Pancreatic cancer mortality age-standardized rates (ASRs; using 1985 Japanese standard population) are shown for Japan, USA, UK, France, and Italy (Fig. 1). ASRs of pancreatic cancer for both males and females are quite similar for four decades in these countries. After 1960, ASRs for pancreatic cancer constantly increase until 1987 for males and 1988 for females, except in the UK and USA. ASRs among females in these five countries have recently converged. Currently Japanese males show the highest ASRs compared with other countries. For age-specific rates (Figs 2 and 3), similar trends to those shown by ASRs are observed between males and females. In Japan and Italy, rapid elevations in mortality rates are observed in older age groups after 1960. In the USA and UK, mortality rates have leveled off over the last four decades, regardless of age group and gender. ASRs for pancreatic cancer in France have gradually increased, especially since 1960. Mortality trends for pancreatic cancer by age group are shown according to year of birth (Figs 4 and 5). In Japan, mortality trends increase steeply for those born between 1880 and 1920 in both males and females. The trends level off in males and are almost stable in females for those born after 1920. Both males and females in Italy and France show similar trends to those in Japan, but these trends level off for those born after 1940. Among males from the USA and UK, a peak is observed for any age group with birth cohorts born around 1900. For females in the USA and UK, a constantly decreasing trend is observed for those born after 1930.


During the early stages of a serious illness, treatment is generally aggressive and the major goal of treatment is cure. As the illness progresses, the burdens of traditional medical therapies may begin to outweigh their benefits. The patient and/or physician may then emphasize different treatment goals. The transition period from traditional curative care to palliative care can be one of the most difficult phases of caring for patients with life-limiting illnesses. Nevertheless, when cure is not possible, treatment goals appropriately change from emphasizing life prolongation to emphasizing symptom control and quality of life. With this palliative care approach, patients may remain as comfortable as possible throughout the entire illness trajectory.


Background:  Objective data and anecdotal reports suggest that non‐metropolitan Australia may face a severe shortage of specialist obstetricians in the near future.


The approach taken by General Electric Aerospace to define the process it uses to develop and maintain software is outlined. It is shown that two major issues in process definition are deciding what information to include and what form of graphical representation to use. The lessons learned in developing and implementing this approach are discussed.<<ETX>>


Startups have served as one of the Thai government's mechanisms for promoting economic stability and growth. The health tech startup is a global trend toward new innovative industries. In Thailand, there are many health tech startups born each year. However, the healthcare business characteristic and business model differing from other businesses urge the need to understand the relevant factors of success. This knowledge can help you lower your chances of failing and enhance your chances of succeeding. The success elements that influence success, as well as the ones that are most crucial for health tech firms, were investigated in this study. This research used quantitative methodologies to create a systemic approach. The researchers used data from 240 samples to assess basic statistics and confirmatory second-order factor analysis based on the idea of latent variables in Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). It was found that health tech startups in Thailand can be successful because of 6 elements, which are government policy, startup support, human capital, market, finance, and culture. Culture is the most influential factor, followed by startup support, human capital, market, government policy, and finance. It's worth noting that tax relief and low-interest financing aren't high on the priority list. Internal elements such as entrepreneurial inspiration or knowledge, experience, and product prominence, on the other hand, take precedence.

https://universepg.com/public/storage/journal-pdf/The success factors for growing health tech startups in Thailand.pdf


Patient X., 39 years old, an actor by profession, had an accident on May 9, 1980. A car driven by another driver crashed into X's car from the right side. The patient was wearing a seat belt and was pushed to the left door of the car. He could not describe the details of the incident. He remembered how the police pulled him out of the car.


The medium modified hadron properties are studied by using the scale-chiral perturbation theory $\chi$PT$_\sigma$ in which the lightest scalar meson $f_0(500)$ is included as an explicit degree of freedom by regarding it as the Nambu-Goldstone boson of scale symmetry both spontaneously broken and explicitly broken by the QCD trace anomaly. We derive Brown-Rho scaling at the leading order of scale symmetry from $\chi$PT$_\sigma$ and formulate how to make higher-order scale-chiral corrections going beyond the leading order of scale symmetry. By taking into account the intrinsic density dependence given by the dilaton condensate in the "bare" parameters of the Lagrangian, the medium modified hadron properties are investigated. Relying on available experimental information and certain reasonable assumptions, we arrive at the leading order scale symmetric effective theory that can be confronted with nature .


Traffic congestion identification is a popular research topic of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS). Many identification methods, such as threshold value based methods, California, McMaster method and so on, have been studied. But the threshold values of these methods are difficult to be determined. A novel threshold value based traffic congestion identification method is proposed in this paper. In the method, traffic flow parameters are divided into sections according to threshold values that are determineded with mutual information maximization theory. Congestion identification rules are extracted with decision tree. At last, the efficiency of the proposed method is illustrated through analyzing Jinan urban transportation data.


Several projects involving high-level thermal management — such as eliminating "hot spots" or reducing cooling costs through intelligent workload placement — require ambient air temperature readings at a fine granularity. Unfortunately, current thermal instrumentation methods involve installing a set of expensive hardware sensors. Modern motherboards include multiple on-board sensors, but the values reported by these sensors are dominated by the thermal effects of the server's workload. We propose using machine learning methods to model the effects of server workload on on-board sensors. Our models combine on-board sensor readings with workload instrumentation and "mask out" the thermal effects due to workload, leaving us with the ambient air temperature at that server's inlet. We present a formal problem statement, outline the properties of our model, describe the machine learning approach we use to construct our models, and present ConSil, a prototype implementation.


Companies purchase computer systems to make their processes more efficient through automation. Some academic medical centers (AMC) have purchased computer systems for their institutional review boards (IRB) to increase efficiency and compliance with regulations. IRB computer systems are expensive to purchase, deploy, and maintain. An AMC should expect a positive return on investment from the purchase of an IRB system. An IRB system should decrease the processing time for IRB applications and affect the number of IRB staff members necessary to adequately handle IRB processes. This study examined these and other factors at AMCs to determine the value of IRB computer systems.


This article presents the findings of a facile and effective nanoparticle synthesis approach based on aqueous solutions of gum acacia (GA), also known as gum arabic without the addition of any toxic reagents either for the reduction or capping for the effective stabilization of palladium (Pd) nanoparticles with a narrow size distribution (with a H 2 PdCl 4 /GA ratio of 1:29.411, the solution the average diameter was 9.1 nm, and the standard deviation was ±0.3 nm). In this approach, the particle size was controlled by the manipulation of the temperature, time, and concentration of GA. The synthesized Pd nanoparticles were well characterized by ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering, and thermogravimetric analysis. This route was very simple and reproducible, and further study on the application of these nanoparticles for various organic transformations is underway.


Background: Enterobiasis caused by Enterobius vermicularis is a health manifestation of severe concern that needs to be monitored in children because of its recurrence. The cases are relatively frequent in children. The patient will experience discomfort which starts as itching in the perianal area. A decreased quality of life can also occur in children who lose nutrients due to this worm infection. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 63 elementary school students on the outskirts of a city in Central Java province, Indonesia. Microscopic examination of perianal smear specimens and children's bedding was conducted. Results: The incidence of enterobiasis reached 96.8% of all students under study, while the distribution of worm eggs on children's bedding reached 93.7%. The presence of worm eggs in both was significantly related (p=0.000). The incidence of enterobiasis contributed to the distribution of eggs on the sleeping bed by 49.18% (R2=0.4918) Conclusion: Enterobiasis is a promising threat to children, and needs to be monitored through have regular annual checkups before taking treatment.


Design optimization of nanostructures is a new challenging research area. The modelling of multilayer graphene sheets has a similar character as the modelling of composite laminates. However, the traditional laminate plate theories are revised in order to incorporate nonlocal elasticity. The main aim of the current study is to point out the crotchet features arising in the design optimization of graphene laminates based on the theoretical analysis performed and numerical results obtained. The study is focused on the improvement of the mechanical performance of graphene and nanostructures, particularly vibration properties of multilayer graphene laminates.


structures, was closely tied to the Ch'ing dynasty's fear of a Russo-Zunghar alliance which would provide the nomads with new weapons such as muskets and cannon. While the book pulls together a large amount of detailed material, it unfortunately breaks no new ground. Few of the books cited and none of the articles were published after 1980. On the Russian side, the work is primarily an English summary of I. Ya. Zlatkin's work on the Zunghars and of Sh. B. Chimitdorzhiev on the Mongols, both of which could use a re-examination in the light of more recent studies. The Chinese material is rather eclectically chosen, barely scratching the surface of the many significant studies on Ch'ing dynasty policy. Not a single person or original document is ever quoted directly in the entire book: a narrative technique makes for tough reading and much frustration, like trying to read a newspaper over someone's shoulder. This is a shame because there are lively first-hand sources, such as Jonathan Spence's Emperor of China: A Self-portrait ofK'ang-hsi (1974), which provide vivid accounts of war and diplomacy on the steppe. The book is also marred by a number of geographical mistakes. For example, the Manchus did not hold the Seventh Dalai Lama in Khotan (which was a Zunghar stronghold), but 1000 miles east at Kumbum Monastery in Ch'ing-hai, and that error makes the 1717 invasion of Tibet by the Zunghars to recover him impossible to understand.


We extend the ridgelet transform to the space of tempered Boehmians consistent with the ridgelet transform on the space of tem- pered distributions. We also prove that the extended ridgelet transform is continuous, linear, bijection and the extended adjoint ridgelet trans- form is also linear and continuous.


