The magnetic properties and recording performance of hard/soft stacked media consisting of a magnetically hard 9-nm-thick (Co-Pt)-SiO 2 layer underneath a thin (2-3 nm) soft granular layer were studied. Experimental results indicated that an increase in the mean value of saturation magnetization of the soft layer langMs softrang was very effective at improving the recording resolution D50 due to an increase in the slope of magnetization curve alpha. The use of a Co-SiO2 layer, which has the highest langMs softrang in the present study, resulted in the highest D50 value. It is likely that the increase in alpha was mainly caused by the demagnetization field in grains due to the difference between langM s softrang and the mean value of saturation magnetization of the hard layer, langMs hardrang. Moreover, it was successfully demonstrated that the magnetization reversal of (Co-Pt)-SiO2/Co-SiO2 stacked media changed systematically as theoretically predicted on reducing the interfacial exchange coupling by using NiFeCr-SiO2 or Pt-SiO2 interlayers. The reduction of remanence coercivity Hr was achieved by controlling the thickness and film composition of the interlayer, moreover, a high-langMs softrang enhanced the Hr reduction. The Hr reduction improved recording writability without degrading D50, the signal to medium noise ratio SNmR and thermal stability


The science advancement made possible the increase in life expectancy of an emerging group of children called, children with special health care needs, or CRIANES. The special needs presented by these children, generate demands for care classified into four groups: development, technological, medical and modified usual care. Then realized the need to identify the issues encountered by family members in child care demand with technological care at home. Therefore the objects of this research are the questions of parents of children with special health care needs in the use of technology, as the home care. The question that guided the study was: What are the concerns of the families of Children with Special Health Needs regarding home care related to the use of technology? This study aims to identify the concerns of the families of Children with Special Health Needs regarding home care related to the use of technologies and discuss the role of the nurse in the face of questions from relatives of Children with Special Health Needs regarding home care related use of technologies. This is an exploratory descriptive study with a qualitative approach that has as a scenario the homes of family of CRIANES with demand of technological care, accompanied by Home Care Program Interdisciplinary (PADI) to a federal hospital. The subjects were six family of CRIANES with demand for home care technology. For the collection of data as semi-structured interview was used. The results showed that questions were distributed temporally, being divided between the time they received the information necessary to use a technological device for the maintenance of the child's life, to keep the child in use of technological device in the hospital and use of technological device at home. Demonstrating the need for a closer look at the real need for professional guidance of family , the importance of the role of nurses to develop skills and competencies of caregivers and an orientation for the high quality and the need for monitoring nursing home remedy for the doubts that will only emerge in everyday life . It is concluded that family members of children with demand for technological precaution need to be in constantly learning , since there will always be questions during the treatment , as the care of the devices are performing. It is still necessary to conduct further studies to develop strategies to address the questions submitted by parents of children with special needs with demand for technological precaution.


The Brazilian civil construction industry is one of the largest consumers of wood in the country. The majority of wood is used as formwork to build concrete structures and is discarded at the end of the construction process. This study presents an innovative structural system that uses a type of partial cross-section precast system with thin reinforced concrete flat plates, which are transported and assembled at the construction site and act as permanent formwork with structural function. The major advantages of this system include the reduction of transport costs; easier assembly of the structural elements because of its low weight; and the possibility of idealizing and designing rigid connections between structural elements, improvement of the structural behavior and postive impact on the material economy. This paper presents construction details, tests results, and some real cases where partial cross-section beams and columns were successfully applied in Brazil.


Restrictive migration policies often have a major impact on migrants' access to healthcare services and their capacity to protect their health. During the COVID-19 pandemic, securitised migration policies in Italy led to a severe health divide that exacerbated the already acute living conditions of many migrant communities. This article examines Italy's migration policy with a focus on the Security Decree and its consequences during the COVID-19 state-wide lockdown. Over the last decade, the surge in support for anti-immigration parties has fostered the portrayal of migrants as dangerous vectors of disease. In 2018, the Italian government approved the Security Decree which curtailed the already poor medical and sanitary conditions of the state's healthcare services provided to migrants and asylum seekers. This study outlines the characteristics of the Italian health divide during the COVID-19 outbreak and suggests a link between securitised migration policies and increased vulnerability of migrant communities during the pandemic.


The text analyzes the process of construction and operation of the Ferrocarril de Bolivar, which despite its short length, allowed generate significant economic, political and social that generated a profound change in the dynamics of power in the Bolivar Grande, as it allowed the development of a thriving sub-region and linked to economic development in the second half of the nineteenth century and eventually led to the formation of the Atlantic Department in the early twentieth century. The study of this railroad allows a clear view of latent regional tensions and unresolved in a turbulent nineteenth-century Colombia, and presaged the danger to the weak Colombian state against the greed of investors (local and foreign) who saw railroads the opportunity to speculate with them at the expense of national interests and the weakness resulting from the lack of technical knowledge required for the construction of these routes, which resulted in negotiations deeply disadvantageous to the State.


Guangzhou is one of the cities which are seriously polluted by acid rain and PM10,and the trend is becoming more and more serious.This is related to its major energy source being coal.Main fuel of Guangzhou Power Plant is coal.The analysis data of air sample surrounding Guangzhou Power Plant show that coal-fired power plants can affect their surrounding atmospheric environment seriously.Coal-fired power plants are main emission source of predecessor of acid rain and PM10.Acid rain has destroyed ecological environment and stopped economic development.On the other hand,soot particles are PM10,As,Cr and other trace elements absorbed by soot particles are mostly carcinogenic substances and substances that can cause gene toxicant salutatory changed,being extremely endanger health of surrounding residents.Finally,this paper presents current environmental protection work and problems.


In this paper, the authors propose and readapt a new concept-based approach of query expansion in the context of Arabic information retrieval. The purpose is to represent the query by a set of weighted concepts in order to identify better the user's information need. Firstly, concepts are extracted from the initially retrieved documents by the Pseudo-Relevance Feedback method, and then they are integrated into a semantic weighted tree in order to detect more information contained in the related concepts connected by semantic relations to the primary concepts. The authors use the "Arabic WordNet" as a resource to extract, disambiguate concepts and build the semantic tree. Experimental results demonstrate that measure of MAP (Mean Average Precision) is about 10% of improvement using the open source Lucene as IR System on a collection formed from the Arabic BBC news.


The minimization of the defects at grain boundaries and/or the film surface of organic–inorganic halide perovskites is becoming increasingly important to produce highly efficient and long-term stable perovskite solar cells (PeSCs). In this study, we present a promising strategy to enhance the performance and stability of PeSCs by using a thiazole-bridged diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP)-based semiconducting polymer poly{3-(5-([2,2′-bithiophen]-5-yl)thiazol-2-yl)-2,5-bis(2-octyldodecyl)-6-(thiazol-2-yl)pyrrolo[3,4-c]pyrrole-1,4(2H,5H)-dione} (PTzDPPBTz) as the passivation layer. Our results indicate that a large number of Lewis base functional groups present in PTzDPPBTz can effectively passivate the defects and vacancies created by under-coordinated Pb atoms without significantly altering the microstructure of the perovskite film, enabling the perovskite film to exhibit superior stability while preserving its good optoelectronic properties. Meanwhile, the appropriate energy level of PTzDPPBTz can facilitate efficient charge transfer at the interface. With the PTzDPPBTz passivation layer, the devices deliver a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of up to 20.30% (stabilized PCE = 20.39%) without photocurrent hysteresis, surpassing the efficiency of the devices without a passivation layer (PCE = 16.58%). Importantly, the PTzDPPBTz passivation layer can also be applicable for air-processed devices prepared at a high relative humidity level (72 ± 3%), delivering an almost comparable PCE (19.19%) to those obtained for the devices processed under an inert atmosphere. To the best of our knowledge, 19.19% represents the highest PCE ever reported for air-processed PeSCs prepared at relative humidity exceeding 70%. In addition, the feasibility of using a conjugated polymer-based passivation layer for monolithic all-perovskite tandem solar cells is first demonstrated, and a remarkably high open-circuit voltage (Voc) of 1.87 V is attained, which is much higher than those of the tandem cells without passivation (1.76 V). More encouragingly, long-term stable devices are demonstrated by simply applying a UV-curable epoxy/poly[perfluoro(4-vinyloxy-1-butene)] (CYTOP) bilayer film as the encapsulation layer, retaining ≈65% of their initial PCE after 890 hours of continuous operation in ambient air. Our findings provide a new avenue to improve both the efficiency and stability of air-processed PeSCs via defect passivation.


