwent exploratory laparotomy. In this group, all of them had either therapeutic laparotomy or laparotomy for better lesion identification. There were 10 (55.6%) positive DLs, in whom laparotomy was not performed. Four of them had their injuries repaired laparocopically, hepatorraphy (n=2) and diaphragmatic repairs (n=2). The other ones had isolated nonbleeding injuries, and nontherapeutic laparotomy was successfully avoided. Patients were allowed a diet in the first postoperative day and the mean postoperative hospital stay was 3.8 days. CONCLUSION: Our initial experience confirms that laparoscopy is a good method of evaluation and treatment for penetrating trauma. The morbidity from an unnecessary laparotomy may be minimized when the procedure is well indicated, and treatment can be performed successfully in selected cases.


The invention discloses a medicine for treating seborrhea, which belongs to the technical field of external use medicines for treating seborrhea, and provides the medicine for treating seborrhea to solve technical problems. The adopted technical scheme is that the medicine is prepared from the following raw materials in parts by weight: 220-280 parts of glycerol, 100-200 parts of salicylic acid, 100-200 parts of benzoic acid, 80-120 parts of sophora flavescens, 30-80 parts of povidone lodine, 80-120 parts of fructus cnidi and vanishing cream, wherein the ratio of parts by weight of the salicylic acid to the vanishing cream is 1: (8-10). Generally, the whole formula of the medicine has functions of commonly sterilizing, killing insecticides, diminishing inflammation, relieving itching, killing fungus, astringing and clearing dampness and thus takes effect.


Scatter from Beryllium mirrors often seems to be higher than would be expected based on mirror surface roughness data. This paper verifies the effect and shows that it is more severe in the IR than in the visible. The implication is that the excess scatter is caused by mirror defects that are non-topographic in nature. The conclusion is that profile, or roughness specifications should not be used when low scatter is the requirement of concern.


This paper presents a novel smartphone application that is expected to offer a solution from a different perspective to the problem of mobile phone power. The developed mobile application utilizes crowd sourced battery energy and offers software services in order to enable smartphone users sharing their devices' energy surplus between other users that need it. A hybrid criteria based algorithm that incorporates a rewarding system is used to make energy sharing more efficient and attractive between smartphone users.


It is estimated that each year 700,000 to 4 million people, primarily women and children, are trafficked around the world. Human trafficking involves exploiting people after transporting them, often beyond the borders of their homeland. In this modern form of slavery, traffickers use threats, intimidation, and violence to force victims into prostitution, domestic servitude, farm or factory labor, or debt bondage. This special issue of the "Journal of Social Work Research and Evaluation" provides current efforts at defining the problem and suggesting research strategies and approaches for increasing the knowledge base on human trafficking. That human trafficking is a global problem between countries and within countries around the world is clearly elucidated in this issue's contents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)


The invention discloses a new solution comprising a phosphorous compound and a solderability-enhancing compound and its use in a process for increasing the solderability and corrosion resistance of a metal or metal alloy surface, preferably a tin or tin alloy surface.


Recently, the frequency of torrential rainfall has increased due to global climate change, and these events cause sediment potential failure. It is difficult to predict when and where a slope failure will occur because of the concentration of heavy rain. Knowing precursory phenomena, however, is effective for disaster reduction. Nonetheless, some of these phenomena have not been explained in the framework of geotechnical engineering. Organic smells and strange sounds, known as precursory signs of slope failure, propagate through the atmosphere. Therefore, it is important to monitor air movement within earth structures. This study focuses on pore air behavior within the ground due to rainfall infiltration. Here, the infiltration column test combined with monitoring smell, as conducted by Tsuchida et al., was first simulated using the soil/water/air coupled finite element code, DACSAR-MP. Next, a sloping earth structure exposed to rainfall was simulated. Consequently, it was found that distribution of pore air pressure was dependent on drainage conditions of air, and that pore air behavior influenced rainfall infiltration behavior.


