VEST (Very Efficient Substitution-Transposition) is a set of families of counter-assisted substitution-transposition ciphers designed and optimised specifically for ASIC and FPGA hardware. VEST ciphers provide fast scalable keystream generation, authenticated encryption and collisionresistant hashing at a very low cost in area and power consumption. All VEST ciphers support variable-length keys and IVs and are naturally very slow in software. Cores of VEST ciphers can be viewed as large bijective nonlinear feedback shift registers (NLFSRs) with massively parallel feedback, assisted by a nonlinear residue number system (RNS) based counter with a very long period. Four VEST cipher family trees are introduced: 80-bit secure VEST-4, 128-bit secure VEST-8, 160-bit secure VEST-16 and 256-bit secure VEST-32, returning 4 to 32 bits of output per clock cycle while occupying ~3K to ~28K ASIC gates including control logic.


Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik: After 1989, all the talk was of the 'end of history' in democracy and the market economy; today we are experiencing the emergence of a new phenomenon in the form of an authoritarian/populist leadership – from Putin via Erdogan to Donald Trump. Clearly, a new 'authoritarian international' is increasingly succeeding in defining political discourse. Was your exact contemporary Ralf Dahrendorf right in forecasting an authoritarian twenty-first century? Can one – indeed must one – speak of an epochal change?


Modern Hammock Home Design are the adult versions of the swing laced with abounding of luxury and plentiful method. For numerous of us they are a part of our dream holiday that conjures up images of a white sandy sandy shore, lovely azure waters, swaying...


In recent years, owing to improved radiopaque media, refinements in technics and greater selectivity of patients, uterosalpingography has come into more frequent use. Whether the procedure is performed by the roentgenologist or gynecologist or both, the instillation of a foreign material into the uterus and fallopian tubes is not without danger. Reports have appeared of such complications as intra-vasation of the venous sinuses of the uterus, pulmonary emboli, foreign body retention cysts, pelvic peritonitis, rupture of the fallopian tube, and even death. In order to minimize the dangers and, at the same time, obtain satisfactory diagnoses, the present writer has developed an apparatus now known as the Gynograph (Fig. 1) which has been used to good advantage in recent years by both gynecologist and radiologist.2 With this apparatus he has performed over 2,000 uterotubal x-ray series without a single one of the above-mentioned complications. In fact, aside from an occasional rare flare-up of an old chronic...


An optimal algorithm for minimizing the number of columns (width) in a three-sided switchbox, when the modules are allowed to slide, is presented. The proposed algorithm runs in O(mn+e log e) time, where m and n are the number of terminals on the top and on the bottom, and e is the total number of feasible alignments (e >


This paper presents a numerical simulation of powder sintering. The numerical model presented in this paper uses the discrete element method, which suggests that the material can be modeled by a large set of discrete elements (particles) of a spherical shape that interact with each other. A methodology has been developed to determine the DEM parameters of bulk materials based on machine vision and a neural network algorithm. The approach is suitable for obtaining the exact values of the DEM parameters of the investigated bulk material by comparing the visual images of the material's behavior at the experimental stand in reality and in the model. Simulation of sintering requires an introduction of cohesive interaction between particles representing interparticle sintering forces. Numerical sintering studies were supplemented with experimental studies that provided data for calibration and model validation. The experimental results have shown a significant capability of the designed numerical model in modeling sintering processes. Evolution of microstructure and density during sintering have been studied under the laboratory conditions.


We discuss the window requirements for isolating the vacuum chamber for the subharmonic drive experiment from the NLCTA vacuum. We consider mechanical and heat stress, as well as looking at multiple scattering due to the foil. We decide that a window would not be appropriate because of multiple scattering.


The questions of formation of the competitive environment of small and medium business in modern Russia are investigated, taking into account a problem of a high level of monopolization of national economy and the appropriate measures of antimonopoly regulation within uniform system of measures for development of the Russian business are offered.


This study analyzed the reporting of multilevel modeling applications of a sample of 99 articles from 13 peer-reviewed journals in education and the social sciences. A checklist, derived from the methodological literature on multilevel modeling and focusing on the issues of model development and specification, data considerations, estimation, and inference, was used to analyze the articles. The most common applications were two-level models where individuals were nested within contexts. Most studies were non-experimental and used nonprobability samples. The amount of data at each level varied widely across studies, as did the number of models examined. Analyses of reporting practices indicated some clear problems, with many articles not reporting enough information for a reader to critique the reported analyses. For example, in many articles, one could not determine how many models were estimated, what covariance structure was assumed, what type of centering if any was used, whether the data were consistent with assumptions, whether outliers were present, or how the models were estimated. Guidelines for researchers reporting multilevel analyses are provided.


Two new polyketide phosphate monoesters, phosdiecin A (1) and phosdiecin B (2), were isolated from a culture of the marine Streptomyces sp. SS99BA-2 using the hyphenated technology LC-SPE/NMR. The compounds showed to be new representatives of an important class of antitumor and antibiotic metabolites known as fostriecins. Their structures, including relative configuration attribution, were fully elucidated through extensive analyses of NMR and MALDI-TOF/TOF HR-MS data. Herein, the application of this system to isolate and identify the new compounds is described.


The main design and technological parameters of a membrane reformer with a production rate of 40 mH2/h, including its static flow rate characteristic, are quantitatively estimated on the basis of a mathematical model of membrane extraction of highly pure hydrogen from hydrocarbon steam conversion products. It is shown that the calculation results are in good agreement with the data found in the literature on testing a membrane reformer designed for producing highly pure hydrogen from natural gas.


This chapter notes how Gaiman's work flits between the mythic, the real, and the mythopoeic, drawing upon physics and mathematics to analyze the spooky action (at a distance) paradox that Gaiman constructs in Overture. Looking at its placement with the larger Sandman universe as the prequel to the original text, this chapter will examine, in particular, Death's role in Dream's larger journey as "the ultimate observer" with the Sandman universe. Using her as the central perspective, the reader will discover how Death functions as that which brings order to the otherwise chaos of The Sandman.


Oxidative electrochemical properties in dichloromethane have been examined for compounds of the types cis- or trans-[Re(CO)2(P−P)2]+ and trans-Re(CO)(P−P)2X (P−P = diphosphine ligand, X = Cl, Br) which exhibit a range of charge and ligand types. In all cases 17e Re(II) species are formed, although the oxidation potentials vary over a reasonably wide range. The Re(II) compounds have been characterized by spectroelectrochemical (IR) and electrospray mass spectrometry (ESMS) studies. The stabilities of the Re(II) species are dependent upon charge and ligand types. The trans configuration is strongly preferred in the Re(II) state, so when the starting material is cis, there is rapid isomerization following electron transfer. The major form of reactivity detected is facile reduction of the trans-[Re(CO)2(P−P)2]2+ species. The particularly high stability of trans-[Re(CO)(dpe)2X]+ (dpe = Ph2P(CH2)2PPh2) allows solid-state studies to be undertaken for the trans-[Re(CO)(dpe)2X]+/0 couple when the compounds are mec...


This letter presents the closed‐from formulas for determining the patch dimensions of electrically thin and thick rectangular microstrip antennas. The presented formulas constructed by utilizing a differential evolution algorithm become very useful as computer‐aided design (CAD) models for patch antenna design. A comparison between the calculated and experimental results derived from 33 patch antennas demonstrates that the proposed CAD formulas provide <0.16% and 0.22% errors on average for the patch length and patch width, respectively. The results obtained by using the formulas given here are found to be closer to the experimental values, as compared with previous results presented by several researchers. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 49: 2197–2201, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.22679


A simple and scalable process was developed for the synthesis of highly crystalline magnetite nanocrystals embedded in a carbon matrix using low cost starting materials; the resulting nanocomposite showed a very high specific capacity of 863 mA hg(-1) in the initial cycle and high capacity retention of 90% after 30 cycles.


A price endogenous numerical general equilibrium model of world trade is used to analyze terms of trade issues in the North-South debate. Seven regions are identified, the U.S., EEC, Japan, Other Developed, OPEC, New Industrialized, and Less Developed Countries. The model is benchmarked to a global 1977 micro consistent data set. In the central case analysis, protectionist trade policies in the North inflict an annual welfare loss on the South of around 30 billion dollars per year with an associated terms of trade deterioration of around 9%. The annual welfare cost to the South from northern trade restrictions is somewhat larger than annual North-South aid flows. Protection in the South, and the potential terms of trade impacts of differential growth, are also analyzed.


1Department of Dermatology, Wuhan Children's Hospital (Wuhan Maternal and Child Healthcare Hospital), Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science & Technology, Wuhan 430015, Hubei Province, People's Republic of China; 2Department of Radiotherapy, Hubei Cancer Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei Province, 430071, People's Republic of China; 3Department of Nephrology, The Central Hosptial of Wuhan, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430015, Hubei Province, People's Republic of China


Abstract The reaction of trialkyl phosphites and phosphines with o-quinones result in the formation of oxyphosphoranes [1]. In an effort to prepare o-quinone monoimine metal complexes with amine [2] and phosphine ligands it has been found that in the reaction either of o-quinones (1) with phosphines in the presence of ammonia or of o-quinone monoimines (2) with phosphines 1,3,2-oxazaphospholenes (3) are formed in good yields.