Grain yield in wheat is
the resultant of several plant attributes. It is very important to assess
heritable variation involved in the inheritance of these attributes in addition
to find the best
combining genotypes. For this purpose, the present study involving 5 × 5 full diallel analysis
was performed. Twenty F1 hybrids along with their parents (9797,
9801, 9802, Chakwal-50 and Chakwal-86) were planted in field using randomized
complete block design (RCBD) with three replications in the research area of
Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, University of Agriculture,
Faisalabad during 2015-2016. Plant characters like plant height, flag leaf
area, spike length, No. of fertile tillers per plant, No. of grains per spike,
No. of spikelets per spike, 1000 grain weight and grain yield per plant were
studied in this experiment. Mean squares due to general combining ability (GCA)
were highly significant for all the traits except for spike length for which
GCA effects were significant. Mean squares due to specific combining ability
(SCA) and reciprocal combining ability (RCA) were highly significant for all
the characters studied. GCA variance was higher than the SCA variance for spike
length and No. of grains per spike exhibiting the predominant role of additive
genetic variation in the inheritance of these traits. However, for the characters
like plant height, flag leaf area, No. of fertile tillers per plant, No. of
spikelets per spike, 1000 grain weight and grain yield per plant, the value of
SCA variance was higher than the value of GCA variance showing non additive
gene action for these traits. The variety Chakwal-50 proved to be the best
general combiner for plant height, spike length, No. of spikelets per spike,
No. of grains per spike and grain yield per plant. The cross, 9802 × Chakwal-86 was the best specific combination for grain
yield and most of the yield attributes. The good general and specific
combiners are important breeding resources for the initiation of future wheat
breeding programmes aimed at enhancement of grain yield in bread wheat.


To resolve the impact of transient high frequency signals induced by lightning stroke on the travelling wave protection of transmission line, a novel identification algorithm is proposed. Using the characteristics of symmetric current wave-form induced by lightning stroke without causing fault and that of asymmetric current waveform generated by fault within a very short time interval, the waveform of transient current above and below time-axes are integrated respec-tively. First, through comparing the relative ratio of them with threshold value, the primary criterion identifying fault and lightning stroke is constructed; Secondly, to improve the reliability of discrimination between lightning stroke with and without causing fault, according to the difference of them, the secondary criterion is also defined. The simulation results and analysis demonstrate that the proposed integral criterions are valid and correct.


SUMMARY Previous work on the use of gaps or spacings to test for uniformity of a sample has been in terms of distances between successive order statistics of the sample. This paper generalizes this notion of first-order gaps to mth-order gaps, and considers the sum of the logarithms of the mth-order gaps as a test statistic of uniformity. Asymptotic normality of this test statistic is shown under the null hypothesis of -uniformity, even when m grows at a moderate rate with the sample size. The test is compared with the most powerful test symmetric in the first-order gaps, and it is shown that the Pitman asymptotic relative efficiency increases for large m approximately linearly in m.


A simulation study was conducted to evaluate a fine-mapping method exploiting population-wide linkage disequilibrium. Data were simulated according to the pedigree structure based on a large paternal half-sib family population with a total of 1,034 or 2,068 progeny. Twenty autosomes of 100 cM were generated with 5 cM or 1 cM marker intervals for all founder individuals in the pedigree, and marker alleles and a number of quantitative trait loci (QTL) explaining a total of 70% phenotypic variance were generated and randomly assigned across the whole chromosomes, assuming linkage equilibrium between the markers. The founder chromosomes were then descended through the pedigree to the current offspring generation, including recombinants that were generated by recombination between adjacent markers. Power to detect QTL was high for the QTL with at least moderate size, which was more pronounced with larger sample size and denser marker map. However, sample size contributed much more significantly to power to detect QTL than map density to the precise estimate of QTL position. No QTL was detected on the test chromosomes in which QTL was not assigned, which did not allow detection of false positive QTL. For the multiple QTL that were closely located, the estimates of the QTL positions were biased, except when the QTL were located on the right marker positions. Our fine mapping simulation results


This report concerns study on a method of taking the cold water from bottom layer with relation to the design of the intake structure of cooling water for the power station sited on a bay. The quantity of cooling water used for condenser system increases year by year along with the construction of thermal power stations of large capacity. If the bottom sea water of low temperature is taken into the condenser cooling system, remarkable saving of fuel expenses can be expected due to the improvement of heat efficiency of turbine. Especially, in case that the location of intake structure of cooling water is chosen at the interior of the reclaimed land or the bay, it is absolutely necessary to take the colder water from the lower layer of the sea, in order to prevent taking hot water over the sea basin where the water temperature of the surface layer is raised by the evacuation of heat of released industrial water. Various hydraulic problems concerning thermal density flow phenomena were examined aiming to obtain the design method of the most effective intake works of cooling water, and the authors proposed a curtain-wall type intake structure. Some results of analysis are described in this paper.


Parks are managed to preserve their pristine state. Fire has had a varied role in this, depending on shifting paradigms of savanna functioning. Formerly, an equilibrium theory of functioning prevailed where fire was at first an unavoidable evil, and then an evil to be avoided as far as possible. Subsequently, fire was regarded as natural and was applied with fixed return period and seasonal timing to compartments with fixed boundaries. Recently, non‐equilibrium theory has supplemented equilibrium models in explaining a savanna functioning that is partly event‐driven. In these terms savannas are understood to have high patch diversity arising from catenal variation, species individuality and the spatio‐temporal variability of events. Policy and practice in fire management is accordingly shifting towards regarding fire parameters (e.g. return period, seasonal timing, intensity and extent) not as scalars but as vectors (i.e. with frequency distributions), and to burning under diverse conditions.


The application of TL2000 aggregated pavement fortifier in expressway maintenance,can remove the exopathic factors leading to water damage of asphalt pavement,prevent the aging and extend its using life of the asphalt pavement.


Both recently published and older newspapers are being made into digital formats, and made available online. The paper will look recent activity, with particular regard to the work of the British Library, UK, in converting up to 3 million pages of its older newspapers into digital format. Libraries that have older newspaper collections need to share information about projects to convert newspapers from their printed format to digital formats, to make the conversion process as cost effective as possible.


The intrinsic and global kinetics of thiophene hydrodesulfurization over Co-Mo/Al2O3 catalysts were studied in an isothermal integral tubular reactor under the conditions of 543 K~623 K,2.5 MPa~3.5 MPa and H2/oil mol ratio 2~4.The kinetic model was derived from the Langmuir-Hinshelwood mechanism and the kinetic parameters involved were estimated based on the experimental data.The kinetic model was verified by comparison of the experimental and predicted data as well as by statistical test.Moreover,the calculated Thiele modulus together with the comparison of the pore size distribution and the carbon content of the fresh catalyst with those of the deactivated catalyst revealed that the effect of the internal diffusion on the overall reaction rate was evident.The effectiveness factor was subsequently calculated from the intrinsic and global rates obtained above,and it showed that the effectiveness factor decreased dramatically with increased temperature,while the effect of H2/oil mol ratio was not evident.


We study bilateral trade between two strategic agents. The celebrated result of Myerson and Satterthwaite states that in general, no incentive-compatible, individually rational and weakly budget balanced mechanism can be efficient. I.e., no mechanism with these properties can guarantee a trade whenever buyer value exceeds seller cost. Given this, a natural question is whether there exists a mechanism with these properties that guarantees a constant fraction of the first-best gains-from-trade, namely a constant fraction of the gains-from-trade attainable whenever buyer's value weakly exceeds seller's cost. In this work, we positively resolve this long-standing open question on constant-factor approximation, mentioned in several previous works, using a simple mechanism that obtains a 1/8.23 ≈ 0.121 fraction of the first-best.


The main objective of the ultrasonic non-destructive testing (NDT) applications is to detect dangerous defects in the various constructions. The parameters and geometry of defects is very important information determining lifetime of constructions or components. In conventional ultrasonic NDT methods, based on the measurement of the amplitude and delay time of reflected signal are used. Such an approach enables evaluate size and position of defects only approximately. Most accurate is time – of the flight diffraction (TOFD) technique, which allows measuring depth of defects. Additional application of the SAFT or tomographic algorithms enables to increase accuracy even more [1,2,3]. Nevertheless, practical applications of these methods usually are complicated due to a lack of a sufficiently accurate information about ultrasound propagation conditions, such as the propagation velocity, angle, wave fronts and etc. Additional problem arises due to the fact that basic algorithms of these techniques are developed for the direct reflections only [1,2,3]. On the other hand, due to the object geometry or limited access very widely the signals reflected from the bottom or mode conversion signals are used. The successful application of all these signals in tomographic processing may increase the accuracy essentially. The development of such algorithms using only experimental data is very complicated because it is impossible to determine sensitivity of the technique to the uncertainty of the input parameters. This problem can be solved developing special method and software that enables to simulate NDT data acquisition process, taking into account material parameters, transducer characteristics, diffraction and refraction phenomena. Such models are used in other institutions like CEA (France), BAM (German) and others. Usually they are based on complicated numerical approach, which requires essential computer resources [4,5,6]. The objectives of this work was to develop relatively fast NDT simulation model, which enables to take into account not only direct reflection from defects, but specular reflection from object boundaries also. This task may be divided in some parts:


The corn-to-sugar process is difficult to control automatically because of the complex physical and chemical phenomena involved. Because the RNN-LSTN model has been shown to handle long-term time dependencies well, this article focused on the design of a model predictive control system based on this machine learning model. Based on the historical data, we first reduced the input variable dimension through data preprocessing, data dimension reduction, sensitivity analysis, etc., and then the RNN-LSTM model, with these identified key sites as inputs, and the dextrose equivalent value as the output, was constructed. Then, through model predictive control using the locally linearized RNN-LSTM as the predictive model, the objective value of the dextrose equivalent was successfully controlled at the target value by our simulation study, in different situations of setpoint changes and disturbances. This showed the potential of applying RNN-LSTM-Based model predictive control in a corn-to-sugar process.


