The study is entitled the students' perception on Quizizz as Game Based Learning as a in learning grammar in Written discourse. The aimed of this research was  to investigate  students' opinion on Quizizz as Game Based Learning as a in learning grammar in Written discourse and their obstacles in the implementation. The data for this study were gained through qualitative method that used questionnaire and interview, and the respondents were four semester students who used quizziz as their learning activity. And created 10 questions relevant to the topics which are students already learned before by using Quizizz as games based learning for 20 minutes before finishing grammar in written discourse class once the students feel very tired, sleeping and bored for their grammar in written discourse class.  The study revealed that the students had positive perception on the use of quizziz, and all students were very active to answer the questions which provided by researches, and more concentrated on the topic. The result of the study expected to give contribution in improving EFL teaching and learning activity, especially in learning grammar in Written discourse.


The numerical simulation of the electrical activity of the heart is highly demanding in terms of computational cost. This is explained by the multiscale behavior characterizing the bi-domain equations governing the propagation of the electrical wave. In fact small space and time scales are required in order to accurately solve the bidomain problem and compute conduction velocities and activation times. Reduced order methods have been recently introduced and successfully used different fields, they allow solving the electrical wave propagation as accurate as finite element method (or any other space discretization method). The idea is to project the linear problem on a reduced basis instead of the full finite element basis. The reduced basis is extracted from a dataset of precomputed solution. In this work we consider the Proper Orthogonal Decomposition as reduced order model. This method allows good performance in terms of computational time. Moreover we show that this method improves the scalability when solving the bidomain equations in parallel.


Results of characterization of defects in natural diamond crystals by high-resolution X-ray diffractometry, absolute integrated intensity (p) measurements, topography and diffuse X-ray scattering (DXS) techniques are reported. The samples are natural diamond platelets of dimensions ∼2 x 2 mm with thickness in the range ∼0.5-1 mm. A five-crystal X-ray diffractometer in three-crystal configuration as well as a four-crystal diffractometer were employed with Mo Kα 1 as the exploring radiation. Infrared absorption measurements showed that the samples belong to type Ia variety and contained varying concentrations of A and B forms of nitrogen aggregates as well as platelets. There were large variations in the values of diffraction curve half-widths (18 to 550) and values of p (2.4 x 10 -5 -76 x 10 -5 rad) for 111 reflection, showing a wide variation in crystalline perfection. Projection and composite stationary X-ray topographs recorded with different diffraction vectors showed the presence of defects like low-angle boundaries. From the analysis of the observed distribution of diffuse X-ray scattering (DXS), point defect clusters were characterized. The clusters were of interstitial as well as vacancy type. The sizes of the defect clusters (R cl ) were determined to be in the range 40 to 190 nm and the volumes of the defect clusters (A cl ) were in the range ∼1 x 10 -25 -28 x 10 -25 m 3 . The defect clusters with sizes reported here could be investigated as the measurements were made close to the reciprocal-lattice points. The platelet size was found to vary inversely with the total concentration of nitrogen.


The bacterium Salmonella causes a spectrumof foodborne diseases ranging from acute gastroenteritis to systemic infections, and represents a significant burden of disease globally. In Australia, Salmonella is frequently associated with outbreaks and is a leading cause of foodborne illness, whichresults inasignificantmedical andeconomicburden. Salmonella infection involves colonisation of the small intestine, where the bacteria invades host cells and establishesan intracellular infection.Tosurvivewithinhost cells, Salmonellaemploys type-threesecretionsystemstodeliver bacterial effector proteins into the cytoplasm of host cells. These bacterial effectors seek out and modify specific host proteins, disrupting host processes such as cell signalling, intracellular trafficking, and programmed cell death. This strategy of impairing host cells allows Salmonella to establish a replicative niche within the cell, where they can replicate to high numbers before escaping to infect neighbouring cells, or be transmitted to new hosts. While the importance of effector protein translocation to infection is well established, our understanding of many effector proteins remains incomplete. Many Salmonella effectors have unknown function and unknown roles during infection. A greater understanding of how Salmonella manipulates host cells during infection will lead to improved strategies toprevent,control, andeliminatedisease.Further, studying effector proteins can be a useful means for exploring host cell biology and elucidating the details of host cell signalling.


Artefacts are humanly designed objects with a function. Their proper function is what they are for. This book develops a theory of these functions on the basis of the idea that artefacts are used in a social context. Current theories of artefact functions are inadequate to deal with this special character. Functions of artefacts are defined partly in the traditional way, referring to their physical nature and causal history, but an additional constitutive feature is introduced and analysed in detail: the social context in the form of the institutionalisation of use. Func-tions can be partly defined in terms of institutionalised use. This analysis provides the basis for the understanding of artefact use and the evaluation of artefact use. Then further consequences for understanding artefacts and their functions are investi-gated and developed. In the first place it is shown how this view of functions helps understand a little investigated aspect of the communication of artefact functions, namely by way of the artefacts structural aspects. The artefact is, as it were, the carrier of symbolic meaning con-cerning its own proper function. For this analysis the pragmatic approach to language and linguistic communication is applied and extended to cover the case of function communica-tion. In the second place, the normative notion of proper function is used to give an action theoretic account of artefact use, enabling us to understand and evaluate it. The plan account of intentional action is invoked, which enables the proper use of artefacts to be analysed in terms of a use plan of the artefact. This shows how the social features of the proper function are actual part of an agents reasons for using an artefact in a particular way. Thus, the more standard accounts of action in terms of rationality and rational reconstructions can be com-bined with the social features constituting artefact functions. The analysis of artefact functions thus provides the material for a thorough analysis of artefact use.


There is no lack of opinion whether the public sector in the United States is too large or too small and there may even be a few who would argue that the present public-private mix is the correct one. While different individuals inevitably have different opinions given their underlying preferences and economic, political, and social positions, one can examine the systematic forces at work in the U.S. political and economic system to determine if they bias the mix of public versus private spending from what the average voter-consumer desires. Such examinations were pioneered by Pigou, Galbraith, Downs, Buchanan, and Tullock, among others. In this review their analyses are critically compared and extended especially with respect to what bench mark for "correct" budget size each author takes as relevant in his discussion. The question of possible systematic biases in the composition of public spending as well as in the public-private mix is addressed.


With the aim of the practical production, the cold precision forging technology of spur gears are researched systematically for 15#, 45# and 20 CrMnTi steel. The two-step forming technology combined closed die-forging with constrained hole divided-flow is presented. The updated design method of teethshape die based on addendum modification theory is proposed. The results show that the two-step forming technique is very effective on decreasing cold precision forging load of spur gears and the cold forged 20 CrMnTi steel spur gears have higher precision by applying the teeth-shape modification method proposed.


Before discussing the economic considerations in sustainability of agriculture, I must tell you that I am not an economist by any stretch of the imagination. Having exposed what some of you may view as an asset, others a liability, it is important that I clearly identify the intent of my presentation. Since I am not an economist, you can be assured that I will not be throwing economic jargon at you. For what it is worth, "elasticity" to me means how far a rubber band will stretch and return to its original shape. What I would like to accomplish today is to focus your attention on the various dimensions of economics as they relate to the kinds of policy decisions important to the sustainability of agriculture.


Abstract : For spacecraft conducting on-orbit operations, changes to the structure of the spacecraft are not uncommon. These planned orunanticipated changes in inertia properties couple with the spacecrafts attitude dynamics and typically require estimation. For systems withtime-varying inertia parameters, multiple model adaptive estimation (MMAE) routines can be utilized for parameter and state estimates.MMAE algorithms involve constructing a bank of recursive estimators, each assuming a different hypothesis for the systems dynamics. Thisresearch has three distinct, but related, contributions to satellite attitude dynamics and estimation. In the first part of this research,MMAE routines employing parallel banks of unscented attitude filters are applied to analytical models of spacecraft with time-varying massmoments of inertia (MOI), with the objective of estimating the MOI and classifying the spacecrafts behavior. New adaptive estimationtechniques were either modified or developed that can detect discontinuities in MOI up to 98 of the time in the specific problem scenario.Second, heuristic optimization techniques and numerical methods are applied to Wahbas single-frame attitude estimation problem,decreasing computation time by an average of nearly 67 . Finally, this research poses MOI estimation as an ODE parameter identificationproblem, achieving successful numerical estimates through shooting methods and exploiting the polhodes of rigid body motion with results,on average, to be within 1 to 5 of the true MOI values.


The reaction p+W→μ+μ−+X has been measured in a high‐statistics experiment using a 400 GeV/c proton beam, a magnetized beam dump, and a wide‐acceptance detector. Abbreviated results and a comparison with the Drell‐Yan Model are presented.


An efficient technique for chaos-based pseudonoise (PN) sequence generation is presented. The pertaining architecture, while being fixed, is initial condition programmable and capable of generating a large space of sequences suitable for multi-user spread spectrum communications. The results show that the generated sequences possess statistical characteristics similar to other PN sequences.


The digitization of mental health care holds promises of affordable and ubiquitously available treatment, e.g., with conversational agents (chatbots). While technology can guide people to care for themselves, we examined how people can care for another being as a way to care for themselves. We created a self-compassion chatbot (Vincent) and compared between caregiving and care-receiving conditions. Care-giving Vincent asked participants to partake in self-compassion exercises. Care-receiving Vincent shared its foibles, e.g., embarrassingly arriving late at an IP address, and sought out advice. While self-compassion increased for both conditions, only those with care-receiving Vincent significantly improved. In tandem, we offer qualitative data on how participants interacted with Vincent. Our exploratory research shows that when a person cares for a chatbot, the person's self-compassion can be enhanced. We further reflect on design implications for strengthening mental health with chatbots.


