Background The Multicenter Selective Lymphadenectomy Trial (MSLT-1) comparing survival after a sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) versus nodal observation in melanoma patients did not show a significant benefit favoring SLNB. However, in subgroup analyses melanoma-specific survival among patients with nodal metastases seemed better. Aim To evaluate the association of performing a SLNB with overall survival in intermediate thickness melanoma patients in a Dutch population-based daily clinical setting. Methods Survival, excess mortality adjusted for age, gender, Breslow-thickness, ulceration, histological subtype, location, co-morbidity and socioeconomic status were calculated in a population of 1,989 patients diagnosed with malignant cutaneous melanoma (1.2–3.5 mm) on the trunk or limb between 2000–2016 in ten hospitals in the South East area, The Netherlands. Results A SLNB was performed in 51% of the patients (n = 1008). Ten-year overall survival after SLNB was 75% (95%CI, 71%-78%) compared to 61% (95%CI 57%-64%) following observation. After adjustment for risk factors, a lower risk on death (HR = 0.80, 95%CI 0.66–0.96) was found after SLNB compared to observation only. Conclusions SLNB in patients with intermediate-thickness melanoma on trunk or limb resulted in a 14% absolute and significant 10-year survival difference compared to those without SLNB.


Cardiac electrical imaging, that is, reconstructing cardiac electrical activity from body surface measurements, is a technology with great potential. However, ill-posedness of this problem hinders its routine usage in clinical environment and continues to motivate the search for improvements on current methods. Messnarz et al. introduced an algorithm that constraints the reconstructed transmembrane potential (TMP) to be non-decreasing over time during QRS-complex. This physiologically meaningful constraint reduces the solution space of the problem and regularizes the solution. However, this approach is computationally extensive and can become prohibitive as spatial and temporal resolution of the problem increase. Here we compare three distinct options to reduce the computational load: downsampling the measurements in time, downsampling the measurements after filtering with an algorithm based on principal component analysis and non-linearly interpolating the potentials with a spline-based method. The data used were simulated TMPs that were forward propagated to the body surface in a densely sampled geometry. The resulting body surface potential simulations were corrupted with noise and the inverse computed using a much coarser mesh to take geometry errors into account. The results indicate that reducing the dimension of the signal in time does not reduce the quality of the solutions obtained, while the computational requirements decrease considerably, especially for the spline method.


Photochemical rearrangement of o-nitrobenzylidene glycosides to o-nitrosobenzoates and the oxidation of these products to give partially protected carbohydrate o-nitrobenzoates are described.


Two experiments in auditory signal detection produced changes in the operating characteristic as the a priori probability of signal occurrence, p(SN), was varied. The signal was a sinusoid of 1,000 Hz presented for 250 msec against a continuous background of noise. In Experiment 1 three values of p(SN)—0.25, 0.50, and 0.75—were paired with each of three signal intensities. In Experiment 2 the signal intensity was fixed and p(SN) was assigned values of 0.10, 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, and 0.90. On normal-normal coordinates, operating characteristics were fitted to the points obtained from the 4-point rating scale used by the listeners. Such operating characteristics may be specified by two parameters: ds, an index of detectability related to d', and m, its slope. While ds was found to be independent ofp(SN), m was found to be a joint function of p(SN) and signal intensity. These results are discussed against the background of the theory of signal detectability.


High-precision geomagnetic measurement depends on eliminating variations of ionspheric and magnetospheric origin. The commonly used technique of simply taking differences between total field magnetometers is only partially sucessful. Our method involves finding the multichannel Wiener filters which predict the field variation at a given total field magnetometer of an array from the fields of the remaining magnetometers and a three-component magnetometer. The difference is then taken between the total field and the predicted field, leaving a cleaned total field. Filter lengths and number and choice of input channels are determined using methods of statistical parametric model fitting. The resulting filters which are defined on short noise free record sections are found to be effective over the remainder of the record. Detailed analysis of data from the University of California, Los Angeles, array in southern California, for which we have the best vector data, shows that for optimal predictive cleaning it is essential to use vector components and that only the two components orthogonal to the total field direction are necessary. This means that the field-aligned component may be omitted from a vector station, which simplifies the instrumentation considerably. Analysis of the standard deviation of the residuals after cleaning (0.1 nTmore » for hourly averages) shows that it is 8 times that expected from digitization noise alone. The most probable explanation for this is that measurement noise is about 3 times the digitization interval (0.25 nT) and that higher-precision measurements are required for further improvement. This conclusion has been confirmed by tests on the instruments at close spacing. Application of the method to data taken in central California and Hawaii reveals tectonomagnetic effects which are otherwise hidden in noise. Wiener filters are especially suitable for real-time analysis, which is an important factor in earthquake prediction.« less


For the purpose of overcoming restrictions which follow from some classical approaches of statistical analysis, especially in correlation analysis, rating distributions and power functional approximation are widely used to process time series of empirical data and index exponents.


A major goal of "omics" is personalizing therapy—the use of "signatures" derived from biological assays to determine who gets what treatment. Recently, Potti et al. (1) introduced a method that uses microarray profiles to better predict the cytotoxic agents to which a patient would respond. The method was extended to include other drugs, as well as combination chemotherapy (2, 3). We were asked if we could implement this approach to guide treatment at our institution; however, when we tried to reproduce the published results, we found that poor documentation hid many simple errors that undermined the approach (4). These signatures were nonetheless used to guide patient therapy in clinical trails initiated at Duke University in 2007, which we learned about in mid-2009. We then published a report that detailed numerous problems with the data (5). As chronicled in The Cancer Letter , trials were suspended (October 2, 9, and 23, 2009), restarted (January 29, 2010), resuspended (July 23, 2010), and finally terminated (November 19, 2010). The underlying reports have now been retracted; further investigations at Duke are under way. We spent approximately 1500 person-hours on this issue, mostly because we could not tell what data were used or how they were processed. Transparently available data and code would have made checking results and their validity far easier. Because transparency was absent, an understanding of the problems was delayed, trials were started on the basis of faulty data and conclusions, and patients were endangered. Such situations need to be avoided.

We wrote to Nature (6) to identify the 5 things that should be supplied: ( a ) the raw data; ( b ) the code used to derive the results from the raw data; ( c ) evidence of the provenance of the raw data so that labels could be checked; ( d ) written descriptions of any …


In this article, we present the epitaxy and fabrication of 980-nm-emitting broad-area laserdiodes which are suitable formulci-mode fiber (MMF) coupling. 5.1 W in a 220-μm-core MMF in cw operation with a threshold current of 240 mA and a maximum overall system efficiency of 49% has been achieved.


EMM,in the past 50 years,has kept its step from weak to strong,small to large,from hardship to a bright future.This article analyses the current situation of EMM and development trend.It puts forward how to suit the requirement of market to realize quick and valid type of fine management. In the end,it can make itself strorger and larger in new competition.


Lecture notes for LES HOUCHES 2002 SUMMER SCHOOL - SESSION LXXVII on SLOW RELAXATIONS AND NONEQUILIBRIUM DYNAMICS IN CONDENSED MATTER; Les Houches: July 1-26, 2002


An S-trigger situation, on that view, is a situation in which some trigger is present in response to which φ-ing counts as a success. Abilities and dispositions, I suggested (→ 5.4), differ along the success dimension. While it seems plausible that an object has a disposition to φ if and only if the object φ's in a sufficiently high proportion of the relevant possible situations in which some trigger for φ-ing is present, that trigger will have to be an S-trigger in order for that disposition to qualify as an ability. The most paradigmatic cases of abilities are what I called "agentive abilities" – abilities to perform actions. The S-trigger that matters in the case of such abilities, I argued (→ 4.2, 4.8, 4.9), is the (de dicto or de re) intention to φ, or – in exceptional cases – a different intention entirely, where that intention, too, will have to be an S-trigger. Thus, according to the success view of agentive abilities (→ 4.10),


Purpose - The purpose of this research was to determine the effect of the product quality to customer satisfiction Honda Motorcycle In Astra Plaju. Design/methodology - The design of this research was Associative and the data was used primary data. The Sample was  including 100 respondents customer who use Honda Motorcycle In Astra Plaju. Findings – The results of F–test showed that there was influence of performance of product, capability of service on customer satisfaction Honda Motorcycle in Astra Plaju Palembang.  The result of t test indicated that reliability variable partially most dominant effect on customer satisfaction.Â


Objective: To study expressions of OPG /RANKL mRNA and protein of the bone tissue in kidney deficiency rats with osteoporosis induced by glucocorticoid. To reveal the pathogenesis of osteoporosis. To explore the mechanism of the adjustable function of nanometer calcium kidney-tonifying Chinese herbs. Methods: The method of glucocorticoid injection was used. We established the rat model of osteoporosis due to kidney-deficiency. The osteoporosis rats with experimental drugs(high,low dose group) were treated for 8 weeks,which was notifying kidney to consolidate the essence and strengthening bone and marrow,invigorating kidney to make the bone strong. Simultaneously,Gushukang granule and Gaitianli tablets were used as positive control groups. And rats in the normal group and model group were not given any treatment. We had used the PCR method and Western blotting method to detect the expression of OPG/RANKL RNA and proteins in the bone of the rats. Results: Normal rat bone tissue can express OPG/RANKL in gene and protein level,which is important for helping to maintain bone mineral density. The occurrence of rats osteoporosis caused by glucocorticoids is related with the change of bone tissue OPG/RANKL mRNA and the protein expression,affecting bone formation. Conclusions: Nanometer calcium kidney-tonifying Chinese herbs can control OPG/RANKL mRNA and protein expression in rat bone tissue,inhibit osteoclast differentiation,promote the formation of osteoblast,and thus prevent and control the glucocorticoids-induced osteoporosis.