In recent years, the "Copper-2 Hypothesis" has been put forth in an attempt to explain the epidemic of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in the Western world. According to this hypothesis, "free" copper (copper-2) in drinking water, dietary supplements, and meat is the chief cause of the increased incidence of AD in recent decades. In contrast to the US, copper plumbing for drinking water is not used in Switzerland and tap water is very low in copper. Other "risk" factors including dietary supplements and meat consumption are also lower in Switzerland than in the US. Yet, the incidence of AD is closely similar in the two countries. This contradicts the Copper-2 Hypothesis. Impact statement The Western world is faced with an Alzheimer's epidemic. Identifying the life style and anthropogenic factors involved has become a priority. This is a formidable challenge due to the complexity and the slow progression of the disease. A hypothesis put forth by George Brewer postulates divalent copper (copper-2), chiefly present in drinking water from copper pipes, to be a major risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. In Switzerland, copper pipes are not used for drinking water, but the frequency of Alzheimer's disease is similar to that of other Western countries. This contradicts Brewer's hypothesis and suggests that other factors are responsible for today's Alzheimer's epidemic.


The text-to-pattern Hamming distances problem asks to compute the Hamming distances between a given pattern of length $m$ and all length-$m$ substrings of a given text of length $n\ge m$. We focus on the $k$-mismatch version of the problem, where a distance needs to be returned only if it does not exceed a threshold $k$. We assume $n\le 2m$ (in general, one can partition the text into overlapping blocks). In this work, we show data structures for the dynamic version of this problem supporting two operations: An update performs a single-letter substitution in the pattern or the text, and a query, given an index $i$, returns the Hamming distance between the pattern and the text substring starting at position $i$, or reports that it exceeds $k$. First, we show a data structure with $\tilde{O}(1)$ update and $\tilde{O}(k)$ query time. Then we show that $\tilde{O}(k)$ update and $\tilde{O}(1)$ query time is also possible. These two provide an optimal trade-off for the dynamic $k$-mismatch problem with $k \le \sqrt{n}$: we prove that, conditioned on the strong 3SUM conjecture, one cannot simultaneously achieve $k^{1-\Omega(1)}$ time for all operations. For $k\ge \sqrt{n}$, we give another lower bound, conditioned on the Online Matrix-Vector conjecture, that excludes algorithms taking $n^{1/2-\Omega(1)}$ time per operation. This is tight for constant-sized alphabets: Clifford et al. (STACS 2018) achieved $\tilde{O}(\sqrt{n})$ time per operation in that case, but with $\tilde{O}(n^{3/4})$ time per operation for large alphabets. We improve and extend this result with an algorithm that, given $1\le x\le k$, achieves update time $\tilde{O}(\frac{n}{k} +\sqrt{\frac{nk}{x}})$ and query time $\tilde{O}(x)$. In particular, for $k\ge \sqrt{n}$, an appropriate choice of $x$ yields $\tilde{O}(\sqrt[3]{nk})$ time per operation, which is $\tilde{O}(n^{2/3})$ when no threshold $k$ is provided.


On view of mathematics "situation-problem" teaching,the effective mathematics learning was the student's independent-construction mathematics inquiry learning under the teacher's effective inspiration,with the goal of gaining mathematics knowledge,grasping Mathematics method,developing mathematics thought.In the teaching practice,mathematics "situation-problem" teaching explored some model of inquiry learning,such as question-challenge model,suspicion-proof model,feeling-discovery model,exploration-discussion model,which had the positive reference value for the general mathematics inquiry learning.


The thesis has studied the electrocardiograph center system which is based on ASP medical pattern. Firstly, the medical treatment ASP pattern is established, and ECG center based on medical ASP pattern is analyzed. How the system is realized is introduced. The result has indicated that it can resolve the problems of medical software cost and being short of medical expert.


Xenotransplantation using fresh porcine corneas has been suggested as a feasible alternative to overcome the shortage of human donor corneas. Successful long‐term survival of grafts without evidence of xenozoonosis in clinically applicable pig‐to‐non‐human primate corneal transplantation model has brought researchers close to human clinical trials. Accordingly, we aimed to prepare a clinical trial protocol to conduct the first corneal xenotransplantation.


EDITOR—Delamothe et al assert that in the "author pays" world of medical publishing, peer review would occur exactly as it does now—the "author pays" model would not become a form of vanity publishing.1 They also say that submission fees are likely to become routine parts of the process.

But consider this. All editors receive and reject many papers that are …


Let B(H) denote the set of all bounded linear operators on a Hilbert space H. In this note,for three operators A,B and C∈B(H),if the range R(B) of B is closed,then the necessary and sufficient conditions such that σ(AB~(1)C)=C is obtained by using block-operator matrix technique,whereσ(D) is the spectrum of an operator D∈B(H) and B{1}:={X∈B(H):BXB=B}.


The purpose of this paper is to account for the changes undergone by Portuguese agriculture from 1250 to 1850, from the Reconquista to the Regeneração. We identify two clearly different agrarian regimes. One, in which pastoralism played a major role, was characterized by high land/labour ratios, high-wages, and high levels of living standards. Under the pressure of demographic growth, it transitioned, over the course of the sixteenth century, to a second regime, in which land-labour ratios fell significantly, arable took the lead over pastoral production, and farming systems became considerable more labour-intensive. After a shift to lower levels, labour productivity, real wages and per capita food consumption stabilized all along the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. We analyse the reasons for this evolution bearing in mind in particular that population during this period roughly doubled. Technological change in two key agricultural sectors underpinned the emergence of this remarkable (non-Malthusian) situation by fostering an agricultural 'industrious revolution' based on wine and in grain. The former built on a long productive tradition, while the latter – the massive shift from other grains to maizewas an outstanding case of a Columbian exchange. We resort here to newlyconstructed variables (real wages, per capita food consumption, labour intensity and productivity, land yields, per capita agrarian output) in order to obtain a unified and consistent perspective over these six centuries. These variables are constructed from a new data base (PWR) of prices, wages and rents in Portugal which covers the period under examination. _____________________________________________________________________________ Old and New Worlds: the Global Challenges of Rural History | International Conference, Lisbon, ISCTE-IUL, 27-30 January 2016 2 2


The formation of silica−surfactant mesostructures has been studied under various acidic conditions using tetraethyl orthosilicate and hexadecyltriethylammonium bromide. The synthesis conditions have been optimized in order to obtain the cubic (Pm3n) mesoporous molecular sieve designated as SBA-1 of high quality. The pore diameter of the SBA-1 material has been controlled within the range of 1.4−2.7 nm by expanding the surfactant micelles with 1,3,5-trimethylbenzene or substituting the hexadecyl group of the surfactant with other n-alkyl groups (C12H25 to C18H37).


Colin Rowe writes on his belief that modern architecture - the "Architecture of Good Intentions" - no longer exists and that there is not, as yet, any comprehensive approach to fill the void. In a series of related essays, many delivered as lectures in various cities - Berlin, Barcelona, Rome, Zurich, Houston and Ithaca - Colin Rowe attempts to trace back the climates of opinion on modern architecture to their first visible adumbrations and, in doing so, displays his own view of the architecture of our time.


The Circle of Karma, a novel published in India in 2005 by Zubaan Books in collaboration with Penguin Books. It is explicitly a Buddhist novel but one that concentrates on the everyday struggle to apply religion to the protagonist- Tsomo's life. The writing is rich with rich Buddhist imagery but the story firmly grounded in mundane realities of gender and cultural issues, in short an excellent novel about one woman's hard life, set against vivid gender, cultural and religious background. The novel applies the theory of Nemesis in practice. It deals with the importance of Karma/action. There is message that each human being will experience the Consequences of karma whether good or bad, in one or other way, in this or other birth. There is no escape. The novel is a story of Tsomo the central character, a fat girl compelled by her own restless spirit and later by circumstances to leave her family and go on series of endless travels. Hope and tragedy mark her path in equal measure as her story gives a look of microcosm of Bhutanese society. It is informative regarding the cultural, religious and gender issues in Bhutan which is a Buddhist country.


Objective To observe the effect of electro-acupuncture(EA) on learning and memory abilities as well as the protein and gene expression of amyloid protein β1-40(Aβ1-40) in the hippocampal CA1 area of vascular dementia( VD) rats. Methods SD rats were randomized into sham operation group, model group, EA group(EA on Baihui and Dazhui points) and western medicine group(treated with Piracetam 0.8 mg·kg-1· d-1). Rats except for the sham operation group were modeled by modified two-vessel occlusion(2-VO). Morris water maze test was employed to study the learning and memory behavior of rats. The protein expression of Aβ1-40 was measured by Western blotting, and its gene expression was measured by fluorescence quantitative PCR. Results On experimental day 1-4, escape latency of rats in the model group was prolonged, total time for staying in the original quadrant and average time for staying in the original quadrant were shortened, and Aβ1-40 protein and gene expression levels in the hippocampal CA1 area were increased(P0.05 or P0.01). In EA group, escape latency was shortened, total time for staying in the original quadrant and average time for staying in the original quadrant were prolonged, and Aβ1-40 protein and gene expression levels in the hippocampal CA1 area were decreased( P 0.05 or P 0.01). Conclusion EA is effective on improving the learning and memory abilities of VD rats, and the mechanism is probably related with the regulation of Aβ1-40 protein and gene expression in the hippocampal CA1 area of VD rats.


Using a cosmological N-body simulation that coevolves cold dark matter (CDM) and neutrino particles, we discover the local effects of massive neutrinos on the spatial distribution of CDM halos, reflected on the properties of Delaunay Triangulation (DT) voids. Smaller voids are generally in regions with higher neutrino abundance, so their surrounding halos are impacted by a stronger neutrino-free streaming. This makes the voids larger (surrounding halos are washed outward from the void center). On the contrary, larger voids are generally in regions with lower neutrino abundance, so their surrounding halos are less impacted by neutrino-free streaming, making the voids smaller (surrounding halos are squeezed toward the void center). This characteristic change of the spatial distribution of the halos suppresses the 2-point correlation function of halos on scales of ∼1 Mpc/h and significantly skews the number function of the DT voids, which can potentially serve as measurable neutrino effects in current or future galaxy surveys.


