The influence of foliar application of calcium chloride and borax on the fruit quality of litchi cultivars was investigated by applying1-3% Calcium either alone or in combination with 0.5 to 1.5 Borax. The litchi cultivars varied significantly for quality traits . Cultivar Gola had the highest fruit weight (23.54 g), pulp weight (17.16 g), TSS (22.54%), total sugars (21.45%), reducing sugars (17.96%) and specific gravity (1.1051), while cultivar Bedana had the highest non-reducing sugars (9.72%). Foliar application of calcium chloride (CaCl2) alone had no significant effect on most of the quality variables, however, CaCl2 + Borax (Na2B4O7·10H2O) application increased the fruit weight (19.87 g), pulp weight (14.88 g) and pulp dry weight (13.76%) in control fruits to the maximum of 20.79, 15.69 g and 15.40% respectively with CaCl2 (3%) + Borax (1.5%). No variations were observed in total sugars, reducing sugars and non -reducing sugars of litchi fruit with application of CaCl2 alone, which increased significantly with foliar application of CaCl 2 3% + Borax. The planned paired means comparison showed that the least fruit weight (19.87 g), pulp weight (14.88 g) and pulp dry weight % (13.76% ) of control fruits increased significantly to 20.10 g, 14.94 g and 13.93% with CaCl2 application and further to 20.54 g, 15.38 g and 15.08% with CaCl2 + Borax treatments. The fruit weight, pulp weight and pulp dry weight % was significantly higher with CaCl2 + Borax foliar application as compared to CaCl2 alone. The total sugars, reducing sugars and non-reducing sugars were not significantly affected by CaCl 2 application but were significantly higher in Control vs. Rest, Control vs. CaCl2 + Borax and Ca vs. CaCl2 + Borax treatments means.


The article discusses academic inventors and their scientific advantage. Academic entrepreneurship has increased and with it debates and research on the advantage held by scientific academics. Universities with an an entrepreneurial orientation can benefit the local economy but there could be counterproductive pressures on the academic research agendas of said Universities. Whether or not there are performance differences between inventing academics and those that do not invent is researched. Empirical research as to other factors in performance differences is conducted.


A study was made of cyclotron resonance in n-type InSb in magnetic fields H=10--20 kOe at liquid-helium temperatures and a peak was found in addition to the N=0(: $Yields$N=1(: free-electron and (000) $Yields$ (010) impurity-electron transitions. This additional peak was attributed to the (000) $Yields$ (011) transition.


Based on data from the Research and Development Division of the Depok City KONI, until 2020 there were only 43.1% of Depok City coaches had sports branch certificates as legathe lization of competent coaches. This competency upgrading training aims to provide training on character competencies that are not usually discussed specifically in sports so far. The training participants are the coaches of Depok City and its surroundings who have handled 125 junior or beginner-level athletes. The training material contains basic characteristics (honesty, discipline, and cooperation) that sports coaches need to toer to internalize positive values so that the coach can become a "character role model" for his athletes. Based on the results of the training, it is known that most of the coaches have high / good interest, understanding, and analysis ability in participating in this competency upgrading training (interest is 99.2%, understanding is 80%, and alyticallity is 84%). There were no differences in coaches' interests, understanding, and analysis ability in terms of gender, age, and training experience. The results of this training provide important feedback for conducting competency upgrading training in Depok City in the future.


Type I rapidly fading supernovae (RFSNe) appear to originate from hydrogen-free stars with large radii that produce predominantly shock-cooling light curves, in contrast with more typical nickel-rich SNe Ibc. However, it remains to be determined what types of stars would produce bright shock-cooling light curves without significant contribution from radioactive nickel. Bare helium stars in the mass range ~2-4 solar masses are known to hydrostatically develop radii as large as 100 solar radii or more due to strong He and C shell burning outside of a core with a sharp density gradient. We produce several such stellar models and demonstrate that, when exploded, these helium giants can naturally produce RFSN light curves. Since many prototypical SNe Ibc should come from large-radius stars in this mass range as well, we predict that these RFSNe may be distinct from SNe Ibc solely due to the absence of substantial nickel.


With the computer popularization and campus network gradually maturing,the advantage of B/S work management system is becoming obvious.It will have a good promoted prospect and huge development space in different kinds of school.This article introduces the design of B/S work management system.


To examine the impact of 2001 and 2005 quality use of medicines (QUMs) diabetes programs implemented by National Prescribing Service (NPS) on the prevalence of utilisation of metformin and insulin among the Australian diabetes veteran population.


Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the degree of satisfaction and perceived relevance of the Graduate Business Education (GBE) programme at the University of Botswana.Design/methodology/approach – A self‐administered questionnaire and face to face interviews were used to collect data from Master of Business Administration (MBA) participants on their reason for studying MBA, level of satisfaction, and the extent to which the skills and experiences obtained correlate with those required by the corporate world. The data were analyzed using simple descriptive statistics.Findings – The majority of the respondents are male adults attending part time MBA classes and working full time in administrative positions in the public and private sectors. The study found that improved managerial skills, career development and broader business insights are major reasons for joining the MBA programme, while employability and economic gains were ranked low as driving forces. Even though the overall satisfactio...


At present, scale issues have become the focus of land use and cover change study. This paper gives an explicit description of complicated relation between scale and all the aspects of LUCC study. The existing problems and trend of scale study in the analysis of LUCC are discussed as well.


Japan experienced serious recession and deflation starting when the bubble economy burst at the beginning of the 1990s. Following a period of unprecedented zero interest rate policy in 1999-2000 intended to boost the Japanese economy, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) introduced the quantitative easing policy in March 2001. Under this policy, the BOJ employed purchases of asset-backed securities (ABSs) and commercial paper (CP) as well as government bonds. This article empirically examines the effects on financial markets of the BOJ's ABS purchases. Results indicate that ABS purchases effectively influence financial markets. This policy could contribute to the stabilization of financial markets in Japan. Also, such ABS purchases could both increase stock prices and support small and medium-sized enterprises.


Described here are methods for the treatment of respiratory conditions using nebulized corticosteroids. The methods administer a dose of corticosteroid twice a day or more with nebulization times of 5 minutes or less. The faster nebulization times improve patient compliance. The methods also employ a lower corticosteroid dose while achieving therapeutic efficacy similar to commercially available formulations. This results in improved patient safety by reducing the systemic exposure of the corticosteroid.


One of the major tasks of the social program of the state is to strengthen and maintain the health of youth. In the context of significant deterioration of the psychophysical readiness of young students, the issue of maintaining their health cannot be considered outside the context of physical education, which is of great social importance in this perspective. Moreover, the quality of higher education is equated with the quality of training of able-bodied professionals. This is ensured by the proper state of their health. In the period of quarantine, the students were forced to spend maximum time only on mental activity via distance mode of learning. An adequate and only possible response to the challenges of today is the use of distance learning technologies for students to effectively implement their physical education in quarantine. At the same time, one of the key problems is the proper organization of physical culture and health activities of students to maintain their health in conditions of extremely limited physical activity.


Discussions 581 The Authors appreciate the interest by the Discussers in the presented work. Chu and Leong point out that different conclusions regarding liquefaction potential may be reached depending on the choice of void ratio used as reference for the evaluation. They suggest that a different conclusion might have been reached if a constant void after consolidation had been employed as background for the comparison of results of undrained tests. They also point out that it is the post consolidation void ratio, ec, that is used to establish the steady state behavior. Isotropic compression tests of four different initial densities of Nevada sand with 6 percent fines content at confining pressures ranging from 20 to 500 kPa are shown in Fig. DR1. The bases of comparisons of the Authors and Discussers are also shown in the figure. The Authors deduced "reverse" behavior on the basis of examining the behavior along an isotropic consolidation line (e.g., the 12 percent initial relative density line as shown in the figure). The Discussers propose using a constant void ratio line as their basis of comparison, as shown in the drawing. However, one observes that the four different isotropic compression lines in Fig. DR1 do not overlap with respect to void ratio in the confining pressure ranges that were employed in the study. Therefore, using a constant void ratio basis of comparison was not possible. However, the Authors believe that the conclusion drawn from their basis of comparison data is correct. The test specimens for each of the two series of cited tests had the same initial void ratio before isotropic compression (e.g., all tests were on the same isotropic compression line). The Authors are not aware of any reported test results on loose clean sands that show this reverse pattern of behavior when sheared from the same isotropic compression line at different confining pressures. The conventional pattern of undrained behavior of clean sands when sheared from the same isotropic compression line is shown in Fig. DR2. The schematic p′–q diagram shows effective stress paths exhibiting the three different types of behavior patterns associated with clean sands (Yamamuro and Lade 1997). They are (1) stable behavior at low confining pressures; (2) temporary instability at intermediate confining pressures; (3) instability behavior at high confining pressures. The pattern of behavior indicates an increasing contractive volumetric tendency with increasing initial confining pressure. Since they were sheared from the same isotropic consolidation line (consolidation void ratios are different), the


A new optimal guidance law is presented on the basis of the simplified missile-target attacking model. The maneuvering targets acceleration and uncertainty of the measurement system has been consideredby using Kalman filter theoryand acomparative simulation is done on the same conditions for proportional navigation (PN), argument proportional navigation (APN) and optimal guidance law (OGL) respectively to show the optimality of the conclusions.


Scores of 11 male and 21 female college students on the Hostility and Social Acquiescence subscales of the Famous Sayings Test correlated significantly and positively with Eysenck's Neuroticism factor.