Irradiance differences on PV cell level can cause the total output power of a PV panel to drop disproportionally. If no action is taken, a single cell can limit the output current of the entire panel. Traditionally this is solved by placing a bypass diode in parallel to a substring of cells. However, when such a diode is active, it creates a significant voltage drop, and this dissipates power that we would rather see at the output. The SmartPV project, an IWT-SBO project funded by the Flemish Government (Flanders, Belgium), aims at increasing the power yield of PV panels under partial shading conditions. With each of the partners (imec, Ghent University, University of Leuven, VITO) working in different areas, we at Ghent University developed a smart bypass. It takes over the function of a bypass diode, while minimizing the power loss. It is a low-voltage-drop switch that is activated when a failing cell is detected. The NIMBUS chip is a fully integrated smart bypass. The NIMBUS chip is designed for a load current of 5A, while limiting the voltage drop to 100mV. When larger load currents need to be provided, several NIMBUS chips can be placed in parallel. An integrated synchronization circuit ensures that all parallel NIMBUS chips work as one. A prototype of the NIMBUS was created, and the first measurements are presented. Also, the first steps in creating a full module with NIMBUS devices are taken.


ABSTRACT In a period characterized by the urgent need of enhancing the safety level of the building stock, including architectural heritage, externally bonded textile-reinforced mortar (TRM) systems are emerging as a particularly advantageous strengthening solution. Their use on unreinforced masonry arched members appears one of the most promising fields of application, but an improved understanding still needs to be gained on the behavior of TRM retrofitted interstorey vaults. This article describes an experimental investigation on full-scale masonry vaults, provided with buttresses and backfill, reinforced with basalt textile-reinforced mortar (BTRM) overlays either at the intrados or at the extrados. Cyclic load was applied at 1/3 span over the backfill. Digital Image Correlation was used to detect full-field displacements and map crack development. Both strengthening solutions proved effective in delaying crack occurrence and improving arch-fill interaction, enhancing both load-carrying and deflection capacity. A limit analysis-based method provided reliable ultimate strength estimates for engineering design and assessment purposes.


Objective: The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor- γ coactivator (PGC)-1 family of transcriptional co-activators controls hepatic function by modulating the expression of key metabolic enzymes. Hepatic gain of function and complete genetic ablation of PGC-1 α show that this co-activator is important for activating the programs of gluconeogenesis, fatty acid oxidation, oxidative phosphorylation, and lipid secretion during times of nutrient deprivation. However, how moderate changes in PGC-1 α activity affect metabolism and energy homeostasis has yet to be determined. Research Method and Design: To identify key metabolic pathways that may be physiologically relevant in the context of reduced hepatic PGC-1 α levels, we have employed the cre/lox system to create mice heterozygous for PGC-1 α specifically within the liver (LH mice). Results: These mice showed fasting hepatic steatosis and diminished ketogenesis associated with decreased expression of genes involved in mitochondrial β -oxidation. LH mice also exhibited high circulating levels of triglyceride that correlated with increased expression of genes involved in triglyceride-rich lipoprotein assembly. Concomitant with defects in lipid metabolism, hepatic insulin resistance was observed in LH mice fed a high fat diet and primary hepatocytes. Conclusions: These data highlight both the dose-dependent and long-term effects of reducing hepatic PGC-1 α levels; underlining the importance of tightly regulated PGC-1 α expression in the maintenance of lipid homeostasis and glucose metabolism. MCAD, medium-chain acyl-coenzyme A dehydrogenase; CPT1 α , carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1 α ; PPAR α , peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor- α ; VLDL, very low density lipoprotein; PEPCK, phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase; G6P, glucose-6-phosphatase, HFD, high fat diet; NEFA, non-esterified free fatty acids.


Tamires Lapa A et al. Reduction of Cerebral and Corpus Callosum Volumes in Childhood-Onset Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: A Volumetric Magnetic Resonance Imaging Analysis.


ABSTARACT. A Catalog of flare stars of the region around the Orion Trapezium is compiled. The results of photographic patrol observations of flare stars in this region carried out at the observatories: Abastumani, Asiago, Byurakan, La-Si lia, Rojen, Tonantzint. la and Uppsala, up to 1986 year are used. The Catalog contains infomatlon for 491 flare stars and their 654 flares. It is compared with the Catalog of flare stars in the Pleiades region.


Music contests have a long tradition in Brazil as the carnival in Rio de Janeiro shows. The phenomenon of music contests was most conspicuous between 1965 and 1972 when many TV-stations organised and broadcast a number of so called festivals that had a widespread impact on the development of popular music in Brazil. A large number of musicians which are still regarded as the most important ones in Brazil performed on these festivals for the first time. This paper focuses on the role of TV festivals as a platform for a left-wing orientated student movement in search of a national-popular culture as a means of protest against the military regime and on the musical innovations which arose in the context of the festivals.


Philology is a term of wide application, designating at its most narrow the study of specific linguistic and textual features, at its most extensive what Gustav Grober, in the Grundrifi der romanischen Philologie (that monument to the old philology), called "the human spirit in language."2 The distance between these definitions measures the literary medievalist's task: on the one hand to engage in the disinterested and often highly technical practices of medieval studies, on the other to produce results of general interest. These imperatives converge with a slightly different but analogous dilemma, the relation of medieval studies to the human sciences as a whole. On the one


Early blight resistance was estimated in field plots for parents and F1, F2, and backcross progenies of crosses with NC EBR-1, a line derived from Lycopersicon hirsutum P.I. 126445. Areas under the disease progress curve (AUDPC) showed that resistance from NC EBR-1 was heritable and quantitative in nature. generation means in two families were intermediate to those of NC EBR-1 and susceptible parents. The distribution of AUDPC means for the different generations in both families indicated the presence of epistasis or gene linkage. Lack of fitness tests for curve-linearity confirmed this in one family. A, B, and C scaling tests showed similar results. A joint three-factor model and subsequently a six-factor model displayed the presence of epistasis in both families. Ignoring epistatic effects, narrow-sense heritability (h2) was 0.49 in one family and 0.40 in the other. By regressing F3 progeny AUDPC means on selected F2 plant values, h2 was 0.25 and 0.17, respectively.


Recent issues in the dairy industry related to both animal and public health concerns are leading farmers away from the use of drugs, while placing more focus on animal health and welfare. Public demands are also shifting towards ensuring socially acceptable production practices in terms of good animal health and welfare. Such challenges are moving the focus in dairying from solely financial to a broader set of themes that, once addressed, will enhance the sustainability of dairying and provide a long-term competitive advantage for the Canadian industry. Furthermore, from a production standpoint, calf diseases, such as, diarrhea and respiratory disease (RD) have been associated with decreased first lactation production and growth rate, therefore decreasing an animal's potential lifetime profitability. As part of a larger project aiming to add calf health traits to genetic evaluations in Canadian dairy cattle, this study provides the groundwork through the estimation of genetic parameters of two calf health traits, diarrhea and RD. Data were provided by Lactanet Canada, and included 20,594 calf records for diarrhea from 741 herds, and 48,927 calf records for RD from 1,412 herds, recorded between 2004 and 2021 across Canada. Total herd records ranged between 1 and 3,860 for RD with an average of 37 records per herd, while for diarrhea records ranged between 1 and 3,724 with an average of 28 records per herd. The results of this study will be used to optimally fit both diarrhea resistance and RD resistance into a novel resiliency index for use in national genetic evaluations in Canada.


The research aimed to analyze some factors affecting the Iraqi total employment structure during the period 1990-2017 using the ARDL method of joint integration to study the impact of GDP, total investments, total wages and technological development on the volume of total employment, One of its results was that the volume of total employment was not affected by the increase in the gross domestic product, as its increase is not reflected in the increase in employment, but rather means an increase in the import rates of goods and services imported from abroad produced by foreign labor, not local, and this is due to the nature of the Iraqi economy, the research recommended that the government should put in place an effective system for developing local technological capabilities and create a solid ground for workers' wages by maintaining their minimum wages to ensure the protection of the low-paid category.


The combination of agricultural extension system with small scale irrigation development helps to reduce poverty, and now utmost attention is given to it. Extension system development can increases the production and income of the households and helps to improve their overall economic welfare. This study was conducted to assess the strengths and constraints of the public extension system and to provide suggestions on "best fit" solutions and their scale-up opportunities in the small scale irrigation user; furthermore it examines the impact of agricultural extension system on small-scale irrigation on total income, and the probability of being poor or not at household level. Survey was carried out involving 900 extension users' households and 875 non-extension users in Afar, Oromia and Somali regional states of Ethiopia which was a total of 1775 households. The result of the study by taking indicators of family size extension service users had more families 6.3 to 5.6 in non-user. The total crop income for one season was 41,282 Ethiopian birr while it was 16,276 for non-users. At the time of the data collection the exchange rate for a dollar was 19.67 Ethiopian Birr. Using a Tobit model to determine the total income parameters of education, extension service access, total land holding had a significant level of increment, while with marginal analysis (dy/dx)  factors like household leaders' age, access to credit and dependency ratios were negatively related with total income. In general, the average annual income of extension users with application of small scale irrigation households was significantly greater than non-extension users. This shows that extension users in small-scale irrigation significantly promote total income of a household. The poverty incidence in non-extension user households is by far greater than user households. Thus, for the agrarian country, Ethiopia, extension system development in small-scale irrigation districts has significant impact on poverty reduction, so agricultural extension development should be given emphasis in development planning.

 Key words: Income, poverty, small-scale irrigation, extension service, Logit, Tobit, marginal effect.


This paper summarizes the results of systematic studies of field electron emission from detonation nanodiamond coatings corresponding to nanodiamond powders of different modifications. The role of the chemical composition of the surface of detonation nanodiamond particles in field emission mechanisms is discussed. Field emission–related electronic properties of single diamond nanodots are studied using tight-binding calculations and continuum electrostatic simulations. © 2004 MAIK "Nauka/Interperiodica".