Over the years, Information Technologies (ITs) have greatly stimulated economic growth and development. Being the Internet one of the most prominent IT technologies, its contribution to the advancement of education, learning and knowledge is of enormous importance. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the commitment to the diffusion of the Internet has become a top issue for many developing nations. In the case of Mexico, Internet penetration has undergone a number of setbacks, mainly due to a misinterpretation of the factors causing the so-called digital divide. Hence, this paper aims to analyze the role that public policy plays in encouraging the diffusion of the Internet. Available data shows that Internet diffusion remains relatively low in spite of recent governmental initiatives devised to encourage connectivity. The main challenge for policy-makers is then to encourage the private investment in IT infrastructure in order to increase Internet diffusion.


PRESENCE OF BURNOUT IN UNDERGRADUATE ATHLETIC TRAINING STUDENTS Tamra Sparks Riter Department of Exercise Sciences Master of Science Objective: To determine if undergraduate athletic training students enrolled in an athletic training education program (ATEP) and participating in a clinical assignment have burnout and if so, the possible causes. Design and Setting: All undergraduate athletic training students enrolled in a clinical education course were surveyed twice in an eight week period. The surveys were given during the fourth week and the twelfth week of the winter 2006 semester. As part of the survey, each participant also answered eight demographic/status questions for correlation purposes. Subjects: Fifty-one undergraduate athletic training students in a western United States university's accredited ATEP served as subjects for this study. Measurements: Data was analyzed using analysis of covariance with categorical independent variables and continuous covariants. Emotional exhaustion (EE), depersonalization (DP), and personal accomplishment (PA) were scored in accordance with the MBI-HSS. Post hoc testing was done when interactions/effects were significant at the p = .05 level. Dependent variables consisted of the three subsets of burnout (EE, DP, and PA). Results: Overall mean scores demonstrated a moderate level (17.0) of EE, low levels (5.7) of DP, and moderate level (38.0) of PA. Fourth (+) semester students reported high DP levels (13.3) and high levels of EE (30.9). Semester effect (p = pre0.0001; post0.007), marital/serious relationship status by gender interaction (p = pre0.008; post0.02) and semester by gender interaction (p = pre0.0017; post0.005) all had an effect on EE for both testing times. For DP, marital/serious relationship status by semester interaction (p = pre0.0121; post0.003), semester (p = pre0.0001; post0.0003), and semester by gender interaction (p = pre0.0001; post0.0001) were significant interactions/effects for both pre and post-tests. Conclusions: This study showed that with moderate PA, low DP, and moderate EE undergraduate athletic training students, demonstrated a moderate degree of burnout from their clinical assignments. The expectations of the ATEP appear to have a cumulative effect which is evidenced in the fourth (+) semester showing a high/average degree of burnout.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Waste remains an issue in tandem with the development of the local community. The quantity of waste that is stockpiled in the landfill impacts the amount of leachate, resulting in emissions and reduced landfill capacity. The main challenge for its management is choosing the most cost-effective method to minimize leachate and emissions and increase the amount of waste that is stockpiled, resulting in a longer service life of the landfill. This study aimed to select the treatment at a landfill site. METHODS: Field observations and sampling of waste composition were carried out at the Klaten Regency. Waste composition sampling was carried out over several years. Material flow analysis was used to calculate the amount of leachate, emissions, and waste in the landfills. The effectiveness and benefits of the treatment scenarios were compared. FINDINGS: The waste consists of 55 per cent organic, 24 per cent plastic, 10 per cent paper, 3 per cent wood, 2 per cent cloth, 1 per cent glass, 1 per cent metal, and 4 per cent others. The processing scenarios were determined based on this composition. Four prospective scenarios were identified: 1) waste processing with composting; 2) composting and reuse, reduction, and recycling; 3) waste to energy; and 4) the combined process of scenarios 1 – 3. All treatments carried out can reduce leachate by 5.09 – 14.32 per cent, emissions of 11.31 – 44.48 per cent, waste 14.13 – 65.97 tons/day in the landfill, and can extend the service life of the landfill by 3 – 14 years. CONCLUSION: Material flow analysis was used to calculate the waste processing, emission rate, and leachate production from the four processing scenarios. The reduction of leachate and emission was affected by the treatment used. Combined processing (scenario 2 or 4) can reduce leachate and emissions and extend service life. The selected processing alternative must also consider the benefit-cost ratio. Scenarios (2) and (4) have a benefit-cost ratio of more than 1, which means that the processing is feasible to implement. Scenario 4 has a higher investment cost; so, the scenario that can be applied to the Troketon landfill is scenario 2 with a small investment cost, capable of reducing polluters, extending the landfill's service life to more than 4 years, and a benefit-cost ratio of more than 1.


Abstract : The research project described deals with the capability of training a human subject to control and/or interact with complex electronic or mechanical systems. Basically the project involves the detection of bioelectrical phenomena that are analogs of ongoing cognitive processes and the utilization of these phenomena to control external events. The project also allows the system being controlled to communicate with the human operator in either a feedback or an interactive manner. In bypassing the subject's manual or verbal response apparatus an appreciable time saving is achieved. By eliminating the normal feedback/interactive modes of communication currently employed by machines (generally visual signals produced mechanically or electronically) a further potential time saving is realized. However, the major advantage of the proposal is the virtually automatic control of systems operation by the trained subject. (Author)


The energy spectra of alpha particles and tritons emitted in the spontaueous fission of Cf/sup 252/ were measured using an E-dE/dx cesium iodide scintillator-proportional counter detector. The alpha-particle energy spectrum peaks at 16 Mev, with a full width at half maximum of about l5 Mev. The tritons peak at about 8 Mev. with a half-width of 7 Mev. One alpha particle is observed per 345 plus or minus 20 fission events. one triton per 4500 plus or minus 900 fission events. (auth)


Introduction : Community-based health promotion program "KOSPEN" was officiated in 2013 and expanded to all workplace settings under Ministry of Health Malaysia in 2017 as known as "KOSPEN PLUS". The program was recognized to reduce modifiable lifestyle risk behaviours for non-communicable diseases including obesity. The sedentary working population are at increased risk of obesity related diseases. The present workplace health program funded by KOSPEN PLUS was aimed to determine the feasibility of High Intensity Interval Training at workplace. Methodology : A total of 108 participants from a research institute aged between 25 - 59 years old with abnormally high body mass index were recruited in the workplace program-based project "Health Is Wealth" employing a pre-post design.  The 10 weeks of High Intensity Interval Training (3 times a week, 30 minutes each time) was conducted. Anthropometric parameter (Weight, BMI, Waist circumference) and Biochemical profile (Fasting serum lipid and glucose) were compared pre and post intervention. The dropped out rate was documented 38% and 3.7% with irretrievable data. Results : Among 63 remaining participants, there were significant reduction on mean body weight 1.8 ( 95% CI:  1.1, 2.4) , BMI 0.9 ( 95% CI: 0.4, 1.3 ), and fasting serum cholesterol 0.16 ( 95% CI:  0.01, 0.31 ). Conclusion : The present workplace program-based project observed positive beneficial changes in mean body weight, BMI and fasting total cholesterol following the HIIT protocol for ten weeks. However, the long term effects of program together with its combination with nutritional care need further exploration. Keywords: feasibility, 10 weeks, High Intensity Interval Training, Workplace, obesity program


The aim of this paper is to present the work of the research team who tried to construct a model that explores general opinions of students about education on Facebook and also opinions of students about education on the social page for course E-marketing by using structural equation model. Facebook has already been present at universities due to the fact that students use it as a primary source of information about news in courses, duties, and so on. The research team carried out an experiment in the course E-marketing at FE of VSB - TUO, in which Facebook was used as a tool for communication between students and teachers. The research on the attitude of students towards education on Facebook was conducted by questioning using predefined variables. The first form of the model was designed by factor analysis with method Varimax, when six groups of factors that affect respondentsopinions about education were defined. A structural equation model was used to verify the validity of the model. It appears that four groups of factors mainly affect respondentsattitudes to this type of education according to the testing performed. These groups of factors are Engagement, Information and Modern Technologies, Lecturers and Scores, and Education on Facebook. The research team also determined statistically the most significant variables in these factors that affect the opinions of students about education the most.


T> OSS1 lists from the dialects of Laudal and 0ysleb0 in the -"* neighborhood of Mandal in the southernmost part of Norway the word tarn-mutt 'depressed and reticent, crestfallen.' He states that the word is pronounced with the principal stress on the last syllable and surmises that it is not entirely native, probably because of the accentuation, which is foreign to the Mandal dialect (cf . below) . Torp2 considers the etymology of the word obscure and accepts hesitatingly Ross' guess that it has a foreign origin. In the modern dialects of Sjzfrlandet, including the dialect of Mandal, it is, as indicated, a matter of extremely rare occurrence that the main stress of a compound word, disregarding prefixed elements, rests on the second component. This is particularly true in the Mandal district. As far as the appellatives are concerned, this type of accentuation seems to be almost completely unknown.3 But the farther we proceed into the country, the more often do we find the chief stress on the last element of compound words.4 As Amund B. Larsen points out, it is apparent that the stress on the first element is more frequent in the most "modernized" I would rather say "annihilated" Norwegian dialects, i.e., the dialects along the south coast, in the central parts of Oplandet (not including all the narrower valleys branch-


This document is the technical annex to the full paper "Accession to the World Trade Organisatio: Challenges and Prospects for Least-developed Countries (LDCs)" which is available separately.


This study investigated how presence affected consumer intention to participate in a social commerce site (i.e., the consumer participation intention of social commerce through the presence role), based on the stimulus-organism-response framework. An organism's internal states in the social commerce context were composed of two tiered states: presence and affect/cognition. For the benefit of parsimony, social presence and telepresence were chosen as dimensions of presence, and usefulness and enjoyment were chosen as affect and cognition variables. The analysis results showed that social presence and telepresence played mediating roles between stimuli (interactivity and vividness) and the sequent internal states (usefulness and enjoyment). Both usefulness and enjoyment significantly influenced the response of the organism (i.e., the consumer participation intention of social commerce). Therefore, it was demonstrated that the mediating role of presence was of great significance in the social commerce context.