Fanleaf degeneration is one of the most serious grapevine diseases. Caused by grapevine fanleaf virus (GFLV), it is compounded by the feeding damage of Xiphinema index Thorne and Allen, the nematode vector. The disease progresses rapidly, and yields of infected vines eventually decrease up to 80% (Martelli and Savino, 1988). Efforts to control the vector with nematicides were not completely successful, as explained in a review by Raski et al. (1983). These and similar results led to the initiation, more than 20 years ago, of a breeding program at the Univ. of California, Davis, to develop a grapevine rootstock resistant to fanleaf degeneration. This rootstock breeding program continues with the goal of combining sources of resistance to GFLV with sources of resistance to X. index. We report on VR 039-16, an interim release from that program.


Reaction of readily available pyrazole-3-carbonyl azides (I) with amines in refluxing toluene smoothly affords the title pyrazolylurea derivatives (IV) (12 examples) via an initial thermal Curtius rearrangement.


Organo-soluble alicyplic polyimides (ALPIs) were synthesized from an alicyclic dianhydride, 1,8-dimethyl-bicyclo[2.2.2]oct-7-ene-2,3,5,6-tetracarboxylic dianhydride (DMEA) and several multialkyl-substituted 4,4'-diaminodiphenylmethane compounds, including 3,3'-dimethyl-4,4'-diaminodiphenyl methane (DMDA), 3,3',5,5'-tetramethyl-4,4'-diaminodiphenyl methane (TMDA) and 3,3',5,5'-tetraethyl-4,4'-diaminodiphenylmethane (TEDA). For comparison, the aromatic polyimides (ARPIs) were synthesized from the aromatic dianhydride, 3,3',4,4'-benzophenonetetracarboxylic dianhydride (BTDA) and the same diamines. The ALPIs exhibited better solubility and transparency, but worse thermal stabilities and mechanical properties than those of the ARPIs. And the ALPIs could be dissolved in common organic solvents, such as N-methyl-2-pyrrolidinone (NMP), N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF), N,N-dimethylacetamide (DMAc), chloroform, tetrahydrofuran, m-cresol and so on. The ALPI films had an UV-Vis cut-off at 320 nm and a transmittance of higher than 80% in the visible region. In addition, the ALPIs showed thermal decomposition temperatures (T d ) of about 450°C, which was nearly 100°C lower than that of the ARPIs.


Summary

A study of the feeding ecology and breeding biology of the South Georgia Pintail was conducted in East Cumberland Bay during November and December 1971. Of a variety of water areas available, pintails fed and reared their broods in tussock-trimmed ponds. The second most important feeding areas were sheltered fjords and seashores. Food included freshwater invertebrates such as fairy shrimp, marine amphipods and snails, and small amounts of marine algae. Considering the climatic conditions, the breeding season spans a long season from late October to early March. Courtship and social behaviour are very similar to that of the pintail, and displays and calls could not be differentiated from those of A. g. spinicauda.

There is now one other species of duck on South Georgia, the Speckled Teal, but, because it occurs sympatrically with A. g. spinicauda throughout temperate South America and tends to use different food resources, no serious competition is expected.

It is concluded that these species have successfully adapted to South Georgia because of the availability of protected, food-rich ponds for rearing young and because of the semimarine adaptations that have developed in Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands.


Cost effective implementation of a low energy, sustainable design for a small office building requires commitment and planning, as well as an integrated application of advanced building technologies. The result can be exemplary low energy performance as a prelude to a zero energy building as demonstrated by this case study of the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities (IAMU) Office Building and Training Complex. This paper describes the design process, technology application and performance monitoring results for a small (12,500 square foot), single-story, commercial office building. The design process was driven by commitment to a low energy use goal and the application of computer simulation tools to evaluate building options supporting that goal. The energy efficient building technologies include: high performance envelope, daylighting, ground source heat pump system and energy recovery ventilation. Actual building energy performance is monitored with separate metering for lighting, HVAC, general use (plug load) energy and other building loads. The rest of the story includes a performance analysis of actual energy consumption profiles; equipment performance patterns; and other operational issues accumulated during a five year monitoring project. Comparisons of actual energy use against common benchmarks are drawn. The discussion identifies what worked well and the lessons learned from this case study project. The results document that this exemplary low energy building has a site energy use index nearly 60% less than an equivalent, energy code compliant building and operates at half of the annual energy cost.


In 1999, the FDA issued a guidance imposing certain requirements on electronic submissions. Under this guidance, an analysis data set must be converted into a SAS transport file. As a result, it is important for programmers to have a convenient and reliable tool to perform this conversion. We have developed such a tool in the form of a utility macro. This macro can also be used to efficiently and effectively split data sets when they exceed the FDA-imposed size limitation. We have tested this macro in many projects, and it has proved to be a very efficient and advantageous tool in FDA submissions.


Whether the scientists like it or not, astrobiology is an almost religious science. Why? Because, just as a guitarist picks a string to make music, outer space twangs our religious sensibilities. In particular, the near infinite distances and unfathomable magnificence of the cosmos vibrate within the depth of our souls. Harvard astronomer Owen Gingerich reminds us, "Cosmology is a voyage of the human spirit." The macrocosm has a powerful evocative draw on the microcosm. To start us off, here's a basic definition. According to Jill Tarter, former director of SETI Institute, "Astrobiology is the science that deals with the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the Universe." Now, here is my observation. No matter how droll and expressionless the SETI astrobiologist may be when sharing newly discovered data, you and I listen on the edge of our chairs asking: "be there intelligent beings in our heavens?" Our basic human experience with what's up there—the sky and outer space beyond the sky —is inherently religious. When astrobiology or any other science denudes the data of its spiritual valence, it abstracts. What the astrotheologian needs, then, is a method for retrieving both the facts and meaning of outer space.


In this paper we establish sharp L p -regularity estimates for averaging operators with convolution kernel associated to hypersurfaces in Rd(d ≥ 2) of the form y 7→(y,(y)) where y ∈ Rd−1 and (y) = P d−1 i=1 ±|yi| mi with 2 ≤ m1 ≤ ··· ≤ m d−1.


This paper will develop broad sociological frameworks for the terms power, status and mobility as social constructs. These will be related to the role of transportation in society, and more specifically to road use and users. Linkages will be developed between the social dimensions of power, status and mobility, and their physical manifestations, especially in the area of road use. Crashes will be considered sociologically as acts of violence to be understood as functioning within the frameworks of social power, status and mobility, and their more obvious physical counterparts. Vulnerability to injury and death on the roads will be treated in part as the flip-side of this analysis of violence. Crash data will be used from a number of countries and regions, some with similar, some with radically different socio-demographic characteristics. Wherever possible, injury data will be used in addition to death data, with the usual caveats on accuracy explained in sociological terms.


The Russian banking sector is composed of almost 500 banks, but does it mean it is competitive? The aim of the study is to determine the scale of competition in the Russian banking sector in the light of the undertaken reforms, whose goal has been to reinforce banks' and to limit their number. The analysis covering the period 2010–2015 was based on the financial statements of banks (balance sheets and profit and loss accounts) drawn from BankScope. The author examined the indicators of concentration and computed non-structural measures of competition, then comparing the scale of competition on the Russian banking services market with three emerging economies of a similar size: Brazil, India and China. The applied unstructured measures of competition (H statistics, Lerner index and Boone index) yielded results indicating that the type of competition on the Russian market of banking services could be defined as monopolistic. The structures of the market for banking services of the three other examined countries also correspond to the model of monopolistic competition, but nevertheless they allow more competition than the Russian one.


Political quality, concentrating on view of value, plays a key role in quality-oriented education. Being characterized by a distinctive practical and modern flavor, the education of view of value basically aims at helping people distinguish clearly between right and wrong to guide their performances, which involves four aspects; individuals and nature, individuals and ego, individuals and the others, individuals and society.


The levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and volatile N-nitrosamines were measured in wheat grain before and after drying with direct natural gas heating. A sampling procedure making it possible to match samples from the ingoing and outgoing grain streams in the drier was used. The PAH levels were generally low, eg benzo[a]pyrene concentrations were 0.1 μg kg−1 or lower. No consistent differences in PAH levels between the ingoing and outgoing grain samples were observed. No detectable amounts of volatile N-nitrosamines were found in any of the samples, before or after drying.


A sole structure for a Masai walking footwear is provided to prevent a Masai sensor from being damaged by a hydrolysis effect so as to keep an original shape of outsole and footwear themselves, and to achieve an excellent shape recovery characteristic of the outsole so as to improve a walking stability. A Masai walking footwear is composed of an instep strap, a slipsole, an insole, a midsole and an outsole which is projected toward outside in a convex manner. A sole structure includes: a midsole(20), having a high-elastic shank(29) which has many slits and a bead-shaped rib, and which is made out of one material, selected among a polyester and a polyurethane with a hardness degree of 40 to 60, and is built in an upper side of the midsole itself, and a Masai-sensor space(22) which is formed from the center to a rear end of the midsole itself; a Masai sensor(40), configured as a soft sensing element, and having an inner cushion which is made out of one material selected from a soft polyester and a soft polyurethane sponge with a hardness degree of 15 to 30, and arranged under the midsole; an insole(10), made out of a non-woven fabric with a hardness degree of 25 to 30, and arranged on the midsole; and an outsole(30), made out of one material selected from a polyester and a polyurethane with a hardness degree of 70 to 80, and arranged under the Masai sensor.


