There is a clinical need for an instrument capable of measuring properties of the eye beyond those presently available. In this paper, a new laser ultrasound technique is discussed for assessing the characteristics of eyes—using a novel form of probe. Laser-ultrasound transients were generated within bovine eyes using a frequency doubled Nd: YAG Q-switched laser pulse. A fibre optic delivery system was used with a PVDF probe attached concentrically to its end. By investigating, under saline, fresh postmortem bovine eyes, it is shown that non-invasive measurement is possible for overall dimensions of the eye, as well as the size of the anterior chamber. Ultrasound features can be identified with different interfaces in the layered structure of the eye, with amplitudes dependant on the relative absorption coefficients across internal interfaces.


An aspect of vocabulary research that tends to be somewhat neglected is that based on qualitative investigation. While a number of studies have considered the differences in vocabulary size between first-language (L1) and additional language (AL) speakers of English, there has been relatively little in-depth investigation into the nature of the vocabulary differences between these groups. The aim of this paper is to shed light on some of the vocabulary features of both L1 and AL student writing in relation to published writing as a benchmark. This study is based on the results of a qualitative investigation conducted using a corpus-driven approach which focused on differences in the use of academic vocabulary by both L1 and AL groups across first-, second- and third-year psychology students. The method used to identify vocabulary differences was keyness analysis, in which vocabulary items are compared on the basis of significantly different frequencies. One of the patterns that emerged serves to support the assumption that L1 students have a better grasp of academic vocabulary than AL students, as there are a greater number of grammatical, semantic and collocational idiosyncrasies in AL writing. The analysis also confirms that high achievers tend to use a broader range of academic words than low achievers. Given the evidence that a good knowledge of academic vocabulary in particular is essential for success at the level of tertiary education, the results of this study contribute to the question of what the specific vocabulary needs of undergraduate students are within the university context.


1. Introduction PART ONE: THE INSULT ARSENAL 2. Words like Daggers 3. Subtle Digs 4. Bludgeoned with Praise 5. Benign Insults PART TWO: INSULT PSYCHOLOGY 6. A World of Hurt 7. Who Gets Hurt? 8. Why We Insult PART THREE: DEALING WITH INSULTS 9. Personal Responses to Insults 10. Societal Responses to Insults 11. Insults-The Inner Game 12. Insights Notes Works Cited


The article describes a pilot study conducted to test the usability of the comparative judgement (CJ) method to explore public confidence in qualifications. Participants were presented with pairs of statements, and were asked to choose from each pair, the statement that had the higher impact on their confidence. An examination of the participants' responses indicates that, aside from measuring the (comparative) value of objects, CJ can also be used to explore or compare concepts. The article signposts some of the methodological aspects that need to be considered when employing CJ in this way. Substantive findings are used to clarify the potential of CJ in this regard.


This paper is concerned with the problem of locating a facility on a line in the presence of strategic agents, also located on that line. Each agent incurs a cost equal to her distance to the facility whereas the planner wishes to minimize the Lp norm of the vector of agent costs. The location of each agent is only privately known, and the goal is to design a strategyproof mechanism that approximates the optimal cost well. It is shown that the median mechanism provides a 21−1/p approximation ratio, and that this is the optimal approximation ratio among all deterministic strategyproof mechanisms. For randomized mechanisms, two results are shown: First, for any integer p larger than 2, no mechanism—from a rather large class of randomized mechanisms—has an approximation ratio better than that of the median mechanism. This is in contrast to the case of p = 2 and p = ∞ where a randomized mechanism provably helps improve the worst case approximation ratio. Second, for the case of 2 agents, the Left-Right-Middle...


Impedance control allows robots to manipulate physical interactions delicately. However, issues associated with path planning and impedance remain unresolved. Herein we propose a path and impedance planning method for impedance control in a robot based on programming by demonstration through telemanipulation using a surface electromyogram. We considered a task that requires quick and precise adjustment of path and impedance, that is, ball trapping. We implemented a teleoperated robot that can deliver an operator's impedance as well as position during the ball trapping task to the slave side. The operators were asked to perform demonstrations of ball-trapping tasks using the implemented teleoperated robot, where the slave side is a vertical robot with one degree of freedom. The path and impedance were recorded and programmed as control input profiles from a set of successful demonstrations using Gaussian mixture regression. The result showed that using the human demonstration, the robot could learn how to catch a dropped ball without rebounding.


This thesis investigates several kinds of models of describing multi-commodity dynamical flow. Three models have been developed for a spatial logistic network, on which packages are delivered by vehicles and another model was developed to describe interactions between the customers, the stores and the deliverers, which does not explicitly take delivery time into account like before. The former three models consist of an agent-based model (ABM), and two different (differential) equation-based models (EBMs). One of the EBMs is built from the bottom up, and was created by averaging the randomness in the ABM. The other EBM was built top-down and involved optimizing a general model with respect to some parameters, such that its solution resembles the ABM solution as closely as possible. These three models were tested and compared in the first half of the thesis. In the second part of the thesis, the focus shifted to a generalized model (GM) approach of underlying interactions on multi-commodity dynamical flow networks; especially the dynamics describing order placement, scheduling and delivery. Such a network is cyclic and contains a feedback loop, where customers are less likely to order more products if they were recently delivered. This can range from someone not needing to purchase a car if they just bought a brand new one to one not needing to order dinner when they just did so. Such networks are in general described by four kinds of elasticities in this thesis, namely the elasticities to stock, inventory level, saturation, and co-production. These influence different parts in the network. For example, the negative elasticities to inventory level model that high inventory levels inhibit more inventory production, to prevent build-up, and low inventory levels allow for larger inventory production, to prevent drainage. The other elasticities fulfil similar roles. This model was tested using a bifurcation analysis, a statistical ensemble method and by computing influences and sensitivities of parts and nodes in the network.


Calorimetry is the basis of the science of nutrition, a statement I iirst saw as the title of a paper by the chief of the department of medicine at the Mayo Foundation (Wilder, 1959). Our science began when Lavoisier put a guinea pig into a calorimeter, measured the amount of ice melted and showed that this was quantitatively related to the amount of fixed air or carbon dioxide given off by the animal. Measurement of the respiratory exchanges (indirect calorimetry) has always been technically much easier than measurement of heat loss. Systematic study of energy exchanges in man began in I 866 in Munich where Pettenkofer and Voit had constructed a respiration chamber suitable for man. This they were able to do through the patronage of King Maximillian I1 of Bavaria. Pettenkofer was a colourful personality who had been appointed professor of dietetic chemistry in 1847 at Munich, where later he founded the first Institute of Hygiene. It was there most of the fathers of nutrition came for postgraduate study under Voit, his distinguished assistant and successor. The American W. 0. Atwater, after studying at Munich returned home and with the help of an engineer, Rosa, built the first calorimeter for human subjects. Rubner, another of Voit's pupils, played a major part in determining the energy value of human foods. When in 1906 Graham Lusk, also a pupil of Voit, wrote the first edition of The Science ofNutrition (Lusk, 1906) he was able to set out the principles of the energy exchanges in man, and these appear substantially unchanged today in undergraduate textbooks of physiology and nutrition. I am grateful to my Oxford tutor, Dr Kenneth Franklin, that he told me to read Lusk's book during a long vacation. Thanks to the initiative of Bill Darby, the American Nutrition Foundation has reprinted Lusk's book. I suggest that you recommend it to those of your students who have the capacity to read. In the first half of the 20th century the interest of nutritionists was diverted from the study of energy by the discovery of vitamins. It was revived in World War I1 by food shortages and problems of rationing in the combatant countries and by the appalling starvation in many prisons and concentration camps. Ancel Keys and his colleagues at the University of Minnesota in 1950 published The Biology of Human Starvation, which not only describes their famous experiments on partial starvation, but also contains a full review of the literature and of contemporary thinking on the subject. The end of World War I1 did not see the end of rationing in the United Kingdom. Indeed bread was rationed for the first time in 1946. This was because so many ships had been sunk that not enough remained to carry across the Atlantic the foods and goods needed to rehabilitate the health of the people and of the


Abstract The structure of the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon with the absorption maximum at 567 nm, synthesized by the condensation of naphth- anthrone (NT), was deduced to be benzo[rs]dinaphtho[2, 1, 8, 7-klmn:2, 3, 4, 5, 6-vwxyz]hexaphene (BDH) by semi-empirical molecular orbital calculation methods. The photooxygenation of BDH and benzo[op]naphtho[2, 1, 8, 7-hijk]anthra[2, 1, 9, 8-stuva]-pentacene (BNAP) due to irradiate to light with each absorption maximum was investigated by measurering the absorption spectra and applying semi-empirical molecular orbital calculation methods. BNAP is synthesized by the same reaction process together with dibenzo[de:op]dinaphtho[2, 1, 8, 7-hijk : 2′, 1′, 8′, 7′-syuv]pentacene (DDP). BNAP and BDH do not undergo photooxygenation. On the other hand, DDP undergoes photooxygenation. The empirical results were illustrated in terms of difference in heat of reaction, which were 25.5 and 30.2 kJ/mol for BDH and BNAP, respectively. Their values are considerably larger than -3....


