Fuel economy targets are pushing car makers to develop several strategies in order to reduce the weight of the vehicles. Within this scenario adhesive bonding is nowadays a widespread technology that represents a joining technique aiming to replace or to combine fastening for lightweight construction of car bodies and multi-material design. In this work an experimental investigation into the static strength of aluminum alloy structural adhesive lap joints is carried out by varying factors influencing the bonding behaviour of the joint. The impact of surface roughness, geometrical control factors (adherend thickness and adhesive thickness) and test conditions (test temperature and test speed) is evaluated. The outcomes derived from the tensile tests are analyzed in terms of load, elongation and energy at failure. Finally a failure mode analysis is conducted in order to either verify or explain the results obtained.


The effect of pH and anion composition on the aging of freshly precipitated iron(III) hydroxide sludges has been examined. The rate of transformation of the kinetically favored iron(III) oxyhydroxide, ferrihydrite, to its crystalline analogues, hematite (α-Fe2O3) and goethite [α-FeO(OH)], was promoted with increasing pH. The influence of anion type on the transformation rate was related to the affinity of the anions for the surface of the ferrihydrite particles, with rates decreasing in the order υT nitrate > υT chloride > υT sulfate (υT = rate of transformation). The relative composition and crystal morphology of the product species was found to be dependent on both the anion type and the pH of the system. Hematite formation was favored at pH values near the point of zero charge of ferrihydrite (pH 7−9), whereas goethite formation was favored outside of this region. A correlation between enhanced hematite formation and both the relative affinities of the anions for the ferrihydrite particles and their re...


This study was designed to experimentally investigate the relationship between the turbidity of the raw water and the size of the filtering media in an attempt to field application of the direct filtration. The turbidity was simulated by using Kaolin with up to 100 ㎎/l under the given condition and the filtration was effective up to D=1.0㎜ media used. It was found that the amount of the added coagulant gave a significant effect on the pattern of filtered particulate. More added coagulant accelerated the surface filtration, and less added coagulant rendered, the deep filtration which retarded the operating time.


Abstract The present article deals with Soret Dufour free convective heat and mass transfer of a micropolar fluid over vertical stretching and shrinking sheets embedded in a Darcian porous medium with thermal radiation and magnetic field. We have obtained numerical solutions for the velocity, temperature, microrotation, and solute concentration fields for various values of the thermal radiation and microrotation material parameters, Prandtl number, chemical reaction, magnetic parameter, and Soret-Dufour number. Present results are obtained by using Runge-Kutta Fehlberg method with shooting technique and they are presented graphically and in tabular form for performing a critical analysis of various parametric values. It is explored that the velocity and temperature distribution decrease with enhancement in the Prandtl number and having reverse effects on the concentration distribution. Further, it is noticed that by increasing the values of the thermal radiation parameter, there is a rise in the velocity and temperature distributions. This work would find applications in the field of chemical engineering systems and magnetic materials processing.


This article deals with the issues of storage of food grains of winter wheat with different methods and timing. Also examine the effect of certain growth conditions (rainfall and the amount of active temperatures) and agronomic techniques (precursors and farming systems) on the initial quality of the grain. We required the optimal conditions for the grain storage with varying quality.


ABSTRACT This paper explores the cultural status of tribal women living in the Pakistan–Afghanistan borderland. Pakhtun tribes, a patriarchal and paternalistic society, practising tribal customs (Riwaj/Dastoor), inhabit this borderland. Owing to these tribal customs, the tribal Pakhtun society treats women much like property of their men. This essay focuses on how a tribal woman is socially discriminated by denying her certain fundamental rights. I discuss six tribal customs, by giving examples based on my field work, through which tribal women are treated as personal property by her male kin—father, brother, uncle or husband. These customs include shamilaat (denial of the right to inheritance in shared family's and tribe's property), miratah (declaring a woman as issueless in the absence of a male kin and thereby denying her property), rasnama/valver/khawara (bride-money), ghairat/nang (honour and pride), badala/swara (barter, as in getting father or brother a bride or as in exchange for settlement of dispute) and ghag (pronouncing the desire to marry a specific woman or in some cases to spite a family).


In hydroxlyic solvents, the specific rates, k, of some diffusion-controlled reactions of es- with neutral molecules are proportional to ¿-n, where ¿ is the viscosity of the solvent and n is smaller than 1. This proportionality does not hold for all situations. Specifically, for alcohol-water mixtures, the relationship of k with ¿ is very complex. For some diffusion-controlled reactions of es- with neutral molecules in 1-alkanols, k is proportional to (L + X)-m, where L is the maximum linear length of the 1-alkanol molecule and X is the cavity radius of es-. Some implications of this proportionality are discussed.


Heparin is derived from animal's intestinal mucosa,impurity nucleic acid will transfer to nucleotide during the process of purifying.The traditional UV absorbance method has a low sensibility to test nucleotide content.In order to control the impurity(cytidylic acid,deoxycytidylic acid,adenylic acid,deoxyadenylic acid,guanylic acid,deoxyguanylic acid,uridylic acid,deoxythymidylic acid) of heparin sodium effectively,we use SAX-HPLC method,the conditions include C18column,ultra-pure water∶ methanol∶ glacial acetic acid∶ tetrabutylammonium bromide(10%) = 457∶ 40∶ 2.5∶ 0.25(volume) as mobile phase and detection wavelength at 260 nm,room temperature.The eight kind of nucleotides' correlation coefficient of calibration curves are all more than 0.99,the recoveries are 96.3% ~ 104.8%,RSDs of reproducibility are all less than 2%.The method is simple and quick and accurate with good reproducibility and can be used for the nucleotide control of heparin sodium.


How many published eyewitnesses are favored by World War I scholars? What proportion do they represent of all "available" authors? And most importantly, who are they? Based on a list of French witnesses mentioned in the indices of academic texts about the war, this article aims to evaluate the extent and uses of the corpus of authors actually cited by researchers. At the end of the analysis, the article shows the narrow and bourgeois nature of the common textual content used in French historiography in the 2000s: sixty witnesses, nearly all from the learned elite of the Belle Epoque. The article concludes with some of the problems that this overrepresentation of upper-class authors raises for the writing of the conflict.


2 † We measured CD8 T cell clonotypic diversity to three epitopes recognized in C57BL/6 mice infected with mouse hepatitis virus, strain JHM, or lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus. We isolated epitope-specific T cells with an IFN- (cid:1) capture assay or MHC class I/peptide tetramers and identified different clonotypes by V (cid:2) chain sequence analysis. In agreement with our previous results, the number of different clonotypes responding to all three epitopes fit a log-series distribution. From these distributions, we estimated that > 1000 different clonotypes responded to each immunodominant CD8 T cell epitope; the response to a subdominant CD8 T cell epitope was modestly less diverse. These results suggest that T cell response diversity is greater by 1–2 orders of magnitude than predicted previously. The Journal of Immunology, 2004, 172: 3151–3156. be able to recognize a large repertoire of foreign including enough


The objective of this work was to evaluete the effe ct of the preharvest application of giberelyc acid (GA 3) and aminoethoxyvinylglycine (AVG) on the maintenance of the postharvest quality of persimmon cultivar Kyoto. Th e treatements used were: preharvest application of 600g.ha -1 of GA 3, 40 days before of the harvest (DBH); 450 g.ha -1 of GA 3 20 DBH; 900 g.ha -1 of GA 3 20 DBH; 840 g.ha -1 of AVG 20 DBH; control (without application).


The study is devoted to both international and interregional migration in the Kaliningrad region as one of the factors defining its demographic situation in the 1990-2000th. The study employed statistical analysis methods based on the calculation of absolute and relative indicators of migration. The primary data source for the estimates is the annual statistics of migrant inflows and outflows since 1992 delineated by the area of origin and destination provided by the Federal State Statistics Service in the Kaliningrad region. Analysis of the changes of internal migration revealed that its intensity as well as gross migration decreased significantly. It is notable that such reduction in intensity is more characteristic of the regions that traditionally had the largest migration flows with regard to Kaliningrad region; those are the Far East and Northern regions as departure areas, and the regions of the European part of Russia as arrival areas. The same decline is observed in external migration between the region and the CIS-countries, with only Armenia and Kyrgyzstan intensifying migration flows with the region. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6s7p77


The author sets out the case to show that, provided a valve-regulated lead-acid battery (VRLA) is designed to meet the relevant product standards, and is operated to recognized safety codes of practice, then the operator will have safe, reliable, VRLA stationary batteries in his equipment. A summary is provided on the availability of both national and international standards, and a digest of the content of the proposed international standard on these batteries is given.<<ETX>>


The metal oxide devices such as a thermistor and a varistor in the form of bulk or thick film which are applied for instruments, control and electronic circuits, have been developed. However, preparation of metal oxide thin film is difficult because of a high melting point of oxide material and irregular components including impurities. To solve this problem, the authors perceived that a low melting point metal becomes a metal oxide with a high melting point by oxidation, then devised the new method which after deposited according to order of Mn and Fe powder with high melting point from Zn with low melting point in vacuum, its multilayered metal can be converted into a metal oxide via profile of high temperature annealing in air. Through this process, the metal film with low melting point than annealing temperature does not disperse, so that a composite metal oxide semiconductor thin-film (COT) with thickness of 0.7-1.5μm is prepared. A markedly temperature dependent COT is suitable for a high sensitive microsensor responding to minute temperature change. The paper describes preparation of COT and construction of an enzyme sensor system based on chemical reaction heat for detecting nitrogen metabolite such as urea.


