This thesis addresses the
 thermal stresses experienced by bulls for slaughter from northern Germany
 as they were transported for up to 27 hours from Aurich to Trieste
 in Italy.
 The thermal environment of the animals were continually monitored during
 fifteen trips between July and October 2002, and described according to the
 itinerary traveled. Temperature, relative air humidity and air movement were
 thereby measured in 4 of the 5 bays of the transport vehicles. Direct
 comparisons to the outside climate were made. On each transport, blood samples
 were taken from indicator animals 12 hours before loading, directly before
 loading, at the end of the transport, directly after unloading and 24 hours
 after the end of the rest period in the port of Trieste (a total of 188
 animals). The following parameters were determined from these blood samples
 and compared to clinical reference ranges: cortisol, creatinine kinase, glucose, non-esterised fatty acids, β-hydroxybutyrase, total protein, sodium,
 potassium, hematocrit,
 magnesium, triiodthyronine
 (T3), and thyroxine
 (T4). The results were interpreted in light of the environmental conditions
 of the animals, so that it was possible to draw a conclusion on the effect of
 the observed thermal stress to the animals' health and well-being. The
 Thermo Humidity Index (THI) was hereby used to describe the thermal
 environment.   It became clear that the
 thermal stress experienced by the slaughter bulls was primarily dependant on
 the season. During four transports in August, average values of 70 THI-units
 were found in proximity of the animals, whereby maximum values of 78 and 82
 units were measured for short periods of time until arrival at the port. The
 later transports were found to average fewer than 65 THI-units. Air movement
 of 0.6m/s through ventilation in the moving vehicle was found to be
 sufficient to keep the temperature and relative humidity within acceptable
 limits. When the vehicle was not moving however, the air movement would fall
 to approximately 0.2 m/s and resulted in a continuous increase of temperature
 and relative humidity for the duration of the stop. These increases were more
 significant if the vehicle stood in direct sunlight and with decreasing
 winds. It was shown statistically, that in the stationary vehicle the THI
 increases 2.4 units per hour. The analysis of the blood
 samples showed that not all parameters were influenced by the transport. However,
 clear differences from commonly as "normal" referred values were
 found before loading in the values for cortisol, glucose, hematocrit and triiodthyronine and mirrored the general
 stress reactions of the animals to the unknown situation. After arrival at
 the port the values that had been elevated before transport remained
 relatively elevated (after an average of 23.5 hours of transport). It was
 still possible, however, to conclude that the animals got habituated to the
 transport situation as they progressed. In addition to the previous
 parameters, the volatile fatty acids were found to be increased after
 unloading. This was primarily attributed to reduced feed consumption during
 transport. On arrival, the values for creatinine kinase were found to be increased and
 continued to increase strongly during the 24 hour stop at the port to an
 average of 1500 IU/l. This was attributed to the new grouping of the bulls
 after transport, which led to long-lasting hierarchal fighting. Elevated
 sodium and total protein levels emphasized the importance of continuously
 available water sources, particularly in the summer transports.
 In general, the magnitude
 of the increase of the stress indicators in the blood samples beyond the
 reference ranges remained within limits that did not show any detriment or
 damage to the animals. None of the animals became clinically ill.
 On none of the 15
 transports did a critical situation arise, that could have overwhelmed the
 animals' thermoregulatory capacities. Slaughter bull transports of 22
 to 27 hours can be accomplished, while respecting the Act for Animal
 Protection in Transport (Tierschutztransportverordnung)
 and with adequately trained personnel, without putting exaggerated strain on
 the animals. However, the results indicate that the animals can be submitted
 to significant thermal stresses during transports in the summer, especially
 during stops. Through careful planning and mindful executing of transports,
 it is possible to minimize the stress on the animals before critical
 temperatures are reached, but it should be considered not to execute
 transports during the hot summer months if necessary.


One of the changing to get the sustainable development is through the the cluster wood furniture industry. The sustainability of forest resources as the as a major timber producer to be threatened because increased activity for businessmen wood consumption. Therefore, the need for a concept of -efficiency to optimize resources owned both of economic and social aspects to obtain a sustainable environment, especially in the use and utilization of wood raw material. Cluster wood furniture industry in the District Sukoharjo Bulakan is one of the target clusters in implementation of eco-efficiency in business clusters in Java Central. Currently the existence of wood raw material for furniture been increasingly difficult to find. The condition was more worse because its efficiency has not supported the use of materials standard. Raw materials to be used in producing furniture not well organized, whether already efficiently and in accordance with the re-quirements or not. This cause the number of Exodus Not Product (KBP) which produced also increased. In addition, the characteristics of human resources he craftsmen in this cluster most of the still low nd still dependent on both the capital exporter, he number, creativity and product design in terms of arketing. This causes the creativity of the craftsmen o take advantage of KBP has not seen in this cluster. he impact is less optimal environment in urroundings and the added value particularly in economic terms ot yet materialized.


The effect of heaving on forces acting on bubbles in sub-cooled boiling flow has been ana-lyzed.The buoyancy is directly affected by the heaving acceleration.And the flow rate fluctuation which is caused by the heaving acceleration imposes the forces acting on bubbles indirectly.The forces acting on bub-bles under heaving and non-heaving condition have been computed and compared.The results show that heaving has less effect upon forced circulation than natural circulation.The influence of heaving upon natural circulation depends on flow rate fluctuation and the influence of heaving upon forced circulation depends on the weight of buoyancy in the balance of forces acting on bubble.Heaving influences the forces acting on bubbles,which may change the position of vapor bubble departure,hence affects the heat transfer in boiling flow.


The objective International Mussel Watch is to assess the extent of chemical contamination in the equatorial and subequatorial areas of the southern hemisphere with particular attention to coastal areas of developing countries. The First Phase took place in South America, Central America, the Caribbean and Mexico with particular emphasis on PCBs and chlorinated pesticides in mollusks collected at 76 sites in 1991 to 1992. Samples from some sites were also analyzed for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Results show that concentrations of these organic chemicals in mollusks were generally lower than in similar samples collected in the NOAA Mussel Watch Project in the United States. Relatively high levels found in urban areas were with the ranges of concentrations found in the United States. The Project included a chemical intercomparison exercise that involved analytical chemists from the Host Countries.


In campus culture, moral and politics culture therewith functions such as direction, training, contraction, inspiration and radialization, reflects the values, thinking modes and behavior criterion of people in colleges and universities. As the soul of campus culture, moral and politic culture commands the education on moral and politics, which is the key of training high quality talents. In practical construction, we should do from three levels such as physical, system and psychic.


The bachelor thesis is focused on a very actual topic from last years, which is world debt crisis and its influence on the banking sector in countries of Eurozone. To understand these problems, it is very important to understand also banking system and its structure. The first chapter is the theoretical definition of the problem and primarily it is focused on the actual specification of banking sector and various types of crisis. The second chapter is focused specially on debt crisis, reasons of its beginning, its course and impact on Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Cyprus. There are also described steps of European Central Bank (ECB) to relieve the impact of the crisis on countries of Eurozone. The third part characterizes the Bank union as a way of improved control of the banking sector.


A service providing apparatus which advertises first service description on a network and which provides a first service associated with the first service description. A definition table is prepared to define a condition on which a function of the first service is extended utilizing a second service associated with second service description and a method of calling the second service. The second service which satisfies the condition is searched for referring to the definition table, and the first service description is updated based on the second service description associated with the searched second service. Moreover, the service description is advertised on the network. The second service is called in response to a service request based on the service description of the advertised first service, and a response from the second service is received. A response to the service request is generated based on the response from the received second service.


A new method is proposed to determine precoding matrices that achieve local maxima of the expected sum rate in a multiple input multiple output interference channel (MIMO IC), in the realistic scenario where only partial channel state information (CSI) is available at the transmitters. Relying on a random matrix analysis of the capacity of large dimensional Ricean channels introduced in [1], the expected sum rate of the K-user MIMO IC is approximated by a deterministic equivalent to which an iterative gradient scheme is applied to find local maxima of the approximated sum rate.


Abstract. Reorganization of the UK primary health care system to create an internal market for health services depends upon local family doctors (general practitioners) taking on budgetary responsibilities and purchasing services from hospitals. These budgets will be monitored by local committees. The success of the internal market is heavily dependent upon computerized management information systems. This paper investigates the introduction of information systems into an organization that is ill prepared for change.


This guidance manual describes the procedures for permit writers in evaluating exposure information submitted under Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Section 3019. The integration of the review with existing RCRA permitting activities is also discussed. The document outlines procedures to follow in referring sites to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) for health evaluations.


Historically, the methods used to describe the electromagnetic response of random, three-dimensional (3D), metal-dielectric composites (MDCs) have been limited to approximations such as effective-medium theories that employ easily-obtained, macroscopic parameters. Full-wave numerical simulations such as finite-difference time domain (FDTD) calculations are difficult for random MDCs due to the fact that the nanoscale geometry of a random composite is generally difficult to ascertain after fabrication. We have developed a fabrication method for creating semicontinuous metal films with arbitrary thicknesses and a modeling technique for such films using realistic geometries. We extended our two-dimensional simulation method to obtain realistic geometries of 3D MDC samples, and we obtained the detailed near- and far-field electromagnetic responses of such composites using FDTD calculations. Our simulation results agree quantitatively well with the experimentally measured far-field spectra of the real samples.