The problem of electrolytic separation of Am and Cu from their aqueous solutions was investigated; the study resulted in the development of a quantitative electrolytic separation method of the 2 elements. The nitric acid solutions contained 1.4 x l0/sup -10/M Am/sup 241/ and 10/sup -13/M Cm/sup 242/. A small Pt cup served as anode, while the Pt strip cathode with a surface of 1 cm/ sup 2/ was rotated to stir the solution. The radioactive element was deposited simultaneously on both surfaces of the cathode; its concentration was calculated from the absolute counts with a 4 pi -counter. The electrolysis of the solution resulted in the quantitative deposition of Am at pH = 1.3 to 4.3 and of Am atpH = 1.3 to 3.0; the differential behavior is due to the hydrolysis of Cm which starts at lower pH values than Am. A deposition yield of 100% at reasonably short operational periods was obtained for both elements at a current density of 500 analytical determinations. Although anions do not exert a strong effect, solutions containing HNO/sub 3/ favor the complete separation of the two elements. (TTT)


Background: HLA associations for the risk of developing MM have been described in various non-Caucasian ethnic groups but have not revealed consistent results. Racial and genetic differences in cytokine polymorphisms linked to extended haplotypes; association of autoimmune disorders with HLA types; the proximity of the HLA Class I and II genes to TNF and other Class III genes responsible for complement and cytokines suggest that HLA polymorphisms may be associated with the risk of developing MM.

Aim: We compared HLA-A,-B and -DRB1 2-digit allele and haplotype frequencies in patients with MM to the normal population in order to define HLA specificities associated with the risk of developing MM.

Methods: A cohort of 1803 US Caucasian patients with MM were identified based on availability of HLA-A, B, DRB1 DNA-based typing or serologic typing converted to 2-digit alleles. These patients had either received a matched sibling allogeneic transplant for MM reported to the CIBMTR (N=174) or had HLA typing performed for an unrelated donor search conducted through the US National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) (N=1629). HLA-A, B and DRB1 allele frequencies among patients were compared to A-B-DRB1 frequencies in HLA typed healthy US Caucasian controls (N= 433838) from the NMDP database. The most frequent alleles among patients and controls as well as HLA haplotype frequencies generated using the EM (expectation-maximization) algorithm were compared using Chi-Square analysis with Bonferroni correction for the number of comparisons.

Results: Patients with MM had a median age of 49 (range 3–78) years and M/F ratio of 1.86 (1172/631). The controls had a median age of 44 (range 18–60) years and M/F ratio of 0.735 (183785/250053).

Comparison of HLA-A, -B and –DRB1 single-locus allele frequencies between the myeloma patients and controls (those in the top 10 in either group) revealed similarity except for HLA-B*07 and B*44. B*44 was observed less frequently among the patients ( a protective effect ) frequency (f): 0.126 vs 0.145 (p= 0.005, Odds Ratio (OR): 0.848). On the contrary, HLA-B*07 was more common ( a predisposing effect ) among patients (OR: 1.135, p=0.047). Among the top 20 two locus (HLA-A-B and HLA-B-DRB1) haplotype frequencies in either group, B\*44-DRB1\*13 and B\*07-DRB1\*13 were significant: OR: 0.506 and 1.714 (p=0.003 and 0.007) respectively. A-B-DRB1 haplotype comparisons showed significance for: A\*02-B\*44-DRB1*04 (OR: 0.686, p=0.021), A\*02-B\*44-DRB1*13 (OR: 0.445, p=0.065) and A\*02-B\*07-DRB1*04 (OR: 1.968, p=0.029) confirming the single and B-DRB1 combination comparison results.

Significantly different HLA-A, -B and -DRB1 single-locus allele or haplotype frequencies between patients and controls are shown in table 1.

Conclusion: This is the largest epidemiologic study of HLA allele frequencies and the first study on HLA haplotype frequencies in MM. We observed a protective effect on the risk of developing MM with B*44 and a predisposing effect with B*07. Similar predisposing and protective haplotype associations were observed with A\*02-B\*07-DRB1*04 and A\*02-B\*44-DRB1*04 respectively. A revised analysis using a gender-matched control group is in progress. Further study including major histocompatibility region SNP mapping and candidate gene testing will help elucidate the genetic basis underlying this observation.

Table 1.

| Allele/Haplotype | Frequency Controls | Frequency MM | Odds Ratio (OR) | P value (corrected) |
|:----------------------------------------------------------------------------:| ------------------ | ------------ | --------------- | ------------------- |
| OR = odds of observing the allele/haplotype in patients compared to controls |
| A*02- B*44- DRB1*13 | 0.00620 | 0.00277 | 0.445 | 0.065 |
| B*44- DRB1*13 | 0.01359 | 0.00686 | 0.507 | 0.003 |
| A*02- B*44- DRB1*04 | 0.02605 | 0.01813 | 0.686 | 0.021 |
| B*44 | 0.14552 | 0.12618 | 0.848 | 0.005 |
| B*07 | 0.13313 | 0.14836 | 1.134 | 0.047 |
| B*07- DRB1*13 | 0.00814 | 0.01397 | 1.714 | 0.007 |
| A*02- B*07- DRB1*04 | 0.00367 | 0.00721 | 1.968 | 0.029 |


The utility model provides a wireless liquid level measuring instrument, which is characterized by comprising an electronic module, a measuring rod and a floating ball. The measuring rod is arranged on the bottom of the electronic module, the floating ball with a magnetic ring therein is movably arranged on the measuring rod, and a liquid level sensor is arranged in the measuring rod and is connected with the electronic module. The utility model adopts the wireless connection technology, wireless communication technology and power supply technology, is used in the magnetostrictive liquid level sensor and the reed type liquid level sensor with low power consumption, and realizes the multiple-point wireless real-time measurement of the liquid level, interface and temperature and the centralized display and processing through the computer. Compared with the traditional liquid level meter, the utility model has the advantages of facilitating the installation and removal, saving a large amount of site construction, quickening the debugging and maintenance, and operating more securely and reliably with no electrical connection.


This paper examines the politeness theory in the light of Austin & Searle's speech act theory as reflected in CMC between students and their lecturers or supervisors. Thus politeness aspects were analyzed as enacted in the five categories such as: Assertives, commisives, directives, expressives, and declaratives. The paper also examined politeness in other language aspects that are usually present in any form of communication, such as: Address phrases, meeting requests, request for reply, and adjunct phrases. The objective of this article was to shed light on the politeness strategies employed by the lecturers and students in their e-communication through Whatsapp and SMS (short messages or text messages) platforms. Fifty communications were downloaded from the lecturers' phones through their permission and the students', which were used as data for this study. Five lecturers and seven postgraduate students made the population of this study. The findings indicated that students seem to be comfortable using this mode of communication, and it is important to understand how students and lecturers make choices and how these choices affect the perception of the cultural appropriateness of CMCs. The results also revealed that elements of politeness greatly decrease in the follow-up messages, that is, messages that require some kind of response. From the study, lecturers adhered to formal language use as compared to the students in their communication.


Quality of nursing care, practiced by nurse, to patient is being a hospital
management�s major concern these days. Service quality of nursing care is
an important factor to build a positive image of the hospital, and in turn, to
eventually bolster patient satisfaction of hospital services. Previous
researches suggested that coaching can improve the nurses� performance.
The aim of this research is to know the influence of appreciative coaching in
improving service quality of nursing care. Appreciative Inquiry is a type of
coaching, using positive psychology approach, which emphasizes individual
strengths and advantages. Research subject consist of 16 nurse, which
separate by 8 at experiment group who get the appreciative coaching and 8
at control group (waiting-list). But there is one responden whose eliminated
in analysis because it is tend to become an oulier data. The design of this
research is randomized experiment, with the pretest-posttest control group
design. The tools used in this research is appreciative coaching module,
observation sheet in the coaching, observation caring behavior checklist,
check the manipulation by focus group discussion and coaching evaluation
sheets. The level of service quality of nursing care is measured by using a
caring behavior inventory (CBI). mixed design anova results, with suggests
that appreciative coaching can significantly improve service quality of
nursing care (p < 0.05, F = -4.286).


Based on synthetically analyzing the present situation of Shanghai airports and the function orientation of aviation key position of shanghai,it uses the experience and lesson of division of work and operate in international cities which own more than one airport.The paper expounds in depth the orientation of division of work between the two airports and the system of two airports in one city which is builded step by step,and at the end gives some suggestion to the division of work and cooperation between Pudong airport and Hongqiao airport in Shanghai.


Bulk salt concentration within a membrane channel could vary appreciably for different RO/NF membrane processes, and it even changes along a single membrane channel, which may have an important impact on solute transport through the membrane. However, little research has been conducted on the effects of concentration on transport behaviors. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate a valid method from fundamental theories on membrane transport for predicting the effects of feed salt concentration on salt rejection through RO/NF membranes. The salt transport characteristics under different feed salt concentrations were simulated using the Nernst-Planck-Donnan model. This numerical analysis requires the determination of three key parameters relating to membrane properties; namely, effective membrane thickness, effective membrane pore radius, and effective membrane charge density. The first two properties are independent of bulk salt concentration, whereas the third one could be related to bulk salt conce...


Article history: Received 9 March 2020 Received in revised form 29 April 2020 Accepted 4 May 2020 Available online 16 September 2020 The influence of boundary roughness on suppressing of Rayleigh-Taylor instability (RTI) at the interface between two superposed couples-stress fluids is investigated in the present paper. This is a theoretical study is based on fully developed approximations for deriving the growth rate of RTI at the interface between two fluids. Thus, it is found that the couple-stress parameter and boundary roughness have stabilization effect, whereas the buoyancy force (surface tension) has destabilize the system. Hence the study favors to control the growth rate of RTI.