.....................................................................................................................iv List of Figures ............................................................................................................vii List of Tables .............................................................................................................viii Chapter One: Introduction .........................................................................................1 Mindfulness..........................................................................................................4 Chapter Two: Methods ..............................................................................................12 Participants ...........................................................................................................12 Baseline ..........................................................................................................13 Pre-Post Intervention .....................................................................................14 Procedure .............................................................................................................14 Measures ..............................................................................................................17 Clinic BP ........................................................................................................17 Ambulatory BP ..............................................................................................17 BP Reactivity .................................................................................................17 Demographics and Self-Report Questionnaires .............................................18 Trait Mindfulness ...........................................................................................18 Interventions ........................................................................................................19 Lifestyle Modification ...................................................................................19 Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) ..............................................19 Stress Management Education (SME) ...........................................................21 Wait-List Control (WLC) ..............................................................................21 Data Analyses ......................................................................................................21 vi Aim 1 Data Analyses .....................................................................................22 Aim 2 Data Analyses .....................................................................................24 Aim 3 Data Analyses .....................................................................................25 Chapter Three: Results ...............................................................................................27 Aim 1 ...................................................................................................................27 Aim 1 Exploratory Analyses ................................................................................31 Aim 2 ...................................................................................................................45 Aim 3 ...................................................................................................................48 Chapter Four: Discussion ...........................................................................................52 References ..................................................................................................................55 Appendix A ................................................................................................................63 Appendix B ................................................................................................................67 Appendix C ................................................................................................................73 Appendix D ................................................................................................................77 Appendix E ................................................................................................................79


1 Meghan A. Duffy, Jessica M. Housley, Rachel M. Penczykowski, Carla E. Cáceres and Spencer R. Hall Supporting Information 1 2 Appendix S1 3 Additional information on model selection, the DEB model, and supplemental data 4 5 In this appendix, we describe the competition among models presented in Table 1 in more detail. 6 Then, we present the dynamic energy budget (DEB) model for parasitism. We sketch the model 7 structure, as we have presented before (Hall et al. 2010a, Hall et al. 2009b) and describe the 8 modifications and assumptions made here to incorporate the physiological effects of Chaoborus 9 kairomones. Finally, we present model predictions and data on survival of infected hosts in the 10 life table experiment. 11 12 Model competition 13 We fit several models to estimate susceptibility of hosts to infection by the yeast. The 14 general structure of the model for the susceptibility assays was: 15 Z S TR dt dS k j k j     , , (S1) 16


(57) ABSTRACT Correspondence Address: James V. Costigan, Esq. A continuous treatment System of yarns with process fluids, HEDMAN & COSTIGAN, PC. particularly for mercerization, wherein abundle of threads to 1185 Avenue of the Americas be treated is put into the reaction with a Venturi nozzle New York, NY 10036 (US) activated with process fluid, which entrains the bundle of yarn with it, and with a Swirl distributor in the J-shaped (21) Appl. No.: 10/446,922 treatment reactor, having an inner Saddle-shaped guide Sur face for the downward and upward movement of the yarn in (22) Filed: May 28, 2003 the process fluid bath.


The Advanced Test Reactor National Scientific User Facility (ATR NSUF) and Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) formed an agreement to test representative alloys used as reactor structural materials as a pilot program toward establishing guidelines for future ATR NSUF research programs. This report contains results from the portion of this program established as Phase I (of three phases) that entails baseline fracture toughness, stress corrosion cracking (SCC), and tensile testing of selected materials for comparison to similar tests conducted at GE Global Research. The intent of this Phase I research program is to determine baseline properties for the materials of interest prior to irradiation, and to ensure comparability between laboratories using similar testing techniques, prior to applying these techniques to the same materials after having been irradiated at the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR). The materials chosen for this research are the nickel based super alloy X-750, and nitrogen strengthened austenitic stainless steel XM-19. A spare core shroud upper support bracket of alloy X-750 was purchased by EPRI from Southern Co. and a section of XM-19 plate was purchased by EPRI from GE-Hitachi. These materials were sectioned at GE Global Research and provided to INL.


SummaryCystic echinococcosis (CE) is endemic in many parts of Iran. It may develop in almost any part of the human body, though the location is mostly hepatic and followed by pulmonary. This study was carried out on the 24 patients diagnosed with unusual localizations of hydatidosis among the patients admitted to the university hospitals in Hamedan province, west of Iran, during 14-year period. The cases were aged 6 – 73 years, the majority being aged 40 – 59 years (33.3 %). Ten of the patients diagnosed with unusually located hydatid disease were men, fourteen were women. The over-representation of housewives (50.0 %) and followed by farmers (20.8 %) among the cases was significant. Similarly, rural dwellers were also over-represented among the cases (54.2 % vs. 45.8 %).Most (19 case) of the cases had been diagnosed just by ultrasonography, but 3 case had only been diagnosed by computed tomographic (CT) scans, and another 2 had had both ultrasonography and CT scans. Spleen and kidneys, followed by abdominal/peritoneal cavity, were the organs where hydatid disease was most frequently observed after the liver and lung. The splenic cysts were solitary in 4 cases, associated with a hepatic cyst in 1 and with pelvic and abdominal wall cysts in 1. The renal cysts were usually isolated without any other organ involvement, and there was only one case of associated with hydatid disease in liver. In addition, findings in brain, mesenterium, breast, choledochus, bladder wall and inguinal area are also discussed.These results confirm that CE should be considered in the differential diagnosis of any cystic mass in all anatomic locations (including unusual localizations), especially when occurring in areas where the disease is endemic.


Objective To investigate the effect of long-term administration of quetiapine on the cognitive function of patients with Alzheimer's disease(AD). Methods Fifty-one AD outpatients with psychological and behavioral symptoms were randomly divided into treatment group(taking quetiapine, n = 26) and control group(n = 25). Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument(CASI) and Alzheimer' s Disease Assessment Scale(ADAS-cog) were used to assess the cognitive function of two groups before treatment(baseline), and three months, six months after treatment. Results The baseline scores of CASI and ADAS-cog of two groups were not statistically significant(P 0. 05). Three months after treatment, the scores of CASI and ADAS-cog increased but were not statistically significant(P 0. 05). Six months after treatment, the scores of CASI and ADAS-cog further increased. The scores of treatment group were obviously higher than those of the control group and statistically significant(P 0. 05). Conclusion Long-term administration of quetiapine may cause an adverse impact on the cognitive function of AD patients.


This paper presents the study carried out to improve the accuracy of the rainfall rate prediction model in Rec. ITU-R P.837-4. By combining different precipitation data sources, new global maps of the model input parameters have been calculated, which guarantee both higher accuracy and spatial resolution. An optimization of model coefficients has been performed by considering cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) of measured rainfall rate, provided by DBSG3, selected by taking into account their quality, worldwide distribution and statistical stability in terms of years of measurements. The results show that the prediction of the mean annual rainfall rate distribution is improved of ∼10% and ∼25% in terms of bias and root mean square of the relative estimation error, respectively. An attempt in estimating intra-annual rain rate has also been carried out, showing promising results that call for a larger collection of measured monthly rainfall rate CDFs.


A historical perspective on women and mental health in Mexico from the pre-Hispanic world of the Aztecs to our time is presented. Issues for Mexican women and female family therapists are discussed including the social construction of roles for women and the need to raise feminist consciousness while respecting cultural differences.


Background: The maintenance of oral hygiene is critical for anticipation of innumerable oral as well as systemic diseases. Different populations utilizes various oral hygiene measures skillfully since ancient times such as toothbrushes and dentifrices. Aims & Objectives: Evaluation and comparison different traditional oral hygiene measures with the use of toothpaste-toothbrush, the most recognized method of oral hygiene maintenance in plaque-cleaning efficiency, recession and tooth wear. Material and Methods: A cross sectional study done amongst the population of small town in Rajasthan. Results: Total 201 traditional oral hygiene method users were compared with same number of toothpastebrush users. Amongst the patients reported there were maximum tooth powder users (46%) as compared to other traditional measures such as chew stick (33%) and salt/oil. Out of tooth powder users; almost 28 % reported using red toothpowder which gave an impression as tooth wear was also more severe among the toothpowder users. Conclusions: Toothpastetoothbrush was found to be more effective in controlling plaque, gingival recession and tooth wearing.


Urban villages, known as kampungs in Yogyakarta, are currently experiencing a gradual decline in providing social space due to their spatial transformation to support tourism, including Prawirotaman. Prawirotaman had been a neighbourhood for the Sultan's soldiers in the 19th century; it was later transformed into a kampung for tourists in the 1980s. This transformation affected the territorial claims of the transitional spaces. In contrast, the transitional spaces in Prawirotaman have now become gathering spaces accommodating the daily neighbourly lives. Hence, this study aimed to define transitional space through its local elements relating to the residents' territorial behaviour towards the spatial transformation due to tourism. The data consisted of residents' interaction behaviours and physical settings collected from interviews and observations using GPS and manual drawing. The analysis uses behaviour mapping and spatial configuration approaches assisted by ArcGIS and SketchUp. The observations were conducted based on the Muslim daily prayer times. This research defines that the transitional space becomes a residents' territorial strategy in maintaining their social space amid the transformation due to tourism through their behaviour in using and placing local elements.