This paper introduces the concept of scholar teams (STs), discusses strategies to successfully implement STs, overviews the results of the first two years of comprehensive ST trials conducted in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department at North Dakota State University (NDSU), and details a specific ST, the digital signal processing (DSP) ST, to illustrate the benefits of STs, particularly from a DSP education perspective


The present invention relates to a digital television receiver / decoder, comprising means for recording and playing digital television programs (ST) of the digital sequence (40), and using a software application (WEA) processing module, the application program comprising at least relating to the start and end flag and the initial data of the selected television program, and receive / retrieve associated with the selected television program sequence of numbers. The processing module receives the initialization and marking data, and compares it with the television digital stream from the demultiplexer / retrieval unit (FMPEG). And recording the relevant number sequence initialization and marking data processing module of the control with the selected television program (ST). The user's request, executes the software application (WEA) in synchronization with the playback of the recorded television program (ST) related to the sequence of numbers.


The use of soil nails for slope strengthening works has been gaining popularity in Malaysia since its first application in 1980s in view of the attractive benefits of simple and fast installation method to reinforce steep cut slope. Prior to design, it is of utmost importance that subsurface investigation be carried out to determine the subsoil profile and the relevant engineering parameters. Soil nailed slope design in accordance to established procedures could then be performed with better confidence after the investigation. This paper presents the investigation results of two soil nailed slope failures in Malaysia and discussion on the lessons learned from these two failures. The first failure site (Site A) is underlain by completely weathered Shale facies, with the existence of mudstone and siltstone. The failure consisted of seven upper berms of 1V:1H cut slope (a total of 42m in height) and five lower berms of 4V:1H soil nailed slope (total of 30m in height) reinforced with 12m length soil nails. When the slope failure occurred, all the soil nails except for the soil nails at the lowest berm had been installed. The geology of the second failure area (Site B) consists primarily of weathered metamorphic rock with massive granitic intrusion. The failure involved a steep soil nailed slope (4V:1H) up to a total slope height of seven and a half berms, with the maximum height of about 45m. The top slope was reinforced with 6m length soil nails, and the lower slope were reinforced with 12m length soil nails. During the investigation, additional subsurface investigation works were also carried out to confirm the subsoil profile and shear strength parameters. The investigation results reveal that the first failure was due to inadequate Factor of Safety (FOS) for global stability and the mechanism of progressive failure. The dominant cause for the second failure is attributed to facing failure at the soil nail head.


The major characteristics of immunopathogenesis of IgA nephropathy is a deposit of IgA molecule in glomerular mesangium area.We mainly elucidate in this article the clinical and pathological indicators of IgA nephropathy,as well as its prognosis and relevant analytical method and result.


Careers, like marriage partners, are too often chosen for the wrong reasons; as with marriage partners, also, they are too often treated afterward as though the initial choice were the sole determinant for success. With science at a great peak of public prestige, and the need for scientists and engineers estimated far beyond the projected supply, the newly minted chemist or chemical engineer could hardly ask for a more dazzling outlook. But this is all the more reason why serious thought and great care should be given to career selection. A career should be chosen for good personal reasons—not simply because someone else has declared that opportunity, money, and prestige are available. In our world of accelerating change, the need for competent, well-trained people willing to work all their lives at developing themselves toward useful service will always exceed the demand. Such a statement ought to be challenged. But it can hardly be refuted if ...


. The research deals with the content and structure of the Ukrainian-language professional competence of foreign students of medical specialties. The basic components (value-motivational, cognitive, practical- efficient), criteria (motivational, knowledgeable, actionable), indicators of formation of Ukrainian-language professional competence of foreign medical specialties students according to the selected diagnostic methods are described. The results of the research provide coverage of the motivation formation process to study the Ukrainian language as a foreign by foreign students (English form of study) of medical specialties.


Neuroeconomics has been hailed by its advocates as affording "ground-breaking" insights into human behaviour and significant theoretical advances through conceptual trading with neuroscience. The prospect of the discovery of the proximate causes of behaviour by measuring thoughts, feelings, and hence utility is, according to neuroeconomists, within reach. Thus, neuroeconomics will permit the completion of the work of the Classical School in providing a unified theory of human behaviour, and avoiding the problems of "as if" reasoning in standard economics – so its advocates declare.


We identify and quantify the impact of subways on equalising academic achievement in an urban school choice setting. Specifically, we study the short- and medium-term effects of a massive subway network expansion in Chile on the academic achievement gap between low- and high-performing students. Estimates are derived using fixed-effects models. Closer proximity to the subway network is associated with the equalisation of academic achievements. In the medium-term (3 years after the opening of the subway stations), the gap between low- and high-achievers decreased by 5% of a standard deviation.


TMQ (2,2,4-trimethyl-1,2-H-dihydroquinoline) is a widely used and effective antioxidant in rubber production technologies. Its product is a kind of mixture which mainly consists of oligomers such as dimer, trimer and tetramer. The quality of TMQ is determined by the content of oligomers, especially dimer. This paper presents a systematic computer-aided molecular design (CAMD) methodology for designing optimal solvents for the synthesis of TMQ reaction system where the function of such solvents is to enhance the yield by optimal selectivity of reaction and extraction of TMQ products. In this work, we proposed an integrated process-product design framework of reaction and extraction solvent design for TMQ product. In this framework, a decomposition-based method is presented, which involves an integrated property estimation method combined group contribution methods with COSMO-SAC (COnductor-like Screen MOdel for Segment Activity Coefficient) and a process model of chemical and phase equilibrium. The results show that the designed solvents are able to improve the yield of dimer.


The coal measures of Taiyuan formation in the Eastern Linqing Depression are a set of good source rocks. The genetic potential mainly depends on depositional organic facies. Based on sedimentology and organic geochemistry characteristics, the organic facies and vertical distribution are studied for this area. The major source provenances of coal-generated hydrocarbon are lacustrine marsh putrid mud-chameolith facies and shore-shallow lake-marsh putrid mud facies in the middle of Taiyuan formation; the seamarsh chameolith facies dominated the top and bottom of Taiyuan formation and had little genetic potential; the semideep-shallow lake putrid mud facies distributed sparsely vertically and contributed little to hydrocarbon generation. Comprehensive analysis of source rocks has provided important information for the study of hydrocarbon generation from coal-bearing source rocks in Carboniferous-Permian formations.


This article examines Kabosh Theatre Company's production of Dominic Montague's A Queer Céilí at the Marty Forsythe, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, during its first run in March 2019. Based on archival research and personal accounts of a weekend surrounding the October 1983 National Union of Students Lesbian and Gay Conference in Belfast, the play depicts a moment of lesbian and gay activism largely neglected in critical and popular historical accounts of the period known as the 'Troubles' (1968–98). Through observation of rehearsals and performances as well as in-depth interviews with audiences and artists, we argue that the play's situation in the venue, where many of the events portrayed originally took place, and the use of archival and found photographic imagery as key scenic elements create a sense of 'collapsed time' that brings the past into dialogue with the present and future, particularly regarding the relationship of LGBTQ+ rights to societal reconciliation.


The perspectives and experiences described in this study demonstrate the teacher educator's initiative in adapting ideas that characterise twenty-first-century teachers. Critical thinking and reflective classroom practice are cornerstones for developing competent teachers endowed with theoretical and applied skills, according to an increasing trend in teacher education and training. 'Engagement scholarship' and 'critical reflections,' which promote dialogue in education and training, are the foundations of conceptual ideas shared in this work. A critical examination of these two essential principles yields a conceptual framework for articulating tactics and strategies involving potential teachers in collaborative learning activities. Students' participation and critical reflective partnerships were observed and analysed. The action research findings contribute to the practical knowledge of engaged scholarship and the development of critically reflective practitioners. The study supports the idea that moving away from traditional techniques and strategies necessitates an examination of teachers' requirements in a democratic, open, nondiscriminatory society. The action research findings show that aspiring teachers can create pedagogical content knowledge that applies to the real-world classroom experience


What other body--terrestrial or celestial--has received as much adulation as the sun? Old Sol has served as one of the supreme forces in a great variety of religions (1): Egyptian Ra and Horus, Sumerian Utu, Mesopotamian (Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian) Shamash, Canaanite Shapash (also known as the "torch of the gods"), Syrian Elagabalus, (2) Roman Apollo, Incan Inti, Aztec (also known as "people of the sun") Tonatiuh, Hindu Surya, Shinto Amaterasu Omikami (Great Divinity Illuminating Heaven), and Slavic Dajbog, just to mention some of the major figures. (3) Little wonder, since nearly all of the natural changes occurring in the environment originate, directly or indirectly, in solar activity and position: light and heat (and their lack), plant growth, every form of precipitation, wind activity that ranges from gentle breezes to major cyclones, tidal phenomena, and even some earthquakes. We can easily understand the motivation of earthly rulers to not only compare themselves to the sun (as did Louis Quatorze (4)), but even to claim direct descent from it (as does the Japanese imperial family): What monarch would not welcome an association with a life-giving (and life-taking), all-seeing source of immense power? Monarchs do not stand alone in their desire for an association with the sun. Look at the variety of both abstract and concrete entities, which carry Old Sol's name (5): An element (Helium), a body part (solar plexus), a geographical area (the Sun Belt of the United States), several plants (e.g., Helianthus annuity or the sunflower, heliotrope, also known as turnsole, and Helenium or sneeze-weed, also called swamp sunflower), and a North American Indian ceremony (sun dance); the latter first became the source of the name of a small town in Wyoming (Sundance with a population of 1182), then of Harry Alonzo Longabaugh's nickname (the Sundance Kid, for having stolen a horse there in 1887). And the list continues. --The ancient Canaanite and modern Israeli city of Beit Shemesh (the house of sun), an ancient city (Heliopolis), from the latter an Egyptian university (Ein Shams or "the sun's eye"), a Druze village on the northern part of the Golan Heights (Majdal Shams or "tower of sun"), thoroughfares in countless cities (Sunrise and Sunset boulevards), and an entire country (Nipon, Japan's endonym, which literally means the land "where the sun originates"). --A well-liked ice cream dessert (sundae, probably invented to circumvent the prohibition to sell ice cream on Sundays), a king (Louis XIV, le Roi-Soleil or the Sun King), as well as a famous horse that raced for a king (Sun Chariot, for George VI), two female given names (Helen and its dozens of variants, as well as Solana (6)), a Yoga position (Surya Namaskara or Sun Salutation), a popular name for a vessel used in church (the sunburst monstrance), and a hero of the Jewish Bible (Samson or Shimshon, "little sun" in Hebrew). --An artistic circus (the Canadian Cirque du Soleil), the first (or last) day of the week in some languages (Sunday, Sonntag, Sondag, Zondag), (7) and "day" in Hungarian (nap), a long list of newspapers (as in "Toronto Sun," "Sonne Zeitung," "The Sun" of the United Kingdoms, "Le Soleil" of Quebec, and many more), one or two of the cardinal directions (namely east and/or west) in several languages (some as different from each other as in English, Hebrew, Hungarian, and most Slavic tongues, each of which refers to these points of the compass as [where the sun] rises or sets), a famous Neapolitan song (O sole mio), a computer company, as well as an operating system (Sun Microsystems, superseded by the Solaris Operating system (8)). …