Accurate time series forecasting are important for displaying the manner in which the past continues to aect the future and for planning our day to day activities. In recent years, a large literature has evolved on the use of computational intelligence in many forecasting applications. In this paper, several computational intelligence techniques (genetic algorithms, neural networks, support vector machine, fuzzy rules) are combined in a distinct way to forecast a set of referenced time series. Forecasting performance is compared to the a standard and method frequently used in practice.


Take home messages
• A critical success factor for cropping systems that rely heavily on stored soil water is co-location of plant nutrients with moist soil and active roots
• Our current fertiliser management practices need refinement, with low efficiency of fertiliser recovery often associated with nutrients and water being in different parts of the soil profile
• There needs to be greater consideration of placement and timing of fertiliser applications to improve fertiliser nutrient recovery
• Declining native fertility reserves means more complex fertiliser combinations will be needed to meet crop demands


The study of effective use of selenium containing formula Selplex in the rations of turkeys. Proved that increasing the levels selenium in the rations promoted accumulation this elements in organism.


: Volunteer corn can become a weed where beans are grown in succession to corn and there is little information on yield losses and economic threshold for volunteer corn on bean. The objective was to evaluate the effect of volunteer corn density and emergence timing on bean yield and economic threshold. The volunteer corn was planting at 0, 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 8 and 12 plants m -2 in two relatives emergence timing on bean crop (at bean emergence and seven days after bean emergence). The competitive effects on bean yield was high when volunteer corn emerge at bean emergence than late emergence. When volunteer corn emerges at early timing, the yield bean was reduced between 19.6 and 35.5% at one volunteer corn m -2 , while for late emergence of volunteer corn, the yield losses ranged from 11.1 and 19.7%. The bean yield had highest impact on economic threshold, indicating low corn densities to justify the control. The increase of grain yield, bean price, herbicide efficiency and reduction in control costs decreased the economic threshold of volunteer corn on bean. The volunteer corn shows high interference potential on bean. The early timing emergence and increase of density of volunteer corn growing with bean causes highest yield losses .


In this paper,the emission characteristics of CO,HC,NOx and soot emission are investigated experimentally on a 4CK turbocharged diesel engine which manufactured by Wu Xi Diesel Engine Works.Three test fuels were used in this study.(The first one was standard diesel fuel that was used as a reference and base fuel and it is called "D".The second one was biodiesel/diesel mixtures containing 20% biodiesel and called "B20".The last kind of fuel is net biodiesel and called "B100".)The results show that with the increase of the proportion of biodiesel in the fuel,the brake specific emission of CO and HC decreased,while NOx increased.There is no significant change on soot emission.


A novel beamspace multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission system using a single-radio-frequency (RF) electronically steerable parasitic array radiator (ESPAR) is described. It makes use of recent results for decomposing the patterns of any arbitrary ESPAR onto an orthogonal basis set using the Theory of Characteristic Modes (TCM). Leveraging this decomposition, OFDM symbols can be mapped into the beamspace domain so that the ESPAR can be used to transmit multiple streams of OFDM symbols using a single RF chain. In the proposed approach, we use the Linde-Buzo-Gray (LBG) algorithm to quantize the OFDM symbol vectors and form a codebook. A binary search tree is then utilized to efficiently find the reactive loads of ESPAR to excite the radiation patterns corresponding to the quantized symbols. It is shown by simulation that quantized codewords and the corresponding radiation patterns can be excited using ESPAR. In addition, the simulated bit error rate (BER) results of the proposed approach are shown to be close to that of conventional MIMO-OFDM systems, demonstrating the effectiveness of implementing a single-RF MIMO-OFDM transmitter.


It has sometimes been assumed that the identification of the fricatives of American English in CV syllables depends primarily on the characteristics of the noise (i.e., nonvocalic) portion of the speech sound. A second possibility is that characteristics of the vocalic portion—previously shown to be cues for the perception of other consonants—are important for the fricatives. These alternatives were tested by combining the noise from one spoken fricative-vowel syllable with the voiced portion of another. Results indicate that the important cues for the fricatives /s/ and /∫/ are given by the noise but that the differentiation of /f/ and /θ/ is accomplished primarily on the basis of cues contained in the vocalic part of the syllable. Similar results were obtained for the voiced counterparts of these sounds.