We read with great interest the article by Cubo et al. examining the feasibility, efficacy, and reliability of using Web-based assessments compared with in-person, office-based assessments in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD). This article is timely, as neurological care in PD has been associated with reductions in mortality and improvement in relevant clinical outcomes; however, access to neurologists let alone movement disorders specialists is limited. Telemedicine is a useful tool for implementing quality care and may be an effective means of enhancing recruitment and retention in clinical trials. The article by Cubo et al adds to the growing literature suggesting that Web-based assessments are feasible and produce reliable data. Their study is unique in the validation of not only motor but also nonmotor, functional, and qualityof-life outcomes remotely. They also showed the feasibility and reliability of conducting quantitative motor assessments (timed motor tests), and this may be an important objective means of remotely evaluating progression in PD. Since 2007, we have been providing care to patients with PD via telemedicine (Web-based video-conferencing), originating initially in nursing homes and now directly into the homes of individuals worldwide. Previously, in the context of a randomized study of telemedicine versus usual care in PD, we showed the motor UPDRS conducted via telemedicine to have excellent reliability (ICC, 0.78) compared with in-person assessment of the UPDRS, and similarly to Cubo et al, we found individuals receiving care via telemedicine were more satisfied with the care received. Currently we are conducting a randomized controlled multicenter (University of Rochester and John Hopkins University) feasibility, reliability, and economic trial of telemedicine directly into the homes (virtual house calls) versus in-person care for individuals with PD (clinicaltrials.gov #NCT01476306). Our preliminary data suggest that individuals receiving care via telemedicine may save time and travel compared with those receiving in-person care. Anecdotally, we have not found the UPDRS assessment to be more time consuming remotely and suspect that increasing familiarity with Web-based assessments will ultimately reduce physician burden and improve satisfaction. We are encouraged by the findings of Cubo et al that add to and are supportive of our previous and ongoing research into telemedicine and remote assessments in PD. Remote technologies to assess meaningful clinical outcomes and to improve access to neurologists and movement disorders specialists are likely to be invaluable tools in the future management of chronic disease. We agree that Web-based assessments could also add value to clinical trials by reducing the burden of frequent in-person assessments and thereby facilitating recruitment and retention and allowing for the inclusion of geographically remote populations who often cannot access clinical research. The efforts of Cubo et al are laying the foundation for the day when people with Parkinson's disease can receive care and participate in research independent of geography.


Modern geophysical methods might be either directly applied to concrete structures or integrated into existing testing schemes to assist in quality assurance and inspections. This paper gives an overview on some ideas and developments from the author's work:

• Vibrator technologies to improve pile integrity testing.
• Ideas from vertical seismic profiling used in multichannel pile inspection
• Cross- and downhole seismics to check the diameter of jet grouting columns
• Improving the parallel seismic methods for precise length measurement of piles and foundation walls
• Seismic migration methods to improve ultrasonic imaging of foundation slabs
• Seismological tools to monitor subtle changes in concrete constructions

The authors strongly believe that the cooperation between geophysics and civil engineering, which is obviously becoming stronger and stronger, will lead to a large number of innovative approaches.


ABSTRACT:  To clarify the feeding habits of tidal mudflat fishes, the gut contents of 29 fish species, collected from unvegetated tidal mudflats in Tokyo Bay, central Honshu, Japan, were examined. Ontogenetic changes in food preference were recognized in 21 species, including several of commercial importance (e.g. Acanthogobius flavimanus, Konosirus punctatus, Mugil cephalus cephalus, Plecoglossus altivelis altivelis, and Sardinella zunasi). In general, larvae and/or juveniles of these species fed mainly on small zooplankton or benthic harpacticoid copepods, later switching to other prey items with growth (e.g. gammaridean amphipods, mysids, polychaetes, detritus, bivalves, and juvenile fishes). A cluster analysis based on dietary overlaps showed that the tidal mudflat fish assemblage comprised six feeding guilds (small benthic and epiphytic crustacean, zooplankton, detritus, mollusc, polychaete, and fish feeders). Of these, small benthic and epiphytic crustacean feeders were the most abundantly represented in the number of species.


THE UNEXPECTEDLY QUICK FALL OF SADDAM HUSSEIN and the collapse of his government created a vacuum in Iraq that has attracted a steady flow of terrorist volunteers to the country. Furthermore, the dismantling of Iraq's military forces and the subsequent deterioration of the security situation there has triggered the emergence of fundamental conflicts and disputes along ethnic, tribal, and religious lines. Various jihadist groups—some old, some new, and comprised predominantly of Sunni Arabs—have since rapidly turned post-Saddam Iraq into a new battleground. For Islamist and terrorist ideologues in the Middle East and elsewhere, the insurgency in Iraq has presented a golden opportunity. They have sought to consolidate, direct, and reinforce the insurgency and to reinvigorate militant and radical Islam around the Muslim world by elaborating a new set of ideas about the meaning and purpose of jihad. This new ideology potently combines several elements, including:


Physico-mathematical model of process of alteration pressure of a gass in channels of cooling titanium heat exchangers at heating is considered. Dependence of temperature, duration heating, section channel of cooling on kinetic of dynamic of front oxidation on zone oxidation' as length is analysed


Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for understanding the relationships between resource commitment, management experience, firm size, internationalization, internal export barriers and export performance in firms. Specifically, this paper empirically investigates the impact of resource commitment, management experience, firm size, and internationalization on export performance, using internal export barriers as an intervening variable. These antecedents of export performance are selected because they are constraints that managers have an opportunity to influence. This study is therefore relevant to the managerial process. Design/methodology/approach – A survey design using firms from Ghana was chosen. This was expected to be an appropriate population from which data could be gathered to investigate the authors' hypotheses. In order to test these hypotheses, questionnaires were designed to collect data from small and medium export firms in an emerging market. Data on resource com...


While there is high potential in using learning analytics to provide educational institutions as well as teachers and learners with actionable information and improve learning experiences, currently only very few learning analytics tools are actually used in educational institutions. In this paper, we introduce MORPH, a platform that facilitates the integration of learning analytics modules and tools into institutional learning systems. MORPH provides a robust distributed architecture which combines batch, stream and real-time data processing using a parallel processing model to enable and support efficient processing of large amounts of data. Furthermore, it provides common management and administration features that enable the seamless integration of learning analytics research modules and tools into existing institutional learning systems.


Based on the mesoscopic hertzian granular contact mechanics model,a macroscopic Young's elastic modulus(MYEM) model of packing sandstone was built up.The MYEM was proportioned to the powers of 1/3 of the vertical contact force of sand particles and was inversely proportional to particle diameter.The paper calculated the vertical contact force of 5 aligning modes of the particles which affect the MYEM and adjustment coefficients be given.The coordination number is inverse proportion to MYEM but is not a sensitive parameter.The deformation of granular packing layer is not in accord with Hooke's law and the MYEM also have the nonisotropic features.


Definition and current concepts of neurodegenerative diseases Neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs) are traditionally defined as disorders with selective loss of neurons and distinct involvement of functional systems defining clinical presentation. Comprehensive biochemical, genetic and molecular pathological examinations have expanded this definition. During the last century, the application of different silver staining techniques has demonstrated that argyrophilic intraand extracellular (i.e. plaques) structures are associated with many forms of neurodegenerative diseases. This suggested that proteins with altered physicochemical properties are deposited in the human brain in neurodegenerative diseases. In addition, as well as neurons, glial cells also accumulate these proteins. The involvement of proteins has led to the definition of the concept of conformational diseases [1]. According to this, the structural conformation of a physiological protein changes, which results in an altered function or potentially toxic intraor extracellular accumulation. Mutations in the encoding genes are linked to hereditary forms of disease. The pathological protein conformers are also calledmisfolded proteins. Disruption of the homeostasis of the endoplasmic reticulum leads to the misfolding of proteins. Endoplasmic reticulum stress and upregulation of several signaling pathways are called the unfolded protein response [2]. The two major elimination pathways, which control the quality of cellular components and maintain cell homeostasis, are theubiquitin–proteasome system (UPS) and the autophagy–lysosome pathway [3]. Chaperones and stress-response proteins are in close relation to protein-processing systems, which have a central role in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases. Widespread molecular pathological and biochemical studies have revealed that there aremodifications of proteins intrinsic to disease (species that are, for example, phosphorylated or nitrated, oligomers, proteinase resistant, with or without amyloid characteristics, or cleavage products) [4]. These concepts are reflected during the neuropathological examination: the objective is to evaluate the proteins, their modifications and whether they are ubiquitinated and show amyloid staining properties or not. It is important to clarify that the term "amyloid" can refer to a specific staining property or to the definition that protein aggregates are composed of highly ordered stacks of -sheet-rich fibrils. The amyloid staining property means that a particular structure shows apple-green birefringence under polarized light when stained with Congo red dye. However, not all protein deposits visible by immunohistochemical methods show the amyloid staining property, even though they are composed of proteins rich in -sheets. Thus, immunohistochemistry detects many more pathological protein deposits than can be seen with Congo red staining alone. Similarly, not all protein deposits are ubiquitinated; in fact, there is a kind of maturation of cellular inclusions within the cells. The proteinopathy concept serves as a basis for the theory of prion-like spreading of disease-associated proteins [5]. This stems from the observations that, in prion diseases, the disease-associated prion protein (PrP) spreads in the nervous system. Although human-to-human transmissibility has been proven only for prion diseases, several other neurodegenerative diseases are suggested to associate with the


In recent times, 'development agendas' in WIPO and WTO have challenged the inequitable basis of global policy regimes. The first meeting of the IGF is an appropriate occasion for developing countries and civil society to articulate a 'development agenda for Internet Governance'. The imperative for this is in the fact that the Internet is playing an ever increasing role in shaping, as well as in the governance, of many social and economic areas at the global level, and constitutes a very significant political space.


