Program. Professor Jackson has also published widely in gambling and has been involved in, and led, a series of large-scale gambling research projects for a variety of government bodies. Professor Jackson is an international authority on the design and management of human service programs. Professor Thomas has published widely in gambling and has been involved in, and led, a series of large-scale gambling research projects for a variety of government bodies. He is an international authority in research and evaluation methodology and in particular the development and validation of measurement tools. Acknowledgements We wish to thank the Gambling Research Panel Chair and members at the time that this study was conducted, Associate Professor Linda Hancock, Associate Professor Chris Chamberlain and Mr Peter Laver and the Panel's Secretariat. We also wish to thank Liz Kearney, Catherine Stoove, and Kerryn Jackson for their work on the project, organising consultations, conducting some interviews and conducting some analyses: Gambler's Help Southern and Free Yourself for their generous assistance in the client interviews; and staff of Melbourne University Private for their efficient management of the project. The purpose of the project was to: • Analyse recent overseas and Australian research on successful problem gambling interventions; • Consider a range of dimensions of service provision; • Identify how services measure their own performance and achievements against these measures; • Gain insight into the reasons for problem gambling, the reasons for contact with various types of services, take-up of various interventions, and perceptions of service effectiveness; • Gain insight into service provision for third parties affected by problem gambling; • Identify innovative, effective and culturally sensitive models of service delivery. In conducting this research a number of activities were undertaken, including: • Analysis of the literature relating to research on gambling service provision with a primary emphasis on sites and models of service delivery; • Analysis of the literature relating to research on problem gambling treatment effectiveness as well as literature relating to treatment effectiveness more generally, with which to contextualise the problem gambling treatment literature;


As a rash of developments of cardiac mapping systems continues to evolve, indications for invasive electrophysiologic interventions are expanding. However, currently available mapping and ablations techniques are often limited by the complex anatomic and surgical substrate and a high arrhythmia recurrence rate. Better understanding of the interdependencies between cardiac anatomy and electrophysiology may have clinical implications, e.g. for planning minimal invasive curative procedures. This feasibility study aimed to investigate a solution to visualize electro- anatomic properties of the myocardium in a free of nervous and hormonal interferences model.


We study confinement in quantum chromodynamics via numerical simulations in the framework of lattice gauge theory. In Landau gauge, the mechanism of confinement is related to the infrared behavior of the ghost and gluon propagators via the Gribov-Zwanziger and Kugo-Ojima scenarios. These scenarios entail a scaling behavior. Functional methods in the continuum allow both for this behavior and for decoupling solutions, while lattice simulations in three and four dimensions yield only the latter. A possible explanation for this mismatch is based on limitations of standard lattice gauge fixing methods. Hence, we investigate a number of alternative gauge fixing algorithms in pure SU(2) gauge theory in two, three and four dimensions. We find that stochastic quantization yields an infrared behavior of the propagators in agreement with the results of standard procedures, even though the Faddeev-Popov operator spectrum indicates some different properties. In the strong-coupling limit, our results challenge the standard picture. In particular, we find in a non-perturbative completion of Landau gauge an enormous effect of the Gribov ambiguity. It entails that no subset of infrared solutions can be excluded yet. Moreover, we study the gluon propagator with free boundary conditions. On large lattices, the results mostly show the standard behavior. We also examine non-periodic gauge transformations. Furthermore, we analyze two topics related to the phase diagram of QCD. First, we explore the sign problem for fermions on the lattice by simulating the three-dimensional Thirring model with a complex Langevin equation. The algorithm succeeds in yielding a 'Silver Blaze' behavior of observables, but it does not reliably describe the onset to a phase with non-zero density. Second, we determine properties of the deconfinement phase transition of pure SU(2) gauge theory in 2+1 dimensions, like the critical temperature, by means of the gluon propagator in Landau gauge.


MOTIVATION
The assessment of graphs through crisp numerical metrics has long been a hallmark of biological network analysis. However, typical graph metrics ignore regulatory signals that are crucially important for optimal pathway operation, for instance, in biochemical or metabolic studies. Here we introduce adjusted metrics that are applicable to both static networks and dynamic systems.

RESULTS
The metrics permit quantitative characterizations of the importance of regulation in biochemical pathway systems, including systems designed for applications in synthetic biology or metabolic engineering. They may also become criteria for effective model reduction.

AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION
The source code is available at https://gitlab.com/tienbien44/metrics-bsa.


In this paper we present a state of the art review of the soft computing based approaches for trust and reputation computation. We divide the soft computing based approaches for trust and reputation computation into five different classes. Each of the five different classes is discussed in this paper.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE
The effect of adjustable suture strabismus surgery techniques on the ease of the postoperative adjustment has not been determined. An in vitro animal model was developed to compare several intraoperative variables with the ability to adjust the sutures.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The amount of force required to advance and recess the suture was measured using different sutures, suture coatings, needles, and scleral tunnel techniques.

RESULTS
Scleral tunnels placed at an angle to the muscle insertion caused significantly greater scleral resistance as compared with tunnels placed perpendicular to the insertion. Although differences were noted in the scleral resistance with different needles, suture coatings, and suture materials, there was a considerable overlap of the effect.

CONCLUSIONS
Scleral tunnels placed perpendicular to the muscle insertion and parallel to the plane of action of the muscle offer the best technique for minimizing scleral resistance. Other less important factors include shorter scleral tunnels, larger needles, and special suture coatings.


A former Kona farmer recalls early life in Japan, immigration to Hawaii, sugarcane and longshoreman work, coffee farming and ranching.


Nowadays, with the popularity of weibo, relying on the app to form a variety of records, gradually by the parties as proof of the facts of a case submitted to the court as evidence, the formation of the "weibo evidence" more and more appear in all kinds of civil and commercial cases, similar to the internet electronic evidence has also become the main form of electronic evidence. Before the legal status of electronic data was recognized, WeChat records had the ability to prove the facts of the case, but because of the lack of corresponding legislative provisions and supporting mechanisms, it has been excluded. Therefore, this paper from the background of the times, analyze the current legislative status of microsoft record evidence and practical application of the status quo, identify the microsoft record evidence and electronic evidence of the similarities and differences, microsoft record evidence as electronic evidence of the necessity of the analysis, and finally on the application of the microsoft record evidence of the difficult problem, to put forward the author's personal thinking and feelings.


Ruzicka has reported the preparation of 3-carbethoxy-3-methylcyclopentanone (I) through severa1 steps from ethyl levulinate. In the present investigation, a shorter synthesis of the corresponding methyl ester (II) was achieved from the adduct of butadiene with methyl methacrylate by the following route.


Fe-based catalysts of different geometry are developed for the purification of coke oven gases: bulk, supported on alumina and supported on alumina silicate monoliths. Adsorption and decomposition of H 2 S on the catalysts developed are studied. Influence of active component content, type of support material and modification by Mn and Mo on the catalyst activity in de-H 2 S process is elucidated. Supported monolith catalysts show superior activity over bulk and supported spherical catalysts in H 2 S decomposition reaction and demonstrate stable operation in ammonia decomposition process during 2 hours at 900 В°C giving 100% ammonia conversion.


Based on the data taken from bottom trawl fishery resources survey in the south Yellow Sea and the middle and north East China Sea(27°00′-34°00′N,122°00′-127°00′E)during 2004,the paper deals with the quantity distribution of Lophius litulon in East China Sea.Using Generalized Additive Models(GAM),we examined its' relationship with environmental factors such as depth,temperature and salinity.The results showed that Lophius litulon mainly distributed in the south Yellow Sea and the north East China Sea.There was obvious difference in distribution scope among four seasons,in April the area was the widest,while in December the least.By means of GAM,the calculated optimal scale of temperature,salinity and depth were 11-14 ℃,33.5-34.5 and 40-90 m,respectively.According to the range of water temperature Lophius litulon preferred,we presumed that Lophius litulon would be a cold-temperate species.


Tuberculosis is a serious disease caused by infection with the germ Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Sputum sample analysis is a common method for TB bacilli detection. In some cases, tissue from the suspected system is also obtained using bronchoscope or fine needle aspiration for diagnosis. The Ziehl- Neelsen stain or acid-fast stain is a special stain used to identify the TB bacilli. The preparation of Ziehl-Neelsen slides require several procedures and the slide should be analysed under microscope. There are some factors that may degrade the image quality such as exposure and staining problems. Therefore, image enhancements are necessary to produce fine images in term of contrast and intensity. This paper proposes two methods for colour image enhancement; bright stretching and dark stretching algorithms. Both methods are well known to produce good image enhancement for gray scale images. However, the current study has adapted these methods to be used for colour images. Although the adapted image processing technique is quite simple, the results indicate that these methods may have some potential to be used for improving the quality of Ziehl- Neelsen slide images. The results show that both techniques were successfully improved the image contrast and enhance the image quality.


Objective To explore the value of transrectal ultrasound in the diagnosis of the bladder neoplasm. Methods 103 cases with bladder neoplasm in trigonum vesicae or cervix vesicae were detected and were divided into stages by transrectal ultrasound and transadominal ultrasound. Results The overall accurate staging rate was 94.1% by transrectal ultrasound,and was 80.6% by transadominal ultrasound.There was significant difference between these two mothods( P 0.01 ). Conclusion Transrectal ultrasound is more accurate and useful in diagnosis. [


The existing studies suggest the following methods for measuring sleep postures: installing cameras and record the sleep postures then analyze the postures or measuring the change of the posture by attaching the sensor to the user's body. However, the installation of high-cost devices such as a camera or direct attachment of sensors on the subject's body present issues relating to the cost and convenience. As a solution, this paper develops a recognition algorithm for analyzing sleep postures using a smart pad with embedded fabric type pressure sensors. This algorithm is applied using a fabric-made smart pad with multiple pressure sensors. The sensors detect the distribution of the body pressure on the pad during sleeping, and the collected body pressure distribution data determines the sleep postures of the users. Further, this smart fabric pad does not require any additional analytical devices. This pad allows the users to monitor own sleep postures continuously. With the analyzed sleep posture data, the user can recognize one's typical sleep postures. In order to verify the effectiveness of the algorithm, this paper conducts an experiment to validate using the sleep posture data defined as nine categories. As a result, the algorithm had an average of 91.4% accuracy rate.


