The simultaneous publication of three important treatises in any area of the history of science is a major event. To have three works on the founding period of electrical science is particularly noteworthy and may be considered as a sign of the growing maturity of the history of science as a professional discipline. These books represent in their totality a filling-in of a major gap in our knowledge. The subject has a special importance since-as John Heilbron rightly points out in his new book (pp. 1-6)-electricity developed as a science in its own right during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries at the same time that the profession of physics itself came into being, together with the concept of physics (as we understand it today) as an independent discipline within the larger context of natural philosophy. Whoever has done research on the history of electricity has become at once aware of the need for a study of the development of frictional or static electric generators, a need that is part of the general want of scholarly investigations relating to the whole area of design, manufacture, sale and distribution, and use of scientific instruments. Willem Hackmann is thus in a very real sense a pioneer, developing an entire subject from scattered fragments, using contemporaneous descriptions of electrical machines (from descriptive pamphlets or books, letters, etc.) and studying such machines as may still survive. Hackmann introduces the subject at large with a discussion of early electrical investigations (Gilbert, von Guericke, Newton, and the study of the glow above the mercury sloshing against the glass walls of barometer tubes) and the work of Francis Hauksbee, Sr., who was led to study the "mercurical phosphor" and invented the first true electrical machine, a whirling globe (which could be evacuated by means of an air pump). Hackmann agrees with Heathcote that von Guericke's sulfur ball machine was not truly an electrical machine (or electrostatic generator) and admonishes those historians of science who have erred in this regard, tracing the error back to Priestley's history. I


The paper introduces readers about t he modern c on cept and current research on stress and its mechanism.It emp hases the importan ce of cognition in the occur rence and development of stress.The related illnes ses are depicted from a bio-psycho-social point of views,and the diagnosis an d treatment on th ese illnesses are also discussed.


A native of San Francisco, California, I am the son of Nicaraguan immigrants. My early interest in poetry coincided with the Sandinista revolution in 1979. A seminal experience, in this regard, was playing truant one day in 1982. I took BART across the bay instead of going to school—in order to hear Nicaragua's Minister of Culture read his poetry in Wheeler Auditorium on the UC Berkeley campus. That would have been the poet priest Ernesto Cardenal. León Salvatierra, the poet I'm briefly introducing here, claims Cardenal as one of his principal influences. What we share, aside from our Nicaraguan heritage (he was born and spent the first fifteen years of his life in Nicaragua) and our esteem for Cardenal, is that we both, to varying degrees, have been nourished by what I would term a poetics of the Americas. I've decided to let Salvatierra briefly speak for himself before we get to his suite of four poems, accompanied by the fine translations of Chicano poet Javier O. Huerta. The poems are from Salvatierra's book, Al norte, which was published in Nicaragua in 2012.


This report describes the features of monolithic, series connected silicon (Si) photovoltaic (PV) cells which have been developed for applications requiring higher voltages than obtained with conventional single junction solar cells. These devices are intended to play a significant role in micro / mini firing systems and fuzing systems for DOE and DOD applications. They are also appropriate for other applications (such as micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS) actuation as demonstrated by Bellew et. al.) where electric power is required in remote regions and electrical connection to the region is unavailable or deemed detrimental for whatever reason. Our monolithic device consists of a large number of small PV cells, combined in series and fabricated using standard CMOS processing on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers with 0.4 to 3 micron thick buried oxide (BOX) and top Si thickness of 5 and 10 microns. Individual cell isolation is achieved using the BOX layer of the SOI wafer on the bottom. Isolation along the sides is produced by trenching the top Si and subsequently filling the trench by deposition of dielectric films such as oxide, silicon nitride, or oxynitride. Multiple electrically isolated PV cells are connected in series to produce voltages ranging from approximately 0.5 volts for a single cell to several thousands of volts for strings of thousands of cells.


Terahertz (THz) wireless communications have the potential to realize ultra-high-speed and secure data transfer with miniaturized devices for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communications. Existing THz channel models for aerial scenarios assume a homogeneous medium along the line-of-sight propagation path. However, the atmospheric turbulence due to random airflow leads to temporal and spatial inhomogeneity of the communication medium, motivating analysis and modelling of the THz UAV communication channel. In this paper, we statistically modelled the scintillation and attenuation effect of turbulence on THz UAV channels. Specifically, the frequency- and altitude-dependency of the refractive index structure constant, as a critical statistical parameter characterizing the intensity of turbulence, is first investigated. Then, the scintillation characteristic and attenuation of the THz communications caused by atmospheric turbulence are modelled, where the scintillation effect is modelled by a Gamma-Gamma distribution, and the turbulence attenuation as a function of altitude and frequency is derived. Numerical simulations on the refractive index structure constant, scintillation, and attenuation in the THz band are presented to quantitatively analyze the influence of turbulence for the THz UAV channels. It is discovered that THz turbulence can lead to at most 10dB attenuation with frequency less than 1THz and distance less than 10km.


PURPOSE: An adhesive composition is provided to have high adhesive strength with a reinforcing plate in spite of maintaining excellent long-term storage ability like an acrylic adhesive under quick press condition. CONSTITUTION: An adhesive composition comprises polyurethane urea resin-containing solution of which acid value is 5-50 mg KOH/g, obtained by reaction of an amine compound, and a urethane-based prepolymer with an isocyanate terminal group; and an isocyanate hardener-containing solution of which both sides are blocked. An adhesive sheet(1) for attaching to a reinforcing plate of a flexible circuit board comprises a first release sheet(12), an adhesive layer(11) formed by spreading the adhesive composition on the first release sheet; and a second release sheet(12) laminated on the adhesive layer.


Image Indexing (MPEG-7).- MPEG-7: Evolution or Revolution?.- The MPEG-7 Visual Description Framework - Concepts, Accuracy, and Applications.- MPEG-7 Color Descriptors and Their Applications.- Texture Descriptors in MPEG-7.- An Overview of MPEG-7 Motion Descriptors and Their Applications.- MPEG-7 MDS Content Description Tools and Applications.- Image Retrieval Using Spatial Color Information.- Image Compression.- Lifting-Based Reversible Transforms for Lossy-to-Lossless Wavelet Codecs.- Coding of Irregular Image Regions by SA DFT.- Fast PNN Using Partial Distortion Search.- Near-Lossless Color Image Compression with No Error Accumulation in Multiple Coding Cycles.- Hybrid Lossless Coder of Medical Images with Statistical Data Modelling.- A Simple Algorithm for Ordering and Compression of Vector Codebooks.- MPEG 2-Based Video Coding with Three-Layer Mixed Scalability.- The Coefficient Based Rate Distortion Model for the Low Bit Rate Video Coding.- Shape-Adaptive DCT Algorithm - Hardware Optimized Redesign.- Pattern Recognition.- Superquadric-Based Object Recognition.- Weighted Graph-Matching Using Modal Clusters.- Discovering Shape Categories by Clustering Shock Trees.- Feature Selection for Classification Using Genetic Algorithms with a Novel Encoding.- A Contribution to the Schlesinger's Algorithm Separating Mixtures of Gaussians.- Diophantine Approximations of Algebraic Irrationalities and Stability Theorems for Polynomial Decision Rules.- Features Invariant Simultaneously to Convolution and Affine Transformation.- A Technique for Segmentation of Gurmukhi Text.- Efficient Computation of Body Moments.- Genetic Programming with Local Improvement for Visual Learning from Examples.- Improved Recognition of Spectrally Mixed Land Cover Classes Using Spatial Textures and Voting Classifications.- Texture Feature Extraction and Classification.- Medical Imaging.- Today's and Tomorrow's Medical Imaging.- A New Approach for Model-Based Adaptive Region Growing in Medical Image Analysis.- Attempts to Bronchial Tumor Motion Tracking in Portal Images during Conformal Radiotherapy Treatment.- Color Thinning with Applications to Biomedical Images.- Dynamic Active Contour Model for Size Independent Blood Vessel Lumen Segmentation and Quantification in High-Resolution Magnetic Resonance Images.- Medical Active Thermography - Concepts, Accuracy, and Applications.- MPEG-7 Color Descriptors and Their Applications.- Texture Descriptors in MPEG-7.- An Overview of MPEG-7 Motion Descriptors and Their Applications.- MPEG-7 MDS Content Description Tools and Applications.- Image Retrieval Using Spatial Color Information.- Image Compression.- Lifting-Based Reversible Transforms for Lossy-to-Lossless Wavelet Codecs.- Coding of Irregular Image Regions by SA DFT.- Fast PNN Using Partial Distortion Search.- Near-Lossless Color Image Compression with No Error Accumulation in Multiple Coding Cycles.- Hybrid Lossless Coder of Medical Images with Statistical Data Modelling.- A Simple Algorithm for Ordering and Compression of Vector Codebooks.- MPEG 2-Based Video Coding with Three-Layer Mixed Scalability.- The Coefficient Based Rate Distortion Model for the Low Bit Rate Video Coding.- Shape-Adaptive DCT Algorithm - Hardware Optimized Redesign.- Pattern Recognition.- Superquadric-Based Object Recognition.- Weighted Graph-Matching Using Modal Clusters.- Discovering Shape Categories by Clustering Shock Trees.- Feature Selection for Classification Using Genetic Algorithms with a Novel Encoding.- A Contribution to the Schlesinger's Algorithm Separating Mixtures of Gaussians.- Diophantine Approximations of Algebraic Irrationalities and Stability Theorems for Polynomial Decision Rules.- Features Invariant Simultaneously to Convolution and Affine Transformation.- A Technique for Segmentation of Gurmukhi Text.- Efficient Computation of Body Moments.- Genetic Programming with Local Improvement for Visual Learning from Examples.- Improved Recognition of Spectrally Mixed Land Cover Classes Using Spatial Textures and Voting Classifications.- Texture Feature Extraction and Classification.- Medical Imaging.- Today's and Tomorrow's Medical Imaging.- A New Approach for Model-Based Adaptive Region Growing in Medical Image Analysis.- Attempts to Bronchial Tumor Motion Tracking in Portal Images during Conformal Radiotherapy Treatment.- Color Thinning with Applications to Biomedical Images.- Dynamic Active Contour Model for Size Independent Blood Vessel Lumen Segmentation and Quantification in High-Resolution Magnetic Resonance Images.- Medical Active Thermography - A New Image Reconstruction Method.- 3-D Modeling and Parametrisation of Pelvis and Hip Joint.- Cardiac Rhythm Analysis Using Spatial ECG Parameters and SPART Method.- Deformable Contour Based Algorithm for Segmentation of the Hippocampus from MRI.- Edge-Based Robust Image Registration for Incomplete and Partly Erroneous Data.- Motion Analysis.- Real Time Segmentation of Lip Pixels for Lip Tracker Initialization.- Particle Image Velocimetry by Feature Tracking.- Estimation of Motion through Inverse Finite Element Methods with Triangular Meshes.- Face Tracking Using the Dynamic Grey World Algorithm.- Fast Local Estimation of Optical Flow Using Variational and Wavelet Methods.- A Method to Analyse the Motion of Solid Particle in Oscillatory Stream of a Viscous Liquid.- An Optimization Approach for Translational Motion Estimation in Log-Polar Domain.- Tracking People in Sport: Making Use of Partially Controlled Environment.- Augmented Reality.- Linear Augmented Reality Registration.- Shape and Position Determination Based on Combination of Photogrammetry with Phase Analysis of Fringe Patterns.- Automated Acquisition of Lifelike 3D Human Models from Multiple Posture Data.- Augmented Reality and Semi-automated Landmarking of Cephalometric Radiographs.- Industrial Applications.- On Restoration of Degraded Cinematic Sequences by Means of Digital Image Processing.- Vision Based Measurement System to Quantify Straightness Defect in Steel Sheets.- Positioning of Flexible Boom Structure Using Neural Networks.- Material Identification Using Laser Spectroscopy and Pattern Recognition Algorithms.- Scanner Sequence Compensation.- The Industrial Application of the Irregular 3D-Objects Image Processing in the Compact Reverse Engineering System.- Image Analysis.- A Local Algorithm for Real-Time Junction Detection in Contour Images.- A New Algorithm for Super-Resolution from Image Sequences.- Flatness Analysis of Three-Dimensional Images for Global Polyhedrization.- Generalized Morphological Mosaic Interpolation and Its Application to Computer-Aided Animations.- Openings and Closings by Reconstruction Using Propagation Criteria.- Multiscale Segmentation of Document Images Using M-Band Wavelets.- Length Estimation for Curves with ?-Uniform Sampling.- Random Walk Approach to Noise Reduction in Color Images.- Wigner Distributions and Ambiguity Functions in Image Analysis.- A Markov Random Field Image Segmentation Model Using Combined Color and Texture Features.- Application of Adaptive Hypergraph Model to Impulsive Noise Detection.- Estimation of Fusarium Head Blight of Triticale Using Digital Image Analysis of Grain.- Fast Modified Vector Median Filter.- Hierarchical Method of Digital Image Segmentation Using Multidimensional Mathematical Morphology.- Images of Imperfectly Ordered Motifs: Properties, Analysis, and Reconstruction.- Implementation and Advanced Results on the Non-interrupted Skeletonization Algorithm.- Object Segmentation of Color Video Sequences.- Thresholding Image Segmentation Based on the Volume Analysis of Spatial Regions.- Topographic Feature Identification Based on Triangular Meshes.- Visual Attention Guided Seed Selection for Color Image Segmentation.- Computer Vision.- Theoretical Analysis of Finite Difference Algorithms for Linear Shape from Shading.- Relational Constraints for Point Distribution Models.- Shape-from-Shading Using Darboux Smoothing.- A Novel Robust Statistical Design of the Repeated Genetic Algorithm.- Binocular Stereo Matching by Local Attraction.- Characterizations of Image Acquisition and Epipolar Geometry of Multiple Panoramas.- Interclass Fuzzy Rule Generation for Road Scene Recognition from Colour Images.- Unsupervised Learning of Part-Based Representations.- A Comparative Study of Performance and Implementation of Some Area-Based Stereo Algorithms.- A New Autocalibration Algorithm: Experimental Evaluation.- An Iconic Classification Scheme for Video-Based Traffic Sensor Tasks.- Matching in Catadioptric Images with Appropriate Windows, and Outliers Removal.


