It is frequently supposed that the ethnic composition of a neighbourhood affects ethnic minorities' social contacts with natives, co-ethnics and other ethnic minorities. Research to date, however, falls short in several ways. First of all, previous studies often did not consider social contacts with co-ethnics and other ethnic minorities. Second, although different mechanisms (i.e. meeting opportunities, ethnic competition theory, 'third parties' and constrict theory) point to different dimensions of the ethnic composition of the neighbourhood (the percentage of ethnic minorities, the percentage of co-ethnics, and ethnic diversity), there is a lack of research that systematically studies these different dimensions of the ethnic composition of the neighbourhood in relation to ethnic minorities' social contacts. Third, other relevant neighbourhood characteristics (economic disadvantage and residential mobility) are often neglected. The present study sought to address these three unresolved issues. Results of multivariate multilevel analyses of survey data on ethnic minorities in the Netherlands (N ¼ 4,216) show that both the percentage of ethnic minorities and the degree of ethnic diversity relate to less contact with natives, but more contact with co-ethnics and other ethnic minorities. The percentage of co-ethnics is only related to more contact with co-ethnics. Results and policy implications are discussed.


FIELD: chemistry. SUBSTANCE: present invention relates to sorption purification of aqueous media from organic compounds. Endocrine system-violating substances are removed by adding to the aqueous medium natural calcium carbonate with an activated surface or aqueous suspension thereof. The calcium carbonate with an activated surface used has pH measured at 20°C higher than 6.0. The calcium carbonate with an activated surface is a product of reaction of natural calcium carbonate with carbon dioxide and one or more acids, where the carbon dioxide is formed in situ or comes from an external source. EFFECT: invention enables use of a cheap natural adsorbent or combination thereof with activated carbon to remove endocrine system-violating substances from water. 23 cl, 5 dwg


The international and ecumenical academy of liturgical scholars, Societas Liturgica, meets every two years. Originally European, it has now become a global organization. In 1983 Anglicans attending the congress of Societas in Vienna met together as a caucus. Their conversations led to a resolve to meet more regularly, at subsequent similar occasions. 1. Children and Communion Two years later some of the Anglican members of the congress of Societas in Boston met to consider the issue of children and communion, noting that the 1968 Lambeth Conference had asked the Provinces of the Communion to examine the theology of initiation and admission to communion. The Consultation reviewed existing practice, which varied widely in the Communion—from provision in North American liturgical texts for communion of the newly baptized at the time of their initiation to apparent disinterest in the subject in some Provinces, with a variety of provisional, experimental, and study schemes in between. The Consultation noted that there was not yet a common theology of initiation throughout the Communion, especially in relation to the practice of confirmation. The Consultation also recognized that cultural considerations are an issue in this field. However, members asked if these issues had encouraged Anglicans to treat baptized children as if they were only catechumens, and whether cultural factors could continue to be used to exclude children from the eucharist. The Consultation developed a brief but clear ecclesiological basis for exploration of the question of children and communion, noting that, "The church is the whole body of the faithful. It is created through baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is the sign of faith and of participation in God's act of redemption."[1] Members argued that the baptism of infants is baptism into the church's eucharistic life, suggesting that, "it is paradoxical to admit children to membership in the body of Christ through baptism, and yet to deny that membership in the eucharistic meal that follows."[2] Grasping the nettle of inherited understandings of confirmation, the Consultation noted that although the outline of Western medieval confirmation practice was retained at the time of the Anglican Reformation, emphasis was shifted from the administration of the outward rite to the catechizing which preceded it. This, coupled with the appearance of a stricter discipline in the 19th century, and a theology which affirmed confirmation as essential to the completion of baptism, created in practice a barrier to the …


The reaction of bisphenol A (BPA) with ethylene carbonate (EC) promoted by Bu2SnO at 180℃ produces di-hydroxyethyl-bisphenol A (Ⅰ) along with the liberation of CO2. The influence of temperature on the reaction of EC and BPA is investigated by FTIR. The diol Ⅰ reacted with dimethyl carbonate ( DMC) at 120℃ to generate bisphenol A carbonate (Ⅱ) in yield of 96% . Their structures were characterized by FTIR and NMR. A novel nonphosgene process for producing bisphenol-A polycarbonate (PC) was developed through the self transesterification of Ⅱ and co-transesterification of Ⅰ and Ⅱ. The self transesterification of Ⅱ is much faster than co-transesterification of Ⅰ and Ⅱ. The reaction temperature strongly affects the molecular weight of polycarbonate. NMR,gel permeation chromatography ( GPC ),differential scanning calorimetry (DSC ) and thermo-gravimetric analysis ( TGA ) were used to measure the molecular structure and thermodynamic properties. The average number molecular weight of PC obtained from the self-polymerization of Ⅱ for 6 h at 240℃ is up to 17.6 ×103.The Tg of PC (Mn = 12.4 ×103) is about 60℃,which is much lower than that of the regular PC ( Tg = 145 ~ 150℃ ). The introduction of CH2CH2 unit into the main chain can reduce the Tg of PC and increase the crystallization ability. The obtained PC has a good thermal stability.


