Mcllvaine e ta l . reported that morphine anaesthesia (1.5 mg,kg -t ) was associated with a lower incidence of postoperative hypertension (3.8 per cenO following coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG), compared to 28per cent when low dose fentanyl (7.5-10 Izg.kg -t ) and ha!ogenated agents were used for anaesthesia. Since in this earlier study the relative dosage of the narcotics used couM not be considered as equivalent we compared the incidence of pastoperative hypertension in two groups of 24 patients operated for CABG: one group received morphine 1.3 mg'kg J and the other fentany150 b~g'kg-l ; these doses are considered clinically equivalent. In both groups, patients breathed a mixture of nitrous oxide oxygen 0/2). All patients had normal ventricutar funclion. There was not u single case of postoperative hypertension in the morphine group whereas seven cases occurred in the fentanyl group (29 per echO. The incidence of preoperative hypertension was similar in both groups. During the operation, before the emracorparcel circulation, supplementation of anaesthesia to


In recent years, multicultural families are increasing in Korea. In such multicultural families, there may be language and interpersonal difficulties that affect the children. Given the possibility of real problems affecting academics and the potential for bias, the perceptions of parents and teachers is of vital importance. In this study, parents' and teachers'evaluations of problem behaviors of 405 elementary school students were collected on the Korean Child Behavior Checklist and the Korean Teacher's Report Form. Studies have shown that parents in multicultural families tend to rate their children's problems more seriously than in mono cultural families in the areas of Withdrawal/Depressed, Attention Problems, and Rule-Breaking Behaviors.Teachers rated boys from multicultural families as more problematic with Withdrawal/Depressed, Attention Problems, Rule-Breaking Behaviors, and overall scores than boys from monocultural families. Parents tended to take their child's problematic behaviors more seriously than teachers.In general, younger students were found to be more vulnerable to behavioral problems. This may indicate that an intervention is needed to help the children acculturate.


The quantised energy of solitons circulating within an all-fibre, passively mode-locked fibre laser causes discontinuities and hysteresis in the output power characteristic.


By the studies of Abelmoschus manihot(L) flower flavonoids ultrasound-assisted extraction that using single factor and orthogonal design,the ultrasonic-assisted extraction parameters of flavonoids crude extracts could be obtained as follows: After 80℃ temperature ultrasonic 30min,ultrasonic treatment lasted for 75min with 1∶40 of 60% ethanol,and extracted one time.Calculating the content of flavonoid extract,we could see the amount of flavonoid extraction is 56.37mg per gram of raw materials.Flavonoids crude extracts concentrated by rotary evaporation later obtained its freeze-dried powder by freeze-drying.Abelmoschus manihot(L) flower raw material per gram of freeze-dried powder obtained 0.097g and flavonoid content was 0.0562g,The extraction rate of flavonoids and flavonoid contents were 9.7% and 58%.


Introduction: Plants are well known for the presence of antimicrobial compounds. Our study was to screen the antibacterial activity of the seed extracts of Pongamia pinnata L inn . Material and Methods : Pseudomonas aeruginosa , Staphylococcus aureus, Serratia marcescens, Micrococcus luteus , Proteus vulgaris and Klebsiella pneumonia were isolated and cultured from clinical samples obtained from Department of Microbiology, R.L. Jalappa Hospital and Research Center, Tamaka Kolar. Good quality seeds were collected from local region of Kolar and authenticated by College of Horticulture science. Extracts were made with methanol (M) and ethanol (E) solvents. A fixed inhibitory concentration of 100µg/ml of seed extract was tested by using Agar well Diffusion method and the same compared with the antibiotic Ceftazidime at equal concentration. Results : Methanol extracts of Pongamia pinnata L (PPM) showed higher antibacterial activity than ethanol extracts of Pongamia pinnata L (PPE). Conclusion : Pongamia pinnata L has good bactericidal activity against the selected Hospitalized pathogens and the maximum activity evinced on Pseudomonas aeruginosa with zone of inhibition 20mm by methanol extract and 18.5mm on Pseudomonas aeruginosa in ethanol extract in comparison to Ceftazidime.


Regulatory T cells (Tregs) are essential for the inhibition of immunity and the maintenance of tissue homeostasis. Signals from the T‐cell antigen receptor (TCR) are critical for early Treg development, their expansion, and inhibitory activity. Although TCR‐engaged activation of the paracaspase MALT1 is important for these Treg activities, the MALT1 effector pathways in Tregs remain ill‐defined. Here, we demonstrate that MALT1 protease activity controls the TCR‐induced upregulation of the transcription factor MYC and the subsequent expression of MYC target genes in Tregs. These mechanisms are important for Treg‐intrinsic mitochondrial function, optimal respiratory capacity, and homeostatic Treg proliferation. Consistently, conditional deletion of Myc in Tregs results similar to MALT1 inactivation in a lethal autoimmune inflammatory syndrome. Together, these results identify a MALT1 protease‐mediated link between TCR signaling in Tregs and MYC control that coordinates metabolism and Treg expansion for the maintenance of immune homeostasis.


3,4‐methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) is a substituted amphetamine derivative that is widely abused as the street drug "ecstasy". Despite its high abuse liability, the neuropharmacology of MDMA remains poorly understood. In the present study, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used in fully conscious rhesus monkeys to characterize the neuroactivational effects of MDMA and its stereoisomers. In addition, the brain biodistribution of each form of MDMA was measured using positron emission tomography imaging. All three forms of MDMA increased brain activation in regions that receive serotonergic innervation. Furthermore, only S, R(+/−)‐ and S(+)‐MDMA increased activation in regions that receive dopaminergic innervation. Importantly, the brain biodistribution of each form of MDMA showed marked relevance for its brain activational effects. Collectively, this work implicates changes in dopamine and serotonin neurotransmission in the neuropharmacology of MDMA. Moreover, the concordance between the brain distribution of MDMA and its neuroactivational effects supports the continued development of fMRI as a novel technique in the study of neuropharmacology. As such, these studies represent an important expansion of our understanding of the neuropharmacology of MDMA and the validity of fMRI assays. These studies were supported by USPHS grants (DA 10344, DA 00517, and RR 00165).


Objectivs To study the clinical therapy for patients with obstructive pneumonia.Methods Before and after the treatment,the peripheral white blood cell counts,C-reaction protein,ESR,and germiculture of sputum were measured in 254 cases with obstructive pneumonia.Results The peripheral white blood cell counts,C-reaction,ESR declined more in the patients with obstructive pneumonia after the treatment(P0.01),and germiculture of sputum remarkably eliminated in them.Conclusion 1.The key of treatment of obstructive pneumonia is to dispel the cause of the disease;2.proper choosing antibiotic resistance to infection;3.phlegm or drainage;4.immune therapy and other symptomatic treatment of support.


The problem of microwave and pulse signal excitation in the field-effect transistor is solved when the gap in the electrode is illuminated by modulated laser radiation.


Background: Chronic otitis media erodes the bone, destroys the ossicles and has the potential to cause life threatening complications.
Methods: This is a prospective study involving patients with chronic otitis media. 120 patients were included and all of them are subjected to ossicular reconstruction either by canal wall down or intact canal wall surgery.
Results: As per Wehr's classification 80% of patients in Group 1A have got improvement and 20% have failed to gat improved in A-B gap, in Group 1B 20% -have failed to get improved in A-B gap and in Group 1C, 30% have failed to get improved in A-B gap. 70% of patients in Group 2A have got improvement and 30% have failed to gat improved in A-B gap, in Group 2B 80% of patients have got improvement and 20% -have failed to get improved in A-B gap and in Group 2C 70% of patients have got improvement and 30% have failed to get improved in A-B gap.
Conclusion: All the three modalities gave statistically significant improvement (p < 0.001) in A-B gap leading to improvement in hearing but among the three groups there was no statistically significant (p > 0.05) difference found in improvement of A-B gap.
Keywords: Chronic Infection, Middle Ear, Ossicles.


Modern requirements for traffic processing should possess the properties of mobility, speed, and simplification of network equipment administration. However, the existing classical Ethernet networks with Quality of Service failed to meet these requirements, which led to the emergence of software defined networks (SDN). In SDN, the main protocol is OpenFlow, which enables processing and managing heterogeneous traffic. This article aims to propose a methodology for eliminating the disadvantages inherent in the OpenFlow protocol. A method for complex control of traffic transmission in SDN was developed based on the algorithm of early diagnosis of real-time traffic losses during the transmission of heterogeneous traffic in the OpenFlow switch and the algorithm of real-time traffic transmission using a scheduler and a delivery control function in SDN. Moore digital automata of the proposed transmission algorithms were developed. A description of systems of canonical equations and output functions for digital automata was presented. Tables of transitions of digital automata were constructed, states of digital automata were encoded, and digital automata were synthesized based on D-triggers. The formalization of the developed method and algorithms of traffic transmission in SDN based on digital automata made it possible to design control automata and algorithms on FPGA of the Spartan 6 family and later familie.


A novel Wiener neural network structure is presented and applied to nonlinear dynamic system identification. Firstly, the nonlinear dynamic system is described by a Wiener model which consists of a linear dynamic part in cascade with a nonlinear static gain. Secondly, a novel neural network structure is designed, the weights in which are corresponding with the parameters of the Wiener model. Thirdly, backward-propagation methods for the adjustment of weights in the network are discussed. Finally, parameters of the linear dynamic part and the nonlinear static gain in the Wiener model are determined simultaneously by iterative training. A numerical simulation of Wiener model is provided to validate the effectiveness. Simulation results show that the suggested identification schemes are practically feasible.


We study the existence and stability of solutions for a class of nonlinear functional evolution inclusions involving accretive operators. Our approach is employing the xed point theory for multivalued maps and using estimates via the Hausdor measure of noncompactness.