When the Digital Urology Journal (DUJ) was created and launched in 1996, the term "World Wide Web" was not yet widely in use, but the Editorial Board and I were excited by the potential opportunities of publishing on-line, including a larger and more diverse national and international audience and the ability to publish articles faster than a traditional print journal. At the time, the Digital Urology Journal was only the second medical journal to appear on-line and it enjoyed a broad, almost immediate, success with over 1 million hits recorded in just the first month of publication. Now, on-line journals are commonplace and most print journals have an on-line presence. Though thousands of journals are now on-line, only a few retain their "on-line only" status. Eight years later, on-line only journals still have the advantage of faster publication and wider dissemination. The goal of the Digital Urology Journal is to continue to broaden its outreach worldwide. I am delighted that we can now expand our outreach further through our merger with TheScientificWorldJOURNAL. TheScientificWorldJOURNAL has created a novel method of publishing the most current clinical and research articles in a wide variety of disciplines, thereby promoting multidisciplinary communication and exchange. Joining TheScientificWorldJOURNAL as the Urology domain will give our readers a chance to explore other realms of medicine and will greatly benefit our contributors, whose work will be exposed to an even wider audience. In addition, the articles will now be available as references in MedLine, the National Library of Medicine articles database. All this will be accomplished without affecting the services the Digital Urology Journal is proud to provide to our readers, including our on-line calendar of events, which has proven to be a very successful way for conference organizers to reach their target audience: urologic health care providers and researchers. As one of the few peer-reviewed medical journals that have always been entirely on-line, the Digital Urology Journal's new relationship with TheScientificWorldJOURNAL is a natural fit. We are pleased to be part of such a successful and innovative journal and look forward to increased readership and an increased impact, with our articles now indexed by leading services including PubMed/MedLine and permanent archiving by the British Library's Legal Deposit.


Many video and image coding standards such as MPEG, H.261, H.263, and JPEG are based on the discrete cosine transform (DCT). They subdivide images or frames into blocks that are encoded independently. DCT coefficients that are considered to be less important are discarded. The achievable compression ratios are normally limited by visible discontinuities along block boundaries, the so-called blocking artifacts. In this paper, a postprocessing algorithm based on Markov random fields (MRF) is proposed that efficiently removes blocking effects, while retaining the sharpness of the image and without introducing new artifacts. To prevent blurring of dominant edges. The decoded image is segmented into regions which are then enhanced separately. The segmentation is preformed in two steps. A novel texture detector first identifies all texture regions, before the remaining monotone areas are partitioned by an MRF segmentation algorithm. A new edge component has been incorporated to improve the detection of dominant edges. The proposed enhancement stage calculates the MAP estimate of the unknown original image, which is modeled by an MRF. An efficient implementation is presented, and experiments demonstrate that our proposed postprocessor gives very good results both objectively and subjectively.


Industry 4.0 and digital farming rely on modern communication and computation technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) to provide smart manufacturing and farming systems. Having in mind a scenario with a high number of heterogeneous connected devices, with varying technologies and characteristics, the deployment of Industry 4.0 and digital farming solutions faces innovative challenges in different domains (e.g., communications, security, quality of service). Concepts such as network slicing and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) provide the means for faster, simpler, scalable and flexible solutions in order to serve a wide range of applications with different Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirements. Hence, this paper proposes a lightweight slice-based QoS manager for non-3GPP IoT focusing on different use cases and their varying requirements and characteristics. Our focus in this work is on non-3GPP IoT unlicensed wireless technologies and not specifically the end-to-end network slice perspective as described in 5G standards. We implemented and evaluated different QoS models in distinct scenarios in a real experimental environment in order to illustrate the potential of the proposed solution.


Caravaggio painted two different versions of The Sacrifice of Isaac: one is the former Barberini canvas that is now in the Uffizi, and the other became known through the studies by Ainaud de Lasarte and other scholars of the numerous copies of the work. The painting considered in this article may be recognized, in terms of its qualities, manner of execution, and pentimenti, as the lost original of this second version, from about the time of The Conversion of Mary Magdalen and the Thyssen Saint Catherine of around 1597-98.

The attention to shadows and the extensive gloom enveloping the figure of Isaac mark the onset of the process of "strengthening the darkness" which Bellori spoke of, and which was to culminate with the paintings on the walls of the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome. These works are associated with this still idyllic stage in the artist's life, along with the David in the Prado and the Saint John the Baptist in the museum of the cathedral in Toledo. In the case of the David, the results of an X-ray examination are given here for the first time; they reveal an important pentimento. For the John the Baptist, the author accepts the attribution to Caravaggio, and supports it with further arguments. This attribution dates back to Ponz, and has since been accepted by Ainaud de Lasarte, Perez Sanchez, and Mahon.

The lighting conception for the Sacrifice of Isaac represents a major rethinking of the empirical and symbolic uses of light. These go back to Brescian traditions in depicting angel themes, in the Annunciation in the polyptych which Titian sent to Brescia for the church of SS. Nazarro e Celso, and in the Archangel Raphael and the Young Tobias by Girolamo Savoldo, now in the Borghese Gallery. The lighting contrasts in the latter are derived, albeit in reverse, from Titian's figures. The present work thus confirms Caravaggio's continuing interest in Savoldo, already apparent in his earlier period.


Where will people live and work in 21st Century America? Everyone has to live somewhere, but very few people will live in the old urban centres of the 19th and 20th century. The old urban centres burdened with so much obsolescence and enormous replacement cost for their basic utilities just don't have the ability to hold so many people even if the people wanted to live or work there. Increasing, at just 3% per year, the US population will be 556 million in the year 2022 and by 2047 over 1.166 billion! Just as technology created the old urban centres, new technology is now spawning the new urban centres in rural America and beyond. The sands of time have covered many large urban centres all over the world. They came to life, flourished and then expired when conditions changed. The many ghost towns in America along with the decay of many urban centres are also mute testimony to the transitory nature of man's accomplishments and to the powerful influence of climate change, wars, natural disasters and most significantly in the last century, new technology. Our new urban centres will not only be in rural America, but even in the now remote parts of Alaska, Canada, Australia, the Orient and most significantly, the Moon and Mars. With some understanding of how technology drives these changes, we can be better prepared to plan for the future and accept the changes.


In New Zealand, as in other advanced industrial societies, the past two decades have witnessed dramatic and unprecedented movements in two key social indicators in the area of sexuality: the rate of ex-nuptial conception (that is, children born either out of wedlock or within seven months of marriage), and the incidence of venereal disease (principally gonorrhoea and non-specific urethritis-NSU). In the first place, the rate of ex-nuptial conception has virtually doubled over the last ten years, from 14.1 % of all live births in 1962 to 23.4% in 1972 (Department of Health, 1975: 54-57). Taking ex-nuptial confinements alone (that is, children not only conceived, but also born, out of wedlock), New Zealand has witnessed a steady increase since 1935 to the point where the rate (13% of all live births in 1969) is now second only to Sweden's among other developed countries. While part of this increase is due to a changing age-structure and part to declining birth-rates within marriage, it is estimated that about half this increase in the rate of ex-nuptial births can be attributed to a real growth in agespecific birth-rate among unmarried women (Simpson, 1971); for example, it has been estimated that of the women born in 1945, nearly 40% will have conceived out of wedlock before the age of 23 (Jensen, 1969).~ 2


In Alzheimer's disease (AD) progression, amyloid beta load uniformly increases across the brain cortex, while neurofibrillary tangles progressively spread in a stereotypical pattern from entorhinal to visual cortex. AD is known to have a strong genetic link to microglia and recently, expression profiling at single cell resolution has identified disease‐associated microglia populations with differential amyloid‐beta vs. tau pathology association in human AD brain. However, prior human studies focusing on microglia included a limited number of donors and/or cells per donor, and how microglial transcriptomes change with progression of tau pathology remains largely unknown.


Queer Theory for Political Scientists. The aim is to offer an overview in queer theory designed for political scientists. First of all queer theory is placed in a context of feminist studies, gay and lesbian studies, the discursive turn in social science, postmodern approaches to identity, postcolonial theory and Foucault's ideas of power. Then I highlight the political theorist Shane Phelan and her considerations in citizenship. Taking a critical stance against the Modern use of binaries, Phelan argues that acknowledgement of strangeness/strangers should be given priority in ethical aspects of citizenship. In the third section I refer to Butler's theories about gender performativity and the heterosexual matrix, Sedgwick's approach to the concept of homosexuality as well as Rubin's theory about sexual hierarchies. Finally queer theory is neither antifeminist nor profeminist. Yet this theory may support feminist goals.