Purpose: Provide baseline and preliminary follow-up results in a 5-year longitudinal study of Blau syndrome Design: Multicenter, prospective interventional case series Methods: Baseline data from 50 patients from 25 centers worldwide, and follow-up data for patients followed 1, 2 or 3 years at the end of study enrolment. Ophthalmic data were collected at baseline and yearly visits by means of a standardized collection form. Results: Median age at onset of eye disease was 60 months and duration of eye disease at baseline 145 months. At baseline 38 patients (78%) had uveitis, bilateral in 37 (97%). Eight patients (21%) had moderate to severe visual impairment. Panuveitis was found in 38 eyes (51%), with characteristic multifocal choroidal infiltrates in 29 eyes (39%). Optic disc pallor in 9 eyes (12%) and peripapillary nodules in 9 eyes (12%) were the commonest signs of optic nerve involvement. Active anterior chamber inflammation was noted in 30 eyes (40%) at baseline and in 16 (34%), 17 (57%) and 11 (61%) of eyes at 1, 2 and 3 year respectively. Panuveitis was associated with longer disease duration. At baseline, 56 eyes (75%) were on topical corticosteroids. Twenty-six patients (68%) received a combination of systemic corticosteroids and immunomodulatory therapy. Conclusions: Blau uveitis is characterized by progressive panuveitis with multifocal choroiditis, resulting in severe ocular morbidity in spite of continuous systemic and local immunomodulatory therapy. The frequency and severity of Blau uveitis highlight the need for close ophthalmologic surveillance as well as a search for more effective therapies. M AN US CR IP T AC CE PT ED ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Blau Syndrome Associated Uveitis: Preliminary Results from an International Prospective Interventional Case Series. Inge L. Sarens, Ingele Casteels, Jordi Anton, Brigitte Bader-Meunier, Philippe Brissaud, Gaelle Chédeville, Rolando Cimaz, Andrew D. Dick, Graciella Espada, Jorge Fernandez-Martin, Catherine M. Guly, Eric Hachulla, Miroslav Harjacek, Raju Khubchandani, Friederike Mackensen, Rosa Merino, Consuelo Modesto, Antonio Naranjo, Sheila Oliveira-Knupp, Seza Özen, Christine Pajot, Athimalaipet V. Ramanan, Ricardo Russo, Gordana Susic, Akaluck Thatayatikom, Caroline Thomée, Sebastiaan Vastert, John Bertin, Juan I. Arostegui, Carlos D. Rose and Carine H. Wouters 1. Department of Ophthalmology, Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Leuven, Belgium 2. Pediatric Rheumatology Unit, Hospital Sant Joan de Déu. Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain 3. Unité d'Immunologie, Hématologie et Rhumatologie Pediatrique, Hospital Necker-Enfants Malades, Inserm U 768, Imagine Foundation, Paris, France 4. Rheumatology Practice, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France 5. Montreal Children's Hospital, McGill University Health Center, Montreal, Quebec, Canada 6. Dipartimento de Pediatria, Universita degli Studi di Firenze, Firenze, Italy 7. Bristol Eye Hospital, University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust, Bristol, UK 8. Pediatric Rheumatology Unit, Hospital de Niños Ricardo Gutierrez, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina 9. Servicio de Medicine Interna, Hospital Alvaro Cunquiero-Complejo Hospitalario Universitario de Vigo, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Vigo, Spain 10. Service de Médecine Interne, Hôpital Claude Huriez, Université de Lille, Lille, France 11. Department of Rheumatology, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia 12. Department of Pediatrics, Jaslok Hospital, Mumbai, India 13. Interdisciplinary Uveitis Center, Universitat Klinikum Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany. * Dr Mackensen is included as a co-author posthumously, in recognition of her substantial contributions to the content of this manuscript. 14. Unidad de Reumatologia Pediatrica, Hospital La Paz, Madrid, Spain 15. Pediatric Rheumatology, Hospital Universitario Valle de Hebron, Barcelona, Spain 16. Servicio de Rheumatologia, Hospital de Gran Canarias Dr Negrin, Las Palmas, Spain 17. Instituto de Puericultura e Pediatria Martagao Gesteira (IPPMG), Universidade Federal de Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil 18. Department of Pediatric Rheumatology, Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey 19. Pédiatrie-Néphrologie, Médecine Interne et Hypertension, Hôpital des Enfants, Toulouse, France 20. Department of Pediatric Rheumatology, Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, Bristol, UK 21. Service of Immunology/Rheumatology, Hospital de Pediatria Garrahan, Buenos Aires, Argentina 22. Pediatric Rheumatology, Institute of Rheumatology, Belgrade, Serbia 23. Division of Allergy/Immunology/Rheumatology, Department of Pediatrics, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA 24. Pediatric Clinic, Centre Hospitalier de Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Luxembourg 25. Division of Pediatrics, Department of Pediatric Immunology and Rheumatology, UMC Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands 26. Pattern Recognition Receptor Discovery Performance Unit, Immuno-inflammation Therapeutic Area, GlaxoSmithKline, Collegeville, Pennsylvania, USA 27. Department of Immunology-CDB, Hospital Clinic – IDIBAPS, Barcelona, Spain 28. Pediatrics, Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children, Wilmington, DE, USA 29. Department of Pediatric Rheumatology, Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Leuven, Belgium Supplemental material available at AJO.com. Short title: Blau uveitis, a prospective multicenter case series. Corresponding author: Inge L. Sarens, Department of Ophthalmology, UZ Leuven Gasthuisberg, Herestraat 49, 3000 Leuven, Belgium. E-mail: email@example.com Phone number: +32 16 33 26 87 Fax: +32 16 34 39 81 M AN US CR IP T AC CE PT ED ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT


An operating method of a memory cell is described, wherein the memory cell has a plurality of threshold voltages. The operating method includes programming the cell from an initial state to a programmed state. The initial state is an erased state having a threshold voltage between the lowest threshold voltage and the highest one among the plurality of threshold voltages.


The research was focused on the magnetic pulse welding (MPW) of 12.5% Cr steel STS410. The experiments were performed in the tube-plug geometry (both details were made of the same steel). Magnetic pulse unit consisted of pulsed current generator (PCG) loaded to a single-turn coil. Magnetic field amplitude of 40 T was generated in the coil during experiments. The amplitude of pulsed current reached 750 kA. The effects of energy storage capacity, charging voltage, and end plug shape were studied. The welded samples were investigated by optical microscopy. The optimal velocities of impact and contact front motion were evaluated as 300 m/s and 3-3.5 km/s, respectively. The paper includes the leakage test results as well. To date, the joints with a helium leak rate of 10 mbar·l·s have been produced.


Pentafluorophenylboronic acid catalyzes the regioselective coupling of structurally diverse allylic alcohols with a variety of electron-rich aromatic and heteroaromatic substrates under ambient conditions. The commercially available catalyst is recoverable and air and moisture stable, and the reaction produces water as the only byproduct.


: Heirloom tomatoes are open-pollinated varieties bearing a wide diversity of colors and shapes that may be used by breeders aiming to improve physical and biochemical fruit traits. Hence, in this work heirloom tomato accessions were characterized, gathering information to genetic breeding programs focusing on human food. For that, 67 heirloom tomato accessions were evaluated for fruit size, fruit mass, fruit volume, color, vitamin C, titratable acidity, soluble solids content, phenolic compounds content, total flavonoid content, and antioxidant activity. The experiment was conducted in a randomized complete block design with three repetitions. Linear mixed model, Pearson's correlation and hierarchical clustering were applied to data. Five groups were formed by Ward's clustering method. The accession UEL 300 constituted group A, which had the greatest mass and volume fruit. Eight accessions formed group B and showed mostly yellow fruits. Group C was comprised of 13 accessions, which had the highest levels of carotenoids, vitamin C, and antioxidant activity. Thirty-three accessions that constituted group D did not stand out for any of the attributes, while 12 accessions into group E had the highest content of phenolic compounds and flavonoids, along with the highest ratio of soluble solids and acidity. Five accessions in this collection (UEL 296, UEL 146, UEL 238, UEL 231, and UEL 217) stood out for their biochemical traits. The wide diversity for physical and biochemical fruit traits can be explored in tomato breeding programs, seeking to develop new cultivars, and strengthening family farming.


In this work, the capability of a multiphase lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) based on the pseudopotential Shan-Chen (S-C) model is investigated for simulation of two-phase flows through porous media at high-density and high–viscosity ratios. The accuracy and robustness of the S-C LBM are examined by the implementation of the single relaxation time (SRT) and multiple relaxation time (MRT) collision operators with integrating the forcing schemes of the shifted velocity method (SVM) and the exact difference method (EDM). Herein, two equations of state (EoS), namely, the standard Shan-Chen (SC) EoS and Carnahan-Starling (CS) EoS, are implemented to assay the performance of the numerical technique employed for simulation of two-phase flows at high-density ratios. An appropriate modification in the forcing schemes is also used to remove the thermodynamic inconsistency in the simulation of two-phase flow problems studied at low reduced temperatures. The comparative study of these improvements of the S-C LBM is performed by considering an equilibrium state of a droplet suspended in the vapor phase. The solver is validated against the analytical coexistence curve for the liquid-vapor system and the surface tension estimation from the Laplace Law. Then, according to the results obtained, a conclusion has been made to choose an efficient numerical algorithm, including an appropriate collision operator, a realistic EoS, and an accurate forcing scheme, for simulation of multiphase flow transport through a porous medium. The patterns of two-phase flow transport through the porous medium are predicted using the present numerical scheme in different flow conditions defined by the capillary number and the dynamic viscosity ratio. The results obtained for the nonwetting phase saturation, penetration structure of the invading fluid, and the displacement patterns of two-phase flow in the porous medium are comparable with those reported in the literature. The present study demonstrates that the S-C LBM with employing the MRT-EDM scheme, CS EoS, and the modified forcing scheme is efficient and accurate for estimation of the two-phase flow characteristics through the porous medium.