Increased air flow and light intensity increased the rate of photosynthesis of attached sugarcane leaves. At constant, low flow rates greater photosynthetic rates, leaf porosity, and stomatal opening accompanied increased light intensity. At constant light intensity, greater photosynthetic rates but lesser porosity and lesser stomatal opening accompanied increased air flow. The highest rate of photosynthesis (53 mg dm–2 h–1) was observed when both air flow and light intensity were at a maximum, even though porosity was minimal and no stomata appeared open. It is concluded that stomataL resistance of sugarcane leaves does not control rates of photosynthesis except when that resistance is very high.


The application of object-oriented modeling to develop a powertrain performance simulation program, called O-DYN. is introduced. Powertrain components, such as the engine. transmission. shaft. clutch are modeled as classes which have data and method by using object-oriented modeling methodology. O-DYN, a performance simulation program, bascd on the object-oriented modeling is made in C++. Onc powertrain simulation using O-DYN is proposed, and it is expected that the simulation program or individual class constructed in this paper would be useful for automotive engineers to predict the performance of powertrains and to develop a simulation program.


For positive integer s and t, the Ramsey number R(s, t) is the least positive integer n such that for every graph G of order n, either G contains Ks as a subgraph or G contains Kt as a subgraph. We construct the circulant graphs and use them to obtain lower bounds of some small Ramsey numbers. Keywords—Lower bound, Ramsey numbers, Graphs, Distance line.


Dirac points are found to emerge due to the crossing of bands in the electronic structure of bilayer graphene for configurations in which the alignment between two hexagonal lattices preserves the parallelism of the armchair/zigzag lines between two layers. On the base of electronic calculations using a tight-binding model for the $\pi$ bands it is shown that the crossing of the energy-band dispersion curves occurs in the vicinity of the corner points of the hexagonal Brillouin zone. Group representation theory analysis confirms the emergence of such Dirac points. It is demonstrated that the band crossings at generic $\mathbf{k}$ points are guaranteed by the compatibility relations between the symmetries of eigenstates at the high-symmetry $\mathbf{k}$ points in the Brillouin zone. The presence of Dirac points governs the geometrical properties of the energy surfaces, and thus the topological structure of the Fermi energy surface and the energy spectrum.


This bachelor thesis is focused on the analysis of selected bank products and bank fees that are related to retail clients. Thetheoretical part is focused on the description of banks, the banking system, types of banks and especially on the characterization and division of banking products. The practical part analyzes the fees related to selected products by seven entities which provide mainly to retail clients.


Electricity is one of the greatest inventions of modern science. Now-a-days, without electricity, life is unthinkable. However, the production and distribution of electricity is costly. So, it is necessary to use this facility with great care. Moreover, people in many of the countries using prepaid electric meters in their houses, offices, stores, even in factories, where they have to buy electricity in pre-paid basis. To do so, they have to estimates the future use of electricity in their vicinity. In this study, we have focused on predicting electric energy use of home appliances in a low energy consumption house. Two very popular and computationally effective machine learning algorithms, namely Support vector regression (SVR) and Artificial neural network with back-propagation (BP-ANN) are applied with cross validation approach. Principal component analysis (peA) is used to solve data dimensionality problems to analyze and select input features. In addition, F-test and correlation analysis are also done to check the dependencies of dependent variables (target label) on independent variables (predictors). Finally, the proposed model able to predict electric energy uses with more that 98% accuracy.


The invention relates to a connecting arrangement 14 for assembling at least two components 10,12 in a structure assembly 16, in particular in the region of a wing of an airplane, at least one member 10 with a fiber-reinforced plastic and at least a further component 12 is formed with a metal or at least two components 10 are formed having a fiber-reinforced plastic. According to the invention in a through-hole 20 by the components 10,12 a bushing 22 and a first end 26 of the sleeve 22 is provided with a collar 30 which faces a bottom 32 of the structural assembly 16 and a second end 28 of the sleeve 22 and a this end 28 radially surrounding zone 34 an upper surface 36 of the structural assembly 16 has a cut 38 and into the sleeve 22 a connecting element 50 is installed. This results in, inter alia, a smooth, aerodynamic design of the top 36, which can easily be provided with a coating and which ensures a reliable electrical contact between the connecting member 50 and a conductive sheet 18 of the first component 10th Moreover, the invention relates to a method, in particular for producing such a connecting arrangement fourteenth


The constraint at a crack tip has an effect on the fracture of all but the most brittle materials unless the specimen size is very large. Standard fracture toughness tests are designed so that constraint is high and the fracture parameters obtained from such tests can be conservative when applied to shallow cracks of low constraint in carbon and low alloy steels. Low constraint has two effects. It can greatly increase the critical CTOD or J Ic for ductile tearing or cleavage fracture and also, because low constraint limits the stress, it can cause a change in the mode of fracture from cleavage to ductile tearing. For ductile tearing it is suggested that the effects of constraint can be predicted if the stress-strain relationship for the fracture process zone is known. For cleavage fracture and fracture transition it is shown that the critical stress over a characteristic distance is applicable.


Fact checking must be done as a public good, but it's pointless to direct the results at those who can't change their mind and won't change the subject. Our focus should be on developing a set of online tools to facilitate the fact-checking process and make it easily accessible to those who wish their truth straight up.


In this paper we establish common fixed point theorems for two pairs of self maps in a complete metric space by using occasionally weakly biased maps satisfying the property (E.A.) using contraction  condition involving rational expressions.  These results partially generalize  Pachpatte [10], Jeong and Rhoades [5] and Kameswari [9]. Keywords : Weakly compatible, occasionally weakly compatible, property (E.A), coincidence point, point of coincidence, common fixed point. AMS (2010) Mathematics Subject Classifications: 47H10.


Pink Floyd was a British band whose work began in the late 60s. Roger Waters, the main contributor of the band, wrote almost all the lyrics and was also a main figure behind producing the motion picture of the album. He deliberately attacks Western media in both the lyrics he has written for the band and his solo projects. The present study finds this tendency of assaulting the media deeply rooted in the works of Western philosophers who are known as postmodern and have skeptically scrutinized the power relations underlying such apparatuses. This study sets to approach Roger Waters' oeuvre with regard to the speculations of such theorists as Benjamin, Baudrillard and McLuhan.


Pnewnocystis carinii has three gene families, MSG, MSR and PRTl, the members of which tend to be grouped together in clusters located at chromosome ends (reviewed in reference 6). Each of these gene families encodes a family of surface proteins, which are known as Major Surface Glycoprotein (MSG), MSG-Related (MSR). and Protease (PRTl). Determining the size and composition of these gene arrays is important for understanding their evolution and function. A question of particular interest is the possibility of co-expression of a specific MSG gene and a specific PRT1. because MSG proteins may be processed by proteases e n d e d by PRTl genes [3. 7.1. Prior to the work described here. segments of the genome that contain members of these gene families had been characterird. but an entire cluster had not yet been isolated. As part of the Pneumocystis Genome Project. the Sanger Center (http://www.sanger.ac.uk) determined the sequence of gene arrays contained within two cosmids, 3G5 and 1B2. Both cloned gene clusters contained members of all three gene families, but the order of the genes in the two clones was different. In addition to full size MSG and MSR genes, both gene clusters contained what appear to be fragments of MSG or MSR genes. The library contained additional cosmids that shared with 1B2. and with each other. a core region of about 15 kilobases at the telomere-distal end of the sequence. Surprisingly, two of these 1B2related cosmids mapped to one chromosome, and another mapped to a different chromosome. These linkage data show that the same gene array can be at the ends of two different chromosomes.


In this note, we study a large class of stochastic wave equations with spatial dimension less than or equal to $3$. Via a soft application of Malliavin calculus, we establish that their random field solutions are spatially ergodic.


The present invention relates to the preparation of c-hydroxy-6-aminocaproic acid from 2,3-dihydropyran-2carboxaldehyde. The 2,3-dihydropyran-2-carboxaldehyde used as the Starting material for this preparation is a dimer of acro lein, which can be obtained from acrolein by a thermal treatinent. it is known that a salt of 2,3-dihydropyran-2-carboxylic acid is formed from 2,3-dihydropyran-2-carboxaldehyde by oxidation with oxygen in the presence of a silver cata lyst and an amount of base which is sufficient to keep the pH at a value of at least 12.5. By acidification of the aqueous Salt solution which is obtained and extraction with an ether, a mixture of 2,3-dihydropyran-2-carboxylic acid and the lactone of 6-hydroxy-tetrahydropyran-2-car boxylic acid is obtained after the extract has been dis tied. According to the present invention, it has been found that high yields of ox-hydroxy-6-aminocaproic acid can be obtained if 2,3-dihydropyran-2-carboxaldehyde, distrib lated (i.e. dissolved or suspended) in an excessive amount of Water, is oxidized by means of an oxygen-containing gas, and the oxidation product is aminated in the result ing solution, by means of ammonia in the presence of hydrogen. The exact reaction mechanisms of the present invention are not fully understood. However, it appears that the aldehyde group present in the molecule of the starting product is oxidized to a carboxylic acid group. Due to the presence of water, a hydroxy acid, i.e. the 6-hydroxy tetrahydropyran-2-carboxylic acid is probably formed as an intermediate product. This acid is then apparently converted into an amino-acid by ammonia and hydrogen. This is accomplished by ring rupture as a result of which the cy-hydroxy-e-aninocaproic acid is obtained as the final product. The oxidation can be carried out in a simple way by in troducing a free oxygen-containing gas, for instance air, OXygen or a mixture of oxygen and air, into water in which 2,3-dihydropyran-2-carboxaldehyde is distributed by stirring. To promote the oxidation, known oxidation catalysts, such as silver oxide or finely divided silver, Inay be suspended in the water. The oxidation may be carried out at atmospheric pressure but higher pressures Inay also be used if desired. At the higher pressures, e.g. up to 100 atmospheres, the oxygen appears to react more readily so that the duration of the oxidation step may be shortened. The oxidation may further be promoted by maintain ing the reaction medium weakly alkaline, e.g. at a pH value of between 7.5-8.5. This may be accomplished by means of an appropriate base such as sodium hydroxide. To avoid the formation of undesired salts, it is recom mended that the metal ions be removed after the oxida tion has been stopped. This may be done by passing the aqueous solution obtained as the reaction product of the oxidation over an acid ion-exchanger. According to a preferred way of carrying out the pres ent process, the 2,3-dihydropyran-2-carboxaldehyde is first reacted with water before the oxidation is carried out. By acidifying the water, for instance with diluted 5