We reassess a work done by Migdal on the spectrum of low-energy vector mesons in QCD in the light of the AdS-QCD correspondence. Recently, a tantalizing parallelism was suggested between Migdal's work and a family of holographic duals of QCD. Despite the intriguing similarities, both approaches face a major drawback: the spectrum is in conflict with well-tested Regge scaling. However, it has recently been shown that holographic duals can be modified to accomodate Regge behavior. Therefore, it is interesting to understand whether Regge behavior can also be achieved in Migdal's approach. In this paper we investigate this issue. We find that Migdal's approach, which is based on a modified Padé approximant, is closely related to the issue of quark-hadron duality breakdown in QCD. Fulbright fellow. Formerly at Grup de F́ısica Teòrica and IFAE, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Barcelona, Spain.


The purpose of this study was to understand how the societal position of African American women affects their experiences when teaching mathematics to adults in postsecondary institutions. A qualitative research design used in-depth interviews and classroom observations with 7 African American women teachers in technical schools and community colleges. The results were that the teachers' positionality affected their experiences by (a) producing a teaching philosophy based on a history of marginalization, (b) raising issues of credibility with students because of the teachers' race and gender, and (c) directly affecting their classroom interactions and teaching strategies. It was concluded that there are no generic teachers but, rather, teachers whose experiences are affected positively and negatively by their positionality in society.


This study examined gender differences in self-silencing, the relationship between self-silencing and psychological distress, and reasons for self-silencing in informal cancer carers (329 women, 155 men), using a mixed-method design. Men reported greater self-silencing than women on the Silencing the Self Scale; however, women reported higher depression and anxiety, even though depression and anxiety were significantly correlated with self-silencing. These gender differences in patterns of self-silencing were explored in follow-up interviews with 34 women and 19 men carers, selected to represent a cross-section of cancer type and stage and analyzed using thematic decomposition and positioning theory. Both men and women reported self-silencing because of their desire to prioritize patient needs or to avoid conflict. However, women positioned self-silencing as a requisite for coping and demonstrated awareness of external judgement, reflecting self-policing linked to constructions of idealized femininity, in particular the positioning of women as natural carers. In contrast, men positioned self-silencing as a normal aspect of masculinity, regarding expressions of needs or feelings as signs of weakness and maintaining a positive front as a means of coping. These findings confirm that men and women self-silence for different reasons and with differential consequences for mental health. The significant association of self-silencing with depression and anxiety suggests that it is not an adaptive behavior for caregivers, supporting previous reports that avoidance of emotional discussion in couples living with cancer is detrimental to coping and to mental health.


The transition from the 'silent' film era to that of the sound film is an area well researched and widely discussed. Although it is commonly acknowledged that all manner of musical and spoken performances accompanied 'silent' films, what is perhaps less well-known are early attempts, with varying degrees of success, at marrying film with recorded synchronised sound. The argument here is that the impediment to the introduction of synchronised sound and film was not just the pitfalls of successful synchronisation but more crucially the lack of adequate amplification. The story of the transition from silent to sound film is also one of the transition from an acoustic to an electric environment. The question is asked 'what does this mean?', both for the medium of film and the auditorium, and by implication for the audience and their relation to the audible world. This article discusses the emergence of sound film, its technology and its impact on the audiences of the time.


Thank you very much for reading my autobiography chapters from the north american review. As you may know, people have search hundreds times for their favorite readings like this my autobiography chapters from the north american review, but end up in malicious downloads. Rather than enjoying a good book with a cup of coffee in the afternoon, instead they juggled with some infectious virus inside their desktop computer.


Scimitar syndrome is a relatively rarecongenital heart defect with a complex combination of cardio pulmonary abnormalities characterized mainly by right lung hypoplasia and partial anomalous pulmonary venous return. We report a ten years old female child diagnosed with Scimitar syndrome at the age of four years with recurrent chestinfections, bilateral temporomandibular joint ankylosis,mandibular hypoplasia and a grossly restricted mouthopening for release of ankylosis. Anaesthetic management of thispatient was done successfully with use of fibreoptic bronchoscopyfor securing the airway.


An automatic material separating and material conveying device for a cold-drawing steel tube comprises a rack, and the top surface of the rack is a work face for staking source steel tubes. The automatic material separating and material conveying device is characterized in that the work surface consists of a fixing inclined surface and a vibration inclined surface, wherein the vibration inclined surface is positioned at the downstream of the fixing inclined surface; a current limiting plate is arranged above an inlet of the vibration inclined surface; a vertical rotary material stirring device and an axial feeding device arranged on one side of an outlet end of the vibration inclined surface in sequence; the axial feeding device consists of a plurality of roller wheels and material overturning rods, the roller wheels are installed axially relative to the source steel tubes, and the material overturning rods are arranged at the intervals of the roller wheels. According to the device, the fixing inclined surface and the vibration inclined surface are used for separating and conveying the source steel tubes, and the source steel tubes are automatically conveyed to a V-shaped work groove due to the action of the vertical rotary material stirring device and the axial feeding device, not only are the purposes that the labor intensity is low, the operation environment is good, the degree of automation is high, the production is high, and the quality is ensured reliably realized, and the potential safety hazard is eliminated.


Of the various secrecy motifs that have been discussed under the rubric the "messiniac secret," one feature often deemed an oddity or exception is in fact peculiar enough to warrant its own investigation: namely, the fact that several of Jesus' injunctions to silence following healings are explicitly disobeyed...


Prostate cancer incidence is highest for Black men of the African diaspora in the United States and Caribbean. Recent changes in recommendations for prostate cancer screening have been shown to decrease overall prostate cancer incidence and increase the likelihood of late stage disease. However, it is unclear how trends in prostate cancer characteristics among high risk Black men differ by geographic region during the changes in screening recommendations.


Objective: To evaluate the effects of intravenous midazolam on haemodynamic variables and cerebral blood flow velocity (CBFV) and to determine the pharmacokinetics using a population approach in very low birthweight (VLBW) ventilated infants.


MICROBIOLOGY. For the article ''Structural basis for the specific inhibition of protein kinase G, a virulence factor of Mycobacterium tuberculosis,'' by Nicole Scherr, Srinivas Honnappa, Gabriele Kunz, Philipp Mueller, Rajesh Jayachandran, Fritz Winkler, Jean Pieters, and Michel O. Steinmetz, which appeared in issue 29, July 17, 2007, of Proc Natl Acad Sci USA (104:12151– 12156; first published July 6, 2007; 10.1073 pnas.0702842104), the authors note that, due to a printer's error, Fig. 3A was printed too large to be viewed stereoscopically. The corrected figure and its legend appear below.


Can what we imagine in our minds change how we perceive the world in the future? A continuous process of multisensory integration and recalibration is responsible for maintaining a correspondence between the senses (e.g., vision, touch, audition) and, ultimately, a stable and coherent perception of our environment. This process depends on the plasticity of our sensory systems. The so-called ventriloquism aftereffect—a shift in the perceived localization of sounds presented alone after repeated exposure to spatially mismatched auditory and visual stimuli—is a clear example of this type of plasticity in the audiovisual domain. In a series of six studies with 24 participants each, we investigated an imagery-induced ventriloquism aftereffect in which imagining a visual stimulus elicits the same frequency-specific auditory aftereffect as actually seeing one. These results demonstrate that mental imagery can recalibrate the senses and induce the same cross-modal sensory plasticity as real sensory stimuli.


The solar collector/storage system tested on a swine building in Saskatoon consisted of two collectors and two storage media. The collectors were a prefabricated commer cial collector and an on-site built collector. The thermal storage con sisted of plastic containers filled with either Glauber's salt or water. The overall collector efficiency was 61% and the annual contribution ofthe collector/storagesystem to heating the building was 48%. Water containers underwent freeze and thaw cycles during winter, storing heat in the form of sensible and latent heat. The salt containers did not show any sign of freeze and thaw cycle.


High thermal conductivity is of great interest due to the novel applications in high-performance heat dissipation for microelectronic devices. Two-dimensional (2D) materials with graphene as a representative have attracted tremendous interest due to the excellent properties, where C23 is an emerging 2D allotrope of carbon with a large bandgap. In this paper, by solving the Boltzmann transport equation based on state-of-the-art first-principles calculations, the C23 is predicted to have an ultrahigh thermal conductivity of 2051.47 Wm−1K−1, which is on the same order of magnitude as graphene. Based on the comparative analysis among C23, graphene, and penta-graphene, it is shown that the unique spatial structure and the orbital hybridization of C23 lead to weak anharmonicity, which results in the large relaxation time of phonons and finally results in ultrahigh thermal conductivity. Our study is expected to promote the comprehensive understanding of thermal transport in C23 and shed light on future exploration of novel materials with high thermal conductivity.


Duffy, Alexandra G. M.S., Purdue University, December 2016. Billbug (Sphenophorus spp.) Chemical Ecology and Seasonal Biology in Indiana Turfgrass. Major Professor: Douglas S. Richmond. Billbugs (Coleoptera: Curculionoidea: Sphenophorus) are serious pests of managed turfgrass across North America. Damage symptoms are most visible during stressful periods of the growing season and are commonly confused with disease, drought, or nutrient deficiency. Billbugs are frequently a perennial problem and when misdiagnosed, damage often results in seriously degraded stands of turfgrass that are easily encroached by weeds. Presently, management of billbugs relies heavily on chemical insecticides. Even then, the nationwide assemblage of multiple sympatric billbug species and the cryptic nature of the damaging larval stage makes management of these insects challenging. A better understanding of billbug biology and behavior could improve the efficacy of insecticide inputs and provide a basis for the development of alternative, non-pesticide management techniques that are aligned with integrated pest management (IPM). This thesis focused on characterizing the billbug species composition in Indiana and clarifying the seasonal phenology of one particularly problematic species, S. venatus. To accomplish this, I examined the utility of molecular techniques to identify the otherwise cryptic larval stage of several sympatric, turfinhabiting billbug species. I also explored the potential for S. venatus to use two forms of


Oil refining is a process industry as the oil flows continuously. In order to support planning and scheduling this dynamic production, it is necessary to have dynamic information of crude oil inventory, which requires inventory status available at any time. Based on theory of discrete event dynamic systems, this paper proposes an effective method. By the method, it is enough to record the inventory state for some time points and the events defined by the paper. With the information recorded,the inventory status for any time point can be obtained by some efficient calculation. The method is implemented in Windows-based environment.