Background: Older Canadians with chronic diseases are the biggest users of the health care system. Primary health care services are seen as having a role in coordinating health system access and care for older adults with chronic illness, but at present lacks specific strategies to fulfil this role. The Chronic Care Model (CCM) developed by Wagner and colleagues (1996) provides a framework for developing an effective health care system for chronic disease prevention and management (1). Fundamental to the CCM is the support of productive interactions of patients and families with health care providers, leading to improved outcomes. For older adults with chronic disease and their families, a system navigator role could support productive interactions and effective coordination and navigation through a complex and fragmented health care system. Aims: This project aims to understand how the role of a system navigator can be developed and implemented in primary care. Methods: This study used qualitative methods, within a developmental evaluation approach (2) to develop a system navigator role by working with multiple stakeholders in two communities (one urban, one rural) of Ontario, Canada. Focus group (n=4) and key informant (n=6) interviews with members of primary care teams, representatives of community support services, patients, and their families, were conducted to understand the context within which the primary care teams are operating, available community resources, and opportunities to support system navigation. Data were coded using a line by line, emergent approach (3). These results were reviewed in a workshop which brought primary care and community representatives together to refine the system navigation model and to identify strategies for its implementation. Results: The focus group and key informant interviews identified health care and community needs, resources and opportunities to support system navigation in each primary care centre. For example, community services such as meals on wheels, adult day programs, and exercise programs were identified and charted onto referral maps to be used by the system navigator to link older adults to appropriate resources. Primary care teams and community stakeholders worked in partnership to develop and implement a feasible model of system navigation, in which patients and families are engaged in decision-making around their care.


The effects of norepinephrine (NE) on arterioles and venules and measured arteriolar wall (W) to lumen (L) ratios in the hamster cheek pouch were compared during the development of hypertension (HT) during sustained HT and following antihypertensive therapy. After the determination of baseline blood pressures in 25 hamsters, the cheek pouch microcirculation was evaluated (day O). NE (0.5-1,000 ng) was applied in 3.35-/zl volumes to arterioles and venules. An image shearer was used to measure W/L ratios prior to drug application and vessel diameter after NE application. Fifteen of the hamsters then were prepared according to the technique of GroUman in order to induce HT, while the remaining 10 were sham-operated. The cheek pouch microcirculation again was evaluated 15 days (early phase of HT) and 70 days (later phase of HT) following surgery. Then, both groups were placed on propranolol therapy for 20 days and the cheek pouch microcirculation again was evaluated. Both arterial blood pressure and arteriolar sensitivity to NE were significantly increased in the GroUman hamsters at day 15, compared with nonnotensive controls. No significant changes occurred at this time in either venular sensitivity or arteriolar W/L ratios. AU three variables were increased at day 70. After 20 days of propranolol treatment, arterial blood pressure decreased in the GroUman hamsters and vascular sensitivity was not different from nonnotensive controls; however, arteriolar W/L ratios were still elevated. These studies clearly show that, in the present model, the hypertensive state is paralleled by an increase in arteriolar but not venular sensitivity and the vascular structural changes are the result rather than the cause of HT.


A method in a network node network gateway packet data, P-GW, (108, 300) or node general radio service support gateway packet, GGSN, (300), wireless communications, the method comprising: obtaining information indicating that it is necessary issue a request for paging, characterized by making the request paging network node within the P-GW (108, 300) or GGSN (300); and send the request paging, using a notification message downlink data or a specific message protocol tunneling general service packet radio, GTP, to a network node serving gateway, S-GW, ( 106).


Among important parameters of photodetector arrays for medical imaging applications is the detector photo-response linearity with radiation flux. This paper addresses the above issue for the back-illuminated, thin pin photodiode arrays built on 75-mum thick single silicon dies. The features of the arrays include high quantum efficiency, fast signal rise time, very small AC and DC crosstalk (~0.01%) within the spectral range 400 to 800 nm, very low leakage currents and high shunt resistance (>10 GOmega). The photo-sensitivity linearity was found to be better than 0.01% within the spectral range from 450 to 1000 nm and in the range of input light fluxes above ~1 nW/pixel. For lower light fluxes, the nonlinearity of the photo-sensitivity was smaller than the noise current of the array pixels and different methods should be applied to provide measurements with an accuracy of better than 0.1%. This work also gives an estimate for the theoretical limit for the sensitivity linearity measurements.


1 Abstract Three different spline-based approaches for solving Bratu and Bratu-type equations are presented. The classical cubic spline collocation method, an adaptive spline collocation on nonuniform partitions, and an optimal collocation method are derived for solving Bratu-type equations. Numerical examples are presented to verify the efficiency and accuracy of these methods when compared to other numerical schemes. The fourth order of convergence for the optimal method is verified.


Vitamin D plays an important role in supporting the immune system. Its expression on vital immune cells like B, T, and antigen-presenting cells has become an important topic of research in response to the current COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of vitamin D is vital not only to supporting the role of bones and muscle development, but also in its involvement in the regulation of mood and the immune system. This "sunshine vitamin", due to its role in developing immunity within both adaptive and innate forms, is important to investigate with regards to disease prevention. There has been a recent push by many researchers to increase the recommended dosage of vitamin D because research shows that vitamin D deficiency can increase susceptibility to communicable diseases such as SARS-CoV-2. In this paper, we plan to highlight the immediate need to increase the national recommended dosage for Vitamin D due to the current population statistics indicating a significant overall deficiency, especially in areas with a high population density and within many minority groups. The purpose of this paper is also to highlight how the public's vitamin D deficiency may also be contributing to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis as well.


The maternal mortality rate in Indonesia is still above the target set by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Central Java Province included in five provinces in Indonesia with the highest cases of maternal deaths. The maternal mortality is the death during pregnancy or within 42 days after the end of pregnancy. This study uses the number of maternal deaths in Central Java Province in 2017 in the form of count data, so the analysis used is a Poisson regression model. In the Poisson regression analysis, we find cases of overdispersion and negative binomial regression can be used to overcome the case. However, because there is heterogeneity in residue, the appropriate model applied is the Geographically Weighted Negative Binomial Regression (GWNBR) model in each district and city in Central Java Province. The modeling analyzes the factors that significantly influence maternal mortality. The results of this study obtained factors that influence the number of maternal deaths in all district and city is the percentage of clean and healthy living behavior household and the number of community health centers (puskesmas). Besides, three classification groups of districts and cities were obtained with each variable influencing them.The maternal mortality rate in Indonesia is still above the target set by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Central Java Province included in five provinces in Indonesia with the highest cases of maternal deaths. The maternal mortality is the death during pregnancy or within 42 days after the end of pregnancy. This study uses the number of maternal deaths in Central Java Province in 2017 in the form of count data, so the analysis used is a Poisson regression model. In the Poisson regression analysis, we find cases of overdispersion and negative binomial regression can be used to overcome the case. However, because there is heterogeneity in residue, the appropriate model applied is the Geographically Weighted Negative Binomial Regression (GWNBR) model in each district and city in Central Java Province. The modeling analyzes the factors that significantly influence maternal mortality. The results of this study obtained factors that influence the number of maternal deaths in all district and city is t...


Beyond maximum operating temperature, failure of electronics components can be caused by package or junction over temperature. Malfunction of electronics package due to self heating or environmental heating is a common problem. Heat-sinks and fans are realized which doesn"t provide the desired cooling. Additional cooling techniques need to be developed and realized for reliable performance of devices. The thermoelectric effect is conducive to the conversion of heat energy into electric power and vice versa. Peltier Effect is utilized in development of cooling system through thermocouples. In this work combination of nanomaterial "Armchair Graphene Nanoribbon", encompassing giant figure of merit and n type Bismuth Telluride have been investigated as thermocouple materials. With this arrangement maximum cooling achieved is 103K below the room temperature. NI Lab-VIEW based measurement and control software has been developed which, on sensing surrounding temperature rise, provides command to Thermoelectric cooling system to cool down the electronic system. FEA model of peltier effect has been presented to implement heat equation, heat balance equation, Gauss theorem and Neumann boundary condition. Multiphysics simulation using PDE application mode has been performed to demonstrate cooling of thermocouple junction by peltier phenomenon. Index Terms — Thermoelectric, Peltier Effect, Nanomaterials, Emf, Temperature, Measurement, Thermal control, FEA Model, Simulation.


A cubic Stewart platform with an image sensor meausring is proposed for a line-of-sight (LOS) pointing and stabilization. The charge couple device (CCD) as a image sensor mounted on the Stewart platform can provide the LOS error only in the azimuth and elevation directions, so a decoupled control strategy through the transformation of the Jacobian matrix is introduced to transform a Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) control into Single-Input Single-Output (SISO) control. Due to the low bandwidth of the Stewart platform and the finite sampling rate of the CCD, the closed-loop performance is greatly restricted. An optimal observer control based on Youla parameterization is proposed to improve the tracking performance in the CCD-based Stewart platform control system. This improved controller relies on the LOS error combined with the controller output to produce high gain, plugging into the tradditional closed-loop structure, which results in minimizing the error attenuation function by designing an appropriate Q-filter. Both the simulations and experiments are carried out to prove the effectiveness of the proposed observer compared with the classical feedback controller.


This paper presents a small-scale autonomous helicopter which equipped with more compatible instrument- MP2028-UAV and a number of sensors. Within the payload capability of the model helicopter, we configure the onboard instrumentation efficiently to achieve the desire to land softly on a moving target.