: - An electronic system cud be realized after obtained results from simulations. When adapting commands signals for inverters is important to use complete Matlab-Simulink schema what include real value for inverter load. Use Matlab-Simulink and real-time Workshop is an direct and alternative solution for design an application with real-time hardware. The board dedicate target is connected through classical PCI interface with an PC and direct command an single phase inverter made by IGBT electronic devices.


In order to improve the accuracy of blast furnace hot metal temperature prediction in iron and steel enterprises, the Grey Relational Analysis and Support Vector Machine optimized by Genetic Algorithm Optimization method is proposed to solve this. Firstly, the main factors which influence the blast furnace hot metal temperature are determined by the Grey Relational Analysis, and then the prediction model is established by the support vector machine based on Genetic Algorithm Optimization. This method is compared with other prediction methods. The simulation result indicates GRA-GA-SVM have higher prediction accuracy. A new and more effective method is put forward for blast furnace hot metal temperature of prediction.


The present invention relates to an ICP antenna and the plasma generation device using the same. ICP antenna used in the plasma generation device according to the invention, the inner antenna segment having a ring shape; It is disposed substantially concentric in the outer side of the inner antenna segment, including at least one of the outer antenna segments are connected to the inner antenna segment in series, at least one of the inner antenna segment and the outer antenna segments are mutually different radii It has the features that it comprises a plurality of annular coils connected in parallel to each other. This makes it possible to generate stable plasma, etc. to produce high-density plasma in the uniformity improved, and the reduced inductance inside the antenna.


Noise is a major cause of industrial fatigue, irrit ation, reduced productivity and occupational accidents. Continuous exposure of 90dB or above is dangerous to hearing. Installation of noise absorbent barriers (made from wood and textiles) be twe n the source and the subjects is one of the main methods of noise control. Measurement tech niques used to characterize the sound absorptive properties of a material are reverberant field method, impedance tube method and steady state method. Noise absorbent textile materi als especially nonwoven structures or recycled materials have low production costs, low specific g ravity and are aesthetically appealing. Acoustic insulation and absorption properties of nonwoven fa brics depend on fiber geometry and fiber arrangement within the fabric structure.


The article discusses the increasing repertoire of musical styles available for young performers in Australia today. Details of the different musical styles and what they offer are highlighted.


Polylactic acid (PLA), a potential alternative material for single use plastics, generally portrays a slow crystallization rate during melt-processing. The use of a nanomaterial such as cellulose nanofibers (CNF) may affect the crystallization rate by acting as a nucleating agent. CNF at a certain wt.% has been evidenced as a good reinforcement material for PLA; nevertheless, there is a lack of information on the correlation between the amount of CNF in PLA that promotes its functionality as reinforcement material, and its effect on PLA nucleation for improving the crystallization rate. This work investigated the nucleation effect of PLA incorporated with CNF at different fiber loading (1–6 wt.%) through an isothermal and non-isothermal crystallization kinetics study using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis. Mechanical properties of the PLA/CNF nanocomposites were also investigated. PLA/CNF3 exhibited the highest crystallization onset temperature and enthalpy among all the PLA/CNF nanocomposites. PLA/CNF3 also had the highest crystallinity of 44.2% with an almost 95% increment compared to neat PLA. The highest crystallization rate of 0.716 min–1 was achieved when PLA/CNF3 was isothermally melt crystallized at 100 °C. The crystallization rate was 65-fold higher as compared to the neat PLA (0.011 min–1). At CNF content higher than 3 wt.%, the crystallization rate decreased, suggesting the occurrence of agglomeration at higher CNF loading as evidenced by the FESEM micrographs. In contrast to the tensile properties, the highest tensile strength and Young's modulus were recorded by PLA/CNF4 at 76.1 MPa and 3.3 GPa, respectively. These values were, however, not much different compared to PLA/CNF3 (74.1 MPa and 3.3 GPa), suggesting that CNF at 3 wt.% can be used to improve both the crystallization rate and the mechanical properties. Results obtained from this study revealed the dual function of CNF in PLA nanocomposite, namely as nucleating agent and reinforcement material. Being an organic and biodegradable material, CNF has an increased advantage for use in PLA as compared to non-biodegradable material and is foreseen to enhance the potential use of PLA in single use plastics applications.


We study the relationship between the classical Hamilton flow and the quantum Schrodinger evolution where the Hamiltonian is a degree-2 complex-valued polynomial. When the flow obeys a strict positivity condition equivalent to compactness of the evolution operator, we find geometric expressions for the L^2 operator norm and a singular-value decomposition of the Schrodinger evolution, using the Hamilton flow. The flow also gives a geometric composition law for these operators, which correspond to a large class of integral operators with nondegenerate Gaussian kernels.


Solid-liquid phase-transfer glycosylation (KOH, tris[2-(2-methoxyethoxy)ethye]amine ( = TDA-1), MeCN) of pyrrolo[2,3-d]pyrimidines such as 3a and 3b with an equimolar amount of 5-O-[(1,1 -dimethylethyl)dimethylsilyl]-2,3-O-(1-methylethylidene)-α-D-ribofuranosyl chloride (1) [6] gave the protected β-D-nucleosides 4a and 4b, respectively, stereoselectively (Scheme). The β-D-anomer 2 [6] yielded the corresponding α-D-nucleosides 5a and 5b with traces of the β-D-compounds. The 6-substituted 7-deazapurine nucleosides 6a, 7a, and 8 were converted into tubercidin (10) or its α-D-anomer (11). Spin-lattice relaxation measurements of anomeric ribonucleosides revealed that T1 values of HC(8) in the α-D-series are significantly increased compared to HC(8) in the β-D-series while the opposite is true for T1 of HC(1′). 15N-NMR data of 6-substituted 7-deazapurine D-ribofuranosides were assigned and compared with those of 2′-deoxy compounds. Furthermore, it was shown that 7-deaza-2′deoxyadenosine ( = 2′-deoxytubercidin; 12) is protonated at N(1), whereas the protonation site of 7-deaza-2′-deoxyguanosine (20) is N(3).


This guidance has been prepared by representatives of the higher education community with expertise in education and sustainable development. It has been produced via collaboration between the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) and the Higher Education Academy (HEA).
The guidance is intended to be of practical help to higher education providers working with students to foster their knowledge, understanding and skills in the area of sustainable development. The guidance recognises that there are many ways in which this may be achieved and is not prescriptive about delivery. Instead it offers an outcomes-based framework for use in curriculum design, and general guidance on approaches to teaching, learning and assessment. The guidance is intended to be relevant to educators in all disciplines wishing to embed or include learning about sustainable development within their curricula.

This guidance is intended to complement Chapter B3 of the UK Quality Code for Higher Education (Quality Code) dedicated to learning and teaching, but it does not form an explicit part of it. The Quality Code sets out the expectations that all providers of UK higher education are required to meet and is used in QAA review processes.

The guidance is intended to apply to all parts of the UK.


As an important ingredient in food,the research on interactions between proteins and polysaccharides has important significance to food system structure and quality.This paper mainly summarizes the proteins and polysaccharide interaction type;Protein and polysaccharide interaction methods,including sugar chip,capillary electrophoresis and proton resonance technology;Protein and polysaccharides interact in edible film,emulsion,fluid interface and foaming ability.


The invention relates to an ore dressing method of polymetallic siderite with collective flotation, which aims at the siderite ore that has high sulfur content in the green ore and the concomitance of valuable element copper as well as a small quantity of ores of hematite, pyrrhotite and pyrite, etc., and adopts a collective flotation process flow, thus acquiring a siderite ore concentrate target with the Fe grade equal to or larger than 38 percent, the Fe recovery rate from 75 to 80 percent and the sulfur content lower than 0.20 percent, and obtaining the copper concentrate with the copper grade equal to or larger than 18 percent and the recovery rate equal to or larger than 70 percent, as well as the sulfur concentrate with the sulfur grade equal to or larger than 45 percent and the recovery rate equal to or larger than 70 percent. The ore dressing method of polymetallic siderite with collective flotation utilizes a special siderite collecting agent for collecting, and can lead intense physical and chemical absorption to happen between the siderite surface and the SP collecting agent and implement the effective separation between the siderite and other undesired ores.


The Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) was successfully launched on 25 January 1983 and terminated science data acquisition on 22 November 1983. The in-orbit performance of the telescope has been described in two previous papers in these proceedings. A previous description of very preliminary scientific results from the mission has been given in these proceedings, while far more extensive reports have been given elsewhere. In this paper we will summarize some of the results obtained to date from the IRAS data. The work to date has sampled only a small fraction of the IRAS data; the study of the data from the IRAS survey will continue for many years to come.


To determine the optimum conditions for microwave assisted extraction of luteolin from peanut hull.The luteolin content was determined by HPLC method.The effects of microwave treatment time,ratio of material to solvent and extraction time on luteolin extraction efficiency were investigated by single factor and orthogonal tests.The microwave assisted extraction technology was evaluated by comparison with ethanol extraction technology reported in current references.The optimum microwave assisted extraction conditions were microwave treatment time 2.0min,ratio of material to solvent 1:6 and extraction time 4h.The luteolin yield of microwave assisted extraction was 4.53 times higher than that of traditional ethanol extraction.