This study investigates the efficacy of sand coated with calcium / aluminum (Ca/Al)-layered double hydroxide (LDH) in the elimination of methyl orange dye from simulated groundwater using method of permeable reactive barrier. For green (sustainable) manufacturing of this sand, aluminum prepared from dissolution of alum (cheap coagulant) can be interacted chemically with calcium extracted from cement kiln dust byproduct to create nanoparticles of Ca and Al that precipitate on the filter sand. Sorption measurements for interaction of methyl orange dye and coated sand was well formulated by Langmuir model with highest value of correlation (determination coefficient= 0.999) and lowest errors (sum of squared errors= 0.0122). Also, the maximum capacity of adsorption was valued of 0.9453 mg/g and the sorption curve can classify as "favorable" type. According to desorption measurements, little percentage of dye (0.91%) can desorb from exhausted coated sand through washing with water due to strength of bonding between sorbent and dye molecules. Also, the exhausted sorbent can regenerate with efficiency not less than 85% after eight of regeneration cycles. Finally, measurements of breakthrough curves in the continuous mode operation using column setup proved that the propagation of dye front (and consequently the longevity of barrier) would increase significantly with thicker barrier and lowest values of influent concentration and flow rate. COMSOL (computer solution) package can use effectively in the simulation of these curves.


The invention relates to a high voltage relief switch, which is characterized by comprising a fixing board, a support is arranged at the lower end of the fixing board, an electromagnet coil is arranged on the support, a first high voltage contact and a second high voltage contact are arranged at the top end of the fixing board, and a traction component is arranged below the first high voltage contact and the second high voltage contact; the traction component comprises a blocking board, an electromagnet column is arranged on the lower end face of the blocking board, a connecting rod is arranged on the upper end face of the blocking board, an upper end of the connecting rod is connected with a short circuit board which is arranged below the first high voltage contact and the second high voltage contact; a spring is sleeved on the electromagnet column, an upper end of the spring is fixedly connected with a fixing ring, a lower end of the spring is fixedly connected with a gasket, and the gasket is fixed at the upper end of the support; and a power module is arranged on the fixing board on the other side of the electromagnet coil. The high voltage relief switch can relieve surplus high voltage more effectively and rapidly in condition that high voltage power-supply devices power off suddenly, so that safety of circuits and personnel is guaranteed.


An absolute reflectometer for the 0.8 - 5.5 microns region is described, and reflectance spectra for some diffuse metallic surfaces are given. Some of the spectra show a dip of 5-7% in the reflectance values of the surfaces in the 3.0 - 3.5 microns region. Possible causes for the observed dips are discussed.


a simple approach to encourage the self-assessment of learning. simple "stop think" approach was developed to encourage the self-assessment of learning. A key element was the requirement for students to rate their feeling of difficulty before [FOD ] and after [FOD (post) ] complet- ing each of three authentic anatomy and physiology concept map exercises. The cohort was divided into low- (group L) and high- performing (group H) groups (based on final subject marks). Both FOD (pre) (group L) and FOD (post) (groups L and H) were significantly negatively correlated with score for some maps. A comparison of FOD (pre) and FOD (post) showed that students changed their mind about difficulty in 58–70% of the completed maps. Students who changed their estimation were asked to provide explanatory com- ments, and an increase in difficulty was related to problems with map link generation. For students who found the maps easier, 40% of comments indicated that map generation prompted recall of information from memory. Both difficulty estimations and comments sup- ported the contention that students were self-assessing their interaction with the concept maps. Group H was significantly older than group L, had significantly higher levels of deep strategic and deep motivational learning, and had significantly higher marks in two of three concept map exercises. Notwithstanding these differences, the results from the "stop think" approach were similar between groups, indicating that it may be appropriate for students of varying academic ability. It is suggested that "stop think" may be a useful approach to encourage student self-assessment, an important step in assisting


Correction for 'High iodine adsorption performances under off-gas conditions by bismuth-modified ZnAl-LDH layered double hydroxide' by Trinh Dinh Dinh et al., RSC Adv., 2020, 10, 14360–14367, DOI: 10.1039/D0RA00501K.