To the editor,
In this letter, we intend to highlight a considerably submerged topic, testicular self-examination (TSE), in the belief of catching suspicious testicular growth early. Previously, an idea of self-breast examination was proposed with a similar principle of 'preventing a late diagnosis of breast cancer' and is now considered and promoted as a routine practice at various institutes. Though clinical breast examination was not found to be significantly correlated to decreasing mortality rate in women, it was, however, linked to down staging of tumors. (1)
Similarly, TSE in men is believed to help pick neoplastic growths, thereby promoting immediate implication of the management plan as testicular tumors are amenable to respond effectively to treatment, if diagnosed earlier.
On the basis of statistical evidence, testicular malignancies are commonly found to arise in cryptorchidism, Klinefelter's syndrome, testicular microlithiasis, hypospadias and family history suggestive of testicular tumors (TT). (2)
---Continue


Abstract Although the Green Revolution in Indonesia has shown an increase in theagricultural production, a rapid marginalisation process among the farmers has taken place simultaneously. This article aims to identify the role of Sekolah Lapang Petani (Farmer Field School), which is one of the programs conducted byPengelolaan Hama Terpadu (Integrated Pest Management, IPM). This program is conducted by the government in response to the negative impacts of the Green Revolution that is consideredto be responsible in deteriorating the local knowledge and the local wisdom techniques, the power of creative-innovation and the freedom of the farmers. This study was conducted in two different sites in South Sulawesi, namely: Manjalling Village (Gowa) and Soreang Village (Maros). Our informants are those who joined SLP-PHT program in the two locations. They consistof 17 farmers; 5 of them are from Manjalling, while rests are from Soreang. We triangulate, in-depth interview, observation, life history, and focus group discussion (FGD) as our data collection methods. The results showed that the implementation of SLP-PHT program in Manjallingand Soreang has played an important role in the application process of the local knowledge and the farmers' creative-innovative development in agricultural, such as productive, righteousness, adaptive, and environmentally friendly. Keywords: farmer field school, creativity, innovative, plant fertilizer and medicine.


Coordinated multipoint (CoMP) transmission can provide high spectral efficiency for cellular systems if perfect channels are available. In limited feedback systems, except for channel direction, signal-to-noise-plus-interference ratio (SINR) is necessary to assist in user scheduling and adaptive transmission. When the methods to estimate SINR in single-cell systems is applied to CoMP systems, the performance will significantly degrade. In this paper, we estimate the SINR for downlink CoMP systems. We start by showing that the quantization error vector is no longer isotropic when quantizing CoMP channels. This implies that the vector has an inherent structure. We proceed to formulate an optimization problem to find the quantization error vector that maximizes the multiuser interference power under the structure constraint. This way, we can exploit the nonisotropic nature of the quantization error vector and avoid overestimating the SINR. Simulation results show that the proposed method provides high throughput and low outage probability with negligible extra feedback overhead.


This paper presents a technique to control the center frequency and bandwidth of the passband of a bandpass filter (BPF) based on substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) loaded with two cascaded rectangular mushroom resonators (RMRs). The surface current distributions of both mushroom resonators at the fundamental mode (TE101) are disturbed by introducing perturbation slots to modulate the current path and change the resonance frequency. The slot gap between the RMRs are varied to affect the internal coupling between them in order to change the split resonances of the fundamental mode and reconFigure the bandwidth of the passband. A partial selectivity of the passband is achieved by generating a transmission zero (TZ) at the lower stopband. The simulated passband shows a shift in center frequency (CF) by 14.5% with nearly constant bandwidth and a change in 3dB fractional bandwidth (FBW) of nearly 3% with a constant center frequency. The proposed filter having a CF of nearly 2.35 GHz undergoes a minimum insertion loss of 0.8 dB and occupies a compact area of $0.26\lambda_{0} \times 0.43 \lambda_{0}$ where $\lambda_{0}$ is the guided wavelength of the TE101 mode.


We show empirically that fits to the color-magnitude relation of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) after optical maximum can provide accurate relative extragalactic distances. We report the discovery of an empirical color relation for SN Ia light curves: during much of the first month past maximum, the magnitudes of SNe Ia defined at a given value of color index have a very small magnitude dispersion; moreover, during this period the relation between B magnitude and B-V color (or B-R or B-I color) is strikingly linear, to the accuracy of existing well-measured data. These linear relations can provide robust distance estimates, in particular, by using the magnitudes when the SN reaches a given color. After correction for light-curve stretch factor or decline rate, the dispersion of the magnitudes taken at the intercept of the linear color-magnitude relation is found to be around 0.08 mag for the subsample of SNe with (Bmax-Vmax) ≤ 0.05 mag and around 0.11 mag for the subsample with (Bmax-Vmax) ≤ 0.2 mag. This small dispersion is consistent with being mostly due to observational errors. The method presented here and the conventional light-curve fitting methods can be combined to further improve statistical dispersions of distance estimates. It can be combined with the magnitude at maximum to deduce dust extinction. The slopes of the color-magnitude relation may also be used to identify intrinsically different SN Ia systems. The method provides a tool that is fundamental to using SNe Ia to estimate cosmological parameters such as the Hubble constant and the mass and dark energy content of the universe.


Governments throughout Australia have deployed Aboriginal specific positions within government departments in an effort to improve access to government services for Aboriginal people. This small-scale study uses a qualitative interpretive interview approach to explore the communication strategies that enable two Aboriginal staff to act as mediators between the bureaucracy and Aboriginal communities. The paper also reveals unique types of professional pressures, which may not be evident in the wider public service. Although focused on Australia, the findings may have implications for other intercultural communication contexts that involve interaction between indigenous people and government bureaucracies.


Drug addiction is very common among people. Thousands of people are now suffering from cocaine addiction. Nicotine addiction may be one of the most common in the world, but many people underestimate the health hazards of nicotine. This report, presents nicotine in four parts: harms and addiction; research; conclusions, and further implications. Because nicotine is not like most banned drugs on the market-nicotine cannot be absorbed directly, people must be exposed to nicotine through a certain medium. The most common and intuitive way is through smoking, secondhand smoke, and e-cigarettes. However, most people don't start smoking because of nicotine addiction, so the authors of this paper conducted experiments on why people start smoking late. Through self-made questionnaires and online experimental surveys, the results showed people were exposed to smoking because of environmental factors, social factors, psychological factors, and so on. People were exposed to nicotine for too long due to their addiction to cigarettes, which evolved into an addiction to nicotine. In the later stage, due to the addictive nature of nicotine, people no longer smoke because of the original addiction to smoking, but because they want to meet the needs of nicotine.


extraction-steam heating coils. The second inspection, made approximately 3 months after the first inspection, indicated the tubular air heater to be in first-class condition with only a thin coating of fine ash. Station Heat Rates. The net station heat rates for unit No. 3, based on design calculations, are shown in Fig. 9. The actual operating results for the period from July 14, 1954, to March 31, 1955, are given in Table 1-A. During this period the average operating turbine load was 9S,000 kw and the average over-all net heat rate was 9190 Btu per kwhr.


A HiBi fiber optic coil strain sensor is proposed in this paper. lt can be used to test arbitrarilydirection strain in two-dimensional of the coil plane. The sensor's sensitivity can be easily changed byincrease or decrease the number of the coil turns. The test results show an excellent linearity betweenthe observed phase change and the strain measured with resistive gage in tension.


Twenty-three patients with infective endocarditis received intramuscular clindamycin (Cleocin) for treatment. Thirteen had acute Staphylococcus (S.) aureus endocarditis but none had involvement of the aortic valve. Eleven of these 13 infections were heroin-related and involved the tricuspid valve. Twenty-one patients were successfully treated. Two patients with heroin-related S. aureus infection failed to respond to intramuscularly administered clindamycin, but responded to retreatment with methicillin. There have been 34 additional reported cases of endocarditis treated with clindamycin. Although 80 percent of all cases due to staphylococci responded favorably, almost all were heroin-related tricuspid valve infections. In addition 91 percent of cases due to aerobic streptococci responded but, surprisingly, treatment failed in three of four cases of anaerobic endocarditis. Although clindamycin can be useful in streptococcal endocarditis and in some cases of heroin-related S. aureus tricuspid endocarditis, caution should be exercised in its use. It is "less" bactericidal than the penicillins or cephalosporins, and organisms have become resistant during treatment. Furthermore, patients with anaerobic endocarditis have not responded well, and data are not available to recommend administration of clindamycin for acute S. aureus infections engrafted on the aortic or mitral valve.


Abstract The monotypic new genus Barriella is described on the basis of B. longicornoides Opitz, new species, from Brazil. I postulate that Barriella represents a descendant of a Gondwanian stock that also yielded such Old World genera as Stigmatium Grey and Clerus Fabricius. The potential relationships of B. longicornoides Opitz to Chilean genera such as Natalis Laporte, Notocymatodera Schenkling, Eurymetomorphon Pic, and Ctenoclerus Solervicens, and to the New World genera Placopterus Wolcott and Enoclerus Gahan, is also discussed. A synonymy involving Notocymatodera modesta (Spinola) and Notocymatodera dimidiata (Germar) is suggested.


 IC forms an integral part of Rothbart's model of temperament, which she defines as 'constitutional differences in reactivity and self-regulation'. Reactivity refers to motor, emotional, and attentional responses to internal and external stimuli. Self-regulation are those processes serving to modulate this reactivity (e.g. Approach/Withdrawal, Inhibitory control, and Attention). Temperamental concepts are being used to explain behavioral and physiological patterns and responses that are evoked under conditions of stress (e.g. novelty situations, unfamiliar persons).  Independent-samples t-tests were employed to evaluate possible differences on chronological age, SES, IQ-score, and a simple reaction time task. No significant between-group differences were found ( p > .05).


Hand tracking is one of the most important phases of a sign language recognition system that affects the final recognition rate directly. Kalman filter is a well-known technique for object tracking. By minimizing the mean square error, this filter is able to estimate the past, present and future states in a process, even in systems that are inherently uncertain. Hand movement in sign language video is very complex. Hence, Kalman filter is a suitable estimator to predict the hands motion. In this paper, we present an approach to optimize the Kalman filter to track the movement of hands accurately. The modified Kalman filter is then compared with other tracking methods by testing on the Persian sign language video database made by authors.


Capacitive energy storage have been widely used in area of pulsed power, however, it canpsilat be used in application which requires long time energy storage (for example, accumulation of solar energy) due to its electric leakage. Since the superconducting inductor has great carrying capacity and zero DC resistance, it can store energy with no loss over a long period of time. In addition, it only requires small-scaled low voltage power supply as charger for the superconducting inductor, so the high voltage equipments can be reduced. A pulsed current output generator was proposed for linear induction motor in an electromagnetic launcher to accelerate the projectile. Detailed analyses on the characteristics of this circuit was made, its performance was tested through preliminary experiment.