Disclosed are a method for performing an initial access in a wireless communication system, and an apparatus therefor. Specifically, a method by which a terminal performs an initial access comprises the steps of: receiving, from a base station, configuration information indicating one or more physical random access channel (PRACH) configurations; receiving, from the base station, downlink control information including information indicating a specific PRACH configuration among the one or more PRACH configurations, through a physical downlink control channel; and transmitting a preamble and/or data, which are related to the initial access, to the base station through a PRACH on the basis of the specific PRACH configuration.


The requirement that industry control toxic pollutants has been applied to individual plants through a two-step process. First, EPA has conducted an extensive program of issuing effluent guidelines which define the technology-based standards for various industrial categories. Numerical limits are imposed on the quantity of each pollutant which may be discharged by operating plants for each unit of production. Second, the limits set by these effluent guidelines are enforced through individual NPDES permits. The NPDES permit serves the function of translating all of these standards into specific limitations, as well as specifying schedules for installation of controls, and monitorng and reporting requirements. In addition, the permit may prescribe ''best management practices'' (BMPs) to control spills and runoff from the plant site.


With the present contribution we complement the picture of the behavior in aqueous solution of the entire family of LGP copolymers. The latter are considered analogues of the Pluronic copolymers in which the flanking poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) blocks are substituted by linear polyglycidol (PG). PG is structurally similar to PEO and differs in that each monomer unit bears a hydroxymethylene group. So far two series of LGP copolymers, that is LGP60 and LGP130, based on poly(propylene oxide) (PPO) of molar masses 2000 and 4000, respectively, and PG contents ranging from 10 to 84 wt % have been studied. In particular, in the present paper we report on the synthesis and aqueous solution properties of a novel series of LGP copolymers that are close in composition to the Pluronic copolymers of the lowest molar mass of the central block of PPO, L31−P38. Seven copolymers based on PPO of molar mass of 1000 and PG content ranging from 30 to 90 wt % were prepared by applying the same two-step procedure employed for t...


Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is a new technology paradigm that decouples the data and control planes and allows operators to manage networks via an abstraction model. SDN offers dynamism, scalability and flexibility for modern networking environments. However operators still have to design SDN solutions to deploy flow rules in an efficient and automated manner. Hence effective path computation, definition and deployment are some of the key challenges facing SDN operation. Along these lines, this work introduces a novel SDN management and orchestration framework that implements a resilient Next-Generation Path Computation Element (NG-PCE) to compute and deploy resilient protection paths. A testbed setup is also built and three simple testcase scenarios evaluated to verify overall system performance and accuracy.


Doctoral education in France has a long history and unique methods. There are exacting and specific requirements for every stage of education. Doctoral education in China may draw on much from that in France.


The formation mechanism of the tension-compression yield asymmetry of magnesium alloys was summarized. The influencing factors and controlling methods of the yield asymmetry were reviewed. The yield asymmetry is mainly attributed to the strong deformation texture of wrought magnesium alloys and the polar nature of twining. The yield asymmetry can be improved by controlling texture, grain size, alloying elements and precipitate shape. However, comparatively little attention has been paid to quantitative evaluation on the contribution of each factor to yield asymmetry. Therefore, it is desirable to build the correlation between the above mentioned microstructural aspects and yield asymmetry. Then, it is expected that yield asymmetry can be greatly reduced by optimizing each parameter.


At the basis of conceiving the tax policy of an European Union member state, one must consider, on the one hand, fulfilling the government's own requirements, and on the other hand, achieving the objectives set by the EC Treaty. At present, the European Union has a quite harmonized and coordinated tax policy in the indirect taxes field, and partially in the direct taxes field, based on the free movement principle of goods, services, capital and labour; thus, although the member states have the freedom to set operation rules of their own national tax systems, this freedom is conditioned by the compliance with the priority objectives of the founding treaties of the European Union. The member states should avoid adopting discriminating tax measures (which could lead to a disadvantageous treatment for the persons, goods and services or capitals coming from other member states). Sometimes, the restrictions regarding free movement on the internal market are generated by the differences between the national tax systems, so that a certain degree of tax harmonization at the European Union level is necessary. The tax harmonization can be achieved either spontaneously (by means of the forces of the market), by means of active actions at the level of the European Union (the implementation of common policies, the coordination of the policies, the harmonization of the legislation, etc.) or by means of the passive actions of the European Court of Justice (the interdiction of certain types of conduct of the member states that do not comply with the norms of the European Union). In the absence of the tax harmonization, negative effects can occur, such as: the erosion of the national tax bases, provision of public services and goods at a sub-optimal level, unwanted changes in the structure of the taxes which are levied in the member states, and distortions in assigning resources at the level of the single market.


INTRODUCTION: A pain response is an inevitable symptom in trauma patients and requires to undertake a medical intervention in pre-hospital conditions. In the Polish system of medical rescue, there are teams including a doctor or without one where a paramedic is the main person to make decisions. Due to lack of standard procedures and a pain rating scale attached to the documents of medical rescue teams, the authors of the research attempted to analyse the administration of analgesics in trauma patients.


The coal mine safety is most important is to ensure the safety of the miners' lives,the most important coal mine safety management miners safety management,including the work location of the underground miners in the accurate monitoring of the basic premise is to ensure miner safety.The application of mine personnel positioning system to achieve accurate monitoring in the location of underground miners.


In his influential 1998 study, David S. Reher discusses historical differences between countries with strong and weak family ties. He focuses on the "Western World", comparing Italy and the Iberian Peninsula with Scandinavia, the British Isles, the Low Countries, Germany and Austria, together with North America. In this paper, we explore whether Romania, in Eastern Europe, can be characterised as having a strong family system, given the increasingly important role family has played for individual well-being following the end of the socialist regime. We observe a number of similarities between Romania and Southern European countries in terms of behaviours associated with "strong family ties", opinions on family care and mutual intergenerational support. Differences can be explained in light of Romania's economic and housing crisis. Overall, it is likely that the importance of family ties in Romania increased after the end of the socialist regime.


To achieve an accurate, efficient, and high dynamic control performance of electric motor drives, precise phase voltage information is required. However, measuring the phase voltages of electrical motor drives online is expensive and potentially contains measurement errors, so they are estimated by inverter models. In this paper, the idea is to investigate if various machine learning (ML) algorithms could be used to estimate the mean phase voltages and duty cycles of the black-box inverter model and black-box inverter compensation scheme with high accuracy using a publicly available dataset. Initially, nine ML algorithms were trained and tested using default parameters. Then, the randomized hyper-parameter search was developed and implemented alongside a 5-fold cross-validation procedure on each ML algorithm to find the hyper-parameters that will achieve high estimation accuracy on both the training and testing part of a dataset. Based on obtained estimation accuracies, the eight ML algorithms from all nine were chosen and used to build the stacking ensemble. The best mean estimation accuracy values achieved with stacking ensemble in the black-box inverter model are R¯2=0.9998,MAE¯=1.03, and RMSE¯=1.54, and in the case of the black-box inverter compensation scheme R¯2=0.9991,MAE¯=0.0042, and RMSE¯=0.0063, respectively.


The development of the photometric analysis of chromium in China for recent years (2002~2004) was reviewed,and the general photometry,kinetic photometry,flow injection photometry and resonance fluorescence scattering photometry for chromium were mainly introduced.Forty-six refer- ences were cited in the article.


Method: The present study was conducted as a descriptive correlational study on 100 dialysis patients referred to hospitals of Qom province. All participants were asked to complete World Health Organization Quality-of-Life Scale (WHOQOL-BREF), Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) and NEO personality inventory. The research data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and regression analysis.


A detailed study of adsorption from solution of amitriptyline-HCl, chlorpromazine-HCl andchlordiazepoxide-HCl on bentonite clay surface has been performed at variable conditions oftemperature, pH and ionic strength. It is aimed in this work to explore the capability of this clay intreatment of poisoning by the mentioned drugs if taken in quantities higher than the usual doses.Quantities of drugs adsorbed have been determined by UV spectrophotometric technique. Thesequence of adsorption in neutral media at 37.5 CÙ' followed the order:Amitriptyline-HCl > chlorpromazine-HCl > chlordiazepoxide-HCl.The results were discussed in the light of Langmuir and Freundich adsorption isotherms. The usualbasic themodynamic functions were estimated.


The multilevel began with the three level converters. The fundamental thought of a multilevel converter to fulfill higher power to use a progression of power semiconductor switches with a few lower voltage dc source to perform the power transformation by combining a staircase voltage waveform. Regardless, the output voltage is smoother with a three level converter, in which the output voltage has three conceivable values. This results in less harmonics, yet on the other hand it has more sections and is more unpredictable to control. In this project, three level inverter topologies and Sinusoidal pulse width modulation, Selective harmonic elimination and Space vector strategy has been connected to characterize the exchanging example for three level inverter that minimize the harmonic distortion at the inverter output. Mat lab Simulation result will be analyzed.


Automatically detecting the presence of singing in music audio recordings is a central task within music information retrieval. While modern machine-learning systems produce high-quality results on this task, the reported experiments are usually limited to popular music and the trained systems often overfit to confounding factors. In this paper, we aim to gain a deeper understanding of such machine-learning methods and investigate their robustness in a challenging opera scenario. To this end, we compare two state-of-the-art methods for singing voice detection based on supervised learning: A traditional approach relying on hand-crafted features with a random forest classifier, as well as a deep-learning approach relying on convolutional neural networks. To evaluate these algorithms, we make use of a cross-version dataset comprising 16 recorded performances (versions) of Richard Wagner's four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. This scenario allows us to systematically investigate generalization to unseen versions, musical works, or both. In particular, we study the trained systems' robustness depending on the acoustic and musical variety, as well as the overall size of the training dataset. Our experiments show that both systems can robustly detect singing voice in opera recordings even when trained on relatively small datasets with little variety.