We used Agrobacterium-mediated infection of callus induced from the cotyledonary nodes of Amorpha fruticosa L. to study the β-glucuronidase gene (GUS)-integrated genetic transformation system. Transformed calluses were selected under 40 mg·L−1 kanamycin, differentiated into resistant adventitious buds, and developed into transformants. A single copy of gus was integrated in the genome of most T0 generation plants. Gus chemical staining analysis showed blue color in resistant calluses, adventitious buds, and the roots and leaves of transformed plants. This indicated gus overexpression driven by the 35S promotor and resultant β-glucuronidase activity. The genetic transformation system in this study could be used to study other functional genes of A. fruticosa and facilitate transgenic breeding for strain improvement. © 2022 Friends Science Publishers


the anterior chest wall, and the number of corrections has increased tremendously after the introduction of the minimally invasive technique—the Nuss procedure [1]. Patients ask most often for correction for cosmetic reasons, but more than 60% of the patients have cardiopulmonary symptoms [2] and a reduction of 20% in cardiopulmonary performance is found [3]. Growth retardation related to PE has been assumed, but there is no evidence yet. In this issue of the European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, Park et al. report their findings in growth development after studying a composed group of 1371 patients going for correction, both correction and removal of bars and only removal of the bars. They conclude that the body growth development in PE patients is retarded compared with that of the normal population. The early correction is better than late correction with respect to growth development [4]. The pathogenesis that causes PE is thought to be an overgrowth of the cartilages, but it is difficult to understand that this should result in ordinary growth retardation. When you see these patients, they are often very tall, thin with a bad posture and stooping. Park et al. have formerly published that the growth retardation referred only to the body weight [5]. In the actual paper, they refer to a paper from 1995 of Haller [6] to support their assumption, but this paper addresses growth retardation after open correction in very young children, and only of the chest. Their target group is defined only by numbers and the mean age was 7.8 years at the time of operation and 9.2 years when the bars were removed. This means that the median age is considerably lower. They refer to a normal population of 2123 persons aged from 10 to 19 years [7], but transform this to a number of more than 30 000 000 without any explanation. Knowing that the number of people in South Korea is around 50 000 000 means that this number might contain other age groups. All people in the control group cannot have the same height so there must be a standard deviation (SD) which is different from zero. The study population might be generally younger than the normal population. There is also a different composition in the study group compared with the normal group in sex. The comparison of the preoperative group with the group after the removal of bars gives a significant difference in height. The authors do not define if it is the same patients who are followed or it is two different groups. A difference is expected because the patients are supposed to have grown in the interval between insertion and removal, as this time slot is 2–3 years. The same is expected when they divide the study population into two groups, younger and older than 10 years, and they find that the young group is significantly growing after surgery. On the other hand, they find that the patients in the older group are reduced in height after correction, even though they too get older and might grow. According to the measurement of severity and the morphological type, it is well known that when patients pass puberty, the PE starts to get deeper and more asymmetric, and this process increases throughout further growth. The topic has not been studied in detail before, but in the work done by Chang et al. [8] which focuses on the length of the chest in patients with PE, they found that there is no difference in height if you compare PE patients with an age-matched group without PE. This paper cannot be used in the discussion if there is a changed growth pattern in PE patients. The authors have to do a prospective study with a relevant control group.


Carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) has been increasingly employed for various industries such as aviation and automotive. Therefore, the establishment of non-destructive testing for CFRP in various stages in its life cycle is required. Eddy current testing (ECT) could detect the defects related to carbon fiber such as misalignment of fiber, which are hardly detectable by ultrasonic testing (UT). Therefore, ECT has possibility to be a non-destructive diagnosis method for CFRP complementing UT. The information of fiber alignment in CFRP is important to grasp the mechanical characteristics of composite and to repair damaged products. Because the density of fiber in transverse direction in CFRP is distributed, it is possible to detect the alignment of fiber by using a differential type probe even at relatively low frequency; ECT using an absolute type probe needs high frequency of 10 MHz ~ 100 MHz that inducing more noise because of low electrical conductivity of carbon fiber. In this study, we verify the detectability of alignment of carbon fibers in CFRP by ECT with a differential type probe. Flat CFRP specimens with a thickness of 5 mm were fabricated by laminating 21 or 24 prepregs and by curing them with hot press at 130oC, 0.5 MPa. Eddy current signal amplitude by using a mutual induction-differential type probe with two pickup circular coils in one circular exciting coil was obtained by scanning the surface of CFRP specimens with a lift-off 0 mm at a frequency of 2 MHz. The arrangement direction of the two pickup coils were set in various directions with respect to the orientation of the fiber; 0 degree means the same direction of carbon fiber of the surface layer. Eddy current signal amplitude obtained by C-scan of angle-ply CFRP laminates exhibits a complex image with significant contrast showing the alignment of fibers inside CFRP. By applying an inverse spatial Fast Fourier Transformation to the C-scan image, we can recognize the alignment of fiber at respective layers by separating orientation by angle. Eddy current signal amplitude of CFRP with one orthogonal layer in 21 layers at 2 MHz also shows the significant contrast related to the fiber orientation. The variance of signal amplitude was evaluated. The fiber orientation near the surface layer can be identified well. Additionally, eddy current density simulated by finite element analysis can explain the detectability of ECT with a differential type probe. These results indicate that the ECT with differential type probe has good detectability for assessment of fiber alignment at even relatively low frequency. More info about this article: http://ndt.net/?id=19209


State-of-the-art technology in microand nano-fabrication can be combined with the quantum optical techniques of laser cooling, laser trapping, and quantum control to open a new gateway for integrated matter wave optics and quantum information processing with atomic systems. Several groups have applied micro-fabricated magnetic or current carrying structures for this purpose l . In our work, micro-fabricated optical systems have been used to create light fields that allow one to trap and guide neutral atoms as a result of the optical dipole force experienced by the atoms 2. These approaches open the possibility to scale, parallelize, and miniaturize systems for quantum information processing and atom optics in fundamental research and application.


The use of Cox proportional hazards regression to analyze time-to-event data is ubiquitous in biomedical research. Typically, the frequentist framework is used to draw conclusions about whether hazards are different between patients in an experimental and a control condition. We offer a procedure to calculate Bayes factors for simple Cox models, both for the scenario where the full data is available and for the scenario where only summary statistics are available. The procedure is implemented in our "baymedr" R package. The usage of Bayes factors remedies some shortcomings of frequentist inference and has the potential to save scarce resources.


This report provides background for understanding the U.S. and Canadian wheat trade dispute, as well as timelines, rulings, and other details for the International Trade Commission (ITC) and World Trade Organization (WTO) cases brought by the United States against Canadian wheat trading practices and the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB).


Within this work the results of the composition and structural study and mechanical tests of the specimens made from the heat-resistant iron based alloy powder derived from secondary raw material (chips) are presented. The crystalline transformations for the initial condition as well as after several heat treatment conditions were analyzed. Phase and chemical composition were investigated. Mechanical characteristics of the standard flat test bars were defined.


The thermal velocity distribution of a calcium atomic beam was compressed into a narrow velocity distribution with selectable velocities. Subsequently these slow atoms were deflected by an angle of 30° by a one-dimensional optical molasses. In the deflected beam we obtained an estimated flux of several 1010 atoms/s at mean longitudinal velocities near 35 m/s and a velocity width of approximately 13 m/s. The transverse velocities of the deflected atoms were close to the one-dimensional Doppler limit. We have observed saturated absorption signals in the deflected laser-cooled beam. The reduced transit time broadening allowed us to resolve the recoil splitting in saturated absorption.


Rhodium- catalysed reactions of o- or p- cyano-N-allylanilines with H2/CO give N- arylpyrrolidine aldehydes resulting from a double hydroformylation sequence. In contrast reactions of o- or p-methyl-N-allylanilines or N- allylaniline itself with H2/CO give ' dimeric ' compounds resulting from self-condensation reactions of an initially formed hydroformylation product together with varying amounts of the double hydroformylation product. Similar reactions of o-cyano-N-but-3-enylanilines give low yields of double hydroformylation products and major products arising from hydrogenation or cross coupling of intermediate enamines. The structure of one of these products, N-2-cyanophenyl-5-(N′-2-cyanophenyl-3-methyl-pyrrolidin-2-yl)-1,2,3,4-tetrahydropyridine (17) (IUPAC name: 2-[5-{1-(2-cyanophenyl)-3-methylpyrrolidin-2-yl}-1,2,3,4-tetrahydropyridin-1-yl] benzonitrile ) was confirmed by an X-ray single-crystal structure determination.


This chapter examines lessons for response gleaned from 70 years of research on human and organizational behavior. These lessons for response are examined in the context of the current homeland security policy environment for national preparedness. This chapter also focuses on implementation steps for current preparedness guidance by law enforcement agencies. It joins research knowledge and policy to inform law enforcement planners in the development of local strategic-, operational-, and tactical-level response plans.


The present study reports on the findings of a questionnaire which focused on the recruitment criteria of official translation agencies. To this end, 25 managers of official translation agencies in four cities of Iran were requested to complete a questionnaire about the basic requirements for becoming a member in translation agencies. The results indicate that the most important factors according to the managers are translation competence, language competence and experience in translation. Aspects such as academic degree (B.A. or M.A.) in Translation Studies do not seem to be of high value to the managers. The findings show that graduates in Translation Studies ought to improve their skills and gain practical experience in translation. Otherwise, they will not be considered qualified enough to be the members of translation agencies. Also, the results might contribute to more considerable attention to translation practice and better translation training in universities or translation institutes.
 DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n2p59


Purpose : This study was performed to measure the level of stress that is perceived by nurses and nursing students and promote the effect of clinical nursing education. Method : the questionnaire measuring the level of stress was developed by researchers and distributed to 200 nursing students and 300 nurses in three provincial city, Korea The data was collected by self-reporting from March 1 to 15 of 2002. For data analysis, SPSS/PC was used. Result : The stress score of nursing students was higher than that of nurses. But it was not significant different in statistics. The items that had a significant difference between two groups were 17 items among the 35 items. The factors that had a significant difference between two groups were 3 factors among the 4 factors. In relationship between the subjects' demographic characteristics and their stress, the only nursing unit had a relationship to their stress. Conclusion : The level of stress being perceived by nursing students and nurses was no significant different in statistics and the subjects' demographic characteristics that had a relationship to their stress was only the nursing unit.