Possible functional interactions between D1 and D2 dopamine (DA) receptors were examined using extracellular single‐cell recording with microiontophoretic application of selective D1 and D2 receptor agonists both postsynaptically, in the rat nucleus accumbens (NAc) and caudate‐putamen (CPu), and presynaptically, at impulse‐regulating somatodendritic DA autoreceptors in the ventral tegmental area (A10) and substantia nigra pars compacta (A9) In addition, synthesis‐modulating nerve terminal DA autoreceptors were studied in both the CPu and NAc using the gammabutyrolactone (GBL) neurochemical model of isolated nerve terminal autoreceptor function in vivo.


To the Editor—We read with interest the comments on our paper "Typhoid osteomyelitis of spine is not 'extremely rare' " in the Hong Kong Medical Journal's February 2007 issue.1 We would like to emphasise that Salmonella osteomyelitis can be divided into two broad categories: typhoid osteomyelitis (caused by Salmonella typhi and paratyphi) and non-typhoid osteomyelitis, which differ epidemiologically. The writer said typhoid osteomyelitis is not extremely rare, supporting this with several references,2-7 but all the cases mentioned in these references were of non-typhoid osteomyelitis.


Affiliations: Matthew M. Smith (email@example.com), University of New Hampshire, Department of Natural Resources, 131 Main Street (Nesmith Hall 222), Durham, NH 03824. Cooper J. Park (email@example.com), University of New Hampshire, Department of Molecular, Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, 46 College Rd (Rudman Hall 206), Durham, NH 03824. Cheryl P. Andam (email@example.com), University of New Hampshire, Department of Molecular, Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, 46 College Rd (Rudman Hall 206), Durham, NH 03824. John D. Aber (email@example.com), University of New Hampshire, Department of Natural Resources, 131 Main Street (Nesmith Hall 126), Durham, NH, USA 03824.


In case of maxillary-dental anomalies, the protrusion or the proalveolodentition may be relatively frequently met in case of some complex clinic disorders and rarely as a single anomaly. There are two forms of protrusion: bimaxillary and dental crowding. According to Angle, the protrusion is included in the 2 nd Class, subdivision 1 for the bimaxillary protrusion, and subdivision 2 for dental crowding. From the analysis of existing data, one noticed the occurrence of protrusion at 83 patients, representing 19.96% out of the total lot surveyed. In early mixed dentition, 36.36% of patients showed bimaxillary dental protrusion and 63.64% dental crowding. In the second stage of mixed dentition only 27.08% of patients had bimaxillary dental protrusion and 72.91% dental crowding, following that in permanent dentition, the dental crowding increase to 76.92% and to the bimaxillary dental protrusion to decrease down to 23.07%.


This month we focus on current research in recurrent pregnancy loss. Dr. Ros discusses four recent publications, which are concluded with a "bottom-line" that is the take-home message. A complete reference for each can be found on on this page along with direct links to abstracts.


In the early days of transformational grammar, it was recognized that the syntactic properties of pseudoclefts posed a challenge to the emerging theory. The problem is simple to state, at least in a preliminary form: Pseudoclefts exhibit the same patterns with respect to various syntactic constraints as the simple sentences that paraphrase them. We illustrate with the pairs in (1)–(3), which exhibit Principle A, B, and C effects respectively:


Investigated the stability and structural state of erythrocyte membranes in patients with coronary heart disease of different ages in the Rostov region. Studied the relative microviscosity of erythrocyte membranes in the area of proteinlipid contact and lipid bilayer by lateral diffusion of pyrene probe in patients with coronary heart disease in different age groups compared with the indices in healthy people of the age of the continent. Found increased microviscosity of the lipid bilayer, increasing the fl ow area of the protein-lipid contacts (annular lipids), the increase in the level of structural rearrangements of membrane proteins and increasing the polarity of the internal hydrophobic regions of membrane in patients with coronary heart disease. The interrelation between changes in microviscosity with changes in other parameters affecting the structural properties of membranes in ischemic heart disease, and their functional role.


As a long distance and large capacity AC transmission method, half-wavelength transmission technology has its unique economic and technological advantages. However, there are few previous studies and no corresponding engineering experience for reference. As a new transmission scheme, the characteristics of half-wavelength transmission lines and its influence on the system after operation need to be emphatically studied. In this paper, the mathematical model and no-load characteristics of half-wavelength transmission lines are analyzed, and a method for calculating the impact power of the half-wavelength transmission line in different voltage difference is proposed under coordinate and closed loop, and it is verified by simulation. The research results further clarify and improve the characteristics of UHV semi-wavelength transmission line accessing into system, which will provide theoretical reserve and technical guarantee for the new transmission technology of large power grid.


Background. Potassium plays a key role in human metabolism in both health and disease. The impact of recipient serum potassium concentration [K] on mortality after liver transplantation has not been described previously. Methods. We assessed the effect of recipient [K] on the survival of adult first single-organ liver transplant recipients in the United Kingdom and Ireland between March 1, 1994, and February 28, 2007 (n=5942), adjusting for recipient, donor, and graft characteristics. Results. The overall risk-adjusted mortality significantly varied by [K], being higher among hyperkalemic ([K]>5.0 mmol/L) recipients (n=424, hazard ratio [HR] 1.38, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.01–1.88) and those with [K] of 4.5–5.0 mmol/L (n=1154, HR 1.47, 95% CI 1.13–1.91), compared with hypokalemic ([K]<3.5 mmol/L) recipients (n=360). However, the excess mortality was confined to the first posttransplant year among hyperkalemic recipients (HR 1.61, 95% CI 1.10–2.35) with no significant difference thereafter (HR 1.03, 95% CI 0.62–1.73). This was also true for recipients with [K] of 4.5 to 5.0 mmol/L (≤1 year: HR 1.70, 95% CI 1.22–2.38; >1 year: HR 1.09, 95% CI 0.71–1.66). In contrast, those with [K] of 3.5 to 3.9 mmol/L (n=1518) and [K] of 4.0–4.4 mmol/L (n=2091) had similar risk-adjusted mortality at the above time points. When [K] was used as a continuous variable in the multivariable analysis, a mmol increase in [K] was associated with an increased adjusted risk of mortality of 27% (95% CI 12%–44%) at 1 year and 19% (95% CI 7%–31%) at 5 years. Conclusion. Recipient [K] is an independent predictor of death after liver transplantation. This finding could be of clinical utility in the management, risk stratification, selection, and prioritization of appropriate candidates for transplantation among patients with end-stage liver disease.


Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) as a research discipline has been extensively studied in recent years, with many sophisticated techniques and intelligent algorithms developed for machinery data analysis, health assessment and decision making. PHM solutions for typical components such as roller bearing and machine tool have grown and proved to be reliable enough for industrial application. However utilization of PHM solutions in industry is still much limited due to high research, development and implementation costs. Such limitations are more severe in smaller scale factories and workshops where noample resource is available for implementing PHM systems. Efforts have been made to tackle such issue, for instance, Watchdog Agent® Toolbox developed by the IMS Center enables faster deployment of PHM solutions through algorithm modularization and standardization. With advantages that can be deliveredwith the emerging cloud computing paradigm, a cloud-based prognostics and health management system for manufacturing industry has been developed based on Watchdog Agent® tools and the ideology of PHM as a Service. In addition to traditional data acquisition and management functions in a machine conditionmonitoring system, the cloud based PHM platform is able to further provide on-demand, customizable and low-cost data analysis service. Machinery data accumulated within the cloud system further enables more advanced services such as machine-to-machine comparison, data mining and knowledge discovery.


The cluster approach consists of a huge level of significance as it can easily detect the black hole attacks on various networks such as "wireless ad hoc networks' '(WANET), MANET and many others. This research paper comprises a detailed introduction part where important definitions and clear ideas have been given on some key topics such as Cluster approach, black hole attack on various networks and a detailed view about WANET. The types of this network, some advantages and the usage of this network have been discussed thoroughly in this context. The literature review part also reflects the challenges as well as disadvantages of the proposed networking systems and various proposed mechanisms to detect black hole attacks in a short time. This literature review part has constructed as a critical manner and several mechanisms of identification of black hole precisely mentioned with providing clear as well as relevant pictures. The research methodology part clearly has expressed the overall process of concluding over the effectiveness of the clustering approach. After that, the discussion part clearly has delivered a transparent mechanism by following which black holes can be detected easily. It also supports the survey responses also. In the result portion, a detailed survey has occurred in the presence of 35 individuals and two direct questions have been asked to evaluate the effectiveness of the cluster approach for detecting WANET.


The equation of state for gas stream as analog of well-known equation of state of gas medium in the static conditions is submitted. The connection of parameters of state and motion, and also the volume-flow rate and the mass-flow rate of the gas stream during change of its temperature and pressure as the result of external action is shown on example of modification of the represented equation.


We have previously reported that NF-κB and stimulating factor 1 elements within the proximal mouse Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) promoter region are required for the transcriptional activation of TLR2 expression following infection with Mycobacterium avium. In the present study, we found that a rapid increase in both DNase I sensitivity and restriction enzyme accessibility at the TLR2 promoter region occurred following infection with M. avium. Increase in restriction enzyme accessibility at the TLR2 promoter region covering the NF-κB and stimulating factor 1 elements was associated with the induction of TLR2 expression at the mRNA level. Furthermore, the increase in restriction enzyme accessibility at the TLR2 promoter region did not appear to result from binding of NF-κB, but rather depended on a TLR2-myeloid differentiation factor 88 signaling pathway. Together our results indicate that chromatin remodeling occurs at TLR2 promoter region following infection with M. avium, allowing the access of transcription factors to initiate the transcription of TLR2.


In this study, a wearable sensor-based sign language recognition system comprised of a single tri-axis accelerometer placed on the user's right forearm is used to classify signs from the Indian sign language. In practical usage, however, the placement of the sensor during testing may vary from that used to acquire data that was used to train the classifier. It is experimentally determined that slight sensor displacement could drastically affect the model's performance unless the model is fine-tuned for the new sensor placement. Hence, transfer learning is proposed as a solution to enable sign classification every time the user places the sensor assembly on his forearm for sign language translation. The sign language classifier is trained on the large, labelled data collected for a certain sensor placement and then fine-tuned on few observations of data collected for the displaced sensor location. The classification accuracy of a deep learning model improves from 88.2% without transfer learning to 92.5% with transfer learning when only limited categorized data is available from the displaced sensor location for classification of the considered signs.


Objective To evaluate the anesthetic effect and influence using Scandonest in teeth preparation of vital teeth.Methods 120 patients with vital were restored by PFM,divided into Scandonest group and 2% Lidocaine group randomly.Results Using Scandonest andLidocaine in local infiltration anesthesic,the analgesic effective rates of the two groups were 97.32% and 72.12%.The two groups show significant difference in statiscs(P﹤0.05).Conclusions It is effective and safety using Scandonest in the local infiltration anesthetia,which can be applied to dentistry.


We will study the test and re-test repeatability, the temporal stability and usability of different diffuse correlation spectroscopy probes on phantoms and on tissues. Once the current status is characterized, new strategies involving sensors and real-time feed back will be implemented and tested.


This two part paper proposes a methodology for determining an extension of the MIN and MAX general analytical expression, initially developed for triangular fuzzy intervals (R. Boukezzoula et al., 2007) to trapezoidal ones when Zadehpsilas extension principle is considered. In order to determine the MIN and MAX analytical expressions, the first part exhibits the conventional interval relations and their extension in fuzzy case where trapezoidal fuzzy intervals are assumed. The formalization and justification of the so-built analytical expressions are detailed in part II of this paper. The potential use of these operators in the framework of uncertain aggregation operators and ranking fuzzy intervals is illustrated with an illustrative example.


Although various authors in the management and sociology literatures have explored how the industry leader influences rivals' strategy formation, there is a lack of studies investigating how corpor...


Identifying Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs) is an important concern in clinical medicine. Automatic extraction of ADRs from the corpus enable many clinical decision support applications, and drug labels or 'package inserts' are among the primary sources of information. The Adverse Drug Reaction extraction from Drug Labels challenge at TAC 2017 defined several NLP tasks leading up to ADR extraction from a subset of drug labels. We participated in the Task 1 (extraction of mentions of severity, drug class, negation, animal, and factor) and the Task 2 (identification of relationship types - negated, hypothetical and effect - between ADRs and related assertions). For Task 1, we implemented a joint Bi-directional-LSTM (BiLSTM)-CRF and Attention-BiLSTM neural network for identifying contiguous, discontiguous and overlapping mentions simultaneously. For Task 2, we used another Attention-BiLSTM network. Our system achieved F-measures of 78.21 for untyped exact match and 78.00 for typed exact match, for Task 1. Using the mentions generated by our system, we achieved F-measures of 45.16 and 44.60 for the binary relation detection (Task 2) without and with type identification respectively. However, using the gold standard mentions we achieved 91.20 and 87.86 F-measures for the Task 2. Thus, through this work, we demonstrated effective adaptation of BiLSTM networks for a subset of ADR extraction tasks.


Members of NASA's New Horizons mission team will present nearly 40 scientific reports on the Pluto system this week during the 47th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference near Houston.


Blue ocean economy has become the keynote of the development in the 21st century.As one of the pillar industries of the ocean economy,the grow and the improvement of the marine tourism has gradually attracted the focus and attention from the whole world,and became the hotspot.Shanghai possesses the rich ocean tourism resources,has become a popular ocean tourism at home and abroad.The thesis take the Lingang New City as example,has analyzed the advantages from many aspects,as well as the value and significance,and has put forwarded to the necessary conditions and specific suggestions for the development of marine tourism.


The aim of this study is to investigate the behaviour and the utilization of the cage by adult does kept in cage provided with different elements of enrichment of the environment. Eight adult does housed in a 50x90x41 cm cage were studied.The materials used for the enrichment were wood (one cube, one sphere and one stick), straw and one tube of PVC. Five treatments were defined: cube, straw, sphere, stick and tube. At the beginning of the experiment the does were observed with out any enrichment material as a control group. Each treatment was video recorded for 48 hours using the instantaneous sampling


Microstructure evolution in Poly(Ethylene Terephthalate) during a blowing process has an important influence on final mechanical property (Chevalier,1999). In order to simulate blow-moulding process it is necessary to take into account this evolution. In a first part we present a thermodynamic model in the case of a simple dependence of the viscosity under the crystallisation ratio (Poitou, 2001). The model is identified on uniaxial and biaxial tension tests results. In a second part, the axisymmetric problem of membrane inflation is solved using a classical finite element technique. The simulated results are compared with experimental results on free blown preforms and the comparison is quite accurate considering the elementary form of the induced crystallisation model.


Ionic liquids represent an exciting new class of reaction solvents for catalysis, which have been used successfully for enzyme-catalyzed reactions. In present research, three different ionic liquids, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate, and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis[(trifluoromethyl)sulfonyl)] amide, were synthesized. They were used as a reaction medium for enzyme-catalyzed acylation of (R,S)-1- phenylethanol with vinyl acetate. Mentioned enzymatic reaction was performed in a batch stirred-tank reactor in order to optimise different reaction parameters (biocatalyst concentration, temperature, ...). The influence of three different immobilized lipases on reaction performance was studied as well.
The highest reaction rate and conversion of 49.7% after 5 h of reaction performance was achieved in the case when immobilized lipase Novozym 435 from Candida antarctica was used as a biocatalyst and hydrophilic ionic liquid 1-butyl- 3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate as a solvent. Therefore, the optimization of different reaction parameters on lipase- catalyzed acylation of (R,S)-1-phenylethanol was carried out in 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate.