One of the main problems that the AEC industry (Architecture, Engineering, and Construction) faces is how to approach the client regarding the AEC process, helping them understand different artifacts and instruments. Some companies, with the purpose of delivering a quality service to their clients and partners, have incorporated the BIM method (Building Information Modeling) and Virtual Reality experiences into their design processes. In this project, we explore the design and development of a standard protocol that allows users to generate a Virtual Tour in two formats: PC and a Virtual Reality experience for Android devices. This process has been automatized through: a web service, a game engine, and an information system. The main contribution of this work is the design of a pipeline with a scalable solution for improving the communication with clients through virtual tours with a standard protocol.


The equation of state of a semicrystalline system can be expressed in terms of the corresponding functions for the crystal and the melt, extrapolated into the solid region. This relation may be employed to obtain crystal data by means of information on the semicrystalline material or vice versa. We consider four polymers, namely, polyethylene (LPE), isotactic polypropylene (PP), polyethylene glycol (PEG), and poly(tetrahydrofuran) (PTHF). For LPE, the combination of melt and crystal theories predicts satisfactorily the volume of the semicrystalline polymer at atmospheric and elevated pressures. Good agreement between theory and experiment obtains for PEG and PTHF equilibrium melts. In addition to a PP sample measured and discussed by Zoller, a second PP polymer by Leute et al. is considered. From the corresponding semicrystalline data, the equation of state of the crystal is then derived. The PVT results for the three crystalline polymers obtained in this indirect manner are in satisfactory agreement with the predictions of crystal theory. For purposes of comparison, a polymer melt with a low melting point, viz., cis-1,4-polybutadiene, is also discussed in terms of theory. A consideration of the scaling parameters and derived quantities for both crystal and melt had resulted in certain correlations encompassing LPE, PVF2, and PClF3. These cannot be generalized to the systems considered here, particularly in the crystalline state. PEG stands out in respect to several characteristic quantities in both states, whereas PP can be more nearly grouped with the previous three polymers. The theoretical equation of state for the polymer crystal does not satisfy a principle of corresponding states. However, practically useful and accurate interpolation formulas for the theoretical expressions, polynomials at atmospheric pressure, and Tait equations for the compression ratios are derived. Over certain ranges of reduced temperature and pressure, the theoretical isotherms can be approximated by master curves for the four polymers. At atmospheric pressure, such representations are limited.


-College-aged students (19-21) were surveyed using a depression inventory, a positive and negative affect questionnaire, a sensation-seeking questionnaire, and a music-listening preference scale to determine if music preferences are associated with depression and if everyday exposure to preferred music relates to ongoing moods. Participants were asked how many hours on average they listen to certain types of music and how many various types of music they listen to. Previous research suggests that moods can be induced and music is likely to influence persistent moods. Results supported the hypothesis that music has an effect on mood. Findings can be used to advise clinicians treating college aged students to look at their preferences in music when treating them for depression. Results can also be used to warn parents and make them aware of the effects that their children may have because of the type of music they listen to.


The numerical investigations on flow structure, heat transfer characteristic and thermal performance in a circular tube heat exchanger with various shapes of winglet vortex generators are reported. The rectangular winglet vortex generators (RWVG), delta winglet vortex generators (DWVG) and curve winglet vortex generators (CWVG) are inserted in the middle of the test tube on both downstream and upstream arrangements. The effects of blockage ratios; BR = 0.1 – 0.3, with single pitch ratio (PR = 1) and flow attack angle (α = 30o) on thermal performance are studied for the Reynolds numbers; Re = 100 – 2000. The numerical results are presented in terms of flow and heat transfer patterns; tangential velocity vectors, temperature distributions, local Nusselt number distributions, and compared with the smooth tube. As the results, it is found that the use of the winglets performs higher heat transfer rate, friction factor and thermal performance higher than the smooth tube for all cases. The rise of BR and Re leads to enhance on both the heat transfer rate and friction loss due to the stronger vortex flow. The RWVG provides the highest heat transfer rate and friction loss, while the DWVG gives the reversed result. The downstream arrangement produces higher heat transfer rate than the upstream. In addition, the thermal enhancement factor is found to be maximum at BR = 0.2, Re = 1000, for RWVG with pointing downstream around 2.52.


Summary: Male infants have a higher risk of respiratory distress syndrome than females at concurrent gestations. Recent evidence in humans has linked fetal sex with differences in amniotic fluid indices of lung maturation. We tested the hypothesis that the late gestation surge in pulmonary surfactant production occurs later in the male fetus than in the female fetus in the rabbit model. We measured saturated phosphatidylcholine and total phosphatidylcholine in lung lavage at 26, 28, and 30 days gestation and in amniotic fluid at 24, 26, 28, and 30 days gestation (term = 31 days). The saturated phosphatidylcholine/sphingomyelin ratios were 158 and 55% higher in female fetal lung lavage at 26 and 28 days, respectively, and 75% higher in amniotic fluid at 28 days (P < 0.05). The total phosphatidylcholine/sphingomyelin ratios were 39% higher in female fetal lung lavage and 35% higher in female amniotic fluid at 28 days (P < 0.05). Significant differences were not detected in the very immature (24 day) or the mature (30 day) fetuses. This provides clear evidence of a biochemical difference according to fetal sex in the maturation of pulmonary surfactant production.Speculation: This is the first documentation of a biochemical difference according to fetal sex arising in the course of normal fetal development which is directly related to an increase in morbidity and mortality in the newborn. Further investigations using this model may help to define the mechanism by which the sex difference in fetal lung maturation occurs. This may lead to development of better methods for preventing respiratory distress syndrome in the premature infant. Understanding the causes of the male disadvantage for respiratory distress syndrome may also help to define the causes of the male disadvantage for a variety of other disorders.


This paper documents and maps the distributions within Diamantina National Park, Queensland, of 180 bird species based on our database of 16 127 individual species records gained during 15 visits to the Park from 1994 to 2009. In addition to our sightings we document the occurrence in the Park of three other species - Letter-winged Kite 'Elanus scriptus', Plains-wanderer 'Pedionomus torquatus' and Night Parrot 'Pezoporus occidentalis' - recorded by others but not seen by us. Our distribution records are based on species presence/absence in grid blocks of 1 minute of latitude 1 minute of longitude, and are mapped accordingly. We also recorded and mapped observations of breeding. Other information collected opportunistically related to bird casualties resulting from collisions with barbed-wire fences, and dietary information for selected species derived from analysis of regurgitated pellets. The Park bird list includes 11 species listed as threatened, which emphasises the value of a well-managed Diamantina National Park as a conservation reserve. Removal or modification of barbed-wire fences and ongoing control of straying or trespassing domestic stock will enhance this value. Continuing bird monitoring in the Park will assist in management of the Park. We were greatly assisted in our work by the logistical support of Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service staff; otherwise, the work was carried out at the expense of the participants, and represents about half a million dollars of value over 15 years.


Background modeling is a critical element of detecting and tracking moving objects,and the robustness problem of the background model attracts more and more attention.Firstly,the requirements for robustness are analyzed by taking two aspects into account:different applications/environments and different modalities of sampling sets.Then,a review of current background modeling algorithms and systems is presented according to their information levels and performance.After analyzing these algorithms and comparing typical background modeling systems,several promising directions of background modeling are pointed out for future research.


The stress distribution in two hole connectors in a double lap joint configuration was studied. The following steps are described: (1) fabrication of photoelastic models of double lap double hole joints designed to determine the stresses in the inner lap; (2) assessment of the effects of joint geometry on the stresses in the inner lap; and (3) quantification of differences in the stresses near the two holes. The two holes were on the centerline of the joint and the joints were loaded in tension, parallel to the centerline. Acrylic slip fit pins through the holes served as fasteners. Two dimensional transmission photoelastic models were fabricated by using transparent acrylic outer laps and a photoelastic model material for the inner laps. It is concluded that the photoelastic fringe patterns which are visible when the models are loaded are due almost entirely to stresses in the inner lap.