Abstract Herbicide treatments were used in glyphosate-resistant field corn, Zea mays L., to produce treatments with weeds growing for varying periods of time in a replicated field trial conducted in three different fields over 3 yr. Increased weediness increased the activity-density of Harpalus pensylvanicus (DeGeer) (Coleoptera: Carabidae), the most common carabid species collected in pitfall traps. Field crickets, Gryllus spp. (Orthoptera: Gryllidae), showed a similar response, with generally higher numbers caught in weedier plots. Other ground-dwelling arthropod species showed variable responses to weediness. Wolf spiders (Lycosidae) showed an apparent response to fresh organic matter and dead weed thatch after herbicide treatments in 2002. Although several arthropods common in the field plots ate second instar western corn rootworms, Diabrotica virgifera virgifera LeConte (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), when the rootworms were presented to them on filter paper in the laboratory, rootworms were not consumed when presented to potential predators under a thin layer of soil. Predation on exposed larvae placed in the field for 24 h did not differ by treatment, possibly because the major species that differed by treatment were primarily herbivorous or omnivorous. Corn yields were lower in the weedy check plots all 3 yr, but no significant reduction in yield occurred in treatments with weeds present for 21, 31, or 41 d after planting, or in plots treated with preemergence herbicide only.


I. INTRODUCTION"Sex offenses are in our time the new witchcraft. We're as hysterical about these crimes as were the good people of Salem over witches. And our means of addressing the hysteria is about as effective."1In Dateline's recent investigative series To Catch a Predator, reporter Chris Hansen introduced the piece by referencing the "epidemic of sexual predators in our country."2 Unfortunately, statistics appear to support this strong characterization. Each year, the child pornography industry generates $4.9 billion worldwide.3 One in seven youths receive a sexual solicitation while online.4 There are more than 100,000 websites that offer illegal child pornography,5 and every day Gnutella,6 a file-sharing network, receives 116,000 requests for "child pornography."7 In Dateline's investigation, the news outlet caught eighty-eight men, including a rabbi and a federal agent from the Department of Homeland security, in a period of only nine days.8Most Americans likely recognize the alleged "epidemic" of child pornography,9 perhaps due in large part to media coverage of the issue such as the aforementioned investigative series To Catch a Predator. In response to the problem of child pornography and Americans' rightful outcry against the abhorrent offense, legislators have sought harsher penalties for child pornography offenses by increasing the range of jail time possible for the offenses in the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines (hereinafter Sentencing Guidelines or Guidelines).10 These detailed and highly complex federal Guidelines are what judges consult when sentencing a convicted offender, although how closely judges must adhere to the Guidelines has varied over time.In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in United States v. Booker that the Sentencing Guidelines were no longer mandatory but merely advisory.11 That decision effectively restored to judges a measure of discretion to make sentencing decisions,12 and in the years following the Booker decision, sentences nationwide have generally increased.13 In keeping with that national trend, the average length of sentences for sexual exploitation offenses has also increased.14 While some may use the timing of the Booker decision and these subsequent sentencing increases to identify the judiciary as the cause for the increases, this Note will conclude differently.15The Sentencing Guidelines were initially put in place to address a very real sentencing disparity between judges in the United States, and over time the Guidelines were mostly successful in achieving that goal by reducing judicial discretion.16 However, American society has changed since that time. Thus, this Note will argue that the increased judicial discretion Booker provides is essential to ensure fairness in sentencing for child pornography offenders by serving as a counterweight to social and legislative zeal to simply lock offenders up indefinitely.In reaching that conclusion this Note will begin with an examination of the history of judicial discretion in sentencing, how the Sentencing Guidelines work, the ill effects of child pornography, and post-Booker sentencing statistics. It will then proceed to analyze three potential causes for the increase in sentences: post-Booker reinvigoration of judicial discretion; inherent flaws in the U.S. Sentencing Commission's original sentence formulations (hereinafter U.S. Sentencing Commission or Sentencing Commission); and social pressure on legislators to increase sentences, including that from news outlets such as Dateline. This analysis will determine that social pressure caused legislators to increase sentences. This Note will then describe how judicial discretion serves as a necessary check on legislative zeal by virtue of judicial appointment and tenure and through the judiciary's greater experience with unique sentencing factors.II. BACKGROUNDTo understand how judicial discretion has influenced sentencing in America, it is important to examine its long history, beginning with the broad discretion of indeterminate sentencing,17 and examining the restrictions of legislative acts and case law upon that discretion until Booker. …


Rose bengal and erythrosin B are xanthene dyes mainly known and used as antimicrobial agents, but due to their photodynamic activity they are also potential photosensitizers for cancer photodynamic therapy. The aim of this work is to study a photodynamic efficacy of rose bengal and erythrosin B against human skin melanoma and mouse fibroblast cell lines, compare them with each other and find out their photodynamic properties induced by light emitting diodes with total light dose of 5 J/cm2. To fully identify and understand photodynamic properties of both potentially effective photosensitizers, a set of complex in vitro tests such as cell cytotoxic assay, measurement of reactive oxygen species production, mitochondrial membrane potential change assay, mode of cell death determination or comet assay were made. Although both photosensitizers proved to have similar properties such as increasing production of reactive oxygen species with the higher concentration, predominance of necrotic mode of death or genotoxicity, the more effective photosensitizer was rose bengal because its EC50 was over 20 times lower for both cell lines than in case of erythrosin B.


Background: Because of high mortality and morbidity of severe acute pancreatitis (AP) and its increasing incidence in recent years, early detection of severity of AP is very important. Since interleukin (IL) rapidly responds to body temperature changes, this study was done to examine the relationship between blood levels of interleukin 15 and 17 and severity of acute pancreatitis. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 52 patients with AP were studied. For all patients, paraclinical information, Ranson criteria, and APACHE-II were completed. Serum interleukin 15 and 17 levels were measured by ELISA method. Then the relationship between them and AP severity was determined based on Ranson criteria and APACHE-II. Results: In this study, 36.5% of the patients were male and 63.5% were female and the mean age was 61.06 years. The serum level of IL-17 was negatively correlated with the severity of AP based on Ranson criteria (p=0.021, r= -0.319). ROC curve showed significant values for blood level of IL-15 and CRP in AP diagnosis. Sensitivities were 92.3% and 78.8% and specificities were 40% and 48%, respectively. Conclusion: Based on Ranson criteria, the role of serum level of IL-17 as an unknown factor was seen significant in determining the severity of AP. However, the diagnostic value of serum IL-15 should also be verified with further studies.


ABSTRACT In Ballantyne's (in press) review on the philosophy and psychology of intellectual humility (IH), he observes that it is not possible to ascertain whether IH is 'good' for people. In our commentary, we describe a way to tackle this ambiguity by advancing and testing an IH-health hypothesis. We first describe the humility-health hypothesis and the ways in which it may map on to IH. Next, we describe a growing literature speaking to the possibility of an IH-health hypothesis. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of whether we can distinguish between IH and humility in the context of psychological well-being and psychopathology and how IH might contribute to positive therapeutic outcomes. Through examining the relevance of IH to well-being and psychopathology, we may be able to illuminate whether and to what extent IH is 'good' for people.


GIS is the key equipment in power grid and partial discharge is the main cause leading to insulation breakdown. UHF detection is an effective method for PD detection in GIS. The insulator has great influence to the electromagnetic wave propagation in GIS. The FDTD simulation model of GIS is setup to study the influence of insulator to electromagnetic wave propagation. The amplitude and energy distribution at GIS model with and without insulator are study in this paper.


Aminopeptidases (AP) are useful tools for the sequence analysis of peptides 1. Therefore a systematic research for types with narrow substrate specifity seems desirable. These enzymes are known in animals, higher plants and microcorganisms (for lit. see COLOWICK and KAPLAN 2 , SCANDALIOS 3 , KOHLEHMAINEN and MIKOLA 4). Whereas there exists some information on AP isozymes in yeast and other Ascomycetes (for lit. see MATILE et a l . 5 , LEHMANN and UHLIG 6 ) , our knowledge on their occurence in Basidiomycetes is restricted to the description of two Leu-AP bands in Schizophyllum commune 7 and Trametes versicolor 8.


Gas metal arc welding(GMAW)of X80 steel was conducted with optimized WER70 welding wire in the condition of same heat input of pipeline steel welding as usually used in actual girth welding.The average impact energy of weld metal at-20℃ reaches as high as 181J,and the welded joint has ideal microstructure.The butt weld and the wire deposited metal have almost equivalent mechanical properties.


Endoscopy is a complex task in which an expert physician is required to guide the endoscope inside the human colon. The objective of this system is to develop a computer assistant that could help the doctor with the navigation of the endoscope inside the colon, serving as an advisory system for learning endoscopists. A knowledge-base (KB) in colon endoscopy has been compiled from the knowledge extracted from an expert colonoscopist. It includes knowledge for colon image interpretation and for control of the endoscope. Using features from intermediate vision we are using the expert rules to recognize the important objects in the images, in the first stage, and later for advise and control. In particular, we are interested in detecting "special" situations in the colon for which the expert heuristics are useful. An initial prototype has been implemented using a parallel architecture with transputers and a PC. The expert system is implemented in Prolog and it communicates with the feature extraction programs running in a "transputer pyramid" by transforming the vision features into symbolic predicates for logical inference. We have tested the system with real colon images from a videotape to identify the lumen. Work is in progress to extend the feature extraction process so more objects could be recognized by the system.


The vapor pressures of the 1,4-dioxane + tetrabutylammonium nitrate and water + tetrabutylammonium nitrate systems have been measured at different salt molalities. The vapor pressures of the 1,4-dioxane + water + tetrabutylammonium nitrate system have also been measured at 11 constant salt molalities (0.100, 0.250, 0.500, 0.750, 1.000, 1.500, 2.000, 2.500, 3.000, 3.500, and 4.000) mol·kg−1. These systems have been studied at (288.15, 298.15, and 308.15) K with a modified Othmer still. The electrolyte nonrandom two-liquid model was used for the calculation of the activity coefficients of solvents in the binary systems.