The discovery of coexisting time reversal symmetry breaking and superconductivity in the kagome metals AV3Sb5 (A = K, Cs, Rb) have made the scientific community pour huge efforts into understanding the nature of the materials, and a flurry of papers has been written in the last two years. Concurrent with the onset of the time reversal symmetry breaking, a charge ordering phase has been found in the materials that break translational symmetry. The phase is believed to form a Tri-Hexagonal or Star-of-David bond order in the kagome plane. In this thesis we investigate the new kagome metals starting from two tight-binding models: One considering the bare kagome lattice, the other using a materially specific model fitted to CsV3Sb5. We introduce interactions and decouple them using the unrestricted Hartree-Fock approximation, such that we can minimize the free energy using a self-consistency algorithm. In the phase diagrams for the bare kagome lattice, we find a large region where the Tri-Hexagonal bond order is the ground state, and regions with coexisting Tri-Hexagonal, charge density wave and spin density wave phase. Curiously, the latter of the two phases conserves the symmetries that AV3Sb5 breaks at the onset of the charge ordering phase. In the phase diagrams for the materially specific tight-binding model, we find a coexisting ferromagnet, imaginary spin density wave and imaginary charge density wave phase, with a loop current configuration that matches a previous proposal to the time reversal symmetry breaking order. With this study we have contributed to the current discussion on how the charge bond order emerges and how time reversal symmetry breaking might be linked to the charge bond order.


To each rail knotoid we associate two unoriented knots along with their oriented counterparts, thus deriving invariants for rail knotoids based on these associations. We then translate them to invariants of rail isotopy for rail arcs.


BACKGROUND‐ Neurologic complications of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) are diverse and include opportunistic infections of the central and peripheral nervous systems, lymphoma, and primary neurologic disorders directly related to human immunodeficiency virus‐1 (HIV‐1) infection. REVIEW SUMMARY‐ This article will review the etiology, pathogenesis, clinical features, and treatment of the most common opportunistic infections of the central and peripheral nervous systems in patients with AIDS. These include toxoplasmic encephalitis, cryptococcal meningitis, progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, syphilis, and cytomegalovirus infection. Primary central nervous system lymphoma occurs in patients with AIDS more frequently than in the general population but may be decreasing in incidence with the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy. Primary neurologic disorders, which result from direct or indirect effects of HIV infection on the nervous system, will be reviewed. These include HIV‐related dementia, myelopathy, and neuropathy. Understanding the pathophysiology of these entities is important to develop effective treatments. CONCLUSIONS‐ AIDS‐related neurologic disease is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. However, a growing number of neurologic disorders can now be treated with highly active antiretroviral therapy, and increasing use of these agents has led to a significant decline in the incidence of opportunistic infections of the nervous system and primary neurologic disorders, such as HIV‐related dementia. (THE NEUROLOGIST 7:82‐97, 2001)


Two ruthenium compounds, namely [lmH]trans-[RuCL(lm)(dmso-S)] (NAMI-A, Im = imidazole) and [IndH] trans-[RuCl 4 (Ind) 2 ] (KP1019, Ind = indazole) have already completed phase I clinical trials as anticancer agents. They both have properties different from platinum anticancer drugs: for example, NAMI-A is selectively active against metastases of solid tumors. They show that in the field of anticancer metal drugs a new approach, based on targeted therapies, is possible. After a concise history of ruthenium anticancer compounds, this contribution will focus on ruthenium-dmso complexes and, in particular, on NAMI-A. Particular emphasis is given on the challenges that are inherent to this field: how to develop new anticancer ruthenium compounds and how to select new active compounds that manifest their anticancer activity through non-conventional mechanisms.


Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) has become more common as the cause of genital herpes (GH), particularly in young women.1–4 It is not well known whether the trend is general or whether it occurs mainly in urban environments. We aimed at elucidating the role of HSV-1 in GH in the sparsely populated Northern Finland using virological samples from genital HSV infections from various local clinics.

The study involved 400 HSV-positive genital viral culture samples collected during the years 1991–2010. The samples …


Robert Heinlein was quoted as saying "Once you're in low Earth orbit (LEO), you're halfway to anywhere." This is due to the mechanics of space launch, where accelerating into LEO is a large portion of your journey. As a corollary, storing mass in LEO is a way to make trips beyond LEO easier. This paper discusses a project that, for on the order of $1B, creates a flexible cache of rocket propellants (hydrogen and oxygen) and human consumption supplies (oxygen and water) in low Earth orbit. Part of the project involves increasing launch vehicle flight rates through open competition, which will lower the per-kilogram cost of launching payloads into LEO. Exploiting this cache will cut the launch weights of interplanetary spacecraft by up to 2/3. This material, stored on orbit for years, would serve any space mission. The plan is modeled after historical cases that jump-started the airline industry, and calls for the best of governmental and/or commercial efforts to get us half way to anywhere.


Using tongue to access computer for people with none or minimal upper limb function has been studied in recent years. These studies mainly focus on utilizing mechanical or electromagnetic devices. These devices, however, must contact to people's oral cavity and cause hygiene problems or accidental ingestion. This work presents an interaction technique named Tongible that employs tongue as input without any mechanical or electromagnetic assistive device. In Tongible, six gestures of tongue are captured by an RGB camera and used as basic controlling gestures. Preliminary usability testing suggests that Tongible is effective in pointing and text entry for people with dexterity impairment.


The high-availability seamless redundancy (HSR) protocol, a potential candidate for substation automation system (SAS) networks, provides duplicated frame copies of each sent frame, with zero fault-recovery time. This means that even in the case of node or link failure, the destination node will receive at least one copy of the sent frame. Consequently, there is no network operation down time. However, the forwarding process of the QuadBox node in HSR is not smart and relies solely on duplication and random forwarding of all received frames. Thus, if a unicast frame is sent in any closed-loop network, the frame copies will be spread through most of all the links in both directions until they reach the destination node, which inevitably results in significant, unnecessary network traffic. In this paper, we present an algorithm called the dual virtual paths (DVP) algorithm to solve such an HSR excessive traffic issue. The idea behind our DVP algorithm is to establish automatic DVP between each HSR node and all the other nodes in the network, except for the QuadBox node. These virtual paths will be used for DVP unicast traffic transmission, rather than using the standard HSR transmission process. Therefore, the DVP algorithm results in less traffic, because there is no duplication or random forwarding, contrary to standard HSR. For the sample networks selected in this paper, the DVP algorithm shows more than a 70% reduction in network traffic and about an 80% reduction in the discarded traffic compared to the standard HSR protocol.


A survey of terrestrial molluscs and their parasitic nematodes was carried out during 20142016 seasons in certain Governorates (Cairo, Giza, Qaluobia, Dakahlia, Menoufia, Ismailia and Arish) , where these snails are commonly distributed and infesting many economically important plants. The survey revealed the existence of seven snail species and three slugs. About 45 species of different plants including wheat, clover, citrus, mango, banana, tomato, potato, and amaranths were found to be infested with these gastropods. The survey revealed also the existence of six species of snail parasitic nematodes, which are considered bio control agents against these harmful molluscs.


A solar Stirling engine based on a horizontal selective flat-plate converter is analyzed in this work. A detailed model for the heat losses towards the atmosphere is presented. The engine's output power is maximised numerically. The analysis is based on meteorological data measured at Viking Landers sites during clear sky and dust storm conditions. All the computations were performed for a solar collection area similar in size with that of Mars Pathfinder's Sojourner. The efficiency of converting solar energy into mechanical work at noon is as high as 18%. The power provided by the engine is as high as 16 W during autumn and winter. These results suggest that under the Martian environment the performance of properly designed solar Stirling engines is comparable with that of PV cell power systems.


Summary: Strategic decisions in the area of sustainable value creation should be based on integrated reporting, which is a combination of financial and non-financial reports. Taking into account the current legal, social and environmental changes, non-financial generators are becoming increasingly important not only for businesses but also for a wide range of stakeholders. The publication outlines the need to implement transparent communication between business entities and stakeholders, which will help meet the information needs of all market participants. The aim of the article is to identify an integrated reporting and to present the relationships between sustainability report and report on the company's operation. This article presents the requirements for disclosure of non-financial information after the amendment of the Accounting Act of 15 December 2016 was implemented in the Polish legislation under Directive 2014/95/EU.


This study aims to determine the impact of entrepreneurship education and social media on student entrepreneurship interest. Students who graduate from college faced difficult condition on getting a job due to the unavailability of job opportunities. The interest in entrepreneurship through entrepreneurship education in college and the development of information technology through the existence of social media and the internet provide opportunities to create an independent generation oriented to the construction of new jobs in order to suppress the increase in unemployment. This research was conducted with a quantitative approach. The sample in this study were 63 respondents from sixth semester students, Diploma III Accounting study program and eighth semester students, Diploma IV Managerial Accounting study program, Accounting Department, State Polytechnic of Ujung Pandang. The primary data obtained from the distribution of questionnaires through google form. The results of this study indicate that partially entrepreneurship education has a significant influence on student entrepreneurship interest, while social media has no effect on student entrepreneurial interest. However, the influence of the variables of entrepreneurship education and social media on the interest in entrepreneurship simultaneously has an effect of 51.5%.


Resource allocation is a major interest in the field of Manufacturing Industry because of their practical significance. For manufacturing processes, cost of the raw material usually forms a significant portion of the input costs, it is therefore desirable that this resource be used efficiently. The proposed work studies the allocation of rectangular and irregular polygon shaped parts within available sheet material to achieve better utilization factor and reduction in cost. Preliminary studies were done to decide the principal components of interest in the optimization process. A comparative study is also made on the traditional bottom left positioning and random positioning based non guillotine approach allocation to substantiate the factors affecting the nesting process optimization.