An acid distillation (AD) method, followed by ion chromatography (IC) resulted in incomplete extraction (50-65% recovery) of sulfite from shrimp samples fortified with various levels of sodium metabisulfite (Na2S2O5). AD-IC accounted for approximately 30% of the sulfite as determined by the AOAC Monier-Williams method (M-W), when shrimp were treated with a standard sulfite dip. An IC method involving extraction of shrimp samples with an alkaline-formaldehyde solution (AFE-IC) or water (WE-IC) gave residual sulfite levels which averaged 97% of those obtained by the M-W method. Fresh shrimp treated with 0.5% and 1.25% Na2S2O5 dips were found by the M-W and WE-IC methods to have mean residuals of 31 and 83 ppm as SO2, respectively, which were below FDA's legal limit of 100 ppm as SO2.


The evaluation of peripheral nerve regeneration is of great interest in clinical as well as in experimental situations. However, there are few techniques that give early and quantitative information on the states of the regeneration process. If quantitative assays would be available, different surgical techniques and medications could be evaluated more accurately in relation to axonal ingrowth and functional recovery. The purpose of this study was to investigate the merits of nerve compound action signals (NCASs) recorded electrically and signals recorded with a novel magnetic recording technique. We compared the two techniques in the rabbit peroneal nerve, 2, 4, 6, and 8 weeks after a nerve reconstruction. Our conclusions are that the signals recorded with the magnetic sensor are far more reproducible and less prone to stimulus artifact than the electrically recorded signals. Furthermore, the magnetic recording shows that the number of axons that have regenerated increases with time. Previously, this could only be determined with histological studies. Other ingrowth parameters that can be quantified are the average ingrowth distance, and the variation between axons in ingrowth velocity. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


Programs and actions developed in Uruguay aboutreading in recentyears are presented from the public policy's perspective. Anapproach is made to some general concepts of


Forecasting solar photovoltaic power output is a difficult task, but it is essential for effective solar energy planning. Artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms are promising to improve the forecasting accuracy. In this work, we discuss how different types of data (e.g. weather, solar irradiance, etc.) can be used to improve the accuracy of the forecast. We evaluate the effect of using machine learning algorithms, including artificial neural networks, support vector machines, and gradient boost to design the model that effectively represent the output power of a photovoltaic solar system in Jordan. Experimental results show that algorithms such as gradient boost perform the best compared to simulation and other machine learning algorithms. Best model selection applies 10-fold cross validation using data from weather stations to forecast PV power output. The best model has been trained using imputed and pre-processed data from 2018-2022 and has shown excellent results. The Gradient Boost algorithm outperformed other algorithms, with an RMSE value 0.808 and 0.921 R2. This suggests that the Gradient Boost algorithm is a promising tool for forecasting PV power output.


Chemical looping combustion is a novel combustion technology that can be used to reduce CO2 emissions. However, with nitrogen containing fuels, NOx is expected to form. The mechanism of NOx formation and reduction due to fuel bound nitrogen in chemical looping combustion is not well established. As a step in understanding this mechanism, this thesis aims to investigate the influence of homogeneous, gasphase, reactions and heterogeneous, gas-solid, reactions causing NOx formation and reduction in chemical looping combustion. This was done by combining modelling and experimental endeavours. Gas-phase modelling of important homogeneous reactionswasperformedusingCHEMKIN.Furthermore,experimentswerecarriedout with thermal gravimetric analysis to study the important heterogeneous reactions, for which kinetics were derived. Activated, Norwegian ilmenite was used as oxygen carrier, as this is currently a bench-mark oxygen carrier. The proposed reaction pathway that the modelling work and the experiments are based on suggests that the NOx precursor NH3 can be catalytically decomposed to N2 or oxidised to NO by the oxygen carrier and that the formed NO can be reduced to N2, either by the catalyticreactionwithNH3 orbyoxidationofthereducedOC.Theresultsindicated that the heterogeneous reactions are of large importance and that the environment in chemical looping combustion cannot be modelled using only gas-phase chemistry. The main conclusions are that the heterogeneous reactions seem to dominate the NOx formation and reduction pathways and that NOx formation is larger than NOx reduction with respect to the heterogeneous reactions when utilising ilmenite as oxygen carrier.