A directional coupler is typically utilized to monitor the power flow for RF and microwave systems; therefore, accurate net power measurement is essential for different field strength standards systems which are utilized to calibrate field probes. This paper describes two methods to accurately calculate the net power with dual directional coupler. One is based on the scalar coupling coefficients, VSWR and directivity of a coupler; and the other one is a transfer method which can be traced back to the power standard system. A comparison is made with the two methods, and both methods are proved practicable. At the end, the criterion about the choice of two methods is given.


Sovereign wealth funds: opportunities, threats, hopes and illusions - In this work we provide a critical summary of the debate about sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). We start by explaining what a SWF is and what it is not according to the various definitions that have been proposed. We then present the main concerns and hopes which SWFs have raised and explain why these threats and opportunities are often exaggerated, incorrect or, at the best, not yet supported by any serious empirical evidence. We devote particular attention to the issue of the transparency of SWFs and show that, while there still is ample room for improvement, SWFs are clearer now than what they used to be before the Santiago principles were signed. We also point out, however, that there are sound reasons to believe that transparency, if pushed too far, could be detrimental to both SWFs and recipient countries. Finally, we present the results of the first attempts made by academics and practitioners to provide systematic evidence on SWF investment behaviour. Keywords: sovereign wealth funds, transparency, global imbalances, foreign investments Parole chiave: fondi sovrani, trasparenza, squilibri globali, investimenti esteri Jel Classification: F21 - G15 - H27


The agro-industrial complex is one of the most important sectors in the economy of any country, and the Russian Federation is no exception. The modern development of the state's economy largely depends on the level of development of the agro-industrial sector and the efficiency of management activities of its management. For more than 25 years, Russia has been in the process of reforming and transforming the agricultural sector. The level of agricultural development remains quite ambiguous.
Stimulating the agricultural sector at the state level is a priority for advanced countries in economic policy, because agriculture is the most important branch of the national economy, which actively involves a diverse set of measures for state support (subsidies, benefits, trade protection, etc.). The existing system of state regulation and support of agriculture in China is based on standard methods used in most countries of the world.
The article is devoted to the study of the mechanisms of state support for the agro-industrial complex in China, because it is important to study which structure and organization of agricultural production contributes to the most intensive and balanced development. It is necessary to realize that it is not possible to improve the efficiency of the agro-industrial complex in the short term, so long-term forecasts and programs should be developed. This is especially important in today's volatile economy.
Possible methods of stimulating domestic agricultural producers based on the experience of the country under consideration are considered. As a result of the analysis, positive and negative factors of influence of certain measures for state support of agriculture in General on the country's economy were identified. The article discusses the main methods of state support for agriculture used in the PRC and the possibility of their application in the Russian Federation. This article is intended for those who work in the field of Finance of the agro-industrial complex.


A 66-year-old Japanese woman with a 1-month history of cough and sputum and a smoking history of 5 cigarettes/day for 40 years (11 pack years) was examined. A chest radiograph and CT scan revealed a 7-cm mass in the lower lobe of her right lung. A positron emission tomography scan showed hypermetabolic activity in the mass. She underwent endobronchial ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration (EBUS-FNA) at another hospital. The histopathological findings of the biopsy specimen were characteristic of invasive adenocarcinoma. No EGFR mutations in the peptide nucleic acid-locked nucleic acid (PNA-LNA) PCR clamp and no gene fusion between EML4 and ALK in RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry were observed. After the workup, the tumor was staged as a cT3N0M0, Stage IIB neoplasm. 1 month after her initial evaluation, she underwent a right lower lobectomy at our hospital with resection of part of the pericardium.


Abstract This paper recounts our collective experience in "Writing for Publication," a one-credit graduate seminar conducted for the first time in the fall of 2015 in the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism at the University of Utah. Enrollment in the course required graduate standing and first drafts of manuscripts the students hoped to refine for publication. The paper summarizes what we learned in the course about what it takes to advance an idea from concept to completion in a fashion that makes one's thinking worthy of public consideration.


We investigated the mouth-opening transition pattern (MOTP), which represents the change of mouth-opening degree during the end of an utterance, and used it to predict the next speaker and utterance interval between the start time of the next speaker's utterance and the end time of the current speaker's utterance in a multi-party conversation. We first collected verbal and nonverbal data that include speech and the degree of mouth opening (closed, narrow-open, wide-open) of participants that were manually annotated in four-person conversation. A key finding of the MOTP analysis is that the current speaker often keeps her mouth narrow-open during turn-keeping and starts to close it after opening it narrowly or continues to open it widely during turn-changing. The next speaker often starts to open her mouth narrowly after closing it during turn-changing. Moreover, when the current speaker starts to close her mouth after opening it narrowly in turn-keeping, the utterance interval tends to be short. In contrast, when the current speaker and the listeners open their mouths narrowly after opening them narrowly and then widely, the utterance interval tends to be long. On the basis of these results, we implemented prediction models of the next-speaker and utterance interval using MOTPs. As a multimodal-feature fusion, we also implemented models using eye-gaze behavior, which is one of the most useful items of information for prediction of next-speaker and utterance interval according to our previous study, in addition to MOTPs. The evaluation result of the models suggests that the MOTPs of the current speaker and listeners are effective for predicting the next speaker and utterance interval in multi-party conversation. Our multimodal-feature fusion model using MOTPs and eye-gaze behavior is more useful for predicting the next speaker and utterance interval than using only one or the other.


The research results on the establishment of one-time recreational load on the Tomsk city landscape gardening objects of common use are given in the article. According to the authors, with the increase of the recreational load the balsam poplar average augmentation significantly decreases in 77, 7 % of cases.


Introduction: Following the published International Guidelines (Borowitz, 2010), the French-Belgian biological workshop was initiated in 2010 by the French Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria (PNH) group (named HPN AFC ). This effort to harmonize the diagnostic practices has been pursued through the development of an inter-laboratory comparison program, involving more than 50 French-speaking centers since 2013 (Debliquis, 2015). Thus, the French National Observatory of PNH clones opened for 5 years on the 9 th International Rare Disease Day (February 29 th 2016), in order to collect all PNH clone cases diagnosed by French cytometrists. Methods: The primary objective of the French National Observatory of PNH clones is to monitor all PNH clones ≥0.01%, along with two secondary objectives according to the PNH clone size: the evolution of minor clones AFC website. Results: As of June 30 th 2017, 39 cytometry laboratories have registered across France. Of these, 24 centers have submitted 163 inclusion points with a PNH clone above 0.01%, each corresponding to a patient. The cases were reviewed by the 2 principal investigators, who carefully re-examined all of the flow cytometry data. This method enabled the validation and inclusion of 126 cases, with 37 ongoing ones due to missing clinical or biological data. The first extraction led to the preliminary analysis of these 126 cases and showed that patient median age at diagnosis was 45 years [11-87], with 6 pediatric cases, and a M:F sex ratio of 0.83. Diagnosis was made between 1988 and 2017 and clinical information at diagnosis was available for 92% of patients. More than half of them had aplastic anemia (58.7%). Other diagnosis included: hemolytic anemia (with or without aplastic anemia) (15.9%), unexplained cytopenia(s)(7.9%), myelodysplastic syndrome (6.3%), hemoglobinuria (4.8%) and 2 cases (1.6%) of recurrent thrombosis without hemolysis. Biological data showed a median hemoglobin value of 9.3 g/dL [4.7-16.5], 1.4 x10 9 /L [0.1-11] neutrophils and 60 x10 9 /L [2-356] platelets. The median clone size at diagnosis was 1.9% on granulocytes with a very wide range from 0.01% to 99.4%, most of them being less than 10% and mainly composed of type III cells (median type III clone size: 1.6%). A similar distribution of PNH clones was observed on monocytes, with a good correlation between clone sizes on both lineages. RBC analysis, which was performed for less than half of the patients showed a majority of minor clones and no correlation was observed between PNH clone size on granulocytes and RBC, due to an underestimation of the clone size on RBC. Regarding the clinical context, the median PNH clone size on granulocytes in case of aplastic anemia was 1%, yet some patients had very large clones, higher than 99%. Conversely, PNH clones from patients with hemolytic anemia were very large with a median size of 88%, but some patients had smaller clones of less than 20%. The 2 patients with thrombosis displayed a much smaller clone size, below 0.05%. Conclusion: More than one year after its initiation, 126 confirmed patients were enrolled in the French National Observatory of PNH clones. Median PNH clone size was 1.9% on granulocytes and more than half of these patients had aplastic anemia. A good correlation was seen between clone sizes on granulocytes and monocytes, but not on granulocytes and RBCs. This collaborative work has established a strong network of motivated cytometrists as highlighted by the number of registered centers and the increasing inclusions since its recent opening. A comprehensive follow-up of a foreseeable larger number of PNH clones (so far 92 out of the 163 already have at least 1 follow up point) will lead to a better understanding of the physiopathology of minor PNH clones. Disclosures Drenou: Alexion: Consultancy, Honoraria. Pruvot Debliquis: Alexion: Consultancy, Honoraria. Letestu: Alexion: Consultancy, Honoraria. Chatelain: Alexion: Consultancy, Honoraria. Socie: Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Consultancy. Peffault De Latour: Pfizer: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding; Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding; Novartis: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding; Amgen: Research Funding. Wagner Ballon: Alexion: Consultancy, Honoraria.


The paper presents a video surveillance system solution. the captured surveillance video was processed by Intel PXA270 according to X264. a streaming media server was established by Ffmpeg. It realized the real-time surveillance on the internet .the solution employed open-source software in order to reduce cost. It showed a good result with short delay in surveillance.