We have cloned a mouse homologue (designated Myak) of the yeast protein kinase YAK1. The 1210 aa open reading frame contains a putative protein kinase domain, nuclear localization sequences and PEST sequences. Myak appears to be a member of a growing family of YAK1‐related genes that include Drosophila and human Minibrain as well as a recently identified rat gene ANPK that encode a steroid hormone receptor interacting protein. RNA blot analysis revealed that Myak is expressed at low levels ubiquitously but at high levels in reproductive tissues, including testis, epididymis, ovary, uterus, and mammary gland, as well as in brain and kidney. In situ hybridization analysis on selected tissues revealed that Myak is particularly abundant in the hormonally modulated epithelia of the epididymis, mammary gland, and uterus, in round spermatids in the testis, and in the corpora lutea in the ovary. Myak is also highly expressed in the aqueduct of the adult brain and in the brain and spinal cord of day 12.5 embryos. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 55:372–378, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Gd-tetraazacyclododecane acid; LDH: Dehydrogenase. Abstract The use of [1- 13 C] pyruvate hyperpolarized by means of DNP provides direct access to metabolic transformations of this metabolite in vivo and in cells cultures. Differentiation of the intra and extracellular metabolite component in the 13C NMR spectra is not straightforward and, in order to obtain information about the activity of monocarboxylate transporter proteins (MCT) some . The purpose of this study is to investigate the rate of pyruvate and lactate transport through the cellular membrane. This is pursued by means of the heptacoordinated Gd-DO3A complex, that allows a dramatic decrease of the relaxation time of the 13 C-carboxylate resonances of pyruvate and lactate. When Gd-DO3A is added to a MCF-7 cellular culture, that previously received a dose of hyperpolarized [1- 13 C] pyruvate, a sudden "quenching" of the extracellular pyruvate and lactate signal takes place. From the analysis of the decay curves of the 13 C-carboxylate resonances of pyruvate and lactate it is possible to extract useful information about the exchange rate of the two metabolites across the cellular membrane. In particular it is found that the rate of pyruvate transport from the intra to the extracellular compartment is null whereas that of lactate is rather high (about 30 fmol cell -1 min -1 ). The herein reported method is non-destructive and can be translated to in vivo studies. It opens the way for the use of hyperpolarized pyruvate to assess altered activity of carboxylate transporter proteins that may occur in pathological conditions.


Let n be a probability measure on a locally convex Hausdorff space E and A(p) be the quasi-invariant set of p. If ^*(^4(^))>0, then there exist a finite-dimensional subspace L, a thick subgroup G of L and a countable subgroup {xt} such that A(fj.) = 00 \J(G+Xi). If E is Souslin, then A(fji) is a Borel subset. If E is Souslin and if


Cutaneous T‐cell lymphoma (CTCL) is a heterogeneous group of extra‐nodal non‐Hodgkin lymphomas with primary manifestation in the skin with poor treatment options in the advanced stages. As basis for future immune‐therapeutic strategies we have investigated the possible expression of tumor‐specific targets in CTCL focusing mainly on so‐called cancer‐germline genes. cDNAs derived from 20 CTCL tissues and 4 CTCL cell lines were tested with 15 gene‐specific and 4 gene family‐specific primers by RT‐PCR and confirmative Northern blotting. The most frequently detected mRNAs were LAGE‐1 (55% with only partial coexpression of the splicing variants), cTAGE‐1 (35%), MAGE‐A9 (27%) and the GAGE‐3–7 group (35%). Furthermore, we could detect NY‐ESO‐1 (21%) and a MAGE‐A subgroup (15%), whereas sub‐specification of the latter proved absence of MAGE‐A1, ‐A2, ‐A3, ‐A6 and ‐A12. SCP‐1 was found in only one specimen and a several antigens could not been detected in any tumor tissue or cell line (MAGE‐B, GAGE‐1,2,8 and all 4 RAGE genes). 90% of all CTCL samples were positive for at least 1 of the frequent mRNAs in RT‐PCR (LAGE‐1, NY‐ESO‐1, cTAGE‐1, MAGE‐A9, or GAGE‐3to7). Using a secondary SEREX approach we could detect sero‐reactivity in sera of CTCL patients against recombinant cTAGE‐1 (10/29), GAGE (3/19), MAGE‐A1 (1/18), ‐A3 (1/18), ‐A6 (2/18) and ‐A9 (4/18) protein, but not against LAGE‐1a, MAGE‐A4b or MAGE‐A12 protein (n = 19). We conclude, that certain cancer‐germline genes can be detected frequently in CTCL and are able to elicit a systemic immune response. These candidate genes might therefore be promising targets for immunotherapeutic interventions in CTCL. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


For general optimal control problems, Pontryagin's maximum principle gives necessary optimality conditions, which are in the form of a Hamiltonian differential equation. For its numerical integration, symplectic methods are a natural choice. This article investigates to which extent the excellent performance of symplectic integrators for long‐time integrations in astronomy and molecular dynamics carries over to problems in optimal control.


Foucault's sense of the modern epoch finds Kant everywhere in the background. If, for Kant, nature appears to accommodate our needs, human reason nevertheless has a purpose beyond ourselves; nature's purpose dictates our use of reason. Kant had us use reason to progress from savagery to animal husbandry and the cultivation of the land, mutual exchange, culture, and civil society. Better known are Smith's four stages of human history: the Ages of Hunters, Shepherds, Agriculture, and Commerce. Set back by nomadic barbarians, Europe belatedly developed a novel society of independent nations, ever vigilant (and often enough at war), committed to improving their productive capabilities and reaping the benefits of commerce. Rationalization and positivism marked the final stage, which in turn required a positive legal order grounded in unimpeachable sources of law. These James Madison definitively articulated when he was U.S. secretary of state.


INTRODUCTION
Imatinib is a first-line selective tyrosine kinase inhibitor used for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia. Although imatinib-induced hepatotoxicity may aggravate the patient's clinical condition and alter the treatment plan, the mechanism of imatinib-induced hepatotoxicity has rarely been investigated.

CASE REPORT
We report a 51-year-old man, suffering from acute toxic hepatitis after 5 months of imatinib treatment for chronic myeloid leukemia.

MANAGEMENT AND OUTCOME
The outcome was favorable after discontinuation of treatment with normalization of biological liver function after 12 weeks. The treatment was switched to nilotinib without any incidents.

DISCUSSION
Regular liver function test monitoring is recommended during imatinib treatment. In fact of acute hepatic toxicity, treatment with imatinib should be stopped in the case of cytolysis more than five times the upper limit of normal.


The problem of studies of the fortification development of the Lviv midtown has a long history. As early, Bartlomej Zimorowicz was the first author who covers the history of Lviv at the 17th century. In his work "Leopolis Triplex" he pays a lot of attention to fortifications and presents materials and facts about their construction. Other researchers later relied on his work, in particular, Yaroslaw Widawski, Janusz Witwicki, Wladyslav Tomkewicz and others. Denys Zubrytskyi also made a great contribution to uncovering unknown pages of the construction of Lviv fortifications. He was engaged in organizing the Lviv archives, and discovered and published a lot of information about the dates and features of the construction and modernization of fortification objects. The most complete works devoted to the defensive fortifications of the Lviv midtown are the publications of W. Tomkewicz and Ja. Witwicki. These authors conducted research in the interwar period, but their materials were published in the 1970s. It should be pointed out the important publications of various authors in the magazine "Halytska brama", several issues of which were devoted to the history of the fortifications of Lviv. In a synthesized form, the question of the construction of Lviv's defense structures and their reconstruction in different historical periods is revealed in a new work on the history of Lviv's architecture, published under the general editorship of Yuriy Biryulyov. In a somewhat shorter version, the stages of development of Lviv fortifications are revealed in the "Atlas of historical cities. Lviv". In our work, we aim to analyze the sources and literature that highlight the history of architecture only so-called High defensive wall of Lviv midtown. This was the first brick line of fortifications in the center of the city. It began to be built in the first years of the 14th century, and it was used for defensive purposes until the end of the 18th century. Based on the results of the analysis, we have identified 4 main stages of the architectural transformation of this defensive structure.


The present invention discloses a charge control device PV. PWM signal which drive member (6) comprising a series RC low-pass filter (61 is), PWM chip (62) and a logic gate circuit (63), a microprocessor (5) according to a PWM duty cycle signal, converting means in time series to DC-DC (3) providing an auxiliary switch (31), the main switch drive signal (32) and the synchronous rectification switch (33); DC-DC converting means (3) from the ends of the first parallel resonant capacitor (C1) a main switch (32), connected in parallel across the second resonant capacitor (C2) of the synchronous rectification switch (33), auxiliary switch (31), and a resonant inductor (Lr of) and a filter inductor (Lf of) the composition, for sequentially synchronous rectification switch (33) zero-current turn off the main switch (32) according to the duty ratio of the zero-voltage is set at the time of the quasi-zero voltage turn-off, and the synchronous rectification switch (33) and which ZVS steady-state voltage drop ≤0.1V. It can be widely used in high-power photovoltaic power generation system.


The typical form of Indian Stupa, which is going to understood the gradual development and various forms at the Kushan-era Stupa. Buddhist art and architecture of the Kushan-era was influenced Gandharan Hellenistic culture of the foreign. And indigenous Indian cultures of mature was visually big change. The Kushan-era Stupa has been ten feature. First, a circular podium at typical form of the initial Stupa was constantly changed. Second, is the Stupa of the overlaps and increase podium. Third, the Stupa has been square podium. Forth, is down scale of Anda(Bokbal). Fifth, increases the Stupa and Railing smaller, and Change the position of the Torana(gateway). Sixth, changing the target of the faith, thereby a statue of Buddha has been added in the Stupa. Seventh, around the main Stupa and podium are made in a tabernacle. Eighth, the developed spokes structure was added to on the podium inside. Ninth, crosswise plan appears unlike general Stupa. This type has relevance with Tower Stupa. Tenth, the Votive Stupa was added to the temples and Apse type chaitya has been developed.