Aiming at the problem that the digital watermark is vulnerable to be attacked, a digital watermark algorithm based on QR code is proposed in this paper. Firstly, encoding the text information to QR code as digital watermark, then host image is decomposed by discrete wavelet transform, and then the low-frequency sub-band have singular value decomposition, and the watermark information is embedded into the image. The experimental results show that the proposed method can resist the common attacks such as rotation, shearing, noise and so on, and it also has a good robustness to the change of histogram equalization and contrast ratio. QR code watermark is scrambled, which not only increases the anti-attack of digital watermark, but also make the watermark image to carry more information and has confidentiality, so digital watermark technology can be widely applied in the copyright protection for digital products.


One of the essential aspects of broadcast monitoring is to detect and consequently extract commercial blocks in telecast news videos. The research carried out until now have based their work almost entirely on preconceived characteristics that are associated with a channel. With the advertisers constantly looking to work around the existing policies, the reliance on the nature of channels during an advertisement does not suffice. The other approach towards identifying a commercial is by frequentist approach. However, it is often the case that sponsored programs and other programs share similar time in any specified hour, rendering the frequentist approach almost useless in the process. As such, this paper uses machine learning based approach which is more generic and can employ inherent differences that commercials have over their non-commercial counterparts for classifying and clustering commercials in the news videos. The datasets which contain 90 hours of recordings from five different news channels from US, England and India have been used to train and test nine different classifiers – K Neighbors, Support Vector Machine, Decision Tree, Random Forests, Ada Boost, Gradient Boost, Gaussian NB, Linear Discriminant Analysis, and Quadratic Discriminant Analysis – and five different clustering algorithms – K Means, Agglomerative, Birch, Mini-Batch K Means, and Gaussian Mixture. Our results show that the Random Forests outperforms all the other classifiers used with respect to F1 score and median time to train and test on each of these datasets that consists of features of shots extracted from 18 hours of video. Similarly, Mini Batch K Means was found to perform the best for forming clusters of news and commercials.


Abstract Many wildlife tourist attractions (WTAs) have negative impacts on animal welfare and species conservation. In the absence of regulation, raising standards requires tourists to create market pressure by choosing to attend WTAs with benefits for wildlife. We surveyed respondents from five countries – China, Australia, Canada, UK, and USA – to quantify how attitudes to captive animals, and towards WTAs' outputs and standards, may vary with nationality. Our aim was to provide a firm basis for behaviour change interventions to alter current patterns of tourist consumption of WTAs. All respondents agreed on the importance of conservation and animal welfare, but Chinese respondents were twice as likely to believe that WTAs would not be allowed to exist if they were bad for animals, and that WTAs' promotional materials were reliable indicators of welfare and conservation standards. These findings indicate Chinese respondents had fundamentally similar attitudes to those from the other countries, but differed in how those attitudes were likely to be applied. Chinese tourists may experience more barriers to aligning their actions with their values with respect to WTAs. Removing these barriers may require information campaigns to highlight the lack of regulation, and the unreliability of some WTAs' promotional materials and tourists' reviews.


OBJECTIVE
To assess the value of heat-colour test (HCT) with endocoagulation under laparoscopy as a new method for diagnosis of pelvic endometriosis (EM).

METHODS
Laparoscopic visible examination (LVE), lesion biopsy and HCT with endocoagulation were employed for diagnosis of EM in 83 cases of infertility. Brown-black colour changes of peritoneal tissue after endocoagulation with controlled heating (100 C) indicate EM implants (HCT positive).

RESULTS
LVE indicated that 35 cases had peritoneal lesions typical of EM in appearance. HCT was positive in all cases of visible EM lesions. 48 cases showed no visible peritoneal lesions by LVE, but nonpigmented peritoneal EM lesions were detected by HCT in 20 of the 48 cases. A variety of gross appearances of nonpigmented EM lesions were found in our study including: peritoneal hyperemia (70.9%), circular peritoneal defects (12.7%), semitransparant glandular excrescences (10.9%), white opacification of the peritoneum (10.9%) and normal appearance (5.4%). 25 biopsies were taken from nonpigmented peritoneal lesions in 13 cases. Histology examinations revealed the presence of EM in 64.0% of them.

CONCLUSIONS
HCT is a reliable, sensitive and accurate method for diagnosis of EM. It can overcome multiple factors for missing diagnosis of EM by LVE and biopsy. The clinical significance of HCT is its ability to detect nonpigmented endometriotic lesions, to differentiate the causes of pelvic adhesions, therefore to increase accuracy of FIGO EM staging under laparoscopy.


An analysis of the nature and extent of undernutrition food productivity and infant mortality during 1960-85 in Africa found that high rates of population increase and underdeveloped and inefficient agricultural methods resulted in poverty. The greatest deficiencies in protein mineral and vitamins and energy were found in the Gulf of Guinea in Ghana and in the Sahel zone. The percentage of nutritional deficiencies among infants 0-11 months old ranged from around 17.5% in Togo and Kenya to around 24% in Egypt Botswana Burkina Faso and Tunis and 31% in Zaire. Chronic undernourishment among infants 12-23 months old ranged from 26.0% in Kenya and around 35% in Togo Sierra Leone and Burkina Faso to a high of 55.9% in Botswana. Among infants 24-35 months old chronic undernourishment was highest in Tunis (47.2%). Among infants 36-47 months old percentages were highest in Botswana (46.1%) Tunis (47.2%) and Zaire (46.8%). For children 48-54 months old the range in undernourishment was from around 31% in Egypt Kenya and Sierra Leone to 46.5% in Zaire. In Ghana infant mortality was very high at 143/1000 live births. 35% of infant mortality was due to infectious disease and population was doubling every 27 years. African population growth rates have reached 2.9% recently. Although the energy value of the average world daily nutrition rate has increased from 2316 kcal per person per day in 1960 to 2670 kcal in 1985 (15% increase) the increase in Africa has been only 9%. In Mozambique there was a decrease from 2007 kcal in 1960 to 1660 kcal in 1985. Dietary deficiencies occurred in low protein consumption and in calcium intake. Populations living adjacent to lakes and rivers with ample sources of fish had higher protein intake. Only in Somalia was calcium intake sufficient at 800 mg per day per person. Burundi Malawi and Somalia will experience population doubling within 22 20 and 23 years respectively. In Europe and the world the net reproduction rate has decreased. In Africa the net reproduction rate has increased. Average yields of rice corn and wheat were low in Africa.


High pressure die casting is a promising process to make thin-wall components with high dimensional accuracy and excellent surface quality. However, the non-uniformity is one of the important features in castings. The inhomogeneity in tensile properties and microstructural characteristics were studied for the castings with different thicknesses made by high pressure die-cast Al-Mg-Si alloys. For the local mechanical properties in the die-castings, the casting skin provided the highest, whereas the casting centre provided the lowest yield strength, UTS and elongation. The yield strength, UTS and elongation were significantly decreased towards the casting centre. The microstructural inhomogeneity is characterised by the segregation of coarse fragmented dendrites, the reduction of solute concentrations of Mg and Si, and the increase of porosity level from the surface to the centre of castings. The growth velocities of eutectic α-Al phase estimated using the Jackson-Hunt model confirm that the growth variation is larger in the thin castings than that in thick castings.


Abstract With the growth of online marketplaces and social media, product designers have been seeing an exponential growth of data available, which can serve as an extremely valuable source of information communicated from customers without geographical limitations. The data will reveal customers' preferences, which can be expensive and slow to obtain via traditional methods such as survey and questionnaires. While existing methods in the literature have been proposed to extract product information and make inference from online data, they have limitations, especially in providing reliable results and in dealing with data sparsity. Therefore, this paper proposes a method to conduct an Important-performance analysis from online reviews. The major steps of this method involve using latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) to identify product attributes, using IBM Watson Natural Language Understanding tool to perform aspect-based sentiment analysis, and using XGBoost model to infer product attribute importance from the collected dataset. In our case study, we have collected over 150,000 text reviews of more than 3,000 laptops from Amazon.


ABSTRACT Estimation of the lateral load-carrying capacity of unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings is essential for their design, vulnerability assessment, and rehabilitation. Lateral strength of URM buildings can be assessed using experimental studies or numerical simulation, but conducting such studies on full-scale building specimens is expensive and requires huge computational effort and input data, which is not easily available. Therefore, the availability of test results and data is scarce in many developing countries having a huge concentration of URM buildings. Moreover, the quality and strength of masonry found in these countries are inferior to those found in some developed countries where data are available. This results in under-developed design codes and thus improper design and construction of URM buildings in seismically active regions of many developing countries. Therefore, simple analytical methods are required to be developed for the estimation of lateral load-carrying capacity of URM buildings with the help of systematic experimental and numerical studies on full-scale specimens. The paper presents a comparative assessment of the lateral strength of a URM building using experimental, analytical and numerical approaches. Pseudo-static in-plane cyclic tests were carried out over three full-scale URM walls with different opening configurations followed by testing of a single story URM building having a single room, constituting the walls, which were already tested. The walls and a building were then numerically analyzed in Abaqus and Strand7 to estimate the lateral load-carrying capacity. The lateral strength of individual walls was also estimated analytically using several existing methods. Finally, the effectiveness of combining the lateral strength of individual walls to estimate the lateral strength of full URM building was assessed that can be handy to the practicing engineers.