Background Heart failure (HF) is a leading cause of mortality and is associated with cardiac remodeling. Vulnerability to atrial fibrillation (AF) has been shown to be greater in the early stages of HF, whereas ventricular tachycardia/fibrillation develop during late stages. Here, we explore changes in gene expression that underlie the differential development of fibrosis and structural alterations that predispose to atrial and ventricular arrhythmias. Objective To study transcriptomic changes associated with the development of cardiac arrhythmias in early and late stages of heart failure. Methods Dogs were tachy-paced from right ventricle (RV) for 2–3 or 5–6 weeks (early and late HF). We performed transcriptomic analysis of right atria (RA) and RV isolated from control dogs and those in early and late HF. Transcripts with mean relative log2-fold change ≥2 were included in the differential analysis with significance threshold adjusted to p<0.05. Results Early HF remodeling was more prominent in RA with enrichment of extracellular matrix, circulatory system, wound healing and immune response pathways; many of these processes were not present in RA in late HF. RV showed no signs of remodeling in early HF but enrichment of extracellular matrix and wound healing in late HF. Conclusion Our transcriptomic data indicate significant fibrosis-associated transcriptional changes in RA in early HF and in RV in late HF, with strong atrial predominance. These alterations in gene expression are consistent with the development of arrhythmogenesis in atria in early but not late HF and in the ventricle in late but not early HF.


Highlight videos are designed to help people understand the key content without having to watch the original long videos in their entirety. Notably, highlight videos of sports are in considerable demand from viewers. We propose a highlight-video generation system for baseball games. The original video, along with the game log, is used to rapidly and accurately extract trimmed event video using simple computer vision algorithms. Several types of highlight videos can be generated by extracting all the trimmed event videos and combining them in various manners. Experimental results show that the proposed method has 98.18% accuracy in trimmed event video extraction. Moreover, it is possible to generate highlight videos within an average of 2 min after receiving the input video.


assess the empirical basis of the claim for the democratic peace. First, what is a democracy? Are the democracies of ancient Greece epistemologically the same as those of the early nineteenth century and the late twentieth? Is the practice of democratic forms, such as contested elections, equivalent to institutionalized democracy? For example, both Croatia and Serbia had elected governments during their war over Bosnia, but are they any more than oligarchies with parliamentary forms, as Gilbert puts it? Second, what is a war? For the purposes of building databases, war has come to be denned as organized violence in which there are more than 1,000 deaths. What about conflicts with fewer casualties? Or civil wars? Or interventions by great powers in the affairs of weaker ones? Finally, what constitutes a statistically significant data set? John Mearsheimer argues ("Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War," International Security 15 [Summer 1990]: 50-1) that, because war is so rare and democracies so uncommon, it is not surprising that there are so few cases of democracies at war. In response, supporters of the democratic peace thesis have combed the historical record to find additional examples of regimes that fit the requirements. To no one's surprise, they have discovered additional cases and engendered further disputes. Why does this debate matter? There are two primary reasons, both of which are addressed by Gilbert and both of which emerge from the fact that this conflict is one more engagement in the perennial liberal-realist war over international relations theory. First, liberals claim, normatively, that peace is good; consequently, the spread of democracy should reduce the incidence of war. That would be good for American national interests, an argument taken up by the Clinton administration, which made "democratization" one of the pillars of its foreign policy. Second, realists counter, normatively, that such hope is a thin reed on which to base one's national security, and it is a dangerous illusion akin to the idealism of the interwar period. Power remains a more reliable means of preventing war. Regime structure does not matter. Gilbert launches a grassroots-based guerilla assault on the epistemologies of both positions, and he also raises serious challenges to both liberal and realist conventional wisdom. He argues that the United States is better understood as an "oligarchy with parliamentary forms," with the result that public opinion, normally thought to constrain warlike behavior through democratic practices, is largely ineffective. He points, in particular, to the American propensity to destabilize and overthrow regimes that are, paradoxically, too democratic for Washington (e.g., Guatemala in 1953, Iran in 1954, Chile in 1973). Such interventions, although violent, are not normally counted as "wars" because they are "domestic" and result in too few casualties. Such omissions matter because the United States represents one member of the many democratic dyads whose historical behavior is deemed to constitute the empirical validation of the democratic peace thesis.


For the diagnosis, prognosis and monitoring of heart disease in people using the definition of biochemical markers in the blood. In particular, for the diagnosis of myocardial injury studies using serum creatine kinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and their isoenzymes and the activity of aspartate aminotransferase (AST). Such biomarkers also found applications in veterinary cardiology to assess the severity of heart valve disease in horses. Since heart disease in horses can not clinically manifest, the study of markers of myocardial damage is relevant for use in veterinary cardiology. The workhorses found satisfactory fatness, decreased performance and fatigue. The pulse rate at rest is on the top border of the physiological oscillations. In 25 % of registered horses third tone. Serum workhorses found increased activity of LDH and LDH-1 and high activity of CK-MB, which is obviously due to the injury of cardiomyocytes due to degenerative changes as a result of physical exertion.


A new solid-state laser material, Cr:LiCaAIF{sub 6} (Li:CAF), developed originally for the Inertial Confinement Fusion program, holds great promise as a broad bandwidth exhibits a combination of properties (a broad emission spectrum, long-lifetime of the upper lasing level, low thermal lensing, and low excited state absorption) which make this a unique source for tunable and/or short-pulse lasers. We propose to demonstrate the full potential of LiCAF as a tunable, short pulse laser source by developing a high repetition rate, 100 GW, 100 femtosecond LiCAF laser. 8 refs.


Lethally irradiated LAF1 mice were protected by various numbers of isogenic bone marrow cells. At intervals, cells from femoral bone marrow and spleen were assayed for their content of colony forming units (CFU) by retransplantation into other lethally irradiated mice and counting of spleen nodules at eight days. CFU numbers in femoral marrow were restored to preirradiation levels by about eight weeks. In the spleen, restoration was earlier and more rapid and for several weeks the CFU content exceeded the normal level. Prior splenectomy did not alter the pattern of CFU restoration in the femoral marrow postirradiation. However, splenectomy did appear to slightly improve survival of irradiated marrow-protected mice. It is argued that the CFU may not be the essential protective cell, and the existence of a precursor "stem" cell in normal marrow is postulated.


Pulmonary hypertension is a pulmonary vascular disease characterized by pulmonary vascular remodeling and vasoconstriction, leading to elevated pulmonary artery pressure and right heart failure ultimately. Bilateral lung involvement with extensive alveolar and interstitial infiltrates, thickening of alveolar septa, vascular congestion and lung edema are some of the pathologies associated with lung damage from COVID-19 [1]. Due to the lung parenchymal damage and altered circulation in pulmonary micro and macro circulation, pulmonary hypertension develops.


Through the strength experimental comparison of two ash macadam and cement stabilized macadam and management experience of cost, construction and maintenance, summed up some advantage of two ash macadam in the aspects of engineering cost and road performance, obtained should priority select two ash macadam in the choice of two ash macadam and cement stabilized macadam.


The present invention relates to a holding device (10) for a tool (12), the at least one hinge (14) having at least two relatively movable parts (16, 18) and at least one of the hinge (14) associated with the drive unit has. The drive unit is adapted to move the joint (14) by driving at least one of the mutually movable parts (18) of the joint (14). The holding apparatus (10) further comprises a securing device with a said hinge (14) associated with the lock and with an activatable release unit (24), wherein the locking in such a way with the release unit (24) cooperates, to the joint (14) in a locking position holds as long as the release unit (24) is not activated. The securing means is adapted to also allow movement of the joint (14) within a predetermined movement range from the respective locking position out when the release unit (24) is not activated. The invention further relates to a corresponding securing device for a holding device and a working method therefor.


Adolescent girls are vulnerable group to anemia. Students who live in dormitories tend to have less intake that can cause iron de fi ciency. This study aimed to determine the risk factors of anemia among female students in the Darusalam Islamic Boarding School Bogor. This was an observational study with a cross sectional design. Subjects were 84 female students who selected purposively by inclusion and exclusion criteria. Anemic status was determined by measuring hemoglobin levels with HemoCue 301. Data on subjects characteristics, health status, menstrual status, skipping meal behavior collected by questionnaire. Level knowledge, attitudes and nutrition practices related to anemia assessed by of fi ve questions for each indicators. Nutritional status is assessed based on BMI/A indicator. The intake data was obtained by the 2×24 hour food record method collected by questionnaires. Statistical analysis using chi-square test and logistic regression. Students with mild anemia were 38.1%, while 20.2% had moderate anemia. Intake of energy, protein, iron, vitamin C were inadequate. The results of bivariate analysis showed that skipping meals were signi fi cantly associated with anemia status (p=0.007; OR 4.0; 95% CI 1.4-11.4). Nutritional attitudes also had a signi fi cant relationship with anemia status (p=0.048; OR 2.6; 95% CI 1.0-6.6). The results of the logistic regression test showed that the variables associated with anemia were skipping meals (p=0.024; OR 3.5; 95% CI 1.0-11.8). Islamic boarding schools are expected to provide balanced healthy and nutritious food and provide nutrition education so it can support the improvement of student's health status.


Duodenal duplication cyst is an uncommon congenital anomaly that is usually encountered during infancy or in early childhood. The clinical manifestation is that of duodenal obstruction or, less commonly, obstructive jaundice, acute pancreatitis, or gastrointestinal bleeding. Here, wereport a case of duodenal duplication cyst on the juxtapapillary region in a 19-year-old woman with an unusual clinical manifestation of recurrent pancreatitis and peculiar endoscopic finding of the cyst


For the energy limited wireless sensor networks, the critical problem is how to achieve the energy efficiency. Many attackers can consume the limited network energy, by the method of capturing some legal nodes then control them to start DoS and flooding attack, which is difficult to be detected by only the classic cryptography based techniques with common routing protocols in wireless sensor networks. We argue that under the condition of attacking, existing routing schemes are low energyefficient and vulnerable to inside attack due to their deterministic nature. To avoid the energy consumption caused by the inside attack initiated by the malicious nodes, this paper proposes a novel energy efficiency routing. Under our design, each node computes the trust value of its 1-hop neighbors based on their multiple behaviors attributes evaluation and builds a trust management by the trust value. By this way, sensor nodes act as router to achieve dynamic and adaptive routing, where the node can select much energy efficiency and faithful forwarding node from its neighbors according to their remaining energy and trust values in the next process of data collection. KeywordsWireless Sensor Network, Energy efficiency, node compromised, trust management.