Green's function and its properties for the nonlinear fractional differential equation boundary value problem Dα0+u(t)+f(t,u(t))=0,0t1;u(0)=u(1)=u′(0)=0,is considered where 2α≤3 is a real number,andDα0+is the standard Riemann-Liouville differentiation.As an application of Green's function and its properties,uniqueness of solution is given for the singular boundary value problem by means of a fixed-point theorem on cones and a mixed monotone method.One concrete example is respectively given to explain the above theorem finally.


Short-term rentals (STRs) are of great significance to the hospitality industry, but suffered heavy losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, how to increase individuals' intention to book STRs has appeared as a major issue. This research responded to the issue from an emotional perspective by examining the fueling role of awe. Our hypotheses were tested through four experimental studies using various awe manipulations, divergent assessments of booking intention, involving samples from different sources, and testing participants both in laboratory and field settings. The results showed that participants exhibited a heightened booking intention in STRs after being primed with awe (vs. neutral emotion or happiness). Moreover, such occurrences of the phenomenon were revealed to be driven by social connectedness, and two alternative accounts were ruled out. Beyond theoretical contributions to the existing literature, our findings offered managers some insights into how to leverage individuals' emotions in short-term rental marketing.


Remotely sensed images tend to be spatially very complicated, revealing regions of homogeneously classified pixels with quite convoluted perimeters. Fractal analysis, the study of complicated phenomena manifesting self-similarity at many scales, is suited to the description of the form and sizes of these regions. I apply fractal analysis to the patterns created by eight land-cover classes from a Landsat TM image of northwest Vermont. The results suggest that forests manifest high fractal dimension and large regions, agricultural activities have large regions with fractal dimension inversely related to the intensity of cultivation, and urban land cover yields small regions with relatively high fractal dimension. Analysis of the individual urban regions provides a data structure in the form of a raster-based GIS which can be used to investigate the location and description of individual regions and to diagnose the reliability of the classification and labeling processes.


Taking an experiment of reliability test of an elevator button as an example,the paper proposed a design of a set of testing equipment composed of IPC,PLC,speed-regulation motor,step motor, sensor,etc.It mainly introduced design of control system and software and procedures and methods of reliability test of the equipment.The equipment has been successfully applied in the experiments of reliability testing,which operates steadily and reliably.


Traditionally, western bean cutworms have been a pest of field corn in Colorado and Nebraska. However, this insect pest has caused significant damage to some Iowa corn fields since 2000. Disciplines Agriculture | Entomology This article is available at Iowa State University Digital Repository: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cropnews/2383


Reconfigurable nonvolatile programmable logic using complementary atom switch (CAS) is successfully demonstrated on a 65-nm-node test chip. Various logics are realized by synthesizing RTL codes and mapping the configurations into CAS-based programmable cell array. Each cell includes the two 4-input LUTs, 19×16 crossbar switch, and 368-b CAS. The CAS integrated over CMOS reduces the cell area by 78% compared to a conventional SRAM-based design.


This project is about developing a method for real driving emission (RDE). RDE is a complement to Worldwide Light Duty Test Procedure (WLTP) which will replace the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC). These cycles and procedures are used for measuring emissions for light duty vehicles. The main reason why NEDC is being replaced is because the driving cycles does not reflect how vehicles are normally driven. This has resulted in vehicles having higher fuel consumption and emitting more poisonous gases when driven on actual roads compared to the results from the NEDC. The method was developed by referring to the laws of the official WLTP report written by EU. Together with the Vehicle Emissions team at AVL a complete step by step method was established. All the equipment and instruments were provided by AVL and several tests of each step of the method was made to perfect the method as much as possible. The vehicle that was used was a 2005 SAAB 9-5 2.0l petrol. The results displayed that the car and the test did not meet the criteria for RDE and was not passed by the evaluating software. This was partly because the driving criteria for RDE are strict and can be difficult to achieve and partly because no pre and post test was made since it can take several tries before those tests are passed. Overall, WLTP and RDE give buyers a more detailed and better conclusion of how a car performs on the road compared to NEDC.


This article compares the characteristics of health medicine in traditional Chinese medicine with western medicine and their differences through analyzing the difference between Chinese and western culture and history.The health medicine in traditional Chinese medicine characterizes in regulating emotions and being static to keep spirit;whereas the modern western health medicine dominates people's health in the level of genes.This article also discusses the application of the integration of traditional Chinese and western medicine to the modern health medicine.


There are many applications that require knowledge of the location and/or orientation of people or objects moving through space, such as motion tracking for virtual reality applications. Systems using cameras as sensors have the advantages of non-intrusiveness and immunity to ferromagnetic distortion. A network of cameras allows for a larger working volume, higher tracking accuracy, more robustness and greater flexibility, but also introduces interesting problems. The architecture of such systems must be scalable to the number of cameras. Approaches are needed for scalable calibration of cameras into a single global coordinate frame, and also for the placement of cameras to optimize tracking performance.
We have designed and implemented M-Track, a scalable architecture for real-time motion tracking with tens of cameras. M-Track enables parallel processing of high-bandwidth image data. The employment of a Kalman filter based central estimator allows the asynchronous integration of information from camera-processor pairs. The architecture also enables the employment of cameras with different resolutions and frame rates, and supports tracking and automatic labeling of multiple features, even during temporary periods of occlusion. Three applications built upon this architecture demonstrate the usefulness of the system.
Next, we present a scalable wide-area multi-camera calibration scheme. Many asynchronous cameras can be calibrated into a single consistent coordinate frame by simply waving a bright light in front of them, even when cameras are arranged with non-overlapping working volumes and without initial estimates of camera poses. The construction of a universally visible physical calibration object is not necessary, and the method is easily adaptable to working volumes of variable size and shape.
We then propose a quantitative metric for evaluating the quality of multi-camera placement configurations. Previous work only uses the 3D uncertainty caused by limited camera resolution to evaluate quality and ignores occlusion. Our metric considers both camera resolution and the likelihood of target occlusion. The metric is based on a novel probabilistic model that estimates the dynamic self-occlusion of targets. We verify its validity through experimental data and analysis of various camera placement configurations.


(57) ABSTRACT A method of improving egg production in poultry by irradiating poultry with energy levels, the first one of which is within a wavelength band of 600 to 670 nano meters and is delivered at a rate of at least 103 quanta/second/cm2, and, in the case where this first radiation is less than 1013 quanta/second/cm2, at least 75% of the total delivered energy is within the first wavelength band. The second radiation energy level is within a wavelength band of 400 to 600 nanometers and is deliv ered at a rate of at least 101 quanta/second/cm2, and, in the case where this second radiation is less than 101 quanta/second/cm2, at least 80% of the total delivered energy is within the wavelength band of 400-600 nano meters. The invention also includes a control of the time during which the irradiation is delivered.


The quality control of mechanical parts is generally performed on a coordinate measuring machine (CMM). The choice of the number of points to be sampled, their distributions and their positions on the surface, as well as the association criterion remains unresolved. This paper studies the variation of the flatness defect with regard to the number of palpated points. The methodology begins by sampling a cloud of points on a CMM. Then, a modal analysis study is carried out in order to generate a modal surfaces (digitally deformed). Insertion of the coordinate cloud points of these modal surfaces in the GEOVERIF software will allow estimation of the flatness defect. The results of the measured flatness by the three fitting criteria (minimum zone, least squares and minimum volume) are compared.