The article aimed to systematically review communication reputation-related research to shape the reputation literature from a communication perspective. After investigating several databases, a total of 366 peer-reviewed communication journal articles focusing on reputation were selected based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the study. A qualitative text mining and thematic analysis approach was conducted using the NVivo program to examine the most frequently used words and major emergent themes. The results revealed that the topmost frequently repeated words in communication reputation-focused articles were "crisis," "public," "reputation," "communication," "media," and "relations." Also, this study discussed the six major themes that emerged from communication reputation research, which were communication and public relations perspectives


This article argues that the widely justified and internationally promoted model of minority protection can only operate effectively by transcending the still dominant framework of individual rights and incorporating the concept of collective rights. In defending that position, this article will elucidate the main legal theoretical dilemmas of the concept of collective rights. Sustaining a coherent concept of collective rights requires recognition of the intrinsic, non-instrumental value of certain collective entities and of the fact that not all groupings are entitled to be moral and legal rights bearers. Legal criteria for defining collective rights can also be established, by distinguishing this notion from affirmative action measures, jointly exercised individual rights, and somewhat universal general legal norms. Furthermore, the lack of homogeneity within minority culture, religion, language, etc., could be legally overcome if bodies representing the interests of minorities are founded on the principles of voluntariness, electoral accountability, proportionality, and democracy. Ultimately, although this approach creates the possibility of conflicts between collective and individual rights, it can provide legal techniques for balancing the interests of individuals, respective collectives, and the state. * Miodrag A. Jovanovic; received LL.M and Ph.D. degrees from the Law Faculty, University of Belgrade, where he currently works as the senior lecturer in the Department of Theory of Law and State. He is currently working on a book entitled Constitutionalizing Secession in Federalized States: A Procedural Approach. The first version of this paper was presented at the international conference Collective Identity, Sovereignty, and Minority Rights, organized by the Serbian Philosophical Society in cooperation with the Center for Philosophical Education (CPE) at Santa Barbara City College, California, and the Conflict Resolution Graduate Program at Portland State University, Oregon. The conference took place at the University of Belgrade from 27–29 June 2003. Vol. 27 626 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY


English teaching involves not only English teachers and students but also the rest of the college staff.Local universities and colleges are facing a severe challenge or crisis in the quality of their student applicants,English learning atmosphere and teachers etc.The authors analyze the crisis and bring forward the following counˉtermeasures:(1)all the officials should pay more attention to English teaching seriously;(2)English courses must be improved;(3)various extracurricular English activities should be held effectively;(4)attention should be paid to academic research so as to produce a good English learning atmosphere on campus;(5)the teachers should be encouraged to write their academic papers and prepare their teaching materials in English and(6)search for better source of students by all means.


The Credit System is increasingly becoming a generalized educational program in national higher education systems.This article summarizes the features of the course examination administration under the credit system,points out the problems in the administration.In the end,the countermeasures have been presented.


In this paper we aim at defining a notion of equivalence for multimedia documents which can be described according to different models. If we consider a presentation as a collection of media items and constraints among them, the same temporal behavior can be defined in different ways. In particular, using SMIL language, different sequences of tags can describe the same temporal behavior which can be translated in more than a SMIL script. In this paper, we propose the use of automata to describe the behavior of a multimedia document independently from the synchronization model it uses, and we define a notion of equivalence to decide when two documents have the same temporal evolution.


The basic meaning of adaptation are illustrated by several cases, the general manifests are deliberated in aspects as learning, emotion, interpersonal relationship and behavior, suggestions are provided for parents and teachers in avoiding and treating adaptation.


In response to a request from Hodder Associates, acting on behalf of Bennett Property, Oxford Archaeology North (OA North) carried out an archaeological desk-based assessment of 74 – 78 Great Ancoats Street, Manchester (centred on SJ 84828 98499). The study aimed to assess the potential for significant archaeological remains on the site, and was required to support and inform a planning application for the redevelopment of the site.
The study area contains two standing buildings (78 Great Ancoats Street and 57 – 59 Houldsworth Street), and a strip of land that has been cleared of structures, and used presently for car parking. The development proposals allow for the demolition of all standing structures on the site, and the erection of a mixed retail and commercial unit, which includes a basement. The site does not lie within a conservation area, and neither of the existing buildings are afforded any statutory protection against modification or redevelopment.


Facilitate information retrieval and improve the calculations of similarity scores between objects via a compressor component that interacts with a layered structure memory. Data structures (z. B. tuples) that are associated with objects can be compressed to form a compressed format, by a layered structure memory is used. The system further comprises a sorting component which is operatively connected to the "Compressor component" to reduce the amount of memory required to store related to different objects similarity scores and retrieve.


Background: The population is ageing. Acute Care at Home (AC@H) is a Consultant led multidisciplinary team, providing Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment and acute non-critical care to our older population, preventing hospital admissions and promoting a better quality of life for our older population, supporting them to live independently for longer. Methods: Quantitative, a retrospective analysis of length of stays, admissions avoided, discharges facilitated, acute bed days saved and changes to care requirements. Results: From 01/04/2016 to 31/03/2017 Average length of stay was 4.9 days compared to 6.8 days in hospital, 719 admissions were avoided, 148 early discharges were facilitated, 5,896 estimated acute bed days saved. 79% of patients did not need changes to their existing care requirements, 4% required a new or increase to their existing package. Conclusions: The Acute Care at Home model is successfully treating older people at home reducing the burden on the Emergency Department and Acute services in hospital. It also maximises independence, improves quality of life, and decreases the dependency for on-going social support for our older population.


Copyright: © 2019. The Authors. Licensee: AOSIS. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License. In the version of this article published earlier, the name of the second author, Sibulele Walaza, was unintentionally misspelt as Sibongile Walaza. The second author's name, affiliation and ORCID are hereby updated to Sibulele Walaza, Business Development Unit, Genesis Analytics, South Africa, ORC ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5859-2139.


According to the request and apply of the passwordlock in nowadays. The design, combining with the hightech of the laser, which adopt electrooptic technology and the technology of controlled from distance. Also, make use of the new coding technique of the singlecomputer. Above all, we create a kind of computer password controller which is high secret.


Sometimes the flexibility of language leads one into curious contradictions. A simple example would be the change in usage of the word "pathetic/' which once meant "noble and full of sentiment/' as in Beethoven's Piano Sonata number 8, opus 13, "Grande Sonate pa th?tique." Many words now have multiple meanings that can get into conflict. One of these is the word "lit erature." It has three principal meanings: the sum of everything written in any field, a piece of writing with inherent aesthetic value, and in the colloquial sense any small pamphlet (for example advertising a toaster), typically very narrow in content and innocent of re deeming social value. If it is not a downright paradox, it is at least a curious juxtaposition that the accumulation of written material in any academic field is called the "literature" of the subject when scarcely one-hundredth of it has any lit erary value deriving from qualities of expression, form, and meaning. This is embarrassing for the humanistic disciplines, where they tend to write a lot. But it is a special problem in the sciences, where we write so much more, sometimes almost deliberately without regard for (or effect upon) the value of the language itself. It is not simply a matter of preferring that the communication of science should be prettified, or made artificially orotund and elegant. It is connected with content, and thereby further paradoxes. For instance, science professes to express the truth; yet it is considered a triumph if everything that is written in science, in cluding the simplest declaration of fact?"the earth is round"?is sooner or later contradicted?"the earth is


This paper reviewed the available research literature to determine the role of exercise training in reducing resting blood pressure in adolescents. Similar to the adult population, there is little evidence to support the efficacy of exercise training for reducing resting blood pressure in normotensive adolescents, although several studies reported small decreases in either or both systolic and diastolic pressure. In hypertensive adolescents, aerobic-type exercise training consistently reduced both systolic and diastolic pressure, but seldom to completely normal levels. Resistance training has not been studied as extensively, but may be of some benefit. It is recommended that chronic aerobic and strength activities be part of an overall health maintenance program.


B. Y. Chen [2] and L. Huafei [5] have studied pseudo-umbilical submanifolds. In this paper, we have generalized the compact pseudo-umbilical space-like submanifolds with parallel mean curvature in a pseudoRiemannian space.


This chapter is an update of a survey of insertion sequences (ISs) published in 1998. Researchers have retained the same basic structure: a first section including some key properties of ISs and a second section that defines and describes the different IS families. Throughout the text the authors have tried to compare and contrast the different IS families in terms of their transposition mechanism and control of their transposition activity. Researchers have introduced an additional section concerning bacterial genomes and plasmids since a number of genome sequences have become available over the past three years, and a large number of potential ISs have been identified in several of these. Researchers have also retained a section on eukaryotic insertion sequences. A general pattern for the functional organization of Tpases appears to be emerging from the limited number that have been analyzed. Another general feature of IS elements is that, on insertion, most generate short directly repeated sequences (DR) of the target DNA flanking the IS. Transposition activity is frequently modulated by host factors. The G+C content of family members varies from 70% in the mycobacterial examples to 25% in those isolated from Mycoplasma species. Family members from Mycoplasma species merit special attention.


After trying a crawling peg exchange rate and controlling inflows of foreign capital, Chile fixed its exchange rate in 1979 and opened its capital account. Drawing on recent contributions to the analysis of the current account, the paper builds a computable general equilibrium model to analyze what might have happened if Chile had followed a constant policy course during 1977-81. We explore the effects of Chile's continuing to constrain the inflows of foreign capital, taking those inflows as a policy variable and using an estimated equation to predict the effect of those inflows on savings and investment. The results show that Chile's loss of output would have been small rather than great, even with large cuts in inflows of foreign capital.