Background: Little is known about the relationship between family characteristics and survival from childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL), which we studied for the first time in German children. Methods: ALL cases were diagnosed between 1992 and 1994 and information on family characteristics was collected during a previously conducted nationwide case–control study. Children were followed for 10 years after diagnosis, as few disease-related events occur afterwards. Cox proportional hazards models estimating hazard ratios (HR) were calculated using overall as well as event-free survival methods. Results: Second born children showed statistically significant better survival compared to first or later born children, with HRs ranging between 0.54 and 0.64 compared to firstborns. Somewhat poorer survival was observed for children having 3 or more siblings. A relationship was found for parental age at child's diagnosis, with poorer survival for children with younger parents ( 25 years of age at child's diagnosis), or with older fathers. The HR was statistically significant for fathers being 41years of age (HR of 2.1). No relationship between degree of urbanization of the place of residence at diagnosis and ALL survival was observed. Conclusion: Family circumstances may have an impact on survival from childhood ALL in Germany. Further research is warranted to elaborate the relationship of specific family characteristics and ALL survival and to investigate possible differential adherence to therapy and interactions with physicians. 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author at: Section of Environment and Radiation, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), 150 Cours Albert Thomas, 69372 Lyon Cedex 08, France. Tel.: +33 04 72 73 84 63; fax: +33 04 72 73 83 20. E-mail address: email@example.com (F. Erdmann).


Modern magnetic resonance (MR) equipment enables accurate visualization of the spinal cord. For multiple sclerosis (MS) lesions, cardiac triggered long TR dual echo spin-echo (SE) appears to be the sequence of choice in the sagittal plane. In the axial plane, T2-weighted gradient echo (GE) is usually preferred. Focal spinal lesions are visualized by T2-weighted MR imaging in most MS patients. Because around 10% of MS sufferers have a negative brain examination, imaging spinal lesions may be helpful for diagnosing MS. In MS patients, many spinal cord symptoms may be explained by new focal lesions seen on MR images; however, overall correlation between the number of focal spinal lesions and disability is weak. This may be due to interference from other abnormalities in the spinal cord, such as atrophy. Indeed, atrophy seems to he related to disability independently from focal lesions, in association with diffuse signal increase of the spinal cord.


BACKGROUND
Studies of viral load-associated persistence of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection are rare, with inconsistent results reported.

METHODS
The study subjects were 741 and 289 women who were positive for HPV type 16 (HPV-16) and HPV type 18 (HPV-18), respectively, at the time of enrollment into in the ASCUS-LSIL (Atypical Squamous Cells of Undetermined Significance-Low-Grade Squamous Intraepithelial Lesion) Triage Study and who returned 1 or more times for HPV testing during a biannual 2-year follow-up. The numbers of HPV-16 and HPV-18 copies per nanogram of cellular DNA at baseline were measured by use of real-time polymerase chain reaction.

RESULTS
Women with, compared with women without, persistent infection at month 6 of follow-up had a higher viral load at enrollment (P< .001, for HPV-16; P=.01, for HPV-18). The association of each 1-log(10) increase in viral load with persistence of HPV-16 or HPV-18 during the first 6 months of the study was statistically significant among women with multiple HPV types at enrollment (for HPV-16: odds ratio [OR], 1.53 [95% confidence interval {CI}, 1.29-1.82]; for HPV-18: OR, 1.35 [95% CI, 1.09-1.68]) but not among women with monotype infections (in tests assessing the interaction between viral load and coinfection, P=.002 for HPV-16 and P=.34 for HPV-18). Among women who continued to have positive results at month 6, 12, or 18, persistence of infection for another 6 months was unassociated with the viral load at baseline.

CONCLUSION
Prevalent infection with a higher viral load of HPV-16 or HPV-18 was associated with short- but not long-term persistence.


This paper provides a detailed examination of Kit Fine's sizeable contribution to the development of a neo-Aristotelian alternative to standard mereology; I focus especially on the theory of 'rigid' and 'variable embodiments', as defended in Fine 1999. Section 2 briefly describes the system I call 'standard mereology'. Section 3 lays out some of the main principles and consequences of Aristotle's own mereology, in order to be able to compare Fine's system with its historical precursor. Section 4 gives an exposition of Fine's theory of embodiments and goes on to isolate a number of potential concerns to which this account gives rise. In particular, I argue that (i) Fine's theory threatens to proliferate primitive sui generis relations of parthood and composition, whose characteristics must be stipulatively imposed on them, relative to particular domains; (ii) given its 'superabundance' of objects, Fine's system far outstrips the (arguably) already inflated ontological commitments of standard mereology; and (iii) there is a legitimate question as to why we should consider Fine's primitive and sui generis relations of parthood and composition to be genuinely mereological at all, given their formal profile. These three objections lead me to conclude that we ought to explore other avenues that preserve the highly desirable, hylomorphic, features of Fine's mereology, while avoiding its methodological and ontological excesses.


The purpose of the present study is to evaluate English Preparatory School Language Program in a state university from students' and instructors' point of view and also investigate the students' motivational beliefs for learning in the existing program. More specifically, Stufflebeam's (1971) CIPP (context, input, process, product) evaluation model was used to evaluate the English language program whereas MSLQ (motivated strategies for learning questionnaire) developed by Pintrich, Garcia, Mckeachie and Smith (1991) was administered to investigate the motivational beliefs for learning of the participating students. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected in this study. The quantitative data were obtained through questionnaires administered to 54 Turkish EFL students and 33 EFL instructors enrolled in the A1 (elementary level) English preparatory program. The qualitative data were gathered via semi-structured interviews with 10 students and 5 instructors from the same program. The findings of the study revealed that the program partially succeeded its objectives. Both students and instructors were content with materials, assessment dimensions of the program as well as the teaching methods. On the other hand, there was a need for the improvement of the speaking and listening skills and tasks in the A1 program. In addition to this, among the motivational beliefs of the students, control beliefs, task value and intrinsic goal orientation were perceived to be crucial for the students during the process of English learning. The study provides suggestions and pedagogical implications for the English preparatory programs.


In experiments conducted over three seasons in the Mareeba district, irrigation was withheld from the newly planted tobacco crop for periods of from two to six weeks. The effect of withholding water was primarily to delay development. Beyond this, it had little effect on plant growth, neither stimulating rates of leaf expansion during recovery nor increasing the numbers of leaves produced, as it had done in earlier pot experiments. Effects on the yield of cured leaf were small. The six-week delay produced the lowest yield in each season, but the reduction was small and not significant statistically. The failure of the delayed irrigation treatments to reproduce the beneficial response reported in earlier work was attributed to the over-riding effect of the severe water stresses associated with the transplanting process.


The author discusses dilemmas confronting the physician in view of the rapidly expanding over‐65 population—particularly the matter of post‐hospital care. The older person usually has three options on leaving the general hospital: (a) return home to the family, (b) enter an extended care facility before returning home, or (c) enter a nursing home. Five important questions to be considered are: 1) the objectives of post‐hospital care of the aged; 2) where such services shall be rendered; 3) who shall render them; 4) who shall pay for them; and 5) the possibility of deterring the rate of senescence in the aging population. Seven proposals are made for improving the present post‐hospital program.


The aim of this project was to address the need for developing students' reasoning of geometric transformations in elementary school. Our goal was to engage students with transformation-based ideas using the animation software Graphs N' Glyphs. Three teaching experiments were conducted with three pairs of students in Grades 4, 5, and 6. In utilizing Graphs 'N Glyphs around carefully designed tasks, students were able to form generalizations about the way a shape behaves depending on the varied conditions of the transformation performed. Some of these generalizations referred to the use of referent points for performing translations and the role of the center of rotation while performing rotations. These generalizations are seen as foundational for developing the ideas of property, invariance, and congruence in geometry.


The usual management of opportunistic fusarium infection in the immunocompromized patient is with systemic antifungals, despite which little impact is made on the mortality which approaches 100%. We describe a case of fusarium infection of the foot in a bone marrow transplant recipient which was successfully managed with local wide excisional surgery and intravenous liposomal amphotericin B.


Outlines the history of business/government relations in the United States, and explains why the laissez-faire doctrine has always appealed to Americans. In this text, the author recognizes that the government must encourage collaboration among companies.


Education at higher level is critical and essential to the sustenance of economic growth and development of any nation. In Nigeria today, there is population explosion with respect to the number of people seeking admission into public higher institutions whose interest could no longer be satisfied and this explains one of the fundamental reasons for the establishment of private universities. However, the trends of events in recent years about the operations of these private universities call for concern towards the survival of these private higher institutions. On this basis, the paper critically examined the issues involved in the survival of private universities and carefully outlined the various challenging forces that can hinder the survival of private universities as well as assessing the prospects of private universities in Nigeria. The paper adopted secondary data as the main source of information; the following were some of the issues identified in private universities to include leadership, culture, technology, structure, working capital, change etc while funds, location, accreditation of programmes, image etc were the major challenges militating against the survival of private universities. Prospects were identified and discussed leading to various suggestions such as campaign for endowment funds, human resources management practices should be designed to accommodate job security and call for change in the attitude of Nigerian and if adequately embraced and imbibed, the private universities in Nigeria will survive and be able to compete favourably with other private universities outside the country.


The solution of the time-dependent Dirac equation is necessary to study the interaction of highly charged ions with laser fields. The use of a finite basis set to solve the Dirac equation leads generally to the appearance of so-called spurious states. It is rather difficult to separate the physical and the spurious solutions. Besides that, the latter ones can make the convergence of the numerical calculations worse. Moreover, the removing of the spurious states from the spectral expansion of the time propagator makes it be non-unitary.