Software reuse is now a reality. If you think I'm kidding, take a look at the installation of any major desktop software product, and ask yourself this question: Which files belong only to this application, and are not reused? OK, quick, can you tell? Is this really a word processing application, or is it a COM component that is also used by a spread sheet application and my presentation application? Does this Java class belong to the internet browser, or my accounting package? Who knows? More importantly, who cares?


The structure,physiological functions and applications of cycloisomaltooligosaccharides in the domains such as food,medicine and textile were sum up.And their foregrounds were predicted.


Objective
Both human glioma stem cell line SU3 transfected with red fluorescent protein(SU3-RFP)and bone marrow cells from green fluorescence protein(GFP)transgenic athymic nude mice were transplanted into bone marrow damage-reconstitution Balb/c nude mice to investigate the mutual interactions between bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells(BMSCs)and SU3-RFP in vivo.

Methods
After irradiation of bone marrow in Balb/c nude mice, allogeneic transplantation with GFP+ bone marrow cells was performed via caudal vein to establish bone marrow damage-reconstitution models. SU3-RFP cells were transplanted subcutaneously to the models and xenograft tumors were harvested; HE staining was performed and observation under laser scanning confocal microscope was performed. Primary culture of the xenograft tumors was performed to sort and clone the high proliferative GFP+ cells. Immunocytochemical staining was employed to detect the expressions of CD44, Sca1, CD90 and CD45 in BMSCs; proliferation, clone formation rate and invasive ability of GFP+ cells, BMSCs and SU3-RFP were detected by CCK-8 method, cell clone formation experiment and Transwell invasion assay, respectively. Karyotype analysis was used to analyze the chromosome morphology of BMSCs. High proliferative GFP+ cells were inoculated into the subcutaneous of Balb/c nude mice, and the tumor tissues were harvested to perform HE staining.

Results
The tumor formation rate of SU3-RFP cells in the bone marrow reconstitution models was 100%(7/7). HE staining indicated that the tumors were rich in blood vessels and erythrocytes in the lumen. Active interaction was noted between BMSCs and SU3-RFP. The high proliferative GFP+ cells and BMSCs both had strong CD44 expression, Sca1 and CD90 weakly positive expression, and CD45 negative expression, and these cells were named transformational BMSCs(tBMSCs). The proliferation and clone formation rate and invasive ability of tBMSCs and SU3-RFP were significantly higher than those of BMSCs(P< 0.05). The number of mitosis phase chromosome in tBMSCs was obviously larger than that in BMSCs. High proliferative ability, telocentric(murine)chromosome with ultra-pentaploid and 100% tumorigenicity rate(5/5)in Balb/c nude mice were observed.

Conclusion
Malignant transformation of BMSCs induced by glioma stem cells could occur in the bone marrow damage-reconstitution nude mice xenograft tumor models, and participate in the remodeling of tumorigenesis and development.

Key words:
Glioma stem cell; Bone marrow damage-reconstitution model; Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell; Malignant transformation


With the development of Micro Electro-Mechanical System technologies, wireless communication technologies and embedding computing technologies, wireless sensor network becomes a hot study around the world. But there is little formulation description to sensor network and this will limit the theory study on it. We present a formulation model for wireless sensor network in this paper at first. And then we analyze the feasibility of applying self-organization theory to wireless sensor network Based on the model and characteristic of wireless sensor network we propose a kind of architecture, which introduces in a self-organization management layer. Finally, we discuss some open issue that will be studied next.


In this paper, we present a novel method for term importance, called Tensor Term Indexing (TTI). This extracts significant terms from a document as well as a coherent collection of document set. The basic idea of this approach is to represent the whole document collection in a Term-Sentence-Document tensor and employs higher-order singular value decomposition (HOSVD) for important term extraction. TTI uses the lower rank approximation technique to reduce noise by eliminating anecdotal terms, to mitigate synonymy by merging the dimensions associated with terms that have similar meanings, and to mitigates polysemy, since components of polysemous words that point in the "right" direction are added to the components of words that share a similar meaning. Our evaluation shows that that TTI model can extract significant terms relevant to a topic from a small number of documents which Term Frequency and Inverse Document Frequency (tfidf) cannot.


A novel two-interconnected fluidized bed system was developed to separate fine and coarse particles by means of particle size difference. Coarse (212~300 μm) and fine (63~106 μm) particles were separated perfectly using the solid separator. The effects of the fluidizing velocity, solid injection velocity, diameter of solid injection nozzle, and solid height on the solid separation rate were investigated. Moreover, continuous solid separation and circulation test up to 20 hours was performed to check feasibility of stable operation. To solve these problems, cyclone or segregation phenomena have been considered as the possible methods for selective solid circulation. However, segregation method is inapplicable if two particles have narrow size difference or density difference and perfect separation is impossible. Moreover, if we use cyclone method, fast fluidized bed or riser should be used to transport the solid mixture to the cyclone, but the fast fluidized bed system cannot be used for low reaction rate particle because of low residence time in the fast fluidized bed and perfect separation is also impossible (2). In this study, a novel two-interconnected fluidized bed system was developed to separate fine and coarse particles by means of particle size difference using solid separator equipped with metal screen. Coarse (212~300 m) and fine (63~106 μm) glass bead particles were used as bed material representing WGS or reforming catalyst and CO2 absorbent, respectively. For perfect solid separation, metal screen was used and solid injection method was used as the driving force for solid separation. First, solid separation rate and effects of variables were investigated.


While allowing the users to access the digital library from remote end, it is essential to provide security to the information stored in the host, as there are possibilities of changing the content of the digital library. Also it is essential to implement security measures to avoid the access by unauthorized users. The strategies followed in the field of information technology are Data security, Authentication and Cryptography. This area of IT deals with how the request from the user is identified as valid harmless. Also it provides techniques to avoid trapping the content on the way during its travel towards the destination.


Background: People living with human immunodeficiency (HIV) was estimated to be 21.17 lakhs in India. Early diagnosis and early treatment with antiretroviral therapy (ART) have significant effect in reducing the morbidity and mortality in these patients and also have a crucial role in reducing the occurrence of new infections in the community.

Objectives: (1) To find the prevalence of late presentation among newly diagnosed HIV reactive, (2) to identify factors associated with late presentation, and (3) to provide recommendations to improve early diagnosis.

Materials and Methods: A retrospective record-based study was conducted in the Integrated Counseling and Testing Centre (ICTC) center in a tertiary care teaching hospital. Details of the individuals who have undergone HIV testing in the ICTC center between January and December 2016 were noted. All the identity details of the clients were kept confidential by creating coding for each of them. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, and the results were presented in the form of percentages.

Results: A total of 777 individuals were tested for their HIV status in the year 2016, and 8.36% were found to be reactive for HIV. Majority (36.9%) of the HIV reactive individuals were in the age group of 36–45 years. 35 positive clients (53.8%) were females and the rest (46.2%) were males. 58 (7.46%) individuals were newly detected as having HIV, and the rest 7 have already undergone HIV testing in other centers and knew their HIV status. Among the newly detected HIV reactive, 82.3% had their CD4 count


In a previous study we have reported that icy injection of aminophylline or imidazole serving as inhibitor or activator of phosphodiesterase for cAMP respectively, was capable of increasing or decreasing the brain level of endogenous cAMP. EA analgesia was found to be markedly antagonized by aminophylline and significaantly augmented by imidazole. In the present study we have found that icy injection of isoquercitrin, an inhibitor of cGMP phosphodiestrase, resulted in an increase of cGMP level in the diencephalon and lower brain stem, as well as a generalized decrease of cAMP level in the telencephalon, dieneephalon and brain stem in the rat. Icy injection of isoquercitrin (20, 40. 80 μg) produced a dose-dependent antinociceptive effect. The effect of EA analgesia was significantly potentiated by the icy injection of 20μg of isoquercitrin which, by itself, exhibited only very weak analgesic effect. Moreover, a positive correlation was found between the isoquercitrin analgesia and EA analgesia in the same group of 30 rats. The results seem to support the conclusion that central cGMP plays an important role in mediating EA analgesia.


The invention relates to a folding creeper stool, which comprises a bracket, a seat cushion, a back cushion and a base cushion, wherein a plurality of universal wheels are arranged at the bottom of the bracket which is sequentially hinged with a seat frame, a support frame and a base frame into a whole by pin shafts; the seat cushion, the back cushion and the base cushion are laid on the seat frame, the support frame and the base frame respectively; the two sides of the base frame are hinged with two connecting rods respectively; the connecting rods are hinged with a supporting rod of which the middle is hinged on the two external side walls of the supporting frame; and one end of the supporting rod is born on the base frame by a bearing seat, while the other end of the supporting rod bears the seat frame by the bearing seat. The folding creeper stool is simple in structure, rational in design and firm in connection, and is laid horizontally by the hinge of the pin shafts to form a creeper which is used for repairing the bottom of an automobile, or is folded into a Z shape to serve as a convenient moving working stool. Therefore, the folding creeper stool is multifunctional and wide in application range.


In an attempt to synchronize estrus and ovulation, a total of 39 Holstein heifers , 13-to 19-month-old, in a pasture were injected subcutaneously with PGF2-alpha analogue(Fenprostalene, A-75). In Experiment I, 21 heifers in the luteal phase were administered with 2 ml of A-75(1 mg of Fenprostalene). Nineteen heifers that showed estrus 2-5 days after injection of A-75 were inseminated, and 13 heifers became pregnant. In Experiment II, 11 heifers which were in the luteal phase 10 days after the initiation of the experiment I were injected with 2 ml of A-75. Five heifers showing estrus by 54 hr after injection of A-75 were inseminated, and all became pregnant. The remaining 6 heifers were administered with GnRH-A at 55 hr after treatment with A-75 and inseminated 24 hr after the GnRH-A injection, since they did not show estrus by 54 hr after the A-75 injection. Two heifers became pregnant as a result of this treatment. Consequently , 38 heifers (97.4%) out of 39(31 in Experiment I & II, 8 in natural estrus) were inseminated, and 27 heifers(69.2%) became pregnant within 13 days after the initiation of the experiment I.