The food industry is one of the important tasks of creating an effective system in this article. At the same time, it is stated that improving nutrition, optimizing nutritional standards is one of the main tasks of today


Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is established as the fundamental underlying theory of the strong interaction, yet there are only few firmly established aspects when it comes to its rich phase diagram. There are, though, systems which did/may happen to wander around in the QCD phase diagram within environments that are so extreme, in terms of temperature and/or density, as to accommodate other QCD phases than the hadronic one that we are more familiar with. These systems are our Universe, in the first microseconds after the "Big Bang", Neutron Stars (even more so in their mergers), heavy ions in their collisions and, theoretically rather than practically speaking, a large part of modern supercomputers around the globe. We can, indeed, use supercomputers to simulate strong interaction matter under extreme conditions thanks to an almost 50-years-old numerical framework for describing non perturbative phenomena in QCD via Monte Carlo simulations: lattice QCD. In this talk we will discuss how lattice QCD simulations allow us to explore, from a theoretical perspective, some rather interesting portions of the QCD phase diagram (in temperature and nonzero net isospin density directions). We will also discuss how we try to learn about interesting regimes, like that of nonzero net baryon densities, that lattice QCD fails accessing, by extending our parameter space even further (varying i.e. the microscopic parameters of the theory away from their physical value) and then exploiting the universal features of continuous phase transitions. Contact person: F. Karsch/TR211 Colloquium Mathematical Physics Topic: Integrability and Universality in nonlinear waves Date: 05.02.21 Time: 16:15 Place: ZOOM/Konferenzschaltung Guest: Tamara Grava University of Bristol Abstract: What is an integrable system? Intuitively, an integrable system is a dynamical system that can be integrated directly. While in principle integrable systems should be very rare, it happens that in nature, a lot of fundamental systems are integrable such as many models of nonlinear waves, models in statistical mechanics and in theory of random matrices. The study of nonlinear waves has led to many remarkable discoveries, one of them being 'solitons', found some 50 years ago. Solitons motivated the development of the Inverse Scattering Transform (IST). History and some examples will be discussed. Finally I will present some universality results about small dispersion limits and semiclassical limits of nonlinear dispersive waves. Contact person: G. Akemann Seminar High Energy Physics Topic: tba Date: 23.03.21 Time: 14:15 Place: D6-135 Guest: Marco Drewes What is an integrable system? Intuitively, an integrable system is a dynamical system that can be integrated directly. While in principle integrable systems should be very rare, it happens that in nature, a lot of fundamental systems are integrable such as many models of nonlinear waves, models in statistical mechanics and in theory of random matrices. The study of nonlinear waves has led to many remarkable discoveries, one of them being 'solitons', found some 50 years ago. Solitons motivated the development of the Inverse Scattering Transform (IST). History and some examples will be discussed. Finally I will present some universality results about small dispersion limits and semiclassical limits of nonlinear dispersive waves. Contact person: G. Akemann Seminar High Energy Physics Topic: tba Date: 23.03.21 Time: 14:15 Place: D6-135 Guest: Marco Drewes Centre for Cosmology, Particle Physics and Phenomenology CP3, Louvain-la-Neuve Abstract: Contact person: D. Bödeker Seminar Condensed Matter Topic: Bielefeld El-Paso Minisymposium Date: 19.02.21 Time: 16:00 Place: ZOOM / Konferenzschaltung Guest: PhD students and PostDocs


Abstract In this installment of "Conversations," Peggy Glahn, associate director for Reveal Digital, discusses her work with JSTOR's Reveal Digital, a nonprofit project to digitize primary sources and make them available via open access on the JSTOR platform. Glahn's interview covers topics about Reveal Digital such as its history, funding model, collections, and what to expect regarding digitizing primary sources going forward.


A major economic driver of modern Australian sport is the endorsement of sponsors products by sporting organisations. As the dominant contracting party the major sporting organisations have restrained athletes from competing in the lucrative endorsement market. Endorsement restraints are usually partial in scope to leave, at least ostensibly, some portion of the market for athlete exploitation. Granting partial access to the market may be thought sufficient to ward off challenges of unreasonableness brought by athletes under the common law restraint of trade doctrine. This paper questions this view to argue that the partial restraints are largely illusory and thereby unreasonable.


Aim: To measure corrected Q-T cardiac re-polarization time before and during epileptic seizures. Methods: Patients (aged 3-6Oy) who had seizures during videotelemetry at either the Royal Hospital for Sick Children or Western General Hospital, Edinburgh between 2003 and 2006 were included in corrected cardiac Q-T analysis. Epileptic seizures were identified clinically and electrographically. R-R intervals and associated Q-T intervals were measured 5 minutes, 4 minutes, 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minute, and 10 seconds before onset of the identified seizure. Consecutive R-R and associated Q-T intervals were then measured from the seizure onset until the seizure had ended and the EEG had resumed its pre-event trace. An averaged R-R and Q-T of 9 consecutive beats were used to minimize effects of sinus arrhythmia. These mean values were applied to Bazetts', Hodges', Fredericias', and Framinghams' Fonnulae to assess the corrected Q-T values for rate before and during the seizures. Results: A total of 141 seizures had corrected Q-T analysis performed. Generalized tonic-clonic seizures (n =9), absences (n=34), tonic seizures (n= 13), temporal lobe seizures (n = 25) , and frontal lobe seizures (n = 60) were identified. All formulae agreed statistically significant changes for the total group p<O.OOl. Wenty-five per cent of generalized epileptic seizures showed an increase in corrected Q-T during the event. The most dramatic lengthening during a tonicclonic seizure was 0.4 to 0.49 seconds (p<O.OOl). Sixty-eight per cent of temporal lobe seizures showed an increase in corrected Q-T with maximum increases of 0.09 seconds, lengthening the corrected Q-T from 0.41 to 0.5 seconds duringa seizure lasting 1 minute 27 seconds (p<O.OOl). Slight increases in corrected Q-T occurred in 64% of frontal lobe seizures (p<O.OOl). Maximum corrected Q-Twas 0.46 seconds (increasing from 0.42 seconds) during a right frontal lobe seizure lasting 5 minutes 36 seconds. Ninety per cent of absence seizures showed either a shortened Q-T or no change at all, and, as a group, did not reach statistical significance (p<0.3). Small increases of up to 0.05 seconds occurred during 46% of tonic seizures with maximum values of0.46 seconds (p<O.Ob). Conclusion: Clinically significant lengthening of corrected Q-T cardiac repolarization time up to 0.5 seconds occurred during some epileptic seizures in this study. Generalized tonic-clonic seizures and right focal temporal lobe seizures showed maximum corrected Q-T values during seizures. Prolonged corrected Q-T is considered to be one of the possible risk factors of sudden unexplained death in epilepsy (SUDEP).


This study focuses on non-invasive fetal electrocardiogram extraction based on a novel hybrid method, which combines the advantages of non-adaptive and adaptive approaches for non-invasive fetal electrocardiogram morphological analysis. Besides estimating fetal heart rate, which is the main parameter used in the clinical practice, this study provides non-invasive ST segment analysis on data from Abdominal and Direct Fetal Electrocardiogram Database consisting of simultaneous traditional - gold standard invasive fetal scalp electrode and non-invasive fetal electrocardiogram recorded during delivery. This innovative approach utilizing the combination of independent component analysis and recursive least squares algorithms has the potential to extract valuable information from non-invasive fetal electrocardiogram in order to identify eventual sign of fetal distress. This was a prospective observational study of non-invasive fetal electrocardiogram, using 4 abdominally sited electrodes, against the traditional fetal scalp electrode on 8 patients. In terms of fetal heart rate estimation, the accuracy was high for all 8 tested patients with average value equaled 0.20 beats per minute and average value of 1.96 standard deviation equaled 5.80 beats per minute. In 7 patients, it was possible to perform the ST segment analysis with high accuracy in determining T/QRS in comparison with the reference fetal scalp electrode signal with average values and 1.96 standard deviation equaled 0.008 and 0.031 respectively. This study thus demonstrates that ST segment analysis is feasible using non-invasive fECG using the proposed hybrid method.


For the high strength, corrosion resistance, and good stability, carbon fiber–reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites have been made into pipes to transfer gasses and oils in subsea environment. Structural performance of CFRP composite pipes is particularly important to sustain the regular operation of the delivery system. To obtain the in-field behavior of the CFRP composite pipes, quasi-distributed optical fiber sensing techniques are developed based on the multiple configuration of fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensing elements. Theoretical investigation on the dynamic response of the pipes is performed. Experiments on cantilever CFRP pipes with surface-attached FBGs in series and packaged FBG sensors have been conducted to check the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed sensing technique. Results validate the good measurement performance of the proposed sensors and the accuracy of the vibration analysis. The study can be adopted to instruct the establishment of the structural health monitoring system of CFRP composite pipes and assess the safety operation state of the pipe systems.


As financial institutions market themselves to increase their market share against their competitors, they understandably focus on gaining new customers. However, they must also retain (and further engage) their existing customers. Otherwise, the new customers they gain can easily be offset by existing customers who leave. Happily, predictive analytics can be used to forecast which customers have the highest chance of leaving so that we can effectively target our retention marketing toward those customers. This can make it much easier and less expensive to keep (and further cultivate) existing customers than to enlist new ones. A previous paper showed a simple but fairly comprehensive approach to forecasting customer retention. However, this approach fails in many situations with more complicated data. This paper shows a much more robust approach using elements of machine learning. We provide a detailed overview of this approach and compare it with the simpler (parametric) approach. We then look at the results of the two approaches. With this technique, we can identify those customers who have the highest chance of leaving and the highest lifetime value. We then make suggestions to improve the model for better accuracy. Finally, we provide suggestions to extend this approach to cultivate existing customers and thus increase their lifetime value. Code snippets will be shown for any version of SAS® but will require the SAS/STAT package. This approach can also be applied to many other organizations and industries. The %makeCharts and %makeROC macros in this paper are available at nderby.org/docs/charts.zip. INTRODUCTION: THE PROBLEM WITH CUSTOMER ATTRITION Suppose we're the fictitious Fisher Bank of Ames, Iowa, which has 748,593 customers and $9.825B in assets as of March 30, 2018, with none of those customers having only a car loan.1 Three months before, we had 736,343 customers and $9.681B in assets, so we grew their customer base by 1.66% and their assets by 1.49%. That might sound good on the surface, but it's really not. Our gain of 12,250 customers is a net gain. We actually gained 32,707 new customers but lost 20,457 existing customers. Our customer attrition is dramatically affecting our net customer growth. • If we had retained just 20% of those departing customers, we would have gained a net 16,341 customers, for a 2.22% net customer growth. • If we had retained 25% of those departing customers, we would have had gained a net 17,364 customers, for a 2.36% net customer growth. • If we had retained 50% of those departing customers, we would have had gained a net 22,478 customers, for an amazing 3.05% net customer growth. In fact, retaining existing customers is usually easier and less expensive than gaining new customers, since these customers already know and trust the bank, and the bank already knows so much about them. Keeping them might be as simple as making a friendly phone call. The key is making full use of the data we have on our customers. Since customer attrition can have such a huge effect on customer growth, why not focus some attention to it? Specifically, we can focus on those customers with the highest value and the highest risk of closing their accounts. 1Customers with just a car loan typically behave differently from the normal customers, so we're ignoring them to keep this analysis simple.