LEGAL JURISDICTION OVER THE TITANIC Alan Ruffman', David Vanderzwaag2 and Ian Townsend-Gdt2 1. President, Geomarine Associates Ltd., 5112 Prince St., Box 41, Station M. Halifax, Nova Scotia B3J 2L4 project 87-1 1) B3H 4H9 2. Associate Professor, Law School, Weldon Building, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, The actual location of the wreck of the TITANIC is examined with respect to the physical location of the continental shelf edge, slope and base of the continental slope. The originally reported Mayday location and actual wreck site are both about 550 km south-east of the nearest shoreline at Cape Race of Canada's Province of Newfoundland and Labrador and as such the wreck is well beyond the nominal 200 n mi (37 1 km) limit. The requirements of Article 76 of the 1982 Law of the Sea Treaty, to which Canada is a signatory, are examined to define the limit to Canada's "juridical continental shelf' in the area of the site. High resolution geological data is sparse in the area. The law of the Sea Treaty, the U.S. Congress' TITAMC bill, Canada's own legislation as well. as other international laws are examined as to their ability to regulate activities at the location. The activities examined are with respect to: surface traffic, scientific survey, commercial salvage and treasure trove, protection and examination of the archaeological or grave site, protection of artifacts, harvesting of pelagic life or surface and subsurface benthic life,marine cables, scientific or military moorings and mineral or oil and gas potential. The United States, France and Britain have all done serious scientific survey work at the site: Canada has almost entirely depended upon the work of other nations for its scientific knowledge of the area. Canada's rights to regulate activities over the TITANIC are examined in light of its failure to do survey work to date, its failure to exercise direct jurisdiction or to even observe during the previous U.S. and French TITANIC expeditions. CH2498-4/87/0000697 $1.00 01987 IEEE


Objective To study the expression of structural maintenance of chromosomes 4(SMC4) in primary hepatocellular carcinoma,and to analyze the relationship between the expression with clinicopathological features.Methods From September 2009 to January 2010,samples of primary hepatocellular carcinoma and normal hepatocellular tissues,serum samples of patients with primary hepatocellular carcinoma and normal controls were collected from 36 individuals in each group.Immunohistochemical staining was performed to detect the expression of SMC4 of primary hepatocellular carcinoma and normal hepatic tissues,enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA) was used to analyze the expression of SMC4 of serum samples of patients with primary hepatocellular carcinoma and normal controls.The relationship between results and clinical findings was then analyzed.Results Strong SMC4 immunoreactions were detected in primary hepatocellular carcinoma tissues,with 88.9%(32/36) positive and 11.1%(4/36) negative staining,respectively,whereas the immunohistochemical straining was 100%(36/36) negative in normal hepatocellular tissues.The levels of SMC4 expression in serum samples from patients with primary hepatocellular carcinoma(255.75±26.59ng/L) were significantly higher than those of normal controls(205.89±18.55ng/L,P0.05).By statistical analysis,the high levels of SMC4 expression in patients with primary hepatocellular carcinoma were found to be related to the cell differentiation,TNM stage and vascular invasion(P0.05),but not to sex and age(P0.05).Conclusion High levels of SMC4 expression have been detected in primary hepatocellular carcinoma but not in normal controls,implying that it may be helpful in the diagnosis of the tumor.SMC4 can serve as a marker to judge the malignancy and prognosis of patients with primary hepatocellular carcinoma.


Today there is a never ending demand for new functionality to be included in embedded systems such as mobile phones. This leads to increased design complexity. To overcome the increased system complexity new design methodologies, such as model driven architecture, have been introduced. New languages, i.e. SystemC, for system level modelling and simulation have also emerged. Combining new methodologies and new languages is a promising approach to manage the increasing system complexity. This is the focus of the MARTES (Model-Based Approach for Real-Time Embedded Systems development) project1. In the project we investigate how UML and SystemC can be used together when the ideas of Model Driven Architecture are applied. One of the tasks of the project is to investigate how transformations from UML to SystemC can be automated and supported by tools. During this research a prototype tool, which manage the UML to SystemC transformations and code generation, is under development as an ad-in to the Telelogic-TAU UML2 modelling tool2. This part of the MARTES project is done in close cooperation between Lund University and Telelogic. In this project there is a number of decisions that needs to be taken related to the detailed requirements on the developed tool, not at least because the available resources in the project are limited. This means it is crucial the right decisions concerning what functionality to include in the tool are taken. This is achieved by developing the tool iteratively within the MARTES project. This means that different versions are developed after each other, and every version is evaluated in order to decide what additional functionality to include in the next version. That is, evaluations are a very important part of the development of the tool. The evaluations are being carried out together with other partners in the


Many scholars have studied migrant gay men, but few have examined the changing salience (i.e., a subjective importance a person attributes to a particular identity) of sexual identity across cultural contexts. Drawing on 45 in-depth interviews, this study investigates the experiences of two groups of Polish migrant gay men—one that migrated from various parts of Poland to Warsaw, and one that emigrated from Poland to Chicago—to examine the differences in their respective sexual identity salience. I find that the interaction of the cultural climate, structural factors, and respondents' individual status characteristics can better account for between- and in-group differences among the Chicago and Warsaw men. Respondent's occupation, educational attainment, work environment, race, same-sex experiences before migration, the timing of migration, and English langue fluency variably affected how and when sexual identity mattered to these men.


Current assays for anti-Streptolysin O (ASO) and anti-DNAse B are accurate and precise. The Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPA) serology quality assurance program documents interlaboratory coefficient of variation (CV) of 5–10% and good interchangeability of results between methods over the diagnostically informative range. The difficulty is in interpreting the results. At the age of 5, 80% of New Zealand children have detectable ASO and 55% have anti-DNAse B;most of the remainder seroconvert by the age of 10. Population antibody levels decline a little by the age of 15 but most remain seropositive. Sera referred for diagnostic testing at Waikato Hospital, NZ, show lifelong seropositivity, with 93% having detectable ASO and 68% detectable anti-DNAse B beyond the age of 40. The distribution of seropositive antibody levels is unimodal;there is no distinct population with higher levels pathognomonic of recent infection. Published data on temporal decline in levels after acute infection is sparse. Serology cannot be relied upon to diagnose recent infection. Paired sera may demonstrate a recent immunological response, so efforts should be made to obtain a second sample. Interpretive comments on laboratory reports should convey the modest contribution to specificity that serology can offer in the diagnosis of rheumatic fever and post streptococcal glomeruonephritis.


Aim: Although chronic inflammatory rheumatic diseases (CIRDs) primarily affect the joints due to arthritis; involvement of other systems and organs is not rare. Ultrasound evaluations are particularly useful in the detection of pathologies observed in the gastrointestinal tract. The aim of this study was to investigate and compare the results of abdominal ultrasonography in gastrointestinal system of some common chronic inflammatory rheumatic diseases. Material and Methods: 96 patients with rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and psoriatic arthritis were included in the study. The data of patients were retrospectively reviewed from patient files and hospital database. Patients with abdominal ultrasound performed for the check-up indication in the last 6 months and updated laboratory tests in the last 1 month were included in the study. The patients were divided into three groups according to the diagnosis and the results were compared. Results: No gastrointestinal system involvement was observed in the patients except liver and gallbladder pathologies. The most frequent liver pathologies were hepatosteatosis (49.0%) and hepatomegaly (41.7%), respectively. The rate of patients with cholecystectomy was 8.3% and 6.3% of the patients had gallstones. When the results were compared between the groups, it was seen that only the incidence of gallstones was significantly higher in the psoriatic arthritis group than in other groups. Conclusion: In the course of chronic inflammatory rheumatic diseases, many organ and system involvement may be observed. Abdominal ultrasound imaging, especially in patients with additional risk factors, may be useful for early detection of many intraabdominal organ pathologies, especially the gastrointestinal tract.


In the present contribution, the attenuation function S(t) for an ensemble of spins in a magnetic-field gradient is calculated through an accumulation of the phase shifts in the rotating frame resulting from the changes of the particle displacements. The found S(t) is applicable for any kind of the stochastic motion of spins, including their non-Markovian dynamics with memory. Depending on the considered system, both the classical expressions valid for normal diffusion at long times and new formulae for the short-time Brownian motion can be obtained. Our method is also applicable to the NMR pulse sequences based on the refocusing principle. This is demonstrated by describing the spin echo experiment developed by Hahn.


Those disclosed is controlled by a power company management unit or a third party management unit, a system and method for energy storage and power input on site. This system, the power company management unit, while allowing you to determine and manage how much of the energy is sent by the power company management unit and the customer both of power recorded, or energy, when, and how much necessary for the management and control. In the disclosed embodiment, power companies, while controlling the power supply (while transmission and power storage either), determines a power on the system that acts as a virtual power plant, the end user, the power on-site to maintain control of consumption evaluation. The disclosed system generates an interface between the power company and the end user, by managing and controlling, which acts as an intermediary needs of these two. .FIELD 1


Youth offending is an issue of concern internationally. In New Zealand, the approach to the problem has ranged over time from incarceration, placement in industrial and reform schools to community supervision. Multi-systemic therapy is now becoming the approach of choice for many programmes working with conduct-disordered or delinquent youth in New Zealand and family involvement is seen as a key factor to success. The Mount Roskill Police Community Approach Programme is one such initiative that was set up in 1994, in response to a serious level of youth offending and junior gang affiliation in a state housing area in Auckland. The findings of evaluations of the programme are discussed.


We consider a single-species structured population with distributed maturity and spatial diffusion in a cylindrical domain subject to Neumann and Robin boundary conditions. We first establish the threshold property of the reaction–diffusion system with distributed delay and non-local interaction in a corresponding lower-dimensional domain, so that the system approaches either an extinction state or a stable spatially varying pattern. We then investigate the transition from the extinction state to the stable pattern of the system in the cylindrical domain.