In this paper, a simple Zitterbewegung electron model, proposed in a previous work, is presented from a different perspective that does not require advanced mathematical concepts. A geometric-electromagnetic interpretation of mass, relativistic mass, De Broglie wavelength, Proca, Klein-Gordon and Aharonov-Bohm equations in agreement with the model is proposed. Starting from the key concept of mass-frequency equivalence a non-relativistic interpretation of the 3.7 keV deep hydrogen level found by J. Naudts is presented. Abstract According to this perspective, ultra-dense hydrogen can be conceived as a coherent chain of bosonic electrons with protons or deuterons at center of their Zitterbewegung orbits. The paper ends with some examples of the possible role of ultra-dense hydrogen in some aneutronic low energy nuclear reactions.


This thesis deals with the problems you face as a new game developer for the mobile platform Android when developing a 3D game and presents solutions to these problems. It also explores which optim ...


Abstract : This presentation describes the role of the Directorate of Land Service Ammunition in the United Kingdom and its involvement in ammunition accidents. Several examples of the causes of ammunition accidents worldwide are provided, including Design Faults, Poor Storage Control, Movement of Ammunition, Equipment Failures, Production Faults, In-Service Deterioration, Handling, Tampering, Errors of Drill, and Negligent Discharge. Investigation techniques are described using as a case in point an accident that occurred in the UK that involved 81mm mortar ammunition and resulted in three fatalities. The presentation concludes with a description of the measures taken in the British Army to prevent the occurrence and re-occurrence of accidents. A video entitled "The Stupidity Factor" (14 minutes) illustrates the causes of typical ammunition accidents and is available from the Directorate.


The present invention addresses the problem of providing a method for manufacturing a multi-stage gear for which there is no gap between a small-diameter gear and a large-diameter gear, and addresses the problem of providing this multi-stage gear. This method manufactures a multi-stage gear by forming gears having different diameters on the outer circumferential surface of a hollow cylindrical member to be processed, and has a first step wherein a small-diameter gear is formed on the outer circumferential surface, a second step wherein the ends of the member to be processed undergo plastic deformation and the diameters thereof are enlarged to form large-diameter gear parts, and a third step wherein large-diameter gears are formed by cutting the large-diameter gear parts.


Cloud computing is emerging as a popular paradigm that provides significant advances and utilityoriented services over shared virtualized resources. Despite the advantage of the cloud services, the majority of cloud users are reluctant to access the cloud due to unprecedented security threats in the cloud environment. The increasing cloud vulnerability incidences show the significance of cloud forensic techniques for the criminal investigation. It is challenging to gather the evidence from the abundant cloud data and identifying the source of the attack from the crime scene. Moreover, the Cloud Service Provider (CSP) confines the investigator to carry out the forensic investigation due to the prime concerns in the multi-tenant cloud infrastructure. To cope up with these constraints, this paper presents INSPECT, an investigation model that accomplishes adaptive evidence acquisition with adequate support for dynamic Chain of Custody presentation. By utilizing the VM log files, the INSPECT approach forensically acquires the corresponding evidence from the cloud data storage based on the location of malicious activity. It enhances the evidence acquisition and analysis process by optimally selecting and exploiting the required forensic fields alone instead of analyzing the entire log information. The INSPECT applies the Modified Fuzzy C-Means (M-FCM) clustering with contextual initialization method on the acquired evidence to recognize the source of the attack and improves the trustworthiness of the evidence through the submission of the chain of custody. By analyzing the Service Level Agreement (SLA) of the cloud users, it facilitates the source of attack identification from the clustered data. Furthermore, it isolates the evidence to avert deliberate modification by an adversary in the multi-tenant cloud. Eventually, INSPECT presents the evidence along with the chain of custody information regarding the crime scene. It enables the law enforcement authority to explore the evidence through the chain of custody information and to reconstruct the crime scene using the VM snapshots associated with timestamp data. The experimental results reveal that the INSPECT approach accomplishes a high level of accuracy in the investigation with the improved trustworthiness over the multi-tenant cloud infrastructure.


Control device (100) of a material (150) comprising at least means for emitting (110) an electromagnetic signal, microwave type, at a carrier frequency Fp for illuminating the material (150) and receiving means (130) of the electromagnetic signal comprising modulation means (140) of the electromagnetic signal to a Fm2 often arranged in the signal path, between the material (150) and the receiving means (130) of the signal electromagnetic for spatially discretized electromagnetic signal that has passed through the material, it characterized in that it further comprises means for modulating the electromagnetic signal at a Fm1 often arranged in the signal path between the transmission means (110) and the material (150) for spatially discretized electromagnetic signal emitted, and the different modulation means (141, 140) comprise a sensor network (200) of modulation Space n, each sensor (200) comprises a non-linear electronic component or an array of non-linear electronic component (230) fed to the desired modulation frequency Fm and being charging two radiating strands (220) or more each connected to or components.


It is argued that substantial portions of both Newtonian particle mechanics and general relativity can be viewed as relational (rather than absolute) theories. I furthermore use the relational particle models as toy models to investigate the problem of time in closed‐universe canonical quantum general relativity. I consider thus in particular the internal time, semiclassical and records tentative resolutions of the problem of time.


A dynamic model of a single battery electric vehicle (BEV) powertrain employing an induction motor (IM) is developed to capture and control the steady-state and transient behaviour of the overall system. The novelty of the model is that all the electric vehicle components including the car aerodynamics, drive cycle, power electronics drive, and battery are integrated, along with their dynamics to model the response of the system, while maintaining the simplicity and feasibility of simulation. The presented control mechanism ensures the proper switching operation modes of BEV; the accelerating, cruising, and regenerative braking. The power management controller is responding efficiently to the demanded traction power while avoiding the battery blackout or over-discharging below a certain threshold level. Moreover, the implemented indirect field oriented control (IFOC) of IM is practically validated using a four-poles squirrel-cage induction machine.


The utility model discloses a sea-island silk feather-resistance plus material, which is woven by warp yarns and weft yarns according to a tissue structure, wherein the warp yarns adopt cotton yarns between 40s and 100S, and the weft yarns adopt sea-island silks between 50D and 150D. Therefore, blank cloth woven by the sea-island silks can be made into finished products of down-resistance plus materials after fiber opening and wind-resistance resin sorting, and the finished products of the down-resistance plus materials have the advantages that the hand feeling is soft and exquisite, the cloth surface is fluffy, and a good down penetration resistance effect is realized.


Abstract Asked if he had any material on Baptist deaconesses, Jim Bishop produced a typescript of the speeches given at the Farewell Meeting for his mother, Sister Ruth, at John Street Baptist Church, Holborn.


Metal thin films, which have high conductivity, are much stiffer and may fracture at a much lower strain than dielectric elastomers. In order to fabricate compliant electrodes for use in dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs), metal thin films have been formed into either zigzag patterns or corrugations, which favour bending and only allow uniaxial DEA deformations. However, biaxially compliant electrodes are desired in order to maximize generated forces of DEA. In this paper, we present crumpled metal thin-film electrodes that are biaxially compliant and have full area coverage over the dielectric elastomer. These crumpled metal thin-film electrodes are more stretchable than flat metal thin films; they remain conductive beyond 110% radial strain. Also, crumpling reduced the stiffening effect of metal thin films on the soft elastomer. As such, DEAs using crumpled metal thin-film electrodes managed to attain relatively high actuated area strains of up to 128% at 1.8 kV (102 Vμm−1).


At present the safety problem is serious in Chinese cities,and the management of great hazard sources lags behind.In this paper management problems and methods for great hazard sources are discussed,in order that the happening of great accidents can be prevented and reduced and safety production can be guaranteed.


ABSTRACT In the highly squinted spotlight synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image simulation of complex electrically large targets, the principal difficulties consist of the generation and the processing of SAR echo. Concerning the above two issues, this paper proposed a complete procedure for highly squinted SAR image simulation. Firstly, in order to generate the SAR echo efficiently and accurately, the geometrical optics and physical optics (GO-PO) hybrid method is employed to get the spatial distributed scattering fields, which is an essential step for the generation of SAR echo. Secondly, regarding to the processing of highly squinted SAR echo, the amendatory frequency scaling algorithm (AFSA) is adopted. Compared with the benchmark frequency scaling algorithm (FSA), AFSA eliminates the trouble caused by the range-dependent secondary range compression (SRC) error in high squint mode through the nonlinear frequency scaling (NFS) operation. Finally, according to the complete simulation procedure, SAR images of a complex ship target under different radar parameters are simulated and analysed. The simulation results indicate the performance of AFSA in the processing of highly squinted SAR echo. Meanwhile, the effectiveness and the reasonability of the complete simulation procedure are revealed as well.


In addition to the application of traditional expert competences, practitioners in service-intensive public organizations today must develop new skills for dealing with collaborative service concept development and various user-driven and customer-orientated participative work practices. This paper discusses an example case in which a design approach was applied to boost the innovation process in a knowledge-intensive public organization.