Monthly records on camels slaughtered for meat from 1982 to 1989 at the Maiduguri abattoir were collected and analysed to determine the seasonal and annual trends in slaughter and meat supply from the dromedary or single- humped camel (Camelus dromedarius). There were highly significant (P<.01) seasonal and yearly variations in the number of camels slaughtered. In any given year, greatest numbers were slaughtered by March-May Which resents the last stages of the long sahelian dry season. Lowest numbers were slaughtered towards the end of the rainy season. About equal numbers of males and females were slaughtered annually. In 1989 alone, up to 13% of the females slaughtered were pregnant. An average of 9,150 camels were slaughtered yearly giving an estimated carcass yield of about 2,596,397kg of camel meat per annum. Camels slaughtered within the three years of 1984/1986 represented about 61% of the total for the eight years. The period from 1983 to 1986 was another drought period in the sudano-sahelian West Africa. Attention should be given to our draught animals hitherto neglected so that their drought, meat, milk and other potentials could be exploited to the full benefit of our national economy.


Recent research has found marked individual differences in patterns of rhesus monkey biobehavioral development throughout the life span. Approximately 20% of monkeys growing up in naturalistic settings consistently display unusually fearful and anxious-like behavioral reactions to novel, mildly stressful social situations throughout development; another 5%-10% are likely to exhibit impulsive and/or inappropriately aggressive responses under similar circumstances. These distinctive behavioral patterns and their biological correlates appear early in life and remain remarkably stable from infancy to adulthood. Both genetic and experiential mechanisms are implicated not only in the expression of these patterns but also in their transmission across successive generations of monkeys. For example, a specific polymorphism in the serotonin transporter gene is associated with deficits in infant neurobehavioral functioning and in juvenile and adolescent control of aggression and serotonin metabolism in monkeys that experienced insecure early attachments but not in monkeys that developed secure attachment relationships with their mothers during infancy (maternal buffering). Moreover, because the attachment style of a monkey mother is typically "copied" by her daughters when they grow up and become mothers themselves, similar buffering is likely to occur for the next generation of infants carrying that specific polymorphism.


"Wheel spinning" is the phenomenon in which a student fails to master a Knowledge Component (KC), despite significant practice. Ideally, an intelligent tutoring system would detect this phenomenon early, so that the system or a teacher could try alternative instructional strategies. Prior work has put forward several criteria for wheel spinning and has demonstrated that wheel spinning can be detected reasonably early. Yet the literature lacks systematic comparisons among the multiple wheel spinning criteria, features, and models that have been proposed, across multiple evaluation criteria (e.g., earliness, precision, and generalizability) and datasets. In our experiments, we constructed six wheel spinning detectors and compared their performance under two different wheel spinning criteria with three datasets. The results show that two prominent criteria for wheel spinning diverge substantially, and that a Random Forest model has the most consistent performance in early detection of wheel spinning across datasets and wheel spinning criteria. In addition, we found that a simple model overlooked by previous research (Logistic Regression trained on a single feature) is able to detect wheel spinning at an early stage with decent performance. This work brings us closer to unifying strands of prior work on wheel spinning (e.g., understanding how different criteria compare) and to early detection of wheel spinning in educational practice.


Electronic and optical materials can and are being fabricated in a variety of forms including monotonic variation of their physical properties. A characteristic matrix for translating the optical parameters in media having linear gradients In complex refractive indices Is the basis for an algorithm for a program to calculate optical parameters for ellipsometry, reflectance and transmittance. Illustrative examples are given for three different types of gradient systems such as might be encountered in opto-electronic applications.


In a magnet with pancake windings, inserting a gap between the pancake windings can increase the central magnetic field. This paper shows the optimized length of each gap is able to maximize the central magnetic field. Inserting a gap also improves field uniformity because the pancake windings are spread across a wider area. A high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnet consisting of BSCCO-2223 pancake windings was chosen for the calculation model to show the effectiveness of the proposed method. The E-J relation was used to determine the critical current, and an evolution strategy was adopted for the optimization of gap length. The results of calculations show that the critical current and the central magnetic field increased by 86.0% and 33.7%, respectively, for a magnet consisting of ten pancake windings.