DESPITE OFFICIAL DENIAL, the Manifesto of 1890 did not bring an end to LDS church-approved plural marriages. It did, however, inaugurate an era of confusion, ambiguity, and equivocation in the Mormon community. After two generations of bitter struggle and the creation of thousands of plural families, one could hardly expect polygamy to simply disappear. The years 1890-1911 were a period of ambiguity. When the federal government granted Utah statehood in 1896, federal laws regulating families gave way to state laws, and such legislation as the Morrill Act (1862), the Poland Act (1874), the Edmunds Act (1882), and the Edmunds-Tucker Act (1887) no longer applied. Although plural marriage was prohibited by both state constitutional and statutory law as a condition for statehood, official enforcement was relaxed. As a result,


The main structural features of the externa! and interna! Prebetic domains allow its
subdividion into three great areas that exhibit an increasing diapiric activity from NNW to
SSE. The amount of diapiric structurations points to a minimum final tectonic shortening
and enable us to interpret the relationships between basement and its sedimentary cover
over an extense area of the Betic chain.


The purpose of this research is to determine the distribution of resistivity and slip-surface at the DAS Brantas, Sukun District, Malang City. The research located at steep cliffs with the approximate tilt angle 70 0 to 90 0 . It was used geoelectric resistivity method under Wenner configuration. The data processing showed sandy clay (23,4 Ωm) and impermeable clay (30,9– 57,3 Ωm). These ware expected as the slip surface wherein rainfall infiltration reaching impermeable having in contact with the clay layer. The flowing water over the loam clay may turn the clay layer destruction into slip surface. Based on this fact, it can be concluded that this area especially in the second and third track has a high potential for the occurrence of landslides.


A method for calculationof the natural vibrations of an elastic aeroplanetaking into account all the rigid body degrees of freedom and additionaldegrees of freedom, due to e.g. free controls, is presented. Contrary to commonly used methods the proposed procedure leads to an eigenvalue problem of a positive definite symmetric matrix of degree equal to the total number of coordinatesused for the descriptionof the vibrationmodes minus the number of rigid degrees of freedom. The basic data for calculationsconsist of matrices describing the rigid degrees of freedom as well as of the mass and flexibilityinfluence coefficientsmatrices.For the reduction of matrices and calculations,only numericallystable methods were used.


Analog data acquisition systems used for diagnostics and control of large physics experiments require high sampling rates and real-time processing functionalities. The use of field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based devices allows efficient implementation of such solutions. Currently, large scientific facilities are using middleware platforms to simplify system integration. Experimental physics and industrial control system (EPICS) is one of the most popular middleware for this purpose. Moreover, heterogeneous hardware integration in these systems is a very complex task, and different approaches attempting to standardize this integration are under development and use. One of these approaches is areaDetector (AD), which involves an open source module for EPICS that is primarily used for image acquisition applications. AD simplifies the integration of heterogeneous image acquisition systems, providing a common interface between the hardware and EPICS. The AD community has already developed support for different cameras and communication protocols as well as different processing modules, including conversion to the most commonly used image formats. AD has also been used in some analog signal acquisition systems; for example, quadEM is typically used for a photodiode-based X-ray beam, but there are no implementations based on FPGA, such as FlexRIO technology. This paper presents the integration of acquisition and processing solution in a PXIe platform using the FlexRIO technology using a model that solves the acquisition and signal processing in an FPGA and a software layer implemented in C++ with the IRIO library (open source solution for RIO devices in the Linux environment).


Hornification is the loss of fiber wall swelling which is detrimental to subsequent recycling resulting from drying. It is known that dried fibers lose their conformability and swelling capacity. The effect of recycling treatment on the swelling ability of hardwood bleached kraft pulp fibers was determined. Modelling paper recycling, sheets were recycled using heat treatment (23°C, 60°C, 100°C). The results were compared with those for natural fibers from bleached kraft pulp. Swelling kinetics of sheets was measured by a modified method monitoring interactions of pulp with water. Swelling ability decreased during the recycling in comparison with never-recycled pulp at all temperatures. Recycling of sheets caused only small changes in the cupri-ethylene-diamine viscosity, however, the water retention value decreased considerably.


The invention is called a method of transmitting a plurality of digital data packets (20, 20a-c) from a transmitter (12) to a in a mobile device (2) arranged receiver (8), wherein in each case a plurality (of data packets 20, 20a- c) is combined into a block (26a-c), wherein the plurality of data packets (20, 20a-c) are sent by the transmitter (12) such that (the time intervals for a plurality (at successive blocks 26a-c) 32 , 32a-c) (between the individual data packages 20, 20a-c) of the respective block (26a-c) vary over the blocks (26a-c) of time, and / or (for a plurality of consecutive blocks 26a-c) time duration (38a-c) of the blocks (26a-c) varies and / or for a number of blocks (26a-c), the time intervals (32, 32a-c) between the individual data packets (20, 20a-c) in block (26a-c) vary, and wherein the receive blocks (26a-c) on data packets (26) from the receiver (8) and decoder become T. The invention further called a transmitter (12) which is adapted to receive a plurality of digital data packets (20, 20a-c) by such a method to a mobile device (2) to be transmitted, and a mobile device (2) comprising a receiver to receive (8) which is adapted to receive a plurality of digital data packets (20, 20a-c), which are transmitted by such a method and to decode.


In this paper a new method for blind source separation of electroencephalographic (EEG) signals is proposed. In contrast to most blind source separation algorithms, our method does not employ higher order statistics. It is shown that in case of EEG signals matched filters can successfully be applied to achieve an excellent signal separation. The proposed algorithm is verified on simulated as well as on real EEG data. Due to the strong prior on the sources introduced by the matched filters, at first glance the application of our algorithm appears to be restricted to EEG data. However, by using different matched filters our method is extendible to any kind of non-white signal. Since the computations are based on second order statistics and the matched filters can be arranged in a parallel structure our algorithm is extremely fast and therefore suitable for on-line applications.


In a growing number of complex heterogeneous embedded systems, the relevance of software components is rapidly increasing. Issues such as development time, flexibility, and reusability are, in fact, better addressed by software-based solutions. Due to the processing regularity of multimedia and DSP applications, statically scheduled devices such as VLIW processors are viable options over dynamically scheduled processors such as state-of-the-art superscalar GPPs. The programs that run on a particular architecture will significantly affect the energy usage of a processor. The manner in which a program exercises certain parts of a processor will vary the contributions of individual structures to the total energy consumption of the processor. Minimizing power dissipation may be handled by hardware or software optimizations; in hardware through circuit design, and in software through compile-time analysis and code reshaping. While hardware optimization techniques have been the foci of several studies and are fairly mature, software approaches to optimizing power are relatively new. contents


The aim of the study was to assess the cosmeceutical activity of Pyrus ussuriensis leaves and it is possible that can be used as a cosmetic ingredient for application of cosmetic industries. P. ussurensis leaf was extracted with various solvents including water, 70% ethanol and 60% acetone. In the result of DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picryl-hydrazyl) scavenging radical activity, water, ethanol and acetone extract of P. ussuriensis leaf were higher than 70%, 80% and 85% at 50 ppm concentration, respectively. Xanthine oxidase inhibition activity and superoxide dismutase (SOD)-like activity by P. ussuriensis extract were higher than 30%. In addition, SODlike activity of all extracts showed tendency of the significant increase with the increase of concentration. In the anti-inflammatory test, P. ussuriensis leaf extract inhibited generation of nitric oxide (NO) stimulated by LPS in the macrophage cell line (raw 264.7) after 12 to 24 hours. As above results, P. ussuriensis has a great potential as a cosmeceutical raw material as well as anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory ability.


The embodiment of the invention provides a method and device for realizing video communication, belonging to the technical field of communication. The method comprises the following steps of: after a local user and a remote user establish connection, acquiring head position information of the remote user; determining a loudspeaker playing method corresponding to the remote user according to the head position information of the remote user; and when the remote user speaks, reproducing according to the loudspeaker playing method corresponding to the speaker user. According to the method and thedevice, a direction in which the local user hears the voice of the remote user is basically kept consistent with a direction in which the local user sees an image of the remote user, and the sound-surround ambiance of users is improved.


The article is devoted to the research of forming constitutional legislation of Republic of Kyrgyzstan, that originates from the moment of acceptance of the first constitutional acts as a Autonomous Republic in the composition of Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic. The author of the article researches law and political specifications of the Constitution of the Kyrgyz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, that has been accepted in 1929 by the all-Kyrgyz congress of Soviets. One of the features of that Constitution was a determination of the status of Kyrgyzstan as a part of Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic. The author comes to the conclusion that as a fact Soviet Kyrgyzstan as a part of Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic in spite of having a constitution and the higher authority and other state elements as a territory, nationality, language, symbols most likely represented not an autonomous state, but the administrative unit with some state elements, forming a part of Russian State. In the article the author concludes that in spite of the fact, that the Kyrgyz Constitution of 1929 wasnt adopted by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and All-Russian congress of Soviets as it was determined, that Constitution was valid and formed the national statement of Kyrgyzstan in such a period of time.


Planned Parenthood of Detroit has done 2 studies for 2 years on periodic injections of steroid contraceptives. 71 patients (16-40 years) received monthly injections (9.1 cycles the mean) of 150 mgm of dihydroprogesterone acetophenide with 10 mgm estradiol enanthate. The second test involved 100 women (18-44 years) taking 150 mgm of medroxyprogesterone acetate at 90-day intervals. In the combination study 37 women quit due to prolonged excessive bleeding. Dysmenorrhea was reported in 5 cases. In the progestagen study withdrawal bleeding was the main side effect in 18%. 17% left the study because of irregular bleeding while 4 of 31 experiencing amenorrhea quit. If bleeding complications can be reduced long term injection methods can be ideal.