Title: To recognize the territory: pitfalls of the representation Abstract: This article examines the photograph - ic work of the Catalan artist Esteve Subirah (1975) concentrating on his landscape studies. Based on his artistic proposals, it reflects on the use he makes of these images and the limits of this representation as a tool for objective knowl - edge. These concepts are studied by contextual -


There are two facets to be considered when assessing a piece of research. Is it done well and should it have been done at all? The answer to the first question is straightforward because it is largely technical. It is one of methodology. What is the hypothesis? Are the independent and dependent variables carefully defined and measured? Are the intervening variables controlled or allowed for? Have the measurements been made without bias? Is the analysis of the results valid? Are the inferences drawn correct? Under what conditions will these inferences apply, and so on? The answer to the second question, should the research have been done at all, is more difficult to handle. This is because the answer is not technical but a matter of judgement. The problem is that different people have different views of what is a significant question. For example, some would argue that more measurements of sky types in different locations cannot be justified until progress has been made on using such information, but designers in those locations might find such information useful. Similarly, there are some who would argue that further research on discomfort glare is useless until a clearer definition of what it is has been found, yet others would say that the advent of LED luminaires has made such research urgent. So how should the question, should this research have been done, be addressed? One approach would be to ask, if the research is successful what difference would it make? Would it change the way lighting is designed? Would it lead to a new understanding of how light and lighting have their effects? Would it make people safer, healthier, more comfortable or more productive? Another approach would be to ask if the proposed research is realistic. For example, what is the point of studying road lighting in isolation without vehicle lighting? Yet, another approach would be to ask what this research would add to what is already known. Does it offer the possibility of replication or an extension of knowledge? Does it represent a critical test of a theory or model? One approach that is necessary but is unlikely to be successful in identifying research that should be done is getting someone to pay for it. Funders have their own priorities so a willingness to pay to get an answer is no guarantee of a question that ought to be addressed. What all this comes down to is that the starting point for good research is a good question. Research is expensive in terms of both time and resources, so it is as well to ensure it addresses a significant question. My recent visit to the CIE Sessional Meeting in Manchester has convinced me that while there is plenty of expertise out there to do research well, there are not so many good questions. It behooves all those involved in lighting research to give as much consideration to why a piece of research should be done as to how it should be done.


This study's goal was to explore how new learning cultures might capture the many new needs of the retail industry sector and how apprentices can be trained for future work. Due to the inductive nature of this study, we found a rather implicit but important role of vocational education and training in retail that promotes the social advancement of apprentices with diverse social backgrounds. The narratives of 45 interviews with various actors involved in workplace training in one of the largest Swiss retail company revealed (1) how low-threshold and equitable access to training enables participatory engagement and self-determined success, (2) how trainers identify with social roles that are not explicitly required but are relevant for apprentices, and (3) how apprentices are given many opportunities during and after training to increase their social status. The study also revealed hindering factors such as the time and effort for the implementation of a new learning culture that affects all actors involved in workplace training. Second, are resistant negative social reproduction cycles and the heterogeneity of social backgrounds among the apprentices. Bridging this gap is simultaneously a goal and challenge for workplace training.


Disorders of acquired and adaptive immunity play an important role in the rheumatoid arthritis (RA) pathogenesis. Important changes can nevertheless be detected at the metabolic level in the immune cells along with immune disorders. The imbalance between generation and neutralization of the free radicals during oxidative stress may cause damage of both cellular structures and components of extracellular matrix. One of principal free radical generators is xanthine oxidoreductase (XOR), the prooxidant enzyme complex which could be active either in its oxidase or dehydrogenase form. The study of plasma and lymphocytic xanthine oxidase (XO) and xanthine dehydrogenase (XDG) activities is of emerging interest because of their putative role in initiation and chronization of RA.Evaluation the relationship between RA activity and XO and XDG activities using both plasma and lysed lymphocyte samples.The research was carried out in agreement with the WMA Declaration of Helsinki principles after the local ethical board approval. RA diagnosis was verified using ACR/EULAR criteria (2010). RA activity was measured using the Disease Activity Score of 28 joints (DAS28). Blood lymphocytes were isolated by means of density gradient centrifugation in lymphosep (JCN Biomedicals), 1.077-1.079 g/ml. XO (ЕС 126.96.36.199) and XDG (ЕС 126.96.36.199) activities in plasma and lysed lymphocytes were measured using spectrophotometric techniques and expressed as nmol/ml/min [1]. Data are presented as median and quartiles (Me (Q25; Q75). Differences were considered significant when p<0.05.77 RA patients (57 women and 20 men) were enrolled in the study. Mean age of patients was 45 (37; 49) years, mean RA duration was 8 (6; 10) years. 16 (21%) RA patients had low disease activity, 49 (63%) patients moderate, and 12 (16%) patients had high one. 30 (19 women and 16 men) healthy persons comprised the control group. Reference ranges for plasma XO and XDG activities were 2.60–3.96 nmol/min/ml and 4.49–5.93 nmol/min/ml, respectively. Reference ranges for XO and XDG activities in lysed lymphocytes were 14.11-31.33 nmol/min/ml and 18.62-39.64 nmol/min/ml, respectively. Plasma enzymatic pattern in RA patients was characterized by increase in XO activity (p<0.001) and a somewhat decrease in XDG activity (p=0.059). Lymphocytic enzymatic pattern in RA patients was characterized by decreased activity of both enzymes (p<0.001 for both cases). Plasma XO activity was increased and lymphocytic XO activity was decreased in all the grades of RA activity. XO activity reached its highest changes at maximum disease activity. Plasma XDG activity was increased in low disease activity (р<0.001), while patients with moderate or high disease activities were characterized by decreased activity of this enzyme (р=0.008). Lymphocytic XDG activity was decreased in all the grades of disease activity (р<0.001). XDG activity reached its highest changes at maximum disease activity. Activities of XO and XDG in lymphocytes negatively correlated with RA activity. Activities of XO in plasma positively correlated with RA activity, while XDG activity negatively correlated with RA activity.Plasmatic and lymphocytic enzymatic patterns in RA patients were characterized by multidirectional changes of XO and XDG activities. Multiple correlations were found between RA activity and enzyme activities in both studied compartments. These changes in oxidant enzyme activities may point at involvement of free radical oxidation in the RA pathogenesis. Free radical generation triggers metabolic cascades that lead to cell damage, premature death, promote endothelial dysfunction, extracellular neutrophil trap formation, support chronic inflammation and joint destruction, and other organs and systems under oxidative stress.[1]Mozgovaya E.E., et al. Siberian Journal of Life Sciences and Agriculture 2021; 13(3):288-304.None declared


Informal networking has been a tradition in the agricultural information community. In the last five years, however, the National Agricultural Library (NAL) has worked assiduously to bring a formal organization into being. NAL's efforts have led to the formation of the United States Agricultural Information Network (USAIN), an association whose goal is to provide a forum for discussion of agricultural information issues. Under the leadership of four librarians elected as first officers of the organization In 1988, a structure to achieve this goal is being proposed for consideration by potential members.


The detector described is designed for the instantaneous measurement of thermal neutron fluxes, in the presence of high gamma activity; this detector can withstand temperatures as high as 500 deg C. It is based on the principle that radioactive atoms resulting from heavynucleus fission in the detector are carried by a gas flow to a detector recording their BETA and gamma desintegration. Thermal neutron fluxes as low as few neutrons per cm/sup 2/ per second can be measured. This detector may be used to control a nuclear reactor and to plot the thermal fiux distribution with an excellent definition (1 mm/sup 2/) for fluxes higher than 10/sup 8/n/cm/sup 2//sec. The time response of the system to a sharp variation of flux is limited, in the case of large fluxes, to the transit time of the gas flow between the fission product emitter and the detector; of the order of one tenth of a sec per meter of piping. The detector may also be used for spectroscopy of fission products older than 0.1 sec. (auth)


This study investigates nonlinear amplitude-frequency response of an acoustic nonlinear Helmholtz Resonator (HR) by taking into account nonlinear restoring and damping forces. For this kind of nonlinear resonator, it was shown in [1] that two regimes can be obtained: softening behavior first (for low levels) and then hardening behavior (for high levels). In function of the order of magnitude of displacement, it is possible to introduce a small parameter and these two regimes can be modelized separately by using classical multiple scales method developped by Nayfeh [2]. In the present paper, we derive analytical expression applying the Homotopy Analysis Method (HAM) introduced by Liao [3]. Without any need to change assumptions on order of magnitudes of system parameters, this method allows us to obtain the nonlinear frequency responses for small, intermediate as well as large amplitude vibrations.


Based on neo-classical growth theory,this paper puts up the internalized FDI model of technology's progress so as to test the FDI's direct and indirect impacts on the technology's progress of China's economy.We can discover that the FDI's effects are different in different periods.During four years from 1991 to 1994,the FDI's direct and indirect impacts on the technology's progress of China were not salient.During eight years from 1996 to 2003,the FDI contributed directly to economic growth of China,but the overflow of the technology that the FDI brought was limited.The author also tests the FDI's impact on labor productivity's improvement of China with the model per capita labor productivity as explained variable,concludes that the impact of the FDI's percentage in total investment on improvement of labor productivity becomes bigger and bigger and discovers that the FDI plays a more and more important role in the improvement of labor productivity.


High viscosity silicone compositions such as silicone gums, silicone rubbers, silicone elastomers, and silicone resins, are emulsified by mechanical inversion in which silicone water-in-oil (W/O) emulsions are inverted to silicone oil-in-water (O/W) emulsions. Silicone resins with a viscosity of about one billion centistoke (mm 2 /s), i.e., 1,000,000,000 centistoke (mm 2 /s) have been emulsified. These silicone O/W emulsions are useful in personal care products where they are capable of providing improved aesthetics. They are also useful in products used in the paper industry and medical industry. The silicone O/W emulsions are easier to handle than the high viscosity silicone in the emulsion, which enables the emulsions to mixed with other emulsions or other water-soluble ingredients.