This paper describes the characteristics of the cogging torque based on four factors through the coordination between analysis and experiment. Four factors are air-gap of fitting part of divided core, annealing, a shape of inside diameter of stator, and eccentricity. This paper clarifies the influence of each factor. It is noted that air-gap of fitting part of divided core, annealing, and eccentricity have an influence to the cogging torque based on the least common multiple of pole number and slot number in 8-pole 12-slot PM motor. On the other hand, the shape of inside diameter of stator has the influence to the cogging torque of pole number order. The adequacy of the analysis model is proved by experiments.


In an ink sheet cassette in which the ink sheet (11) and its associated spindles (12, 13) are separable from the cassette body (2), the identity of the ink sheet is coded (33) on a component (3) which is captive but rotatable about one of the spindles, and which is engagable with the cassette body (as by grooves (31, 32)) so as to be observable from outside the cassette when the shoot and spools are inserted therein. In an alternative embodiment, the replacement sheet and spools are housed in a carrier in which the supply spool is captively rotatably mounted, and which releasably holds the take-up spool. In this case the carrier sits between the flanges (22, 23) of the cassette body, and a coded portion of the outer surface thereof is visible.


This Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) project developed and tested a connector system for attaching fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) bridge decks to supporting steel stringers. Work in the initial phase used an engineering approach to approximately define the dimensions of the connector system in relation to the expected loads and the deck and stringer dimensions followed by a finite element modeling and analysis of a preliminary design. Based on finite element parametric studies, the connector was optimized for fabricating and testing. The connector design was experimentally evaluated first by testing a single connector between a section of FRP deck and a steel wide-flange beam. The ultimate strength of the connector was obtained, and the load slip response was defined along with an evaluation of the failure modes. The experimental results were used to redesign the connector and to make it simpler and more economical. Work in the final phase involved evaluation of the performance of the connector-stringer design for fatigue degradation under multiple loading cycles, and establishing the number of required connectors for adequate deck restraint and effective flange width for the deck/stringer system. Further refinement and evaluation of the connector system are needed for its field implementation.


We propose an original model of human capital investments after leaving school in which individuals dier in their initial human capital obtained at school, their rate of return, their costs of human capital investments and their terminal values of human capital at a …xed date in the future. We derive a tractable reduced form Mincerian model of log earnings pro…les along the life cycle which is written as a linear factor model in which levels, growth and curvature of earnings pro…les are individual-speci…c. Using panel data from a single cohort of French male wage earners observed over a long span of 30 years, a random eect model is estimated …rst by pseudo maximum likelihood methods. This step is followed by a simple second step …xed eect method by which individual-speci…c structural parameters are estimated. This allows us to test restrictions, compute counterfactual pro…les and evaluate how earnings inequality over the life-cycle is aected by changes in structural parameters. Under some conditions, even small changes in life expectancy seem to imply large changes in earnings inequality.


Background: Dementia due to probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) represents between 60 and 80% of all dementias. The total number of estimated AD cases worldwide by 2030 is 65.7 million and 115.4 million by 2050; this represents a twofold population increase in the next 20 years. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been the primary tool of interest to link hippocampal volume loss with dementia firmly. MRI-based volumetry has been proposed as a promising biomarker. Hippocampal volumetry is useful in discriminating not only cognitively normal individuals from those with dementia but can also differentiate Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) from various types of dementia. Research objective: To measure hippocampal volume in various types of dementia. (MMSE) and Activities of daily living (ADL) in patients with dementia. Method: A cross-sectional study conducted for period of one year among 21 patients with Alzheimer's, vascular dementia, amnestic mild cognitive impairment and 20 healthy age matched controls. MMSE scale was used to stratify patients on cognitive function impairments. ADL scale to assess functional status of the patient ability to perform activities of daily living independently in diverse settings. Hippocampal volume measured using MRI 1.5 T Philips Ingenia, a coronal T1-weighted FFE (Fast Field Echo) 3D sequence. Results: Total Hippocampal volume was reduced by 35% in Alzheimer's disease, 27% in vascular dementia and 10% in amnestic mild cognitive impairment, compared with control group Conclusions: Moderate positive correlation between mean total hippocampal volume and MMSE scores in patients with dementia which was statistically significant. (P value= 0.001).


The invention discloses a table entry adding, deleting and searching method of a hash table and a hash table storage device. The table entry searching method of the hash table comprises the following steps of: calculating hash values of table entry key values to be searched in parallel, searching the corresponding bitmaps according to the hash values, comparing the search results, and taking out the table entry corresponding to the address of the bitmap in the hash table when the conflict bit is invalid for the first time; and comparing the table entry with the table entry to be searched, if matching, determining that the table entry is the table entry to be searched, namely the table entry to be searched is found. According to the table entry searching method of the hash table, storage of all table entries and no table entry leave are realized with least search time and high table space utilization rate, the required table entry can be accurately searched by accessing the memory for one time, meanwhile, the interface between the hardware and a memory is conveniently realized, and table space size, search efficiency and hardware implementation can be well balanced.


While much research on The Joy Luck Club has been studied through grand lens, like feminism, or cultural factors, trauma, etc., little research has been conducted to highlight self-consciousness and conflicts that are reflected in their seemingly endless dialogues between the four mothers and their daughters throughout the novel. Using dialogue from Bakhtin's polyphony theory, the present study investigates precisely how it works to awaken self-consciousness in all of them; how their understanding and connection are restored, and eventually how exactly right decisions are made for their daughters in marriage. The findings show that, after numerous dialogues between mothers and daughters, their self-awareness has become clearer, their relations are mended, the right decisions are made, and eventually the order in every aspect is reconstructed. The study calls for greater attention to the embodiment of dialogues in The Joy Luck Club, and how they work effectively and profoundly at every level, and at last how they fulfill the reconstruction of orders in certain aspects.


Political Science and Lincoln Junkies, rejoice! A treasure trove of information awaits you. Remember to look up your cabinet member in the indexes of the Reference books!


Proper in vitro oocyte maturation, crucial for in vitro fertilisation, is poorly understood and inefficient in dogs. Post-translational modifications of histones are involved in the meiotic process and preparation of oocytes for fertilisation. The present study aimed to evaluate post-translational histone H4 acetylation at lysine 12 (H4K12ac) and 16 (H4K16ac) in canine oocytes during in vitro maturation (IVM). Ovaries were retrieved from 1–7 year-old bitches undergoing routine ovariohysterectomy (OH). Grade I cumulus-oocyte complexes (COC) were recovered and evaluated before and after IVM in TCM 199 + 0.025 mM sodium pyruvate + 100 000 IU mL–1 penicillin G sodium + 100 mg mL–1 streptomycin sulfate, 0.003 g mL–1 BSA + 50 μL mL–1 Pluset® (500 UI FSH + 500 UI LH) + 1 μL mL–1 insulin-like growth factor (IGF) at 38.5°C in 5% CO2 for 72 h. After IVM, the nuclear stage of oocytes was established using Hoechst 33342 staining, and the acetylation patterns were investigated by indirect immunofluorescence staining of fixed immature and post-IVM oocytes (4% paraformaldehyde) with specific antibodies against the acetylated lysine residues, H4K12ac and H4K16ac. All stages were collected and evaluated simultaneously, and the experiment was repeated 4 times, with a total of 5–14 of oocytes evaluated per stage. Immunofluorescence signal was quantified using the NIH ImageJ software 1.4, and data are presented as a percentage of the average fluorescence intensity of each specific antibody over the intensity of DNA, as determined by Hoescht staining. Immunofluorescence values were analysed using the least square ANOVA by the general linear model procedures of SAS (SAS Institute, Cary, NC, USA), and comparisons of means were further performed by Fisher's Exact test. A probability level of P < 0.05 was considered significant. Our results indicate a variation in acetylation levels of H4K12 (P < 0.02) and H4K16 (P < 0.04) during meiosis. Fluorescence levels of H4K12ac decreased significantly when comparing immature (2.19 ± 0.62) with oocytes in metaphase I/II (MI/MII) (0.52 ± 0.14). Similarly, H4K16ac displayed a greater acetylation pattern in immature oocytes (1.20 ± 0.27) when compared to oocytes in germinal vesicle breakdown (GVBD; 0.58 ± 0.16) and MI/MII (0.62 ± 0.07) stages. These results support the hypothesis that, similar to other domestic species, post-translational modification of histone acetylation takes place during the meiotic process of oocyte IVM. Whether these histone modifications take place in a similar fashion during IVM remains to be investigated.


Five municipal sewage sludges,KFQ,DTS,LJ,LD and ZZ,from different sources of Guangzhou city and one sewage sludge sample ZQ from Zhaoqing city were collected.The six dried single samples and one mixtures were investigated by a thermogravimetric method analysis(TGA) under different conditions and four combustion indexes of sludge were calculated by using the TG-DTG curves.The results showed that the original municipal sewage sludge was with the characteristics of high volatile mater,low content of fixed carbon and low calorific value.The whole combustion process can be divided into four stages including the water releasing stage,volatile releasing stage,volatile combustion stage and fixed carbon combustion stage.Obvious,differences were discovered from different sludges at the same TG-DTG curves.The volatile separating and combustion dominated the whole combustion process.The combustion characteristics of different sources of sludge were dependent on the wastewater treatment process,the sources of sludge and their physical and chemical properties.The LJ sludge combustion performance was the best while the LD sludge was worst in the six kinds of sludge according to the volatile releasing index D,flammability index C and the comprehensive combustion index S.The index values of KFQ and ZZ mixtures became low except for the volatile releasing index D.The heating rate of the mixture was too fast,therefore cannot significantly improve the overall sludge combustion.Both the combustion reaction equation during different combustion periods and the corresponding kinetics parameter E were calculated by the Coats-Redfern equation.The results indicated that the value of activation energy(E) was corresponded with the combustion stages.