To explain the wide attraction to sports, self-esteem impacts of a live American college football game were investigated; testing hypotheses were derived from mood-as-information, social identity, and sociometer frameworks along with previous research on sports and self-esteem. A three-wave field study measured mood, group affiliation, and self-esteem among 174 students at two different universities, immediately before and on 2 consecutive days after the football teams of these universities played in a much anticipated game. Both self-esteem and mood were affected 2 days after the game; however, fans of the winning team showed increased self-esteem (with no related mood improvement) while fans of the defeated team showed decreases in mood (with no related self-esteem deflation). Both the game outcome and the social viewing context influenced self-esteem. Impacts on self-esteem were mediated by both mood and group affiliation changes.


Quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) is a type of very high sensitivity mass sensing device, its sensitivity can be characterized by either frequency shift or phase shift. The main effect inducing this characteristic is the mass effect. That is to say, when the sensing surface of the device is perturbed by adding a thin film of or a mass layer, the resonant frequency will change, and so do the corresponding phase. A classical quantitative equation relating resonant frequency to added mass of the film was first derived by Sauerbrey, it reveals that frequency decrease proportional to the mass that was added to the surface of the QCM. In this paper, a new method called phase response analysis method(PRAM) is proposed to study the relation between phase shift and mass change of a rigid thin film coated on QCM from the point of physical view. It is a new way to describe the mass change that coated on the surface of the QCM quantitatively. It is a simple mathematic model and might be useful in some phase controlled sensor array systems. Numerically calculated results of this model show that there has a linear relationship between the phase shift and mass change. Meanwhile, the high fundamental frequency and small surface area can improve sensitivity. The principle of phase shift measurement and corresponding measurement system is also discussed.


A team of 4 optometrists, 2 optometry students, an ophthalmologist and a general medical practitioner examined 977 school children and 685 adult villagers over a 3 week period. This paper reports our findings for the adults. Most common problem was blurred vision for distance (54.3%) or near (48.9%); sorelwatering eyes was the only other significant complaint. 88.9% achieved 6/9 VA with correction. Presbyopia had an earlier onset than in European populations. Cataract extraction and removal of pterygium were the most common surgical procedures.


The cancellation of the Nigerian debt by the Paris Club of creditors promises a great relief to the country. The cancellation came in the wake of a well articulated reform blue print, yet it is all too obvious that the reforms needs to be further consolidated just as international lending practices must change and adopt less predatory tendencies. The Nigerian example makes a case for home-grown reforms rather than the top down measures of the world's key lending institutions that has often led to severe and adverse economic situation for the populace. Both the debtors and creditors have obvious challenges in containing the debt crisis, but the Nigerian example can show the way forward in Thirdworld debt management.


A fundamental pursuit of microwave metrology is the determination of the characteristic impedance profile of microwave systems. Among other methods, this can be practically achieved by means of time-domain reflectometry (TDR) that measures the reflections from a device due to an applied stimulus. Conventional TDR allows for the measurement of systems comprising a single impedance. However, real systems typically feature impedance variations that obscure the determination of all impedances subsequent to the first one. This problem has been studied previously and is generally known as scattering inversion or, in the context of microwave metrology, time-domain "peeling". In this article, we demonstrate the implementation of a space-time efficient peeling algorithm that corrects for the effect of prior impedance mismatch in a nonuniform lossless transmission line, regardless of the nature of the stimulus. We generalize TDR measurement analysis by introducing two tools: A stochastic machine learning clustering tool and an arbitrary lossy transmission line modeling tool. The former mitigates many of the imperfections typically plaguing TDR measurements (except for dispersion) and allows for an efficient processing of large datasets; the latter allows for a complete transmission line characterization including both conductor and dielectric loss.


An exact solution is derived for two‐dimensional, steady interface flow below an elongated island with infiltration. The exact solution is obtained with the hodograph method in combination with conformal mapping; the complex specific discharge function and the reference function are used as auxiliary functions. A new procedure is presented for the solution of the parameter problem in the conformal map of the upper half plane onto the domain in the specific discharge plane. The exact solution is used to compute the depth of the interface for both isotropic and anisotropic aquifers. The depth of the interface at the center of the island is independent of the vertical hydraulic conductivity; the length of the outflow face at the beach is independent of the horizontal hydraulic conductivity. The exact solution can only be evaluated numerically for values of the infiltration rate that are at least an order of magnitude larger than may be expected realistically. For practical problems it is proposed to approximate the shape of the interface with a semiellipse; explicit equations are given for the size of the ellipse in terms of the aquifer parameters. The approximate solution is compared to the exact solution for a number of cases with large infiltration rates (so that the exact solution could be evaluated). The approximate and exact solutions produce results that are identical for at least six significant digits for all cases investigated, which suggests that it may be reasonable to use the approximate formulas outside the range of comparison. Solutions for isotropic and anisotropic aquifers obtained with the approximate formulas are compared to results obtained with a Dupuit solution for a set of realistic aquifer parameters; the interface is approximated well with the Dupuit solution.


The factor structure and concurrent validity of the Multidimensional Social Support Questionnaire, a brief measure of perceived social support for use with adolescents, was examined. Findings suggest that four dimensions of perceived social support may yield more information than assessments of the unitary construct of support.


Ba1.03 Ceo.8Euo.2O3-a solid electrolyte with nonstoichiometric composition was prepared by high temperature sol-id-state reaction. Phase composition, surface and fracture morphologies of the specimen were characterized by using XRD and SEM, respectively. Ionic conduction was researched by gas concentration cell, the performance of hydrogen-air fuel cell was measured in the temperature range of 600-1000℃, and compared them with those of BaCeo.8Euo.203-a and Bao.98Ceo.8Euo.2O3-a. The results indicate that Bat.03Ceo.8Euo.2O3-a is a single-phase perovskite-type orthorhombic system. It is a pure proton conductor in the temperature range of 600-1000℃ in hydrogen atmosphere, and its proton con-duction is superior to that of BaCeo.8 Euo.203-a and Bao.98Ceo.8Euo.203-a, It is a mixed conductor of oxide ion and electron hole in oxygen atmosphere. At 1000℃, the performance of the fuel cell in whieh Ba1.03Ceo.sEuo.2O3-a as electrolyteis higher than that of BaCeo.8Euo,2O33-a or Bao.98Ceo.sEuo.203-a.


With the rapid
development of the city, it is necessary to obtain
geological information within 500 meters. Electrical prospecting is not only
low cost and simple operation, but also solves the problem of insufficient
drilling density in a survey.
However, due to the dense urban buildings and strong electromagnetic
interference, it is difficult for traditional electrical instruments to obtain
effective data. An anti-interference
electrical method instrument is designed. In the application test of Tongzhou core area in Beijing, the resistivity sounding data
collected by anti-interference electrical method instrument is stable and reliable; inversion results of sounding are basically
consistent with borehole data; the known Zhangjiawan fault and
Yaoxinzhuang fault are obvious; basement karst collapse area inferred is
basically coincident with the historical collapse area. It is proved that the
anti-interference electrical method instrument is effective and can be applied to the geological survey of
underground space in other cities.


Because meat is sold on the basis of weight, the loss of water by drip, evaporation or cooking can make a crucial difference to profitability. Factors influencing the losses and gains of water in meat were discussed


Stimulated low-frequency Raman scattering (SLFRS), caused by laser pulses interaction with the radial breathing modes of tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) in Tris-HCl pH7.5 buffer was registered. SLFRS frequency shift, conversion efficiency and threshold are measured.


I experience abjection only if an Other has settled in place and stead of what will be "me." Not at all an other with whom I identify and incorporate, but an Other who precedes and possesses me, and through such possession causes me to be. --Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror (10) Rey Chow's chapter on ethnic abjection in The Protestant Ethnic and the Spirit of Capitalism presents a powerful caution against recent fashionable but perhaps facile celebrations of hybridity. Chow argues, in concert with Pheng Cheah and against proponents of difference James Clifford and Homi Bhabha, that hybridity theory is a "euphoric valorization of difference" which does little to displace hierarchies of social inequality (131-34). Instead, Chow analyzes ethnic autobiographies as revealing that "the experience of actually living as cultural hybrids" is about "the inherited, shared condition of social stigmatization and abjection" (146). Far from the hopeful possibilities asserted by models of diaspora, multiculturalism, nomadism and global cosmopolitanism, Chow traces lived experiences of humiliation and self-loathing and locates them within Julia Kristeva's narrative of abjection. Chow's insistence on the losses and conflicts of hybridity is, as Sneja Gunew notes, "bleak" (368), and yet a vital reminder that cross-cultural exchanges are not always happy experiences. The proliferation of difference, Chow asserts, does not in itself guarantee the elimination of racism, class, or gender discrimination. Indeed, cultures in juxtaposition are also often cultures in conflict. This reading of hybrid and ethnic abjection is particularly relevant to Nigerian-British author Helen Oyeyemi's recent novels. In The Icarus Girl, I will argue, the protagonist is engaged in the violent struggle for subjectivity that characterizes abjection. My analysis of Oyeyemi's work supports Chow's assertion that we need to read in-depth for the losses embedded in hybrid experience (a point that I will elaborate and explore in this article), a type of reading that, despite Chow's argument and similar acknowledgements by Ien Ang and Pnina Werbner, remains rare. Critical discourse as a whole stresses the possibilities of hybridity and tends to sublimate any acknowledgements of problems to footnotes or brief introductory statements. Chow's analysis and my own less optimistic readings are thus important in recognizing the losses of hybridity which have been elided. Moreover, although abjection is a fractured psychic state which I do not seek to recuperate as a position of creative agency and possibility (indeed, that would be counterintuitive to acknowledging the losses of hybridity), placed within Kristeva's larger narrative of identity formation it points to other modes for negotiating the conflicts of hybrid identity. The abject hybrid is one, but not necessarily the only, way of representing and articulating the painful elements of cross-cultural identity. Indeed, if we are to use abjection to discuss hybridity, as Chow suggests we should, then its second fundamental insight is that subjectivities are never stable, static, or contained in one mode of being, but are instead poised to explore multiple forms of loss and conflict. The Icarus Girl received significant attention on publication due to its author's youth (the novel was completed when Oyeyemi was nineteen) and representation of hybridity. Oyeyemi was born in Nigeria and moved to London at the age of four where she completed The Icarus Girl while studying for entrance into Cambridge University. Reviewers have noted that, although emotionally resonant, the novel poses particular problems of reading in its situation between adult and childhood (it is an adult novel in theme and complexity written from an eight-year-old's point of view), in its use of repetitive scenes, in its hybrid cultural references, and in its alternation between forms of realism and fantasy. In the School Library Journal, Starr E. …