This paper presents a simulation study of the effect of different gap acceptance models on delays to drivers at stop-controlled T-junctions. Its first part surveys previous gap acceptance models, including the constant gap acceptance model, and models assuming consistent and/or inconsistent behaviour of drivers assessing gaps in traffic. A computer model was formulated to simulate the traffic flow and driver characteristics at priority T-junctions. It outputs the delays and queue lengths of minor road vehicles. The results were in moderate agreement with Tanner's delay values and much better agreement with Ashworth's delay values. Several simulation runs were made to investigate the effect of various other gap acceptance models on delays. Graphs of some of the results are given for the cases of normally and log-normally distributed gaps. It was found that the constant and pure inconsistency gap acceptance models gave almost the same delays to minor road drivers, irrespective of the volumes and distribution of acceptable gaps. This was also true of the pure consistency and inconsistent inconsistency models of gap acceptance. The inconsistent consistency model seems to be most represntative of typical driver behaviour, and its delays can be accurately estimated by the pure consistency model.


Ultrafast carrier dynamics and terahertz radiation from Er,O-codoped GaAs (GaAs:Er,O) have been investigated by pump and probe reflectance and time-domain terahertz spectroscopy. In pump and probe reflectance measurements, GaAs:Er,O showed faster relaxation time (0.37–0.56ps) of photoexcited carriers than undoped GaAs. In terahertz spectroscopy, the radiated terahertz amplitude decreased and the decay time of transient photocurrent became long with increasing Er concentration. The Er concentration dependence was understood by additional electron scattering due to the Er doping. The fast relaxation time and the terahertz radiation properties suggest new applications of GaAs:Er,O for the terahertz frequency region.


Lately, due to the progress of the sports relay broadcast technologies, pointing out and criticising the scenes that athletes or coaches use foul languages in the sports relay broadcast has been saying by the viewers. The study on the basis of these problems aims to find out how the elementary school students are influenced by the attitude of watching recognition abuse scenes and linguistic violence in the sports relay broadcast. To diagnose the purpose of the study, this research concluded by using for statistical program SPSS Win 20.0 and AMOS 20.0. First, the attitude of amusing watching in the sports relay broadcast brings the negative effect to the recognition abuse scenes. Second, education-oriented watching attitude doesn't affect to them. Third, the watching attitude of temporary interest doesn't influence to the linguistic violence. Fourth, the watching attitude of education-centered doesn't affect to the linguistic violence. Fifth the recognition abuse scenes of the elementary school students influences to the linguistic violence. Therefore, the number of times of abusive scenes and the watching time of it appearing in sporting events relay broadcast is meaningless from the point of view of watching sports relay broadcast. But the elementary school students that have the recognition abusive scenes highly in the sports relay broadcast use more abuse language.


Background: The effects of fitness on mortality either from cardiovascular disease (CVD) or from all causes, among hypertensive adults, are not fully understood, especially among women. The objective of this study was to examine the effect of fitness on all-cause and CVD mortality among hypertensive and normotensive women and men. Methods: Using the Lipids Research Clinics Prevalence Study, we examined the relationship of fitness with mortality among 2712 women and 3000 men followed from 1972–1976 to 1998. Cardiorespiratory fitness was measured using a treadmill test. Sex-specific hazard ratios (HRs) were calculated from proportional hazard models of fitness predicting all-cause or CVD mortality, adjusted for age, education, race, smoking, alcohol, body mass index, and hyperlipidemic sampling strata. Results: Comparing the lowest with the highest quintile of fitness, the adjusted all-cause mortality among hypertensive women was 1.7 (95% confidence interval = 0.9–3.2) and among normotensive women was 2.3 (1.5–3.7). Comparing the same quintiles of fitness, the adjusted all-cause mortality among hypertensive men was 2.0 (1.2–3.4), and among normotensive men it was 1.9 (1.3–2.7). Elevated risks were also observed for CVD mortality. Conclusion: Higher levels of fitness were associated with a lower risk of all-cause and CVD mortality among both hypertensive and normotensive women and men.


In this article the author re-examines a paradox already pointed out by Tocqueville: some of the features of journalism discredited most by critics and academics are actually indispensable if democracy is to function properly. The press remains an institution at the service of the establishment, characterized by its dependence on official sources, by the constraints of institutional conventions, and by professional routines. But in addition to prestigious journalism of the Pulitzer type, subjects that focus primarily on unexpected events, on conflicts and on cynical personalization do also contribute to the democratic process.


We determined the femtosecond nonlinear phase and amplitude spectra in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells using a polarization-division Sagnac interferometer. The nonlinear dispersion around the excitonic resonance can be explained by ultrafast neutralization of the built-in field.


This paper describes a control method for searching suitable gripping points on the outline of generic shapes. It is aimed at robotic grasping tasks where no full geometrical knowledge of the shape is assumed. We first describe the method for a range of 2D generic shapes and then instantiate the method for pick and place operations on known shapes. The algorithms are run on the shape as it appears on the computer screen directly from a vision system. Virtual robotic fingers and associated sensors are then configured and positioned on the screen with three variables being simultaneously controlled. When the control systems reach a steady state, information about virtual finger position and orientation are then used to drive the manipulator.


About the legal adjusting of public relations in relation to convergence media, as well as practical application of regulation mechanisms in an information sphere.


Radio transceivers relying on UWB impulse signals exhibit a strong potential for low data-rate communications at low power consumption. They are for instance specified in the IEEE 802.15.4a WPAN standard [1] to support low data rates, low power and low complexity short-range radio communications and ranging.


Two patients with vitamin D resistant rickets respond to a high phosphorus intake by a positive calcium balance. The response to a calcium infusion suggests a parathyroid effect on phosphaturia but th


The integration of Switched Capacitors (SC) and conventional converters provides advantages such as high gain, reduced stress and voltage regulation. However, it increases the system order and the complexity analysis. Therefore, this paper proposes the development of a methodology for modeling a hybrid switched-capacitor boost converter based on the state space modeling theory, which enables to study in detail these new topologies. Steady-state and dynamic models for operation in continuous conduction mode along with a brief converter analysis are still presented and verified by numerical simulation. As result of the state space modeling, the components stresses are obtained and, in addition, dynamic models are defined. Furthermore, from the proposed methodology a reduced order model is still derived, resulting in simplified transfer functions as well as the controllers design.


The RF section of a software-defined-radio receiver front-end with harmonic rejection is presented. The proposed mixer-based receiver provides two programmable notches that can be located in any desired frequencies, e.g., the third and fifth harmonics of the sampling frequency in the proposed receiver. These rejections at the third and fifth harmonics are implemented using two RF-signal paths with a non-overlapped clocking strategy. The receiver also shows a good rejection at the seventh harmonic. The circuit is implemented in 130-nm CMOS and operates from a 1.5-V supply. Measurement results show that, for a 1-GHz RF input, the receiver has a harmonic rejection of 45 and 46 dB for the third and fifth harmonics, respectively. Moreover, the rejection of the seventh harmonic is as high as 44 dB for a 0.8-GHz RF input. Verifying the results on four different chips shows less than 2-dB variation in the rejection values. The receiver shows a noise figure of 3.8 dB at a baseband frequency of 5 MHz for a 1-GHz RF signal, with a power consumption of 33 mW.


Accepted for publication 9 March 1992 The organisation and planning of health service delivery has long been dominated by concerns other than the evaluation of health services outcomes. The thrust of the Griffiths' inquiry into the management of the NHS,l resulting in the 1984 reforms, was towards the achievement of greater accountability. The then Department of Health and Social Security promulgated a set of performance indicators whose predominant focus lay in resource input and cost and in the process of care, with only five indicators relating to outcome. However, the purchaser-provider split introduced from 1 April 1991, the contracting process and associated developments such as health needs assessment, together with the emphasis on health gain introduced in The Health of the Nation2 have pushed the assessment of health services outcomes to the centre stage of the NHS. At the same time medical audit (and more broadly clinical audit) is being widely championed,3 encouraging greater awareness and focus on evaluating the process and, potentially, the outcome of care. The prospect beckons wherein purchasers, having assessed the health needs of their population, specify health (services) outcomes within contracts, thus cajoling providers to collect data on health services outcomes, although practitioners in primary health care are perhaps better placed to assess longer term outcome.4 Notwithstanding, it must be remembered that decision making in the organisation and planning of health services delivery is still strongly influenced by concerns other than the proved effect on a patient's health status. Talking about health services outcomes has become topical, but progress towards measuring and using outcomes will not be straightforward. Despite the ultimate goal of the NHS of improving the health of patients it is still difficult to measure health services outcome. Indeed, there is no agreed taxonomy. This is partly due to an underdeveloped theoretical framework and a paucity of people equipped to develop, apply, and interpret outcome measures. There is potential for a rush to apply outcome measures without a critical appraisal of, for example, the dimension of outcome being measured, their underlying validity, their sensitivity to change over time, and their reliability. In addition, there are many "available" outcome measures, and potential users are often confused as to the relative merits of each and their relevance to local issues. There is also a lack of communication between clinicians, managers, planners, and researchers leading to duplication of effort, gaps in knowledge, and little dissemination to those interested parties in the wider health and social care community. Finally, and more fundamentally, there is the question of attribution that is, is this measure really assessing outcome due to the health care intervention?


The role of the geographical imagination in the construction of the idea of territory and landscape allows us to revise from another angle a
closer look at the historical and geographical relations of the gaze that opens on American geography. In this sense, this paper is part of a
larger project that tries to show through a review of a part of Andres Bello's geopoetics, a new reading that moves between the paratactical and liminar spaces. It shows the central place of the call of this member of the emerging interpretative communities of the crisis of colonial order and the republican emergency, to turn their eyes on a geography that was reopened as a space of desire, as a place to find a New sense of habit that involved an aesthetic way of being and a way of producing linked to the natural and agricultural landscape.