One-pot synthesis of the dendritic polyamides from the 1st to the 4th generations with a very narrow molecular weight distribution was performed by condensation of 1,1,1-tris(4-carboxymethyloxyphenyl)ethane as a core molecule with aminodicarboxylic acid using the condensing agent, diphenyl(2,3-dihydro-2-thioxo-3-benzoxazolyl)phosphonate (DBOP) in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidinone (NMP). Activation and condensation reactions were each completed in 30 min. All dendritic polyamides were obtained quantitatively and fully characterized by IR and NMR spectroscopy. Number average molecular weights (Mn) of dendritic polyamides were estimated by end group analysis and each dendritic polyamide had Mn close to the calculated value. Molecular weight distribution was 1.07—1.09 as measured by GPC using THF as eluent. The degree of branching for the third generation dendritic polyamide was 0.91.


In single chip V.32 modems (full duplex) there are two clocks that must be synchronized: the near-end and the far-end clock. However, a single chip implementation has only a single clock. In the present design the transmit data is generated and echoes cancelled synchronously using the near-end clock. Far-end data is generated from the far-end clock and thus for successful demodulation the far-end samples must be interpolated to the correct timing epochs for near-end detection and as such are asynchronous with the near-end (chip) clock. The authors employ an all-pass interpolation, low pass filter in this role and their research represents the first application of adaptive, asynchronous timing recovery to a receiver containing an adaptive equalizer. Such filters have previously (Park, 1991) been used in sample rate conversion in audio signal processing applications. The present data detection algorithms use a passband, phase-splitting, fractionally spaced equalizer (PS-FSE) with adaptive carrier recovery (Funderburk and McLean, 1992). The algorithm for timing error measurement uses a well known method based on the equalizer tap-gains to develop an error signal for adaptive, asynchronous timing recovery and sample-rate conversion. However, its application to a PS-FSE is new. Also, the present algorithm involves polyphase interpolation filters and the required rate conversion if the near-end clock is relatively faster or slower than the far-end clock. Performance is demonstrated using computer simulation and a real-time, DSP based experiment that uses a telephone network simulator.<<ETX>>


Abstract: Preliminary evidence suggests adenosine, a neuromodulator, has neuroprotective properties during cerebral ischemia. It is unclear, however, if adenosine has glioprotective effects. We studied the effect of adenosine on cellular injury in astroglial cultures subjected to combined glucose‐oxygen deprivation. Adenosine (100–1,000 µM) dramatically reduced astroglial injury, whereas the adenosine agonists 2‐chloroadenosine (10 nM–100 µM), N6‐cyclopentyladenosine (1 nM–10 µM), 5′‐N‐ethylcarboxamidoadenosine (10 nM–100 µM), and N6‐2‐(4‐aminophenyl)ethyladenosine (10 nM–100 µM) had no effect. Furthermore, the adenosine antagonists 8‐cyclopentyl‐1,3‐dipropylxanthine (1 nM–1 µM), xanthine amine congener (10 nM–10 µM), and 8‐(p‐sulfophenyl)‐theophylline (10–300 µM) failed to reverse the protective effect of 200 µM adenosine. Next, adenosine degradation products were studied. Inosine proved to be glioprotective at concentrations nearly identical to those of adenosine, but hypoxanthine and ribose had no effect. The protective effect of 200 µM inosine was not reversed by 8‐(p‐sulfophenyl)theophylline (10–300 µM). Adenosine deaminase (1 unit/ml) had no effect on protection produced by adenosine, whereas erythro‐9‐(2‐hydroxy‐3‐nonyl)adenine hydrochloride (10 µM) reversed the protective effect of adenosine. Dipyridamole (4 µM) inhibited the protective effect of both adenosine and inosine. We conclude that adenosine dramatically decreases astroglial injury during combined glucose‐oxygen deprivation and that this protective effect appears to be mediated by inosine.


Feature selection is to reduce both the dimensionality of data and the classification error rate (i.e., increase the classification accuracy) of a learning algorithm. The two objectives are often conflicting, thus a multiobjective feature selection method can obtain a set of nondominated feature subsets. Each solution in the set has a different size and a corresponding classification error rate. However, most existing feature selection algorithms have ignored that, for a given size, there can be different feature subsets with very similar or the same accuracy. This article introduces a niching-based multiobjective feature selection method that simultaneously minimizes the number of selected features and the classification error rate. The proposed method conceives to identify: 1) a set of feature subsets with good convergence and distribution and 2) multiple feature subsets choosing the same number of features with almost the same lowest classification error rate. The contributions of this article are threefold. First, a niching and global interaction mutation operator is proposed that can produce promising feature subsets. Second, a newly developed environmental selection mechanism allows equal informative feature subsets to be stored by relaxing the Pareto-dominance relationship. Finally, the proposed subset repairing mechanism can generate better feature subsets and further remove the redundant features. The proposed method is compared against seven multiobjective feature selection algorithms on 19 datasets, including both binary and multiclass classification tasks. The results show that the proposed method can evolve a rich and diverse set of nondominated solutions for different feature selection tasks, and their availability helps in understanding the relationships between features.


The FHH rat is a genetic model of hypertension that develops proteinuria, glomerulosclerosis, and chronic kidney disease. However, the genetic causes are unknown. We have previously identified an inactivating mutation of
 Add3
 in FHH rats in association with reduced
 ADD3
 expression and impaired myogenic reactivity of the renal arterioles. The vascular impairment and renal dysfunction were restored with knock-in of wild type (WT)
 Add3
 in FHH rats. The present study examined whether knockout (KO) of
 Add3
 in normal WT rats impairs the myogenic response of renal afferent arteriole (Af-art), interlobular arteriole (IA), arcuate arteriole (AA), renal blood flow (RBF) autoregulation, and if the reduction of expression of ADD3 promotes hypertension-induced renal dysfunction. Blood pressure was similar in 24-week old
 Add3
 KO vs. WT rats, and after induction of 3 weeks of DOCA-salt-hypertension in these strains. Proteinuria was significantly higher in both normotensive and hypertensive
 Add3
 KO compared with WT rats. KO of
 Add3
 abolished the myogenic response of Af-art compared with WT rats. Similarly, the diameters of IA and AA increased 46 % (from 55.28 ± 2.95 um to 80.39 ± 0.41 um) and 25 % (from 92.57 ± 9.51 um to 115.49 ± 11.68 um) respectively in
 Add3
 KO rats (n=4), while they remained unchanged in WT (n=5). Moreover, KO of
 Add3
 abolished the RBF autoregulation compared with WT rats. These results indicate that KO of
 Add3
 plays an important role to reduce the myogenic reactivity of renal arterioles and RBF autoregulation, and enhances renal damage after the onset of hypertension.


Challenged by the current deficiencies of in-service training, this study focused on a training programme aimed at enabling lasting transformations in teachers' professional lives by strengthening their professional agency. The understanding of professional agency was based on a subject-centred sociocultural approach addressing both the sociocultural conditions and professional backgrounds of teachers. The study investigated primary school teachers' professional agency regarding their identity and work during one-year in-service education and the resources that supported the emergence of their agency. The results suggest that the acquisition of methods and models under which teachers can create pedagogical understanding does not guarantee a transfer to classroom practices. This depends greatly on the teacher's professional agency and identity renegotiation, especially in situations where the school environment does not support this work. As a practical implication, this study highlights the need for continuous, practice-based scaffolding that supports teachers' professional agency and identity renegotiation.


OBJECTIVE
To study a Chinese pedigree with Hailey-Hailey disease (HHD) and examine the ATP2C1 gene mutation in this family.

METHOD
All exons of ATP2C1 gene were analyzed with polymerase chain reaction and DNA sequencing in all patients of this family and 100 unrelated population-match controls.

RESULTS
We identified a novel heterozygous nucleotide A --> G transition at position 235 - 2 in intron 3 of ATP2C1 gene. This splice site mutation was not found in the healthy members of this pedigree and in the controls.

CONCLUSION
The splicing mutation can affect the result of transcription and translation, and it is a specific novel mutation of ATP2C1 gene.


In recent years, with sustainable development strategies, the conflict between economic development and natural resources has become increasingly severe. Meanwhile, green finance's emergence is due to the rethinking of human economic activities under global warming conditions and the energy crisis. Thus, this study aims to analyze the relationship between green finance and enterprise green performance using a meta-analytic approach. This study has used Comprehensive Meta-Analysis Software (CMA) 2.0 for meta-analysis and applied the Hunter and Schmidt model for statistical analysis to test the proposed hypotheses. This study finds a significant positive correlation between green finance and enterprise green performance and proves that firm type and region play a moderating role in the relationship between green finance and enterprise green performance. However, profitability does not significantly moderate the relationship between green finance and enterprise green performance.


In the article the contents of proinflammatory cytokines the factor necrosis tumours and interleukin 10 in patients with alcoholic liver disease, and also their dynamics duringt treatment with Phosphogliv (the preparation contains glycyrrhizin and essential phospholipids) or placebo are evaluated. Results of research have demonstrat ed decrease in activity of a hepatic inflammation and good shipping of Phosphogliv in patients with alcoholic liver disease. Use of Phosphogliv along with abstinence increases efficiency of treatment of alcoholic liver disease fur ther inquiry of a preparation in patients with various clinical variants of alcoholic liver disease thus is necessary.