Guidance is provided to the DELMAT user in the areas of purpose, use and limitations of DELMAT tapes and software. The DELMAT tape specifications is also provided. The ERB-7, ERB MAT and tape characteristics applicable to the DELMAT tapes are also summarized.


This study aims to examine the different communication strategies in personal branding on the online platform Instagram. To examine this, we studied the three most popular Swedish influencers in th ...


Background: Non-surgical treatment is the first step in the treatment of temporomandibular disorders. Low-Level Laser Therapy (LLLT) was compared with drug therapy in these patients


Abstract During the last few years, the use of PVC has aroused questions owing to environment problems. Two major concerns are the toxicity of the monomer, which may lead to liver cancer and eventually to death, and the formation of toxic products in fires involving plastic building materials. A special session of this Second International Symposium on PVC, sponsored by both IUPAC and the French CNRS, is therefore devoted to these problems.


Dean Spade's Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law, Brooklyn, NY: South End Press, 2011Dean Spade's Normal Life questions the utility for "trans activism" of the legal reform strategies espoused by "lesbian and gay rights organizations" (68). But Normal Life does not simply divide trans* from "lesbian and gay" activism. Spade's "critical trans politics" is notable for its indebtedness (160) to woman of color feminist demands for multiple-axis (Crenshaw 1989), intersectional politics in response to systemic oppression. In keeping with this tradition, Spade's "critical trans politics" are composed of a set of ground-up (222-24), "process-oriented" (161) political strategies for building self-reflexive queer and antiracist social movements. As such, we think Normal Life has much to say about the promises and perils of "solidarity."As a staff organizer and a volunteer activist in higher education unions, we have an affinity for the term "solidarity." "Solidarity!" is a rallying cry, a performative declaration of collective power in response to oppression. Ideally, this declaration is predicated on an inspirational voluntary acceptance of communal risk. But in our experience, the cry "solidarity!" is also an effective tool of "secondary marginalization" (Cohen 1999; Phelan 2001). Here "solidarity!" is an homogenizing demand, often directed at women and queer people of color, to wait one's turn as a necessary sacrifice for the goals of a broader movement (Chavez 2009; Reddy 2008). Such demands constitute a continuous burden on already more marginalized members to sacrifice their particular goals as the only hope for achieving any kind of collective victory, as in "We need to focus on wages; if we win this contract, then in four years we can try for a stronger grievance procedure."Normal Life offers compelling examples of this kind of solidarity, including LGB rights movement advocacy for the "decriminalization of sodomy and the passage of sexual-orientation inclusive hate crime laws" (124). The problem with these political teloi is not only that they fail to effectively support those people ("including" LGBT people) who are most negatively affected by the U.S. criminal justice system. Rather, these particular efforts at legal reform affirmatively strengthen institutions that work disproportionate violence on the lives and bodies of trans* people in the United States (125). By demonstrating that accepting complicity with institutions of systemic oppression can never be a neutral decision along the way to a universal rights politics, Spade helps differentiate among just and unjust solidarities, performed on and at the relative margins of contemporary movements for racial, gender, economic, and sexual justice. To act justly in solidarity, movements should maintain suspicion of the seductive call of reform that may improve the lives of an elite majority or minority, while further strengthening the oppression of those who might stand to benefit the most from more difficult, dangerous, long-term efforts at systemic change.Past reviews of Normal Life have characterized Spades critical trans politics more and less favorably as "uncompromising" (Quinones 2012), an "all-or-nothing approach" that rejects LGB legal reform tactics entirely and so fails to acknowledge the ways in which movements for rights and equality have "helped to advance critical trans politics" (Levi and Shay 2012). …


The physicochemical properties of waxy potato starch are more excell compare with potato and waxy corn starch. With low gelatination temperature, easy to swell of granules, high water absorbtion and keeping water capbility, high viscosity and good transparent of paste, big average diameter and high diameter distribution of particles, the waxy potato starch has wide application in food industry with these unique physicochemical properties.


Abstract In this work, the rate of mass transfer from an ensemble of mono-size spherical Newtonian droplets (free from surfactants) to a Newtonian continuous phase has been numerically studied at moderate Reynolds and Peclet numbers. A simple spherical cell model (so-called free surface cell model) has been used to account for inter-drop hydrodynamic interactions. Extensive numerical results have been obtained to elucidate the effects of the Reynolds number (Reo), the ratio of internal to external fluid viscosity (k), the volume fraction of the dispersed phase (ɛ) and the Schmidt number (Sc) on the local and average Sherwood number (Sh) over the ranges of conditions: 1 ≤ Reo ≤ 200, 0.2 ≤ ɛ ≤ 0.6, 0.1 ≤ k≤ 50 and 1 ≤ Sc ≤ 10 000. It has been observed that the effects of viscosity ratio on the local and average Sherwood number is less significant for small values of the Peclet number (Pe) for all values of dispersed phase concentration. As the value of the viscosity ratio increases, the average Sherwood number decreases for all values of the droplet concentration and the Reynolds number. Based on the present numerical results, a simple predictive correlation is proposed which can be used to estimate the rate of inter-phase mass transfer in a liquid–liquid system in a new application. However, it is also appropriate to add here that at higher concentrations, fluid spheres interact significantly, deform and coalesce. All these effects are neglected in this study. Therefore, the present results are valid only for dilute to moderate concentration of the dispersed phase.


Cryptography plays a key role in all the aspects of today cybersecurity and any cryptographic approach relies on cryptographic keys, i.e., series of bits that determine how a plain text is encrypted and decrypted, according to an agreed algorithm. The secrecy and security of an encryption key are thus crucial and fundamental: if the cryptographic key is compromised and known, everyone can decrypt a text encrypted according to the strongest encryption algorithm. As a consequence, several Key Management Systems (KMS) have been developed to easily support the management of cryptographic keys, whose number is constantly increasing, due to the amount of devices and communications that take place today, even in very restricted contexts. SEkey is a key management system developed targeting a distributed environment, where it is possible to identify a single central manager that acts as a Key Distribution Center (KDC) and many users that locally store and manage their own keys. Users, to a certain extent, can also work 'offline' without being always in direct communication with the central manager. SEkey is built leveraging the functionalities and physical properties of the SEcube™ Hardware Security Module (HSM). All the key values and critical information are stored inside the SEcube™ and never leave the device in clear, and all the cryptographic operations are performed by the SEcube™ itself. The guidelines provided by NIST where followed during the whole development process, guaranteeing all the most important security features and principles.


People with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), or intellectual disability (intellectual developmental disorder) in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition,[1][1] make up 1% to 3% of the Canadian population and are encountered in most family medicine


The name Stoddart formation is here proposed for a succession of late-Paleozoic strata lying above the Rundle limestone in Pacific Fort St. John No. 23 gas well. This well from which the lithological description was made is located in Lsd. 3, Section 29, Township 83, Range 16, W 6th, British Columbia. The lithological character of the formation is very diversified but it can be divided into two units. The lower one is predominantly clastic, 1,250 feet thick and consists of waxy shales, siltstones, and sandstones, together with some limestone and dolomite. Glauconite occurs sporadically throughout and one sandstone unit contains some anhydrite. The upper unit, 915 feet thick, consists mainly of gray limestone and dolomite with chert and some intercalated clastic beds. Some beds are glauconitic and one dolomite bed contains anhydrite nodules. The Stoddart formation appears to rest conformably on the Mississippian Rundle and underlies the so-called Permo-Pennsylvanian whose age is not yet precisely known. No direct evidence of age could be deduced from the few poorly preserved fossil fragments obtained from cores. The upper part of the Stoddart appears to be only partly present in other wells of the Peace River area and the upper contact is believed to be unconformable, and some truncation may even have taken place at the top of the section in the Fort St. John No. 23 well. The extreme variability of the lithology makes it difficult to place the unconformity accurately and increases the difficulty of correlation from one well to another. Following the deposition of the Rundle, this part of the Peace River area appears to have experienced a long period of negative tectonic movements; marine sedimentation took place in unstable, shallow, shelf conditions which were finally terminated by uplift and consequent widespread erosion. End_of_Article - Last_Page 420------------


Are there any differences in clinical outcomes after SET of re-expanded versus non-re-expanded blastocysts?

 The transfer of re-expanded thawed blastocysts is associated with improved clinical outcomes.

 Improvements in embryo culture conditions, endometrial receptivity protocols and vitrification as a revolutionary cryopreservation technique have allowed the expansion of blastocyst stage transfers (Lieberman and Tucker, 2006; Stanger et al., 2012; Rienzi et al., 2017), increasing clinical pregnancy and implantation rates in IVF cycles.
 The re-expansion of thawed blastocyst at the time of transfer has been considered as a good prognosis factor, but not always thawed embryos re-expand. To evaluate the relevance of this event, we compared the clinical results of the re-expanded embryos versus the collapsed ones after their thawing and transfer.

 A total number of 1.125 frozen-thawed blastocyst transfers were included in this retrospective observational study between January 2018 and December 2020. Seven hundred and eighty-six thawed blastocyst were fully expanded at the time of the transfer and 339 thawed blastocysts were non-re-expanded when they were transferred.