By using SU‐8010 thermal field scanning electron microscope, JEM‐2100 transmission electron microscope, MHRS‐150 Rockwell hardness tester and X‐ray diffractometer to observe the microstructure and detect residual stress, and the measurement of the hardness and the tensile properties, the effect of stabilization treatment on the microstructure, size change, and mechanical properties of the austempered M50 steel is studied. Results show that the residue of austenite and the carbides precipitated during the bainite transformation after austempering lead to lattice shrinkage, which reduces the size of the bearing ring. The release of quenching stress after tempering increases the size. During austempering and tempering, the size fluctuates between −0.29 and 0.23 mm. After the bearing ring is stabilized for 3 times, the precipitation of filamentous carbides reaches the maximum, and the number of carbides does not increase obviously after 5 times of stabilization. The size fluctuation range is −0.9 to 0.7 μm. After M50 steel is stabilized, the transformation of residual austenite to martensite and the precipitation of carbides increase the hardness, and the coarsening of carbides reduces the ductility. The tensile strength increases from 2550 to 2650 MPa, which is related to the dispersion strengthening of carbides and their pinning effect on dislocations.


Plasma phospho‐tau181 is a promising new biomarker for Alzheimer's disease (AD) with greater specificity than t‐tau and greater convenience compared to cerebrospinal fluid or neuroimaging biomarkers. However, its association with regional brain cortical amyloid and tau deposition is not well characterized. We evaluated 1) the association between plasma p‐tau181 levels and regional cortical amyloid and tau deposition and 2), determinants of circulating phospho‐tau181 levels.


This review was written in early June, and coincided with the anniversary of D-Day. The annual commemoration of this event, accompanied this year by new television documentaries as well as the replaying of iconic films, is yet another reminder of the important place the Second World War still occupies in British culture as well as history. Much of what we value today is understood in relation to both wartime experiences and the promise of a better post-war world. While disabled children have been marginalized, if not totally overlooked, in most accounts of 1939–45, this detailed and thoughtful study by Sue Wheatcroft shows that their treatment actually serves to exemplify many of the key themes and issues of the period. There is something deeply comforting about the knowledge that in an era of total war there were officials making sure that disabled children were not only evacuated to safer rural areas but were also issued with suitable footwear so that they could enjoy the countryside (p. 34). Yet Wheatcroft is not afraid to explore the limitations of the care available. There were problems evacuating all the disabled children; leading to delays, unsuitable placements and evidence of neglect and abuse. Also, while some officials were determined to treat the most vulnerable as priority groups, others expressed hostility towards disabled people. In both cases there was a tendency to view disabled children as part of a potentially problematic group rather than individuals with different needs. As Wheatcroft demonstrates, this had profound implications for post-war policy making as well as wartime arrangements.


All teachers from various schools should pursue a way of teaching to stimulate the students' interest in study, to shift study from hard work to a pleasant job. In the course of teaching Chinese in elementary schools, all teachers, who want to cultivate and stimulate the students' interest in study, should pay more attention to the following points:teaching in pleasure and stimulation of interest; skilful guidance and activation of mind; careful research and repetition of examples.


In this work, the structural, optical, ligand field, and antibacterial properties of Cr2O3, ZnO and Na2O borosilicate glasses were studied. A glass system of the compositions 70B2O3−14.8 SiO2-(15-x)Na2O-0.2Cr2O3-xZnO, where x = 0, 3, 5 and 7 mol% was prepared via melt-quenching technique. In this study, X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectra were used to check the amorphous state of the prepared glass specimens. Infrared (IR) spectra were used to study the internal structure of the formed units and groups within the glass matrix. Moreover, the optical absorbance spectra were used to study the optical parameters, such as optical band gap and ligand field parameters. Furthermore, the antibacterial activities of the glass samples were investigated against different antibiofilm activities, for example, Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. The optical studies showed that Eg values increased from 3.06 to 3.62 with further ZnO doping. Furthermore, 10Dq values increased and B values decreased with the increase in ZnO content. The 10Dq increased values reflect the increased interactions between the Cr3+ cations and their environments, such as oxygen anions. Further, the decreased values of B refer to the tendency of the bonds of Cr3+ cations and their environments toward the covalent nature. On the other hand, the results showed that the investigated glasses are promising materials owing to high antibacterial activity on a large scale (food covering, wound curing, and surface coatings), especially the glass sample that contains the highest concentrations of ZnO. Furthermore, it demonstrated antioxidant activity using DPPH and H2O2 free radical scavenging activities.


A thesis submitted to the Department of Crop and Soil Science, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Plant Breeding and Genetics, 2008


The results of four full-scale crash tests performed on the Connecticut Truck Mounted Attenuator (CTMA) are summarized. The tests were conducted in accordance with the guidelines of NCHRP Report 350 for Test Level 2 devices. NCHRP Report 350 specifies two required and two optional tests. The four crash tests passed all requirements of NCHRP Report 350. No repeat tests were required, and the results were uniformly excellent. The successful CTMA test series is the first of several NCHRP Report 350 test programs that are anticipated to gain compliance for various impact attenuation systems designed and developed in Connecticut.


The passive stabilization by the shaping coil system of a noncircular tokamak plasma against the vertical displacement is presented and calculated. By extending the method used for the case of no external feedback system, a complete set of equations is derived. A numerical code for solving these coupled equations is designed. Calculations are carried out for a real passive system consisting of 24 coils with the plasma configuration expressed analytically. It is shown that the iterative procedure to decouple the coil-plasma interaction converges satisfactorily. A detailed discussion of the present calculation is given and some further implications of it are briefly displayed.


This study examines the profile and determinants of poverty in the two largest cities in Vietnam – Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh. Data used in this study are from the 2009 Urban Poverty Survey. Using the poverty line of 12,000 thousand VND/year, the poverty incidence is estimated at 17.4 percent for Hanoi and 12.5 percent for Ho Chi Minh (HCM) city. There is a large proportion of the poor who are found stochastically poor. Hanoi has higher rates of structurally poverty than HCM city. The proportion of structurally poor and stochastically non-poor is rather small. Overall, the poor have fewer assets than the non-poor. The poor also have poorer housing conditions, especially they have much lower access to tap water than the non-poor. Heads of the poor households tend to have lower education and unskilled works than the heads of the non-poor households.


Theoretical results from previous work, presented in Kool, Middeldorp and Rosenkranz (2007), suggest that central bank communication crowds out private information acquisition and that this effect can lead to a deterioration of the ability of financial markets to predict future policy interest rates. We examine this result in an experimental asset market that closely follows the theoretical model. Crowding out of information acquisition takes place and, where this crowding out is most rapid, there is deterioration of the market's predictive ability. This supports the theoretical result that central bank communication can actually make it more difficult for financial markets to predict future policy rates.


Fox, L., Hemmeter, M. L., Snyder, P., Perez Binder, D., & Clarke, S. (2011). Coaching early childhood special educators to implement a comprehensive model for promoting young children's social competence. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 31, 178-192. (Original 10.1177_0271121411404440) In the November 2011 issue of Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, on pp. 129 and 178, Mary Hemmeter should have been listed as Mary Louise Hemmeter. In addition, on p. 178, the authors and affiliations should have been shown as follows: Lise Fox1, Mary Louise Hemmeter2, Patricia Snyder3, Denise Perez Binder1, and Shelley Clarke1 1University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA 2Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA 3University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA


Web-based reading services such as Google News and Yahoo! News have become increasingly popular with the growth of news information services on the Internet. To help users cope with the information overload on these search engines, recommender systems and personalization techniques are proposed. Acting as a kind of algorithmic curators, these services help users find content that matches their personal interests and tastes using their browser history and past behavior as a basis for recommendations. However, several researchers have criticized recommender systems, arguing that overspecialized recommendations lead to the creation of isolated communities (Van Alstyne and Brynjolfsson, 2005), the emergence of extremist opinions (Mutz and Young, 2011) and the overall degradation of the public sphere (Parisier, 2011; Sustein, 2007). The aim of our research to propose an opinion mining method to classify divergent opinions from a controversial debate on the press. We want to contribute to a solution to diversify recommendations in web-based reading services. Our classification approach advocates for the study of linguistics aspects of corpus prior to the classification task, to orientate the selection of the textual criteria which may contribute to the application performance. This approach explores theoretical concepts from Interpretative Semantics formulated by Francois Rastier and uses textometric techniques for the corpora analyses. Our corpora are composed by opinionated articles about the 2012 student protest in Quebec against the raise of the tuition fees announced by the Liberal Premier Jean Charest.


Collapse and subsidence of quay wall at a harbor are often reported and a diagnosis method to prevent the accident has become a significant concern. To achieve the more accurate assessment of quay wall, we try to develop the new diagnosis method which enables to estimate the inside and outside state of the quay wall from the underwater site. In this study, the outside mapping of the quay wall was conducted using multi-beam echo sounder, and the focusing acoustic parametric probe was developed for the detection of the air hole inside the quay wall. Outside mapping was performed at the port in Chiba. Three-dimensional image of the quay wall was reconstructed from the bathymetry data and seafloor topographys, and the mean tilt angle of quay wall was quantified. The sediments and tilted quay wall were clearly seen in this experiment. The acoustic characteristic of the probe, which was developed for the inner air hole detection, were evaluated in the experimental aquarium using three transmission signals [Summing1, 2 and linear frequency modulation signals (LFM)]. We have succeeded in the observation of the penetration wave passed through the concrete plate of 7 cm thickness. In our study, LFM signal showed the best results of the acoustic characteristics in three ones.


In electric rotating machines, the stator winding design plays a crucial role on their overall performance. Novel approaches for winding design optimization, including multilayer configurations, stator shifting, and phase shifting, have been presented in recent studies. Most of them focus on a single strategy, which is generally applied to one winding topology only. In this paper, a unified and generalized methodology is proposed to solve a two-objective constrained winding design optimization problem, which can be applied to polyphase winding configurations with any number of slots per pole. The novelty concerns the combination of the phase shifting concept with an enhanced end-winding connection strategy, enabled by multiple coil pitches. The framework developed allows for the customization of the objective functions and constraints to the characteristics of the study. Two application examples are provided for validation purposes of the methodology, where time-step finite-element analysis simulations of a three-phase squirrel-cage induction motor and a six-phase permanent-magnet synchronous motor were carried out. The proposed methodology is capable of generating novel winding designs that can potentially improve the machine efficiency and reduce the amount of copper in the stator windings.