Through an innate desire to present works with an underlying musical philosophy and a mastery of technical phenomena, this folio of compositions and critical commentary is an attempt to present a progressive collection of my original music with an accompanying philosophical and analytical examination. Within the folio, there is experimentation, use of many external and seemingly unrelated sources, and the employment of specific modern techniques when the underlying philosophy demands it. The folio demonstrates a willingness to utilise a wealth of sources, extramusical content, and to experiment and collaborate on project outcomes. Inspiration in part is drawn from composer Georgy Ligeti, who sees the compositional process as a series of problems that emerge and need to be resolved. Thus, each musical form, though complete in itself, is conceptually in a constant state of flux and renewal. Some more recent concepts within this folio include the creating of a time-space (that is, prolonging the inevitable outcome of a musical idea); exploring apparent spectral and microtonal harmonies; severely constricting musical material; being inspired by extramusical content; producing information-saturated works and using jazz-inspired improvisatory techniques; borrowing from seemingly unrelated sources; and using electronic and recorded music in conjunction with live acoustic musicians. This folio of works and critical commentary presents eight compositions with a detailed analysis of my approach to each work and aesthetic viewpoint. It includes two works for orchestra, Ordynov and Creatures of Ezekiel (for large orchestra), a work for sextet entitled Descent, four chamber works (ein...atmen, generator, Wireless and re.saturate.d), and one work for solo violin and electronics, 101010001012(1012).


Aim:  To examine prevalence rates of child physical abuse perpetrated by a parent/caretaker, abuse characteristics and the extent of disclosures.


This paper presents a CMOS flash A/D converter which operates very fast compared to other A/D converters. The flash A/D converter architecture has high speed conversion due to its parallel structure. However, the flash A/D converter consumes large area and power according to the number of resolution. To solve the area problem of the flash A/D converter architecture, this paper proposed the Threshold Inverter Quantization(TIQ) technique for high speed and low power scheme. Furthermore this paper presents the double integer encoder for real time Digital Signal Processor(DSP). The designed chip was fabricated by 0.18㎛ process, and its maximum power consumption is 38.71㎽ at 1.8V.


The term vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia (VIN) includes the precursor lesions of vulvar cancer, being divided into squamous VIN and non-squamous VIN. The squamous VIN refers to the usual type VIN, which is related to HPV infection, multicentricity of lesions, sexual activity and smoking being more frequently observed in young woman. The VIN differentiated type, which is related to vulvar dermatoses, such as lichen sclerosus, is not associated with HPV-induced infection or sexual behavior and affects older patients. Thenon-squamous VIN is related to Paget's disease and melanoma "in situ". The standard VIN's treatment is a surgical wide excision of the lesion with a safety margin. This study aims to test the use of imiquimod 5% cream in the treatment of usual type VIN isolated, and/or associated with surgical procedure. The imiquimod is already successfully used in the treatment of genital condylomatous lesions. Moreover, it has been shown to be effective in usual type VIN lesions.


In this paper, we develop novel rotor designs of interior-permanent-magnet motors in order to reduce harmonic iron losses at high rotational speeds under field-weakening control. First, an optimization method, combined with an adaptive finite-element method, is applied to automatically determine the shapes of the magnets and rotor core. The optimized motor is manufactured to confirm the validity of the calculation. It is clarified that the iron loss of the optimized motor is reduced to nearly half of that of the conventional motor, without a significant decrease in maximum torque. Next, the contribution of each part of the rotor to the iron-loss reduction is analyzed by the experimental design method. Finally, several designs of the rotors are proposed from the viewpoints of manufacturing cost and performance.


ZSM-5 zeolites and magnesium-aluminate spinels have been widely used as fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) additives to improve propene yield and reduce SO 2 emission, respectively. In this study, these two components were combined into a single particle to obtain novel bifunctional additives. Meanwhile, a commercial propene additive (ZSM-5/kaolin), in which the Si/Al ratio of ZSM-5 was the same as that of bifunctional additives, was used as a reference. The effects of adding the bifunctional additives containing MgAl 2 O 4 and the commercial propene additive ZSM-5/kaolin to the base catalyst in cracking of vacuum gas oil (VGO) were investigated. Results showed that the bifunctional additive with unmodified ZSM-5 was less active in increasing the propene yield. However, modifying ZSM-5 with both La and P could enhance the performance of the bifunctional additive, resulting in boosts in LPG and propene yields, which can be compared to those in the case of ZSM-5/ kaolin. Also, the performances of the SO 2 oxidative adsorption over the additives were examined. It showed that both bifunctional additives presented higher uptake capability of SO 2 than ZSM-5/kaolin. The samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), N 2 adsorption-desorption techniques, X-ray fluorescence (XRF) , 31 P and 27 Al magic angle spinning (MAS) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra of adsorbed pyridine methods. Results indicated that the Mg 2+ ion exchanged with hydroxyl groups of zeolite during the incorporation of MgAl 2 O 4 impaired the zeolite framework during steaming, which can be significantly weakened by modifying ZSM-5 with both La and P.


In this paper,a professional project case-centered teaching pattern is proposed for the Visual C++ Language course.In the teaching process,the authors make the teaching content which has obvious professional features by selecting teaching case for the related teaching content.Teaching practice indicates that the new teaching pattern can enhence students′ application ability of professional knowledge,and it can apprently improve the teaching effect


The design of frame-wall systems has emerged over the years, as the favoured method of providing effective earthquake resistance in multi-storey buildings. The prescribed force-based approach in the current European seismic code, Eurocode 8 (CEN 2004) for the design of high ductility dual systems typically leads to over-conservatism as it overestimates the design forces in the walls especially in the upper half of the building height. On the other hand, in medium ductility structures, design shear and bending moment envelopes for shear walls according to Eurocode 8 (EC8) do not appropriately account for the overstrength of plastic zones which increases the action effects. Therefore, the resulting envelopes obtained from the code-based approach are not completely satisfactory (Kappos & Antoniadis, 2011).


Gallium nitride (GaN) has become an important compound semiconductor material in the fabrication of an array of optical and electronic devices including light emitting diodes (LEDs), transistors, and laser devices for CD and DVD players. GaN is capable of operating at very high frequencies and power levels, demonstrating excellent thermal tolerance compared to other compound semiconductors such as gallium arsenide and indium phosphide.


Paratuberculosis is recognised in the countries of Europe, America and Asia as a serious threat to livestock productivity. This recognition is not shared on the continent of Africa due to the lack of information on the occurrence, distribution, risk factors and economic impacts. There is however some information available from a few reports and prevalence studies on the disease. These reports are supplemented by annual disease reports to the World organisation for Animal Health (OIE). The combination of these reports indicates that most countries of Africa have recorded incidences of the disease in their history but prevalence data on the disease is lacking in most countries and are only partial in others. Therefore, there is need to step up reconnaissance for the disease so that control can be instituted before the disease becomes endemic in the livestock populations of Africa.


We have fabricated n-type carbon nanotube field effect transistors by choosing the contact metal. Single-walled carbon nanotubes were grown directly on a SiO2∕Si substrate by chemical vapor deposition using patterned metal catalysts. Following the nanotube growth, Ca contacts with a small work function were formed by evaporating and lifting off the metal. The devices showed n-type transfer characteristics without any doping into the nanotube channel. In contrast, the devices with Pd contacts showed p-type conduction. These results can be explained by taking into account the work functions of the contact metals.


Patients with small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC) present neuroendocrine (NE) properties and chromogranin A (CGA), synaptophysin (Syn), and neural cell adhesion molecule 1 (NCAM1) are known as NE diagnostic markers, while the predictive value of the NE differentiation in SCLC remains uncertain. The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate the prognostic significance of NE markers in tissue level in SCLC. A total of 192 patients were enrolled in the study, 136 (70.8%) patients received chemotherapy, and 10 (5.2%) patients were underwent lobectomy resection. The expression levels of the NE markers were performed using immunohistochemistry (IHC). Our data showed the positive expression rates of CGA, Syn, and NCAM1 were 112 (58.3%), 160 (83.3%), 166 (86.5%), respectively. There were significant associations between CGA, NE markers and disease stage, lymph node metastasis in SCLC (P<0.05). A multivariate analysis was performed using Cox regression model, the results showed that disease stage (P<0.001), regional lymph node metastasis (P<0.001), CGA expression (P=0.019), NE differentiation (P=0.033), chemotherapy (P=0.001), and surgery (P=0.001) were independent factors associated with overall survival. Kaplan-Meier and log-rank test demonstrated that patients with low expression of CGA (Log rank P=0.015) and low level of NE markers (Log rank P=0.028) proved to have significant longer survival compared to those with the opposite status of each variable. In conclusion, low CGA level or low NE markers by IHC in SCLC are both prognostic determinants. Further studies are needed to elucidate the function of particular SCLC subtype in cell lines.