This project explores the field of strategic communications on Facebook, for creating brand image of the Colombian start up Jonron S.A.S. Digital communication, communication strategy and brand image were the three main concepts throughout the project. A qualitative methodology was used mainly in the research; using instruments such as observation matrices for Facebook, semi- structured interviews, profiling surveys and focus groups for proof of concept. The project concludes with a sample proposal of a communication strategy for the brand Jonron Coctel. Also, the study provides some conclusions regarding the relationship between the three main concepts, and the growth momentum of a company. This gives additional knowledge for communication management in Colombian start ups.


6 Abstract: The current study was carried out on 550 healthy population having 250 males and 300 females. Five ml venousblood was collected following standard biosafety measures. ABO blood grouping was done by Tile method and found blood group B dominant in both sexes i.e 180 male and 120 female were found with blood group B. Moreover, 2 ml of saliva was also collected from allvolunteers. Secretor status was detected from the saliva byhaemagglutination inhibition method and found 278 female and 234 male were secretors.


The introduction of the Access training scheme in 1987 was a significant point in the history of active labour market policy in New Zealand and represented a shift away from work schemes to an almost exclusive focus on the provision of training. This shift suggests a changed interpretation of the causes of unemployment and the accompanying official discourse reflects this, referring to skill deficits and mismatches forming rigidities in the labour market and leading to unemployment. This paper investigates the adequacy of this skill discourse (which remains current) and asks whether the provision of schemes such as Access is consistent with the discourse, and is an appropriate policy response to the problem of youth unemployment. The paper adopts a case study approach, analysing the changing structure of employment in the Christchurch youth labour market over the period 1976-1991.


Recent changes in nursing in the UK have been designed to produce a new type of practitioner who will be emancipated, critically reflective, creative and autonomous (Casey 1996). The move away from ward based training and task orientation to the University has therefore created an ideology toward critical thinking, clinical judgement and autonomy of practice. Biley and Smith (1998) observe that the term nurse "training" has now been replaced by "education" suggesting personal development for life, rather than apprenticeship. These changes need to be addressed in a complex society with changing demographics, increasing costs and decreasing resources (Betchel et al 1999, Greenwood 2000). This has coincided with changes in the education sector. Biggs (1999) observes that the past ten years have seen an "extraordinary" change in the structure, function and financing of universities. Jarvis et al. (1998) document the many changes that have taken place in education over the past few years as follows;


When fund managers have close ties to their investees, it can facilitate information sharing but also increase the possibility of favoritism. Using the investment choices of mutual funds in China, we test whether funds with close ties to their investees make timelier investment decisions. We find that having close ties to an investee leads to more timely investments only when the funds are closely monitored. For poorly monitored funds, we find that having close ties can lead to less timely investments. Further examination shows that the reduced timeliness of connected funds is driven by the fund manager's reluctance to withdraw holdings in times when the investee's performance is weak. We interpret this as agency conflicts from delegated portfolio management reducing the information sharing role of close ties and leading to collusion when the counter party is in need. The findings suggest that close ties lead to timely investment decisions only when the agency conflicts are mitigated.


The adsorption of europium on activated charcoal has been studied as a function of shaking time, pH, concentration of adsorbate and temperature. The adsorption of europium obeys the Langmuir and Dubinin-Radushkevich isotherms. Thermodynamic quantities such as ΔH0 and ΔS0 have been calculated from the slopes and intercepts of plots of In KD versus 1/T. The influence of different cations and anions on europium adsorption has been examined. The adsorption of other metal ions on activated charcoal has been investigated under specified conditions to check their selectivity for europium. As a result, europium has been successfully removed from a mixture containing Ba, Sr, Ru, Cs, Cr, Nd, Pr and In. Approximately 96% of the europium adsorbed on the activated charcoal was recovered using 45 ml of 3 M HNO3. X-ray fluorescence spectrometry was used for measuring the europium concentration.


Machine learning and data mining can be effectively used to model classify and discover interesting information for a wide variety of data, including email. Depending upon the task, one can usually achieve very high accuracy, but with some amount of false positive tradeoff. Much work has been done to improve specific algorithms for the task of detecting unwanted messages .Now introduce a new combining model to decrease false positive detection ratio.


CONTINUOUS peripheral nerve block (CPNB) techniques continue to be increasingly used. CPNB catheter infection is an issue that has received little attention to date. The frequency of infection associated with peripheral nerve catheters remains poorly defined. Although the risk of infection during CPNB is a major issue, the published literature has mainly focused on the conflicting evidence of the frequency of infectious complications associated with epidural anesthesia. Recent studies show that between 23 and 57% of peripheral nerve catheters may become colonized, with 0–3% resulting in localized infection. Severe infectious complications recently reported in the literature include psoas abscess complicating continuous femoral nerve blocks, axillary abscess and necrotizing fasciitis after continuous and single shot axillary nerve blocks, and thigh and interscalene abscesses after continuous popliteal sciatic and interscalene nerve blocks, respectively (table 1). An exogenous source of contamination is frequently suspected. The most frequently detected microorganism on the skin surface and in colonized catheter is Staphylococcus epidermidis, whereas Staphylococcus aureus is mainly reported in infections or abscess formation. Several risk factors, including appropriate patient selection (intensive care unit or trauma patients), catheter site insertion, prophylactic antibiotic use, local anesthetic solution contamination, and catheter duration, have been suspected to modify the risk of infection related to CPNB. The current recommendations to control infectious complications associated with CPNB are based on existing literature and guidelines for the prevention of epidural or intravascular catheter-related infection. The American Society for Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine guidelines on this topic have been published in Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine. These recommendations highlighted the importance of asepsis during regional anesthesia needle and catheter insertion, including handwashing, use of protective barriers (mask, gloves, gowns, and drapes), and skin disinfectants. The role of subcutaneous tunneling and of bacterial filters is still controversial. Guidelines for practice improvement must be built according to specific actual risk applied to each procedure and certainly cannot be extrapolated without some restrictions. CPNBs are increasing in popularity, and the incidence of infection associated with CPNB is thankfully rare. However, infectious complications will become undoubtedly more common. This review is to tell the reader what is actually known about risk factors specific to CPNBs.


This research aims to explore the practices and experiences of Tutors in an Institute of Technology (ITP) with regards to their use of photographs in their classrooms as a teaching and assessment tool. The research will have an exploratory purpose of enquiry, which seeks to discover new understanding and insights, generate ideas and hypotheses for the future.
The research project currently being undertaken is a qualitative case study taking place over a two-year period. The study looks at ways in which a small group of Tutors within an Institute of Technology (ITP) in New Zealand are currently using photos within their classrooms, in order to gain an understanding of ways in which they are being currently used to promote teaching, learning and assessment further. As a result the outcome of the study aims to formulate some guidelines and suggestions surrounding future use to promote effective use of photos within the tertiary classroom, in order to stimulate greater understanding and learning.


The invention provides a conversion algorithm from a CAD model to an MCNP geometric model based on an STEP text, and the algorithm relates to the technical fields of physics and nuclear science. The algorithm is based on the STEP text generated by CAD software, information extraction is carried out on the STEP text, then a geometric algorithm is used for restoring a real model structure, finally conversion is carried out on an INP text format which can be recognized by the MCNP. In order to solve complex model problems, all lattice cell information of a model is stored in a lattice cell tree by adopting a method for constructing the lattice cell tree by the algorithm, and by means of the traverse lattice tree, the INP text format which can be recognized by the MCNP can be output. Outputs of a hook face card and a lattice cell card are free from omission, the position is accurate, and the treatment is flexible.


In the past the higher education sector was considered invulnerable to competitive forces. However, in the present era, the sector is compelled to compete in the market and convince potential students to enroll. The intensifying competition within the sector has necessitated the adoption of innovative approaches, which has resulted in changes in the learning process and economic aspects during the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, some private higher education institutions have experienced a decline in student enrollment. To explore factors influencing the university-specific servitization experience (USSE) and brand resonance, a research study was conducted. 393 students were chosen using a proportional random sampling technique. According to the findings of the study, asset distinctiveness and educational value have a substantial impact on USSE and brand resonance. The findings also revealed that USSE acts as a bridge between asset distinctiveness, brand resonance, and educational value. These results stress the significance of asset specialization and educational value in creating shared experiences between universities and their students, which foster a strong emotional and psychological bond and promote student loyalty towards their institution.


Recently, the imaging research group at Russell Research Center, ARS in Athens, Georgia has developed a real-time multispectral imaging system for fecal and ingesta contaminant detection on broiler carcasses. The prototype system includes a common aperture camera with three optical trim filters (515.4, 566.4 and 631-nm wavelength), which were selected by visible/NIR spectroscopy and validated by a hyperspectral imaging system. The preliminary results showed that the multispectral imaging technique can be used effectively for detecting feces (from duodenum, ceca, and colon) and ingesta on the surface of poultry carcasses with a processing speed of 140 birds per minute. The accuracy for the detection of fecal and ingesta contaminates was 96%. However, the system contains many false positives including scabs, feathers, and boundaries. This paper demonstrates calibration of common aperture multispectral imaging hardware and real-time multispectral image processing software. The software design, especially the Unified Modeling Language (UML) design approach was used to develop real-time image processing software for on-line application. The UML models including class, object, activity, sequence, and collaboration diagram were discussed. Both hardware and software for a real-time fecal and ingesta contaminant detection were tested at the pilot-scale poultry processing line.


Under the new trade of the development of Western China,Yulin economy is undergoing "big stride" developments.The coordinated developments among all industries,establishment of a "harmonious" Yulin city,improvements of pesent's income,building socialist new village and tranmision of agricultural labor remain to be the most concerned problems to be solved both now and future.