South, an independent weekly newspaper launched in the Western Cape in March 1987, was born of one of the most troubled times in South African history. Apartheid South Africa had entered its most turbulent phase in the latter half of the 1980s. From late 1984 popular revolt and mass insurrection in black townships greeted the imposition of the tri-cameral parliamentary system on South Africa. As the crisis deepened and organized resistance escalated the National Party government responded with brutal repression. From July 1985 successive states of emergency were proclaimed annually to clamp down on extra-parliamentary opposition. The emergency regulations armed the government with a number of authoritarian measures to block the free flow of information on politically sensitive issues and to muzzle dissenting voices, making the latter half of the 1980s the bleakest years in the annals of press freedom in South Africa.2


A disordered spin state, the nearest-neighbor virtual bonding state of Wigner-Jordan fermions, of the quantum antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model on a triangular lattice is found to have a zero-temperature energy -1.106J per spin, lower than that calculated from spin-wave theories, and in excellent agreement with that from numerical calculations, (-1.094±0.018)J per spin. The excitations of the state are Wigner-Jordan fermions with a gapless spectrum


Health risk refers to the probability of the occurrence of a specific health outcome for a specific patient. Interest in health risk prediction has been increasing, especially with the availability of a large amount of electronic health records (EHR). An EHR contains multivariate time series data that records meaningful information associated with a chronological set of clinical events for each patient. Recurrent neural networks (RNN) and hidden Markov models (HMM) have been widely used as generative models of time series data. RNN-based models have strong prediction performance but lack transparency. HMMs have a simple functional form and the ability to provide an intuitive probabilistic interpretation, but their state dynamics are 'memoryless', making it difficult to thoroughly take into account the irregularity in patients' health trajectory. This paper proposes a novel deep Markov network for health risk prediction. The method integrates two modules, a GRU (Gated Recurrent Unit) with attention mechanism and a Neural HMM, into a single network. The GRU generates the inputs required for health risk predictions and uses an attention mechanism to create memorable state dynamics for the Neural HMM. The Neural HMM then provides interpretable structured representations through training. Mixture Density Networks are incorporated in the Neural HMM, which contribute to the modeling of complex patterns found in the transition process. Furthermore, an inference network is designed to embed hidden state representations of GRU and Neural HMM into the same space. The inference network enables the two types of representations to learn from each other during the decoding process of Neural HMM, thereby improving the quality of interpretable structured representations. Experimental results on MIMIC-III and eICU datasets demonstrate that our method can outperform state-of-the-art methods and provide transparency of the model decisions.


Two years ago, when the journalist and broadcaster David Marr gave the Colin Simpson Lecture, he chose the title 'The Role of the Writer in John Howard's Australia'. He opened with a quotation from the novelist Patrick White: In all directions stretched the Great Australian Emptiness, in which the mind is the least of possessions, in which the rich man is the important man, in which the schoolmaster and the journalist rule what intellectual roost there is, in which beautiful youths and girls stare at life through blinkered blue eyes, in which human teeth fall like autumn leaves, the buttocks of cars grow hourly glassier, food means cake and steak, muscles prevail, and the march of material ugliness does not raise a quiver from the average nerves.


The Indian government and media have claimed that the so-called brain drain is becoming a brain gain for India, as Indian information technology (I.T.) professionals with U.S. experience return to India. This paper tests this claim through a case study of return migrants in Bangalore and Hyderabad, who migrated to the U.S. to work for at least one year and then returned to work in India either temporarily or permanently. Through interviews with return migrants, this study reveals their perceived benefits from their experience in the United States, and attempts to identify key impacts of these return migrants on the domestic I.T. industry, cities, and work environments. The hypothesis with which I began this study was that the return of this group of professionals brings increased financial capital, social capital, and most importantly increased human capital. I conclude however that the impact of this group has been exaggerated by the media and the Indian government. While the number of returning migrants has been increasing since the late 1990's, the absolute number is still relatively small, as is their impact on the work environment and the city. I argue that we need to differentiate return migrants into two groups: "return professionals" and "return entrepreneurs." Unlike return entrepreneurs, return professionals gain the same skills through their exposure to the I.T. industry in the United States, as those obtained by I.T. professionals based in India who travel to the United States for business purposes. The findings suggest that the current Indian government is erroneously privileging these return migrants over similarly skilled I.T. professionals who have not migrated to the United States. Thesis Supervisor: Anna Hardman Title: Visiting Lecturer in International Development


In this exploratory study of pregnant drug users who have experienced one or more violent events (physical/sexual or emotional) while pregnant, the authors detail how drug use is both a survival strategy and a source of vulnerability to violence. Using a qualitative methodology, 126 women were interviewed who were or had recently been pregnant (within six months postpartum) and had used marijuana, crack, cocaine, or heroin singly or in combination (including alcohol with one or more of the above). Data concerning demographics, family, relationships, reproductive, drug use and violence histories were collected with a structured questionnaire. Of the 126 interviewees, 79% (100) were selected on the basis of their violent experiences during pregnancy for an in-depth interview that focused on their drug use and violence histories. The authors detail the ways in which women's drug use was a form of recreation, as well as a coping and survival strategy. Drug use also caused them serious problems. Women were demonized for using drugs while pregnant but not given feasible or reasonable alternatives.


In this paper, the design and implementation of a robust random number generator (RNG) based on chaotic ring oscillators is presented. The RNG output bits are generated through the chaotic sampling of chaotic waveform (CSCW) where the chaotic signals are obtained from two separate nodes of a chaotic ring oscillator (CRO). The proposed RNG is implemented on a FPGA (field-programmable gate array) combined with lumped elements on a breadboard circuit. The output bitstream of the proposed RNG passed the NIST 800-22 statistical randomness test suite without any need for post processing. To analyze the robustness of the CSCW method, a comparative analysis is conducted between chaos-based bit generation methods in terms of robustness against external interference. It is demonstrated that the proposed CSCW method ensures higher immunity of the RNG against external interference.


Evidence continues to accumulate to support the potential benefit of beta-blockers in congestive heart failure. This randomized double-blind trial evaluated the impact of carvedilol (a mildly beta-1 selective beta-blocker that also has vasodilator effects) in 60 patients with moderate to severe heart failure. All …


Four lifting-line methods were compared with flight test data from a research Puma helicopter and the accuracy assessed over a wide range of flight speeds. Hybrid Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods were also examined for two high-speed conditions. A parallel analytical effort was performed with the lifting-line methods to assess the effects of modeling assumptions and this provided insight into the adequacy of these methods for load predictions.


The aim of this study was to investigate the microbial quality of black wildebeest (Connochaetes gnou) carcasses from the point of slaughter until the deboning process, allowing for the determination of possible points of contamination during the slaughter process. Carcasses were sampled at three processing points (skin on, skin off and post chilling) at four different carcass sites (rump, flank, brisket and neck). Before skinning, aerobic bacteria, Enterobacteriaceae, and Escherichia coli were enumerated from hide samples, counts ranged from 0.92 to 7.84 log cfu/g. After skinning the same bacteria were enumerated on the carcass. Counts ranged from 0.93 to 6.12 log cfu/g. A decrease in bacterial counts was seen after chilling of the carcasses. Significant differences between sites' bacterial loads were seen. For aerobic bacteria differences were prominent for flank (after skinning) and neck (after chilling), whilst for Enterobacteriaceae and E. coli noticeable differences between sites were noted for flank samples after chilling. Clostridium spp. showed an increase in counts after skinning, but this was not statistically significant. All samples were negative for Salmonella spp. The results from this study allow identifying when and on which area of the carcass contamination events occur.


Abstract A British Championship motorcycle racer (male, age 22·4) presented with internal fixations to a 3-week-old transverse fracture of left tibia and fibula. The patient initially appeared to be uncommitted to the treatment and rehabilitation (three out of five missed appointments) and spoke in negative terms regarding returning to racing. Using a variation of2performance profile, the athlete and primary care provider determined those areas that the racer felt needed the most attention from a psychological standpoint. Intervention strategies were then applied by the primary care provider after consultation with the sport psychologist. Performance profiles were completed on a weekly basis to monitor both the racer's and the care provider's perceptions of change. Of the 12 constructs developed, nine showed positive week-on-week changes, whilst three showed positive changes over the 12-week period the racer was under care. None regressed at any stage. The racer attributed feelings of increased motivation and confidence in returning to competition to the psychological support programme. The greatest benefit reported by the athletic trainer was felt to be increased compliance to treatment and rehabilitation prescription.


INTRODUCTION: Malignant phyllodes tumor of the breast is a rare neoplasm for which clinical findings remain insufficient for determination of optimal management. Few cases have been published involving a malignant transformation of benign phyllodes to malignant phyllodes tumor. This is documented case of a transformation of benign to malignant phyllodes. Phyllodes tumors are rare fibroepithelial breast tumors, which are sometimes difficult to preoperative diagnoses and have unpredictable clinical outcome. These tumors must be suspected in patients with rapid-growing breast nodules, to avoid inappropriate management.
CASE: A 23-year-old female patient presented a two-month history of palpable mass on the left breast, with accelerated growth in recent month. There were no personal or family history of breast cancer. This patient was submitted to the exeresis of a nodule in the left breast one year prior, where physical exam presented protruding and hardened palpable mass with 5x6 cm and she were given a histologically diagnosis of benign phyllodes tumor and periareolar scar. In this time, physical exam presented protruding and hardened palpable mass occupying the upper quadrants of the left breast. Signs of cutaneous involvement or axillary lymphadenomegaly were not evidenced. During the diagnostic investigation, the patient was submitted to mammography and ultrasound. Because of the extension of the lesions, patient underwent simple mastectomy with protesis without axillary dissection. Surgical margins were free of tumor. Macroscopy evidenced a lesion measuring 4,5x30 cm, and the anatomopathologic analysis of the surgical specimen confirmed the diagnosis of malignant phyllodes tumor.
DISCUSSION: In our study malignant transformation was determined one year after operation, the outcome of cases with history of fibroadenoma or benign phyllodes are significantly better than that of cases without history of benign tumor but patients with malignant phyllodes tumors who exhibit rapid growth within 6 months require aggressive treatment.