 1.125 single frozen-thawed blastocyst embryo transfer (SET) cycles (802 from donated and 319 from autologous oocytes) were divided in two groups (re-expanded vs non-re-expanded). Positive beta human chorionic gonadotrophin (bHCG), pregnancy rate (PR), early miscarriage rate (EMR) and live birth rate (LBR) were compared between the two groups.
 Blastocysts were thawed using an Irvine Scientific® Thaw kit, Irvine Scientific® and were transferring in culture medium (Global® Total® LP, CooperSurgical®).

 During 2018, 190 re-expanded blastocyst and 94 non-re-expanded were transferred. Statistical significant differences were found in the percentage of positive bHCG (48.4% vs 30.9%, p < 0,0048) and PR (39.5% vs 25.5%, p < 0,0203), respectively.
 In 2019, statistical differences were found in the LBR between 307 re-expanded blastocyst and 124 non-re-expanded (30.6% vs 12.9%; p < 0,00001). Differences were also found in positive bHCG (50.2% vs 21.8%, p < 0,00001) and PR (40.7% vs 15.3%, p < 0,00001), respectively.
 Finally, in 2020, 289 re-expanded blastocyst and 121 non-re-expanded were transferred, and significant differences were obtained in the percentage of positive bHCG (46.8% vs 22.3%, p < 0,00001) and PR (32.9% vs 15.7%, p < 0,00001), respectively. Globally, all the variables analysed were statistically significant in favour of the re-expanded embryo group: positive bHCG (48.7% vs 24.5%; p < 0,00001), PR (37.5% vs 18.3%; p < 0,00001) and LBR (20.1% vs 9.5%; p < 0,00001), except for EMR.

 The inherent limitations to a retrospective design. Larger studies are warranted in order to reach robust conclusions on the subject.
 Wider implications of the findings: Transfer of re-expand blastocyst could be a positive indicator of clinical outcomes. In case of non-re-expand embryos, transfer of two could be reasonable.

 NONE


The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of task based language learning on developing speaking skills of secondary level learners. To achieve this objective, a task based instructional programme consisted of four units of textbook of grade IX was developed. The students of IX grade of Islamabad district were the population of the study. Two groups experimental and control were randomly taken in a natural setting from a randomly selected school of Islamabad district. Both groups were pre and post-tested to determine the difference in their mean scores. Both groups were administered a teacher made speaking skill test as pre-test before starting intervention of treatment. The experimental group got treatment, while control group was taught conventionally for 45 days. Same teacher made speaking skill test was administered to both experimental and control groups as post-test after 45 days. Two tailed t-test was applied at 0.05 levels. The results of the present study showed statistically significant differences between mean scores of the experimental group subjects in term of speaking skills as the post-test scores of experimental group were noticeably higher than the scores of control group. The results of the study support the effectiveness of TBLL as a foreign language. The present study recommends that Pakistani teachers should adopt TBLL approach which is pragmatic, instead of struggling with obsolete traditional methods in second language acquisition.


BACKGROUND:Prediction of perioperative cardiac complications is important in the medical management of patients undergoing noncardiac surgery. However, these patients frequently die as a consequence of primary or secondary multiple organ failure (MOF), often as a result of sepsis. We investigated the early perioperative risk factors for in-hospital death due to MOF in surgical patients. METHODS:This was a prospective, multicenter, observational cohort study performed in 21 Brazilian intensive care units (ICUs). Adult patients undergoing noncardiac surgery who were admitted to the ICU within 24 hours after operation were evaluated. MOF was characterized by the presence of at least 2 organ failures. To determine the relative risk (RR) of in-hospital death due to MOF, we performed a logistic regression multivariate analysis. RESULTS:A total of 587 patients were included (mean age, 62.4 ± 17 years). ICU and hospital mortality rates were 15% and 20.6%, respectively. The main cause of death was MOF (53%). Peritonitis (RR 4.17, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.38–12.6), diabetes (RR 3.63, 95% CI 1.17–11.2), unplanned surgery (RR 3.62, 95% CI 1.18–11.0), age (RR 1.04, 95% CI 1 0.01–1.08), and elevated serum lactate concentrations (RR 1.52, 95% CI 1.14–2.02), a high central venous pressure (RR 1.12, 95% CI 1.04–1.22), a fast heart rate (RR 3.63, 95% CI 1.17–11.2) and pH (RR 0.04, 95% CI 0.0005–0.38) on the day of admission were independent predictors of death due to MOF. CONCLUSIONS:MOF is the main cause of death after surgery in high-risk patients. Awareness of the risk factors for death due to MOF may be important in risk stratification and can suggest routes for therapy.


The United Kingdom is currently leading the way in the construction of offshore wind farms. To that end, the construction of the current crop of offshore wind farms are being built to a generation capacity exceeding 500MW which in itself poses many engineering challenges relating to the connectivity of both electrical and data networks. Whilst the practical implications of electrical connectivity is widely known and discussed within the industry, there is little distributed knowledge of the challenges faced with the connectivity of 'mission critical' SCADA System(s) and the underlying Communication Systems Infrastructure. Moreover, OFGEM's regulatory introduction of the Offshore Transmission Owners (OFTO) has introduced its own unique set of design criteria into the delivery of offshore wind farm systems. This paper will discuss the role of the so-called Balance of Plant SCADA System, the technologies involved, implications of the OFTO and the inherent design challenges that arise from having to attain demanding targets regarding availability performance. In a similar manner, the paper will also discuss the wider role of the Communication Systems Infrastructure including the technologies used for satisfying its availability, fault tolerance and performance targets. (7 pages)


The experiment on cutting propagation of four clones of Populus deltoides introduced from Nanjing Forestry University revealed that among the four clones,No.895,No.797 and No.95 all had a good growth adaptability.And their seedling height and geometric vertical were obviously different from the Canadian poplar(CK).The former was 124.3%,116.8% and114.2% of CK,and the later was 159.3%,136.5% and133.9% of CK,respectively.The experiment aimed to enrich the seedling resources of the local poplar.


The effective resonance integral for heterogeneous lattices as postulated by Wigner et al. (1955) consists of a "volume-absorption" term and a"surface-absorption" term. The former is independent of the geometry of the fuel elements, but the latter is a function of their surfaceto-mass ratio. Approximations to the collision probability within the fuel elements made by Wigner, Chernick, and others simplified the calculation of the effective resonance integral, reducing it to the equivalent of the homogeneous case, but these approximations lead to considerable inaccuracy in the surface-absorption term and its relation to the geometry of the fuel elements. The method of Gurevich and Pomeranchouk is applied to evaluate the surface term of Wigner's effective resonance integral without making the above approximations, thus giving much more accurately its dependence on the surface-to-mass ratio of the fuel elements. Comparisons are made with the results obtained by using the former approximations, and the application of a correction factor in the evaluation of the effective resonance integral is suggested. This correction factor is calculated and tabulated for uranium and thorium fuel elements of various shapes and sizes and a graph is given from which the appropriate correction factor for other fuels may be evaluated. (auth)


Finite element models of three typical folded inflatable tubes,respectively named Z-folded,telescopicallyfolded,and coiled configurations,are established,and a control volume method is applied to simulate the deployment process.Different folded configurations can introduce different geometry errors during the finite element modeling of inflatable tubes.Reasons of the modeling geometry errors due to Z folding and coiled folding,and modification methods of geometry error for every folding configuration are presented in this paper.The comparison of simulation results shows that the presented modeling modification method can reduce the effect of geometry errors on simulation results.Finally,a finite element model of a coiled tube with a Velcro strip is discussed,and the Velcro strips are modeled as breakable joints between nodes belonging to different skin layers.The numerical simulation results of coiled tube with or without Velcro strip indicate that Velcro strip can improve the deployment stability of coiled tube,and it is feasible that using the Velcro strip to control the deployment of a long coiled tube,and its additional stiffness and mass is negligible.


Abstract : A functional form for G sub En is found which gives an explanation of why G sub En(t) approx. = 0 but G sub En(0) does not = 0. (Author)


But we should not forget that all administrative-territorial communities of Ukraine are primarily on Ukrainian soil and the debates taking place in the Verkhovna Rada also concern them. It should be noted that the land potential is a strong competitive advantage of our country and is almost 6% of the European. Approximately 40% of Ukraine's agricultural land is chernozem. Thus, the discussion of proposals and recommendations for improving the legislation on the implementation of integrated. Using the experience gained during the project "Association for Ukraine. For cities" and skills of developing public policy based on evidence, we will analyze the activities of local governments at the community level and Using critical assessments to determine capacity, identify ways to build viable territorial communities provided by several countries of the former Soviet Union. Decentralization of public administration reform. According to the European Charter of Local Self-Government, the essence of local self-government is reduced to state-guaranteed rights and real capacity of local communities of communities (communes, municipalities, communities, local groups, local communities) and the bodies they elect to decide local issues. the value of the effectiveness of the constitution and laws of the state [4]. The article of this document stipulates that part of the legislation of Ukraine stipulates that "local self-government means the right and ability of local authorities within the law to regulate and manage a significant share of state affairs under their own responsibility and in the interests of the local population." members freely elected by secret ballot on the basis of direct, equal universal suffrage that may be exercised by the executive bodies responsible for them". The key to these definitions is the "ability" of the government to exercise certain powers. What can be the basis for such a definition – Academic Explanatory Dictionary of 1970-1980. Defines ability in three dimensions: as a property of value; the ability to do something; the presence of favorable conditions for something, circumstances that help something and provide an opportunity. The methodology for forming able-bodied territorial communities determines that a capable territorial community, which as a result of voluntary association has the ability to provide Inhibition of its own or with the help of relevant local governments appropriate level of service, in particular in education, culture, health, social protection, housing and utilities, taking into account human resources, financial support and infrastructure development and the functioning of the relevant administrative-territorial unit [5]. But we should not forget that all administrative-territorial communities of Ukraine are primarily on Ukrainian soil and the debates taking place in the Verkhovna Rada also concern them. It should be noted that the land potential is a strong competitive advantage of our country and is almost 6% of the European. Approximately 40% of Ukraine's agricultural land is chernozem (the most productive soil). Thus, the discussion of the proposal and recommendations for improving the legislation on the implementation of integrated spatial planning to support the adoption of the bill No2280 "On Amendments to the Land Code of Ukraine and other legislation on land use planning" is very relevant. The last survey on land issues was conducted in Ukraine on November 1-7 last year by the Razumkov Center. According to its results, 67.7% of Ukrainians believe that the introduction of the land market and the abolition of the moratorium on land sales should be put to an all-Ukrainian referendum. At the same time, 68.3% of potential referendum participants said they would support extending the moratorium. Thus, on November 11, mass protests against Zelensky's land reform started in Ukraine. The All-Ukrainian Agrarian Council announced on its website that agricultural workers in 13 regions of Ukraine took part in the action with the slogan "No to selling Ukraine". However, the bill No2280 "On Amendments to the Land Code of Ukraine and other legislative acts on land use planning" [7] proposes:  local governments the opportunity to carry out spatial planning of the community, both within and outside