There have been intensive research efforts to improve Bayesian reasoning over the last 25 years. Much of this research focuses solely on improving performance on Bayesian tasks. In addition to performance, however, it is also important to establish an understanding of the effect on the positive predictive value when parameters of Bayesian formula are changed. We call this ability "covariation" in Bayesian tasks. To this end, training courses were developed to support understanding of covariation, based on strategies that have been proven helpful by previous studies concerning performance, using: (a) natural frequencies and (b) visualisations, i.e., double trees and unit squares. Results of a comparative study in a pre-, post-, and follow-up test design show that the developed training courses can improve understanding of covariation.


Based on analyzing the quadrature signal detection principle, the quadrature detection technology was applied to perimeter intruder detection system. The circuit of quadrature signal detection was established. Simulation and analysis of circuit were accomplished by Multisim8 software.


The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is proposing a new rulemaking on emergency core system/loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) performance analysis. In the proposed rulemaking, designated as 10 CFR 50.46(c), the US NRC put forward an equivalent cladding oxidation criterion as a function of cladding pre-transient hydrogen content. The proposed rulemaking imposes more restrictive and burnup-dependent cladding embrittlement criteria; consequently more fuel rods need to be analyzed under LOCA conditions to maintain the safety margin, compared to the current practice in which only one hot rod needs to be analyzed. New analysis methods are required to provide a thorough characterization of the reactor core in order to identify the locations of the limiting rods under LOCA conditions. In this work, the best-estimate plus uncertainty analysis capability for large break LOCA with the new cladding embrittlement criteria using the RELAP5-3D code is established and demonstrated with a reduced set of uncertainty parameters. With the new analysis method, the limiting transient case and the limiting rods can be easily identified in response to the proposed new rulemaking.


The variational iteration method is used for solving two types of nonlinear partial differential equations such as K(2,2,1) equation and K(3,3,1) equation, the chosen initial solu- tion can be in compacton form or peakon form with some unknown parameters which can be determined in the solution procedure.


The first records of Myrmecophilus ochraceus Fischer, 1853 in Sardinia (Italy) are given and a photograph of this species is presented.


Reaction of the early–late heterobimetallic compound [Cptt2Zr(μ3-S)2{Rh(CO)}2(μ-dppm)] (1) with MeI affords the unusual oxidative addition product [Cptt2Zr(μ3-S)2Rh2(μ-CO)(μ-dppm)(I)(COCH3)] (4), showing the presence of a bridging carbonyl and a terminal acetyl ligand. The optimized structure of 4 by DFT calculations is further substantiated by the spectroscopic data of the 13CO-labeled complex 4*. The same reaction carried out on the structurally related gem-dithiolate dinuclear complexes [Rh2(μ-S2CR2)(CO)2(PPh3)2] (2, 3) gives the one-center oxidative addition acetyl products [Rh2(μ-S2CR2)(COCH3)(I)(CO)(PPh3)2] (R2 = −(CH2)5–, 5; R = Bn (benzyl), 6). Reaction of 3 with molecular iodine affords the dinuclear compounds [Rh2(μ-S2CBn2)(I)2(μ-CO)(PPh3)2] (7) and [Rh2(μ-S2CBn2)(I)2(CO)2(PPh3)2] (8), the transannular oxidative addition product, in a 40:60 ratio. Compound 7 was also formed in the reaction of 3 with MeI after a prolonged reaction time. The molecular structures of compounds 5 and 7 have been dete...


The design of a prototype single-station simulator for testing first metatarsophalangeal (MTP) prostheses is presented. In the simulator, the implant experienced 45° flexion through to 45° extension at a rate of 260 repetitions per minute. It is observed that the MTP joints depends upon the availability of clinically proven prostheses. The test prosthesis was held within two polymeric holders, representing the first metatarsal and the proximal phalanx.


A remotely reconfigurable wavelength selective switch is proposed which implements label detection and signal gating in the same SOA array. A proof of principle monolithic circuit is presented showing dynamic nanosecond label-controlled switching.


This work presents a prototype low pass continuous time sigma delta modulator which uses transmission lines in its loop filter rather than capacitive integrators. As has been shown in prior theoretical work, such a structure allows us to desensitize the modulator against clock jitter and excess loop delay. The prototype single-bit modulator was designed for an oversampling ratio of 128. Clocked at 53.7 MHz it achieves a peak SNR of 67 dB. In an experiment with an excessive clock jitter of 1% of the clock period, the SNDR is degraded by only 5dB compared to the case without jitter. This is 15dB better than an equivalent modulator with capacitive integrators.


This report reviews the current information about visual perception and road safety, where the various types of research are related to each other.The report offers an overview of: (1) the relevance of visual perception in connection with road safety; (2) the more fundamental knowledge about visual perception; and (3) knowledge obtained from practical study. For example, attention is focused on the purpose of perception in traffic and which characteristics are relevant. In a more fundamental sense, subjects such as the eye, eye movements, and the role of attention and visual selection are discussed. In addition, information on applied research into a number of subjects is summarized, namely: (i) lines and markings on the road surface; (ii) public lighting; (iii) signs and other information carriers along the road; and (iv) the perception of other road users. The report concludes by indicating how, given the available knowledge, practical problems can be approached and offers a summary of recommended research which can assist in solving these problems more effectively and more rapidly in the future.


Ordered aggregates including nanosized silver particles (d = 6.0 ± 1.5 nm and d = 2.5 ± 0.5 nm) stabilized by cholesterol and thiocholesterol forming from metal sols and by cooling from the isotropic state are obtained. The composition, morphology and structure of the aggregates are determined by FTIR, UV-Vis spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and electronic diffraction. The optical properties of the silver–thiocholesterol and silver–cholesterol systems are studied.


OBJECTIVE
To clarify the role of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) SND1-IT1 in accelerating the proliferative and migratory abilities of osteosarcoma (OS) via sponging miRNA-665 to upregulate POU2F1.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
The relative level of SND1-IT1 in OS tissues was determined by quantitative Real Time-Polymerase Chain Reaction (qRT-PCR). The target gene of SND1-IT1 was predicted by bioinformatics and verified by Dual-Luciferase reporter gene assay. Similarly, the target gene of miRNA-665 was identified. Correlation among SND1-IT1, miRNA-665 and POU2F1 was evaluated through linear regression test. Regulatory effects of SND1-IT1/miRNA-665/POU2F1 on cellular behaviors of MG63 and U2OS cells were evaluated.

RESULTS
SND1-IT1 was upregulated in OS, knockdown of which attenuated proliferative and migratory abilities of OS cells. MiRNA-665 was the target gene of SND1-IT1, which was negatively correlated to SND1-IT1 in OS. POU2F1 was the target gene of miRNA-665. Its level was negatively regulated by miRNA-665 and positively regulated by SND1-IT1. Inhibited proliferative and migratory abilities of OS cells with SND1-IT1 knockdown were partially elevated by transfection of miRNA-665 inhibitor, and further downregulated by POU2F1 knockdown.

CONCLUSIONS
LncRNA SND1-IT1 accelerates proliferative and migratory abilities of OS via sponging miRNA-665 to upregulate POU2F1, thus stimulating the progression of OS.


Stolas agenysiformis and Hybosa marginepunctata, new to science, are described from Rondonia, Brazil. Both are distinct species with unique diagnostic characters.


Measurements of the dispersion of the photoelastic coefficients and acousto‐optic figures of merit of fused silica are presented. Values of p11 and p12 decrease by 10 and 4%, respectively, between 676 and 458 nm. Independent measurements of p44 and (p11 −p12)/2 agree within 1% and are nondispersive.


Heteropoly acide(HPA), as one kind of solid-super acid catalysts, has been researched and applied extensively. Using SBA-15 and ZSM-5 as carriers, HPA catalysts with different types and contents were applied in this work for the hydrolysis of dimethyl ether(DME). It had been found that ZSM-5 was a proper carrier, and its supported phosphotungstic acid exhibited relatively high catalytic activity in this low-temperature hydrolysis reaction.


Nowadays, education is mostly in the form of big-scale class education, which will cause that teachers cannot pay attention to all students in real time. Therefore, how to assist teachers to detect attention of students in real time has become a problem that we need to consider. We propose a method with mechanism of attention for real-time assessment of student concentration based on speech emotion recognition. By comparing different classification algorithms, CNN is selected to process speech to generate emotion classification probability. This paper introduces new learning parameters and puts forward a formula to obtain the attention score to monitor the student concentration status better through speech emotion. The research provides a new direction for the application of deep learning in auxiliary education. This project will help both teachers and learners to improve their way of teaching and learning through calculated concentration score.


A manpower survey of veterinary practices in western Canada found that there were potentially 314 full-time equivalent veterinary vacancies. However, only 8% of the respondents were in urgent need of another veterinarian. The results underscore that hiring intentions are best viewed as a continuum and not as a simple dichotomous variable: "Looking to hire? (Yes/No)".


A two beam attenuation technique was devised to measure electron densities 10 to the 9th power to 10 to the 11th power cm/3 resolved to 1 cm, in a near atmospheric COFFEE laser discharge, using 496 micrometer and 1,220 micrometer radiations from CH3F, optically pumped by a CO2 laser. A far infrared generator was developed which was suitable except for a periodic intensity variation in FIR output deriving from frequency variation of the pump radiation.