A series of chlorinated low molecular weight alkanes and alkenes was transformed electrolytically using a porous nickel cathode at potentials from −0.3 to −1.4 V (versus standard hydrogen electrode). Kinetics were first-order with respect to the concentration of the halogenated targets. The dependence of the first-order rate constants on cathode potential followed the Butler−Volmer equation, modified to account for mass transfer resistance to reaction. The mass-transfer-limited rate constant for reaction of all species was about 1.55 L m-2 min-1. Log-transformed reaction rate constants for reduction of chlorinated alkanes, derived via experiments at the same cathode potential (Ec = −1.0 or −1.2 V vs SHE), were linearly related to carbon−halogen bond enthalpies, as expected based on a physical model that was developed from transition state theory. The chlorinated ethenes reacted much faster than predicted from bond enthalpy calculations and the alkane-based correlation, suggesting that alkenes are not tran...


Intelligent robot is a perfect research object for Artificial intelligence(AI).The paper introduces briefly the development history of AI,describes detailedly several primary research contents of AI which is related to robot research,outlines a framework for the applications of AI technologies in robot field.Finally,based on present studies,the paper forecasts the future development tendencies of AI.It has reference value for people who is engaged in the research work about AI and intelligent robot.


In this paper, seismic function failure analysis method of electric power supply system is introduced, which study not only the electric equipment linked probability when an earthquake occurs, but also the power flow analysis. Because the electrical power failure can be caused by disconnection and abnormal load flow in a power transmission network, the seismic load flow analysis methods of power supply system are studied specially. All of above will be a basis in research of anti-earthquake analysis, function assessment and damage mitigation for electric power supply system.


The present invention relates to a method of transport for the storage of fiber mats on a workpiece carrier using a transport device, a corresponding transport device and a device for gripping flat semifinished products.


Modern high-performance electronics are embedded in smartphones, self-driving automobiles, and augmented reality wearable. These computing platforms are high performance and multifunctional. One of the major performance limiting factors in these platforms is the poorly designed thermal solution that is triggered to prevent overheating at the processor transistor junction and at the platform surface. Even though the dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) feature widely available in modern processors can be used as a control knob in processor temperature management, its associated performance cost is tremendous and the response time for temperature control is significant.


We show that the deformation quantization of noncommutative quantum mechanics previously considered by Dias and Prata ["Weyl–Wigner formulation of noncommutative quantum mechanics," J. Math. Phys. 49, 072101 (2008)] and Bastos, Dias, and Prata ["Wigner measures in non-commutative quantum mechanics," e-print arXiv:math-ph/0907.4438v1; Commun. Math. Phys. (to appear)] can be expressed as a Weyl calculus on a double phase space. We study the properties of the star-product thus defined and prove a spectral theorem for the star-genvalue equation using an extension of the methods recently initiated by de Gosson and Luef ["A new approach to the ⋆-genvalue equation," Lett. Math. Phys. 85, 173–183 (2008)].


State Forest Enterprises (SFEs) had initially been established in Northern Vietnam with a centrally planned economy as an essential pillar. After reunification of the country in 1975, many new SFEs were established in Southern Vietnam and operated following the organizational management model as practiced in the North. Since 1993 most of SFEs were decentralized to provincial level. From 2005 to 2009 the SFEs were reviewed and rearranged to specific functions and tasks. Among altogether 413 SFEs, to date, there are now 151 State Forestry Companies (SFCs) operating. SFCs (full-named State Owned Forestry Single Member Limited Liability Companies)manage both natural and planted forests for timber production in Vietnam. The existing management mechanisms of SFCs were reformed in terms of the form but not yet in terms of content. The operational model for SFCs is not completed yet so that management cannot consequently follow the valid Law of Enterprise. Case studies in two SFCs, which manage natural forests in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, were conducted. The research show weaknesses and threats the SFCs such as poor forest governance, lack of capital and equipment, land-use conflicts with local communities, weak monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of performance, policy on standing tree tax, and existence of logging quota distribution. Restructure of SFEs is a critical need to effectively use the land and forest. Based on current status of SFCs it is to set out different forest management models. Outlook of different types of SFCs is given to promote economic viability, sustainable forest management, and improvement of the livelihood of local people.


Source separation, which consists in decomposing data into meaningful structured components, is an active research topic in many fields including music signal processing. In this paper, we introduce the Positive α-stable (PαS) distributions to model the latent sources, which are a subclass of the stable distributions family. They notably permit us to model random variables that are both nonnegative and impulsive. Considering the Levy distribution, the only PαS distribution whose density is tractable, we propose a mixture model called Lévy Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (Lévy NMF). This model accounts for low-rank structures in nonnegative data that possibly has high variability or is corrupted by very adverse noise. The model parameters are estimated in a maximum-likelihood sense. We also derive an estimator of the sources, which extends the validity of the Wiener filtering to the PαS case. Experiments on synthetic data and realistic music signals show that Lévy NMF compares favorably with state-of-the art techniques in terms of robustness to impulsive noise and highlight its potential for decomposing nonnegative data.


This case series reports a systematic assessment of deep vein thrombosis among patients in an intensive care unit in France with severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).


Mineral gypsum and steel slag can attenuate the effects of soil acidity in depth, favoring the development of the root system of sugar cane, resulting in increases in the growth and productivity of the cane field, and possibly in the agro-industrial quality of the crop. In view of the above, the association of soil acidity correctives in the agro-industrial quality of RB92579 in the cane-plant cycle was evaluated in the present study. The experiment was carried out under field conditions, using a randomized block design, in a 4 x 4 factorial scheme, with four replications. The treatments consisted of the combination of four doses of steel slag (0, 4, 8 and 16 t ha) and four doses of plaster (0, 3, 6 and 12 t ha). At the time of cane maturation, the agroindustrial quality of the cane was evaluated by determining the fiber content, apparent sucrose (Pol), soluble solids (Brix), purity and PCC (corrected cane pol). The isolated or combined application of steel slag and mineral plaster did not influence the agroindustrial quality of RB92579 in the cane-plant cycle. On average, it presented 12; 14; 84, 30 and 15.11% Fibers, Pol, purity, Brix and PCC, respectively. 1 Doutor em Produção Vegetal. Professor do Centro de Ciências Agrárias da Universidade Federal de Alagoas, firstname.lastname@example.com 2 Doutor em Ciências Biológicas. Professor do Centro de Ciências Agrárias da Universidade Federal de Alagoas, email@example.com 3 Discente de Agronomia, Instituto Federal de Ciência e Tecnologia de Pernambuco, firstname.lastname@example.com 4 Doutor em Ciência do Solo, Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco, firstname.lastname@example.com


The present invention, in particular that can be used for the synthesis of D- amino acid E. E. coli mutant strain, and to such a method. This mutant strain is characterized by deficiency of enzymes that degrade particular D- amino acids.


A review of studies using correlational statistical procedures to examine the relationship of reading to measures of auditory discrimination, memory, blending, and auditory-visual integration is presented. The consensus of this research suggests that the auditory skills are not sufficiently related to reading to be particularly useful for school practice. The conclusions provide information regarding the desirability of training these skills with the aim of increasing reading ability. The direction future research must take to further explore the relation of other auditory variables to reading is indicated.


Management of software architecture knowledge is vital for improving an organisation's architectural capabilities. Despite the recognition of the importance of capturing and reusing software architecture knowledge, there is currently no suitable support mechanism available. To address this issue, we have developed a conceptual framework for managing architecture design knowledge. A Web-based knowledge management tool, Process-based Architecture Knowledge Management Environment (PAKME), has been developed to support that framework. PAKME is being trialled to help systematise the architecture knowledge management and evaluation process of an industrial collaborator. This paper reports the objectives, logistics and initial findings of this project, Specifically we have deployed and used PAKME in an Australian Defence acquisition environment for evaluating architecture of a aircraft system.


In this study, we present the most extensive dataset of chromatin conformation data with matching gene expression and chromatin accessibility from primary T cells to date. We use this data to enhance our understanding of the different mechanisms by which GWAS variants impact gene regulation and revealing how natural genetic variation alter chromatin accessibility and structure in primary cells at an unprecedented scale. Capitalizing on this vast dataset, we refine the mapping of GWAS loci to implicated regulatory elements, such as CTCF binding sites and other enhancer elements, aiding gene assignment. Importantly, we uncover BCL2L11 as the probable causal gene within the RA locus rs13396472, despite the GWAS variants' intronic positioning relative to ACOXL and we identify mechanisms involving SESN3 dysregulation in the RA locus rs4409785. Given these genes' significant role in T cell development and maturation, our work is vital for deepening our comprehension of autoimmune disease pathogenesis and suggesting potential treatment targets.


Trees and green in open spaces impact people's lives positively by ameliorating the effect of climate change. The study therefore assessed perceived influences of trees and greens in open spaces on microclimate of the Federal University of Technology, Akure. Specifically, the study evaluated the perception of staff and students about the university landscape and its effects on the microclimate and residents on campus. Multistage sampling techniques were used to select 90 respondents including staff and students from which data were collected with the use of well structured interview schedule. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The study indicated that majority (59.1%) of the respondents were male, while (47.7%) of the respondents were between the ages of 21–30 years. Respondents asserted that good landscaping contribute to the serenity of the environment (80.2%), 61.7% believe that landscape contributes to environmental quality while (47.6%) asserted that landscape provides comfort to life, in all (48.9%) asserted that the university is beautifully landscaped to ameliorate micro-climate. Therefore, green and trees should be incorporated to the built environment within the campus to enhance environmental quality.