Introduction The traditional way of controlling the quality of hypoid gears' tooth flank fonn is to check the tooth flank contact patterns. But it is not easy to exactly judge the tooth flank fonn quality by the contact pattern. In recent years,it has become possible to accurately measure the tooth flank form of hypoid gears by the point-to-point measuring method and the scanning measuring method. But the uses of measured data of the


Handheld navigation is now available for use in total knee arthroplasty, allowing for precision cuts of the distal femur and proximal tibia. By using inertial sensors and accelerometers, the handheld navigation unit is able to provide real-time, intraoperative information about alignment without additional incisions or arrays, line-of-sight issues, or the large capital expense associated with large console navigation systems. This handheld navigation unit reduces alignment outliers commonly seen with conventional guides, potentially leading to benefits in knee function and implant longevity.


Having considered various types of pedagogy as well as technology affordances and multimedia learning principles, this chapter focuses on issues surrounding the representation and sharing of content using technology. Anderson & Krathwohl's (2001) Taxonomy of Learning, Teaching and Assessing is examined as a means of conceptualizing different types of thinking processes in a way that can be applied across discipline areas. The representational requirements of different subject areas (English, mathematics, science, history, geography, and computing) are explored by means of examples, with reference to the role of technology and the range of possible tasks that may be utilized. Assessment issues as they relate to the representation of content are also considered. The broader contextual shift toward open education and sharing is discussed, including key drivers such as learning object repositories, open educational resources, Creative Commons licensing, and massive open online courses.


OBJECTIVE To present self reports by children and reports by parents on behalf of their children relating to general health, current conditions, and recent symptoms. DESIGN Questionnaires completed by children and parents as part of the longitudinal "West of Scotland 11 to 16 study: teenage health." SETTING 135 primary schools in Central Clydeside. SUBJECTS 2586 children aged 11 years, surveyed from October 1994 to March 1995 (response rate 93%). Questionnaires also completed by parents of 86% of the sample. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Ratings of health over the past 12 months, presence of (limiting) longstanding illness, nine current conditions, and 11 recent symptoms. RESULTS Only 47% of children described their health as "good" in the previous year. Around 20% reported a longstanding illness and 8% a limiting illness; 20% reported migraine or headaches, 13% reported asthma. Recent stomach aches or sickness, colds or flu, and headaches were each reported by around 60%. "Malaise" (emotional) symptoms were common. Parents reported similar levels of (limiting) longstanding illness, but rates of conditions and symptoms reported by parents were lower than reported by their children. Parent–child agreement was greatest for the presence of longstanding illness and the conditions of asthma, diabetes, and skin problems. It was lower for recent symptoms, particularly those categorised as reflecting malaise. CONCLUSIONS These results challenge assumptions of good health and wellbeing at this age. Illness reporting depends on various factors, including saliency, social desirability, and definitions of normality. Parent–child discrepancies may reflect different definitions of illness or symptoms; they do not mean that one should be dismissed as "wrong." Key messages Self reported health, conditions, and symptoms at age 11, and reports from parents on behalf of children, run counter to any assumption of youthful healthiness. Symptoms of malaise, such as irritability, anxiety, and unhappiness, were each reported by over one third of children. Parents were less likely to report both conditions and symptoms than children themselves. Parent–child agreement was highest for conditions that are common, visible, or diagnosed. Greatest disagreement occurred in respect of a child's emotional state.


OBJECTIVES
To review our experience of the endovascular management of upper limb embolisation secondary to an ipsilateral proximal arterial lesion.

DESIGN
A retrospective study.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Over 3 years, 17 patients presented with blue fingers secondary to an ipsilateral proximal vascular lesion. These have been managed using transluminal angioplasty (14) and arterial stenting (five), combined with embolectomy (two) and anticoagulation (three)/anti-platelet therapy (14).

RESULTS
All the patients were treated successfully. There have been no further symptomatic embolic episodes originating from any of the treated lesions, and no surgical amputations. Complications were associated with the use of brachial arteriotomy for vascular access.

CONCLUSIONS
Endovascular techniques are safe and effective in the management of upper limb embolic phenomena associated with an ipsilateral proximal focal vascular lesion.


The paper proposes how to build a teaching model that combines subject's outcome standards, lesson plans, assessment and technology-based approach to better support students' self-regulated learning (SSRL). The formative assessment method is combined with the summative assessment method in the teaching process with the goal of meeting the maximum output standards of the course objectives built for the course. The lesson plan is designed to be flexible in combination with technology to help students' self-regulated learning and achieve the subject objectives in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes. The paper surveys second-year students at Ba Ria – Vung Tau University. Results from observations and surveys show that lecturers have not been able to link the above these factors to help students achieve all three outcome standards of knowledge, skills and attitudes.


We report normally off AlGaN/GaN high‐electron mobility transistors realized by using the thin and high Al composition barrier design in conjunction with O2 plasma implantation. The AlGaN barrier layer under the gate is selectively treated by low‐energy O2 plasma in order to positively shift the threshold voltage of devices. The obtained enhancement‐mode HEMT exhibits a threshold voltage (VTH) of +1 V, a high peak transconductance of ∼230 mS mm−1, and a maximum drain current of 424 mA mm−1 at a gate bias of 3 V for a gate length of 0.6 µm. A suppressed gate reverse leakage current and a high breakdown voltage of 450 V are achieved. Moreover, gradually partial oxidation of AlGaN barrier layer is determined to be responsible for the plasma‐induced VTH modulation effect through a systematic investigation. The results indicate O2 plasma implantation can be a promising method for fabrication of enhancement‐mode GaN‐based devices.


Problem definition: Agricultural innovation can help farmers improve their productivity; reduce their environmental impact; and address the challenges associated with ever-changing soil, weather, a...


1,8-Naphthosultam (I) coupled with arenediazonium salts to give the 4-arylazo- VII, and the 2,4-bisarylazo-1,8-naphthosultams, VIa-c. On the other hand, coupling of the 4-substituted 1,8-naphthosultams afforded the 2-phenylazo derivatives, IIa,b. Reduction of IIa,b gave the 2-amino compounds IVa,b, which reacted with nitrous acid to give the [1,2]benzisothiazolo[2,3,4-cde]benzotriazoles, Va,b, establishing thus a new ring system. The nitro analogue Vc was also synthesized.


In traditional Chinese human medicine, herbs have been used as immunostimulants for thousands of years. Herbal medicines enhance the immunity level to resist more against the diseases. Among these herbs, Falcaria vulgaris a member of Apiaceae family, which is domestically known "Paghazou" and Ghaziaghi in farsi is traditionally has been used as dry powder in west and south-west of Iran, to accelerate skin wound healing for centuries. Correspondence Department of Fisheries, Kermanshah branch, , Islamic Azad University, Kermanshah, Iran (email: email@example.com) The major components of volatile oil Paghazeh were Spathulenol and carvacrol, which respectively belong to Sesquiterpene and Monoterpene and have antimicrobial activities. sickleweed (F. vulgaris) with 10% enriched diet feed has good effect to decrease the area of epidermis injuries experimentally formed in Cyprinus carpio. These herbs can be used as alternatives to common medicines, which have been confirmed to carry side effects.


A study is carried out of the vacuum polarization in a strong Coulomb field. Radiative corrections are neglected. A perturbation calculation is avoided by making use of the explicit solutions of the Dirac equation in a Coulomb field. The Laplace transform of the polarization charge density times ${r}^{2}$ is found and used as a basis for further study. It is proved to be an analytic function of the strength of the inducing charge. It is verified that the first-order term in a power series expansion in the strength of the inducing charge just corresponds to the Uehling potential. The third-order term is studied in some detail. The leading term in the polarization potential close to the inducing charge and the space integral of the induced potential divided by $r$ are found to all orders in the strength of the inducing charge. Ambiguities are handled by a method corresponding to regularization.Some experimental applications are considered. The corrections to the Uehling term in these cases are found to be small.