Irradiation of 4-diazo-4H-imidazole (1) in an argon matrix at 10 K at a wavelength of λ = 313 nm leads to rapid loss of nitrogen and the formation of 4H-imidazol-4-ylidene (2). Upon photoexcitation of 4H-imidazol-4-ylidene (2) at wavelengths longer than 570 nm, the ring-opened carbene S-6 can be detected. S-6 can be photochemically converted (λ > 310 nm) to 2-cyano-2H-azirene (5). In CO-doped argon matrices, 2 is trapped and 4H-imidazol-4-ylidene ketene (7) can be observed.


Wave propagation in solids is strongly influenced by accompanying physical effects. The existence of the microstructure (internal structure) of solids leads to dispersive and/or diffraction effects. Two cases must be distinguished: (i) disordered and (ii) regular microstructures. In the first case one-scale and two-scale models are analysed and it is shown that the dispersion together with nonlinearities may cause the emergence of solitary waves. The existence of the negative group velocity is demonstrated in the two-scale model. A typical regular microstructure is an embedded grating made of a different material. The diffraction pattern emerging after a wave passes through a grating is analysed assuming that the matrix and the grating both are elastic. The possible energy localization in such a process is demonstrated.


The English verb try and Danish prøve are primarily defined as 'make an attempt', 'put to trial'. Danish prøve, however, is often used about easy activities without the need to make an attempt. This usage has not been analyzed in detail before. This paper describes the uses of prøve and discusses to what degree it has been grammaticalized. The corpus analysis shows that prøve is frequently used with an at-infinitive, e.g. verbs of saying and perception. The original meaning of prøve is often bleached. Especially the imperative, but also the infinitive assimilates phonetically with the following infinitive marker to a high degree whereby it also receives a new pragmatic function.


The results of the study of statistical regularities of relaxation polarization in the pre-polarized ferroceramics using computer simulation are shown. Various configurations of uniformly distributed random point defects are examined. For each of these configurations the time dependence of polarization is obtained. According to the dependencies determined by the statistical regularities of relaxation polarization in the case of uniformly distributed pointdipole constants of nucleation centers. The obtained distributions of values of polarization for different times are analyzed and found statistical regularities.


Indoor navigation is a hard problem for those with visual impairment or blindness. This paper presents a real-time camera-based indoor navigation application for the blind and visually impaired in known environments. Contrary to other systems for similar purposes, our system executes all computation locally on mobile devices and does not need any infrastructure-based sensor and signal support. The use of the system is divided into two stages: an offline stage, in which a sighted person helps with landmark identification and route planning, and an online stage, in which a visually impaired person can navigate with voice prompts from the app. Predefined landmark images and navigation information are stored in a database in the offline stage. Navigation information consists of the landmark position, the turning angle, the turning direction, and the distance to the next landmark. In the online stage, navigation information is retrieved from the current landmark image by successfully matching video frames in real time. A similarity score is calculated by ORB using Hamming distances. Voice feedback is provided for users with a text-to-speech function. Our system minimizes the error caused by users' manipulation and improves stability and accuracy by updating similarity scores continuously.


The deployment of computer vision algorithms in mobile applications is growing at a rapid pace. A primary component of the computer vision software pipeline is feature extraction, which identifies and encodes relevant image features. We present an embedded heterogeneous multicore design named EFFEX that incorporates novel functional units and memory architecture support, making it capable of increasing mobile vision performance while balancing power and area. We demonstrate this architecture running three common feature extraction algorithms, and show that it is capable of providing significant speedups at low cost. Our simulations show a speedup of as much as 14× for feature extraction with a decrease in energy of 40× for memory accesses.


Monte Carlo studies of transferred electron oscillators based on bulk wurtzite GaN are presented. Two structures have been examined: (i) devices with the conventional single notch structure, and (ii) repetitive structures with serial segments to fashion a "multiple domain" device. Wurtzite material has been chosen because of the higher drift velocity and because analytical expressions for the band structure have recently become available. Performance parameters of interest such as the operating frequency, output power, and conversion efficiency are calculated. Variations due to changes in temperature, biasing voltage, and device length are also included. It is shown that multidomain Gunn diodes can lead to significant improvements in output power over conventional, single-transit structure, and so such multiple GaN diodes merit serious experimental study.


As the highlight in improving Initial Teacher Training(ITT),partnership mode has become one of the main characteristics in the ITT in the U.K. Currently,three partnership modes have formed:contract, integration and consortium and on base of it,the British government has enacted Partnership Development Schools Initiatives and Training Schools Programme. Partnership modes are of great help to increase the numbers of teachers and improve the quality of ITT,while at the same time it is confronted with pressure and challenge.


Abstract This article examines the portrayal of non-North Koreans in North Korean textbooks to assess the influences on the formation of North Korean identity, and how such identity formation is important in Kim Jeong-il's retention of power. This study not only looks closely at textual representations; it also examines how political and ideological changes in North Korea had a critical influence on these texts. The study encompasses both lexico-grammatical analysis and the analysis of textual and visual images, based on an examination of six North Korean language textbooks published from 1954 to 2000. It demonstrates that North Korean identity is defined through the portrayal of non-North Koreans, particularly enemy others. The portrayal of non-North Koreans facilitates the formation of a solid North Korean identity – an identity that entails serving their political leaders, remaining vigilant against threats to their country, and liberating South Koreans from poverty and oppression by America and its puppet states.


In the last decade, numerous studies conducted in animals and human populations have confirmed that exposure to current levels of ambient man-made air pollution lead to a wide range of adverse health effects, including diseases and death. More recent research suggests that pollutants emitted by cars and trucks to be of particular health concern. A few studies even show that morbidity and mortality promptly decreased in areas where air quality improved.


On the first page of this communication, the first line of the second paragraph should read, "Herein, we report the successful demonstration of a BSA-free protein chip with a 1,1'-carbonyldiimidazole-activated Tween20-functionalized (CDI– Tween20) high-yield single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) film: CDI–Tween20/ SWNT." and not "CDI–Tween20/SWCN". The editorial office apologises for this mistake. H. R. Byon, B. J. Hong, Y. S. Gho, J. W. Park, H. C. Choi*


The directed agricultural credit approach was based on the erroneous assumptions that smallholder farmers use loans exclusively for short-term consumption, are not creditworthy, and are too poor to save and to self-finance the required investments in additional farm inputs. These misconceptions were at the expense of mobilization of domestic deposits and savings, the creditworthiness of the borrower, good loan recovery, and long-run institutional viability. Recent socio-economic researches have shown that many of these assumptions about the poor are neither substantiated nor correct. This paper reviews some of the misconceptions about the poor and uses evidences and other relevant information from studies to show that these misconceptions are disprovable.


This article represents an updated look at a specific workplace and its workforce that have each and reciprocally gone through a period of mercurial change. Adverse economic conditions and bottom-line profit motivations offen undermine a presumed moral commitment to employees, so the crux of this article is to discuss a company's rapid growth and equally rapid decline, paying particular attention to those cycles'effects on the organization's wage-earning employees- the ones with no cubes. Selected elements of social conflict theory, modem.accounting theory, and a variation of Merton's paradigm of adaptation to cultural materialism are used to illustrate the negative impact of economic fate on its "hidden" workers.


This study aimed at investigating the degree of the science teachers knowledge of Constructivism in Jordan, and the effect of their ac¬ademic certification, educational certification, and gender on it. The sample of the study consisted of (312) teachers that were selected randomly from the science teachers in two governorates. (166) of them were males and (146) were females. Some of them had com¬munity colleges diploma, others had B.Sc. degree or more. Some had studied educational courses, others did not study educational courses. A valid and reliable test of (35) items was developed to measure the degree of the teachers' knowledge of Constructivism.
To answer the first question. Averages standard deviations of the students' marks and the percentages of the correct answers were calculated. As for the other three questions, three-way analysis of vari¬ance (2x2x2) was used to answer it. The study revealed that the degree of the science teachers' knowledge of Constructivism was low, and there were statistically significant differences between the degrees of the teachers' knowledge of Constructivism that can be attributed to the differences in academic and educational certifica¬tion between them. These differences were in favor of those who have B.Sc. or more, and those who are educationally certified. On the other hand, there were no statistically significant differences that can be attributed to the gender or the interaction between the independent variables, either in pairs or the three at once.
The study recommended that Constructivism must be incorpo¬rated in the science teachers' preparation programs, either before they begin teaching or in-service. It recommended also that it is necessary to convince teachers to adopt Constructivism, and im¬plement its related teaching methods.
sample of 451 of 61h grade students that were selected from UNR WA schools in Jordan.
The results revealed that the reliability coefficients of the completion test, which were estimated by test-re-test method and Cronbach (a) for¬mula, were better than the reliability coefficients of the multiple choice test. Further the result of (X2) test revealed that there are no differences between the Judges estimations of the correlation of each item of the Multiple choice test with the test itself, and Judges estimations of the cor¬relation of each item of Completion test with the test itself.
Moreover four significant factors, which are the planned factors, were extracted from the Completion test items, but the number of significant factors, extracted from the Multiple Choice teat items, is seven. Finally the average of difficulty coefficients and the average of discrimination indices of the Completion test items are more than that for the Multiple choice.