This paper presents the variation of compressive strength with an increase in percentage fine aggregate replacement with High impact polystyrene at the age of 7, 14 and 28 days curing periods. It helps in finding optimal percentage replacement of electronic waste HIPS (High Impact Polystyrene) as sand in concrete. Thus possibility of reduction in plastic disposal problem can be achieved. Thereby energy consumption and protects environment from pollution. Investigation reported that reduction in compressive strength up to 20% is minimal and reduction raises as percentage of HIPS replacement increased further. The results obtained as compressive strength reduced when compared to conventional concrete, however achieved target mean strength of the mix design. As an alternative to sand scarcity problem as well as to reduce e-waste disposal problem, this eco-friendly concrete belongs to medium weight serves its application for nonstructural elements.


Objective: Nerve blocks for postoperative analgesia have increased significantly lately. Beside the use of adjuvants plus local anesthetics in nerve block in order to extend the analgesia time. Materials and Methods: Sixty elderly patients, ASA grades II and III scheduled for surgery after hip fracture under intrathecal anesthesia with pre-operative FICB, The patients were blindly randomly allocated into three-study groups, all of them received preoperative FICB "bupivacaine 0.25 % with adjuvant either Group K received ketamine (50 mg), Group D received Dexmedetomidine (100 μg) and Group KD received ketamine (50 mg) + Dexmedetomidine (100 μg) plus intrathecal block. Results: Group "KD" showed more satisfactory during positions to receive intrathecal block in compare with either groups due to significant rapid onset of preoperative analgesia in compared with other groups, group KD show significant rapid onset of sensory and motor block, prolonged duration of sensory block, and postoperative analgesia as compare with both group with significant decrease in total analgesic requirement. While group D provided significant prolonged duration of sensory block, and postoperative analgesia when compare with group K with significant decrease in total analgesic requirement. There were no significant difference between the three groups, hemodynamic change (heart rate and blood pressure) and side effects in form of baradycardia, hypotension, nausea, vomiting and sedation. Conclusion: The addition of ketamine, dexmedetomidine with bupivacaine 25% in FICB, is considered the best combination for intrathecal anesthesia for hip repair surgery in elderly patients. It provided intraoperative hemodynamic stability, prolonged motor and sensory block as well as potentiating the postoperative analgesic effect with minimal complications. *Corresponding author: Josef Zekry Attia, MD, Ph.D, Department of Anesthesiology, Faculty of Medicine, Minia University, 61111, Minia, Egypt, Tel: +201000427407, Fax: +20862324414; E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


Background and Objectives: Emerging of carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) is one of the major concerns among healthcare systems. This study aimed to investigate the antibiotic susceptibility pattern and carbapenemase genes of carbapenemase-producing K. pneumoniae isolates obtained from Iranian hospitalized patients. Materials and Methods: This study was performed on 71 CRKP strains isolated from different clinical specimens collected in Tehran Heart Center (Tehran, Iran). A Modified Hodge test (MHT) was done for the detection of carbapenemase-producing K. pneumoniae. The presence of blaKPC, blaVIM, blaIMP, blaNDM, and blaOXA-48 -type carbapenemases was evaluated by the PCR method. Results: We identified 8.82% (71/805) of K. pneumoniae isolates as CRKP by MHT test. The antibiotic susceptibility indicated that all isolates were resistant to imipenem, meropenem, cefotaxime, ceftazidime, cefepime, ceftriaxone, cephalothin, ciprofloxacin, and augmentin, and then mostly resistant to aztreonam, cefoxitin, gentamicin, and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole with 98.6%, 98.6%, 97.2%, and 94.4%, respectively. The lowest resistance was related to amikacin with 46.5% (33/71 isolates). The level of imipenem MIC for all carbapenem-resistant isolates was estimated ≥32 μg/mL. Among positive isolates for carbapenemase genes, the most frequent gene was blaOXA-48. It was found in 48 (67.6%) isolates followed by blaVIM in 28 (39.4%) isolates. bla IMP, blaNDM, and bla KPC genes were identified in 19 (26.8%), 13 (18.3%) and 5 (7.0%) isolates, respectively. These genes were not detected in nine isolates. Conclusion: The relatively high frequency of some carbapenemase genes suggests major concern about the emergence of isolates containing carbapenem resistance genes as a potential health threat.


This article analyse the system construction, performance and regeneration technology of the bond metal filter with selecting a kind of new bond metal material as marine diesel engine exhaust particulate establishing a basis for further complete treatment of marine diesel engine exhaust particulate.


If children are marked as "failures" at age 10, again at 14, and again at 16, their motivation will die, and they will spiral downward. They will be robbed of an education and marked forever as failures who have no worth. Surely, Ms. Holbrook suggests, this is not what the Massachusetts board of education intended when it ordered all Massachusetts special-needs students to take the MCAS. SARAH is in fourth grade. She's the daughter of two professional parents and has an older brother, whom she lovingly describes as a "pain in the neck." Every time she writes an entry in her journal, she's eager to include one of her brother's adventures. Her teacher has taught her to start each entry with a line that grabs the reader's attention. "My, what a week this has been!" or "You're not going to believe what my brother did this time!" Sarah loves to write, always filling a page or two with ease. She's bright and clever, eager and creative. Her words are engaging and her stories pull you in. But Sarah can't read her own writing, and I can't either. She brings her weekly journal to my special education resource room each Thursday, and together we labor over the confusion of half words and reversed letters. The sentences are literally endless, with that one capital and maybe that final period. In the middle are wonderful ideas, but we can't figure out where they start and end. Little by little, word by word, Sarah and I piece together the writing. She says, "Oh yes, I remember, that's the word uncle. My uncle had a flat tire." And I ask, "Sarah, could that be the word shaking? Was your dog shaking?" The story takes form, but Sarah's luster is fading. She knows her failings. She knows that, as hard as she tries, she can't spell or read like other students. She knows that, as fast as these stories emerge, she can't reread them. Ideas start and stop in her mind, but she can't find them on her paper. Sarah has a learning disability that affects all that she does during the school day. Social studies, science, and math all require reading and writing, which Sarah labors over daily. School is a struggle from beginning to end, but Sarah perseveres with the support of her family and teachers. Sarah has been tested, and her intellectual potential is above average. Through a series of subtests that involve verbal and nonverbal tasks, it's discovered that Sarah has the learning potential of students her age and older. However, on certain tasks that involve the perception of visual information, her brain confuses the images. It's particularly evident when she encounters symbols. When asked to reproduce those skewed images in writing, her brain once again confuses the message. Her coordination is weak, and the letters are labored and poorly formed. Her writing is a series of words with omitted, misordered, or illegible letters. In terms that we can relate to, Sarah reads, spells, and writes like a student at the end of first grade. She has the interests, experiences, and enthusiasm of a 10-year-old, but her work in school is that of a 7-year-old. When Sarah was in kindergarten, her ability to master readiness skills was strong. She was well socialized and had good background information from an enriched home life and some preschool experience. Her parents and teachers were prepared for her to experience school success in all ways. However, by the middle of first grade, Sarah's progress was slowing. As the demands of decoding the symbols for letters and numbers increased, Sarah was not moving forward. Her peers were already building an automatic sight vocabulary and were playing with the phonic units of reading and spelling. All this eluded Sarah. She was struggling with the basic deciphering of the very direction of the symbol or with associating a cluster of visual information (letters) with its meaning as a word. By the end of first grade, it was recommended that Sarah get the help of a remedial reading teacher. …


Taxon sampling is often thought to be of extreme importance for phylogenetic inference, and increased sampling of taxa is commonly advocated as a solution to resolving problematic phylogenies. Another solution is to increase the number of sites (by sequencing additional genes) sampled for each taxon. In an ideal world, one would like to increase samples of both taxa and genes, but taxon sampling has not kept up with the pace of gene sampling increase because of the increasing ease and emphasis on genome sequencing.

The question of taxon sampling is necessarily driven by resource limitation. The precise scope of "sufficient" taxon sampling is always dependent on questions being addressed. If we need to know the complete phylogeny of a genus, we must sample the genus exhaustively. In experimental design, partial sampling is an issue only when certain taxa can stand as proxies for the clades to which they belong (clade-based or stratified sampling; see Hillis, 1998). In bioinformatics studies, taxon sampling is restricted by the data availability in genetic databases (database-restricted sampling). Clearly, the nature of the problem in these two research programs is different. In stratified sampling, we are interested in knowing whether to sequence more genes per species or fewer genes for a large number of species per clade. In contrast, in database-restricted sampling it is important to know whether the overall accuracy of inferred phylogenetic trees for small taxa sets is similar to that of trees inferred from larger taxa sets. We recently addressed the issue of the database-restricted sampling (Rosenberg and Kumar, 2001) and concluded that although there was a consistent decrease in error when using more taxa, the decrease was generally minor relative to the number of taxa added to the data set.

Pollock et al. (2002) challenged this conclusion by modifying our measure of the phylogenetic error. This measure, ΔE, differs from ours in that we used the difference in error between the subsampled tree [ES] and full sampled tree [EP], whereas Pollock et al. (2002) divided this difference by ES to measure the relative reduction in error. ΔE plotted against the number of additional taxa in the full sampled tree (=66 minus the number of taxa in the subsample tree) shows a clear positive effect (Pollock et al., 2002: Figs. 4, 5). Unfortunately, this impressive result brings little biological benefit, as clearly shown by a scatterplot of the average number of additional branches inferred correctly in each case (Fig. 1). In no instance are there more than 1.5 additional branches reconstructed correctly, even though the number of taxa has often increased many fold. For instance, more than doubling the number of taxa only led to an average increase of 0.7 additional correct branches (points in the middle of the x-axis in Fig. 1). This fact was clearly noted in our original article: "Note that even though ES is greater than EG and EP for very small subsamples (<10 taxa), the difference in phylogenetic error is usually much smaller than one branch per tree" (Rosenberg and Kumar, 2001: 10754). Therefore, although an increase in the number of taxa sampled will lead to improvement in accuracy, the improvement is minimal, particularly when we consider the amount of data (in terms of the number of total nucleotides) being added. We do not advocate using fewer taxa when more are available, as is clear from the results presented by Rosenberg and Kumar (2001:10754).