Of 53 breast cancers explanted in tissue culture, the majority (33 or 62%) was documented as cancer through recognition of either one of two architecturally intact histoculture forms, thin tissue slices or spontaneously occurring tissue islands. The average histoculture period of in vitro life was 2 weeks, with the longest survival 11 months. Observations were made with stained culture specimens, phase contrast microscopy, and time lapse cinephotomicrography. Monolayers of cancer occurred less frequently than histocultures and were identified by demonstrating a transitional area in continuity with monolayer and histoculture. Time lapse film recordings were the ideal means of documenting cancerous monolayers, particularly where transitions occurred abruptly or were of a very subtle nature. Intensive study of the histoculture itself is warranted, not only as a means of establishing documented cancer cell strains or lines but as a basis for obtaining immediate new insight into nutritional, metabolic, and therapeutic responsiveness of human cancers in general.


The temperature of phase transitien of Br2(CHs)C-C(CH3)g (1) was determined to be -59 C by the differential thermal analysis. High values of the dielectric constant were observed in the high temperature solid phase, although in the low temperature phase it was low (see Fig.1), The infra-red spectra showed no remarkable charige at temperatures both above and belew the phase transition, as shown in Fig. 2. An X-ray study showed that the crystal structure at room temperature was a body-centered cubic lattice with a 7.71 A and Z=2. From ornparisons between symmetries of the molecule and the crystal, it was concluded that the molecular axis should run parallel to eaeh of the four body-diagonals of the unit cell with equal ststistical weight and that the C-C axis at the same time acquired at least a statistical symrnetry of 3. Reinvestigation of the molecular from of Br(CH3)2C-C(CHg)2Br(2) was made by the spectroscopic method(see Table 2). lt was confirmed that only trans-fermed molecule existed in the solid phase (-89-90C)and in CCl solution. Mehanism of the phase transitions for these two crystals was studied from an entropy analysis. ln the case of (1), the statistical orientation of the molecule mentioned above and the intra-molecular rotation should eccur at the trasition point. At the lower transitien peint (-89 C) of (2), the molecule should have the orientational freedom which satisfied a statistical symmetry 4 about the Br-Br molecular axis.


Despite the growing research on biomolecule-inorganic nanoflowers for multiple applications, it remains challenging to control their development on stationary platforms for potential portable and wearable devices. In this work, the self-assembly of Cu3(PO4)2-bovine serum albumin hybrid nanoflowers is facilitated by an alumina platform whose surface is tailored by wet plasma electrolysis. This allows an interlocking of hybrid nanoflowers with the surface motifs of the solid platform, resulting in a hierarchy similar to nanocarnation (NC) petals on an inorganic bed. Density functional theory calculations are performed to reveal the primary bonding mode between the organic and inorganic components and to identify the active sites of the protein structure in order to provide mechanistic insights that can explain self-assembly of NCs overall. The hybrid architecture displays an adaptive microstructure in different aqueous environment, giving rise to a dual-function based on its electrochemical stability and catalytic activity toward radical degradation of organic pollutant.


A powerful tool for analyzing information are interactive tools update graphic representations. The paper presents different approaches to visualize the results of experimental studies. Examples of solutions of applied problems using NovoSpark Visualizer


Objective
To explore the clinical and cytogenetic characteristics and risk factors of multiple myeloma (MM) patients with renal impairment (RI).

Methods
A total of 113 newly diagnosed patients with MM in the department of nephrology and hematology in Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University from January 2013 to December 2017 were enrolled. The patients were divided into RI group and non-renal impairment (NRI) group according to whether serum creatinine (Scr) at the time of diagnosis was higher than 177 μmol/L. The clinical and laboratory data of two groups were compared. The risk factors of RI in MM patients were analyzed by binary logistic regression, and then the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) was drawn to evaluate the predictive value of these risk factors.

Results
The incidence of RI in 113 MM patients was 34.5%. Compared with NRI group, levels of white blood cells, serum uric acid, blood urea nitrogen, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), cystatin C, β2-microglobulin (β2-MG), blood phosphorus, urine light chain, bone-marrow plasma cell percentage, International Staging System (ISS) stage III percentage, light chain type percentage, positive urinary Bence-Jones protein percentage and positive urinary protein percentage were higher in RI group, while levels of estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), serum bicarbonate concentration and globulin were lower in RI group (all P 0.05). Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) was applied to 42 MM patients to detect the following five genetic abnormalities: IgH rearrangement, 1q21 amplification, RB1 deletion, D13S319 deletion and P53 deletion. Among them, 29 (69.0%) patients were abnormal. The incidence of RB1 deletion in RI group was higher than NRI group (P 0.05). Further logistic regression analysis showed that increase of NLR (OR=1.589, 95%CI 1.115-2.266, P=0.010), bone-marrow plasma cell percentage (OR=1.053, 95%CI 1.008-1.101, P=0.021) and β2-MG (OR=22.166, 95%CI 2.146-228.927, P=0.009), light chain type (OR=15.399, 95%CI 1.002-236.880, P=0.049), and hyperuricemia (OR=11.707, 95%CI 1.580-86.717, P=0.016) were the independent risk factors for RI in MM patients. The comparison of area under the ROC (AUC) among these risk factors showed the AUC of β2-MG was larger than that of NLR or uric acid (both P 0.05). The AUC of β2-MG predicting RI was the largest (AUC=0.907, 95%CI 0.853-0.962, P<0.001).

Conclusions
MM patients have high morbidity of RI, and there are more RI patients with RB1 deletion in RI patients. Light chain type, hyperuricemia, high level of NLR, high bone-marrow plasma cell percentage and increased β2-MG are the independent risk factors for RI in MM patients. Among them, β2-MG is the best predictor for RI, and NLR plays an important role in predicting RI as a convenient and effective inflammatory marker.

Key words:
Multiple myeloma; Risk factors; Prognosis; Renal impairment; Neutrophils; Lymphocytes; Cytogenetics


Translator's note: In 1710, Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek's daughter sent the attached letter to The Royal Society in London. Over the course of his life, Van Leeuwenhoek had sent 634 letters to the Society, concerning the myriad discoveries he had made using the microscope—of which he was one of the early inventors. He appears to have written the following letter at the time of the events he describes, but not to have mailed it. After his death, his daughter sent it, along with his other papers, to the Society. At that time, the Librarian of the Society filed his letters under the area of scientific inquiry that best characterized them (e.g., protozoa, blood, insects, human tissues, flora, etc.). This letter was filed separately under "miscellany." It had been read in 1873, at the 150th anniversary of Van Leeuwenhoek's death. At that time, it was passed on to a corresponding member of the Royal Society, Dr. Seebrun Van Dekker, who translated it from the Old Dutch into modern English. This translation was recently found among Van Dekker's papers. In 1873, the work of Vermeer was not well known or appreciated, and hence this letter was considered of little interest, other than as exemplifying the breadth of Van Leeuwenhoek's interests. Given recent heightened interest in the artist (1–7), however, Van Dekker's great-great granddaughter, Dr. Virginia Thompson, a psychiatrist in New York, asked me to read it and arrange for its publication. I have not corrected the manuscript, but merely present it as it is, with a few minor grammatical alterations as to be smoother to the ears of contemporary English readers.


Recently, a treatment with the allogenic bone marrow transplantation for leukemia and severe aplastic anemia has been attempted and a complete remission of these disease expected. A bone marrow transplantation is a treatment where a patient with bone marrow dysfunction undergoes a transplant of allogenic normal bone marrow. This transplanted bone marrow is expected as function as normal bone marrow. After a bone marrow transplantation, a graft-versus-host-disease (GVHD) may develop because of an immunoreaction. Chronic GVHD may develop about 100 days after a bone marrow transplantation. Key findings of chronic GVHD are erythema, reticular pigmentation, scleroderma, liver dysfunction, oral mucosa' symptom and Sicca syndrome. Oral symptoms of chronic GVHD arc (1) lichenoid keratosis of buccal mucosa, gingiva, tongue and lingual mucosa, and, (2) minor sialadenitis.Out of the 27 patients who underwent bone marrow transplants from November 1981 to March 1984 by the bone marrow transplantation group of the Japanese Red Cross Nagoya First Hospital eight patients who were suspected of chronic GVHD clinically were biopsied of the 8, five patients were histologically diagnosed as chronic GVHD. Six cases had minor salivary glands were detected, and for cases were diagnosed as sialadenitis.


The evaluation and forecast of the life cycle cost for an aircraft flight system is the important link in the system optimization and RD of aviation engineering. Through the research on ten flight control systems, it is found out that although the kinds, the functional differences and property quotas of flight control systems are related to six key factors, the association between factors is strong enough so that the regression model built in the past is unstable and has large sampling error. This paper establishes the optimal variable set based on the theory, and method for evaluating the RD cost of an aircraft flight control system is also presented in this paper by using SPSS 11. 0 and SAS 8. 1 to carry out the main-factor analysis on the six key factors. Because the regression model put forward in this paper has the ideal experiment results, it can be used to evaluae the RD cost of an aircraft flight control system practically and flexibly and offers an effective method for evaluating the life cycle cost of an aircraft flight control system.


Spontaneous splenic rupture is a known, but rare and possibly fatal, complication of different infectious diseases. We present a case of a 38-year-old male patient who presented with fever, icterus and spontaneous splenic rupture after a visit to Vietnam and discuss the differential diagnosis of splenic rupture in ill returned travellers. LEARNING POINTS Spontaneous splenic rupture is a rare complication of several tropical diseases, including Salmonella infection. Atypical presentations of Salmonella infection should always be considered in febrile ill returned travellers.


SummaryThe action of the photodynamically active radiomimetic acridine orange on several phages of Staphylococcus of known morphology, serological type, phage type and the base composition in DNA has been studied. For these phages, the inactivation rate has been investigated, both at photodynamic inactivation with 10 μg/ml. AO and at inactivation in the dark with a tenfold concentration of the dye. Taxonomically related bacteriophages were inactivated with AO to approximately the same extent, whereas no correlation has been found between the rate of inactivation in the dark and the serological groups of Staphylococcus phages.