Due to their numerous advantages, such as high specific capacity, lithium–sulfur batteries (Li–S batteries) have attracted much attention as next‐generation energy storage systems. To meet future needs for commercial application, Li–S batteries will require both improved cycle life and high energy density. It is of critical importance to understand the fundamental mechanisms in Li–S systems to further improve the overall battery performance. Various advanced characterization techniques, over the past few years, have proven their important role in promoting the mechanism understanding for Li–S batteries. Here, the recent progress of mechanism understanding, including redox reactions, Li polysulfides dissolution, etc., in Li–S systems based on the advanced characterization techniques is reviewed. Special focus is placed on how these advanced characterization techniques are being employed and what characteristic or capability they possess. The importance of the combination of multiple characterization techniques, differences between ex situ and in situ experimental methods, as well as effects of characterization conditions in Li–S batteries are also discussed.

publisher-specific, author manuscript: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#am


Objective To reconstruct a three-dimensional(3D) model of real human cranial cavity and exploit the deformation rule of cranial cavity with changing intracranial pressure(ICP) by finite element method.Methods Based on the cranial cavity CT images of a healthy adult male,the 3D model of human cranial cavity was constructed using Mimics 13.0 software.The strain and deformation regularity of the real human cranial cavity were analyzed using finite element software ANSYS to simulate the changing ICP.Results The 3D finite element model of cranial cavity was reconstructed,which had high similarity to the real human cranial cavity in terms of geometric and material properties.Compared with the ideal simplified model of cranial cavity or the models constructed by general computer aided design(CAD) software,the model of cranial cavity was more accurate and of more universal application value.Moreover,the strains of cranial cavity ranged from 1.27 to 3.67 μe while ICP ranged from 2 to 6 kPa.The strain regularity and scope were consistent with the pre-simulated results.Conclusion It is demonstrated that the real 3D model of human cranial cavity and deformation rule with changing ICP had higher reliability,and provided more reliable data basis for clinical research on cranial cavity deformation.


Prediction of residual stresses near joints in tempered glass plates. This work deals with the use of glass as a real structural material and concerns more particularly the calculation of residual stresses due to tempering in the vicinity of dowel type joints inserted into chamfered holes in the aim of predicting the load bearing capacity of such joints. This work presents numerical simulation results of the thermal tempering by the Finite Element Method in order to calculate transient and residual stresses near edges of a glass plate (2D calculation) and near holes (3D calculation). During thermal tempering, glass is considered as a viscoelastic material. The Narayanaswamy's model is used. It takes into account the structural relaxation phenomena. The particular difficulty is the correct modelling of heat transfers since transient and residual stresses strongly depend on the history of temperature within the plate, close to the edge and to the hole. Both the forced convection due to the blowing of air and the radiative heat transfer are modeled numerically. The semi-transparency of glass in the near infrared range is considered. The convective heat transfer coefficients on the edge and hole walls are identified thanks to a specific experimental set-up and validated from simulations of heat transfer tests. The computed residual stresses are checked against photo-elastic measurements. Such a work allows the optimization of the glass plate geometry in the vicinity of the joint in the aim of a maximum reinforcement.


SUMMARY A Randomized, Multicenter, Open-Label, Phase III Study of Gemcitabine-Cisplatin (GC) Chemotherapy Plus Necitumumab (IMC-11F8/LY3012211) Versus GC Alone in the FirstLine Treatment of Patients (pts) With Stage IV Squamous Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (sq-NSCLC) Little progress has been made in improving the treatment of NSCLC patients with squamous cell histology, largely owing to a lack of common oncogenic drivers that can be used to guide targeted drug development. In a phase 3 trial, the addition of the anti-EGFR antibody cetuximab to platinum-based first-line therapy significantly improved efficacy in NSCLC patients, with the greatest benefit seen in the SCC subpopulation (Pirker R et al. Lancet. 2009;373[9674]:1525-1531). The SQUIRE (First-Line Treatment of Participants With Stage IV Squamous Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer With Necitumumab and GemcitabineCisplatin) trial investigated the addition of necitumumab, a human immunoglobulin G1 anti-EGFR antibody, to gemcitabine plus cisplatin, standard treatment for patients with advanced or metastatic, treatment-naive, NSCLC of squamous cell histology (Abstract 8008). The study enrolled 1093 patients with stage IV squamous cell NSCLC. Patients were randomized to receive 6 cycles of gemcitabine (1250 mg/m2 on days 1 and 8) plus cisplatin (75 mg/m2 on day 1) with or without necitumumab (800 mg on days 1 and 8). Patients who achieved a complete response, partial response, or stable disease in the necitumumab arm received maintenance antibody therapy until disease progression. Patients received a median relative dose intensity of 86% for gemcitabine, 95% for cisplatin, and 94% for necitumumab. The study met its primary endpoint, demonstrating an improved median OS with the addition of necitumumab at a median follow-up of 25 months (11.5 months vs 9.9 months; HR, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.74-0.96; P=.012). A preplanned Forest plot analysis demonstrated a benefit for several subgroups, including smokers (HR, 0.85; 95% CI, 0.74-0.98). The SQUIRE trial also showed an improvement in median PFS with the addition of necitumumab to gemcitabine plus cisplatin (5.7 months vs 5.5 months; HR, 0.85; 95% CI, 0.74-0.98; P=.020). AEs of grade 3 or higher were more frequent in the necitumumab arm (72.1% vs 61.6%), as were the AEs that led to death (12.3% vs 10.5%). Rates of hematologic toxicities were similar in both arms. Grade 3 or higher AEs of interest that were more common with the antibody therapy included hypomagnesemia (9.3% vs 1.1%), skin rash (7.1% vs 0.4%), and venous thromboembolic events (5.0% vs 2.6%).


Beatrice Galinon-Melenec explains how, after studying the role of behavior in terms of recruitment, she came to define the paradigm of "signes-traces" ("sign-traces") and that of "Homme-trace" ("human-trace"). The "Homme-trace" paradigm assumes on the one hand that a person's interactions with their environment are written all over their body, including in the brain; and, on the other hand, that their practices produce sign-traces in the world around them. The whole operates in a feedback loop, a process in which externality is internalised and vice versa.


Two kinds of crude oils occur in the different structures in Mabei area in northern margin of Qaidam basin.One is the oil broadly distributed in this area,including Mabei-1 Well,Mabei-101 Well,Mabei-3 Well and late filled oil in Mabei-2 Well.Such oils mainly originated from the source rocks of Middle Jurassic with distinction of maturity.The oil from shallow layer in Mabei-1 Well and Mabei-3 Well originated from Gaqiu sag,belonging to matured oil;while the oil from deep layer in Mabei-1 Well and Mabei-101 Well originated from Saishiteng sag,being highly matured oil.The other,biodegraded oil,was found in Mabei-2 Well,originating from transitional facies source rocks of Carboniferous in this area.


ABSTRAKTransformer IV is one of the 20 kV distribution transformers found at the Sukamerindu Bengkulu Substation (GI). The transformer has a power rating of 30 MVA. In distribution transformers, inter-phase load balancing is needed. If the load is not balanced between the phases, current will flow in neutral wire. In this study the effect of unbalanced load on neutral current in transformer IV Sukamerindu Bengkulu is analyzed. The load is analyzed every hour of the day by observing the amount of current and voltage in each phase. From the results of the analysis it was found that the highest neutral current loss value was 1306.25 watts or 1.30 kW and the lowest was 0.724 kW, with an average neutral current loss that occurred in the IV unit transformer Sukamerindu at 639 watts.


In designing the gas turbine engine, it is important to know the rough relationship between the specific output, thermal efficiency, and pressure ratios before setting about calculating the practical cycle. In general, the specific output and the thermal efficiency have their maximum values at certain pressure ratios. The pressure ratios for these maximum values, however, differ in the case of the specific output from the thermal efficiency even in the same type of gas turbine. This paper presents the equations for the optimum pressure ratios of the specific output and thermal efficiency which are obtained for seven types of single-shaft gas turbines. Furthermore, a change in the forms of the curves is made clear by the numerical calculations for the specific output and thermal efficiency near the range of optimum pressure ratios. From the results of this paper, the optimum pressure ratios for every type of single-shaft gas turbine can be easily determined from the thermodynamical point of view.Copyright © 1976 by ASME


Social responsibility on the part of business has various meanings, to some of which English law is more favourable than others. But the law could be changed. The author is a Solicitor and Lecturer in Law in the University of Bristol. His Corporate Power and Responsibility: Issues in the Theory of Company Law has recently been published by Oxford University Press.


Role Object Pattern is the most common design pattern used to implement Role Model. However, there are some inherent flaws in the implementation of Role Object pattern with OOP, such as tangle and scatter, complex object identity and interface bloat or downcasting. A hybrid method to implement Role Object pattern based on AOP technology was presented. Compared with the object-oriented method, the advantages of AOP were addressed.


Several approaches to the operation of automated ground transport systems for urban use are presented and evaluated. Such systems have been suggested principally in response to the problems of urban traffic congestian and are often proposed as solutions to such problems. Thus this paper, the first of a series of three, discusses the problems of urban transportation and their origins, identifying as the principal elements the institutional structure, urban geography, and design of facilities for urban automotive transport. Importantly, the origins of a significant portion of "the urban transportation problem" lie outside the transport sector. Six potential applications for automated transport systems are suggested, ranging from specialized single-link "horizontal elevators" to general-purpose wide-area networks.


Photovoltaic (PV) systems deployed in desert areas are exposed to wind-blown particles during most of their lifetimes. Here I describe the characteristics of wind-blown particles and with their effect on exposed surfaces. I provide insights for use in array design to minimize the effects of exposure and keep system costs as low as possible. Finally, I present some data describing the exposure of polymer-encapsulated arrays to both field and laboratory wind-blown sand environments, and I present evidence that an encapsulated or ``soft`` array has a higher abrasion resistance and, therefore, a much higher probability of surviving a severe sand environment.


The problems of diesel engine lubricating oil contamination and deterioration in use was analgzed,the significance of diesel engine lubricating oil analiysis and test was deseribed,and the problems in actual application and recommendations were put forward.


Ciprofloxacin (C), pefloxacin (P) and norfloxacin (N) had a marked effect on Yersinia pseudotuberculosis strains isolated from the infected humans and animals. The activity of C (MIC 0.0312-0.125 microgram/ml) was higher than that of P and N (MIC 0.0625-2.0 micrograms/ml). The isolates were resistant to azithromycin (MIC 3.1-100 micrograms/ml). The susceptibility of the strains did not depend on the source of their isolation. The polyresistant strains carrying the R plasmids preserved the susceptibility to the fluoroquinolones.