The utility model discloses a wind power generation tower vibration control system based on an annular TLD, which comprises a foundation, a tower frame, a cabinet, a hub, blades and the annular TLD, wherein the annular TLD is installed on the tower frame and comprises an annular pipe, damper nets and viscous fluid; the damper nets are evenly arranged in the annular pipe; the viscous fluid is filled in the annular pipe; the annular pipe is mounted at the top end of the tower frame; and the outer wall of the annular pipe is fixedly connected with the inner wall of the tower frame. The wind power generation tower vibration control system based on the annular TLD overcomes the shortcomings of bad anti-vibration performance existing in commonly used wind power generation tower system, prolongs service life of the wind power generation tower system and increases safe stability of a wind power generation unit.


In order to observe the impairment caused by chemotherapeutics and to protect against them,the authors tested the protective effect of an immuno-enhancing mixture (IEM) of traditional Chinese medicine against the side-effect by com- prehensive chemotherapy of cyclophosphamide,fluorouracil and hydrocortisone in mice.The results showed that a signifi- cant increasing of body weight occurred in the IEM treated mice.The incidence of erosion of gastric mucous,fatty degen eration of the liver,hemorrhage and edema of the lungs were significantly decreased in the IEM treated mice pre and post-chemotherapy.The white blood cells count (WBC) of peripheral blood in IEM treated mice after chemotherapy (8. 88±1.38×10~9/L) was significantly higher than that in the chemotherapy group (3.44±2.82×10~9/L),P0.01.It is suggested that IEM offered some protection from the impairments caused by chemotherapeutical medicines.


Background: Furosemide is a potent diuretic drug widely used to treat congestive heart failure in dogs and cats, but it shows remarkable variability in bioavailability and efficacy when administered orally. In particular, a different diuretic effect can be detected after repeated administrations of the same medicinal product in the same animal. For this reason, we investigate the possible reasons for this peculiar behavior. Drug products for veterinary andhuman use are compared in terms of variability for tablet splitting, in vitro dissolution profiles (in different fluids that could simulate the gastrointestinal environment of pets), and drug distribution uniformity. Aim: To study the in vitro performances of drug products in terms of variability. Methods: Five veterinary products and five products for human use, containing different furosemide doses, are characterized. Tablets splitting uniformity, in vitro dissolution profiles in different fluids that could simulate the gastrointestinal environment of the different species, and drug content distribution, were tested. Results: The in vitro dissolution profiles of the different medicines are comparable but confirm a different dissolution rate as a function of the medium pH and volume. Many of the products considered show wide variability in the division performances of the scored tablets, and this problem could lead to the detected fluctuations in the diuretic effect. The four-leaf clover shape of a veterinary product appears to give rise to more uniform fractions. A uniform distribution of the drug in the tablets and their fractions is confirmed for all the products considered. Conclusion: The possibility of tablets splitting allows considerable dosage flexibility, but a non-uniform break of the tablets to obtain the dosage suitable for the pet's weight, can cause dangerous over-or sub-dosing condition, especially in critical pathologies and in small breed pets.