Abstract : This thesis presents a new technique for loop pipelining of perfectly-nested for-loop structures which is designed to optimize loop execution on VLIW machines. Previously implemented loop pipeline techniques provide limited performance benefit because they explicitly include the constraints imposed by a loop's cyclic dependences i loop pipelining process. Some loop pipelining techniques have also ignored the realistic constraint of finite resource availability in the creation of final pipelined execution schedules. The new approach presented in this thesis eliminates the problem of cyclic dependences by first applying a linear transformation to the nested loop index space to ensure a cycle-free innermost loop, which is then pipelined using modulo scheduling for a known set of resources. The transformation guarantees that the target machine's available resources are the only limit to the amount of exploitable fine-grained parallelism within the innermost loop. This results in pipelined execution schedules having near-optimal Inter-Iteration Initiation Intervals (IIII) with the achievable performance being scalable with the addition of resources. Consequently, our loop pipelining method utilizes more fine-grained parallelism than other loop pipelining techniques which directly incorporate a loop's cyclic dependences in their pipelining process. We also explicitly provide a procedure for creating the resultant pipelined execution schedules.


Reply: This is a very intriguing question and reflects the reviewer's expertise in the gravity wave studies. Now, coming to the figure 1, what we observe is a downdraft initiated at 17 km and progressing in to the upper troposphere. This downdraft does two things (1) brings ozone rich lower stratospheric air in to the upper troposphere and (2) act as a seeding perturbation to the gravity waves. As a parcel of air descends, it is known that it warms up due to adiabatic compression and once it is warmer than the surrounding, it starts rising. This couplet of down and updraft is responsible for gravity wave generation. This couplet can be seen in the height region of 13-17 km height region with varying magnitude. The first question we put ourselves is how to know the existence of gravity waves as dynamical response of downdraft also can produce the similar kind of vertical velocity structure. This question led us to estimate the phase profile of the dominant gravity wave period using Fourier analysis, which is shown in figure 4(b). This phase profile clearly shows an upward propagating wave from 13-15 km height region. Based on this phase profile we confirmed the propagation of gravity wave. As correctly pointed out by the referee, it exhibits the small scale gravity wave characteristics. We completely agree with the referee that there should be a sustained flux at least for some time to explain the observed intrusion. What we envisage is, as the whole system is moving with the background wind including updraft and downdrafts, the source region also may have drifted with background wind. As the beam width of Indian MST radar is 3 degrees, there is every chance that it is out of Radar probing volume within a short time. However, the presence of gravity wave during the observational period is established by wavelet spectrum of vertical velocity and its vertical propagation is confirmed by the phase profile.


Positioning essential elements of photodynamic therapy (PDT) to mitochondria can conquer the rigorously spatiotemporal limitation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) transfer and make considerable differences in PDT. However, precise accumulation of  photosensitizer (PS) and oxygen within mitochondria is still challenging. Here, Hexyl 5-aminolevulinate hydrochloride (HAL) and 3-bromopyruvic acid (3BP) are simultaneously encapsulated into microparticles collected from X-ray irradiated tumor cells (X-MP). After systemic administration, the developed HAL/3BP@X-MP can specifically target and recognize tumor cells, where HAL induces the efficient accumulation of PpIX in mitochondria via the intrinsic haem biosynthetic pathway; meanwhile, 3BP remarkably increases the oxygen supply by inhibiting mitochondrial respiration. The accurate co-localization and prompt encounter of PpIX and oxygen produce sufficient ROS to directly disrupt mitochondria, resulting in significantly improved PDT outcomes.


A novel self-oscillating polymer displaying a high lower critical solution temperature (LCST) was developed. The novel polymer chain underwent soluble-insoluble self-oscillation induced by a Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction. The driving force of the self-oscillation was the differing solubility of the polymer chain in the reduced and oxidized states. The amplitude of self-oscillation was hardly affected by the concentration of the oxidant, sodium bromate. In addition, the period of the polymer solution could be controlled by careful selection of the concentration of the sodium bromate.


Economic management during the 1970s, Dilwyn Porter Britain and the world economy, Christopher Allsopp economic growth, Nicholas Crafts the rise of inflation, Max Schulze and Nicholas Woodward the retreat from full employment, Max Schulze and Nicholas Woodward industrial policy and supply-side management, Jim Tomlinson Britain and the EEC, Catherine Schenck the defence economy, Keith Hartley industrial organization, Terry Gourvish industry and de-industrialization, Geoffrey Tweedale the financial sector, Richard Coopey industrial relations and the labour market, Chris Wrigley economists and the development of economic policy, Noel Thompson.


In this survey paper, a literature study on analytical delay models for a CMOS inverter and transmission gate has been done. Inverter followed by Transmission gate structure appears in many CMOS circuit design. Initially, the delay calculation of this entity is done considering them individually, which is not good. In this case, it does not account for the series stack effect that appears while driving a load through Inverter-Transmission Gate structures. But later on, advancements in this field of research resulted in considering the above said Inverter-Transmission Gate structure as a single entity in calculating the delay parameters or designing the delay model. This paper presents a review on the developments that occurred in designing an analytical delay model from considering the structure individually to treating it as a single entity. The recently proposed model considers the series stack effect along with the internal node voltage and parasitic capacitance, it also proposes a methodology to incorporate the effect of process-voltage-temperature variations and compared against SPICE simulation using 32nm Predictive Technology Modelling (PTM).


Significance A feature of natural photosynthetic systems is their ability to operate with the low photon flux of sunlight, where the absorption of light and transport of photochemical potential to the catalytic centers is efficiency-limiting. Natural systems overcome this limitation through a process called energy transfer, where quanta of energy are gathered by many weakly coupled light-absorbing centers that pass the energy among themselves to funnel it to a single catalytic reaction center. Prior to this report, this type of energy migration-based approach to light-powered chemistry has not been employed in artificial photocatalytic systems. This work demonstrates the viability of energy-transfer–based sensitization in colloidal photocatalytic assemblies and provides a framework for its incorporation into scalable solar energy conversion systems. Excitonic energy transfer (EnT) is the mechanism by which natural photosynthetic systems funnel energy from hundreds of antenna pigments to a single reaction center, which allows multielectron redox reactions to proceed with high efficiencies in low-flux natural light. This paper describes the use of electrostatically assembled CdSe quantum dot (QD) aggregates as artificial light harvesting–reaction center units for the photocatalytic reduction of H+ to H2, where excitons are funneled through EnT from sensitizer QDs (sQDs) to catalyst QDs (cQDs). Upon increasing the sensitizer-to-catalyst ratio in the aggregates from 1:2 to 20:1, the number of excitons delivered to each cQD (via EnT) per excitation of the system increases by a factor of nine. At the optimized sensitizer-to-catalyst ratio of 4:1, the internal quantum efficiency (IQE) of the reaction system is 4.0 ± 0.3%, a factor of 13 greater than the IQE of a sample that is identical except that EnT is suppressed due to the relative core sizes of the sQDs and cQDs. A kinetic model supports the proposed exciton funneling mechanism for enhancement of the catalytic activity.


Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a new sort of blockchain-based token that is unique and indivisible. They were first announced in late 2017. NFTs are a type of blockchain-based virtual asset that has sparked a lot of investor interest in a very short amount of time. Since early 2021, the phenomena and its marketplaces have risen dramatically. The blockchain revolution is rolling forth a slew of changes that the art world may take advantage of. The purpose of this paper is to provide extensive information on the NFT, including its application, method of operation, buying, creating, and selling procedures, as well as its use. The NFT when paired with Metaverse, represents a significant advancement and revolution in the realm of virtual reality and blockchain, giving artists a new avenue to express their unique and valuable work. This study fills in the conceptual and practical knowledge gaps by demonstrating the usefulness of NFTs in the realms of substantial development and revolution in new private and public blockchain application.


In the past few decades, advances in digital design tools have made it possible to create complex 3D shapes on a computer. However, physical realisation of these shapes remains a challenging task. Recently, the emergence of affordable fabrication tools such as 3Dprinters and laser cutters allows us to turn a digital design into a physical object. But effective use of these tools requires the design shape to satisfy certain requirements related to the fabrication technologies, Date Speaker Seminar which are not considered by traditional 3D design tools. We argue that these fabrication requirements can be incorporated into the design process as geometric constraints, such that the resulting designs can be realised using designated technologies and materials. Wewill present a few fabrication-aware design tools for different applications, and show how geometry knowledge can help to solve challenging design problems.


Biostratigraphy of Neoproterozoic strata based on invertebrate species from South America Adorno, R. R1,2; Do Carmo, D.A.1; Walde, Detlef, H.G.1; Denezine, M. L.C.1; Boggiani, P.C. 3; Sousa e Silva, S.C.1; Vasconcelos, J.R. 1; Tobias, T.C.1; Guimarães, E. M.1; Vieira L. C.1, Figueiredo, M. L.CF. F.4; Moraes, R.1; Caminha, S.A5. Suarez, P.A.Z.6; Pinho, D. 6 and Rodriguez, C.G.V. 1. University of Brasília -UnB. Institute of Geosciences 2. CPRM/SGB – Brazilian Geological Survey. 3. University of São Paulo. Institute of Geosciences. 4. PETROBRAS-CENPES-PDGEO/BPA – Research Center 5. Federal University of Mato Grosso State. Department of Geology 6. University of Brasília. Institute of Chemistry. ___________________________________________________________________________ It is proposed for discussion three biostratigraphic unities for Neoproterozoic strata in South America: Cloudina lucianoi/Corumbella werneri Interval Zone, Corumbella werneri Range Zone and Corumbella werneri/Cloudina lucianoi Interval Zone. These two species occur in the upper portion of Tamengo Formation, where ash beds levels with zircons dated as 543±3Ma. This absolute dating suggest that Cloudina lucianoi and Corumbella werneri in Tamengo Formation have, at least, 543±3Ma. As well as, in the Ediacaran of Paraguay, occurrences of Cloudina lucianoi and Corumbella werneri are recorded in Itapucumi Group, Tagatiya Guazú Formation (Warren et al., 2011; 2013).