Grazing incident Soft X-ray source (SXR) mirrors find applications in astrophysics, space plasma research, hot plasma research and in various imaging and spectroscopy laboratory systems. SXR sources and vacuum optical beamlines are needed for their characterization and testing. A micro focus laboratory Soft X-ray source, which can be used in facilities for SXR optical components metrology, was designed and realized. The source in vacuum consists of an electron gun with stabilized electron beam focused to a 200 um spot on a target from appropriate material. Four different targets allowing generation of SXR with four different energies from four different elements are placed on a rotational turret. Required photon energy can be selected without vacuum interruption.


• In May of 1981, Siamese twins were born to a physician and his wife in Danville, Illinois. "The infants, joined below the waist, were denied medical treatment and nourishment by Order of the parents. The State of Illinois interCeded and was awarded custody of the children. The parents and their pediatrician were indicted for attempted murder. They were not convicted (Taub, 1982). In April of 1982, a Down's syndrome infant was born in Bloomington, Indiana. This child, who became known as Baby Doe, had the additional complication of an incompletely developed esophagus. Food could not pass through to his stomach. Surgery could have been performed to correct this condition, but his parents refused to allow the operation. Several courts upheld the parents' decision. Baby Doe died before a final judicial appeal could be completed (Punch & Simler, 1982). In October. 1983, a Long Island couple refused to give consent for surgery to be performed on their infant daughter. Identified as Baby Jane Doe, the child was born with spina blfida, hydrocephalus, and other complications. A Long Island judge ruled that the lifeprolonging surgery should be performed against the parents' wishes. An appeals court, however, backed the decision of the parents and overturned the lower court's order (Baby's Fate, 1983). These cases. two of which were extensively covered by the news media. are only a sample of the increasing number of incidents that involve questions of withholding treatment and nourishment from handicapped newborns. In 1973. Duff and Campbell reported that 14% of the infants who died in the YaleNew Haven Medical Center from January, 1970, to January, 1972, died as a result of intentional withholding of treatment. A recent study in England (Alberman, 1982) indicated that over 20% of infant deaths in one British hospital were the result of decisions to withdraw or withhold treatment. Even these figures


Objective To investigate the relationship between non-cognitive behavior disturbances and cognitive disturebances by neuropsychiatric inventory(NPI)and MMSE scores in Alzheimer′s disease (AD).Methods 32 AD patients identified by DMS-Ⅳ and MMSE, the caregivers were interviewed by NPI. The frequency and severity of 12 behaviors were assessed.Results All patients were assessed in delusion, hallucination, agitation, dysphoria, anxiety, euphoria, apathy, disinhibition, irritability, aberrant motor, nighttime disturbances and appetite/eating disturbances. Relationship among 12 items and their correlations with cognitive impairment were also investigated. All symptomatic behaviors were markedly increased, and the most common is apathy, followed by aberrant motor, nighttime disturbances, appetite/eating disturbances and euphoria,but agitation occupied with 37.50%.Conclusion Apathy, agitation, dysphoria and hallucination behaviors were significantly correlated with cognitive deficits.


Coffee crop represents a great economic importance in Brazil, in which Arabica coffee represents a great part of the national production. However, the average yield of Arabica coffee is low, which reduces the profitability of the activity. Pruning systems can regain vigor and increase productivity. The system most adopted by coffee farmers is recepa (cutting off the orthotropic branch at 0.8 m above ground), which has not resulted in efficient reinvigoration. It is believed that the implementation of new systems, such as programmed pruning cycle, can improve the productivity of Arabica coffee. However, the economic impacts and risks associated with this type of pruning are still unknown. The objective of this study was to determine the feasibility and financial risk of the use of programmed pruning cycle compared to traditional Arabica pruning. A financial viability of programmed pruning cycle without Arabica coffee was determined by calculating the Net Present Value and the Internal Rate of Return. Using the sensitivity analysis, to identify the items with the greatest impact on the project. Finally, the financial risk of this technique was determined by the Monte Carlo method. The technical coefficient used for the elaboration of cash flows and is available by the Center for the Development of Agribusiness and the Capixaba Institute for Research, Technical Assistance and Rural Extension. The price data are available from the Coffee Trade Center of Vitoria-ES and the Capixaba Institute for Research, Technical Assistance and Rural Extension. The reference year of the data of this work is 2017. A programmed pruning cycle is more economically feasible compared to traditional pruning. It was possible to identify the most sensitive items in pruning systems. The use of programmed pruning cycle of Arabica non-coffee is a practice with zero risk and economic yield.


The Crash Warnings Interface Metrics study showed that seat belt pretensioning in Forward Collision Warning (FCW) situations reduced driver response times significantly. This study examined whether that effect is limited to haptic belts, or is a general effect of haptic warnings. 48 participants received FCWs in critical lead vehicle braking situations while doing a visual distraction task. Three FCW types were tested. A warning sound was combined with either seat belt jerks, a brake pulse or a visual warning in a head up display. All FCWs made drivers abort the distraction task and look up. Furthermore, combining sound with seat belt jerks or a brake pulse lead to significantly faster response times than combining the sound with a visual warning. These results indicate that faster response times may be typical for haptic warnings in general. They also suggest that future FCWs should include a haptic modality to improve driver performance.


We thank Dr Babaoglu for his question about our manuscript entitled 'Limited Radiographic Progression and Sustained Reductions in MRI Inflammation in Patients with Axial Spondyloarthritis: Four-Year Imaging Outcomes from the RAPID-axSpA Phase 3 Randomised Trial.'1 2 In his response, he refers to an apparent discrepancy between information in the main manuscript and supplemental material. He is correct …


A three-dimensional mesomechanical simulation method using a discontinuum mechanics model (the rigid bodies-spring model)has been proposed and applied to the numerical analysis of brittle polycrystalline solids containing microcracks. The relationship between microcrack density and elastic modulus under the influence of microcrack closure and surface friction as well as the evolution equation for microcrack density are discussed. The isotropic model in continuum damage mechanics has been improved, based on the results of these mesomechanical simulations.


Summary.

The diagnostic criteria, ranges, hybrid zones, and migrations of the three indigenous British races of Turdus ericetorum are defined. The migratory dispersal of T. e. catherinœ is traced, and its identity as the innominate "small, dark migrant Song-thrush" of workers is established. An explanation of the distributions of T. ericetorum races in the British Isles is advanced. T. e. ericetorum and T. e. hebridensis are ascertained to be moderately migratory, T. e. catherinœ strongly so. The findings on early records of T. e. hebridensis on passage evidence confusion between that form and T. e. catherinœ. Irish, Stornoway (Lewis, Outer Hebrides), and Orkney and Shetland breeding populations require further racial study.


Being relative to pigments,universal water based colour paste had addition convenience,easy disperse,environmental protective and other advantages.By testing the fineness and storage stability of colour paste,and its compatibility with coatings,the influence of pigments,dispersants and anti-settling agents on the performance of colour paste was discussed during the preparation of the resin-free water based colour paste.


The energy and momentum balance, which are usually derived for volume charge distributions, are obtained for surface charge distributions by direct calculation.


Coupled modes of two nanobeams brought together are shown to have pronounced frequency dependence on a spatial displacement of the resonators, while the quality factor of the coupled modes preserves the same order of magnitude as that of a single nanobeam. Both a longitudinal shift and transversal displacement of nanobeams with respect to each other are under investigation. We show that the mode degeneracy occurs at the longitudinal shift of about a half a modified lattice constant in the center of the defect region. To perform eigenmode analysis of the coupled system we used a 3D finite‐difference frequency‐domain method and a 48 Gb station.


Routing protocol is a key problem and critical to Mobile wireless ad hoc networks.In order to evaluate routing protocol performance in mobile wireless ad hoc networks.Simulation script program is given based on NS2 and the output result is analyzed.At the end,a simulation example is simulated and performance parameter diagrams are presented about AODV(ad hoc on-demand routing protoco1),DSR(dynamical source routing) and DSDV(destination-sequenced distance-vector).


Abstract : Adult albino mice were given Coxsackie B virus via intrathoracic, intraperitoneal, intranasal and aerosol routes. The mice were either acclimatized or unacclimatized to 2C ambient temperature, and in one challenged group normal mice were compared to specifically immunized animals. No deaths occurred in the control animals (21C) challenged intranasally or by aerosol; however, 5/10 mice were killed by the intrathoracic challenge and 1/10 died from the intraperitoneal challenge. In general the mice unacclimatized to 2C had higher mortality ratios than acclimatized animals in all challenged groups regardless of the route of challenge. Intranasally and intraperitoneally challenged mice had similar mortality ratios in all groups tested. Many of the deaths of the intrathoracically challenged mice are attributed to the procedure of challenge. The few deaths in the aerosol challenged groups are thought to be a dose-related factor. (Author)


A number of functional size measurement (FSM) methods have been proposed in the literature, but so far there has been little systematic evaluation of these methods. This paper describes a controlled experiment which compares function point analysis, a standard FSM method supported by the International Function Point Users Group (IFPUG FPA) and OO-method function points (OOmFP), a recently proposed FSM method for sizing object-oriented software systems that are developed using the OO-Method approach. The goal is to investigate whether OOmFP results in better size assessments within the context of an OO-Method development process. The methods are compared using two criteria defined in the ISO 14143-3: reproducibility and accuracy. The results show that, within its context, OOmFP is more consistent and accurate than IFPUG FPA.