This thesis has set out to explore the " symbolic world" of images of psychological problems and distress in soap operas in terms of their ''cultural" definition in the soap opera community, their models of causation, and their semiotic and narratives uses in the storylines. A sample of ten soap operas was recorded for a period of nine months in 1990 and it was analysed with a multi-facet methodology which comprised: a content analysis, a thematic analysis, a narrative analysis, and an interpretive analysis. The most common psychological problems in soap operas were: depressive symptoms (32 %), dependence on substances and alcohol (15.3 %), masked antisocial behaviour (15.3 %), psychosis (11.5 %), acute depression (10.7 %) and suicidal thoughts (6.1 %). The quantitative content analysis has not revealed any important "distortions" of social reality apart from the cases of psychosis and " masked" antisocial reactions. For the majority of cases of distress, their causes were sought into the personal and familial environment while the role of socio-economic factors was played down. The thematic analysis examined the cultural discourses that were used to articulate images of psychological problems in soap operas. A binary methodology of oppositional structures was utilised in order to model the dramatic tensions and decision dilemmas of soap opera characters. The most common cultural discourses which framed discussions about human distress were: women's vision of family life, teenage rebellion, adult deviance, morality, destiny, and neighbourliness. Portrayals of acute depression, for instance, highlighted the role of the community in providing support during personal crises while depressive symptoms pointed out the functional role of women's skills in detecting distress and seeking support. On the other hand, images of psychosis and antisocial reaction were articulated within the discourses of deviance and rule-braking behaviour. Narrative uses of distress, such as presenting false impressions of suicide, using distress as a cliff-hanger device, and giving rise to side-effects and follow-up stories, exemplified the complicated ways in which soap operas treated psychological problems. The large number of "magical" solutions and "ambiguous" endings, which were found in soap operas, may indicate their limitations in handling social issues and in providing learning opportunities in their storylines. The degree of textual openness in narratives of distress was considered in the context of an interpretive analysis. Although soap operas presented several perspectives on images of distress, this terrain of meanings was limited by the soap opera model of family and harmonious community. Images of distress in soap operas were also considered in relation to women's magazines, which provide interpretive frameworks to soap opera fans. Finally, the thesis examined the scope for change in images of distress as affected by the narrative conventions of the genre, the culture of country of origin and the conditions of soap opera production.


The solution reaction path Hamiltonian (SRPH) developed in the previous paper is applied to model SN2 and ionic dissociation reactions in water solvent. The solution reaction paths are determined and show marked deviations from a standard equilibrium solvation picture. The impact of potential anharmonicities, reaction path curvature, and varying solvent mass on the rate constant is calculated via the variational transition state theory approach of I, and the deviations from harmonic van der Zwan–Hynes (ZH) theory are calculated. Typically only minor deviations from ZH theory are found. The reasons for this are discussed.


There is a strong gap flow in the pump jet propulsor, in order to predict the hydrodynamic performance of the pump jet propulsor, the steady-state hydrodynamic disturbance model was established by the panel method. The pump jet propulsor was divided into two systems, rotor-hub and stator-duct, and inter-system interference was considered by induced velocity. Based on the actual situation of the internal flow of the pump jet propulsor, a gap flow model suitable for the flat-topped blade was proposed. Comparing the results of pressure, circular, and thrust performance, it was found that when the influence of gap flow model is considered, the overall circular distribution of rotor blade and tip load are closer to the actual situation, and the performance curve is in good agreement with the viscous flow, which shows that this method can effectively predict the steady hydrodynamic performance of the pump jet propulsor.


Abstract If E and F and Banach spaces, a bounded linear operator T : E ⇒ F is called Tauberian if whenever G ∈ E ** and T **( G ) ∈ F , then G ∈ E . Internal characterizations of Tauberian operators and operators having Property N in terms of their behavior on basic sequences are given. From these, other properties of Tauberian operators are derived.


little alteration in his condition, and in 1928 he was still expectorating " spit streaked with blood." In March, 1930, a rapid change for the worse began to set in. Hle became depressed and started to lose weight. His cough became more troublesome and was still blood-stained. Ultimately, in July, 1930, his mental condition became such that he was certified and admitted to a mental hospital, where he died on September 1st, 1930. No evidence of pulmonary tuberculosis was found at the post-mortem examination. Death was due to a small-celled sarcoma of the upper lobe of the right lung, with great overgrowth of the fibrous tissue; lower lobe congested; middle lobe6relatively healthy. Left lung congested and oedematous, bronchi thickened."


This paper is concerned with non-fragile reliable control for positive switched systems with actuator faults. Using linear co-positive Lyapunov functions with linear programming approach, a new non-fragile reliable controller is designed based on a gain matrix decomposition technique for positive switched systems. To increase the reliability of the controller, the controller gain perturbation term is introduced for the controller. Then, the presented approach is developed to interval positive switched systems. Under the designed controller, the interval closed-loop system is positive and exponentially stable. Finally, a numerical example is given to illustrate the validity of the obtained results.


44 patients with tromboembolism of pulmonary artery and posttromboembolic pulmonary hypertension underwent examination. Basing on the mathematical analysis of examination results clinical and hemodynamic groups were singled out, reflecting the stages of pulmonary hypertension development its severity. The interdependence between hemodynamic disorders and lipid peroxidation at forming pulmonary hypertension was shown. The increase of pulmonary hypertension severity resulted in the intensity growth of hemodynamic disorders.


It is shown that the author's previously proposed model based on the interaction between a Rydberg electron and a neutral describes thermal quasi-elastic collisions of high-Rydberg atoms with the neutrals reasonably. A recently proposed mechanism based on the interaction between an atomic-ion core and the neutral has been found not to give any appreciable contribution to the collision processes mentioned above.


Purpose. In the face of fierce market competition between different modes of transport, especially important task is improving the competitiveness of rail transport, which can not be achieved without reducing production costs, reduce operational costs and increase the efficiency of operational management. The main task of operational management in marshalling yards is planning of trains forming. Sequence control disbandment of trains in marshalling yards is one of the levers of influence on the processes of trains forming. The goal of management is to reduce the overall operating costs yard. Two optionally-go conditions of use in practice the choice of priority tasks dissolution of trains are the laying of this function on automated control systems and ensuring these systems reliable and accurate prediction of arrival of trains. The aim of this work is to study the impact of forecast accuracy of arrival of trains at the effectiveness of the precedence of their disbandment in marshalling yards. Methodology . Studies were conducted using a simulation model of the railway station Nizhnedneprovsk site at various sizes with the processing of traffic volumes. Model choosing the next disbandment of trains is formalized in the form of stochastic programming problems. Findings. The dependence that describes the effect of the standard deviation of the prediction error motion to reduce operating costs in a yard precedence disbandment n of trains. Originality. It was the first time investigated the economic efficiency of the model of trains disbandment precedence formed on the basis of stochastic programming problems, under revenue forecast arrival times of trains certain accuracy. Practical value. I nvestigated the association of two important tasks of operational management – predicting the movement of trains and the precedence of their disbandment. The results give an indication of how the requirements should correspond to forecast the arrival of trains to be able to use it in the tasks of operational management, in particular - with precedence dissolution of trains in marshalling yards.


Signalling an important contribution to the field, Phoenix and Oerton's 'Illicit and Illegal: Sex, Regulation and Social Control' offers a critical account of contemporary efforts to regulate sex. The book begins with the paradox that cannot have escaped the attention of many readers in the field: that the apparent increase in freedom, choice, and diversity in sexual matters is conversely and simultaneously matched by a 'proliferation of laws, policies and guidelines which seek to determine the complex, vast and ever-increasing rules of engagement' (2005:13).


This paper reports the results of an exploratory analysis, focused on Euronext Lisbon listed companies, which aimed to obtain an image of the characteristics of politically connected firms and of the politicians connected to them. Our results show that the majority of listed companies are politically connected and politicians, in some cases, are involved with several companies. The size of connected firms is significantly higher than of their non-connected peers. However, measures of financial equity to assets, return on assets and effective tax rate on income not seem to be significantly different in the two observed groups. Concerning to the politicians serving on the board of directors and supervisory board, this paper shows that the majority is or was a minister, all of them have an academic degree and are male genre, and the main area of their degrees is law followed by economics.


In 2006, motor vehicle traffic crashes were the leading cause of death for every age 3 through 34. Because of the young lives consumed, motor vehicle traffic crashes ranked third overall in terms of the years of life lost, i.e., the number of remaining years that the person is expected to have lived had they not died, behind only cancer and heart diseases. The table in this fact sheet shows the 10 leading causes of death by age group in 2006. The age groups reflect categories of interest to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in terms of child-restraint programs (toddlers, infants, and young children), new drivers (youth and young adults), other adults, and older people.


The aim of the present work was to analyse antimicrobial activities of the lipid content of seeds pulp of the fresh fruit of Lagenaria siceraria and identification of its chemical constituents by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Methanolic extract of the seeds pulp exhibited moderate to good efficacy against Achromobacter xylosoxidans, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Bacillus megaterium and Escherichia coli having zone of inhibition (ZOI) 21.5, 20.0, 17.5 and 15.0 mm, respectively, at concentration 100 mg/ml. It showed better potency than antibiotic amoxylin against Enterobacter aerogenes, P. aeruginosa and Bacillus megaterium. The hexane fraction, that contained most of the lipid content, exhibited highest lethality against all the test microorganisms with ZOI 16.0 to 30.0 mm. It displayed highly significant efficacy against B. megaterium and Salmonella typhi with ZOI 30.0 and 22.5 mm, respectively. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of hexane fraction against B. megaterium and A. xylosoxidans was 0.40 mg/ml, while for others it ranged from 0.80 to 2.80 mg/ml. Palmitic acid exhibited significant potency against Staphylococcus aureus (ZOI, 20.0 mm, at concentration of 40 mg/ml), and moderately good efficacy against Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, Salmonella typhi and Enterobacter cloacae. Most compounds identified in the seeds pulp through GC-MS analysis were fatty acids or their esters. The compounds present in considerable concentration included azelaic acid (31.0%), (Z,Z)-9,12-octadecadienoic acid methyl ester (27.75%), and palmitic acid methyl ester (13.0%). Major component of ethyl acetate fraction was 4-hydroxybenzenemethanol (19.28%), while chloroform fraction contained 4-methoxymethylphenol (6.42%) and pentanoic acid 2-hydroxy-4-methyl-methyl ester (6.75%) as major constituents. The lipid content of seeds pulp of Lagenaria siceraria fruit contains components which are capable to inhibit bacterial growth, and the ones with strong anti-oxidative potential.