Quantum cryptography provides an unique way of communication by making use of quantum physical effects with the aim to enhance security. It can be implemented with the use of entangled photons. This work contains a theoretical model and simulations for an experiment that focuses on the creation of time-bin entangled photons. Within the experimental setup, light from a pulsed laser is directed on a quantum dot which subsequently emits photons. This quantum dot is a semiconductor nano structure that can be used as a quantum emitter. A statistic of coincidence counts can be extracted from the detection of the emitted photons. In post selection, the photons should preferably pairwise exhibit the time-bin encoded generalized Bell state. An effective quantum optical model is used to simulate the dynamics of the system. It is possible to estimate the coincidence counts of the detectors based on the theoretical model. The estimated values of the photon counts are the input of a tomographic method which gives the reconstructed density matrix of the photons as an output. In this way the results of the experiment can be proposed for various values of parameters that can be related to the configuration of the laser. If the theoretical model is successfully adjusted to the experimental results, it is possible to propose laser configurations for the experiment in order to enhance the quality of the photons. The fidelity between a bell state and the simulated density matrix are discussed within this work. Choices of parameters can be extracted for which the fidelity is suggested to be very large, such that this might lead to a noticeable enhancement compared to the fidelities achieved so far. The number of simulated coincidence counts, which is correlated to the potential number of created photons, and the fidelity, however, show a weak accordance when system parameters are varied. Therefore, the potential user of the system has to find a compromise between the number of photons and their proximity to the desired state.


Trust model in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is the primary concern for researchers. Intrusion detection with limited constraints is the main study of my research. Wireless sensor consumes lots of power and cost to detect intruder. My research is based on how to minimize this cost and how to efficiently and reliably captured the intruder in Trust model. I have developed a trust model for Wireless Sensor Network in which intrusion detection is faster than previous models


The establishment of the main stream of Chinese traditional ethics and morality relies on the respective cooperation of the three major systems: the theoretical system, the conceptual system and its assistant system of ethics and morality. The assistant system helps mainly to turn the theory and regulations into moral behaviors. It is of great significance to set up and perfect the system and give it a full play in the modern morality construction.


the Caribbean nation. It is a delightful read with brilliant and sometimes striking ethnographic details, and is highly recommended for those interested in art, cultural politics, national identity, and rural ethnography not only of Cuba, but of Latin America in general. Frederik's work could be used as a whole in senior seminars and graduate courses, or by chapter for lower division classes in the social sciences, performance studies, and Latin American studies.


We consider two kinds of inhomogeneous corner growth models with independent waiting times {W(i, j): i, j positive integers}: (1) W(i, j) is distributed exponentially with parameter a_i+b_j for each i, j. (2) W(i, j) is distributed geometrically with fail parameter a_ib_j for each i, j. The parameters (a_n) and (b_n) are randomly chosen at the outset from a joint distribution that is stationary with respect to the nonnegative shifts and ergodic (separately) with respect to the positive shifts of the indices. Let P and Q denote the marginal distributions of (a_n) and (b_n), respectively. We obtain variational formulas in terms of P and Q for the shape functions of models (1) and (2) for typical realizations of (a_n) and (b_n). We identify certain choices of P and Q for which these formulas yield closed-form expressions for the shape function.


The degree of light polarization propagating in a birefringent optical fiber diminishes along the propagating distance. This effect is of particular interest in optoelectronics since the quasi-monochromatic semiconductor sources are not perfectly coherent. Therefore, measurement of the degree of polarization of light propagating along the fiber can be directly applied to determine the coherence characteristics of laser diodes. The issue concerns also applications in polarimetric sensing with birefringence fibers. The paper analyzes the problem of polarization's degree fading in polarimetric fiber optic sensors in view of optimizing the performance of real polarimetric sensors with highly birefringent fibers. The influence of degree of polarization of partially polarized light passing through highly birefringent optical fiber on metrological parameters of polarimetric sensors is presented.


Modeling of production systems used in automobile factories with behavior which is complicated by failure occurrence and repair or maintenance actions is reported. The method is based on generalized stochastic Petri nets (GSPN) which are well-suited for complex system evaluation. To reduce the state space complexity an equivalent model is proposed for the production lines. It permits addressing the problem of production management and the enhancement of the production rate by the addition of buffers. A software package which aids in the creation of models from a module library is developed.<<ETX>>


Analog/digital hybrid beamforming architectures with large-scale antenna arrays have been widely considered in millimeter wave (mmWave) communication systems because they can address the tradeoff between performance and hardware efficiency compared with traditional fully-digital beamforming. Most of the prior work on hybrid beamforming focused on fully-connected architecture or partially-connected scheme with fixed-subarrays, in which the analog beamformers are usually realized by infinite-resolution phase shifters (PSs). In this paper, we introduce a novel hybrid beamforming architecture with dynamic subarrays and hardware-efficient low-resolution PSs for mmWave multiuser multiple-input single-output (MU-MISO) systems. By dynamically connecting each RF chain to a non-overlap subarray via a switch network and PSs, we can exploit multiple-antenna and multiuser diversities to mitigate the performance loss due to the use of practical low-resolution PSs. An iterative hybrid beamformer design algorithm is first proposed based on fractional programming (FP), aiming at maximizing the sum-rate performance of the MU-MISO system. In an effort to reduce the complexity, we also present a simple heuristic hybrid beamformer design algorithm for the dynamic subarray scheme. Extensive simulation results demonstrate the advantages of the proposed hybrid beamforming architecture with dynamic subarrays and low-resolution PSs compared to existing fixed-subarray schemes.


The confocal scanning laser microscope (CSLM) was utilized for the measurement of electron beam resist features in over‐exposed and normally exposed patterns. Using Fizeau interference, a well defined criterion for the location of resist sidewalls was obtained. Measurement of resist feature sizes in over‐ and normal exposed patterns, in combination with an accurate determination of the dose required to clear the substrate of positive resist, is shown to be very suitable for an accurate determination of the point spread functions in electron beam lithography. The point spread functions for 20 and 50 kV exposure of 0.5 and 1.0 μm thick resist layers were obtained for a variety of substrate materials; Si and GaAs wafers, an ''x‐ray‐wafer'' and Cr masks. Also the effect of resist tone on the point spread function was evaluated.


The development of packaging design was established on cultural foundation and packaging design transfer cultural massage multi-aspects. The development direction of packaging design was influenced by culture. The key of the development of packaging design was to boost up cultural consciousness, to speed up the transformation of cultural information, and to add cultural characteristics.


Ocular disease can both alter the retina's oxygen requirements, and decrease its ability to cope with changes in metabolic demand. We examined the influence of a moderate intraocular pressure (IOP) elevation on three outcome measures: arterial and venous oxygen saturation, blood flow, and the pattern electroretinogram (PERG).


Rats were injected with large daily doses of dexamethasone for 5 and 8 days, during which they and the control rats which were not given dexainethasone were kept on a fat-rich and fat-poor diet. The serum cholesterol was determined and the mast cells in the mucosa of the stomach, duodenum and colon were counted at the end of the test period. The serum cholesterol level rose distinctly in the rats given fat and it was raised significantly further by dexamethasone administration. The elevation of the serum cholesterol level was small in the rats kept on a fat-poor dirt despite the dexamethasone administered. The mast cells in the mucosa of the glandular stomach, duodenum and colon were degranulated during dexamethasone treatment, most rapidly in the mucosa of the glandular stomach. The diet had no effect on the mucosal mast cells. It is suggested that a fartor activating the clearing factor is mobilised into the organism from the mucosal mast celly in the gastrointestinal tract and that this activating factor is absent after mast cell degranulation. resulting in alimentary cholesterolemia.


. In this paper, we present the parameter identification for inelastic and multi-scale problems. First, the theoretical background of several fundamental methods used in the upscaling process is reviewed. Several key definitions including random field, Bayesian theorem, Polynomial chaos expansion (PCE), and Gauss-Markov-Kalman filter are briefly summarized. An illustrative example is given to assimilate fracture energy in a simple inelastic problem with linear hardening and softening phases. Second, the parameter identification using the Gauss-Markov-Kalman filter is employed for a multi-scale problem to identify bulk and shear moduli and other material properties in a macro-scale with the data from a micro-scale as quantities of interest (QoI). The problem can also be viewed as upscaling homogenization.


Adamantano[2,4]-16-crown-5 and -19-crown-6 ethers 5, 6, and homoadamantano[4,5]15-crown-5 and -18-crown-6 ethers 11, 12 have been prepared and their some cation binding properties have been discussed based on the preliminary solvent extraction and PM3 calculation results.