To investigate Ar bubble formation behavior on reaction product layers with a Ti addition to Al-killed steel, tests were performed to gauge the reaction between molten steels and the inner layer of submerged-entry nozzles (SEN) with and without Ar gas purge. Molten steel chemistry, the microstructure and chemistry of reaction product layer, bubble shape and wettability were compared among the tested runs with Al and/or Ti deoxidation. Air bubble formation was observed on the actual SEN inner layer with sliding gate in water model tests. Reaction product layers grew thick and porous with Al-killed steel. Conversely, the layers grew thin and dense with Al-Ti killed steels. Ti-killed steel exhibited the thinnest product layer. Layer thickness appeared to be related to the wettability of steel on the product layers since Al-killed steel exhibited the lowest wettability and Ti-killed steel the highest among the three cases. Ar purge did not have much effect on the reaction behaviors of the tested steel grades. However, reaction product layer formation was suppressed by forming a wide hemispheric bubble in the Al-killed run, while the [T2] addition to Al-killed steel hardly suppressed it due to lack of bubble formation In the SEN delivery system, the [T2] addition to Al-killed steel is predicted to shorten the steel ejection zone for bubble formation toward the sliding gate on the SEN inner wall.


Passive acoustic signal processing techniques can be used to estimate the fight parameters of an overflying aircraft. Previous estimation methods have been based on an observer frequency model which describes the time varying Doppler shift of the observed acoustic signal from the overflying aircraft. This paper presents an improved flight parameter estimation scheme based on an observer phase model. The proposed scheme is demonstrated with real aircraft acoustic data and by computer simulation.


Taking one of Motorola's GPRS network as an example this article analyses the problem of GPRS rout ing area update failure that causes by the internet connection to be broken and puts forward some advices to re solve them.


Substantial utilization of natural aggregates leads to the depletion of the naturally available resources. Hence an alternative approach is to utilize the recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) from the construction and demolition waste in the production of concrete and also in the prevention of dumping this waste in cultivable landfill. On the other side, codal provisions available for the predication of deflection in reinforced concrete one-way slab using effective moment of inertia (leg) were not comparable with the experimental values. Hence in the present study, it is proposed to study the load and deflection characteristics of simply supported slabs by varying the percentage of RCA content as 0 %, 50 % and 100 % under two point loading. Further, the work is extended to compare the deflection values obtained from experimental studies to the computed deflection values based on the IS 456:2000, ACI 318:2008 and BS: 8110. From the results, it is inferred that the replacement of natural aggregate with RCA does not affect the deflection characteristic of RC slab. Moreover, the computed deflection based on IS: 800, ACI and BS codal provisions does not match with the experimental deflection.


Objective To discuss the apply effect of the evidence-based nursing of the early intravenous thrombolytic with urokinase treatment for acute myocardial infarction.Methods Twenty nine patients with the AMI were chosen,and who were treated by the intravenous thrombolytic with urokinase,and then gave the evidence-based nursing for them.Results Twenty nine patients were all right and had left hospital,and 21 cases were thrombolysis successfully,the recanalization rate was 72.41%,the chest pain disappeared or relieved in 24 patients,26 patients were happening to the reperfusion arrhythmia,2 patients had the petechia with the skin when be punctured.No patient had the bleeding gums,gastrointestinal blooding or hemorrhagic apoplexy.Conclusion Using the evidence-based nursing in the acute myocardial infarction,and which is treated by early intravenous thrombolytic with urokinase,it can improve the cure rate of the acute myocardial infarction,low the complication,improve the patient's quality of life.


The purpose of this article is to analyse the policies for extending the school day within the context of the More education program, as a vehicle for improving the performance of students in their basic education by spending more time in school. Some consider that full time education and an increase in students time school, allows the school, as a place for knowledge re-elaboration, to incorporate activities for the development of cognitive and attitudinal skills, in its curriculum, that are necessary to form good citizens. It is also observed that there is a huge gap between discussion and intention, for these proposals to actually be realized.


Water mist extinguishing systems are becoming more popular due to their much higher fire-fighting efficiency at lower water consumption compared to conventional sprinklers. The article focuses on the possibility of further utilization in a form of cooling structures and presents the results of a research in the area of low-pressure water mist and the development of a new low-pressure water mist cooling system. It also introduces a new possible direction for application of cooling steel structures or their surroundings in order to increase fire resistance of steel structures. To verify the cooling effects of low-pressure water mist, a large-scale fire test with a model of steel roof construction was carried out in a room with dimensions of 4.0 × 4.0 × 2.0 m. The fire test was conducted in two scenarios. The first scenario is a reference test without application of water mist, where temperatures of the burning room and steel structures are monitored. Compared to the first scenario, the second scenario includes the use of low-pressure water mist protection of the steel structure model at the time of full fire development.


Why does the place where children grow up shape their opportunities in life? This paper explores the role of imperfect information and local information transmission as a novel explanation. First, I uncover a new empirical fact: when the college premium is low, a higher share of college graduates living in a school-district is associated with lower college enrollment of students graduating from that district. While this pattern is hard to reconcile through models with local spillovers in the production of human capital, I show that it is consistent with a model featuring imperfect information and local learning. The key elements are uncertainty about the skill premium and learning through signals of wages earned by nearby college graduates. In this environment, more exposure to highly educated neighbors brings more information about the skill premium. However, this only translates into more education if the observed wages generate the perception of a higher skill premium. Calibrating the model to match micro data from Detroit, I find that this novel mechanism explains more than half of the college enrollment gap between children of parents with a college degree and children from parents with a lower education level. Implementing a disclosure policy that corrects inaccurate perceptions about the skill premium closes this gap substantially.


Among the signature schemes most widely deployed in practice are the DSA (Digital Signature Algorithm) and its elliptic curves variant ECDSA. They are represented in many international standards, including IEEE P1363, ANSI X9.62, and FIPS 186-4. Their popularity stands in stark contrast to the absence of rigorous security analyses: Previous works either study modified versions of (EC)DSA or provide a security analysis of unmodified ECDSA in the generic group model. Unfortunately, works following the latter approach assume abstractions of non-algebraic functions over generic groups for which it remains unclear how they translate to the security of ECDSA in practice. For instance, it has been pointed out that prior results in the generic group model actually establish strong unforgeability of ECDSA, a property that the scheme de facto does not possess. As, further, no formal results are known for DSA, understanding the security of both schemes remains an open problem. In this work we propose GenericDSA, a signature framework that subsumes both DSA and ECDSA in unmodified form. It carefully models the "modulo q" conversion function of (EC)DSA as a composition of three independent functions. The two outer functions mimic algebraic properties in the function's domain and range, the inner one is modeled as a bijective random oracle. We rigorously prove results on the security of GenericDSA that indicate that forging signatures in (EC)DSA is as hard as solving discrete logarithms. Importantly, our proofs do not assume generic group behavior.


Background Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) of the family Coronaviridae has caused substantial economic losses in the swine husbandry industry. The currently available vaccines are only partially effective and there is no specific drug available for treatment of viral infection.Method In the current study, we use animal coronavirus PEDV as a model to study antiviral agents. Briefly, a fusion inhibitor tHR2, recombinant lentivirus-delivered shRNAs targeted to conserved M and N sequences, homoharringtonine (HHT), and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) were surveyed for their antiviral effects. Results Treatment with HCQ at 50 mM reduced virus titer in TCID50 by 30 fold, and the combination with HHT at 150 nM reduced virus titer in TCID50 by 200 fold. Conclusion The combination of two drugs with low dose can more effectively inhibit PEDV infection compared to one alone. The present study offers information to contribute to the development of effective antiviral strategies against coronavirus infection, and demonstrates that the combination treatment, even at low concentrations, presents more potent antiviral activity than the separate components acting alone.


In this paper,we analyzed the impact of weak dissection in different location to the stability of tunnel construction.The most disadvantaged condition is that the weak dissection locates at the foot of arch.In this condition,instability caused by shortage of foundation bearing capacity happened easier.


Indentation-induced delamination of thin films provides the basis for adhesion calculations. In the case of ductile Cu films plastic deformation usually prevents a film from debonding from the substrate. Deadhesion is facilitated by the use of a hard W superlayer, which promotes indenter-induced Cu film failure, increasing the delamination area by an order of magnitude. Radial as well as annular cracking acts like a secondary mechanism in the strain energy release, and can be resolved from excursions on the load-displacement curves. For the thicker Cu films no excursions were observed, though radial cracking took place. It is important to identify fracture events as they occur in order to understand the system behavior and accurately apply the analysis. An acoustic emission signal is used to detect both the magnitude and the type of fracture events in thin Cu films. For the films of different thickness from 40 nm to 3 microns the corresponding interfacial fracture energy ranged from 0.2 to over 100 J/m 2 . Limits of plastic energy dissipation are determined with the lower limit, the true work of adhesion, being associated with a dislocation emission criterion. Crack arrest marks were found upon the blister removal, and are proposed to represent the shape of the crack tip. Total acoustic emission energy was found to be inversely proportional to the strain energy release rate.


Current affect has been described with various dimensions and structures, including J. A. Russell's (1980) circumplex, D. Watson and A. Tellegen's (1985) positive and negative affect, R. E. Thayer's (1989) tense and energetic arousal, and R. J. Larsen and E. Diener's (1992) 8 combinations of pleasantness and activation. These 4 structures each presuppose bipolar dimensions and have been thought of as interchangeable or 45° rotations of one another, but past data were inconsistent. Huge but not perfect overlap among these four structures was found here in 2 studies of self-reported current affect (Ate = 198 and 217) that controlled for random and systematic errors of measurement. The 4 structures were integrated into a common space defined by 2 bipolar dimensions.