W hat is intelligence? The Latin word intelligere means to gather or to comprehend. It is built from inter, between, and legere, to read, to gather or collect, to pick out or choose. 'To read in between' is taking insight into a situation, discerning its parts and gathering them to a comprehensive picture. This understanding, however implicit, grounds the character of intelligence in most of its common usages. Be it as information processing, problem solving, or in the practical sense of a knowing-how – the common usages of the word have in common that intelligence is about getting the world right or coping with it, relying on correspondence with the world as its measure and foundation. We can follow philosophical convention and label these usages representationalist or foundationalist.


Cement improves properties of soil materials, such as durability, stiffness, strength and moisture susceptibility. Each of them needs different cement contents that might not be suitable for other properties. Typically, high cement content is desirable for durability, but not for shrinkage and cracking issues on the surface. Thus, improving durability with low cement content while complying with other requirements is an ideal aim, which may be achieved by pozzolanic supplementary products. Pozzolans contribute in hydration reactions and optimise cement consumptions in favour of durable and low shrinkage products. In this paper, the mixes of nano-silica and fly ash are considered to investigate their effect on strength, durability and shrinkage of modified CRB (crushed rock base) material. In the end, the benefits and features of nano-silica as a pozzolanic material will be focused and discussed more for effective cement consumption in soils.


United States activity in general circulation problems in the Southern Ocean has recently been increasing rapidly. The data base collected through the Eltanin program through 1972, the promise of increased meteorological coverage by FGGE in 1978, and the development of long-term current meter technology have led to the establishment of the U.S. component of the International Southern Ocean Studies, an International Decade of Ocean Exploration program sponsored by the National Science Foundation (1973). This program io designed to study the structure and long-term variations in the current systems of the Southern Ocean; the first year-long array of current meters was placed in the Drake Passage in January 1975. First studies on the problem of winter formation of antarctic bottom water (AABW) under ISOS began in September 1974; these will continue in order to determine the feasibility of monitoring such production (see below for further field studies on AABW).


Page 1/8 10/27/2019 https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/joseph-knew-first-moses-the-egyptian-son/ Abstract: After about 1500 years of slumber, ancient Egyptian was brought back to life in the early 19th century, when scholars deciphered hieroglyphs. This revolutionary success opened the door to a reevaluation of history from the viewpoint of ancient Egypt. In the wake of this new knowledge, the first scholar posited the idea in 1849 that the name of Moses stemmed from the Egyptian word for child. Subsequently, this idea was refined, and currently the majority of scholars believe Moses's name comes from the Egyptian verb "to beget," which is also the root for the Egyptian word for child, or in the case of a male child, a "son." Before this discovery and certainly before a scholarly consensus formed on the Egyptian etymology of the name of Moses, Joseph Smith restored a prophecy from the patriarch Joseph that played upon the name of Moses and its yet to be discovered Egyptian meaning of "son." This article explores the implications of this overt Egyptian pun and its role as a key thematic element in the restored narratives in the Book of Moses.


In generation of the true color image with the hyper-spectral data, there are still some key issues. On one hand, it is of great difficulty in obtaining a true-color image, which is satisfying the human visual habit, with narrow band-width hyper-spectral data. On the other hand, the degradation of the performance of the hyper-spectral sensor will also cause the color distortion. In this paper, a color calibration method based on physical model for hyper-spectral data is proposed to deal with those questions. Employing the color matching function, the method reconstructs the true color image with the spectral information in the red, green and blue band extracted from the hyper-spectral data. Combining the in situ measurements of the reflectance spectrum of artificial targets, the true colors of the targets were first deduced with the radiative transfer model. Therefore, the color calibration model was established. The novel method was validated with the aerial hyper-spectral data to be suit for the calibration of the true color images.


ABSTRACT Using a panel dataset of 983 municipalities across Japan, this article investigates the impact of the funding reforms in 2004 on public nursery schools' operating costs. We found that municipalities responded differently to the reforms, depending on their fiscal strength and city scale. In areas with relatively large populations, fiscally stronger municipalities were likely to spend less on public nursery schools in the wake of the reforms, while municipalities in smaller cities spent more. Besides, municipalities that were not compensated for the loss of the national subsidy reduced expenditures in large cities. In small cities, on the other hand, such municipalities actually increased expenditures.


ABSTRACT Protests in Africa have a long history. Yet, for many years, western misconceptions in protest studies have hindered our understanding of the particularities and commonalities of African protests. In this study, we scrutinize the historical continuity and discontinuity of protests in Africa, using Ghana as a case. We situate a longitudinal analysis of protests in Ghana within the theoretical model of protest logics, using the institutional-analytical method. The study finds historical continuity largely in terms of proletarian (high cost of living, dispossession and inadequate infrastructure), republican (participatory governance and corruption) and corporatist (working conditions and unemployment) mobilisation themes in Ghana. These themes are underpinned by the processes of class struggle, accumulation by (urban) dispossession, neoliberalism, splintered urbanism, gentrification and corruption. The implication of this study is that contemporary protests in Africa would be influenced by issues such as high cost of living, participatory governance, erratic power supply, unemployment, poor road infrastructure and corruption. These issues should be prioritized in the agenda of African governments in order to avert spontaneous protests.


Emojis can be seen as a visual language inserted in texts to express emotions, attitudes, and situations. It is widely used in computer-mediated communication, e.g., video comments. The emojis can express more detailed information beyond text information, and their usage can improve interlocutors' communication efficiency and emotions. The latest advances in natural language processing and deep learning have made it possible for chatbots to automatically add emojis in their dialogue. Precisely predicting emojis to be added is very challenging, especially in the video comments, where the use of emojis is complex, subtle, and associated with the cultural characteristics of video genres, e.g., anime and dancing. In this article, we first construct a benchmark dataset Bilibili comments dataset with more than 3.9 million comments that contain emojis in the video-sharing website Bilibili and then statistically analyze features of emoji's usage of video genre, comment content, and where an emoji appears in a sentence. According to the analyzed results and the gated recurrent unit (GRU) neural network, we propose a novel model of genre-based multitask GRU (GM-GRU) and its attention-added edition (GM- GRU+) to predict an emoji's category and position in a video comment. Our experiment and evaluation show that the proposed method can significantly increase the accuracy of predicted emojis for video comments.


Susen R. Smith, Greg Robinson, Michael Arthur-Kelly and Phil Morgan University of Newcastle Introduction Underpinning the rationale for this PhD study are issues regarding literacy concerns, student diversity, instructional differentiation and academic-engagement (Conway, ArthurKelly & Pascoe, 2004). Recent initiatives in New South Wales (NSW) primary schools have involved a focus on literacy instruction and outcomes-based learning (NSW Board of Studies, 1998; NSW Department of Education & Training, 1997). However, Australian surveys suggest up to 16% of students still have literacy problems and many students fail to learn to read by the time they leave school (Brent, Gough & Robinson, 2001; Cambourne, 2000; Masters & Forster, 1997; Prior, 1999; Rohl & Milton, 2002).


The study investigated the awareness and adoption of improved agricultural technologies disseminated through the radio, the relationship between personal factors and adoption as well as the problems limiting effective utilization of radio farm messages by farmers in Umuahia zone of Abia State, Nigeria. Eighty completed interview schedules from farmers were analysed using percentages, ranking and multiple regression analysis. It was found that 50% or more of the respondents are aware of eight out of 11 improved agricultural technologies transmitted through the radio farm broadcast. Only four of the 11 improved technologies are adopted by 40% or more of the sampled farmers. The major factors influencing adoption of improved agricultural technologies are age, farming experience and household size. Age and household size are positively related to adoption while farming experience is negatively associated with adoption of innovations. In contrast, no significant relationship is found to exist between adoption and level of formal education of the farmers. Epileptic electric power supply and inability to ask relevant questions and get the feedback from the radio farm programme presenter are the most pressing problems militating against effective utilization of radio farm messages by farmers.


Chronic ethanol exposure induces impairments in CNS excitatory and inhibitory activity. These impairments are associated with glutamatergic dysfunction, including altered neuroplasticity. This study examined the effects of 6-week ethanol (15% and 30% v/v) consumption, by male alcohol-preferring P rats, on protein expression associated with neuroplasticity and glutamate transporter-1 (GLT-1) function. The latter regulates intra- and extra-synaptic glutamate levels. We focused on the shell and core subregions of the nucleus accumbens (Acb); i.e., shell (AcbSh) and core (AcbCo), for these measures. Chronic ethanol exposure increased the expression of BDNF, Arc and phosphorylated (p)-post-synaptic density protein-95 (p-PSD-95) in the AcbSh of P rats. Moreover, the ratio of phospho-neuronal nitric oxide synthase (p-nNOS) to total nNOS was also increased in the AcbSh. These changes in BDNF, Arc and p-nNOS/nNOS ratio were not observed in the AcbCo. Furthermore, chronic ethanol exposure reduced GLT-1 expression in the AcbSh. Alternatively, treatment with ceftriaxone (CEF), a known GLT-1 upregulator, abolished the effect HA and FA participated in study design and conceptualization, drafted and revised the manuscript, performed brain dissection, protein assay, and Western blot assay, and collected the data. BA and WW performed protein quantification and western blot assays, collected the data and helped with the editing of manuscript. RLB conceptualized and designed the study, critically revised the manuscript for intellectual content, performed drinking measurements, and approved the final version of the manuscript. YS conceptualized and designed the study, critically revised the manuscript for intellectual content, and approved the final version of the manuscript. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. Conflicts of interest The authors declare no conflicts of interest. of chronic ethanol exposure on BDNF expression in the AcbSh. Overall, the present findings confirm that chronic ethanol consumption modulates activity-associated synaptic proteins, including BDNF, Arc and nNOS in a subregion-specific (i.e., in the AcbSh but not AcbCo) manner. Thus, alterations in mesocorticolimbic glutamatergic homeostasis and neuroplasticity are possible functional targets for the treatment of alcohol use disorders.