An alternative form of the nonrelativistic permittivity tensor for a homogeneous magnetized plasma in thermal equilibrium is derived in the linear approximation. The derivation follows the lines of Trubnikov's derivation of the relativistic permittivity tensor and is restricted to a collisionless electron plasma. In the case of a Maxwellian equilibrium distribution, the final form is equivalent to Gordeev's integral form of the permittivity tensor. The analysis is, with minor modification, applicable to plasma comprised of multiple particle species. Unlike the standard formulas, the alternative formula presented in this article yields the components of the permittivity tensor by means of partial derivatives of a scalar kernel integral. Besides the cyclotron harmonic resonance frequencies, where the permittivities in the nonrelativistic approximation become singular, the alternative formula is manifestly valid for all wave frequencies without any restrictions on the wave vector and the thermal energy.


Structural change is vital for economic growth and development in an economy, but it's often associated with rising inequality. Whereas, the philosophy of inclusive growth as per Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) suggest that poverty must end by 2030, which requires high growth rates and growth that is inclusive and shared across society. In this context, this study investigates how inclusive is a structural change in the selected developing economies of Asia like China, India, Indonesia, and Thailand. The findings suggest that the effect of Structural change on income inequality is inevitable. In the process of catching up with advanced economies, it has worsened the inequality in these economies, high-skilled workers have benefited from structural transformation. Hence, the mixed response was given by the population to these adjustments capacities. Therefore, nature, speed, and scale of structural change what matters for these countries to alleviate inequality and poverty. Investing in human capital (through educational reforms) by matching with skills, re-distributive policies and favorable macroeconomic policies can mitigate inequality. Growth can be inclusive if the structural transformation of the economy is conducive to productive employment generation, utilizing the unemployed and underemployed labor force engaged in activities of low productivity, which lacks in all the selected countries.


Background: The neuropeptides β-endorphin and oxytocin are released into the bloodstream as hormones from the pituitary gland but also have an important function as neuroregulators in the forebrain. The blood levels of both polypeptides have been shown to reflect depressive symptoms. β-Endorphin, in particular, is also involved in abstinence from alcohol. Methods: The serum levels of β-endorphin and oxytocin were measured during the early withdrawal phase in patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD) with (N = 35) or without (N = 45) depressive comorbidity and compared with those in healthy volunteers (N = 23). In addition to comparing the groups, the study examined whether serum levels correlated with various psychometric measures of dependence, depression and aggression, as well as with clinical characteristics of dependence. Results: Both serum levels of beta-endorphin and oxytocin were significantly lower in patients than those in healthy controls (p = 0.011 for β-endorphin and p = 0.005 for oxytocin, Kruskal–Wallis test). In patients with depressive comorbidity, the significance was greatest (p = 0.005 for β-endorphin and p = 0.004 for oxytocin, U-test). There was no correlation with clinical or psychometric parameters (p > 0.05, Spearman test), but beta-endorphin levels did correlate significantly with physical aggression (p = 0.026, Spearman test). Conclusions: Serum levels of β-endorphin and oxytocin are lower in patients with AUD, particularly in those with depressive comorbidity. β-Endorphin levels correlated with physical aggression according to the Buss–Durkee (BDHI) estimates.


A novel EBG-patterned P/G planes structure is proposed as a means of minimising the effects of a discontinuous reference plane as well as suppressing the propagation of noise. The performance of the proposed structure has been validated and investigated experimentally.


The principles of processes control in automatic nonlinear systems are based. The research demonstrates that suggested principles of control are worth when applied in automatic systems during large indignations.


A novel serpentine waveguide slow wave structure (SWSWS) with caps and posts is proposed. The HFSS simulation results show that the interaction impedance is enhanced and the phase velocity is reduced over the normal SWSWS. The novel SWSWS is suitable for as the high-frequency structure of compact, linear beam devices.


The present study reports the short‐ and long‐term effects of an anti‐bullying intervention program based on a particular set of curricular activities that aimed to create classroom opportunities for awareness raising, self‐reflection, and problem‐solving situations relevant to bullying. The core of the intervention was a four‐week period during which a series of activities were organised in each individual class. An experimental pre‐test/post‐test design with a control group was used. The sample consisted of 454 pupils (206 control: 123 boys and 83 girls; and 248 experimental: 126 boys and 122 girls) drawn from the fourth‐ to sixth‐grade classrooms of 10 primary schools in central Greece (mean age = 10.23, SD = .84). Data were collected using self‐report measures, before the intervention (December 2003), immediately after the intervention, at the end of the same school year (May 2004), and six months afterwards (November 2004). The results indicated that the program contributed to a positive reduction in outsider behaviour (children remaining uninvolved and thus silently allowing bullying to continue) and enhanced students' self‐efficacy beliefs for both assertion and intervening in bully/victim incidents. However, the long‐term effectiveness of the program was limited. These findings have important implications for interventions to tackle the negative effects associated with bullying in schools.


How to evaluate the color characteristics quality, apparatus, and systems, forward transform and said from the measured output display value in the display with respect to the first set of device dependent input color values and the first set of device dependent input color values determine one of the inverse transform, and the positive transform and inverse transform the determined second device dependent input by converting a set of color values intermediate device dependent input color values while using at least one of including the configured characterized units to provide a set. Method, apparatus, and system further comprising a checking unit that executes at least one of the forward transform quality evaluation and inverse transform quality evaluation.


During the period when northeast China was occupied by Japanese army,Japanese imperialist forced Chinese people to embrace uppermost divinity which they believed in,and enslaved people's mind.The intention of the missionary work is that they wanted Manchukuo people regard Japanese ancestors as themselves',sought to incorporate northeast China into Japan,and entirely involved China into their warfare system to serve its aggression and depredating.


In the author's view, Paraguay, though an underdeveloped nation, possesses a potential for advancement which persuades him to forecast at least " moderate optimism " for the Republic's future. Of particular importance are the factors of near unlimited land availability for both agricultural development and immigrant colonization projects, the possibilities for production and expansion of unique marketable products and services, and an internal economy which has been marked by financial stability. In the present decade these potentials have been strengthened by the appearance of a dynamic, progressive, and young middle-class business community which has established smooth working relationships with the enduring government of General Alfredo Stroessner, and by the relatively benign and tranquil political scene promoted under Stroessner's own program. Supplementing the conclusions of Dr. Pincus' outstanding compendium, it might also be suggested that Paraguay, in contrast to its troubled neighbors of the late 1960's, augurs well to finally become the Arcadia to which it has perennially been compared.


A novel coax-fed wideband loop antenna loaded with rectangular patches and U-shaped elements is presented and studied. By inserting a pair of rectangular patches inside the strip loops and employing a pair of U-shaped elements as the parasitic resonators, two additional resonances are excited and a good performance of bandwidth enhancement can be obtained. The measured results indicate that the impedance bandwidth (VSWR•2) is about 87.1% from 1.58 to 4.02GHz, which covers the required operating bands of DCS1800 (1710{1880MHz), PCS1900 (1850{1990MHz), UMTS2100 (1920{ 2170MHz), WLAN2400 (2400{2484MHz), LTE2300/2500 (2300{ 2690MHz) and WiMAX3500 (3300{3690MHz). In addition, good radiation characteristics such as symmetrical radiation pattern, moderate peak gain, low back radiation, and low cross-polarization are observed over the entire operating band.


A prominent issue with the state of current terrestrial biosphere models pertains to unrealistic parameterizations of model parameters in space and time. Key biochemical controls on carbon uptake by vegetation canopies are typically assigned fixed literature-based values for broad categories of vegetation types despite the fact that these are affected by a complex interplay of environmental and physiological factors, which inevitable leads to significant temporal and spatial variability. Considering the high spatial and temporal resolution of current satellite constellations, candidate remote sensing techniques should play a key role in advancing model parameterizations and ultimately improve estimations of gas and energy fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems. This study investigates the utility of remote sensing based retrievals of leaf chlorophyll for estimating leaf photosynthetic capacity (i.e. Vcmax) and for constraining model simulations of gross primary productivity (GPP).


In this paper, the 2019 Polish Teachers Strike (PTS), joined by 75 percent of all public schools and kindergartens for over three weeks, gives rise to an investigation in teacher professionalism that is grounded in local activism. Reading the Polish Teacher Strike (PTS) as a moment of social upheaval (Buchowski, 2017), I claim that the strike deserves anthropological attention to explore its context and meaning for larger socio-political developments at stake. I offer a deeply contextualized reading of the PTS from two angles. First, I analyze the strike under a framework of teacher professionalism that draws on the works of Judyth Sachs (2000; 2016), Solvi Mausethagen and Lise Granlund (2012) to incorporate a locally-grounded understanding of meaningful teacher engagement in social change. Second, I offer an interpretation of the PTS as an act of resistance against performativity measures as part of a number of policy technologies that teachers have been subjected to since 2017 (Ball, 2003), on the one hand, and the notion of the performative as a vital practice in democratic societies (Matynia, 2009a; 2009b) on the other hand.


Legality modernization is involved in social m atters that the developing countries pay much more attention to. About the role of government in the process of legality modernization, not only academic fields should be considering but also the government of the developing countries shoul d make an answer, because the problem of the government role concerns with the i mproving progress of the developing countries and concerns with whether the new law order can efficiently promote social economy prosperity and the development of public welfare. The paper makes a comparison between the traditional form and developing background. Again, based on this comparison, the paper, in the ligh t of the experience from Japan ans Singapore, points out that government can and should play a leading role in the legality modernization of the contemporary de veloping countries.