THE purpose of the SASRI Quarantine facility is to intercept diseased sugarcane cultivars. There are several in vitro techniques available for cleaning up diseased sugarcane material. However, it would be advantageous for the plant breeding program if disease-containing cultivars, imported to enlarge the germplasm base, could be simultaneously cleaned up and rapidly multiplied. In addition, it would be beneficial to export local germplasm as micropropagated, disease-free plantlets. NovaCane is a process developed by SASRI for the rapid micropropagation of sugarcane using direct somatic embryogenesis. This study investigates the application of the NovaCane technique to clean up disease-infected material, and therefore its usefulness in the SASRI Quarantine facility. Transverse sections (2 mm) of immature leaf whorls from healthy and diseased stalks were placed on the following media: (1) embryo production – MS basal salts and vitamins, sucrose (20 g/L), casein hydrolysate (0.5 g/L), 2,4-D (0.6 mg/L), agar (8 g/L), pH5.8 for 5 weeks; (2) embryo germination – medium as above, without auxin, for a further 5 weeks. The following cultivars (infected with respective diseases) were cultured: N14 (Ratoon Stunting Disease – RSD), N27 (Sugarcane leaf yellows phytoplasma – SCYP), N30 (Sugarcane yellow leaf virus – ScYLV), N32 (Sugarcane mosaic virus – SCMV and ScYLV), NCo376 (SCMV) and L76 (leaf scald). The disease status of a sample of regenerated plants was evaluated using molecular diagnosis two months after hardening-off. No plants were regenerated from diseased cultivar L76. Tissue blots confirmed that RSD had been eliminated from cultivar N14. Similarly, ScYLV was not detected by RT-PCR in previously infected cultivars N32 and N30. SCYP was present in 25% of the NovaCane-generated N27 plants tested. SCMV was eradicated from 92% and 25% of N32 and NCo376 plants tested, respectively. NovaCane could be used to micropropagate plant material in the Quarantine facility, provided the appropriate screening process is carried out to verify the disease-free status of regenerated plants. Introduction The eradication of systemic sugarcane diseases is hindered by vegetative propagation practices and is further constrained by the asymptomatic nature of some diseases. For example, Sugarcane yellow leaf virus (ScYLV) has been implicated in the disease known as Yellow Leaf Syndrome (YLS), and the virus may be asymptomatic or sporadically symptomatic (Fitch et al., 2001). Hence the availability of a standard technique that permits the simultaneous multiplication and phytosanitation of all material routinely passing through quarantine facilities would offer a number of advantages to both regional and international germplasm exchange programs.


Objective To determine the best dosage of triclabendazole in rats infected with the juvenile worms of Pagumogonimus skrjabini and to explore the mechanism by which triclabendazole kills P.skrjabini.Methods Sixty rats were randomly divided into four groups(three experimental groups and a control group) with 15 rats in each group.The 60 rats were eacHⅠnjected in the abdominal cavity with juvenile P.skrjabini.Rats of the experimental groups were treated with different doses [50 mg/(kg·d)× 4 d,100 mg/(kg·d)× 4 d,and 200 mg/(kg·d)× 4 d] of triclabendazole on the thirty-ninth day after infection.On the first,fifteenth and twenty-second days after finishing the treatment,five rats in each group at each time point were dissected.The structural changes of the worm tissues were observed under both a light microscope and a transmission electron microscope.Results Triclabendazole had different extents of breakage in the ultrastructure of the body wall and intestinal wall of juvenile of P.skrjabini.The effect of the low-dose on worms was less,the destructive effect of the middle-dose on worms was stronger than the low-dose but was not deadly,and the destructive effect of the high-dose on worms was deadly.Worms recovered from rats in the control group showed no pathological changes.Conclusion The best dose of triclabendazole to treat rats infected with the juvenile worms of P.skrjabini is about 200 mg/kg·d.The mechanism of triclabendazole killing of P.skrjabini is damage to the tissue of both the body walls and intestines,which result in handicapping of both physiological function and biochemical metabolism of assimilation,absorb,exudation,excretion,etc.of the parasite.The worms are ultimately killed or wounded.


This study aims to obtain information regarding the effect of the RPO on students' scientific literacy using global scientific literacy questionnaire (GSLQ) in terms of GSLQ dimension and gender differences. The quantitative research approach is used with experimental methods. The U Mann Whitney, Wilcoxon, T-Test, and descriptive statistics were used to determine whether there were differences in students' global scientific literacy between the control group and the experiment group. The results show that there are no significant differences in students' global scientific literacy between the control and experiment groups, nevertheless, the results in the experiment group show that RPO appears to have significant effects, especially in the habits of mind dimension and across students' gender. Male students in the experiment group are able to show better results on habits of mind dimension than female students. However, female students in the experiment group are able to show a higher increase than the students in the control group.


Sodium borotellurite glasses in the system xNaF2-(20-x)Na2O-40B2O3-40TeO2 ((0 < x < 20 mol%) were ready by melt quenching method. The density, molar volume and optical parameters were calculated for present glasses with increasing NaF2 concentration. The results shows that the calculated parameters strongly depends on increasing NaF2 concentration. The density reduction is due fluorine ions will enters interstitial spaces of the network and breaking B-O-Te bonds which results decreasing density of the present glasses. The thermodynamically parameters such as glass transition temperature and onset of crystallization temperature of the present glasses and were found to decrease as a function of NaF2 concentration. A shift of UV absorption edge to longer wavelength indicating reduction in the number of NBO's with increasing fluorine concentration. When NaF2 introduced in glass network, fluorine ions break the network effects in a depolymerization, i.e. B-O-Te bonds are broken and non-bridging oxygen's are made hence the decreasing band gap energy observed in the present glasses. Keywords—Glasses,Density,Optial absorption


The Bruce Mansfield Plant Units 1, 2, and 3 are currently being constructed on a 500-acre site on the Ohio River at Shippingport, Pennsylvania. Mansfield will be the nation's first coal-fired electric power plant with air and water quality control systems to meet both the Federal and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania standards engineered into its initial design. The premium for these environmental safeguards is reflected, in part, in the amount of auxiliary station power which will be required--a shocking 10 percent, or double the amount required for similarly-sized generating units only a few years ago. An overview is provided of the total plant with particular emphasis on the furnace draft controls and the protection logic associated with the steam generator system.


We present a measurement of the time-dependent CP asymmetry in the radiative-penguin decay B0 to KS pi+ pi- gamma, using a sample of 470.9 million Upsilon(4S) to BBbar events recorded with the BaBar detector at the Pep-II e+e- storage ring at SLAC. Using events with m(K pi pi)<1.8 GeV/c^2, 0.60.945 GeV/c^2, we obtain the CP-violating parameters S(KS pi+ pi- gamma) = 0.137 pm 0.249 + 0.042 - 0.033 and C(KS pi+ pi- gamma) = -0.390 pm 0.204 + 0.045 - 0.050, where the first quoted errors are statistical and the second are systematic. We extract from this measurement the time-dependent CP asymmetry related to the hadronic CP eigenstate $rho^0 KS$ and obtain S(KS Rho0 gamma) = 0.249 pm 0.455 + 0.076 - 0.060. This observable provides information on the photon polarization in the underlying $b to s gamma$ transition. To extract S(KS Rho0 gamma) from S(KS pi+ pi- gamma), assuming isospin symmetry, we study B+ to K+ pi+ pi- gamma decays and measure intermediate resonant amplitudes of different resonances decaying to $Kpipi$ through the intermediate states Rho0 K+, Kstar0 pi+ et (K pi) S-wave pi+. In addition to the need of this information for the extraction of S(KS pi+ pi- gamma), it provides input on the B to K pi pi system, which is useful for other studies of the photon polarization. The fractions of the different Kres to K pi pi states as well as the overall fractions of the Rho0 K+, Kstar0 pi+ et (K pi) S-wave pi+ components are also measured.


This resource explores the rise in popularity of Indian cinema in Britain. It delves into the history of Indian film viewing in this country and also looks at the growing relationship between Bollywood and Britain today.


The alkylpotassium compound KC{SiMe3}(2){SiMe(2)hpp} (hppH = 1,3,4,6,7,8-hexahydro-2H-pyrimido[1,2-a]pyrimidine) reacts with a slurry of CaI2 in toluene to give the internally coordinated dialkylcalcium(II) complex Ca(C{SiMe3}(2){SiMe(2)hpp})(2). The molecular structure in the solid state shows short Ca-N and long Ca-C bonds and a wide C-Ca-C angle. The H-1 and C-13 NMR spectra suggest that the metallacycle is transiently opened in toluene at room temperature.


The application of new power supply units such as lithium battery pack makes the bus voltage of special heavy vehicles increase continuously, which puts forward wider requirements for the input voltage range of auxiliary power supply. To improve the power density, gallium nitride high electron mobility transistors (GaN HEMT) is designed as a switching device. Considering the device voltage resistance, the half-bridge three-level topology is selected for design, and driver modes and self-voltage characteristics of the topology are analyzed and verified by simulation. A 2kW prototype was designed, and the peak efficiency of 400V to SOOV voltage input and 25V to 40V voltage output was achieved, and the peak power reached 93.87%.


A Software package for cilyndrical near field far field antenna transformation is presentad. The package includes radiation pattern analysis and high-quality graphics display.


This article develops a critique of aspects of Urry's `tourist gaze' through an analysis of contemporary tourism in New Zealand. We argue that the metaphorical basis of the gaze seems to lie in the experience of tourism in Europe among particular classes of tourists. In that situation, tourists spend a considerable amount of time looking at historical landscapes and related interpretative sites/sights. By contrast, both international and domestic tourists in European settler societies such as New Zealand participate in active forms of touristic recreation; thus gazing is only one component of the tourist experience. This leads us to suggest that a better metaphorical approach to tourism is to talk about the tourist performance, which incorporates ideas of active bodily involvement, physical activity and gazing.


The purpose of this research is two-fold: first, we have surveyed food pantry participants to assess their knowledge and selection of probiotic-containing foods; and second, we have evaluated and compared the availability and viability of probiotic cultures in the cheese and yogurts available at a local food pantry, in a retail market, and in fresh, homemade food products.

 This study examined the availability, awareness, and usage of probiotic-containing food by food pantry participants. The study consisted of two parts. The first part examined the awareness and usage of probiotic foods by the food pantry participants that were evaluated by a validated survey. The survey was conducted with participants from four different food pantries in Wisconsin in September-October 2017. Survey data were analyzed by using the Statistical Program for Social Sciences (SPSS, version 24.0, 2016, SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL). Descriptive statistics, t-tests, and Pearson Chi-Squared analyses were used to examine the awareness and usage of probiotics by the participants. The second part analyzed the viability of probiotic bacteria in various kinds of yogurt and cheese available in a local food pantry as well as store-bought, high-quality cheese and yogurt, and homemade yogurt in the laboratory. Lactobacillus app. in the cheese and yogurt samples were isolated by MRS agar. The special formula was used to calculate the number of Lactobacillus app. in the samples.