Detecting discourse patterns, such as dialog acts (DAs), is an important factor for processing spoken conversations and meetings. Different techniques, such as hidden Markov models and neural networks, have been used to tag dialog acts in the past. A full analysis of dialog act tagging using different generative and conditional dynamic Bayesian networks (DBNs) is performed, where both conventional switching n-grams and factored language models (FLMs) are used as DBN edge implementations. Our tests on the ICSI meeting recorder dialog act (MRDA) corpus show that the factored language model implementations are better than the switching n-gram approach. Our results also show that by using virtual evidence, the label bias problem in conditional models can be avoided. Also, we find that, on a corpus such as MRDA, using the dialog acts of previous sentences to help predict current words does not improve our conditional model.


Dr. John Sinn, Advisor This project studied the effects of implementing auditing procedures in a student organization. The research objective in this project was to test whether the quality audit model was suitable for a university student organization. To identify the need for an audit model for the student organization, this project used the ISO 9001, QMS, DID, and DOD models on the accounts from the ASQ Student Branch at BGSU to identify the risk on the business and the cost benefit from the assurance that was offered by the Quality Audit Model. The findings have implications for both future internal auditing and control for the ASQ Student Branch at BGSU and other student organizations who wish to develop advance business assurance services.


There is a growing request for esthetic orthodontic appliances and by the effect of this request, most of the companies produced new esthetic appliances. These new appliances combine both acceptable esthetics and adequate technical performance. Recently, coated metallic and fiber-reinforced wires have beenintroduced to solve esthetic appearance problem. In the literature, there are some studies mostly researching on mechanical, color, and roughness properties. They are clinically acceptable but so many properties must be studied and must be developed for better results.


This paper focuses on the problems associated with the measurement of strike phenomena and deals particularly with the three principal dimensions of strikes, namely, strike frequency, number of workers involved and man-days lost. Between 1960 and 1980 many problems associated with the strike frequency index emerged. The problems associated with the other two indices, man-days lost and strike breadth, are not as easily investigated but they appear also to be less serious. In Ireland these deficiencies are of considerable consequence in view of their impact on the country's standing in the international strike record league.


Purpose: The assessment of myocardial edema provides diagnostic and prognostic information in patients with acute myocardial infarction. The presence of myocardial edema can be visualized in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) by commonly used T2-weighted sequences - Turbo Inversion Recovery with Magnitude Display (T2-TIRM). Diffusion Weighted Imaging (DWI) is a new sequence used in myocardial imaging with a potential clinical utility. The aim of this study was to compare two methods of myocardial edema imaging: DWI and T2-TIRM.

Methods: The study group consist of 91 patients, aged 35-84 years (77% men): 71 patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), and control group 20 patients with chronic myocardial infarction. MRI was performed within 7 days in patients with STEMI and in control group six months after STEMI with use of standard protocol. Based on the frequency of an increased signal detection associated with an edema in STEMI group and control group, the sensitivity and specificity of T2-TIRM and DWI was determined. The presence of edema in STEMI group was correlated with infarct related artery (LAD, LCX, RCA).

Results: The edema was visualized in STEMI group in 83,1% patients when DWI sequence was used compare to 60,6% patients in T2-TIRM. A statistically significant difference in visualization of the edema was observed between both methods in inferior-STEMI patients (85% vs 46%, p=0,0002). Tab.1.

View this table:

Table 1. The presence of the edema

Conclusion: Diffusion Weighted Imaging is a new method of myocardial edema imaging. DWI shows a higher sensitivity in the detection of myocardial edema than commonly used T2-TIRM. In contrast to the T2-TIRM, the sensitivity of the DWI sequence does not depend on the infarct location.


A runoff recession polygon is formed of concatenated segments of lines which are obtained by regressing each of them individually to corresponding group of observed hydrographs. Furthermore, the polygon is extrapolated both to upper and lower infinities by two distinct negative exponential curves respectively and the long range runoff recession curve is constituted as a whole. The area under the curve from certain given time point to rightward infinity shows total runoffs which would discharge from this point on, if no rainy days were to be continued infinitely. In other words, the area represents latent runoffs which are retained in the watershed at that time. Analogous latent evapo-transpirations are evaluated using preinvestigated evapo-transpiration. coefficients and sum of these two latent quantities estimates the residual moisture.


INTRODUCTION Aortic heart valve dysfunction is commonly treated with replacement of the valve. To overcome the shortcomings of currently used mechanical valves, xenografts and homografts, efforts are being made to create fully autologous heart valve replacements using the concepts of tissue engineering. To this end autologous cells are seeded onto pre-shaped biodegradable scaffolds and cultured under conditions that mimic the physiological valve environment. This includes mechanical and/or biochemical conditioning in bioreactors to enhance tissue formation and organization. The scaffold provides initial anchorage and support for the cells, until they have produced and reorganized their own extra cellular matrix (ECM) to form a functional tissue. Ideally, the rate of tissue formation is proportional to the rate of scaffold degradation. Moreover, the engineered tissue should meet and maintain the specific mechanical behavior and load bearing properties of the native aortic heart valve. To date, tissue engineered heart valves show promising results when used to replace the pulmonary valve in animal studies [1,2]. The mechanical properties of these valves, however, are insufficient to withstand the functional demands on the high-pressure, aortic side of the circulation. To satisfy these demands, and hence to develop a functional, load-bearing aortic heart valve, our studies aim at improving ECM architecture and properties via optimal mechanical conditioning protocols. The present study concentrates on relationships between mechanical conditioning, tissue formation and ECM remodeling using an in-vitro model system of engineered heart valve material.


It is shown that the neutrino and neutral kaon oscillation processes can be consistently described in quantum field theory using only plane waves of the mass eigenstates of neutrinos and neutral ka...


The fault location problem of power distribution network changes from single to multilateral model. This paper studies the feasibility of application of neural network for power distribution network fault location to research the fault location of muti-sources power distribution network. The mapping from fault current information to faulty section was implemented by the neural network weight training guided by training sample. The results of example prove that it is feasible to find the faulty section in muti-sources power distribution network using neural network, and this method has a certain theoretical guiding significance.


The aim of this paper is to develop a system where forces at the wheels of a ground vehicle are controlled to guide the vehicle along a planned path. The 7-order Bézier curves are applied to path planning and online path tracking, and used to obtain profiles of velocities and accelerations for the guidance of a 4WS4WD vehicle. The dynamic model used for force control is developed for the determination of the reference forces and steering angles at four wheels. The motion profiles obtained using the continuously updated Bézier segments are then applied to control the driving and steering motions of individual wheels. Note that this control methodology does not address the closed loop path tracking control, instead it only demonstrates the resilience of an open loop system through a vehicle design which only requires a dynamic model where the number of uncertain parameters are minimized. In future work, complementary steering control inputs will be generated through close loop path tracking control. Simulation results are provided to validate the proposed methodology.


To investigate the seismic performance of reinforced concrete(RC) rectangular hollow bridge piers,cyclic testing on five well-confined specimens was performed under constant axial load and biaxial bending.The test variables included axial load ratio,longitudinal reinforcement ratio and lateral reinforcement ratio.The results show that these specimens are flexural failure modes;biaxial force and displacement hysteretic loops show significant stiffness and strength degradation,pinching effect and coupling interaction of the structural seismic resistances in both directions;the ductility coefficient,varying from 3.5 to 5.7,and the equivalent viscous damping ratio,varying from 0.19 to 0.26,can meet the requirements of seismic design;RC rectangular hollow bridge piers with configurations of lateral reinforcement subject to bi-directional earthquake components have excellent earthquake resistance,and can substitute for current hollow RC rectangular section configurations described in the Chinese Guideline for Seismic Design of Highway Bridges(JTG/T B02-01—2008);and the length of the plastic hinge region is found to approach one sixth of the the hollow RC rectangular bridge pier height for all specimen piers,which is far less than the currently specified minimum value in Chinese Guideline,so the length of plastic hinge region is more concentrated for RC rectangular hollow bridge piers.


Nickel oxalate dihydrate(NiC2O4·2H2O) was prepared by coprecipitation method using nickel nitrate and oxalic acid as the raw materials.The product was characterized by X-ray diffraction(XRD),scanning electron microscopy(SEM),laser granularity measurement device,elemental analysis,Fourier transform infrared(FT-IR) spectrometry and TG-DTG analysis.Its catalytic effect on the thermal decomposition of TEGDN/NC propellant was studied via thermogravimetry-mass(TG-MS) coupling technique.The results show that the product contains crystal water,and its molecular formula is NiC2O4·2H2O.The product has good dispersion and its average particle size is 15.97 μm.NiC2O4·2H2O loses crystal water at the range of 180-250 ℃ and then decomposes at higher temperature.TG-MS analysis shows that adding 2% NiC2O4·2H2O can accelerate the thermal decomposition of TEGDN/NC propellant and accelerate the generation of gaseous products.The integral intensities of ion currents were calculated,and it is found that the generation amount of HCHO is obviously increased during the thermal decomposition process.


Vegetation is very necessary to herbivores.Conducted a survey including 18 places covering the core area,buffer area and experimental area during the rut season of sika deer in 2008 in Taohongling Sika deer Nature Reserve,Jiangxi,China to know whether vegetation could influence the distribution of sika deer and how.Found that vegetation could decide where sika deer distribute.Meadow and shrub-meadow were preferred by sika deer while arbor and arbor-shrub were not used by sika deer.Suggested that nature reserve should made proper vegetation project and provide feasible habitat for sika deer.


clarithromycin, followed by a four-week recovery period. No deaths occurred and no changes in the general condition of the animals were observed. Necropsy revealed no abnormalities. Upon histological examination, fatty deposition of centrilobular hepatocytes and cell infiltration of portal areas were observed by light microscopy, and an increase in hepatocellular fat droplets was noted by electron microscopy in the 300 mg/kg dose group. The toxic dose in juvenile beagle dogs was considered to be greater than 300 mg/kg and the "no effect dose" 100 mg/kg.