The driving force in today's wireless market is the excellent internet services and growing demand for wireless multimedia. OFDM has been widely accepted as a solution for high-speed broadband applications. In this paper, we have attempted to present a comprehensive overview of a promising alternative solution, SC-FDE, which has been historically shadowed by OFDM. Although the basic ideas behind SC-FDE can be traced back to Walzman and Schwartz's work on adaptive equalizers in 1973, the recent surge of interest in SC-FDE was subsequent to the work of Sari. SCFDE enjoys a comparable complexity to OFDM due to the similar transceiver architecture based on efficient FFT/IFFT operations. Because of the single-carrier implementation, SC-FDE also avoids the inherent drawbacks of OFDM such as amplifier nonlinearities, carrier frequency offsets, and phase noise. OFDM is commonly used in practice in conjunction with coding. The comparative performance analysis of SC-FDE, coded OFDM, and adaptive OFDM schemes reveals that SC-FDE achieves comparable (or even better in some scenarios) performance compared to its OFDM counterpart. this paper has compared the two schemes SC-FDE and OFDM, especially the BER performance of OFDM & SC-FDE Zero forcing, SC-FDE(MMSE). Both schemes involve frequency-domain processing, and their complexity is similar, in BER curve for ZF and OFDM is OFDM performs better than SC-FDE with zero forcing equalizer. The Zero forcing equalizer runs almost parallel to OFDM BER curve though above it. The reason being whenever there are deep fades in the channel noise gets amplified and results in degradation of the performance & in the BER curve for MMSE equalizer shows better performance compared to OFDM beyond certain Signal to Noise ratio. Unlike ZF equalizer, MMSE coefficients takes into account the effect of channel noise. Also this equalizer can potentially exploit the full diversity available in the channel.


A new system for designing and shaping teletherapy treatment fields to any form or size is described. A low-melting alloy, Lipowitz's metal, is cast in a styrofoam form which was cut with a hot-wire device. A one-piece assembly is produced for each patient. In daily application the block assembly is simply and quickly indexed into correct position in the head of the therapy unit and is held securely regardless of the head angulation. Materials are salvaged and reused upon completion of the treatment course. The system has been shown to be accurate and reproducible.


The invention relates to a pipeline leakage point sealing device which can be used for plugging partial leakage points of a pipeline. The technical scheme is as follows: an upper shell and a lower shell are combined and covered on the outside of a pipeline leakage point, and a sealing gasket is compacted between the shells in a tongue-and-groove mode; the shells and pipeline are annularly provided with a sealing packing; and a regulating shaft is utilized to compact the sealing packing onto the ends of the shells through a stay bar. The pipeline leakage point sealing device has the advantages of simple structure and high practicality. The axial sealing and radial sealing are separated and can be regulated respectively, so that the sealing effect can be ensured more easily; and the compacting force of the filler can be regulated by simply rotating the regulating shaft, so the operation is more convenient.


One of the main issues faced by community salt farmers in the coastal area of Rembang Regency is the low level of welfare of community salt farmers due to the low level of income of the people of salt farmers. The low level of productivity, land ownership, work experience, education, marketing and capital are the main factors that can result in low levels of income for the salt farmers to improve their welfare.This study uses the Multiple Linear Regression Analysis method. The population in this study included all community salt farmers in the coastal area of Rembang Regency. According to records from the 2015 Marine and Fisheries Service Office, there were 1,240 salt farmers. The sampling technique in this study used cluster sampling. The results of this study are for variables Productivity, Land Area and Education Level of salt farmer owners have a significant positive effect. Where as for the variables of Marketing, Capital and Working Experience there is no significant positive effect.


We performed a Google search and a literature search using a series of subject headings (MESH) and keywords to identify programs that qualify as differential diagnosis generators. Through consensus, the author group identified four factors critical for a differential diagnosis generator to be useful. First, the program needed to present a list of potential diagnoses rather than text or article references. Second, the program must rank or indicate critical diagnoses that need to be considered or eliminated. Third, the program needed to accept at least two signs, symptoms or disease characteristics. Finally, the program needed to provide the ability to compare the clinical presentation of the different diagnoses presented. The study was limited to programs providing diagnoses in general medicine. Programs focused on one disease process or clinical specialty were excluded. The study was limited to programs developed for the use of healthcare professionals (HCPs), not patients or consumers. Qualitative evaluation criteria were agreed upon by consensus prior to evaluating their use.


We present the star formation history (SFH) of the isolated (D ∼ 970 kpc) Local Group dwarf galaxy Wolf–Lundmark–Melotte (WLM) measured from colour–magnitude diagrams (CMDs) constructed from deep Hubble Space Telescope imaging. Our observations include a central ($0.5 \, r_h$) and outer field ($0.7 \, r_h$) that reach below the oldest main-sequence turn-off. WLM has no early dominant episode of star formation: 20 per cent of its stellar mass formed by ∼12.5 Gyr ago ($z$ ∼ 5). It also has an SFR that rises to the present with 50 per cent of the stellar mass within the most recent 5 Gyr ($z$ < 0.7). There is evidence of a strong age gradient: the mean age of the outer field is 5 Gyr older than the inner field despite being only 0.4 kpc apart. Some models suggest such steep gradients are associated with strong stellar feedback and dark-matter core creation. The SFHs of real isolated dwarf galaxies and those from the Feedback in Realistic Environment suite are in good agreement for M⋆($z$ = 0) ∼ 107–109M⊙, but in worse agreement at lower masses ($M_{\star }(z=0) \sim 10^5\!-\!10^7 \, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }$). These differences may be explainable by systematics in the models (e.g. reionization model) and/or observations (HST field placement). We suggest that a coordinated effort to get deep CMDs between HST/JWST (crowded central fields) and WFIRST (wide-area halo coverage) is the optimal path for measuring global SFHs of isolated dwarf galaxies.


With the increase of the mount of dayprocess of fund business,the scale of the data to be processed increases dramaticlly.Based on Open-fund system project,the paper expounded two aspects of fund system′s DataProcess:DayBeginProcess and DayEndProcess,and at the same time the part of DataProcess′s pseudocode has been listed.


It has been established that the fluid reserves, which are at the final stage of development, are difficult to extracta and water. The methods of intensification are analyzed and it is established that it will be rational in this case to pump carbon dioxide into the reservoir. Its influence on a bundle of oil and water is determined. The results of the statistical processing of the change of the debit before and after injection of carbon dioxide, the influence of the volume of gas injected into the well from the seperate permeability of the reservoir, as well as the expected rate of wellbore after injection, are presented.


Correlation filter based on deep neural network is a kind of mainstream method for real-time object tracking. It combines the high efficiency of correlation filtering and the great representation ability of convolutional neural network. However, this method inherits most shortcomings of correlation filter such as boundary effects. If an object is close to the boundary of a search area due to a large displacement, the useful information will be filtered out by cosine window and padding. In order to alleviate boundary effects, we propose a coarse positioning module to fine tune the search area before cosine window and padding. The core of the proposed module is saliency detection based on reconstruction error. This enables the improved trackers to retain more object information than the prototypes. Experimental results show that our method obviously promotes the baseline model, namely DCFNet, in the case of fast motion. Due to the low computational cost of our coarse positioning module, the improved trackers still have real-time rate.


In this paper we analyze the decision of firms to be on the market for Venture Capital (VC) financing and its inclusion in econometric models on the impact of VC on firms performance. We develop a simple model according to which the decision of a company to look for VC is equivalent to the decision upon whether or not to buy a call option. The value of the option is increasing with the (expected) value added by VC to the investee company. The cost of the option is increasing with the size of the search cost and decreasing with the competitiveness and development of the VC industry in the sector and area of the firm. We also show that including the decision of the firm to be on the market in an econometric model can greatly improve the accuracy of estimates about the treatment effect of VC on firm's performance, especially when few companies find it optimal to be on the market. We test the theoretical prediction of the model on a sample of 215 Italian New Technology Based Firms. The empirical evidence supports the view that search costs and VC market development substantially affect the likelihood of a company to be on the market for VC. It also confirms that pooled estimates (i.e. estimates that do not distinguish between companies on or off the market for VC) might substantially underestimate the real impact of VC on firms performance.


Introduction: Caffeine is the most widely consumed psychoactive substance. Unlike many other psychoactive substances, it is legal and unregulated in the world. Several experts suggest that moderate use of caffeine (300 mg or equivalent to 3 cups or less to regular size cups of coffee per day) is safe and so not likely to cause health issues. Intake of caffeine has been suggested to affect the visual system. This study examined the effect of consumption of caffeine on contrast sensitivity of the eye among young adults of Abia State University students within the age range of 17-30 yrs. Methods: This study employed a cross-sectional design and was carried out within the confinement of Abia State University Eye Clinic. A total of 100 young adults consisting of an equal number of males and females were measured using the Rabin's contrast sensitivity at baseline, 30 mins until 120 mins. One way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the Chi-square statistical analysis was used to analyze statistically the research hypotheses at 95% level of significance. Results: The findings of this study reveal that mean contrast sensitivity values for 16 to less than 20 years old were 1.70 at baseline and increased to 1.79, 1.89, 1.93 except at 120 minutes postOriginal Research Article Ihesiulor et al.; OR, 12(3): 21-28, 2020; Article no.OR.56544 22 ingestion of caffeine. In males and females, contrast sensitivity increased by 1.57%, 3.7%, 5.3% and 10.7%, 20.7% 23.3% respectively. At 95% confidence level, caffeine ingestion had a significant effect on contrast sensitivity for both males (4.79) and females (5.8). Conclusion: This study depicts that the ingestion of caffeine affects or increases contrast sensitivity in both males and females although this effect is short-lived.