Hedging is one alternative risk management to protect the assets of the company resulting from the foreign exchange risk. Hedging by using derivative instrumentis common ways that is used by the company. This study aimed to determine the effect of leverage, and liquidity of financial distress, both simultaneously and partially to the company's decision to do hedging. The population in this study was a company in Jakarta Islamic Index on the observation period of 2011-2015. The sampling technique used in this research was purposive sampling method in order to obtain a sample of seven companies. The techniques in this study used multiple regression analysis software of SPSS version 16. The results of this study that of the four variables used, there was one variable that affected the company to be used as a hedging decision making. Variable that affected the hedging activities was the current ratio, because if the value of the current ratio was high then indicated that the liquid assets that was managed by the company was also high, so it needed to implement a policy of hedging, quick ratio was getting the negative and significant, which meant that if the value of the variable quick ratio was low, then the company pushed for hedging, debt to equity ratio had no significant effect on hedging, this was because the company was using the rupiah currency to do debt, financial distress had no significant because the company was not experiencing the financial difficulties.


This is a book written with passion and deep personal engagement. The author, Publishing Director of SCM Press, and formerly an editor at CUP, SPCK and Blackwell, writes from a conviction that theology has important things to say and contribute to postmodern life and thought, if only theologians will get out and engage with contemporary culture. The aim, in Wright's view is to reconnect 'Church—understood as the community of God—to civic life, in such a manner as to re-energise the reciprocal processes that undergird the foundations of our society'. Wright surveys the current church scene brie y (and as he admits, impressionistically), to conclude that there is no future in 'sect'-type initiatives, such as Alpha. The liberal centre ground has failed, too—movements such as Radical Orthodoxy do not appear to have much life in them, and even such apparently engaged thinkers as McFadyen and Gorringe are too 'churchy'. The answer instead is for theology to engage with people who in the 21st century are asking profound questions, and to join them in exploring the answers they Ž nd. Such partners include New Age thinking. But, like the theologians mentioned above, New Ageism is not entirely on the right track, and Wright offers some characteristics which 'holistic belief and practice' should incarnate 'in order to qualify as authentically meaningful'. Other fruitful areas of enquiry are books and Ž lms which open up points of contact with theology. Well, yes, but ... The base of observation which forms the starting-point of the book is very impressionistic. The picture of the church's complete and abject failure to make an impact on contemporary society which the author paints in his opening chapter is more a manifesto than a balanced piece of sociology of religion. On the basis of one publication, for instance, is it right to dismiss the remarkable phenomenon of Alpha? Disarmingly, the author acknowledges the highly personal approach of the book, but if you want someone to take the medicine, you have to start with a sound diagnosis. Equally disarmingly, the author admits the similarities between his plea to engage with postmodern thought and the failed agenda of liberalism's engagement with the modernity which preceded it. Why is this attempt to engage with the real situations of real people going to succeed, when something very like it has been tried before and has not succeeded? 'Why Bother with Theology' is a well-chosen title, because the author's concern


Abstract The transition from pediatric to adult health care systems is challenging for many adolescents with epilepsy and their families, and those challenges are compounded for adolescents with comorbid intellectual disabilities and epilepsy (ID-E). Many traditional transition pathways to adult care are inadequate, as they fail to address important considerations unique to the ID-E population or are absent entirely. Poor organization of care during critical transition periods increases the risks of sudden unexpected death in epilepsy, suboptimal seizure control, inadequate management of comorbidities, and poor psychological and social outcomes. The literature lacks systematic studies on effective transition programs for this population. The present review provides an overview of the main themes important in care transitions for the ID-E population: (1) precise diagnosis and management of seizures; (2) mental health and medical comorbidities affecting care; (3) accessing behavioral, habilitative, legal, financial, and community resources; and (4) caretaker support. We propose a specific framework which includes targeted recommendations of minimum care standards for youth with ID-E transitioning to adult care.


Thesis (M.S.)--American University of Beirut. Department of Soils, Irrigation and Mechanization,1988.;"Advisor: Imad Haffar, Assistant Professor, Agricultural Mechanization – Members of Committee: Munif Nourallah, Assistant Professor Agronomy brahim Rub


Rainfall is one of the important weather factors deciding the economy, food habits, industries and work force of the area. Distribution of rainfall throughout the year further decides cropping pattern, variety to be cultivated and duration of the crop and management practices for efficient rainfall utility. In this regard 51 year past rainfall data (1970-2020) of Dharwad district of Karnataka was collected from Main Agricultural Research Station (MARS), UAS, Dharwad for analysing seasonal, annual and monthly variabilities. From the analysis we found that the rainfall varied in the range of 417 to 1316 mm with the average of 748 mm and with the variation of 22 per cent. Five years moving rainfall average showed declining trend. July month recorded highest average rainfall of 136 mm with the lowest variation (39 per cent). Though January month recorded lowest rainfall (one mm), the highest variation was observed in February. Southwest (Jun-Sept), Northeast (Oct-Dec), Winter (Jan-Feb) and Post monsoon (March-May) contributed 65 per cent, 19 per cent, 1per cent and 15 per cent, respectively of the annual rainfall of Dharwad district. The lowest variation in rainfall over the years was observed in Southwest monsoon (27 per cent) while winter season showed highest variation. Farmers can be advised to take long duration crops like Cotton and Maize in kharif because of nearly even distributed rainfall for the months from June- October and early sowing in case of rabi to harness the more moisture for better yield. Summer sowing should be avoided because of more uncertainty in rainfall.


Both ultralight dark matter and exploring the quantum nature of black holes are all topics of great interest in gravitational wave astronomy at present. The superradiant instability allows an exotic compact object (ECO) to be surrounded by an ultralight boson cloud, which leads to the emission of gravitational waves and further triggers rich dynamical effects. In this paper, we study the gravitational effects of superradiant instabilities by calculating the energy fluxes of gravitational waves emitted from ultralight scalar dark matter fields by solving the Teukolsky equation in the background of a massive ECO phenomenologically described by a Kerr geometry with a reflective boundary condition at its physical boundary. We find that both the amplitude and phase of the reflectivity will either suppress or enhance the energy flux of GWs by several orders of magnitude if Mμ ≳ 0.5 where M and μ are the mass of ECO and boson, respectively. However, the modifications to energy flux are negligible if Mμ ≲ 0.5. Our results suggest that reflectivity will play a significant role in the near-horizon physics of ECO.


Escherichia coli K12 are currently the best-understood organism on Earth; a larger fraction of its genes have been functionally characterized than for any other organisms. However, organisms given this species designation are extremely diverse, genetically and phenotypically. E. coli proves to be a valuable model system for understanding bacterial physiology, metabolism, genetics and pathogenesis. Why has E. coli been so much more extensively studied than any other bacterium on Earth? It all began with the German pediatrician and bacteriologist, Theodor Escherich, who was dismayed to find that so many babies were dying of diarrhea diseases. In fact, we now know that E. coli is one of the top causes of infant mortality, adult diarrhea and urinary tract infections worldwide. It was because of the organism's broad host specificity and ability to cause many different diseases in large numbers of animals, including humans, that it was first selected as an important bacterium for study. More recently, it has been found that certain strains of E. coli are probiotic, having beneficial effects on host animals, counteracting the detrimental consequences of their pathogenic counterparts. Genetic analyses have revealed that the tremendous phenotypic diversity of the hundreds of currently recognized E. coli strains resulted from the frequent occurrence of horizontal gene transfer during the evolutionary divergence of the Escherichia genus. In fact, the pan genome of E. coli far exceeds the core genome, by up to 20-fold or more. Thus E. coli should not be thought of as an entity or species; it represents an entire spectrum of related organisms sharing only the core housekeeping genes.


We study Schrödinger operators on L2(Rd) and `2(Zd) with a random potential of alloy-type. The single-site potential is assumed to be exponentially decaying. Wegner estimates are bounds on the average number of eigenvalues in an energy interval of finite box restrictions of these types of operators. In the described situation a Wegner estimate which is polynomial in the volume of the box and linear in the size of the energy interval holds. It is applicable as an ingredient for a localisation proof via multiscale analysis.


In Korea, the revision of the Civil Code shall be implemented from July 1, 2013. Adult guardianship is successfully settled in our country in order to be guardians to ensure high quality. This article describes an first consideration of Japanese and german adult guardianship system in operation particularly training and management system for the adult guardian. Japanese and German experience to secure the candidate for adult guardian indicate the tentative plan for introduction of the adult guardianship system for our country. Any suitable, willing and able adult or institution, may be appointed guardian. The Family Court may also appoint co-guardians. The Court will make the final decision based on the best interests of the person. The guardian should be careful to keep the money in the ward`s estate separate from the guardian`s own estate, maintaining separate accounts and keeping careful records of all financial transactions. Before appointing a guardian, the Judge must be persuaded that: The person is incapacitated; The person needs someone to make personal decisions for him or her and/or manage his or her affairs; and The proposed guardian is suitable, willing and able If a guardian is required, however, the court may appoint any person whose appointment would be in the best interest of the incapacitated person. Once an individual is appointed Guardian over an incapacitated adult, the Guardian then has powers and duties. The guardian makes decisions about how the person lives, including their residence, health care, food, and social activity. The guardian is supposed to consider the wishes of the incapacitated person, as well as their previously established valued, when making these living decisions.