 The results show 82.9% of survey participants (n = 205) reported that they heard the word probiotics, but only 44% of those are knowledgeable on probiotics. Importantly, knowledge of probiotics correlates to increased consumption of yogurt but not pickles and cheese. Lactobacillus viability did not vary significantly between expensive and cheap yogurt brands but was absent in processed yogurt and cheese.

 Probiotics could be found in the food pantries but only in a limited quantity and frequency. Thus, nutrition education and interventions are needed to educate the food pantry directors on the importance of probiotic foods, especially dairy products. Also, there is a need to educate food pantry participants about probiotics.

 Student Research Grant; Research Services, University of Wisconsin-Stout.


VACCINATION IN BOMiBAY. THE Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of Bombay reports that during 1912-13 tlle nunmber of primary vaccinations was 710,592 and of revaccinaations 70,939, the respective increases as compared with the preccding year being 18,419 and 2,247. Throughout the districts the percentage of successful vaccinations, excluding the " unknown " results, was 97.99. Of the total number of persons prinmarily vaccinated, 5,894 were Clhristians, 537,795 Hindus, 123,617 Molhammedans, 1,641 Parsis, and 41,645 persons of otlher castes. The age details are compiled for three periods-namelv, under 1 year, between 1 and 6 years, and above 6 years. The nuinmber in each age-period primarily vaccinated was 559,221, 128,799, and -22,572 respectively, while the su-ccessful operations for the same age-periods were 514,423, 115,400, and 9,584. The expenditure on vaccination amounted to Rs.376,586, as compared witlh Rs.353,706 in 1911-12. During the year 775,587 doses of lymplh were distributed, as against 673,812 in 1911-12 -641,975 to vaccinators of the Presidency, 22,415 to vaccinators in Sind, 31,175 to medical officers, and 80,022 to niative States. The total cost of the Vaccine Institute at Belgaunm was Rs.36,578, as against Rs.34,508 in 1911-12, the excess being due to an increase in the director's pay and allowances, a greater number of stable attendants, grain compensation, and travelling alloWances to the staff. The cost per dose of lymph amounted to 8.71 pies, as against 7.26 pies in 1911-12. Consequently, allowing 4 per cent. interest on the capital cost of buildings, the cost dose works out at 11.22 pies. No instances were reported of any disease having been communicated through vaccination.


An agency-agent based framework for monitoring industrial systems may comprise agents with a different tasks, (e.g. strictly measurement, computation, decision making, simulation), each implemented in a dedicated environment (e.g. LabVIEW, Matlab, custom simulators). The focus of this work is a heterogeneous agent-based monitoring system; aim of this work is to provide this complex environment with the interaction and proactiveness capabilities proper of agents. This goal is achieved by developing and setting up application program interfaces (APIs) that allow the agents to interact over a network, exchanging data and commands. Thanks to these interactions data requests can be placed and local agents can properly react. In the application presented here, it was shown how an agent-based architecture implementing APIs can be usefully employed to coordinate the roles and operations performed by the agents. In particular, it is shown how a control agent, operating an induction motor drive, can interact with a data acquisition and monitoring agent, monitoring the status of the power network that supplies the drive


Renal cyst enlargement especially in polycystic kidney disease (PKD) is driven by P2Y receptor‐mediated and cAMP‐mediated chloride secretion into cyst lumen. This study aimed to determine the effect of an anti‐asthmatic drug montelukast, cysteinyl leukotriene (CysLT) 1 receptor antagonist, on renal cyst progression and to investigate underlying mechanisms of such an effect. In MDCK cyst model, montelukast (50 μM) inhibited forskolin‐induced cyst growth and cyst formation by 80%. This effect was not reversed by leukotriene D4 co‐incubation. In addition, zileuton, an inhibitor of leukotriene synthesis, had no effect on cyst growth. As analyzed by short‐circuit current measurements, acute treatment with montelukast (50 μM) inhibited ATP (P2Y agonist)‐induced chloride secretion by 50%, with no effect on cAMP‐induced chloride secretion. Similarly, prolonged treatment with montelukast (50 μM, 24 h) significantly inhibited ATP‐induced chloride secretion. Furthermore, montelukast had no effect on cell viability. Our study indicates that montelukast inhibits MDCK cyst progression by attenuating purinergic signaling in these cells. Therefore, montelukast represents a promising candidate drug for PKD therapy.


.................................................................................................................vii LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................... xiv LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................... xv CHAPTER 1. BACKGROUND ON HEPARIN AND HEPARIN -PROTEIN INTERACTIONS ................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) ......................................................................... 1 1.1.1 Heparan Sulfate and Heparin ........................................................... 2 1.2 Polyelectrolyte properties of GAGs ................................................................ 4 1.3 GAG-Protein Interactions ............................................................................... 5 1.3.1 Conventional models in protein-Hp binding ..................................... 6 1.3.2 Alternative models in protein-Hp binding ........................................ 8 1.4 Roles of electrostatics in Hp-Protein binding ................................................ 10 1.5 Low Molecular Weight Heparins: Therapeutic Significances ........................ 12 1.6 Aim and Outline of the Thesis ...................................................................... 13 2. COUNTERION CONDENSATION ON HEPARIN OLIGOMERS ................... 15 2.1 Abstract ........................................................................................................ 15 2.2 Introduction .................................................................................................. 16 x 2.3 Experimental ................................................................................................ 20 2.3.1 Materials ........................................................................................ 20 2.3.2 Methods ......................................................................................... 20 18.104.22.168 Capillary Electrophoresis (CE) ........................................ 20 22.214.171.124 Mass Spectrometry (MS) ................................................. 21 220.127.116.11 Size Exclusion Chromatography (SEC) ........................... 22 2.4 Results ......................................................................................................... 22 2.5 Discussion .................................................................................................... 27 2.6 Conclusions .................................................................................................. 35 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................... 36 3. A HEPARIN DECAMER BRIDGES A GROWTH FACTOR AND AN OLIGOLYSINE BY DIFFERENT CHARGE-DRIVEN INTERACTIONS ....... 37 3.1 Abstract ........................................................................................................ 37 3.2 Introduction .................................................................................................. 38 3.3 Experimental ................................................................................................ 43 3.3.1 Materials ........................................................................................ 43 3.3.2 Methods. ........................................................................................ 43 220.127.116.11 Mass Spectrometry .......................................................... 43 126.96.36.199 Computational ................................................................. 44 188.8.131.52 Cell Culture and Proliferation Assays .............................. 44 188.8.131.52 Statistical Analysis .......................................................... 45 3.4 Results and discussion .................................................................................. 46 3.4.1 K4 binding to dp 10 ....................................................................... 46 3.4.2 FGF binding to dp10 ...................................................................... 48 3.4.3 Ternary complex formation ............................................................ 53 3.4.4 Biological activity of FGF vs FGF·dp10·K4 ................................... 57 xi 3.5 Conclusions .................................................................................................. 58 4. STRUCTURAL DETERMINANTS OF ELECTROSTATIC INTERACTIONS BETWEEN PROTEINS AND POLYANIONS: AN ESI-MS STUDY OF FIBROBLAST GROWTH FACTOR BINDING TO HEPARIN OLIGOMERS .................................................................................. 60 4.1 Abstract ........................................................................................................ 60 4.2 Introduction .................................................................................................. 61 4.3 Experimental ................................................................................................ 64 4.3.1 Materials ........................................................................................ 64 4.3.2 Methods ......................................................................................... 64 18.104.22.168 Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry (ESIMS) ................................................................................. 64 18.104.22.168 DelPhi Calculations ......................................................... 65 22.214.171.124 Monte-Carlo Simulations................................................. 65 4.4 Results and Discussion ................................................................................. 66 4.4.1 Heparin facilitates formation of FGF-1 multimeric complexes ....... 66 4.4.2 Higher sulfated chains promote formation of multimeric complexes of FGF-1 ................................................................... 70 4.4.3 When bulk stoichiometry leads to a significant amount of bound heparin, the charge density of the free heparin is low relative to the initial heparin ........................................................ 73 4.5 Conclusions .................................................................................................. 77 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................. 77 5. ELECTROSPRAY IONIZATION MASS SPECTROMETRY STUDY TO REVEAL THE EFFECT OF HEPARIN CHAIN LENGTH ON ANTITHROMBIN AND FACTOR XA COMPLEX FORMATION.................. 78 5.


In anti-sliding pile designing for Reservoir landslide improvement,the reasonable pile position determination is very important,which effects the engineering safety and cost.Taking Zhanghuanhoumiao east landslide for example,based on the engineering geological condition investigation and with the GeoStudio software,according to the reservoir operation curve,considering 4 different pile positions,the numerical simulations were done.The results show that: ① When water level rising up,the displacement of front edge decreases,but the displacement of back edge increases.The maximum displacement of the front edge appears during water level drawing down and lowest water level.The maximum.displacement of the back edge appears during water level rising up and the highest water level.② The reasonable pile position for the back,front and middle of the landslide are separately Ⅰ,Ⅱ pile positions.I pile is at the 175m,which residual pushing force is maximum the best pile is Ⅱ pile position,which is 130m from the shearing out point of landslide.At last,considering the influence of the water level fluctuation,the modified method of the safety factor for the anti-sliding pile design is presented,which will be important to the anti-sliding pile design for reservoir landslide.