In this paper, a lightweight 3D object detection model using color and depth images is proposed. In recent years, several studies have focused on the application of deep learning to object detection. They use many techniques, including improved feature extraction methods and instance segmentation, to increase the accuracy. However, such 2D object detection has its limitations. Other models and methods are needed to deal with occlusion and to identify 3D positions. In contrast, there have been many studies in this field applying deep learning to 3D object detection. However, many of them are computationally expensive and difficult to run in real time because they deal with dense point clouds. In the proposed model, after feature extraction from the color image, a sparse point cloud is created from the range image to achieve fast object detection. Graph convolution for point clouds and feature extraction with depth information are also used. As a result, the proposed model achieved 56.4 fps when using ResNet34.


A head support for use when sittingA head support 2 for supporting a user's head when in a sitting position comprises an upper loop portions 8 which, in use, support the head of a person in a sitting position, and a lower loop 10 portion which rests in the user's lap [see Fig. 2]. In a first embodiment, the head support 2 may be formed from a single flexible loop member 4 which may be held in a figure-of-eight configuration by means such as a strap, and may be capable of being twisted and collapsed [see Figs. 5 & 6]. In a second embodiment [see Fig. 7], the lower loop portion is formed from an extendible flexible member 103, and can be held in a figure-of-eight configuration by a strap 106 and cord 120 with cord lock 120. In a third embodiment [see Fig. 8], the head support 2 is formed from two separate rigid or flexible loops 208,210 which are hinged together by pivot joint 206 to allow folding of the support. A pouch 219 can be used for storing the support.


Background: The quantification of hepatitis B surface antigen (qHBsAg) was proposed as a helpful tool to monitor treatment efficacy with nucleos(t)ide analogs (NA) in HB e antigen-negative chronic HB. Objectives: The present study aimed to assess the effect of entecavir (ETV) and tenofovir dipivoxil (TDF) on qHBsAg kinetics and estimate the time necessary to achieve HBsAg clearance with each of these drugs. Methods: The study was conducted on 93 patients, 54 and 39 of whom were treated with ETV and TDF for a median time of 42 months, respectively. The qHBsAg was measured in 6-month intervals with the Elecsys HBsAg II Quantitative assay. The estimated time to undetectable HBsAg was calculated using the best-fitted curve analysis. Results: There was a significant decrease in qHBsAg titers in 79 (84.9%) patients with no difference between ETV and TDF groups (P = 0.754). The median quantitative HB drop was 2003 IU/mL (interquartile range: 638.1 - 5010). The HBsAg levels decreased by 40.3 ± 25.9% on average. The expected time required for HBsAg clearance was comparable in both groups, equaling 104 and 114 months for TDF and ETV, respectively. Conclusions: The HBsAg clearance can be achieved in a substantial proportion of patients after additional 5 years of treatment with NA. The potency of TDF and ETV in qHBsAg reduction is similar.


Performing a qualitative assessment of your practice's needs is one of the best ways to decide which EHR will provide the best value.


Vertical shaft turning heading the traditional construction method was drilling blasting machine, using wire rope traction type rake the gangue filling bottles, car transport, wellhead reproduced into the bucket; in vertical shaft turning roadway engineering, the electric excavator filling bottles, scraper conveyor transportation and transfer into the bucket were adopted, which simplified the transfer process and improved the work efficiency.


The study examined the socio-economic factors influencing poverty among rural households in Onicha Local Government Area of Ebonyi state, Nigeria. The study adopted multistage random and purposive sampling techniques to select 120 household heads. Primary data used for the study were collected using structured questionnaire. The data were analysed with the aid of means, percentage and frequency count and OLS multiple regression model. The result indicated that the households spent an average of N31,250 monthly to take care of their families and other essential personal needs. The result of the socio-economic characteristics showed that majority (53.3) of the respondents were females. The mean age was 36 years with majority (64.2%) married while an average of 6 persons per household was recorded. The predominant occupations were farming (36.0%) and civil service (35.8%). The households cultivated a mean farm size of 3.8 hectares, the mean monthly income was N19,720 while their average monthly expenditure amounted to N31,250. Moreover, 73.3% of the respondents belonged to one social organization or the other with over 90.0% of them having acquired various forms of formal education. The multiple regression result showed the coefficient of determination (R2) was 0.644 or 64.4%. The overall model was statistically significant (P<0.05), signifying that the selected socio-economic characteristics of the households have significant influence on their poverty level. The coefficients of age, sex, educational attainment, household size, farm size, income and membership of social groups were statistically significant. The hypothesis tested led to the conclusion that the selected socio-economic characteristics have significant influence on the poverty level of the households. The study recommended improvement of socio-economic attributes that improve the poverty level of rural households.
Int. J. Agril. Res. Innov. & Tech. 9 (1): 8-13, June, 2019


C60 fullerene (C60) carbon‐based nanoparticles are widely used because of their physicochemical properties, and are released into the atmosphere from anthropogenic or natural sources. Due to its small size (0.65–0.7 nm) and electronegative chemical behavior, C60 can overcome natural biological barriers and deposit onto the respiratory system. However, the literature does not fully describe its putative pulmonary burden. C60 interaction with double membrane organelles like mitochondria, housing enzyme systems that convert metabolism by‐products into usable energy (ATP) and are an important source of oxygen‐derived free radicals, has been recently described. We hypothesized that C60 impairs lung function and alters its inflammatory status via mechanisms possibly involving mitochondria. Hence, we addressed pulmonary mechanics, histology and mitochondrial function after a single exposure to C60. Our Institutional Ethics Committee approved the study (code: 155/18). Thirty‐five male BALB/c mice were randomly divided into 2 groups intratracheally (it) instilled with vehicle (0.9% NaCl + 1% Tween 80, CTRL) or C60 (1.0 mg/kg, FUL). Twenty‐four hours after exposure, 15 FUL and 8 CTRL mice were anesthetized (10 mg/kg xylazine and 120 mg/kg ketamine), paralyzed (pancuronium bromide, 0.1 mg/kg) and mechanically ventilated for the determination of lung mechanics. They were then euthanized by sectioning of abdominal aorta and vena cava; the lungs were extracted at FRC for histological processing. Results are expressed as median, 25th and 75th percentiles. FUL group showed increased lung tissue elastance (FUL=38.21, 32.43, 39.83 vs CTRL=31.63, 29.31, 33.41 cmH2O/mL, p=0.0049) and viscance (FUL=4.44, 3.72, 4.76 vs CTRL=3.73, 3.36, 3.87 cmH2O/mL, p=0.0225). In addition, lung histology disclosed increased inflammatory cell number (FUL=16.0, 14.6, 18.8 vs CTRL=9.2, 8.8, 9.6 10−3/μm2 cells, p=0.0022) and alveolar collapse (FUL=11.33, 10.34, 13.79 vs CTRL=5.78, 4.69, 7.71%; p=0.0286), septal thickening and pulmonary edema. The remaining 6 FUL and 6 CTRL mice were expertly euthanized by cervical dislocation. Mitochondrial function expressed reduction in state 1 respiration in the presence of pyruvate‐malate substrates [FUL=3.0±1.14 vs CTRL=4.46±0.9 (SEM) nmol O2/min/mg protein, p=0.0210], ATP production (FUL=122.6±18 vs CTRL=154.5±14 μmol/100 μg protein, p=0.0340), and higher generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) (FUL 733.1±169.32 vs CTRL=486.39±73.1 nmol/100 μg protein, p=0.0313). In conclusion, exposure to fullerene C60 impaired lung mechanics and mitochondrial function, increased ROS concentration, and triggered pulmonary tissue inflammation.


A method for determination of isosorbide-5-mononitrate in rats plasma by HPLC-MS was developed.An Agilent MSD equipped with an APCI source was used as detector and was operated in negative ion mode.The linear range is 0.034 64~103.0 mg/L,the recovery is 93.1 %~112 %,the RSD is less than 6 %.The method is convenient,accurate,and can be used for therapeutic monitoring and pharmacokinetics study.


Based on the material properties in Guizhou province,referenced standards of highway asphalt mixture combined aggregate design methods,this paper through controlling the cementitious material ratio,the volume of polycarboxylic water-reducing agents and the content of micro-fines in pit sand,finally uses P·O 42.5 cement,grade IIfly ash,S95 slag powders and silicon powder to work out C90 high-performance pit sand concrete that compressive strength of 28 d is more than 100 MPa.It uses different size aggregate particle grading and the proper amount of micro-fines in pit sand,applied to low cost and high performance objective.


Does power enhance or diminish awareness of network opportunities? We propose that power is associated with perceptions of network closure (as opposed to structural holes), because power influences...


Blended learning is a term concerned with transmitting knowledge. It is an approach to education that combines online educational materials and opportunities for interaction online with traditional placebased classroom methods. It requires the physical presence of both teacher and student, with some elements of student control over time, place, path, or pace. Academic achievement or (academic) performance is the extent to which a student, teacher or institution has achieved their short or long-term educational goals. This Paper includes some major studies, which indicates that blended learning is very helpful for students' academic performance. This paper helps us to find out whether blended learning put less or major effect on students' academic Performance. The present paper analyzes the effect of blended learning (BL) on the academic performance of students.