PURPOSE
To determine if performing magnetic resonance (MR) spectroscopic imaging, compared with performing T2-weighted MR imaging alone, improves the detection of locally recurrent prostate cancer after definitive external beam radiation therapy.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
This retrospective single-institution study was approved by the committee on human research, with a waiver of informed consent, and was compliant with HIPAA requirements. Sixty-four men who underwent endorectal MR imaging, MR spectroscopic imaging, and transrectal ultrasonographically guided biopsy for suspected local recurrence of prostate cancer after definitive external beam radiation therapy were retrospectively identified. Thirty-three patients had also received androgen therapy. Recurrent cancer was determined to be present or absent in the left and right sides of the prostate at T2-weighted MR imaging and MR spectroscopic imaging by a radiologist and a spectroscopist, respectively. Area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (A(Z)) was calculated for T2-weighted MR imaging alone and combined T2-weighted MR imaging and MR spectroscopic imaging by using generalized estimating equations and by using biopsy results as the reference standard.

RESULTS
Recurrent prostate cancer was identified at biopsy in 37 (58%) of the 64 men. Recurrence was unilateral in 28 patients and bilateral in nine (total of 46 affected prostate sides). A(Z) analysis revealed that use of combined T2-weighted MR imaging and MR spectroscopic imaging (A(Z) = 0.79), as compared with T2-weighted MR imaging alone (A(Z) = 0.67), significantly improved the detection of local recurrence (P = .001).

CONCLUSION
The addition of MR spectroscopic imaging to T2-weighted MR imaging significantly improves the diagnostic accuracy of endorectal MR imaging in the detection of locally recurrent prostate cancer after definitive external beam radiation therapy.


A low cost, empirical method for quick determination of volcanic rock stability for excavations at construction sites is developed and described in this paper. This empirical methodology has been validated against established analytical methodology and found to be statistically reliable to reasonable levels of confidence. Forty-seven rock slopes were analyzed to test the method. The empirical methodology considers rock face parameters of material strength; discontinuity spacing, density, and rock condition; groundwater condition; relationships between slope angle, dip, and dip direction; height of rock face; excavation method; and overhang adjustment. The method developed follows from empirical evaluation techniques and principles first enunciated by Terzaghi in 1946. The technique described is a viable alternate to existing methods used.


Assam Power Distribution Company Limited (APDCL) is the only public company which is responsible for power distribution in Assam. This article analysis demand and supply gap of electricity of Assam and percentages changes of shortages, demand and availability of energy and also study the rural area of Bongaigaon`s connected load mix, using R-square, trend analysis.


The present work consists of the data of multicentric clinical study conducted on Iron Deficiency Anaemia (Pandu Roga) with an Ayurvedic formulation, Dhatri Lauha. The objective of current study was to assess the clinical safety and efficacy of Dhatri Lauha in the patients of Iron Deficiency Anaemia through measurable objective parameters. This multicentric study was conducted in 12 peripheral research institutes of Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences, Department of AYUSH, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India, New Delhi to evaluate the safety and efficacy of Dhatri Lauha with 45 days of treatment. Total 458 Patients were enrolled in this study out of which 400 patients had successfully completed it. Cluster Sampling techniques were used for the analysis of the data on the objective parameters such as weakness, fatigue, palpitation, breathlessness and swollen feet. There has been little work done on methods for cluster analysis of the data where the outcome measure is an event rate (per person time). This work contributes to the application of the statistical techniques for analysis of the Bio-medical studies data.


In this paper, we study the unsteady flow past a circular cylinder subject to rotational oscillations. The uncertainties induced by the unknown frequency, magnitude and phase with respect to the vortex shedding are treated as sources of stochasticity, and we consider the problem of quantifying the tail probability distribution of the aerodynamic forces. Specifically we estimate the probability that the overall time-averaged drag exceeds a given critical value. First we compare adjoint-based and Monte Carlo based estimates. Then, we demonstrate that using an adjoint method, we can design a better statistical estimator and an importance sampling strategy and obtain accurate predictions with a computational cost orders of magnitude lower than brute force Monte-Carlo method.


This paper introduces the RS 485 interface and solves some problems by application. It introduces in detail the choosing of panel points anti lightning strike, anti static impact,limit slope driue, obstacle protection and photoelectricity insulation of RS 485 interface CMOS chip.


We study traffic grooming with shared backup path protection (SBPP) in IP over elastic optical network (EON). Efficient heuristic algorithms are developed to enable joint spare capacity sharing in both IP and optical layer. Results show that two-layer joint spare capacity sharing can significantly improve network capacity utilization and IP-layer protection is more preferable from the perspective of spare capacity sharing efficiency.


One of the delicate steps in the preparation of soybean curd is the addition of a salt to precipitate soy protein. The commonly employed salt is calcium sulfate. In this study, the use of other calcium salts (calcium chloride, calcium lactate, calcium acetate, calcium carbonate, calcium phosphate, calcium hydroxide, calcium gluconate) and two noncalcium compounds (glucono-δ-lactone and acetic acid) was investigated. The result showed that soy protein was precipitated by calcium chloride, calcium lactate, calcium acetate, calcium gluconate, glucono-δ-lactone, and acetic acid. The amount of chemical added to precipitate soy protein varied depending upon the type of compound used, but in all cases, soy protein was precipitated when the pH of soy milk was at or near 6.0. Calcium acetate and calcium chloride appeared to be good precipitants for soybean curd preparation. The quality and sensory score of the soybean curd prepared from these salts requires less skill than calcium sulfate because of solubility; besides, the amount of the salt needed to precipitate soy protein was less than one-half that of calcium sulfate.


An elderly man, with no comorbidity, presented with rapidly accumulating left pleural effusion. He also had generalized adenopathy. Pleural fluid cytology showed exudative pleural effusion with eosinophilia. Supraclavicular lymph node biopsy was reported as amyloid. On further investigation he was found to have kappa‐light chain multiple myeloma. The final diagnosis was eosinophilic pleural effusion in a patient with multiple myeloma.


This article presents a methodology that can be used for schedule-based paths recommendations in multimodal public transportation networks. The authors analyze the problem of intermodal itineraries in interurban networks where factors to be considered include different public transportation modes, several companies, time, and capacity constraints, as well as seat booking. They first model the inherent network optimization problem for a generic user request, and then undertake a solving method that makes use of a network graph transformation. For each type of request, this solving method is based on pruning the user-specific time–space graph, followed by the application of a k-shortest path algorithm. In addition, to incorporate on-demand real-time itineraries recommendations, the algorithm has been embedded in a Web client–server. Using this server, users can ask for trip recommendations by Internet or mobile phone. The authors conclude by discussing a theoretical case study in which their approach is used on the Andalusia (Spain) main transportation network.


Thirty adults in a psychiatric day hospital were subjects in a study designed to examine the relationship between performance in social, occupational, and leisure spheres with neurological functioning and demographic variables. All subjects were administered the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, the Southern California Sensory Integration Test, and Luria Nebraska Neuropsychological Battery. A rating scale adapted from the DSM III, Axis V as well as extensive chart reviews, were used to assess functional performance. This study revealed that very few neurological or demographic variables predicted the subjects performance in social, occupational, or leisure situations. Implications of these and other results are discussed.


Flow forming of aluminum (Al) integrally stiffened cylinders (ISCs) for aerospace structures is currently limited by the available alloys that can sustain the severe plastic deformation inherent to the process. In this investigation, three commercial Al alloys (designated 6061, 2139, and 5083) were subjected to tensile testing and forming trials to identify mechanical properties that best predict spin and flow formability. Al 6061 performed best in the forming trials by conforming with the final part geometry, which was consistent with high total elongation and percent area reduction during tensile testing. In contrast, Al 2139 and Al 5083 both failed during the third of five spin forming passes, likely due to lower total elongation and percent area reduction values. Al 2139 and Al 5083 did exhibit higher strength, modulus of resilience, and fracture toughness than Al 6061. These findings emphasize the importance of improving the formability of Al 2139 and Al 5083 to produce fully formed parts with mechanical properties superior to Al 6061.


French Indochina was occupied by the Japanese army during
the Second World War and the vice-admiral Decoux became
governor general.


For some time concerns have been raised that early in the 21st century there will be a crisis in Australian higher education. High levels of retirement and low levels of recruitment in institutions of higher education have been the trends for some time. Mentoring, as a workplace learning approach, could be used to address some of the problems associated with the recruitment and attrition of academic staff. This article aims to present a strategy for how mentoring, as a workplace learning approach, can be used within an academic environment and the benefits that can be expected as a result of its successful implementation. Although reference is made to the needs of Business Schools many of the principles are applicable to all branches and disciplines within higher education.