A series of copper complexes employing the neutral, bidentate, pyrazole-based ligand diphenyldipyrazolylmethane was synthesized and fully characterized by various techniques, including elemental analysis, EPR, and structure elucidation by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The structures of compounds 3−8 reveal variable coordination environments at the copper center, ranging from square pyramidal to tetrahedral, depending on the steric bulk at the pyrazole periphery and on the identity of the counterion. Cyclic voltammetry data on these compounds show a positively shifted reduction potential as compared to those observed employing the negatively charged pyrazolylborates or β-diketiminates. These results indicate that these compounds may lead to (thiol)copper complexes that more accurately reproduce the reduction potentials observed during electron-transfer processes in blue copper proteins. (© Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2004)


Ramsey's theorem states that if pairs of natural numbers are colored using finitely many colors, then there is an infinite monochromatic subset. We consider for which ideals I on the natural numbers and for which n the "infinite monochromatic" clause can be modified to "I-positive n-chromatic". The case n = 1 was studied by Hrusak et al. (2017). We generalize this to consider arbitrary values of n. We introduce a family of ideals EDm,n which exhibit nice polychromatic Ramsey properties. We prove exactly which Ramsey properties for colorings of pairs imply which others. We also consider generalizing from colorings of pairs to colorings of k-element sets.


The paper discusses the need to have elections completely free of crime, and abuse of money, based on a perfect electoral roll, and with full voter participation.


This is the initial result of the sum-up of the work of two teams. It refers to issues of 1. terminology in the field of the mental health problems of 'children of inclusive education', 2. teacher training and 3. the desire to know of students with serious psychological problems. The two teams (LEPSI, Faculty of Education/Institute of Psychology, University of Sao Paulo, and CLIOPSY, University of Paris V and Paris X) belong to the research field of the intersections between psychoanalysis and education. In regard to the terminology discussion around the designation of "disabled children, handicapped or with special needs", the authors chose to defend the revival of the old expression "mental problems", in order to signal the rejection of a massive presence of medical discourse in the area of education. In the field of the care for practitioners of inclusive education, the authors consider it essential to identify the conditions that will protect the educator from the 'burn-out' or the professional depression in face of the heavy and complex work of school inclusion. They report a French and a Brazilian studies around that theme. Finally, they discuss the place of the desire to know in the schooling of children with serious psychological problems. It follows that if the inclusive school of today is not able to make questions about the desire to know, we must mobilize educators, psychoanalysts and researchers to work toward a transformation of that school


Objective To study the relation of the tinnitus and vertebrobasilar transient ischemic attacks (VBI).Methods The determination of brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEP) and auditory disorders is given to the patients of VBI with tinnitus.The patients of VBI without tinnitus are as a control group.Results The peak latency (PL)of all waves is significantly leng in the group of VBI with tinnitus.Wave I is the longest in PL.With presence of the posterior waves,this difference is gradually getting small.The changes of interpeak latencies(IPL)of wave Ⅰ~Ⅲ,Ⅲ~Ⅴ and Ⅰ~Ⅴ are not significant.The patients of VBI with tinnitus often have minor auditory disorders.Conclusion The tinnitus is may be earlier symptom and often complain of VBI.BAEP is useful to the diagnosis of VBI.


To estimate spot urine microalbumin levels in metabolically healthy and metabolically unhealthy obese individuals in relation to metabolic syndrome risk factors of NCEP ATP III criteria. Total 50 (16 female; 34 male) obese subjects aged between age ranges between 29 to 62 years old were analyzed for metabolic syndrome parameters and spot urine microalbumin levels. 14 subjects who are having high urine micro albumin levels and urine samples which give positive (+) for dip stick were excluded from this study. Among the 36 obese subjects 25 subjects are having at least one other metabolic syndrome risk factor along with increased waist circumference considered as metabolically unhealthy (MUHO) and 11 subjects were considered as metabolically healthy (MHO). High (55.87±16.78) micro albumin levels noted in obese group. Very high levels of urine microalbumin noted among metabolically unhealthy obese (107.52±56.54). It was 13.98±5.34 among the metabolically healthy obese group. The mean urine microalbumin level among MHO individuals was towards the upper reference level but within the allowed reference level (< 25 mg/L) The correlation of urine microalbumin with number of metabolic syndrome risk factors was statistically significant (r=0.7020; p=0.0001). Among the risk factors blood pressure [systolic r=0.4149; p=0.0392 and diastolic r=0.6486; p=0.0005] and Fasting blood glucose (r=0.6938; p=0.0001) were highly correlated where as waist circumference was not correlated with urine micro albumin levels. Elevated spot urine microalbumin levels among the metabolically healthy obese individuals may predict the micro-vascular endothelial dysfunction.


In today's competitive market scenario, organizations increasingly understand the importance of building and effectively managing the relationship with its passengers. For building and maintaining a healthy relationship with the passenger, organizations need to understand and meet the expectations of its passenger. The organizations today should aim not only at delivery of the service to the passengers, but should also focus on satisfying the passengers with the service. Thus it has become imperative for organizations to identify factors that cause passenger satisfaction or dissatisfaction and consciously measure them so as to try and bring about the necessary changes on the basis of passenger perceptions. In this regard, the present study has been undertaken to find the passengers' perception regarding the service quality in public and private (low cost) Airlines in India for which 100 passengers from different regions of India have been taken as respondents. This study focuses on the following objectives: to identify the most important factors in passenger service both in public as well as in private low cost airlines, to compare and contrast the services on the basis of collected data and to suggest some adequate measures to improve their passenger services. The significantly and positively influencing factors related to passenger's satisfaction and image of both the airlines' are identified with the help of factor analysis. Recommendations have been made so that both types of airlines are enabled to retain their existing clients as well as attract new passengers.


This study aimed to analyze the factors that affect the value of companies listed on the stock exchange Indonesia. This study uses data from 2010 to 2013, and analyzes it using several statistical methods. X variables tested in this study are dividend payout ratio, current ratio, debt to equity, net profit margin, and inventory turnover. While the value of the company measured by Tobins Q. The results of this study indicate that dividend payout ratio, current ratio, debt to equity, net profit margin, or either inventory turnover does not affect the value of manufacturing company (Tobins Q) listed in 2010 until 2013. However, those variables significantly influence the value of the company (Tobins Q) simultaneously.


We present new Very Large Array ( VLA ) H I spectral line imaging of fi ve sources discovered by the ALFALFA extragalactic survey. These targets are drawn from a larger sample of systems that were not uniquely identi fi ed with optical counterparts during ALFALFA processing, and as such have unusually high H I mass to light ratios. The candidate " Almost Dark " objects fall into four broad categories: ( 1 ) objects with nearby H I neighbors that are likely of tidal origin; ( 2 ) objects that appear to be part of a system of multiple H I sources, but which may not be tidal in origin; ( 3 ) objects isolated from nearby ALFALFA H I detections, but located near a gas-poor early type galaxy; ( 4 ) apparently isolated sources, with no object of coincident redshift within ∼ 400 kpc. Roughly 75% of the 200 objects without identi fi ed counterparts in the α .40 database ( Haynes et al. 2011 ) fall into category 1 ( likely tidal ) , and were not considered for synthesis follow-up observations. The pilot sample presented here ( AGC193953, AGC208602, AGC208399, AGC226178, and AGC233638 ) contains the fi rst fi ve sources observed as part of a larger effort to characterize H I sources with no readily identi fi able optical counterpart at single dish resolution ( 3 ′ .5 ) . These objects span a range of H I mass [ 7.41 < log ( M H I ) < 9.51 ] and H I mass to B-band luminosity ratios ( 3 < M H I / L B < 9 ) . We compare the H I total intensity and velocity fi elds to optical imaging drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and to ultraviolet imaging drawn from archival GALEX observations. Four of the sources with uncertain or no optical counterpart in the ALFALFA data are identi fi ed with low surface brightness optical counterparts in Sloan Digital Sky Survey imaging when compared with VLA H I intensity maps, and appear to be galaxies with clear signs of ordered rotation in the H I velocity fi elds. Three of these are detected in far-ultraviolet GALEX images, a likely indication of star formation within the last few hundred Myrs. One source ( AGC208602 ) is likely tidal in nature, associated with the NGC 3370 group. Consistent with previous efforts, we fi nd no " dark galaxies " in this limited sample. However, the present observations do reveal complex sources with suppressed star formation, highlighting both the observational dif fi culties and the necessity of synthesis follow-up observations to understand these extreme objects.


The general concepts and understandings of the international security environment in the 21st century have become more complex owing to a multitude of factors spanning both traditional and novel security domains. In the current era, nuclear security in particular has continued to exist in its paramount role of importance. The following paper explores the defined state of the "strategic nuclear balance" as a state extant within the systemic approach towards international security. Based upon previous research in defining the state through core concepts fundamental to systems theory and supporting concepts such as those of centres of gravity, this paper aims to further expand contemporary understandings and illustrate a point of coalescence. Thereby the given study demonstrates how based upon key postulations in the understanding of the security concept in systems theory and centres of gravity of both physical and non-physical nature within a system, a combined novel model can be extrapolated, which demonstrates the security dynamic in the "strategic nuclear balance" between major global nuclear armed state actors.


The apparent molar volume ( �V), viscosity B-coefficient have been determined of zinc chloride in 2%, 4% and 6% aqueous solution of dextrose at 303.15K, 308.15K and 313.15 K from density ( �) and viscosity ( �) measurements respectively. The limiting apparent molar volumes ( �V 0 ) and experimental slopes (S V*), derived from the Masson equation, have been interpreted in terms of solute–solvent and solute–solute interactions respectively. The viscosity data were analyzed using the Jones–Dole equation and the derived parameter B has also been interpreted in terms of solute–solvent interactions in the solutions. The structure making/breaking behavior of Zinc chloride is inferred from the sign of (� 2 φV 0 /�T 2 )P and dB/dT.