Objective: To observe the effect of carvedilol injection on left ventricular function and collagen remodeling in rat with myocardial infarction. Methods: Sixty rats with a model of myocardial infarction were randomly divided into nine groups. The rats of therapeutical group were treated with carvedilol injection (2 mg/d intraperitoneal injection) and/or captopil (2 g/L drinking water) . Acute myocardial infarction ( AMI) group did not receive drug treatment. The animals were sacrificed at 4 weeks and 8 weeks after coronary artery ligation. The levels of plasma angiotensin II and plasma aldosterone and left ventricle function were determined at different time. The collagen content and the ratio of type I and III collagen of noninfarcted area were also assessed. Results: Compared with AMI group, the levels of plasma and myocardium angiotensin II and plasma aldosterone in both carvedilol and captopil group decreased at the eighth week (P0.05). In addition, carvedilol improved systolic and diastolic function (P0. 05). Compared with sham group, both collagen content and the ratio of type I / III collagen of noninfarcted area increased in AMI4 and AMI8 group (P0. 05). The hydroxyproline levels and the ratio of type I/III collagen significantly decreased after carvedilol and/or captopil treatment , compared with AMI group at 4 or 8 week (P 0. 05). Conclusion: Carvedilol can improve cardiac function after myocardial infarction and has beneficial effect on left ventricular remodeling.


In order to obtain cellular materials with low dielectric properties, crosslinked polyimide foams were prepared using 3,3′,4,4′-benzophenonetetracarboxylic dianhydride (BTDA), 4,4′-oxydianiline (ODA) and 2,4,6-triaminopyrimidine (TAP) as monomer via a poly(ester-amine salt) precursor process. The structures of the precursors and the polyimide foams were characterized by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and FT-IR, while the morphologies of the polyimide foams were viewed from scanning electron microscopy (SEM) measurements. The results revealed that the poly(ester-amine salt) precursor containing TAP could successfully be converted to a crosslinked polyimide foam with relatively uniform cell structure. Also, the crosslinking of TAP improved the mechanical properties of foams in comparison with the non-crosslinking systems. With increasing content of TAP, the dielectric constants of the polyimide foams decreased gradually. For the foam with TAP molar ratio at 15%, the dielectric constant was as low as 1.77 at the frequency of 10 kHz. Though the thermal resistance decreased slightly for crosslinked foams, the decomposition temperatures were still maintained above 520°C. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The most effective approaches for teaching professional English language and the best resources involved in this process all round the world are analysed in this study. Great attention is focused on computer-based self-access language learning. In my opin ion, it is one of the key po ints in professional foreign language training, wh ich is effective only if students are strongly motivated for developing their own professional foreign language experience. Significant components for successful teaching examined in this paper are: strategic approach to management in tert iary educational management for professional foreign language preparation; a widened and deepened framework for strategic management in educational process; a growth potential set which was designed for reaching productive professional foreign language training. Adaptation of strategic management to educational process for students' professional English language preparation is defined in this paper as a stipulation of reaching effect ive results in teaching. Educational research and educational practice are interpreted as an integrated and inseparable process of professional foreign language teaching. It includes vertical and horizontal co mponents, thoroughly related to successful educational process. Other key points brought to light are four subordinate educational stages of professional foreign language training, conjugated with updated experience of postulating and realizing innovative ideas by force of mu ltifarious tasks.


The traditional strength reduction finite element method(SRFEM) is widely used in numerical analysis of slope stability.However,for the lack of considering geotechnical uncertainties,it still cannot be directly applied to the reliability analysis of slope stability,especially the dynamic stability problems.Thus,based on the SRFEM,the reliability analysis method of slope dynamic stability under seismic loading is proposed.In this method,the finite element limit analysis,dynamic analysis and reliability analysis are included to analyze the reliability problems of slope under seismic loading;and above process is realized in the numerical calculation program.For the traditional method,the acquirement of slope safety factor should be based on continuous manual pilot calculations,which makes batch processing impossible.But in the proposed method,above problem is solved through the improved slope dynamic failure criterion and the corresponding calculation program.The case study shows that the proposed method is significantly different from the general methods;it can relatively comprehensively reflect the dynamic characteristics of rock mass,the variability and correlation of material parameters.The results are closer to the reality.The proposed method not only widens the application scope of SRFEM,but also provides a new effective way for the reliability analysis of slope dynamic stability.


This paper gives the concept of spatial econometric model and applies it to analyze the spatial dimensions of poverty and its determinants using data from Java Island 2010 census survey, for 105 districts of Java Island. Dependent variable used in this research is percentage of poverty rate at particular district and predictors are some selected variables that are correlated to poverty. Weighted matrix is obtained by using queen contiguity criteria and four statistical models are applied to the data, Ordinary Least Square regression model, Spatial Error Model, Spatial Lag Model and Spatial Durbin Model. It is shown that the OLS estimates of the poverty function suffer from spatial effects that indicated the OLS model are miss specified since Moran Index test also confirmed the existence of spatial autocorrelation. LM and Robust LM are used for testing the existence of spatial effect. The Likelihood Ratio common factor test and AIC are used for model selection criteria. Gauss Markov Assumptions are done and the Spatial Lag model proved to be better than other model for a given data and the result shows that Education and Working hours has significant impact on poverty.


The toxic effects of Zn2+ on Silver Carp (Hypophthalmichthyps molitrix C. et V.), Big Head Carp (Aristrichthys nobilis Richardson). Grass Carp (Ctenopharyngodon ilellus C. et V.), and Blunt Snout Bream (Megalobrama aimbly-cephala Yih) are studied. The test results are: (1) There are linear correlations between 24h LC50 and 48h LC50 of Zn + for Silver Carp fingerling and tempera -ture . 24h LC50, 48h LC50 and 96h LC50 of Zn2+ for fry of the four species are also determined; (2) There are logarithmic correlations between the growth rates of the fry and the concentrations of Zn2+ and between expansion of fish egg membranes after absorbing water and concentrations of Zn2 + ; (3) The tolerance of fry of the four species to Zn + is in the following order: Grass Carp>Silver Carp > Blunt Snout Bream>Big Head Carp; (4) The safe concentrations of Zn2+ are: Big Head Carp : 0.008 mg/ L, Grass Carp : 0.046 mg/ L , Blunt Snout Bream: 0,010 mg/ L , Silver Carp : 0.012 mg/ L , Silver Carp fingerling: 0.09 mg/ L .


Introduction The vessels in the upper and lower limbs may be damaged as a result of penetrating injuries and lacerations. This is likely to be seen with bullet wounds in areas of civil disorder and knife wounds, particularly in large urban populations. However, in rural districts the vessels are more likely to be damaged as a result of blunt trauma, particularly road traffic accidents. Such injuries presenting to a district general hospital which serves a large rural population are discussed in relation to the types of injuries likely to occur and their management.


Network traffic prediction for academic organizations is essential to managing and selecting the best routing path. Since overload traffic is a major problem that delays data transmission in network system and causes some data loss, this research demonstrates an approach to predict network traffic on data transmission in the network system by using association rule discovery which is one of the data mining techniques. Durations of semester and vacation were employed to support prediction. In addition, amount of incoming and outgoing data volume, durations and sizes of routing path were applied to create a model of network traffic prediction on data transmission in network system. The results of this study pointed out that association rule discovery could predict network traffic during semester and vacation for the following day. This could be useful factor for network routing selection and could improve highest performance of data transmission in network system.


'Environmental justice' refers to the human right to a healthy and safe environment, a fair share of natural resources, access to environmental information and participation in environmental decision-making. Some analysts have argued that environmental justice is undermined by the political economy of capitalism. This paper builds on this analysis by evaluating the environmental justice situation in Cuba, a country where there is little capitalist influence. Evidence is based on participant observation and interviews in Cuba, as well as secondary quantitative data. The research findings suggest that Cuba fares relatively well in terms of environmental justice, but still faces a number of challenges regarding the quality of its environment and some aspects of the environmental decision-making process. However, many of its ongoing problems can be attributed to global capitalist pressures.


This paper introduces a new approach to edge-preserving smoothing of digital images. It is designed for an effective elimination of the image noise within digital images what is an essential step in applications like edge detection or image segmentation. The approach presented here tries to overcome some of the disadvantages of existing smoothing filters and is conceived as an extension of the edge-preserving Maximum Homogeneity Neighbour Filter. The algorithm cleans up the image noise in the homogeneous areas, but preserves all image structures like edges or corners. It is shown that the new filter algorithm combines the advantageous features of different types of filters. The algorithm is not only applicable to grayscale images, but can be extended to multi-channel data, like color images too. The performance of the algorithm is achieved by a more complex and differentiating treatment of the image data compared to conventional concepts.