Boron ( 11 B) and hydrogen ( 1 H) NMR parameters have been measured for the unique polyhedral azaborane species [(NH 2 Et)B 8 H 11 NHEt)] using single- and double-resonance experiments and two-dimensional shift-correlation methods. Comparison with the NMR properties of other eight-boron species, in particular arachno -[B 8 H 12 (PMe 2 Ph)], suggests that cluster of [(NH 2 Et)B 8 H 11 NHEt] may be better regarded as being of hypho character, rather than of arachno character as previously supposed.


Oklahomais prison population is one of the largest per capita in the country, and its female per capita incarceration rate is the highest in the nation. Drug offenders are the biggest portion of offenders incarcerated in Oklahomais prisons, particularly among females. Policymakers are examining the wisdom of massive incarceration, and researchers have begun to document the unitended negative consequences of incarceration on the children and spouses of inmates. This study examines the consequences of incarceration for the families of drug offenders in Oklahoma from the offendersi perspectives. Researchers surveyed 124 male and 144 female inmates housed at minimum security and community correctional centers. The survey instrument contained questions on demographics, criminal record, drug usage, and inmate families, including placement of children, problems with children, and financial effects of incarceration on the family. Many of the devastating effects of incarceration found in other parts of the United States are apparent in Oklahoma. The study indicated that incarceration has had a negative impact on family structure and functioning, as well as on children. Incarceration damaged marital and parent-child relationships, caused economic hardships for families, and created many personal problems for children including drug and alcohol abuse, depression, bad grades, and expulsion from school. Furthermore, those effects differed by gender. The study clearly indicated a need to study inmatesi families in greater depth to gain a closer perspective on the unintended consequences of incarcerations on families of offenders. Corrections, 1996). The largest segment of nonviolent offenders incarcerated in Oklahoma is drug-related offenders. The study was an initial analysis of the effects of incarceration on the children and families of drug offenders from the inmateis perspective. We pay particular attention to gender differences and similarities in those effects. We will give a brief overview of the effects of incarceration on communities, families, and children, and then explore the findings of our study.


From their inception the modern Olympics have been characterized by controversy over the meaning of the games. The 1908 London games and their coverage in the Edwardian press illustrate the tension between the Olympic ideal of 'friendly' sporting competition and the reality of the intense national rivalry in Europe prior to the First World War. During the games, newspapers also addressed the parallel tension between amateur virtue and the desire to win. The press presented sporting achievement at the London games as a measure of national status and provided an introduction to issues surrounding international sporting competition which still persist today.


We consider a local moment which is coupled by a non-random Kondo J to a band of conduction electrons in a random potential. We prove an analog of Anderson's theorem in a large-N limit of this model. The theorem states that when the disorder is weak, the disorder-averaged low-temperature thermodynamics is independent of the strength of the disorder; remarkably, it further states that fluctuation effects in the long-time limit are independent even of the realization of the disorder. We discuss the relationship of this theorem to theoretical and experimental studies of similar problems.


Abstract Nano-emulsion formation by the phase inversion temperature (PIT) method is reviewed. Characteristic features of low-energy emulsification are first summarized, and then, follows a description of the main characteristics of the PIT emulsification method. The main focus is on the relation between phase behavior and nano-emulsion formation. Emphasis is put on the key role of phase transitions involving equilibrium phases such as lamellar liquid crystalline and/or bicontinuous microemulsion phases to obtain nano-emulsions with minimum and controlled droplet size. Graphical Abstract


The Rational Unified Process (RUP) as well as the related work embrace the importance of collaborative working teams during software development, but, user-interface designers and system analysts work in parallel or in sequential mode. However, this kind of relationship may not be effective, resulting on functional software but not meeting usability issues. Our proposal is that in order to understand mobile applications requirements work should be made collaboratively between analysts and user-interface designers through sharing artifacts like use-case scenarios, sketching and mock-up. In this paper, we propose a collaborative work framework to meet mobile applications requirements. Also, we show preliminary results of a case study to assess this approach. Results suggest that the collaborative team got a common understanding about system limits and functional and usability requirements.


Spherical resin particles have been prepared from resole type phenolic resin by suspension polymerization technique. The particles were prepared using different agitation rate and a significant change in the particle size & its distribution was observed with respect to agitation rate. The yield of particle size ranging 0.85-1.4 mm decreases from 83.8 % to 20.2 % whereas the yield of particle size ranging 0.43-0.85 mm increases from 15.0 % to 66.5 % on increasing agitation rate from 450 RPM to 650 RPM. Size of phenolic resin spheres depend on the mechanical force, produced by stirrer, acting across the dispersed resin particles. The present study reveals that the required particle size of phenolic resin spheres may be obtained by changing only agitation rate keeping other process parameters constant. These particles are useful for making microporous activated carbon spheres with high surface area and good mechanical strength.


In this paper, the state transfer problem of finite dimensional closed quantum systems with dipole and polarizability coupling in non-ideal cases is investigated. The non-ideal cases are considered where the internal Hamiltonian of the system is not strongly regular [1, 2] and not all the eigenvectors of the internal Hamiltonian are directly coupled with the target state. Both cases are closely related to practical systems such as the one-dimensional oscillator. A class of Lyapunov functions are first defined by implicit functions and their existences are guaranteed by a fixed point theorem. Then, the local convergence analysis of the controlled system is investigated by the LaSalle invariance principle. Finally, the characterization of the largest invariant set is presented. Moreover, simulation studies are discussed to show the effectiveness and advantage of proposed methods.


The dual objective of this paper is to identify the impact of the proclamation of the Republic of Murrawarri, along with a legal and political analysis examining the demand for greater Aboriginal sovereignty, an ever-increasing subject of debate in Australia. A brief legal, territorial, media, historical and political review was undertaken to investigate the impact of the Murrawarri Republic, while the admissibility of Aboriginal sovereignty was assessed through a legal and political analysis of relevant pros and cons, with both Australian and international sources. The impact of the Republic of Murrawarri has been significant from both a media and a political perspective, despite the fact that a territorial analysis has shown that its true area is less than one third of what is officially claimed. The legal and political analysis produced no legal impediments to broader Aboriginal sovereignty in Australia. The proclamation of the Republic of Murrawarri is currently exerting a significant influence over similar contexts in Australia, while the implementation of both Aboriginal constitutional recognition and a set of treaties between the Australian governments and the Aboriginal peoples is feasible and desirable, in order to achieve true reconciliation between Indigenous Australians and other Australians.


Objective: To supply theoretical foundation and evidence for supply security policy of essential medicines. Methods: This article reviewed the relevant transaction cost theory, constructed the theoretical framework and presented the study hypothesis that was confirmed by the qualitative evidence from the key informant interview, procurement data of essential medicine and the literature. Results: The supply security system of essential medicine experienced three stages: independent procurement, regional centralized procurement and provincial centralized procurement. In the stage of independent procurement, the highest institutional construction cost originated from the pharmaceutical manufacturer's opposition led the designated production to implement difficultly. In the stage of regional centralized procurement, the institutional construction cost derived from the monopoly in the distribution chain had been higher. The relevant institutional design of market arrangement made the cost lower. In the stage of provincial centralized procurement, the reduction of institutional construction cost made the designated production of essential medicine feasible. The failure of price information, the complexity of transaction and the strengthening of quantity coordination of essential medicine induced the transaction cost higher, which made the designated production indispensable. Recommendations: The choice of supply model should trade-off between incremental transaction costs of supply chain based on transaction activity. The implementation scope of designated production should be a small market share of essential medicine. The designated manufacturer should be localization. At the same time, the inventory management function should be improved in the online procurement system of essential medicine.


In agricultural fields, knowledge about the proportion of the soil surface covered with crop residue and vegetation canopy is key for improving soil and water conservation practices. In this study we trained a deep convolutional neural network to automate the classification of bare soil, crop stubble, and live vegetation from downward-facing images of agricultural fields. A comprehensive generic dataset, consisting of 3300 training and 645 test images, was collected from agricultural fields across Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Stations and the Natural Resources Conservation Service Plant Material Center located near Manhattan, KS. Despite the intricate patterns and color textures resulting from different combinations of soil, canopy, and stubble the trained network showed good performance for automating the classification of land cover from images. The network achieved 87% accuracy over the training dataset and 84% accuracy over the test set.


This study examines a South Korean shamanic ritual to explore how UNESCO recognition complicates preexisting discourses concerning the interface of cultural and economic values in heritage making and heritage maintenance. Although UNESCO seldom discusses the economic issues associated with heritage status, financial factors are a key concern and a source of tension among local and national stakeholders when valorizing selected local culture for translocal use and recognition. Local perceptions and use of the global project are closely related to the goals and protocols of the 2003 ICH Convention.


Taking manifesting basic idea of circular economy as the objective,following the principle of systematical and complete measuring,available and comparable index data,to construct index system of circular economy and explain various index system to promote the construction and consummation of theoretical system of circular economy.


Intense extratropical winter cyclones often impact the West Coast of North America with strong winds and heavy precipitation. Several times during a winter season, short-term forecasts (24 - 48 hours) of these storms are seriously deficient with central pressure errors in the 10's of hPa and surface low position errors in the 100's of km. For example, 48-hr sea level pressure errors (forecast - observation) at buoy 46005 off the Oregon coast for the 2001 - 2002 winter season is plotted. In addition, two times the standard deviation (determined from pressure errors from the last four winter seasons) are also shown. It is evident from this figure that large forecast errors (i.e. greater than 10 hPa) occurred about 10 times this past winter at buoy 46005 with three events where the errors were 20 hPa. Beside large forecast errors of sea level pressure, numerical forecasts of precipitation for land falling cyclones can also be flawed. This is due in large part to the lack of accurate precipitation information over the ocean. Therefore, remote sensing techniques are the only viable option for obtaining accurate information on the distribution and intensity of precipitation over the North Pacific. Due to the radiative characteristics of precipitation sized hydrometeors at microwave frequencies, microwave sensors are able to detect precipitation over oceanic regions. Past studies have demonstrated the utility of passive microwave rainrate data for locating intense rainfall in rapidly deepening cyclones, in detecting developing polar mesocyclones and in determining frontal bands. There are currently many sources of microwave rainrate data: the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) (currently flying on three platforms), the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU-B) (currently flying on NOAA-15, NOAA-16, and NOAA-17), and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Microwave Imager (TMI). Data will soon be available from the Advanced Microwave Radiometer-EOS (AMSR-E) on the Aqua platform. In this paper, we present a new technique for mapping rainrate distributions over the North Pacific utilizing rainrate estimates from several microwave sensors and upper-tropospheric winds derived from geosynchronous satellite IR data. The goal of this work is to develop a way to obtain high temporal and spatial rainfall information over the North Pacific. This information will be used to support the verification of model derived precipitation distributions and to support the analysis of in situ measurements of rainfall during the Improvement of Microphysical Parameterization through Observational Verification Experiment (IMPROVE) field campaigns.