IFC is working with international mining company Rio Tinto in Guinea to ensure the participation of local businesses in its supply chain as it develops its Simandou iron ore project. This work builds on IFC's pilot program, 'Guinea linkages,' in which local businesses that improved their capacity were awarded over $9 million in mining sector contracts.


At the time of writing this contribution, the devastating earthquake in Haiti dominated the headlines. The suffering of those caught in this disaster is incomprehensible. Normally, a few days after such an event, the news media reports that scientists warned that disaster was likely. In the case of Haiti, ''a group of scientists from the United States and Jamaica warned in 2008 that a fault zone on the south side of the island - the Enriquillo-Plaintain Garden fault zone - presented a danger.'' The same story line applies to the tsunami that took place in 2004.


When a program is nondeterministic, it is difficult to test and debug. Nondeterminism occurs even in sequential programs iterating over the elements of a hash table. We have created a type system that expresses determinism specifications in a program. The key ideas in the type system are type qualifiers for nondeterminism, order-nondeterminism, and determinism; type well-formedness rules to restrict collection types; and enhancements to polymorphism that improve precision when analyzing collection operations. We implemented our type system for Java. Our type checker, the Determinism Checker, warns if a program is nondeterministic or verifies that the program is deterministic. In this paper, we explain how to obtain our tool and reproduce the results described inhttps://homes.cs.washington.edu/ mernst/pubs/determinismicse2021.pdf. Additionally, our tool and subject programs are available at https://zenodo.org/record/4536285#.YEaCxZNKiWw.


This paper describes a simple and effective trick with a ball on a flat surface. The trick does not require any skills, is surprising and can provide an attention-grabbing, fun introduction for high school students into the topic of pure rolling motion versus rolling with slipping.


To address third- and fourth-year chemistry students' difficulties with the challenge of interpreting 1H NMR spectra, a problem solving-cooperative learning technique was incorporated in a Spectra of Organic Compounds course. Using this approach helped students deepen their understanding of the basics of 1H NMR spectroscopy and develop abilities to think skillfully and apply these skills to elucidate structures from spectra more consistently. The multistep method allowed for increased instructor feedback, as each step was evaluated by grading students' work. Assessment of the overall method was performed using two evaluation tools. A comparison of students' cumulative grades for three consecutive years with and without using the approach was made, and the resulting statistical data demonstrate an improvement in student performance for the treatment groups relative to the control group. The second tool was the survey data. Analyzing students' feedback in the last step of the method closely mirrors how stud...


With the advancement of internet technologies comes the need for systems that can ensure the security of a network. An intrusion Detection System (IDS) can detect and sometimes take action against malicious network traffic. There are different types of IDS. For example, based on the detection method, it can be Signature-based IDS or Anomaly-based IDS or Hybrid IDS. In this work, multiple models are trained using various machine learning algorithms on the NSL-KDD dataset to build an efficient anomaly-based IDS that can detect malicious traffic with utmost accuracy. Supervised Learning algorithms like Logistic Regression, Decision Tree, K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN), XGBoost, Random Forest and Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) are used. At last, the Hard Voting technique is employed to increase efficiency.


Objective:To investigate the role of saturated free fatty acids (SFFAs) in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis by determining the effects of FFAs on diacylglycerol (DAG) synthesis and protein kinase C (PKC) activity in cultured bovine aortic smooth muscle cells. Methods:Bovine aortic smooth muscle cells, cultured in vitro, were treated with 200 μmol/L SFFAs (including palmitate and stearate) and unsaturated FFAs (including oleate and arachidonate) separately for 24 h. Then the cells were lysed and the lipids were treated with lysis buffer and separation buffer. DAG level and PKC activity were calculated through measuring the radioactivity of 32P-PA by liquid scintillation counting (1 cpm=6.17×108 Bq). Results:Incubation of the cells with saturated FFAs(palmitate or stearate, 200 μmol/L, for 24 h) induced significant increase in DAG concentrations (927.2 and 1 533.3 pmol/106 cells by palmitate and stearate, respectively) compared with that of the control cells (190 pmol/106 cells,P0.01). Unsaturated FFAs, oleate, also induced an increase in DAG concentration significantly(334.4 pmol/106 cells,P0.01), while arachidonate had no effect on DAG. In addition, the stimulating effect of palmitate on DAG was completely inhibited by Triacsin C, an acyl-CoA synthetase inhibitor. Compared with PKC activity in the control group (394 cpm), palmitate and stearate significantly increased the PKC activity to 553.7 and 557.2 cpm, respectively(P0.05). Conclusion: SFFAs, possibly through its metabolite acyl-CoA in cultured aortic smooth muscle cells, increase DAG synthesis and PKC activity, which may contribute to the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis.


The paper is devoted to the very topical problem: industrial waste management in big industrial cities in Ukraine. Causes of soil contamination are analysed and dangerous effects are identified. Environmental analysis of situations in these regions allows to ensure decision-making, aimed at sustainable development and rational nature use


Onion (Allium cepa L.) is one of the most widely cultivated vegetable in the world. It is used daily in culinary preparations. Onion is produced mainly in the season in temperate region and one or two or three seasons in tropical region as per the climatic conditions. Thus, a sizable quantity of onion is stored all over the world to fulfill the daily requirements of onion. Onion is generally stored at two temperature and humidity regimes, i.e. 0–2°C and 65–70% RH and 25–30°C and 65–70% RH. In tropical region onion, is stored at ambient conditions in different types of structures. The storage losses in tropical region are very high (30–40%) due to improper pre-and post-harvest management and poor storage environment coupled with climatic conditions. Lot of research works have been carried out in all tropical onion-growing countries on various aspects of storage. The varieties, nutrient management, time, quality and quality of irrigation, time and methods of harvesting, field and shade curing are some important pre-harvest factors effecting storability. Post-harvest treatments such as irradiation, fumigation and storage environment such as type of structure, ventilation pattern, type of construction material, design, stake dimensions, temperature and humidity regime, packing material, season of storage are post-harvest factors effecting storability. The use of recommended varieties, production technologies, curing, ventilated well-designed permanent structure and irradiation may reduce these losses up to 20–25% with economic feasibility. The research works carried out in tropical onion-growing countries is summarized in this review.


The reservoirs in South China are characterized by mixed-sources,multiple kitchens as well as multi-stages of accumulation,deformation and destruction.It is necessary to explore new description methods and research ideas of petroleum preservation studies.A new concept of 'preservation system' and its research methods were put forward in this paper.The 'preservation system' is a unity of geological factors,geological functions and processes,and reservoir formation associated with preservation conditions in a geological unit.This system has an integrate source-cover condition,the same or similar geological structure and fluid characteristics,and the consis-tent preservation(or destruction) process of oil-and-gas reservoir.A preservation system is an oil-and-gas exploration unit,and its scope corresponds to a second-class or a third-class tectonic unit of a basin.The study content of the preservation system includes 4 basic features(geological structure types,cover functions,source-cover dynamic relationships and fluid characterizations) and 1 comprehensive evaluation system.The new concept and research methods may meet the needs of oil-and-gas explorations in South China or similar polycyclic basins.


The reliability of a power plant component may depend on a variety of factors (or covariates). If a single regression model can be specified to relate these factors to the failure rate, then all available data can be used to estimate and test for the effects of these covariates. One such model is a proportional hazards function that is specified as a product of two terms: a nominal hazard rate that is a function of time and a second term that is a function of the covariates. The purpose of this paper is to adapt two such models to LWR valve failure rate analysis, to compare the results, and to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these applications.


Membrane Trafficking
Cell membranes are very flexible and easily molded to shape; however, to physically pinch off a membrane vesicle from a membrane tube still requires power. A type of molecular machine known as dynamin is involved in this sort of membrane remodeling. Dynamins use guanosine


After establishing the methodological foundations of this study, we began our reflection by examining the issue of wearing religious symbols in the public sphere within the context of the debate between differentialist and universalist perspectives in the application of equality rights. Afterwards, we conducted an overview of conceptual frameworks related to the analysis of the subject: classical liberalism and republicanism from a universalist vision, diverse types of legal feminism, the theory of intersectionality, the communitarian approach, Kymlicka's renewed liberalism and the values related to Sandra Fredman's equality of law that are aligned within differentialist philosophy. We subsequently identified Kymlicka's renewed liberalism and the values related to Fredman's equality of law as being the most appropriate framework for the analysis of the subject under study. Our study of international law allowed us to demonstrate that while European law tends to apply the universalist perspective in the application of rights to freedom of religion, this is not the case with United Nations law that adheres to a differentialist vision, and thus of Kymlicka's renewed liberalism and of Fredman's equality perspective. With respect to the judicial systems of the United States, Canada, France and Switzerland, we found an intermittent application of both perspectives depending upon the domain of activity. However, Canada stood out in our analysis as having an approach more focussed on the differentialist vision as a result of its inclusive neutrality that focuses on the notions of inclusion and substantive equality for its nationals.


This paper analyzes the shrinkage crack resistant mechanism of cement stabilized macadam base course,carries out a series of laboratory tests, shows by the tests that polypropylene fiber can increase mechanical strength,crack resistant performance and frost resistance of cement stabilized macadam base course,which effectively ameliorate road performance of cement stabilized macadam base course.


This paper simulated and analyzed the atmospheric refraction environment on Dartmouth Canada in 1993. Two data files with different strength duct are used to analyze sea clutter strength feature. Moreover, the mechanism of sea clutter is discussed through the ray tracing and the propagation loss. The main results and contributions are as following: (1) The experiments on Dartmouth exits evaporation duct were made; (2) That sea clutter strength in the stronger duct is larger than that in the weaker duct is obtained; (3) It is found that the electromagnetic wave ray propagate farther, the propagation loss are smaller in the stronger duct environment, which are the causes of sea clutter strength feature.