THE War Establishment of every general hospital shows the bed' strength in brackets after the designation. This is an unfortunate practice as it leads people to .think of general hospitals in terms of beds rather than patients. It is doubtless a relic of the pre-scientific era of Medicine, when patients spent much longer periods in bed, and when the dressing of the beds was more important than the dressing of the patients. As a method of measuring the' requirement,s of a hospital it is· undesirable for the following reasons: . (1) 1;'h~ hospital establishment is the same whet~er the beds am opcupied or not .. (2) It takes no account of the fact that ahospital is full when 90 per cent of the beds are occupied, since certain diseases cannot be warded together, nor can sexes be mixed. . . . (3) It.mak~s no allowance for the degree of illness of patients treated in ~ospital, nor for the varying conditions under which different diseases' require treatment. On the average, in a military general hospital, 60 per cent of patients are ambulant and 40 per cent are confined to bed. (4) On the administrative side, it makes no provision for additional cooks, where special diets may be a major factor in the treatment, ,or for extra Clerks, where clerical work is excessive on account of medical boards or of complicated , note typing as in neurological work. . (5) It does not discriminate betweon patients' ranks; nor allow extra . 'nursing and catering staff for officers. . (6) Beds require neither posts, pay, nor discipline; a contributory factor to the omission, of postal staff, pay serjeants, and hospital police in former war establishments. In a large general hospital, the latter are required on security grounds alone.


The development of either oral vaccines against pathogens or biological container to carry materials for local targeting in digestive mucosa relies on the chief principle in tolerance of vehicle to harsh environment of digestive system to efficiently carry and deliver the cargo to its destination. Delivery system such as enteric‐transmitted virus‐like particles (VLPs) is advantageous because of the inherited acid‐ and proteolysis‐resistance of the parental viral capsids. In the present study, we engineered hepatitis E (HEV) VLP by inserting an antigenic V3 loop of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) derived peptide, p18, into the recombinant HEV capsid protein (p18‐VLP) after residue tyrosine 485 on the protruding domain (P domain). Using cryo‐transmission electron microscopy (cryo‐TEM) and three dimensional (3D) image reconstruction, quaternary protein structure of the chimeric p18‐VLP reassembled to that of wild type HEV‐VLP with a slight difference at the protruding spike. This engineered particle also reacted to a specific HIV monoclonal antibody, but not HEV antibody at P‐domain suggesting that the inserted p18 was exposed on the surface of VLPs. Even though p18‐VLP was vulnerable to enzymatic cleavage, presumably occurred at the C‐terminal end of the inserted p18 peptide, the p18‐VLP remained structurally intact and maintained particle integrity. The results thus indicate the further application of this HEV‐VLP system as a candidate of oral delivery vector.


We thank the authors of paper <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1">[1]</xref> for their comments on our paper <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref2">[2]</xref>. We also thank the anonymous referees for their suggestions, which help us to improve the quality of the paper. In order to facilitate a better understanding of our paper <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref2">[2]</xref> for readers, we clarify some issues in this paper.


In this paper, we describe the finite difference method of solving the problem of long-wave runup on a coast by shallow water equations. We justify the method and also give the estimate of its accuracy, which is obtained in the numerical experiments for a model nonlinear problem that has an analytical solution. We consider the method application to the solution of problems with complex geometry.


A model for polygon similarity estimation is presented. The advantages of the model are that it introduces a numerical measure of similarity between two polygons; it can be applied for all polygon forms and any number of vertices; and it gives acceptable intuitively interpreted results even in the cases of great differences in the number of polygon vertices. The model has been tested in a large number of experiments. The discussion is restricted to simple planar polygons, i.e., those polygons whose edges do not intersect themselves and whose vertices are represented by ordered pairs of Cartesian coordinates.<<ETX>>


In this paper, we propose a system of numerical models for the compatibility assessment of reservoir sediment flushing and protection of downstream river environments. The model system is made up of two simulation models. The first model simulates soil erosion in watershed slopes and sediment transport in the tributary of the reservoir by means of a weighted essentially nonoscillatory (WENO) method, which is conservative and fourth-order accurate in space and time. The second model simulates velocity and suspended solid concentration fields in the reservoirs. This model is based on the three-dimensional (3D) numerical integration of motion and concentration equations, expressed in contravariant form on a generalized boundary-conforming curvilinear coordinate system by using a conservative and higher-order accurate numerical scheme. The proposed system of models is applied to the Pieve di Cadore (Veneto, Italy) reservoir and to its catchment area. By comparing suspended solid concentrations that are discha...


The Operational Land Imager (OLI) onboard Landsat 8 has found successful application in fresh and coastal water remote sensing. Its radiometric specification and high spatial resolution can resolve optical variability in small water bodies. However, the limited multispectral (MS) band set restricts the number of parameters that can be retrieved. One relevant information that cannot be directly retrieved is the presence of cyanobacteria. This identification capability has been demonstrated for sensors with a band centered near 620 nm, the absorption peak of the diagnostic pigment phycocyanin (PC). While OLI lacks such a MS band in the orange region, this information is contained in its panchromatic band. This study explores the extraction of that information by a scaled difference with the MS bands. A set of 369 in situ spectra acquired in diverse lakes in Belgium and The Nederlands was used to develop and test a retrieval algorithm based on multilinear regression. The algorithm achieved a mean absolute percentage error of 3.19% and a bias of -0.76%. The robust retrieval of the orange reflectance contra-band in optically diverse environments was tested against the freshwater Optical Water Types, showing that a correction is necessary only for very clear waters (Chla < 1 mg/m3). Finally, the retrieved band is shown to convey independent information from the adjacent MS bands when PC to Chla ratio increases above unity. An example application to OLI imagery is presented over a cyanobacteria bloom in lake Erie. The present method is distributed in the ACOLITE atmospheric correction code.


Resistance to Enforcement of Arbitral Awards : A Comparative Study between Argentina as an ICSID Contracting State and Thailand as a non-ICSID Contracting State


An experiment to examine the possible interrelationship of various classes of immunoglobulins by utilizing the effect of weightlessness as a stress factor and subsequently measuring inhibitory, compensatory, or enhancing interrelationships. A second objective of the experiment is to investigate the state of immune competency under conditions of sustained weightlessness.


This article introduces a piece of undergraduate research around practitioner awareness of musical development, conducted by an early years practitioner and previous student. Abigail Leow shares with us her findings on the lack of awareness around this topic.


Sisney v. Reisch I. INTRODUCTION The First Amendment protects, among other things, the free exercise of religion. In order to further protect religious exercise by institutionalized persons, (2) Congress passed the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA). (3) RLUIPA "allows institutionalized persons to exercise their religion to the extent that it does not undermine the security, discipline, and order of their institutions." (4) Given the variety of religions practiced by institutionalized persons, no one single fact pattern emerges as the "typical" RLUIPA case. Sometimes, for example, institutionalized persons seek recognition of their religion by the prison and request group worship accommodation. (5) In other cases, offenders sue under RLUIPA because the prison does not provide them food that accommodates their religious dietary restrictions. (6) While these examples indicate that injunctive relief could force prisons to allow offenders to practice their religion more freely, the law is unsettled as to whether the prisoners can receive compensatory damages as well: "[t]o put it mildly, there is a division of authority on this question." (7) This Summary focuses on RLUIPA's institutionalized persons provision and whether, under its remedial provision, an inmate plaintiff can receive compensatory damages. First, this Summary looks at key decisions dealing with the availability of compensatory damages in individual and official capacity claims under RLUIPA. The second component of the Summary analyzes a recent Eighth Circuit decision on the issue of damages as it relates to RLUIPA. This Summary then evaluates the case law on this issue, discussing the policy reasons for and against allowing compensatory damages. Lastly, the discussion concludes that the Eighth Circuit should prohibit institutionalized persons from obtaining compensatory relief. II. LEGAL BACKGROUND A. Case Law and Legislation Before RLUIPA In Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, (8) the United States Supreme Court held that the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause "does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a 'valid and neutral law of general applicability'" that incidentally burdens religious conduct. (9) The Supreme Court did, however, recognize that Congress could shield religious exercise through legislative action. (10) In response to Smith, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA). (11) RFRA prohibited the government from substantially burdening a person's exercise of religion, even if the burden resulted from a rule of general applicability. (12) The only exception to this prohibition occurred when the government demonstrated that the burden furthered a compelling governmental interest (13) and was the least restrictive means to accomplish that interest. (14) Although the Supreme Court recognized the legislature's right to shield religious exercise, in City of Boerne v. Flores, the Supreme Court struck down RFRA as applied to states and their subdivisions as beyond Congress's remedial power under the Fourteenth Amendment. (15) RFRA, passed pursuant to Congress's Fourteenth Amendment enforcement power, (16) "notably lacked a Commerce Clause underpinning or a Spending Clause limitation to recipients of federal funds." (17) Congress responded to the Supreme Court's ruling by passing the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA). (18) In an attempt to avoid the same fate as occurred with RFRA, Congress invoked federal authority under both the Spending and Commerce Clauses of the Constitution in passing RLUIPA. (19) B. The Provisions of RLUIPA RLUIPA prohibits the government (20) from "impos[ing] a substantial burden" on the religious exercise of institutionalized persons. (21) Substantial burdens include: significantly inhibit[ing] or constrain[ing] conduct or expression that manifests some central tenet of a person's individual religious beliefs; . …


Tai Chi, a Chinese body-mind exercise, has been used in China for thousands of years for both prevention and therapeutic purposes. In the 1990s, the Western research community started to examine the effectiveness of Tai Chi interventions using scientific research design and standardized outcome measures. A number of reviews of these studies have been published. Based on an extensive literature search, this state-of-the-art review identified 25 such reviews published since 2000, provides a description of them, and summarizes what was learned from these reviews. Although there is still a need to understand more about Tai Chi interventions, especially Tai Chi's mechanism, it is concluded that Tai Chi is a very useful exercise format that can be used for a variety of chronic disease conditions. It requires no equipment and little space, and it can be practiced anytime, anywhere, and by older adults and individuals with chronic diseases. Since short forms (eg, 10 or 24 forms) have been shown to have similar be...