The traditional and cultural peculiarities of Gorontalo culture are widely recognized. What's undeniable is the idea that people habitually conduct certain things and make certain transactions at certain times. Also known as the Gorontalo seasonal phenomena, this phenomenon causes various words such as "wedding season," "planting season," and "Hajatan season" to take place in Gorontalo. Inventory of this phenomena is an essential step in documenting the values held by the people of Gorontalo, and it is imperative that it be done to preserve those values for future generations. The preliminary study uses a social research technique to develop an inventory of Gorontalo's continuous local wisdoms, notably in regards to writing a document including a season calendar. After the completion of the production phase, the following stage involved an analysis of the draft for the season calendar document. Later in the project, the group wanted to construct a computer program that could be created in the form of an information system prototype, which had a local calendar module developed by the Gorontalo community using their local wisdom. Accessible for local, national, and worldwide communities as well as featuring geographical data visualizations, this application should be helpful in supporting documentation and digital publications. The goal is to maintain the cultural traditions of Gorontalo while helping to enrich modern life and the general culture. data triangulation; Presentation presented through narrative descriptions of information from interviews, observations, and secondary data processing. by (amount of production, process and causes of traditional knowledge practices, support for to obtain comprehensive obtained from the results of data about in


The invention discloses a point-to-multi-point two-way optical fiber coaxial mixed full-service broadband access system based on an IEEE802.3ah protocol and the technology thereof (i.e. an EPON + ECAN broadband access network system). The system seamlessly transplants an IEEE802.3ah EPON protocol and the technology thereof into a passive coaxial cable user distribution network from a passive optical network (EPON), so that 802.3ah passes through PON from the front end and is seamlessly transplanted to PCN (passive cable network) so as to realize the broadband access of P2MP. The system comprises the passive optical network (EPON) on the front end and a coaxial network system close to a user terminal, so that one optical fiber arrives at a building and one coaxial cable enters a household, so as to provide two-way data and broadcasting television services. The system comprises a coaxial line terminal CLT, a coaxial network unit CNU, an SNMP remote network management system for managing the communication between the CNU and the CLT and a method for realizing 20 to 100Mb/s broadband data access between the CLT and the CNU within the frequency band of 5 to 65MHz, and compositing and decomposing data signals and broadcasting television signals.


Robots are designed to drive in various kind of environment but the nature environments are very complex. The purpose of this research is to design the robot for amphibious locomotion based on hexapedal mechanism. Prototype is assembled and various experiments are performed for the prototype. In the experiment on the water-surface, we measure rolling angle and lifting force and guarantee the stable running on water surface. In the experiment on the ground, success rates for different operating frequency are investigated. This research is going to be a guideline to develop the robot for amphibious locomotion on ground and water surfaces.


The question of focal depth and best focal setting in photographic images is of importance to optical designers because of its connection with the problem of obtaining a satisfactorily flat field, and it would evidently be a great convenience to be able to predict, without constructing a trial model, the best focal surface and the focal depth in different parts of the field of a photographic design working with a specified emulsion. Recent developments in optical theory and in computing techniques suggest that this old problem could now be attacked again with better hope of success. A combined attack from the theoretical and experimental sides seems to be needed. A beginning on the theoretical side is attempted in the present paper, in which the dependence of focal depth and best focal setting on photographic spread and noise is examined computationally in selected model photographic images with 0, 1, 2 and 4 wavelengths respectively of primary spherical aberration. Two different model emulsions are used ...


Control and monitoring of a chronic disease plays an important role to patients' quality of life and it can positively affect their daily routine. In this paper, we present a new method which can be used for short-term prediction of patients' condition who suffer of chronic asthma.


The aim of this project was to create a cumulative visibility raster (find out viewshed information for every point) and characterize visibility over the entire terrain surface. Creation of cumulative visibility raster is very time consuming and hardware-demanding. Within high-performance computation, the analysis was calculated by parallel processing. Mallorca was chosen as an area of interest because it has sharp natural and elevation borders, so it is suitable for testing of advanced visibility analyses. After the creation of the cumulative visibility raster, it is possible to evaluate the terrain with many visibility characteristics, for example cumulative visibility, slope of cumulative visibility, or present target visible. A question exists if it is necessary to compute visibility analyses in all cases - even in the simplest ones. Are people not able to see what is visible and what is not, just from the representation of the terrain? The paper shows early results of eye-tracking evaluation of two different types of visualization of landscape - classical orthogonal maps and three-dimensional (3D) perspective views. It was found that for better perception of the terrain and deriving information whether the place is visible or not, 3D view is more appropriate.


The Ly-5 alloantigen, originally believed to be restricted to thymocytes and thymus-derived (T) lymphocytes (1), has recently been shown to be present on most murine hematopoietic cells, including prothymocytes and pluripotent stem cells (2). Immu-noprecipitation studies by Michaelson et al. (3) demonstrated that Ly-5 alloantisera react with high molecular weight surface proteins of thymocytes and spleen cells. Several components with apparent molecular weights that ranged from 175,000 to 220,000 could be resolved by sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The 220,000-mol wt species was found only in spleen cells and appeared to be derived from bone marrow-derived (B) cells. The tissue distribution and biochemical properties of the Ly-5 alloantigen are very similar to the d'istribution and properties of the T200 glycoprotein, a major cell surface glycoprotein of murine hematopoietic cells that is a dominant antigen in xenoimmunization (4-6). We report here that Ly-5 alloantisera define a polymorphism of the T200 glycoprotein. Materials and Methods Cell Lines. The cell lines used in these studies were the murine T cell lymphoma cell line, BW5147, and two mutant cell lines, BW5147 (T200-) and BW5147PHA'~ 1.8, that were derived from BW5147 cells. Further details of the mutant cell lines are given in Results. Cells were maintained in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium supplemented with 10% horse serum. Immunological Reagents and Procedures. Ly-5.1 and Ly-5.2 alloantisera were prepared as described previously (2). Monoclonal T200 antibody was obtained from I3/2.3 hybridoma cells (6), and monoclonal Thy-1 antibody was obtained from the hybridoma T24/31.7 (7). For trace antibody binding assays, monoclonal antibodies were obtained from culture supernates of the appropriate hybridoma cells. For immunoprecipitation studies, a 50% ammonium sulphate fraction of ascitic fluid from tumor-bearing mice was the source of T200 antibody (8). Trace antibody binding assays were performed as previously described (6). Immunoprecipitation studies were carried out with 0.15 M NaCI-0.01 M phosphate buffer (pH 7.2) that contained 1% Nonidet P-40 (Shell Chemical Co., New York), 1% sodium deoxycholate, and 0.1% SDS to solubilize cells. Antibody-antigen complexes were isolated from cell lysates by adsorption to fixed Staphylococcus aureus. These procedures were as previously reported (8), and give low backgrounds of nonspecific binding. For precipitation of Ly-5 antigen, 5/LI of alloantiserum was used, and antibody-antigen complexes were bound directly to S. aureus. Biochemical Procedures. Cells were labeled by the glucose oxidase modification of the lacto-peroxidase technique (9). Immunoprecipitates were analyzed on 7.5% polyacrylamide gels with a discontinuous buffer …


Epi-illumination light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy have been standard techniques for developmental studies of shoot apices. Recently, laser scanning confocal microscopy has gained popularity as a tool for biological imaging. We have adapted laser scanning confocal microscopy to study development in whole shoot apices. It was tested on angiosperm and fern apices using three fluorescent dyes; acriflavine, safranin O, and acid fuchsin, and compared with epi-illumination light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. In all cases, acid fuchsin proved to be the best fluorochrome for examining shoot apices; having a high affinity for cell walls and nuclear material. The images produced with laser scanning confocal microscopy were sharper and clearer than images generated with epi-illumination light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Laser scanning confocal microscopy allows one to map patterns of cell division on the surface of an apical meristem, which is extremely difficult using...


Wire-to-plane positive corona discharge in air has been studied using an analytical model of two species (electrons and positive ions). The spatial distributions of electric field and charged species are obtained by integrating Gauss's law and the continuity equations of species along the Laplacian field lines. The experimental values of corona current intensity and applied voltage, together with Warburg's law, have been used to formulate the boundary condition for the electron density on the corona wire. To test the accuracy of the model, the approximate electric field distribution has been compared with the exact numerical solution obtained from a finite element analysis. A parametrical study of wire-to-plane corona discharge has then been undertaken using the approximate semi-analytical solutions. Thus, the spatial distributions of electric field and charged particles have been computed for different values of the gas pressure, wire radius and electrode separation. Also, the two dimensional distribution of ozone density has been obtained using a simplified plasma chemistry model. The approximate semi-analytical solutions can be evaluated in a negligible computational time, yet provide precise estimates of corona discharge variables.


The effective calculation of transient power angle is the basis of on-line identification of synchronous generator parameters in time domain. In view of the shortcomings and difficulties of the existing methods of measuring transient power angle, a method for calculating transient power angle of synchronous generator is proposed in this paper. In this method, according to the real-time data of current and voltage sampled by generator terminal, the instantaneous initial phase angle of transient current and voltage signal is calculated by using the sinusoidal representation method of transient signal based on Hilbert transformation. By using the change of current phase angle at generator terminal, the angle change between rotor axis d and stator phase a flux axis is obtained, and then the transient power angle of generator is obtained. In this paper, a simulation model is built on MATLAB/Simulink platform to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, and the measured data of a large hydropower station are used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results show that the high estimation accuracy in a short transient time can be obtained by this method.