The Philosophy Library at the University of Milan was born in the fifties by the merger of the two Institutes of Philosophy and the History of Philosophy. Once the restoration had been completed, it was necessary to devise a suitable classification system in order to arrange the books and to meet the new research needs of the Institutes. The project was untrusted to Prof. Corrado Mangione and Prof. Maria Assunta del Torre, with the theoretical contribution of Giuliana Sapori, chief Director of Central Library of the Faculty of Laws and Humanities. The model had been conceived as completely anew, without any reference to other existing classification systems. The inspiring principles were from one hand the choice for an open shelving system, from the other one the idea that the orientation criteria and the book search had to be user-friendly for everyone. This paper provides an in-depth analysis of the making-up of the call number as applied to each section of the collection, and how the scheme has been developed over the past fifty years. Points of strenght and weakness of the scheme are also discussed at the light of the technological innovations which have gradually affected the whole of the library activities, notably with the introduction of the electronic catalogue. The original classification scheme has maintened its coherence and functionality over time, in spite of the expansion of the collection and the automation of all stages of the classification process. This is the main reason to keep using it in the future. * Translated by Michela Dalbagno.


Marine cage culture has become the main trend of saltwater culture in recent years.Although the cage aquaculture has offered tremendous economic benefits,it has brought high pressure to the marine ecological environmental protection,and has affected the structure and function of the near shore marine ecosystem.Meanwhile,the economic reasons are analyzed in this paper.Furthermore,the measure for mitigating the marine environmental pollution brought by the cage culture is explored by levying fees for pollution charge.The model is established to determine the emission rate.Related data from parts of Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea region has been selected and the emission rate of all regions has been calculated.The study results will provide reference to the Chinese marine culture management.


Despite the success of quantum theory, there is still no consensus on what is this theory telling us about reality. One of the problems is that the standard postulates, in terms of Hilbert spaces and operators acting on them, do not have a clear operational or physical meaning. To overcome this situation, there has recently been an important effort to construct alternative formulations of quantum theory in terms of postulates which have a clear and direct operational meaning. These lecture notes include an exposition of some of these reformulations of quantum mechanics, and provide a review of the tools and concepts that are often used in this field. An effort has been make to lighten the mathematical content as much as possible. It is important to mention that, unfortunately, this is a partial presentation of the subject with very important omissions.


Polarization measurements reveal that AgNbO3 has an extremely large polarization, which can reach a value of 52μC∕cm2 in polycrystals. Experiments also show that the large internal atom distortion in AgNbO3 is also strongly coupled to the electric field, indicating that high piezoelectric performance can be realized in AgNbO3 system. This finding opens the way to designing a new class of lead-free, high-performance piezoelectric materials based on AgNbO3.


KAZAN STATE UNIVERSITY, RUSSIA The tasks of reconstruction of a whole object from its fragments are frequent in archaeological research. Usually a part of them is solved with the help of multivariate statistic analysis and another part needs different methods and approaches. This paper deals with questions of reconstruction. The problem of determination of cattle's sex and height in withers on the base of the metapodials. The program was worked out by application of discriminant and regression analyses. Osteological data on the ancient and medieval assemblages found in Eastern and Western Europe were studied by Prof. A. Petrenko.


A sign pattern matrix M with zero trace is primitive non-powerful if for some positive integer k, M k  = J #. The base l(M) of the primitive non-powerful matrix M is the smallest integer k. By considering the signed digraph S whose adjacent matrix is the primitive non-powerful matrix M, we will show that if l(M) = 2, the minimum number of non-zero entries of M is 5n − 8 or 5n − 7 depending on whether n is even or odd.


We have observed superconductivity to 16degreeK in mixtures of metallic NbGe/sub 2/ and semiconducting Ge, and we show that both constituents are necessary. We show that the superconductivity is associated with the NbGe/sub 2/, although by itself, it is not a superconductor above 2.5degreeK. Various explanations are considered. (AIP)


Process capability indices are used to determine whether a production process is capable of producing items within specification tolerance. In practice these indices are estimated using sample data, often with quite small sample sizes. Thus, it is of interest to obtain confidence limits for capability index given a sample estimate. Most of the traditional methods for assessing the capability of manufacturing processes are dealing with crisp quality. In this paper we obtain 100(1 - α)% fuzzy confidence interval for C˜p fuzzy process capability index, where instead of precise quality we have two membership functions for specification limits. We present several interpretations for introduced fuzzy confidence interval. Some numerical examples are given to clarify the method.


The objective of this work is the proposition of systems and tools for the management of quality and continuous improvement in the projects developed by the Laboratório de Tecnologia em Atrito e Desgaste (LTAD). This work was based on four ISO standards applicable to project quality management, NBR ISO 9000, NBR ISO 9001, NBR ISO 9004 and NBR ISO 10006, as well as the PMBOK guide and the Six Sigma methodology. Laboratory control sheets were used and they showed important aspects that had great influence on the results, such as excess of projects, lean and overloaded team, lack of priority, among other points that will be highlighted throughout this work. In order to reverse this situation, the following actions were suggested: improve project management in the laboratory, focusing mainly on time management, human resources, acquisitions, risks and the use of the 5S tool. At the end, proposals were made for future work that could give continuity to what was discussed in this work.


A central issue to emerge from recent research into the public understanding of science concerns the methods of study adopted. A distinction is made here between the public understanding of science (meaning knowledge of scientific orthodoxy), and the public understanding of science (meaning what people take `science' to mean). This is used to consider the case of creation science, which is analysed using the method of discourse analysis developed initially by Gilbert and Mulkay. It is shown that creationists appear to employ similar discursive techniques and resources—supplemented by their alternative beliefs—to those used by orthodox scientists. Whilst acknowledging limitations of the creationist case, it is argued that it is sufficient to show the value of methods of study that are sensitive to possible contextual variations in the public understanding of science. It is suggested that more research of this nature is needed to determine the extent to which science is used as a resource of accounting, both alone and in conjunction with alternative discursive resources.


This paper describes a process for large-scale multidisciplinary optimization of a supersonic aircraft that exploits natural laminar flow. Analysis methods for estimation of aerodynamic performance, boundary layer transition, structural weights and deformations, and mission performance have been developed, including industry-standard codes for inviscid aerodynamics and finite element structural analysis. Optimization results for conventional and natural laminar flow supersonic aircraft are presented, demonstrating the how the optimization framework successfully enforces interdisciplinary compatibility while reducing reduced take-off gross weight. The results also illustrate the potential for the natural iaminar flow concept to achieve improved performance.


In this paper, we address gaze estimation under practical and challenging conditions. Multi-view and multi-modal learning have been considered useful for various complex tasks; however, an in-depth analysis or a large-scale dataset on multi-view, multi-modal gaze estimation under a long-distance setup with a low illumination is still very limited. To address these limitations, first, we construct a dataset of images captured under challenging conditions. And we propose a simple deep learning architecture that can handle multi-view multi-modal data for gaze estimation. Finally, we conduct a performance evaluation of the proposed network with the constructed dataset to understand the effects of multiple views of a user and multi-modality (RGB, depth, and infrared). We report various findings from our preliminary experimental results and expect this would be helpful for gaze estimation studies to deal with challenging conditions.


In the United States, post-secondary institutions have enacted a variety of approaches to foster inclusion of diverse students. Some efforts (e.g., training, workshops) are aimed at teachers, who spend significant time with students, and thus, have a direct influenceon whether, and how, students feel included. This study provides rich detail about a series of professional development workshops at one U.S. institution. The goals of the workshops were to increase instructor knowledge of inclusion and to offer tangible strategies for fostering it in their spheres of influence. The manuscript details the history, design, implementation, and selected outcomes of the Inclusion Workshops for Faculty.


Monoactive electrosurgery is the most used in laparoscopy. This procedure contains some risks but they may be easily avoided with a good equipment and if the elements of the electric circuit are constantly checked; one has to be aware of the current's travel in the tissues, so as to avoid high electrical densities in the wrong places. The use of a generator isolated from the ground, with floating circuit, with or without bi-active coagulation pliers, adds an important element of security. This will allow electrosurgery to remain an efficient and safe tool in endoscopic surgery. Among the newer methods being investigated is Semm's thermocoagulation. The advantage of this procedure is the absence of electrical risk since the voltages used are very low. The disadvantage is that the coagulations take a longer time and the pliers must be cooled back down to 37 degrees. The coagulated tissues may stick to the metal of the pliers, although this is avoided by using the adequate temperature.


An anlysis is made of applications of surface treatments by means of high power lasers on automobile components performed by Istituto R.T.M. in Vico Canavese, Italy. The Institute has worked with high power lasers for the last ten years and has taken an active part in promoting laser technologies in the automobile industry in Italy and abroad, also supplying automated optomechanical components.