A novel method for the multiobjective optimization of arbitrary planar array excitations is presented. The optimization problem formulation, which inherently takes into account every array element pattern as well as all interelement couplings, is based on matrix-valued functions which are computed from the generalized-scattering-matrix characterization of an array and spherical mode expansions of its radiated field. It allows the maximization of the directive gain subject to a maximum sidelobe level, a maximum crosspolar level and a minimum aperture illumination efficiency, the setting of null-pointing directions and the dynamic range control. To solve the resulting non-linear optimization problem, we have developed a primal-dual interior point method specifically adapted to the presented formulation, which makes use of novel filtering techniques. Numerical examples of arrays of microstrip patches and dielectric resonator antennas covering a wide variety of requirements on these parameters are presented.


We examine the evolution of the distributions of wealth and income in a Ramsey model in which agents differ in their initial capital endowment and where the labor supply is endogenous. The assumption that the utility function is homogeneous in consumption and leisure implies that the macroeconomic equilibrium is independent of the distribution of wealth and allows us to fully characterize income and wealth dynamics. We find non-degenerate longrun distributions of wealth and income. The model shows that (i) the initial level of aggregate capital is an essential determinant of whether inequality increases or decreases during the transition to the steady state; (ii) temporary shocks to the stock of capital have long-run effects on the distribution of wealth even if they do not affect the stationary aggregate variables; (iii) income inequality need not move together with wealth inequality if factor shares change during the transition.


: One of the diagnostic methods for non-stationary dynamic systems was used in this research , namely data segmentation. The identification problem for non-stationary systems starts from the outline diagnostic, which considered as the cornerstone of reaching a model that is more appropriate in describing the system . Consequently the data segmentation operation is performed, were the input and output series are segmented into time intervals so that stable data can be obtained within each interval. data segmentation loss function


In this paper, a new method is introduced in order to modify identification process of a gas power plant using a meta-heuristic algorithm named Cuckoo Search (CS). Simulations play a significant role in dynamic analyses of power plants. This paper points out to a practical approach in model selection and parameter estimation of gas power plants. The identification and validation process concentrates on two subsystems: governor-turbine and exciter. Standard models GGOV1 and STB6 are preferred for the dynamical structures of governor-turbine and exciter, respectively. Considering definite standard structure, main parameters of dynamical model are pre-estimated via system identification methods based on field data. Then obtained parameters are tuned carefully using an iterative Cuckoo algorithm. Models must be validated by results derived via a trial and error series of simulation in comparison to measured test data. The procedure gradually yields in a valid model with precise estimated parameters. Simulation results show accuracy of identified models. Besides, a whiteness analysis has been performed in order to show the authenticity of the proposed method in another way. Despite various detailed models, practical attempts of model selection, identification, and validation in a real gas unit could rarely be found among literature. In this paper, Chabahar power plant in Iran, with total install capacity of 320 MW, is chosen as a benchmark for model validation.


In the preservation of sound coastal environment, public understanding of the state of the coasts and various phenomena occurring on the coasts is important. In order to realize this, scientific knowledge of the coast should be popularized as much as possible. Santa Barbara, California, where is the famous marine resort town of high society in West Coast, was investigated in March and August 1999. Santa Barbara is considered as a field museum to exhibit coastal sciences. People can see various natural phenomena with many explanation panels on the coasts. In Santa Barbara, cliff erosion is severe for much personal property above the cliff to be endangered. A wooden pier was built in the central part of the sandy beach to show shore dynamics. Museums also are useful for the understanding of the local coast.


The quality of optical element is directly influenced by the results of its surface test. A kind of test method of optical surface with large curvature by plane interferometer was studied. The measured surface error relative to the standard plane was obtained by some pivotal techniques such as interference fringe preprocessing, FFT phase distilling, phase unwrapping and the first Zernike polynomial fitting, then it subtracted the standard sphere appointed, so the measured surface error relative to the standard sphere appointed was obtained by reusing Zernike polynomial. On the basis, PV,RMS,N,△N of the measured surface error were calculated, the interference fringe formed by the measured surface relative to the standard sphere was successfully simulated. The method overcame the disadvantages of contact test with high precision. the σ of PV was better than λ/100 ,the σ of RMS was better than λ/700, and it could test random large curvature through the software. It provides a suitable method to test optical surface with big curvature radius.


Detailed spectroscopic studies performed by quasi-elastic and inelastic light scattering (Rayleigh wing and Raman) and a preliminary analysis by quasi-elastic and inelastic neutron scattering (incoherent quasi-elastic neutron scattering (IQENS) and incoherent inelastic neutron scattering (IINS)) in water, in the bulk and in confined geometry at different hydration levels and at room temperature, are presented. The possibility to compare the experimental results obtained by both the complementary spectroscopic techniques and analysed in the framework of existing models for confined liquids, has allowed us to identify the clear influence of the confinement on the mobility of this fundamental liquid, which shows a dramatic frozen-in effect with respect to the bulk state. In addition, the presence of an α-relaxation process, related to a distribution of relaxational times which recalls the mode coupling theory (MCT), characteristic
of dense supercooled liquids, has been confirmed. Furthermore inelastic features in both spectroscopies show a loss of low frequency collective vibrational bands connected with the presence of tetrahedral environments for physisorbed water. Finally Raman results show a systematic lowering of the OH stretching bands for water involved in tetrahedral C2v symmetry.


We describe results from the third stage of a project to build a statistical model for hurricane tracks. In the first stage we modelled the unconditional mean track. In the second stage we modelled the unconditional variance of fluctuations around the mean. Now we address the question of how to model the autocorrelations in the standardised fluctuations. We perform a thorough diagnostic analysis of these fluctuations, and fit a type of AR(1) model. We then assess the goodness of fit of this model in a number of ways, including an out-of-sample comparison with a simpler model, an in-sample residual analysis, and a comparison of simulated tracks from the model with the observed tracks. Broadly speaking, the model captures the behaviour of observed hurricane tracks. In detail, however, there are a number of systematic errors.


Even though it is generally held that cryoprecipitate (cryo) and fraction I-0 correct the prolonged bleeding time (BT) in patients with von Willebrand disease (VWD), perusal of reported data indicates that the correction is usually short lasting and often partial. We decided to do a controlled study of the relationship between the multimeric structure of von Willebrand factor (VWF) in 5 patients with severe VWD after infusion of three plasma concentrates : "wet" cryo, lyophilized (lyo) cryo, and fraction 1-0 given in random order. The dosage of concentrates was tailored to achieve post infusion levels of RiCof above the lower normal limit (50 U/dL) for at least 3 hours. The post-infusion BT values are shown in the table. These findings indicate that the attainment of a normal BT is the exception rather than the rule after infusion of three plasma fractions used for treatment of severe VWD. In all the concentrates the proportions of large VWF multimers, calculated by scanning the electrophoretic gels, were the same as in normal standard plasmas. An intact multimeric structure was recovered in post-infusion plasma of patients treated with wet cryo, whereas there was post infusion loss of large multimers after lyo and fraction I-O. In conclusion, an intact multimeric structure in post infusion plasmas is necessary but not sufficient to sustain a normal BT in VWD patients.


The authors, on the basis of calculated computational models for one-hole and two-hole systems (with one or two aquiferous layers) with production and injection well, worked out relative characteristics taking into account the specific working conditions of the both systems. These models allow determining the outlet temperature of water as a function of mass flow of water as well as other parameters describing a geothermal deposit.


Brain cephalin (1) has been the name given to a fraction of brain phosphatides characterized by its solubility in ether and insolubility in ethyl alcohol. For many years it was assumed to be a single compound with the chemical structure of diacylglycerylphosphoryl ethanolamine. Work from this laboratory has shown brain cephalin to be a mixture (2). From it were separated two pure phosphatides; namely, phosphatidyl ethanolamine and phosphatidyl serine. The former phosphatide has the chemical structure classically attributed to brain cephalin and the latter has been found to be oleylstearylglycerylphosphoryl serine (3). Besides these two phosphatides, a material was obtained which appeared to be a mixture and to which the name of inositol phosphatide was given for descriptive purposes, since it had inositol as a constituent. This paper contains detailed proof that inositol phosphatide is a mixture and describes a method for the separation from it of phosphatidyl ethanolamine, phosphatidyl serine, and a new inositol-containing phosphatide to which the name of diphosphoinositide has been given. Results establishing in part the chemical structure of diphosphoinositide have already been reported in a preliminary note (4) and are given in detail in the accompanying paper (5). The evidence here reported establishes that brain cephalin is a mixture of the three phosphatides mentioned above. It contains only small amounts of other substances which can be considered as contaminants. These contaminants are either lipides of the carbohydrate-containing type or non-lipide water-soluble substances among which phosphates appear to be predominant. The water-soluble contaminants can be removed by dialysis. Brain cephalin, as defmed by its solubilities, does not account for all of the lipide NH2-N' present in brain. Not an inconsiderable amount of


In this paper, we first investigate some basic properties of the linear non-local Stokes operator, such as the structure of the Oseen tensor , maximal regularity and so on. By the special structure of the spherically symmetric -stable Lévy processes, we can decompose as where is smooth for with decaying as . Combining this decomposition with the Fourier multipliers theorem, we establish the maximal regularity theory of the non-local Stokes operator. Secondly, as an important application to the decomposition (0.1), we derive the precise asymptotic behavior at infinity for the small self-similar solution of the Navier–Stokes equations with a fractional diffusion.