This paper presents an approximation between pedagogy and pharisaism. For Jacotot-Ranciere, pedagogy produces an ignorant and inferior intelligence. Because of this, neither the theory nor the practice of instruction can accept the thesis of the equality of the intelligences. This paper offers an invitation to the reading of Gombrowicz to show how the games of elevation and debasement are implicit in the theories and practices of "formation"


Abstract A multisegment percolation system (MSPS) consisting of 25 individual collection wells was constructed to study the effects of localised soil heterogeneities on the transport of solutes in the vadose zone. In particular, this paper discusses the transport of water and nutrients (NO3 _, Cl−, PO4 3‐) through structurally stable, free‐draining agricultural soil from Victoria, Australia. A solution of nutrients was irrigated onto the surface of a large undisturbed soil core over a 12‐h period. This was followed by a continuous irrigation of distilled water at a rate which did not cause ponding for a further 18 days. During this time, the volume of leachate and the concentration of nutrients in the leachate of each well were measured. Very significant variation in drainage patterns across a small spatial scale was observed. Leaching of nitrate‐nitrogen and chloride from the core occurred two days after initial application. However, less than 1% of the total applied phosphate‐phosphorus leached from the...


Preserving the environment in our life is no longer a secondary business and thus that requires a severe monitoring and in constancy of its quality. And among all the full range of the monitoring appear the monitoring of the air. The latter made the object of many successive studies and developments through the application of several traditional techniques (physicochemical analyses) but also biological by observing the bio organizations (human plants, animals and even beings) [1]. We made a comparative study between the different conventional techniques including those of the last generation - those which apply microelectronic processes and non - conventional (called bio-monitoring). We reached quite convincing results. The most surprised result to us is that two types go together and therefore was not a competitive relationship, but rather a complementary relationship with a small advantage for bio-monitoring because it allows a more effective sensitizing of population.


Black carbon (BC) and PM2.5 chemical characterizations are crucial for insight into their impact on the health of the exposed population. PM2.5 sampling was carried out over selected residential sites of Jamshedpur (JSR) and Kharagpur (KGP), east India, during the winter season. Seven selected elements (SO42−, Cl−, Na+, NO3−, K+, Ca2+, and Mg2+) were analyzed using ion chromatography (IC). Black carbon (BC) sampling was also done at two different sites in JSR and KGP to understand its correlation. The PM2.5 ionic species mass concentration in JSR was in the order of SO42− > Cl− > Na+ > NO3− > K+ > Ca2+ > Mg2+, whereas in KGP, it was SO42− > NO3− > Cl− > Na+ > K+ > Ca2+ > Mg2+. The back-trajectory analysis showed that most of the air masses during the study period originated from the Indo Gangetic Plain (IGP). The Pearson relations of BC-PM2.5 indicate a better positive correlation (r = 0.66) at KGP compared to JSR (r = 0.42). As shown in the diagnostic ratio analysis, fossil fuel combustion and wood burning account for 51.51% and 36.36% of the total energy consumption in JSR city, respectively. In KGP city, the apportionment of origin sources were fossil fuel and wood burning at 43.75% and 34.37%, respectively. This study provides the first inventory of atmospheric particulate-bound chemical concentrations and BC profiles in middle-east India and informs policymakers and scientists for further studies.


Performance Management is a very important task for the management of an educational institution. However, this concept is not yet widely acknowledged by most of the educational institutions of Bangladesh. This small-scale qualitative study thus focused on performance management in Bangladeshi schools. The main objective of this study was to explore head teachers' perception about performance management, their roles in performance management and the challenges that they face while managing performance. Six secondary school head teachers were selected through convenient sampling and were interviewed using semistructured interview guide. The findings revealed that the head teachers' concept about performance management is not very clear and they mostly measure teachers' performance on the basis of students' scores in the examinations. Results also showed that head teachers sometimes fail to provide effective feedback on teachers' performance which in turn hampers the teachers' productivity. This study recommends that head teachers themselves need proper training on performance management and there should be a proper guideline on performance management in every educational institution. The researcher believes that this study along with its findings will help improve the overall performance of the schools as well as the individual performance of the teachers and the head teachers.


textabstractIn this paper, we give a unified approach to error estimates for interpolation on sparse Gauss--Chebyshev grids for multivariate functions from Besov--type spaces with dominating mixed smoothness properties. The error bounds obtained for this method are almost optimal for the considered scale of function spaces.


Proficiency testing is used internationally to provide objective evidence of testing laboratories testing competence. This paper covers the requirement in ISO/IEC 17043 regarding preventing collusion between participants and falsification of results in a proficiency testing program. Collusion between participants and falsification of results if this does occur will diminish the confidence from other participating laboratories and their customers and also other interested parties such as regulators and laboratory accreditation bodies in the proficiency testing process. This paper outlines some practical examples that a proficiency testing provider can use to reduce the chance of collusion between program participants and falsification of results.


Bee-eaters excavate tunnel nests to a depth sufficient to blunt the impact of wide variations in surface temperatures on the thermal environment in the nest chamber. Thermal environment of the inhabitants is maintained within or near their thermal neutral zone. High chamber humidity, minimal thermal stress, and succulent insect food combine to stabilize water balance of nestlings. Diffusion of gases through soil and along the nest tunnel can account for maintenance of tolerable levels of O₂ and CO₂; however, the absence of nest sanitation and presence of microorganisms causes significant periodic elevations in NH₃ and CO₂ and a decrease in chamber O₂. This latter circumstance is associated with windless conditions. Wind movements rapidly improve internal conditions by the formation of gas vortices which penetrate via the nest tunnel to the chamber while displacing chamber gas to the exterior. The piston effect of adult birds moving along the tunnels and thermally induced density currents further augment gas renewal. The combination of soil characteristics and nest design provides a generally equable and uniform microenvironment for the developing young, even though external conditions may vary widely.


'Tactical voting' refers to voting contrary to one's nominal preferences. The usual form of tactical voting described in the literature consists of 'third' party supporters in plurality electoral settings voting for one of the two major parties in their constituency. This Note aims to demonstrate both theoretically and empirically the existence of the converse phenomenon, i.e. followers of one of the two big parties voting for a small one. We shall call this phenomenon 'inverse tactical voting' (ITV).


The latest development of metal-organic frameworks(MOFs) applied in gas adsorptive separation in recent years at home and abroad was reviewed. MOFs were classified and summarized according to the mechanism of gas adsorptive separation, and the specific adsorptive phenomenon of MOFs was introduced especially, including breathing phenomenon and gate-opening phenomenon.


Title Effects of a pharmacist-driven methadone stewardship for the treatment of neonatal abstinence syndrome in a tertiary children's hospital Background Lack of a standardized opioid wean protocol for the treatment of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) has the potential to increase the length of the wean and stay for neonates in the intensive care unit (NICU). The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of a pharmacist-driven methadone stewardship on the length of opioid wean in days for NAS treatment. Methodology This IRB-approved, retrospective study evaluated the length of methadone weans utilized for NAS treatment in the NICU at a tertiary care pediatric hospital. The NAS stewardship program consisted of a pharmacy surveillance system rule, a clinical practice guideline, and provider and pharmacist education. The new NAS guideline was implemented in February 2020. The pre-intervention period was defined as patients admitted to the NICU between July 2019 December 2019. The postintervention period was defined as patients admitted to the NICU from March 2020 May 2020. The primary objective was to assess the impact of pharmacist-driven methadone stewardship on the duration of opioid treatment in days. Secondary outcomes included the number of patients that received a complete loading dose defined as 0.05 0.1 mg/kg/dose every 6 hours for 4 doses, the incidence of deviation from opioid wean, the length of hospital stay in days, and the total volume of methadone wasted.


Contour Crafting is an emerging technology that uses robotics to construct free form building structures by repeatedly laying down layers of material such as concrete. The Contour Crafting technology scales up automated additive fabrication from building small industrial parts to constructing buildings. Tool path planning and optimization for Contour Crafting benefit the technology by increasing the efficiency of construction especially for complicated structures. The research reported here has aimed at providing a systematic solution for improving the overall system efficiency and realizing the Contour Crafting technology for building customdesigned houses. In Part-I of this paper, an approach is presented to find the optimal tool path for the single nozzle Contour Crafting system. The model developed incorporates the physical constraints of the technology as well as some practical construction issues. In Part-II several algorithms are presented to find the collision-free tool paths for the multiple-nozzle system based on the algorithm developed for the single nozzle approach.


Objective To investigate the major etiological agent of handfoot-mouth disease(HFMD) in Guangxi.Methods The herpes fluid,throat swab,anal swab,stool and other specimens were collected from clinically diagnosed cases with HFMD,and the viral nucleic acids of enterovirus(EV),enterovirus 71( EV71) and Coxasckievirus A16(CoxA16) were tested by RT-PCR.Results A total of 1286 specimens from 753 clinically diagnosed cases with HFMD were tested.The viral nucleic acids of EV were found in 422 cases.Among them,176 cases were identified as EV71 infection,36 cases were CoxA16 infection,the other 210 cases belonged to other enterovirus infection.Detectable EV71 positive rates were over 50% in 5 cities with under 20% of positive rates in other 2 cities in Guangxi.Conclusion HFMD was caused by different types of EV,but EV71 was major pathgen of HFMD in Guangxi in 2008.