NEW MEDIA, NEW COMMUNITIES Thirty-five years after Licklider and Taylor (1968) first envisioned virtual communities, and exactly 10 years after Rheingold (1993) popularized the concept, online sociability is a fact of everyday life. According to a Pew Internet & American Life Project report (2001), 84 percent of all American internet users contacted an online group at least once and 79 percent of these users remained in regular contact with at least one group. Pew noted that more people participated in these groups than bought things online. Are all online groups virtual communities? The answer depends of course on the definition of community. If face-to-face contact is required by definition, then obviously no community can form online. We prefer to approach the question from the standpoint of Benedict Anderson's notion of imagined community: 'All communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact (and perhaps even these) are imagined' (1983: 18) Thus, some sort of virtuality is a normal aspect of community life, regardless of the nature of the medium on which it relies. Anderson argues that communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined. Communication media play a central role in determining the different styles in which communities have been imagined throughout history. The great sacred communities of the past (Christendom, the Islamic Ummah, the Middle Kingdom) were imagined through the medium of a sacred language and script. The birth of the imagined community of the nation involved two 'new media', the novel and the newspaper, that flowered in Europe in the 18th century (see Anderson, 1983). Broadcast media added a new dynamic to the imagined community new media & society


The paper characterizes changes in auditing, made in recent years and including the creation of entities of public trust as well as establishing the Audit Committee and the Audit Supervision Committee. It presents the appointment of the Audit Committee by the supervision board as well as its tasks. The paper also describes the issues related to functioning and usefulness of the committee in the global economy.


A study conducted on intact and castrated male rats with cannulated biliary-pancreatic ducts has shown that long-term protein deficiency in the ration leads to decreased secretion of pancreatic juice, lowers activity of amylase, alkaline ribonuclease, trypsin, lipase in the juice, and changes pancreatic response to the action of secretin, pancreozymin or their mixture, that is especially pronounced in the castrated rats.


We study the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) mechanism on the neighboring active sites of a B-doped pyrolyzed Fe–N–C catalyst using a combination of density functional theory-based calculations and...


The paper studies logistics information system based on distribnted object and distributed datbase.It analyzes three main techniques and discusses their application in the large information system.


Optical spectral variability of quasars and BL Lac Objects is compared by means of the spectral variability parameter β (Trevese & Vagnetti 2002). Both kinds of objects change their spectral slopes α, becoming bluer when brighter, but BL Lac Objects have smaller β values and are clearly separated from quasars in the α − β plane. Models accounting for the origin of the variability are discussed for both classes of objects.


Selecting important features in nonlinear kernel spaces is a difficult challenge in both classification and regression problems. This article proposes to achieve feature selection by optimizing a simple criterion: a feature-regularized loss function. Features within the kernel are weighted, and a lasso penalty is placed on these weights to encourage sparsity. This feature-regularized loss function is minimized by estimating the weights in conjunction with the coefficients of the original classification or regression problem, thereby automatically procuring a subset of important features. The algorithm, KerNel Iterative Feature Extraction (KNIFE), is applicable to a wide variety of kernels and high-dimensional kernel problems. In addition, a modification of KNIFE gives a computationally attractive method for graphically depicting nonlinear relationships between features by estimating their feature weights over a range of regularization parameters. The utility of KNIFE in selecting features through simulations and examples for both kernel regression and support vector machines is demonstrated. Feature path realizations also give graphical representations of important features and the nonlinear relationships among variables. Supplementary materials with computer code and an appendix on convergence analysis are available online.


In this paper, we give a general time-varying parameter model, where the multidimensional parameter follows a continuous local martingale. As such, we call it the locally parametric model (LPM). The quantity of interest is defined as the integrated value over time of the parameter process $\Theta := T^{-1} \int_0^T \theta_t^* dt$. We provide a local parametric estimator (LPE) of $\Theta$ based on the original (non time-varying) parametric model estimator and conditions under which we can show the central limit theorem. As an example of how to apply the limit theory provided in this paper, we build a time-varying friction parameter extension of the (semiparametric) model with uncertainty zones (Robert and Rosenbaum (2012)) and we show that we can verify the conditions for the estimation of integrated volatility. Moreover, practical applications in time series, such as the optimal block length and local bias-correction, are discussed and numerical simulations are carried on the local MLE of a time-varying parameter MA(1) model to illustrate them.


(Note: With the exception of the correction of typographical or spelling errors that could be a source of ambiguity, letters and reports are not edited. The original formatting of letters and referee reports may not be reflected in this compilation.) Thank you for your patience while your manuscript was peer-reviewed. We have now received the full set of referee reports that is pasted below. As you will see, while referee 1 raises a number of concerns, referees 2 and 3 acknowledge that the reported phenotypes of the lamin C only mice are interesting. However, both referees also point out that the link between the metabolic phenotypes and increased longevity remains unclear and that it should be strengthened and discussed. They also both request that circulating lipids, glucose and insulin should be examined in the LCS/LCS mice, and referee 2 adds that inflammation and gender differences should be investigated. S/he further pinpoints several technical issues and missing information and statistics that need to be provided. While referee 2 indicates in the referee cross-comments that a strong change of focus is not necessary, s/he agrees with referee 3 that brown fat should be examined by focusing on the classical BAT depots. Both referees also think that data on the lamin A only mouse would be interesting but are not required for publication of the manuscript here. From the referee cross-comments it is clear that neither referee 2 nor referee 3 agrees with the concerns raised by referee 1, which therefore do not need to be addressed. Given these constructive comments, we would like to invite you to revise your manuscript with the understanding that the referee concerns (as mentioned above and in their reports) must be fully addressed and their suggestions taken on board. Acceptance of the manuscript will depend on a positive outcome of a second round of review. It is EMBO reports policy to allow a single round of revision only and acceptance or rejection of the manuscript will therefore depend on the completeness of your responses included in the next, final version of the manuscript. Revised manuscripts should be submitted within three months of a request for revision; they will otherwise be treated as new submissions. Also, the revised manuscript may not exceed 30,000 characters (including spaces, references and figure legends) and 5 main plus 5 supplementary figures, which should directly relate to their corresponding main figure. Shortening to …


While the Federal Administrational Court has contributed to ensuring more legal security and enhanced quality of decision-making in university study law, the partly still excessively long duration of proceedings remains inacceptable from the point of view of those involved.


This paper aims to test the impact of a changing dimensional structure on the party system polarization for several countries in Western Europe. It will focus on research on why new parties, and in particular radical right parties, have been able to find ground in Europe. In particular, it will quantitatively test how this might correspond with an increase in the polarization of the new dimension that includes the issues owned by radical right parties. The study is based on research investigating how the convergence of mainstream parties on economic issues, or the economic left-right dimension, creates a political opportunity for radical right parties as it might increase the salience of issues owned by them. It adds onto this research by testing if the increased salience of the new, non-economic, dimension has now become more polarized. The empirical analysis does not find support for either expectation developed in relation to the two questions. Rather, the results show an opposite than expected relationship: that convergence on an economic dimension corresponds with decreased salience of the non-economic dimension, and increased salience of the non-economic dimension corresponds with less polarization. (Less)


We determined the dispersal of male Red-winged Blackbirds (Agelaius phoeni- ceus) from spring roosts in northwestern Missouri and southeastern South Dakota by recovering 687 birds marked with an aerially applied fluorescent pigment. Eighty-six percent of the marked birds migrated to breeding sites northwest of the spring roosts, many of these in sunflower-producing areas. Males dispersing from northwestern Missouri were found in western Minnesota, North Dakota, and eastern South Dakota, whereas males dispersing from southeastern South Dakota were found in southwestern Minnesota, the western three- fourths of North Dakota, and the northeastern two-thirds of South Dakota. Limited sampling in Canada indicated that some redwings emanating from spring roosts in central United States breed in Canada. Management of redwing populations in those spring roosts may reduce the number of birds that damage sunflower.


The invention relates to a shoe and provides a bubble fun shoe which satisfies the wearing requirement of daily life and meanwhile increases child interest for a child. The shoe comprises a shoe sole and a shoe upper arranged on the shoe sole, air bags and liquid storage bags are arranged on the shoe sole, and the liquid storage bags are filled with bubble liquid; the shoe sole is provided with an air inlet communicated with the air bags, and the air inlet is provided with a one-way air inlet valve; the shoe sole is provided with a liquid inlet communicated with the liquid storage bags, and the liquid inlet is provided with a one-way liquid inlet valve; the shoe sole is further provided with a bubble outlet, the bubble outlet is provided with two or more liquid guide pipes in a communicated mode, the liquid outlet ends of all the liquid guide pipes are arranged on the bubble outlet oppositely, and the liquid inlet ends of all the liquid guide pipes are all communicated with the liquid storage bags; the air bags are provided with an air outlet pipe in a communicated mode, an air outlet of the air outlet pipe is communicated with and faces the bubble outlet, and the air outlet pipe is provided with a one-way air outlet valve.


The utility model discloses an endoscope linear cutting stapler with a single-hand drive device. The stapler comprises a cutting stapler body. The single-hand drive device disposed in the cutting stapler body comprises a bidirectional ratchet and a trigger. The top end of the trigger is provided with a groove structure. A triggering pawl is connected to one end of the groove. A retract pawl is connected to the other end of the groove. The bidirectional ratchet is provided with advancing teeth and retracting teeth. A left reset piece and a right reset piece are on two sides of the advancing teeth and on two sides of the retracting teeth. A corresponding positioning pin is disposed on each left reset piece and each right reset piece. A reset cap is disposed on each positioning pin. The endoscope linear cutting stapler has the advantages the stapler has the functions of a traditional cutting stapler, cutter retracting can be performed with one hand and without other's people's help, the stapler is simple to operate, safe, stable and reliable, and secondary damage to human bodies can be avoided.


Dental students devote several years to the acquisition of sufficient psychomotor skills to prepare them for entry-level dental practice. Traditional methods of dental skills training and assessment are being challenged by intelligent virtual visualization technology such as the subjective nature of surgical skill assessment and the limited availability of expert supervision. In this paper, an intelligent dental training simulator is presented to practice dental surgical skills in the context of a crown preparation procedure. This simulator navigates the training process from pointing the mobile phone device and the dental model based on infrared binocular positioning technology, guides with simple and clear course training simulator virtual visualization model in computer. The accuracy of the skill assessment is evaluated with data collected from novice dental students as well as experienced dentists. The quality of the system's feedback is evaluated by asking a dental expert for comments. The experimental results show trained with this system, the students can rapidly improve their clinical skills.