Previous studies have shown that the gastropod Hydrobia ulvae destabilizes the top layers of e ne-grained sediments. This process is mediated by the formation of a " biogenic" e uff layer that includes tracks, faecal pellets and mucus. This e uff layer has been shown to be easily resuspended before general bed erosion. In order to examine how e uff layer and bed erosion interact, e ume experiments were performed with e uid sediments of varying water contents. Ten thousand snails were placed and allowed to crawl for 5 h on the sediment surface, and then the resuspended sediment mass was measured in response to step-wise shear stress increases. Two distinct erosion phases were observed: (1) initial resuspension of the e uff layer and (2) the subsequent bed erosion. Both the bioturbation by snails and sediment water content interacted positively to increase erosion rates during the phase of e uff layer erosion. The presence of a e uff layer due to the snail' s activities did not affect rates of subsequent bed erosion. A vertical model (1DV) was developed to simulate the succession in time of the two distinct erosion phases. Within this deterministic model, erosion rates of the e uff layer depend on the quantity of sediment that is present in the e uff layer. Previous behavioral observations of track formation mechanisms were integrated into model equations to account for the snail density and the water content dependence. The observed bed erosion was fairly well reproduced by considering the variation with depth of the sediment density as measured in the experiments. This model suggests a new approach for assessing the erosion of natural sediments under the ine uence of H. ulvaepopulation density, water content and tidal currents.


Methods and experimental findings shown describe how mechanical parameters of the surface layer behavior and acoustic emission signals are interconnected.Experimental study was carried out under conditions of simple single-and dual stage compression. Graphic and analytic dependencies between the counting rate of the acoustic emission Ṅ and the shear deformation degree Λ were revealed. The findings describing dual compression show that the acoustic emission method is sensitive to the material stressing history.The dependency of the acoustic emission signal energy on the pre-stressing program was found, which helped establish that, with values of the plasticity reserve depletion being equal for all experimental specimens, the accumulated shear deformation degree Λ was different.The findings describing the hereditable physical state of the strengthened surface layer of parts during cutting and surface plastic deformation are presented in the paper. The study was carried out using the methods of property accumulation control in deformation sites depending on treatment modes with real-time monitoring of acoustic emission signals. A peculiar feature of these methods is the use of visual recording of the metal plastic flow to be further used in calculating the hereditable parameters of the surface layer quality.


A spatial-construction-based fault diagnosis method is proposed to detect and locate the abnormality for unknown distributed parameter systems (DPSs). To accurately locate the abnormality, the continuous spatial basis functions (SBFs) are derived by the proposed spatial construction method from empirical data. Theoretical analysis proves that the B-spline curve is a proper solution to the spatial construction problem. Two new statistics are constructed based on the derived continuous SBFs and the improved independent component analysis algorithm. The abnormality can be timely detected according to the reference signals derived by the central limit theorem and hypothesis testing. With the continuous SBFs, the probability distribution of statistic contribution can be constructed to reveal the actual position of the abnormality. The proposed method can timely detect and locate the abnormality under fewer sensors without the knowledge of PDE and boundary conditions. The internal short circuit experiment on a lithium-ion battery demonstrates the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method.


The aim of this study was to analyze the WISC-R profiles of 42 conduct problem children attending public school classes for the emotionally handicapped. This analysis was done to generate hypotheses concerning the children's intellectual strengths and weaknesses, using a variety of subtest groupings to interpret ability patterns. No attempt was made to differentiate between various categories of emotional disturbance, between disturbed and normal children, nor between different kinds of handicapping conditions. The statistical procedures consisted of Analysis of Variance Repeated Measures for comparisons across three or more subtest groupings, and t-tests for dependent samples when only two subtest groupings were being compared. In general, the findings revealed relative strengths in perceptual organization skills, and weaknesses in skills that involve sequencing, memory, and attention. Specific verbal and nonverbal patterns emerged and are discussed, along with implications for practice and directions of future research.


The model checking of higher-order recursion schemes (higher-order model checking for short) has been actively studied in the last decade, and has seen significant progress in both theory and practice. From a practical perspective, higher-order model checking provides a foundation for software model checkers for functional programming languages such as ML and Haskell. This short article aims to provide an overview of the recent progress in higher-order model checking and discuss future directions.