Five biosynthetically related bufadienolides were isolated from Kalanchoe daigremontiana Hamet et Perr. and structurally elucidated by X-Ray and NMR techniques. Two compounds were orthoacetates which showed strong CNS activity.


The Australian 2019–2020 wildfires impacted the subtropical rainforest with a variety of burn severities, making them vulnerable to another burn. Rainforest post-fire regenerated vegetation could be highly flammable, containing fire-promoting species such as Lantana camara and fire-suppressing species such as Phytolacca octandra. This study investigated whether early post-fire regeneration may make rainforests more flammable and if this varies with fire severity. This study sampled three national parks where rainforest burnt in 2019–2020 across different fire severities to test if there were consistent patterns in post-fire regeneration flammability. We found that flammable species increased in the regions where fire severity was higher.


Transport is a significant branch of the economy due to its contribution to the creation of gross domestic product. In order to ensure a reliable transport network that boosts trade and economic growth, prior to the construction of new national roads and motorways, it is necessary to ensure a proper technical condition of the road. Therefore, road network administrators have to attain a balance between the program of maintenance / repair / rehabilitation activities and the works that can be executed within the limits of the available funds so that the investment achieves the highest profitability and the road network either viable. There are currently a number of factors that influence the decision-making process in prioritizing maintenance work as well as allocating funds so that the investment achieves the highest return. Therefore, a multi-criteria decision-making approach is needed to ensure a balance between the program of maintenance / repair / rehabilitation activities and the works that can be executed within the limits of available funds. In the present paper, the authors proposes to develop a decision support model based on the principles of the GIS information systems, to help the road network administrators to take decisions that prioritize the maintenance works.


Parental Status Influences Treatment Decisions Findings from a University of North Carolina pilot study of 42 patients with advanced cancer indicate that parental status plays an important role in treatment decisionmaking. The majority of parents in the study (64%) noted that being a parent motivates them to pursue life-extending treatment to spend more time with their children. Approximately 15% said that preserving parental function was their treatment priority, whereas 12% mentioned the importance of receiving treatment close to their families rather than traveling for a second opinion or having treatment that would require long hospital stays. These concerns will inform future research in this understudied patient population, investigators note. They add that they hope their findings can help oncologists engage their patients who have children in shared decision-making as well as align treatment plans with patients' priorities.


The article is devoted to the phenomenon of hidden meaning in a media text. The research is based on a conventional understanding of focusing and a new approach to meaningful information. The author sees the correlation between the categories of this approach - prototype, relevance and pertinence - and the categories of the sentence functional cleaving - theme, rema, focus and topic. The material of the research was both news texts and examples of the individual style in media discourse. The author used methods of interpretation, implying the interpretation of semantic units with a figurative meaning, and pragmatic analysis, which makes it possible to identify the functional spectrum of the communicative elements. Their pragmatic potential was analyzed. The study showed that pertinent focus becomes an element of the individual style, as well as humorous genres.


Augmented Reality (AR) is a combination of real world and digital data. It facilitates and enhances user experience of interaction with physical world by imposing virtual images on real ones. The idea presented in this paper is to show how AR can be used to enhance the learning experience of students in chemistry lab. The Augmented Reality Chemistry application presented here is a teaching aid supplementing the work of teacher in the chemistry lab. It proposes to make chemistry easy and interactive, while warning the students of any harmful efects/reactions by wrong use of chemicals in the laboratory.


lesions or both, and mental retardation or seizures or both. Rushton and Shaywitz' discuss a family in which the mother and maternal grandfather of a proband with tuberous sclerosis appear to be nonmanifesting obligate heterozygotes for the tuberous sclerosis gene. These authors propose segregation of a second unlinked autosomal dominant modifying gene to explain the apparent non-expression of the tuberous sclerosis gene, but they fail to consider that they have insufficient information to conclude that these two relatives do not manifest the gene. In addition to physical examination and Wood's lamp examination of the skin, examination of the retina by indirect ophthalmoscopy, CT scan of the brain, ultrasound examination of the kidneys or an excretory urogram or both, and skeletal survey should be diagnostic screening tests that are completed on each subject at risk for carrying the tuberous sclerosis gene. Only when all the clinical and laboratory parameters of gene expression have been investigated can a subject be judged to be a non-manifesting heterozygote by pedigree analysis. Would Rushton and Shaywitz' invoke this second gene hypothesis even if their patients were fully evaluated, since we so readily accept 'non-penetrance' of other variably expressed autosomal dominant genes?