This paper considers a generalized no-regret problem with vector-valued rewards, defined in terms of a desired reward set of the agent. For each mixed action q of the opponent, the agent has a set R � (q) where the average reward should reside. In addition, the agent has a response mixed action p which brings the expected reward under these two actions, r(p;q), to R � (q). If a strategy of the agent ensures that the average reward converges to R � (¯qn), where ¯ qn is the empirical distribution of the opponent's actions, for any strategy of the opponent, we say that it is a no-regret strategy with respect to R � (q). When the multifunction q 㜡 R � (q) is convex, as is the case in the standard no-regret problem, noregret strategies can be devised. Our main interest in this paper is in cases where this convexity property does not hold. The best that can be guaranteed in general then is the convergence of the average reward to R c (¯qn), the convex hull of R � (¯qn). However, as the game unfolds, it may turn out that the opponent's choices of actions are limited in some way. If these restrictions were known in advance, the agent could possibly ensure convergence of the average reward to some desired subset of R c (¯qn), or even approach R � (¯qn) itself. We formulate appropriate goals for opportunistic no-regret strategies, in the sense that they may exploit such limitations on the opponent's action sequence in an on-line manner, without knowing them beforehand. As the main technical tool, we propose a class of approachability algorithms that rely on a calibrated forecast of the opponent's actions, which are opportunistic in the above mentioned sense. As an application, we consider the online no-regret problem with average cost constraints, introduced in Mannor, Tsitsiklis, and Yu (2009). We show, in particular, that our algorithm does attain the best-responsein-hindsight for this problem if the opponent's play happens to be stationary, or close to stationary in a certain sense.


Background: The distribution of causes of death in population suggests a great potential for prevention. So the aim of study is to evaluate the cause of perinatal death in tertiary center of Bundelkhand region in M.L.B. medical college Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh (India).
Methods: A retrospective study was done over a period of last one year from June 2013 to May 2014, which included total 2691 deliveries out of which 184 perinatal deaths occurred, hence perinatal mortality rate was 68.37 per 1000 birth and causes of perinatal deaths was identified and analysed.
Results: Out of 68.37% perinatal mortality, majority of perinatal deaths (54.3%) occurred due to preterm low birth weight with or without associated other factors, 8.6% due to congenital anomalies, more than 38% perinatal death due to maternal factor antepartum haemorrhage, eclampsia, obstructed labour, malpresentation, medical problem in pregnancy.
Conclusions: Early identification of mothers at risk of pregnancy complications through antenatal care screening, teaching pregnant women to recognize signs of pregnancy complications, timely access to obstetric care, monitoring of labour for fetal distress, and proper newborn resuscitation may reduce some of the categories of deaths. There should also be increased awareness among paediatrics and obstetrics about coordinated approach to bring down perinatal mortality.


Abstract 1183 Only ∼10% of individuals carrying the common venous thrombosis risk factor, Factor V Leiden (FVL) will develop venous thrombosis in their lifetime. In order to identify potential FVL modifier genes, we performed a sensitized dominant ENU mutagenesis screen, based on the perinatal synthetic lethal thrombus previously observed in mice homozygous for FVL (FVQ/Q) and hemizygous for tissue factor pathway inhibitor deficiency (Tfpi+/−). The genome-wide ENU mutagenesis screen was performed by crossing ENU-treated male FVQ/Q mice with FVQ/+ Tfpi+/− females. Surviving G1 offspring were analyzed to identify survivors with the otherwise lethal FVQ/Q Tfpi+/− genotype. As proof of concept, we demonstrated that reduced tissue factor (Tf+/−) suppresses the lethal FVQ/Q Tfpi+/− phenotype, suggesting that mutations at Tf should be among the suppressor genes identified by our screen. Analysis of 7,128 G1 offspring (∼2X genome coverage) identified 98 FVQ/Q Tfpi+/− mice that survived to weaning. Fourteen FVQ/Q Tfpi+/− G1 mice exhibited successful transmission of a putative suppressor mutation to two or more FVQ/Q Tfpi+/− G2 offspring. Extensive genotyping of mice from an expanded genetic cross from one of these lines mapped a candidate suppressor locus to a chromosome 3 region encompassing the TF gene (LOD=4.93). With continued improvements in next generation sequencing technologies, we have now applied whole exome sequencing to analysis of 8 of the remaining 13 lines. The entire DNA coding region (the "exome", totaling 49.6 Mb of DNA sequence) from a progeny-tested member of each line was captured using the Agilent SureSelect mouse exome capture system. Whole-exome sequencing using the Illumina HiSeq high-throughput sequencer yielded 12–15 gigabases of sequence data per sample, corresponding to an average of ∼200 fold sequencing coverage for each nucleotide position. Variant analysis using the Gene Analysis Toolkit revealed the presence of a small number of high confidence novel heterozygous (dominant) variants in each sample. Each of these heterozygous variants is a candidate suppressor mutation and these are presently being tested in remaining FVQ/Q Tfpi+/− mice from each respective line. Based on previous studies where ENU-induced mutations in mice have been identified, we anticipate the identification of putative exomic mutations in approximately 80% of tested suppressor lines. Identification of these mutations should provide candidate modifier genes for FVL and other human hemostatic disorders. Disclosures: Ginsburg:Portola Pharmaceuticals: Membership on an entity9s Board of Directors or advisory committees; Catalyst Biosciences: Membership on an entity9s Board of Directors or advisory committees; Shire Pharmaceuticals: Membership on an entity9s Board of Directors or advisory committees.


(Fibre pits in wood of Xylopia emarginata Mart. (Annonaceae), Reserva Biologica e Estacao Ecologica de Mogi-Guacu, Sao Paulo State, Brazil). The influence of environmental conditions such as flooding areas on the anatomical features of wood is little known. The aim of this study was to compare the fibre pits in the stems and in the roots of Xylopia emarginata growing in a swampy forest and in a Brazilian savanna (Cerrado). Samples of stems and roots of X. emarginata were collected in the Mogi-Guacu Biological Reserve and Experimental Station using a non-destructive method. Our anatomical study of the wood included analyses in two sectional planes (radial and tangential sections). Quantitative data of the fibre pits were processed using the Sample Size Estimator Worksheet software to obtain the statistical parameters, and BioEstat 2.0 was used to perform a non-parametric Mann-Whitney test. Analyses by scanning electron microscopy showed large differences in the number of fibre pits between stem and root in samples from the swampy forest and the Cerrado. The largest number of pits occurred in the radial walls of the fibres; there were at least twice as many pits in the roots as in the stems of specimens from both the swampy forest and the cerrado.


This article is devoted to the problem of increasing of educational quantity on base of culturological approach, and depicts author' s work at modern forms and methords of drill. The article shows the role of culture foundation of designtraining, the meaning of culturological knowledge in formation of professional purviews of students-designers.


The analysis of long-term experimental data on growth and efficiency of an apricot at cultivation on clonal stocks is submitted. It is shown, that in conditions of Moscow area apricot varieties had high winter hardiness and good fructification. Development of plants, their efficiency and durability was essentially influenced not only by the variety, but also the rootstock and the degree of their compatibility. There was marked the reduction of growth and dimensions of the crone in comparison with the seed stock of the cherry plum on the rootstock 140-1 and SVG-11-19. Acceleration of the introduction into fructification was promoted by clonal rootstocks OD-2-3 and 140-1. The greatest efficiency was characteristic for stock/scion combinations Samarskiy on OD-2-3, Samarskiy on 13-113, Lel on OD-2-3. Reduction of productivity and durability of trees on rootstocks 140-1 and SVG-11-19 is connected with the deterioration of the general common condition of the plants, caused by winter damages and insufficient compatibility. For the multiplication of apricot northern varieties it is recommended to use the clonal rootstocks 13-113, OD-2-3 and the seed rootstock of the cherry plum Fundamentalnaya.


Computing departments increasingly use synchronous remote learning (SRL) to offer courses. This poster reports on initial survey results to better understand undergraduate computing students' experiences with SRL as compared to in-person educational environments, particularly the extent to which SRL fulfilled their needs for developing social bonds with faculty and other students. Regardless of demographic categories, students feel that social presence factors in classes are important and find in-person environments better at accommodating them.


This is the case report of a 43 year old nonimbibing businessman with recurrent and then progressive jaundice. Despite treatment with steroids and operation, he died after five months in the hospital.


In the past decade, online games problematic use such as excessive play and addiction have received tremendous attention not only from the media, but also from psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health associations and gamers alike. To address this issue, game developers have proposed to add warning messages about risk of overuse on the loading screens of certain online games. However, there is yet no evidence that such warning messages have made any serious impact on gamers. The current game design issues, proposed control measures against game overuse and game design frameworks were carefully examined. The objective of this paper is to propose a Counselling Attributes (CA) framework that will address the problematic and addictiveness of online games by adopting streaming counselling/warning messages at every 2 minutes in game design. This approach will increase the awareness of the problems online games posses more closely to gamers. As a result, excessive play, addiction and number of hours spent playing online games will drastically reduce.


The icon of The Descent of the Holy Spirit includes a mission message. The origins of the iconography of this mystery date back to the 6th century. The icon of Pentecost depicts the apostles, and an empty place between them, destined for the coming again of Jesus Christ. Adam was presented below, and then the pagans as representatives of the peoples and nations to whom the apostles are sent. Later in this place is presented Old King as a personifi cation of the Cosmos, that is here a personifi cation of all creatures. The apostles, as the fi rst missionaries, will proclaim the Gospel to this Cosmos.