An overview of research in small- and large-gap magnetic suspension systems at LaRC is presented. The overview is limited to systems which have been built as laboratory models or engineering models. Small-gap systems applications include the Annular Momentum Control Device (AMCD), which is a momentum storage device for the stabilization and control of spacecraft, and the Annular Suspension and Pointing System (ASPS), which is a general purpose pointing mount designed to provide orientation, mechanical isolation, and fine pointing space experiments. These devices are described and control and linearization approaches for the magnetic suspension systems for these devices are discussed. Large-gap systems applications at LaRC have been almost exclusively wind tunnel magnetic suspension systems. A brief description of these efforts is also presented.


uterus had at first contracted well; but after a time the excited state of the circulation caused it again to relax, and profuse hoemorrhage to occur. For, when giving advice to medical practitioners, he says: " I advise them after delivery, though the uterus may feel contracted, to be slow to leave their patient if the circulation is greatly disturbed" (p. 350). HIemorrhage from the site of the placenta, when the uterus is firmly contracted, is only possible when some cause such as retained placenta, fibrous tumour, or adhesions of the fundus, mechanically prevent the closure of the uterine sinuses. Rupture of the cervix uteri is now very generally recocnised as a not unfrequent cause ofpos/Ja/lurnz hremorrhage; and rupture of one of the crura of the clitoris has been known to lead to a fatal result: a fact to which I drew the attention of the profession in a report on midwifery published in the DztbZinz Yozurnal of Afedical Science for May I876. There is, I think, hardly any doubt that, with the exception of transfusion, the most powerful remedy we possess in combating the collapse which frequently follows severe post par/luit hcemorrhage, is the subcutaneous injection of sulphuric ether, as proposed by Professor von Hecker of Munich, and on the use of which I read a paper before the Dublin Obstetrical Society in March 1876, and which, it has since been amply proved, is thoroughly deserving of the high place in obstetric therapeutics which its original proposer claimed for it.


Abstract Grass-roots community governance is a large volume in China, the "last mile" for implementing national policies, and has a special status in promoting the construction of China under the rule of law. Guided by the theory of the rule of law government, governance and good governance theory, competence-based theory and system theory, this paper constructs a model of grassroots community multi-governance. And by using the theoretical knowledge of the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model and the Delphi method, we analyzed the factors influencing the rule of law competence of grassroots cadres and focused on constructing an index system of the grassroots cadres' rule of law competence and establishing a multi-level evaluation model. The results show that: through the empirical analysis of the grassroots community multi-level shared governance model, the KMO values are 0.728 and 0.851, respectively, which are greater than 0.7 and pass the KMO test. The approximate chi-square values are 415.127 and 1254.23, respectively, and the significance level sig is 0.000, which passes Bart's spherical test and has good sexual validity. The grassroots community pluralistic shared governance model proposed in this paper improves the comprehensive service capacity of urban and rural communities in China, complements the governance shortcomings at different levels, and takes multiple measures to improve the governance level of urban and rural communities China.


The need to efficiently store and query large scale graph datasets is evident in the growing number of data-intensive applications, particularly to maximize the mining of intelligence from these data (e.g., to inform decision making). However, directly releasing graph dataset for analysis may leak sensitive information of an individual even if the graph is anonymized, as demonstrated by the re-identification attacks on the DBpedia datasets. A key challenge in the design of graph sanitization methods is scalability, as existing execution models generally have significant memory requirements. In this paper, we propose a novel <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$k$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mi>k</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="ding-ieq1-2931903.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula>-decomposition algorithm and define a new information loss matrix designed for utility measurement in massively large graph datasets. We also propose a novel privacy preserving framework that can be seamlessly integrated with graph storage, anonymization, query processing, and analysis. Our experimental studies show that the proposed solution achieves privacy-preserving, utility, and efficiency.


A review is presented of techniques of measuring magnetic fields in nondegenerate stars. The strengths and limitations of the classical photographic field measurement technique are compared to those of various photoelectric methods developed during the past decade, particularly the Balmer-line Zeeman analyzer technique. The problem of modeling magnetic data to infer the magnetic field geometry of an observed star is discussed. In the few cases where sufficient data are available to test the centered dipole geometry, it is found to be inadequate. It appears that most magnetic stars have field geometries at least as complex as the oblique decentered dipole (or dipole plus parallel linear quadrupole) model.


The New Testament is all about bodies – bodies that are paralyzed, fevered, lame, leprous, blind, deaf and dumb, bodies that are seized by demons, tortured, crucified and dead bodies. It is no less about bodies that are miraculously healed, bodies from which demons are driven out, bodies that pass through walls, walk on water, the maternal body of a virgin, a babe born under heavenly signs, about bodies that glow with a white glory in a transfigured state, about resuscitated and even risen bodies. As I have pointed out elsewhere, all of this represents a missed opportunity for Gilles Deleuze, who was otherwise attentive to texts like this. For here is a world that is every bit the match for anything produced by Lewis Carroll, at least as unusual as any rabbit with a pocket watch or the telescopic changes in size undergone by Alice's body after falling down the rabbit hole. Here was a perfect illustration of what Deleuze meant by the ''event'' of ''sense'' and by the origin of sense in non-sense by which he meant a kind of neutral or proto-sense. What Deleuze meant by sense is what Averroes called an ''absolute nature,'' that is a meaning, form or structure that in and of itself is neither universal, particular nor individuated, neither abstract nor concrete, but is of itself absolved and set loose from all the conditions of mind (logical classes) or of existence (individuals). The eventiveness of the event lies in its ability to migrate freely between these spheres, heedless of the laws of logic that govern classes and of the laws of physics that govern real bodies. Curiously, that structure prior to or liberated from the conditions of logic and physics is also part of what Husserl called a pure Sinn. The event is a kind of epistemic free radical that can migrate through many strata, the analysis of which reveals to us a sphere of the absolutely possible, of hitherto suppressed possibilities, previously undisclosed openings, and unimagined, unrealized unsuspected futures. While this is the sphere of hopes and dreams, it is no less the sphere of monsters and nightmares, john d. caputo


Computer devices are nearing the limits of scaling traditional CMOS technology that up to this day follows Gordon Moore's predictions for doubling transistor density every 24 months. In fact, CMOS scaling is now predicted to first slow down and eventually cease by the middle of the next decade (John Shalf, 2014) (Mack, 2011), with industry forecasting that technologies beyond 2 or 3nm may be infeasible or impractical due to cost, manufacturability, and the size of molecules which acts as a hard lower limit (Haron, 2008; Dhar, 2011). This approaching end of lithographic scaling does not mean the end of performance scaling for digital computing, but an invitation to identify novel methods to continue this scaling. Performance scaling will need to come with energy and cost reductions; without the density scaling they need to originate from novel architectures, technologies (devices and materials), or computational models.


Freedom began to exist at the moment when man distinguished himself from other things. It is the characteristic of man who is regarded as "the master of all things and the quintessence of the cosmos". In Chinese history, free view hid in the comprehensive traditional cultures and customs with a special form. I go after this view of Pre-Qin Period and try to explain the free view of pre-Qin Period and hope that the Chinese can grasp this siprit and recognize their position, then make more progress.


High-altitude balloons carrying infrasound sensor payloads can be leveraged toward monitoring efforts to provide some advantages over other sensing modalities. On 10 July 2020, three sets of controlled surface explosions generated infrasound waves detected by a high-altitude floating sensor. One of the signal arrivals, detected when the balloon was in the acoustic shadow zone, could not be predicted via propagation modeling using a model atmosphere. Considering that the balloon's horizontal motion showed direct evidence of gravity waves, we examined their role in infrasound propagation. Implementation of gravity wave perturbations to the wind field explained the signal detection and aided in correctly predicting infrasound travel times. Our results show that the impact of gravity waves is negligible below 20 km altitude; however, their effect is important above that height. The results presented here demonstrate the utility of balloon-borne acoustic sensing toward constraining the source region of variability, as well as the relevance of complexities surrounding infrasound wave propagation at short ranges for elevated sensing platforms.


Comparisons of internal reproductive systems of diapausing and non-diapausing adult male Hypera postica at 3 post-eclosion ages revealed differences in testis length and width, testis developmental and vas deferens stages, and sperm transfer. These parameters were evaluated for convenience and reliability as predictors of diapause.

Testis length and width did not have inter-population validity. Testis developmental stage required living specimens and could not be used to predict diapause of the individual. Sperm transfer required pairing each male with a virgin female. Vas deferens developmental stage was reliable and convenient in determining diapause of male weevils.


Chemistry is, for the most part, a field of ensemble measurements. Large numbers of molecules acting together produce effects that are macroscopically observable. But in many cases, such as the study of inhomogeneous systems or of processes with complex time dependence, observing molecules one by one can provide information that an ensemble measurement cannot. Much of the flavor of single-molecule optical detection—a less invasive technique than, for example, scanning tunneling microscopy—dates back to 1976, when Tomas Hirschfeld used an optical microscope to observe proteins tagged with tens of fluorescent molecules.1 True single-molecule detection came in 1989–90, achieved indepen dently by William Moerner and Michel Orrit and their colleagues.2 Both worked at cryogenic temperatures, at which molecular spectral peaks are much stronger and sharper. Room-temperature detection came shortly thereafter and has since facilitated a multitude of advances in biology, materials science, and other fields. Among the more striking recent developments is the real-time sequencing of a strand of polymerizing DNA.3 So far, room-temperature detection of single molecules has relied on fluorescence, the light emitted by an optically excited molecule as it relaxes back to its ground state. Now, three groups working independently have detected single molecules by their optical absorption. Since many molecules fluoresce only weakly or not at all but all molecules absorb, the new work paves the way for single-molecule study of a much wider class of substances. Each group used a different method. Vahid Sandoghdar (ETH Zürich, Switzerland) and colleagues detected the absorption directly.4 Orrit (Leiden University, the Netherlands) and colleagues scattered light off the hot spot created around a molecule that rapidly converts light to heat.5 And Sunney Xie (Harvard University) and colleagues used a nonlinear technique to extract the absorption signal from a high-frequency amplitude oscillation of a probe laser beam.6