Figure 1

Number of branches reconstructed correctly with increased taxon sampling. (a) All simulated genes. (b) Genes with rates >0.7 and >500 sites (after Pollock et al., 2002).

Figure 4

Plot of the percentage of times interordinal branches were reconstructed correctly when the total number of bases was held constant. In each comparison, the data set with fewer taxa (and more sites per taxon) is always plotted on the x-axis. The dotted ...

Zwickl and Hillis (2002) also challenged conclusions reached by Rosenberg and Kumar (2001) by using the concept of tree diameter (the maximum distance between all pairs of taxa) to partition genes with different subsampled sets of taxa for analysis. They showed that four-taxon subsamples with a smaller tree diameter generate more accurate results than those subsamples with larger tree diameters. This result is expected because, with sequence divergence and length kept constant, the larger diameter four-taxon trees will encompass higher average divergence and would thus involve larger estimation errors. Furthermore, for the simulations involving the model tree in Figure 2a, four-taxon data sets containing sequences with larger diameters would include interordinal relationships (with many small interior branches) more frequently than would small diameter samples (see also Zwickl and Hillis, 2002: Fig. 3a). Therefore, Zwickl and Hillis's study is an examination of the phylogenetic error at different evolutionary divergence cross sections of the phylogenetic tree specifically simulated. This and the complete absence of resource limitation (a must for any sampling study) clearly establish that Zwickl and Hillis have not evaluated either stratified or database-restricted taxon-sampling problems. Therefore, Zwickl and Hillis were not correct in stating that their results are in contradiction with our previous results (Rosenberg and Kumar, 2001). In fact, Zwickl and Hillis's results represent another facet of statistical analysis of the same data. Also, Zwickl and Hillis took issue with our choice of a fast heuristic search used in computer simulations (Rosenberg and Kumar, 2001). We chose this strategy based on results of multiple previous studies, which showed that the most optimal tree is often more optimal than the true tree and that the fast and more exhaustive searches produce trees with comparable phylogenetic errors (Kumar, 1996; Nei et al., 1998; Takahashi and Nei, 2000). Zwickl and Hillis found that with the maximum parsimony (MP) method for the given data set, the TBR searches produced topologies that had less error than those from NNI. This result (based on a single simulation data set) seems to be in conflict with previous studies. We plan to evaluate this result more thoroughly analytically and by computer simulation in the future.

Figure 2

Model tree for the simulations based on the Eutherian mammal tree from Murphy et al. (2001) and Eizrik et al. (2001). (a) Full 66-taxon tree; interordinal relationships are represented by thick branches designated with letters. (b) Phylogenetic relationships ...

Figure 3

Plot of the percentage of times the interordinal branches were reconstructed correctly in 66-taxon trees versus n-taxon trees, where n = 15, 30, and 45. These values are for all genes and all replicates. The dotted lines indicate a 1:1 relationship. Analyses ...

However, we extrapolated our database-restricted sampling and random sampling results to conclude that the phylogenetic trees with fewer taxa but large numbers of genes per taxon may be more accurate than those with many taxa but fewer genes (Rosenberg and Kumar, 2001). Neither Pollock et al. (2002) nor Zwickl and Hillis (2002) addressed that issue, which lies at the heart of the experimental design. Here, we tackle this issue along with biological relevance of many other assumptions made and conclusions reached by Rosenberg and Kumar (2001) that Zwickl and Hillis (2002) objected to. We show that the conclusions reached by Rosenberg and Kumar (2001) are applicable for both phyloinformatic and phylogenomic studies.


It has become the need of our society to use municipal solid waste (MSW) under the vision of waste-to-energy (WTE) strategy in order to utilise MSW and to address the energy issues over the world. With respect to the energy, refused derived fuel (RDF) is the energy source of MSW, whose reliability and quality is analysed in this work. The energy content and combustion characteristics of RDFs in oxygen-enriched environment are explored. Three different RDFs (RDF-A, RDF-B and RDF-C) had been adopted from three different waste materials. Plastics, wood and cloth are the major constituents in the recipe of taken RDFs. Proximate and ultimate analysis, thermo gravimetric analysis and calorific value tests had been performed for all RDF samples. The results showed that the RDF-A contains high amount of carbon (52.44%) and hydrogen (4.184%) content and good calorific value (5278 k.cal/kg), which leads to a better fuel quality. TGA analysis revealed that with the increase in the volatile matter fraction of RDFs, the retention time under combustion atmosphere has also been increased accordingly. By analysing of all results, RDF-A was suggested to be the best for energy applications and can be used as fuel for various combustion reactions.


In vitro combination testing with broth microdilution chequerboard (CHEQ) method is widely used although it is time‐consuming, cumbersome and difficult to apply in routine setting of clinical microbiology laboratory. A new gradient concentration paper strip method, the Liofilchem® MIC test strips (MTS), provides an alternative easy and fast method enabling the simultaneous diffusion of both drugs in combination. We therefore tested a polyene+azole and an azole+echinocandin combination against 18 Candida isolates with the CHEQ method based on EUCAST guidelines and the MTS method in research and routine settings. Fractional inhibitory concentration (FIC) indices were calculated after 24 and 48 h of incubation based on complete and prominent (FIC‐2) growth inhibition endpoints. Reproducibility and agreement within 1 twofold dilution was assessed. The FICs of the two methods were correlated quantitatively with t‐test and Pearson analysis and qualitatively with Chi‐squared test. The reproducibility of the CHEQ and MTS method was 88–100% and their agreement was 80% with 62–77% of MTS FICs being higher than the corresponding CHEQ FICs. A statistically significant Pearson correlation (r = 0.86, P = 0.0003) and association (χ2 = 17.05, df = 4, P = 0.002) was found between MTS FIC and CHEQ FIC‐2 after 24 h. Categorical agreement was 63% with no very major or major errors. All MTS synergistic interactions were also synergistic with the CHEQ method.


Ibn Bajja both lavishly praises Plato, and quietly alters his teaching. He develops a novel version of the Platonic city, taken partly from Alfarabi, which completely excludes non-philosophers from it, arguing that the gap between purely intellectual philosophy and mostly corporeal politics is simply too great. This allows Ibn Bajja to escape many of the problems associated with the exposition and implementation of the city of the Republic and Political Regime, but raises a new difficulty, namely, the relationship of the small, weak city of the philosophers to the stronger, larger cities of human beings more generally, in the midst of which it must somehow flourish. Ibn Bajja's solution, ironically, points to the frenetic political engagement for which his biography is known, and which he himself may eventually have come to regret.


AIM: To induce the expression of MRSA-PBP2a protein in vitro and to prepare its antibody against MRSA-PBP2a. METHODS: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) were isolated by agar's slides according to National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS) protocols and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The expression of MRSA-PBP2a was induced in vitro by adding-Lactam antibiotics. MRSA-PBP2a was purified and was used to immune rabbits and the antiserum was identified by double immunodiffusion. RESULTS: Two strains of MRSA were isolated using the agar's slides and PCR. SDS-PAGE and Western blot analysis revealed the successful induction of PBP2a protein expression. Antibodies were detected in antiserum in 1∶32 and 1∶64 dilutions. CONCLUSION: MRSA-PBP2a is induced to express in vitro and is purified successfully. The antibodies against MRSA-PBP2a are prepared successfully, which lays the foundation for further study on MRSA-PBP2a activities, MRSA immunotherapy and MRSA identification.


The orientation of curriculum implementation is a hot issue in the field of curriculum research in recent years.Care orientation is based on the theory of care education,which understands the implementation of curriculum from the perspective of morality.Care orientation is necessary for the implementation of curriculum,the reasons of which are there exists the perplexity in the current orientation of curriculum implementation and care orientation itself has its own advantages as a direct expression of orientation of humanism.When guiding the implementation of curriculum with the care orientation,we should set up the ideas of showing care to others and being shown care by others,create a teacher-student relationship full of care,allow both teachers and students to take part in the implementation and apply a variety of evaluating methods.


Definition and mathematics of enthalpy. Definition of heat capacity at constant pressure as CP = (∂H/∂T)V. Endothermic and exothermic reactions. Role of the change in enthalpy as regards the direction and spontaneity of a change in state. Enthalpy changes and phase changes. Measuring enthalpy changes by calorimetry. Hess's law of constant heat formation. Chemical standards and standard states. Standard enthalpies of formation, ionic enthalpies and bond energies. How the change in enthalpy varies with temperature. Kirchhoff's equations. Applications of thermochemistry to a variety of worked examples, including flames and explosions.


In the present international political and economic context, the problem of how to deal with stagnation and possible decline in tourism demand is pressing. In this paper, we examine how mature tourism destinations might address this problem. We focus on the patterns of development and land use regulation followed in the two largest destinations in the Oceanic 'sun and surf' tourism market – Hawaii and Queensland – in order to assess how different approaches to regulation and development can have contrasting outcomes on tourism demand. We conclude by suggesting the most appropriate strategies for achieving long-term sustainable tourism development.


Because developmental increases in processing speed may have a maturational basis, individual differences in physical maturation were hypothesized to be associated with information-processing speed. Physical maturity was estimated for 134 9- and 10-year-olds using relative stature (RS), the percentage of estimated adult height each had attained. Thirty children in the most mature RS quartile and 30 in the least mature quartile completed 3 reaction time tasks used by S. Hale (1990). There was an overall tendency for early maturers to be faster than late maturers, although this maturity effect was primarily the result of a significant effect for boys. The early maturers' faster processing times may be specific to boys or to a specific range of physical maturities.


In this report, implementation of a Viterbi decoder on a 16 bit RISC microprocessor with a 2-stage pipeline is described in detail. Some extra modules and instructions have been added to the baseline processor to optimize it as a Viterbi decoder. The Viterbi algorithm is used for decoding a class of error correcting codes called convolutional codes which are widely used as channel coder in digital communication systems. We discuss our design choices and supplemental additions, as well as some of the pitfalls encountered.