Human potential and quality of life are the most important socio-economic categories. On the one hand, development of society is connected with improving the quality of life of population and realizing its human potential. On the other hand, it is human potential that is currently the main driving force contributing to economic growth, scientific and technological progress and cultural development of the country. Despite this, there is still no clear definition and unified measurement system for these categories. Abroad, there is no concept of human potential at all, although many concepts appeal to this very category. This review article attempts to define these complex social categories and clearly distinguish them. In the course of the work there were analyzed the chronology of the development of these concepts, their evolution from other related concepts and their interpretation by modern concepts. The article shows the fundamental differences between human potential and quality of life that lie in different research objects. If quality of life mainly reflects the external conditions of life, then human potential has as an object of study the qualitative characteristics of population and therefore can be called the quality of population by analogy with the definition of the quality of life. The author also gave an overview of two modern concepts of sustainable and human development, identified their main principles, goals and objectives, and compared them with each other. As a result, it was concluded that the two concepts are almost identical and interchangeable. Besides, they are both the concepts of quality of life improvement, their main goal is to create favorable external conditions, in which a person can freely develop and realize his aspirations and needs.


This paper describes part of the monitoring undertaken at Abbey Mills shaft F, one of the main shafts of Thames Water's Lee tunnel project in London, UK. This shaft, with an external diameter of 30 m and 73 m deep, is one of the largest ever constructed in the UK and consequently penetrates layered and challenging ground conditions (Terrace Gravel, London Clay, Lambeth Group, Thanet Sand Formation, Chalk Formation). Three out of the twenty 1·2 m thick and 84 m deep diaphragm wall panels were equipped with fibre optic instrumentation. Bending and circumferential hoop strains were measured using Brillouin optical time-domain reflectometry and analysis technologies. These measurements showed that the overall radial movement of the wall was very small. Prior to excavation during a dewatering trial, the shaft may have experienced three-dimensional deformation due to differential water pressures. During excavation, the measured hoop and bending strains of the wall in the chalk exceeded the predictions. This app...


A 22‐year‐old man had a subcutaneous nodule on the left thigh for 3 months. Physical examination showed an ulcerative nodule on the left thigh ( Fig. 1 ). He suffered from a fever for 1 week. Laboratory tests revealed a white blood cell count of 7180/mm3, with 22.4% neutrophils, 68.5% lymphocytes, 8.4% monocytes, 0.3% eosinophils, and 0.4% basophils. Hemoglobin was 9.0 g/dL, hematocrit was 28.1%, and the platelet count was 202 × 109/L. Analysis of serum showed the following abnormal results: aspartate aminotransferase, 102 IU/L (normal, 13–37); alanine aminotransferase, 77 IU/L (normal, 7–43); alkaline phosphatase, 1296 (normal, 70–270); LDH, 1105 (normal, 120–520). Results of other laboratory tests including serum electrolytes, blood and tissue culture, and viral markers for hepatitis were negative or normal. Ultrasonography and computed tomography of abdomen and pelvis showed hepatosplenomegaly with ascites. Whole body bone scan showed an increased long bone activity of the left leg. Bone marrow aspiration was negative for neoplastic cells. Histologic examination from the thigh nodule revealed subcutaneous lymphoid infiltrates with involvement of the deep dermis. Examination at high power magnification showed small, medium, and large‐sized, pleomorphic lymphoid cells with hyperchromatic nuclei, nuclear debris, and phagocytic macrophages. Fat necrosis, partial rimming of fat spaces and clustering around blood vessels by pleomorphic lymphoid cells were also seen ( Fig. 2 ). The immunohistochemical studies on paraffin sections revealed that most of the infiltrated lymphoid cells positively stained for CD56 ( Fig. 3 ), granzyme B, TIA‐1, cytoplasmic CD3, and CD45RO, whereas CD4, CD8, CD20, and CD30 showed no immunoreactivity. Clonality of the infiltrate was analyzed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Nested PCR was performed using FR3A and VLJH as primers for IgH gene and Vγ – Jγ for T‐cell receptor γ chain gene. Polymerase chain reaction analysis showed a distinct band for TCR gene, confirming T‐cell monoclonality of infiltrating lymphocytes. EBV‐encoded small nuclear RNA was evident in lesional tissue by in situ hybridization. He was treated with two cycles of chemotherapy with CHOP‐BV (Cytoxan 735 mg, adriamycin 45 mg, vincristine 1.45 mg, prednisolone 75 mg, bleomycin 15 mg, VP‐16 150 mg). He died 5 days after chemotherapy.


A formulation of Einstein equations is presented that could yield advantages in the study of collisions of binary compact objects during regimes between linear-nonlinear transitions. The key idea behind this formulation is a separation of the dynamical variables into (i) a fixed conformal 3-geometry, (ii) a conformal factor possessing nonlinear dynamics and (iii) transverse-traceless perturbations of the conformal 3-geometry.


Abstract The genus Scorzonera is one of the most important genera in the Asteraceae family, and members of the genus have great potential in traditional medicine systems. In this article we aimed to determine skin protective and antimicrobial effects of different extracts from the roots and aerial parts of three Scorzonera species (S. hieraciifolia, S. hispanica, S. tomentosa). Antimicrobial properties were evaluated against different pathogen bacterial and fungal strains, whereas protective effects were studied in isolated mouse skin specimens exposed to hydrogen peroxide. In this biological model, the levels of l-dopa and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) were evaluated, as markers of tyrosinase activity and inflammation, respectively. All extracts were effective in blunting the increased hydrogen peroxide-induced l-dopa turnover and PGE2 level; thus, suggesting skin protection that could be partly related to the content of flavonoids, among which rutin, in the tested extracts. Additionally, all extracts were effective as antibacterial and antifungal agents; intriguing results were observed against Trichoderma viride, which was particularly sensitive to S. tomentosa root extracts. Therefore, the present study strengthens the importance of investigating herbal preparations obtained from plants belonging to the genus Scorzonera, for the management and prevention of inflammatory and infectious skin conditions.


This essay will explore how was business development in Boyaca in 1930, a periodin which industrial concentration in the country was high profiting business and social development of different regions. It will take as reference the "Corporations"dominant figure in the formation of companies that stimulated investment, savings, and to some extent state intervention, and being the flour industry, brewing andutilities the pioneers in the business development department


In this paper, we address the problem of convergence of sequential variational inference filter (VIF) through the application of a robust variational objective and H∞-norm based correction for a linear Gaussian system. As the dimension of state or parameter space grows, performing the full Kalman update with the dense covariance matrix for a large-scale system requires increased storage and computational complexity, making it impractical. The VIF approach, based on mean-field Gaussian variational inference, reduces this burden through the variational approximation to the covariance usually in the form of a diagonal covariance approximation. The challenge is to retain convergence and correct for biases introduced by the sequential VIF steps. We desire a frame-work that improves feasibility while still maintaining reasonable proximity to the optimal Kalman filter as data is assimilated. To accomplish this goal, a H∞-norm based optimization perturbs the VIF covariance matrix to improve robustness. This yields a novel VIF-H∞ recursion that employs consecutive variational inference and H∞ based optimization steps. We explore the development of this method and investigate a numerical example to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed filter.


Objective:
This study aims to determine if children with autism are to be diagnosed with epilepsy, and with specific phenotypes, including status epilepticus, partial seizures, infantile spasms and petit mal (absence) seizures. It will also compare length of stay when applicable.
 Background:
Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are known to have increased rates of epilepsy. Reported rates across all subtypes vary widely. Many prior studies aimed to quantify these rates are small.
 Methods:
A retrospective matched case cohort study was performed. We identified pediatric patients 0-18 years of age in the Military Health System database between 2000-2013. Children with ASD were matched 1:5 to children without ASD by birthdate, gender, and enrollment time. International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) diagnostic codes were used to identify patients. Conditional logistic regression was used to calculate the odds of varied seizure types.
 Results:
48,762 ASD patients were identified and matched to 243,810 controls. For autistic children, the odds ratio (OR) of having some kind of seizure or seizure disorder was 6.03 (95[percnt] CI; 5.84-6.22). This represented 19[percnt] of the patients with autism. In a subgroup analysis of patients with status epilepticus the OR was 8.00(CI 7.11-8.99). The OR of patients of absence seizures was 9.54(CI 8.76-10.38). The OR of patients with partial epilepsy 8.35 (CI 8.35-9.49). The OR of patients with infantile spasms was 7.30 (CI 5.74-9.28). Although the OR of febrile seizures was significant, it was far less so (OR 2.19 (CI 2.05-2.33).
 Conclusions:
This study helps to quantify the percentage of autistic patients with seizures, and different seizure types. Rates of epilepsy in children with autism are vastly increased in a wide variety of seizure types, known to have different etiologies, genetic and otherwise.
 Funding provided by the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs Autism Research Program W81XWH-12-2-0066 Disclosure: Dr. Jaskiewicz has nothing to disclose. Dr. Susi has nothing to disclose. Dr. Hisle-Gorman has nothing to disclose. Dr. Dennison has nothing to disclose. Dr. Gorman has nothing to disclose. Dr. Nylund has nothing to disclose. Dr. Erdie-Lalena has nothing to disclose.


This PhD dissertation consists of three essays relating to gender concerns among financial analysts. The empirical results of the first study provide evidence for under-representation of female analysts and confirm that national culture exerts a material impact on female representation among financial analysts across European countries under study. In the second study, I document evidence that male analysts are more likely to issue innovative recommendations than female analysts, due to their relative overconfidence. Finally, the findings of third study suggest that innovative recommendations trigger larger market reactions but there is no gender difference in market reactions to innovative recommendations. The empirical findings of my dissertation complement prior literature on financial analysts, more specifically, gender-based difference in financial market decision making.