This Article suggests that settled legal principles were inadequate to stem the controversy surrounding the Abscam convictions because the principles did not permit an examination of the propriety of the means used by government agents to create the Abscam crimes. Some jurists contend that the entrapment defense should restrain abuses of power by judging the investigative techniques against an objective standard of permissible governmental conduct. In most states and in the federal courts where the Abscam defendents were tried, however, entrapment is measured by a subjective standard requiring the government to show that the defendant was "predisposed" to respond criminally to undercover government inducements.


An optical camera was recently employed by a subset of the authors as a sensing modality complementary to that of a Pyroelectric InfraRed (PIR) sensor, for carrying out intrusion detection and classification in an outdoor environment. The aim there was to develop a classification algorithm that mimicked the performance of the PIR sensor and which was complementary to the PIR in the sense that it could carry out detection in environments where the PIR was unable to function effectively. An example of such a setting is when the ambient temperature is close to that of the human body. The algorithm for intrusion detection using the optical camera presented there, achieved an accuracy in excess of 95% and was implemented on an Odroid C2 (OC2) single-board computer (SBC). However, at 3.6W, the OC2 is relatively power hungry and this prompted the current effort to develop a version of the optical camera system that could be operated at a reduced power level. The power-reduction techniques considered here include examining alternative SBCs such as the Orange Pi Zero (OPiZ), developing reduced-complexity intrusion-detection algorithms that permit a reduction in power consumed through a commensurate reduction in CPU clock speed, operating with a single CPU core and reducing power consumption by peripherals. Reduction in computational complexity was achieved by working with a reduced image resolution, a smaller Lucas-Kanade window, identifying and deleting power-consuming steps that did not contribute appreciably to classifier performance as well as removing portions of the code used for understanding and debugging. The resultant reduced-complexity algorithm, implemented on an OPiZ, turned in performance comparable to that of the high-complexity algorithm at a reduced power consumption of 1.3W. In most instances, classification accuracies obtained on recorded data were in excess of 95%. An outdoor deployment was also carried out in which 1.23% missed intrusion detections, 2.22% intrusion misclassifications, and 1.72% false alarms were observed.


Different binary phase diagrams, made from two differently substituted three-rings azo/ester and azomethine/ester compounds of the same terminal alkoxy side chain of six carbons, as opposed to the other terminal polar substituent, which can either donate electrons or withdraw electrons including H. The thermal behavior of the prepared derivatives was investigated by differential scanning calorimetry and phases identified by polarized optical microscope. The first group of the binary mixtures was made from laterally F-substituted azo/ester derivatives and their laterally neat analogues. The second group of binary mixtures was made from laterally methoxy-substituted azomethine/ester derivatives and their laterally neat analogues. The final type of investigated phase diagrams was made from the laterally substituted azo and azomethine components bearing different lateral polar groups and different mesogenic moieties. Results were reviewed using phase diagrams that were produced and it was found that different mesomorphic characteristics were seen to depend on the mesogenic component as well as lateral and terminal polar groups. In all cases, these mixtures have been determined to have low melting-temperature eutectic compositions, while linear or negative deviation of nematic or smectic isotropic composition temperature dependence was observed.


— After the bushfires in Victoria on 16 February 1983, the remains of twenty-two unidentified people were brought to the Melbourne Coroner's Court for identification.

This paper presents the methods adopted by the dental team of the Disaster Victim Identification Task Force.

The dental records provided evidence of identity of 14 victims and this highlights the value of dental records in the identification of victims in mass disasters.


Early detection of diseases is a tricky problem for doctors due to the concealment of the disease itself and the patient's negligence. Electronic health records (EHRs) contain a wealth of patient information that can be used to assist in the early detection of diseases. The EHRs have the characteristics of high dimensionality and timing. The traditional non-sequential method using EHRs is not accurate for the prediction of disease and the calculation efficiency is relatively low. We use previous medical records of patients based on recurrent neural networks (RNNs) to present a prediction model named "RNN-INFO" for multiple diseases. The model can predict the probability and diagnosis of clinical visits simultaneously in a time window. The model reduces the dimension of the data through the hidden layer of the neural network and extracts the hidden representation between the medical records. In addition, in order to further improve the performance of the model, we introduce demographic information about patients. After data preprocessing, the final dataset of experiment we used contains more than 28 thousand patients and 289 thousand clinical visits. Our experiments are finished with the final dataset. The experimental results show that our model has better performance than non-temporal models on both probability prediction and diagnostic prediction. "RNN - INFO" gets better performance than RNN model without demographic information on probability prediction. It shows that the addition of demographic information can indeed be improved performance of probability prediction.


The Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) has been developed to contribute to the fields of mapping, precise regional land coverage observation, disaster monitoring, and resource surveying. Because the mounted sensors need high geometrical accuracy, precise orbit determination for ALOS is essential for satisfying the mission objectives. So ALOS mounts a GPS receiver and a Laser Reflector (LR) for Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR). This paper deals with the precise orbit determination experiments for ALOS using Global and High Accuracy Trajectory determination System (GUTS) and the evaluation of the orbit determination accuracy by SLR data. The results show that, even though the GPS receiver loses lock of GPS signals more frequently than expected, GPS-based orbit is consistent with SLR-based orbit. And considering the 1 sigma error, orbit determination accuracy of a few decimeters (peak-to-peak) was achieved.


The electric Field distribution inside a bushing is given by capacitive and resistive components of the insulation materials. Capacitive components can be controlled by conductive foils which form a grading. In this case, the layers of a bushing core represent metal-insulator arrangements. The DC field distribution is dominated by the resistive components. They can be subdivided into volume and surface resistances. In the case of metal-insulator-metal contacts, the used metal and its contact to the insulator may influence the observed resistances. In order to calculate the DC electric field within a bushing core, the specific volume and surface conductivity must be known. For DC applications, solid-gas insulated bushings with polymeric insulation materials are an alternative to oil or resin impregnated paper bushings because of the significant lower resistive losses. Therefore, polarization and depolarization current (PDC) measurements of polyester films will be presented. By using a guard ring arrangement, volume and surface effects can be separated. The presented measurements are taken at different temperatures (25 °C up to 75 °C) and controlled humidity (< 1%). Aluminum foils are used for contacting the test sample as they are often used in capacitive graded bushings. Massive electrodes (contact pressure of 2 kPa) are put on to guarantee entirely contact to the sample. The test arrangement is shielded in order to reduce background noise. Due to measure very low currents (< 10 pA), the arrangement is also shielded against vibrations and controlled against offset shifts. The measurements show a decreasing noise level caused by the measurement data preparation. The maximum standard deviation of the current was less than 2 pA. The results from the PDC measurement will be compared with measurements taken by the recovery voltage method. The Curie-von Schweidler law for the depolarization current as well as the Arrhenius law for the temperature dependency of the volume conductivity will be taken into account to discuss the measurement results.


Sickle cell disease is a hereditary illness that is expressed by the substitution of the rest of glutamic acid for valin in the six position in those β chain of the hemoglobin, originating the sickle hemoglobin (HbS). The 1-O-alkylglycerols are bio- synthetic precursory of 1-O-alkylglycerophospholipids of the cellular membranes. In previous studies of the effects of those natural and synthetic 1-O-alkylglycerols it was found that they inhibit the 2-phospholipase activity, Ca 2+ -ATPasa and


Relative tilt between two similar thin crystals may result in the formation of a moire pattern in the electron image. Patterns hitherto interpreted as being parallel moires or rotation moire obtained from overlapping solution-grown polymer crystals are reconsidered, and it is shown that in some cases a tilt model is more acceptable. The general features of tilt moire patterns predicted for crystals of this kind are discussed and compared with micrographs appearing in the literature. Methods of distinguishing tilt moire patterns are indicated, though it is admitted that such experiments would be difficult to complete in the time limited by destruction of the crystal structure under the action of the electron beam. Extinction contours may also sometimes be confused with long-period tilt moire patterns, and again careful experimentation is required for accurate identification. The model of the structure of solution-grown polyethylene crystals inferred from a tilt moire interpretation of many of the electron image fringe patterns found in the literature is consistent with that derived from other sources.


Fine needle aspiration cytology is commonly used in assessing the neoplastic lesions of the liver and is the most sensitive test for diagnosing liver cell malignancies.The diagnosis of primary HCC rests on well defined criteria laid down by many authors in various textbooks of cytology.This case is reported here as bile duct epithelium was present in sheets as against the criteria of absence of bile duct epithelium to diagnose HCC.


STUDENT activities have received increased recognition in both high school and college in recent years. The greater emphasis on social training and the recognition of the importance of actual social experience in providing that training have led school administrators to promote activities outside the classroom. Investigations of these activities in colleges and high schools, especially the latter, have shown that they play an important part in the school life of a large proportion of the students.


Relationships of chopping power voltage with chopping plate size, d + energy, chopping pulse width and chopper power frequency are described.


The article describes a crisis in access to scholarly journals at the former University of Natal, Durban Campus Libraries between 2002 and 2004. The Libraries experienced a substantial increase in the costs of the journal collection. From 2002 to 2003 the increased foreign exchange rate and frequent increases in the price of journal subscriptions meant higher journal costs although costs were lower again for some titles held by the Library from 2003 to 2004. The library budget was not able to keep pace with these increases. The consequence was the cancellation of journal subscriptions together with the erosion of new book purchasing. The problem is not unique to this institution and to cope with it, libraries are coming to measure their collections and looking at alternative ways to overcome the journal crisis. The development of computer technology has greatly widened access to the journal literature but at a cost in money and a new demand for different skills.
A survey by questionnaire of postgraduate students and academic staff in the Faculty of Science, of the then University of Natal, Durban, gathered in-depth information on journal usage patterns. The Masters Degree study for which the fieldwork was conducted in 2003, sought to determine whether the shift from print to electronic formats would affect journal usage patterns and dependence on the physical library.