Syzygium jambos (L.) Alstone belonging to the Myrtaceae family have been investigated for evaluation of their biological activities namely antioxidant and antimicrobial activity. The n-hexane, carbon tetrachloride, chloroform, aqueous soluble fractions of methanolic extract as well as crude methanolic extract of stem barks of Syzygium jambos were evaluated for their free radical scavenging activity. The methanolic extract and aqueous soluble fractions of stem barks of Syzygium jambos exhibited significant antioxidant activity with the IC50 value of 36.36 mg/ml and 44.744µg/ml respectively whereas chloroform, carbon tetrachloride and hexane soluble fraction of stem barks exhibited mild antioxidant activity with the IC50 value 191.018, 257.102, 414.79 mg/ml respectively. The crude extract, along with n-hexane, carbon tetrachloride and chloroform partitionates of the crude extract of Syzygium jambos were screened for their antimicrobial activity against a wide range of both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria by the disc diffusion method. The results obtained were compared with that of a standard antibiotic, ciprofloxacin. All the fractions of Syzygium jambos exhibited mild activity against most of the test organism.


Six kinds of macroporous resins adsorption property had been investigated in isolating and purifying polysaccharide from pomace of sea-buckthorn. The AB-8 ion exchange resin was selected for purification of polysaccharide. The results showed that the absorption rate of AB-8 was the highest in six macroporous resins. When the adsorbing liquid was at the condition of 28℃,pH 9.0,1.482mg/mL,adsorption of AB-8 ion exchange resin was stronger. When elution solvent was 0.2mol/L NaCl under 60r/min,elution effect was the best.


Stokes' linear irrotational wave theory is employed to obtain expressions for wave forces on a hemisphere or a sphere, a horizontal halfcylinder or cylinder, a vertical cylinder, and a rectangular block whose dimensions are small compared to the wave length. The incident undisturbed wave is considered in the evaluation and the Froude-Krylov forces are obtained in simple closed forms. A multiplier is included in each expression to account for the diffraction of waves from the body of the submerged object.


T he purpose of research to be achieved is to determine what factors affect the decision of the customer to credit card debtors PT. Bank Negara Indonesia (Persero) Tbk. This research type is type of associative research by using data analysis factor analysis technique (Confirmatory Factor Analysis). Based on result of research indicate that there are 4 factors that determine customer to credit card debtors in PT. Bank BNI Tbk Manado. The first factor that determines the customer becomes credit card debtors in PT. Bank BNI Tbk Manado is a product benefit, the second factor that determines the customer to be a credit card in  PT. Bank BNI Tbk Manado is the perception of service, the third factor that determines the customer to credit card debtors in PT . Bank BNI Tbk Manado is a trust in a brand and the fourth factor that determines customers to credit card debtors in PT. Bank BNI Tbk Manado is the consumer's taste. Keywords: B ank marketing, service quality, customer satisfaction, image, customer loyalty, use decisions


Journal of Lipid Research Volume 59, 2018 1081 Copyright © 2018 Chen and Yin. Published under exclusive license by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc. Atherosclerosis (AS), a major etiology of cardiovascular disease, is considered to be a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by excessive inflammatory cells, such as macrophages, accumulated in the arterial wall (1). As the main effector cells of the immune/inflammatory system, macrophages engulf lipids and produce various inflammatory factors, thus participating in the progress of AS (1–3). Therefore, it is very important to clarify the mechanisms that regulate macrophage-related inflammatory response for the prevention of AS. The report in the Journal of Lipid Research by Schneider et al. (4) shows that apolipoprotein A-I binding protein (AIBP), a secreted protein that avidly binds to apoA-I, the major component of HDL, plays a key role in regulating macrophage cholesterol efflux and inflammation in AS (5). Apoa1bpLdlr mice fed a high-fat diet have shown exacerbated hypercholesterolemia, hypertriglyceridemia, and larger atherosclerotic lesions compared with Ldlr mice. Conversely, overexpression or injection of AIBP reduced aortic inflammation and atherosclerotic plaques. In vitro, AIBP facilitated cholesterol efflux, the first step of reverse cholesterol transport, from cultured macrophages to HDL, reducing the cholesterol content in lipid rafts that inhibited the inflammatory responses to lipopolysaccharide (LPS), suggesting the crucial role of cholesterol efflux on AIBP-mediated anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive functions. Previous research demonstrated that AIBP promoted ABCA1-mediated cholesterol efflux from endothelial cells and macrophages via interaction with apoA-I (6–8). In zebrafish and mice, AIBP regulated cholesterol levels in endothelial cells that control angiogenesis via depleting lipid raft content in the cell membrane, therefore inhibiting vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 and upregulating Notch signaling (6, 8). Meanwhile, AIBP-mediated cholesterol efflux can also impair the lipid raft-containing Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), which has been shown to upregulate the MYD88-mediated activation of MAPK and NF-kB signaling as well as downstream inflammatory cytokines (9, 10). In addition, AIBP has been found to promote the binding of apoA-I to ABCA1 in macrophages and prevent ABCA1 protein from COP9 signalosome subunit 2-mediated degradation so as to prevent foam cell formation (7). Several studies have revealed that ABCA1 can directly function as an anti-inflammatory receptor for apoA-I to suppress inflammation independently of its cholesterol efflux activity (11,12). The interaction of apoA-I and ABCA1 stimulated the JAK2/STAT3 signal pathway and tristetraprolin-dependent posttranscriptional regulation of proinflammatory cytokines mRNA decay (11). Knockout of ABCA1 in mice increases inflammatory cell infiltration in a number of tissues, including the vessel wall and peritoneal cavity, and blood circulation (13). These results suggest that secretory AIBP modulated the immune/ inflammatory response through regulating lipid transport and lipid raft-related receptor activity. Interestingly, there may be more mechanisms to explain the action of AIBP on inflammation and AS. The APOA1BP gene that codes AIBP was renamed as the NADHX epimerase (NAXE) by the Human Gene Organization Gene Nomenclature Committee. As an epimerase in mitochondria, AIBP converts R-NADHX, R-epimers of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide hydration (NADHX), to biologically useful S-NADHX that rapidly reconverted to nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) (14). NADHX has been shown to inhibit several dehydrogenases (15), which is necessary for mitochondria oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) (16). OXPHOS, the major function of mitochondria, has recently emerged as a central organelle that integrates cellular metabolism and inflammatory responses (17). Yu et al. (18) have recently found that OXPHOS is reduced in AS, promoting mitochondrial AIBP, inflammation, and atherosclerosis


The string group String(n) is the 3-connected cover of Spin(n). Given and compact simply connected group G, we will let StringG be its 3-connected cover. The group StringG is only defined up to homotopy, and various models have appeared in the literature. Stephan Stolz and Peter Teichner [7], [6] have a couple of models of StringG, one of which, inspired by Anthony Wassermann, is an extension of G by the group of projective unitary operators in a particular Von-Neuman algebra. Jean-Luc Brylinski [4] has a model which is a U(1)-gerbe with connection over the group G. More recently, John Baez et al [2] came up with a model of StringG in their quest for a 2-Lie group integrating a given 2-Lie algebra. We show how to produce their model by applying a certain canonical procedure to their 2-Lie algebra. A 2-Lie algebra is a two step L∞-algebra. It consists of two vector spaces V0 and V1, and three brackets [ ], [ , ], [ , , ] acting on V := V0 ⊕ V1. They are of degree -1, 0, and 1 respectively and satisfy various axioms, see [1] for more details. A 2-group is a group object in a 2-category [3]. It has a multiplication μ : G → G, and an associator α : μ ◦ (μ × 1) ≃ μ ◦ (1 × μ) satisfying the pentagon axiom. There are strict and weak versions. If the 2-category is that of C∞ Artin stacks, we get the notion of a 2-Lie group. Since Artin stacks are represented by Lie groupoids, we can think of (strict) 2-Lie group as group objects in Lie groupoids. Equivalently, these are crossed modules in the category of smooth manifolds [3]. It is also good to consider weak 2-groups. The classifying space of a weak 2-group contains (up to homotopy) the same amount of information as the 2group itself. So we will replace 2-Lie groups with their classifying space. This also allows for an easy way to talk about n-Lie groups. The following definition was inspired by discussions with Jacob Lurie:


The computer program for the accelerated life testing technique of a machine part under the service conditions is developed under the GUI environment so that the user can easily obtain the results by selecting the program module. Also, the theoretical backgrounds for the computer program and the procedures of the accelerated testing method are introduced by testing the specimens made of the stainless steel 316L under the high temperature and random loading. The reliability of the program is discussed by the experimental results of the fatigue life, age degradation and accelerated testing conditions.


Maritime Matters Amendments to the convention of Mar. 6, 1948. as amended (TIAS 4044. 6285. 6490. 8606). on the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization. Done at London Nov. 14. 1975. ' Acceptances deposited: Bangladesh, Oct. 8. 1979; Iraq, Sept. 5 . 1979. Amendments to the convention of Mar. 6. 1948, as amended (TIAS 4044, 6285 , 6490, 8606), on the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization. Done al London Nov. 17, 1977. ' Acceptances deposited: Bangladesh. Oct. 8, 1979; Iraq, Sept. 5, 1979.


The additive described consists essentially of a selected oxalkylated fatty amine or fatty amine derivative and a special mineral salt compound, preferably a metal soap. Said additive for heavy oils produces good emulsification and dispersion of asphaltenes and other high molecular compounds thereby resulting inter alia in increased storage stability, improved pumpability due to reduced viscosity of the oil and longer operational life of the filter systems. Further, said additive produces better combustion of heavy oils. The effective additive quantity for said oils amounts to 2 to 2,000 ppm. The oils described are specially adequate to be used as fuel for industrial installations and power stations and as fuel for boat motors.