Molecularoxygenhasnotyetbeenobservedininter- stellar clouds because of the opacity of the Earth's atmosphere. Due to its potential importance in interstellar chemistry, several projets attempting to detect rotational lines of O2 are being de- velopedusingmillimeterandsubmillimeterreceiversembarked on satellites or stratospheric balloons: ODIN for the 119 and 487 GHz lines, SWAS for the 487 GHz line, PRONAOS-SMH for the 368 GHz line and PIROG 8 for the 425 GHz line. As a theoretical preparation to these projects and taking advantage of recent developments in interstellar chemistry as well as re- cent cross-section calculations of collisional excitation of O2, we have used an interstellar cloud model to perform a non-LTE calculation of O2 rotational population. O2 column densities and emissivities of its rotational lines at (sub)millimeter wave- lengths are predicted for various conditions in diffuse, translu- centanddensedarkclouds,coveringarangeofvisualextinction from 1 to 30. The effects of density, temperature, external ul- traviolet radiation eld and gas phase elemental abundances on the O2 abundance and rotational excitation have been investi- gated. Our results are confronted to the ones obtained by Black & Smith (1984) who adressed initially the problem of the de- tectability of interstellar O2. If density and temperature have little influence on the O2 abundance, it is not the case for the UV radiation eld which efciently destroys O2 so as to pre- vent its detection in most clouds as soon as it is enhanced by a factor of 1000 with respect to the local standard value. The most drastic parameter that influences the abundance of O2 | as well as that of OH and H2O | is the gas-phase C/O abun- danceratio:forC/Oratiolargerthan0.7,O2 becomesunobserv- able by all forthcoming missions except for the 119 GHz line which remains observable in very opaque clouds (AV 20) up to C/O = 1. The rate coefcient of the reaction O+OH!O2+H which produces molecular oxygen has little influence on the O2 abundance in clouds sufciently opaque to allow detection; it however controls the OH abundance since it is the main de- struction process of this molecule. Our model calculations also Send offprint requests to: P. Marechal (email@example.com) predict that the radiative de-excitation of O2 rotational levels could be an important cooling agent in cold molecular clouds with an efciency comparable to that of CO.


This paper focuses on a popular male writer in modern Japan named KATO Takeo, who came from a poor farm village and authored works on literature for women. This paper aims to analyze his literary theory and thought, which are conflicted between peasant literature and popular literature for women. The former is connected with Kato Takeo's ideal of literature and social interest, while the latter is related to his economical interest. In modern Japan, both popular (taishu-bungaku or tsuuzoku-shosetsu in Japanese) and serious literature (jun-bungaku in Japanese) have developed through the influence of the mass media. The increase in the number of educated and literate women led to the development of magazines and popular literature aimed at women. However, during both the prewar and postwar periods, popular literature for women, published mainly in women's magazines or newspapers, was excluded from not only the jun-bungaku category but also taisyu-bungaku category. While resisting this contempt for women's popular literature, Kato was himself ashamed of being classified in this genre of popular literature, and desired to write literature that idealized the peasant class. Consequently, he tried to create a new style of novels by integrating the styles of peasant and popular literature for women. This paper considers whether his effort was successful in overcoming not only his own internal conflict but also the gender politics of the literary world in modern Japan.


H-Mode cavities (IH-DTL, IH-RFQ, 4-Vane-RFQ) have been developed successfully during the last decades for a large variety of applications in the field of ion acceleration. The CH- or Crossbar H-structure is a new H-Mode drift tube structure operating in the TE/sub 210/ mode. This structure is currently under development at the IAP in Frankfurt, Germany. This type of cavity is an excellent candidate for the use in future high current applications like IFMIF or XADS with beam currents of up to 125 mA. For these applications superconducting operation is very attractive. The overall plug power consumption is lower and the use of larger apertures can reduce the risk of activation significantly. Due to the possible superconducting operation it is important to investigate the higher order modes (HOM) in such a cavity. In this paper, we present the first results of the HOM analysis and give a status of the development of the superconducting CH cavity prototype.


Measurements of the reduced viscosity of suspensions of glass spheres 5 μ diameter have been made up to concentrations of 18% by volume. The experimental results yield the empirical equation ηsp/c = 2.50 + 12.7c + … The coefficient of c, due to interactions, is in fair agreement with a value of 10.05 based upon a modification of Vand's theory which takes into account the experimentally established mechanism of two-body collisions of spheres in a velocity gradient. Several reasons for the discrepancy are suggested.


Joseph H. Astrachan (PhD) is the director of the Cox Family Enterprise Center, holds the Wachovia Eminent Scholar Chair of Family Business, is Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship in the Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University and is a distinguished research chair at Loyola University Chicago (USA). He is a founding board member of IFERA and serves as editor of Family Business Review and as an editorial board member of several other academic journals.


Before 1680, the English were largely uninterested in painting, but in the decades that followed they became Europe's most assiduous collectors. In this book, the author explains both the causes and effects of this burgeoning interest in art.


ABSTRACT Monique Deveaux's book Poverty, Solidarity, and Poor-Led Social Movements is an important intervention in global justice dialogues. It explores with nuance the case for viewing persons facing poverty globally as potential agents of justice, and it does excellent work in offering exemplar groups where that potential is actualized. The book may put the final nail in framings of global justice as primarily transfers from 'rich to poor.' Yet, it also has a tendency to implicitly reinforce those same framings, in part by adopting a Global North/South dichotomy, and in particular by treating 'the poor' as a category of persons. Such a label may homogenize, presenting persons in ways that do not fully acknowledge their agency and multifaceted humanity. It may also undermine one of the core aims in Deveaux's account, reinforcing forms of global social distance rather than highlighting possibilities for solidarity across borders. Alternate framings are proposed.


Multi character of the Construction University calls for a specific organization of different departments. Modular principle/method of foreign language teaching with the help of audio-visual media.


Teaching intercultural communicative competence (ICC) is still a challenging goal to achieve in English as a Second/Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) education. ESL/EFL instructors teaching in textbook-based educational contexts require more tangible approaches to designing and implementing purposeful intercultural language teaching that amplifies the desired ICC goals. This article proposes the use of a backward design-inspired framework as an effective approach to foster ESL/EFL students' intercultural skills through the development and implementation of supplementary ICC materials. The article explains how specific ICC dimensions can be enhanced and complemented through a proposed four-stage framework, helping instructors identify intercultural learning gaps in the assigned curriculum, identify desired results for intercultural learning, determine assessment evidence, and plan supplementary intercultural learning experiences and instruction. The article provides an example of implementing this framework to support ICC development in an ESL/EFL teaching context in Jordan and concludes with some pragmatic insights for implementing the framework in similar ESL/EFL teaching contexts.


The digitization design and manufacture of the products are important contents of the informationization of manufacturing industry, and digitization design include contents such as parametric optimization and CAD,etc. In this paper, a computer aided designing system of cylindrical gear consist of optimization design and parametric drawing is introduced, it can be a high-efficient and reliable tool for the digitization design of the gear.


The objective of the Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers Program for Results Project for Uganda is to enhance equity and efficiency of financing of decentralized social services. Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: during construction, the runoff from the construction site is a source of water pollution. Such pollution may persist entirely during the initial phase of construction when site grading and excavation for foundation and back filling would be in progress. During this stage the rainwater runoff would carry more soil/silt than normal and this would cause silting problem in the receiving water bodies. The other source of water pollution is expected from the sanitary waste coming from the temporary accommodation of the construction workers if envisaged; Natural habitats could be altered as a result of borrow pits for aggregate materials; recognizing that the scale of the works is modest. Land clearance for works could result in clearance of grass and trees, and road widening works could have similar impacts as well as displacing substantial amounts of soils. If not properly managed, borrow pits for construction materials pose perhaps the greatest potential negative impacts on natural habitats and land degradation if abandoned without proper reclamation; and The main sources of emissions during construction include dust related to site clearing, earthworks, traffic movements, loading and unloading of materials, stock piling of spoil; dusts emissions may also be generated at material borrow pits and the concrete processing plant. In addition, exhaust emissions from the contractor's machinery and vehicles could contribute to air pollution. The sources of combustion emissions (e.g., SO2, NOx, CO, and particulates) will be mainly operations of diesel powered survey equipment and vehicles. The changes to air quality may affect the residents, agricultural crops as well as the natural flora; and construction activities involve some inherent dangers related to exposure to hazardous materials, noise and operation of equipment among others. In the absence of sufficient management of health and safety issues, the workforce may suffer injury or death. The general public is also exposed to construction related hazards of projects if adequate measures to protect them are not put into place.


The purpose of this study was to investigate dyeing properties of silk and wool fabric by Cassia tora extracts according to the conditions, such as extraction (temperature, time) dyeing (temperature, time) condition, kinds of mordants, temperature of mordanting. The color fastness of laundering, irradiation were examined. The results were as follows: The wavelength of maximum absorption by extracts appeared at 201, 277, 382nm in UV-Vis spectrum. Absorbance of extracts were increased with temperature and time. The extraction efficiency of Cassia tora was determined as 95℃ of extraction temperature, 120 minutes of extraction time. Silk fabric had highest K/S value when dyeing for 90min at 40℃. Wool fabric had highest K/S value when dyeing for 60min at 80℃. Surface color of silk and wool fabric dyed with Cassia torn extracts was 3.9Y and 0.4Y but it was changed from 9.3YR to 7.4Y and from 9.4YR to 5Y by mordants. The fabrics of mordanted by metal ion dyed the depth of color. Laundering and irradiation fastness of mordanted fabrics were improved as compared with nonmordanted fabrics.