Thelong terminal repeat (LTR)ofthehuman immunodeficiency virus (HIV)contains theviral promoter, whichisresponsible forviral geneexpression ineukaryotic cells. Wehavedemonstrated that HIVLTRcanalso function asapromoter inEscherichia coli. A recombinant plasmid containing theHIVLTRlinked tothechloramphenicol ace- tyltransferase genecanexpress theenzymeefficiently upon transformation intobacteria. Mungbeannuclease analysis mappedthebacterial transcriptional start site ofthepromoter totheU3region oftheLTR,incontrast totranscription in eukaryotic cells, whichinitiates intheU3-Rboundary ofthe LTR.TheHIVLTR,besides being fully functional inE.coli, canalsobespecifically trans-activated bytheHIVtatgene product. Trans-activation isdemonstrated byanincrease in chloramphenicol acetyltransferase activity aswellasanin- crease inthemRNA level oftheenzyme. Thistrans-activation ofHIVLTRbytatprotein inbacteria offers auseful system to investigate further thespecific interaction between tatprotein withHIVLTRandthemechanisms oftrans-activation. Humanimmunodeficiency virus (HIV)hasbeenimplicated astheetiologic agent associated withAIDS(1-3). Theviral genomeconsists ofseveral characteristic retroviral genes- namely, gag,pol, andenv(4-6). Inaddition, theHIVgenome contains several regulatory genes-for example, theregula- torofvirion protein expression revandthetrans-activator genetat(7-13). Thetat-encoded protein ofHIVisapotent activator of viral geneexpression (8,9,14). Thisprotein isencoded by twoseparate exonsofthetatgene,thefirst ofwhichis sufficient fortrans-activation (8,14).Thetatprotein is required forhighlevels ofviral geneexpression, butits precise modeofaction isunclear. Rosenetal.(15) suggested that tatisrequired fortheactive translation ofviral mRNAs. Muesing etal.(16) havealsoshownthattatexpression correlates withincreased mRNA level. Thus, tatmayfunc- tion atbothtranscriptional andtranslational levels. Alsotat hasbeendemonstrated toactasanantiterminator, which allows high levels offull-length transcripts (17). Thesequence responsive totataction (TAR)resides mainly intheRregion ofHIVlong terminal repeat (LTR) and wasmappedto-17to+80relative totheeukaryotic transcriptional start site (16). Deletions within this region inhibit theability oftattotrans-activate, suggesting that tat binds directly totheDNA oftheTARregion. Direct physical binding oftattoTAR sequences hasnotyetbeendemon- strated; tatmayactindirectly viasomecellular intermediates that thenenhance viral expression. Mitsialis etal.(18) showed that Roussarcoma virus (RSV) LTRcontains apromoter-like sequence thatisfunctional in Escherichia coli. Weshowhere that HIVLTRaswell asseveral other retroviral LTRsarealso functional inbacteria. TheHIV LTRcanfurther bespecifically trans-activated bytat, andthe TARregion ontheLTRseemsnecessary fortrans-activation. Thissystem should provide a simple anduseful meansof studying themechanism oftrans-activation bytat.


An organic/inorganic hybrid salt is obtained by combination of the photochromic nitroprusside complex with the organic donor TTF. The organic part shows an unprecedented 2D organization formed by an orthogonal arrangement of TTF hexamers and monomers. However, the donor layers are formed by pairs of moderately interacting dimeric (TTF)22+ units surrounded by neutral TTF molecules in such a way that the charge is localized and the compound is a semiconductor. Short contacts between the organic layers and the nitroprusside anions are present that may affect the photophysical properties of the nitroprusside.


Spatial econometric methods are used to investigate whether land use changes in one county are affected by changes in surrounding counties. Spatial dependence is hypothesized to arise from land substitution effects among neighboring counties. The estimation uses data on land use change for 1,055 counties of 12 Midwest states.


BACKGROUND Diet has the potential to impact gut microbiota and metabolism, with implications for inflammation resulting from a variety of environmental stressors, including: infection, injury, and radiation. While much research is aimed at eliminating these risks altogether, diet remains one of the most prospective means for preventative care and treatment, particularly in space. Previous work by our lab has demonstrated the susceptibility of gut microbes to radiation- and microgravity-induced population shifts, which appear to mimic the dysbiosis observed during inflammation and the induction of obesity. We have also shown that polyphenol-rich sumac sorghum alters microbial populations and metabolites in a rat model. Although the astronaut population is not typically overweight, spaceflight-induced alterations in microbiota may reflect a dysbiosis that is similar to that observed in overweight individuals. The goal of this study was to determine if an analogous dietary intervention was able to mitigate the perturbations in microbiota and their metabolism that occur in individuals prone to sub-clinical inflammation induced by excess body weight. METHODS Overweight subjects (n=24) were randomized in a crossover design with high (100 g/d) and low (50 g/d) intakes (4 wk) of sumac sorghum cereal incorporated in their normal diets. Subjects consumed each amount of sorghum cereal for 3 weeks with a 4 week washout period separating the treatment periods. Fecal and blood samples were taken at baseline, post-treatment 1, at the end of the washout period, and post-treatment 2. Fecal samples were used to characterize microbial composition by 454 pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA PCR amplicons and to measure short chain fatty acid concentrations by gas chromatography. Plasma was collected from whole blood and used to measure the presence of over 300 metabolites, including molecules derived from microbial metabolism. RESULTS Sumac sorghum induced compositional changes in the fecal microbiota, such as an increase (q=0.076) in antiinflammatory Faecalibacterium prausnitzii species. Untargeted metabolomic analysis of plasma revealed reductions in amino acid (AA) metabolites as well as increases in microbially-derived aromatic AA and polyphenol metabolites. 3-hydroxyhippurate, a product of chlorogenic acid metabolism, was increased (q=0.0145) following sumac sorghum consumption. Additionally, three of the gamma-glutamyl AAs produced by gamma-glutamyl transferase, a biomarker for metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular risk, were decreased (q<0.05) with the 100 g intake. CONCLUSION These data confirm the ability of diet to modify human gut microbe composition and metabolism, and support our hypothesis that these changes can affect host metabolism. Specifically, these observations suggest sumac sorghum is able to induce putatively beneficial shifts in fecal microbiota and to modify the presence of metabolites that are known biomarkers for metabolic disorders (e.g. glucose intolerance). Furthermore, these data suggest that diets supplemented with polyphenol-rich foods may help to mitigate a potentially harmful shift in gut microbial populations during spaceflight while simultaneously providing direct effects of the bioactive compounds on host physiology. Although the subject phenotypes are unlike those of the astronaut corps, the knowledge concerning the impact of diet on host microbiota and metabolism is of critical importance for determining optimal dietary regimes for a hazardous space environment.


. The two strictly projective tight 5-designs are the lines spanned by the short vectors of the Leech lattice and a set of points in the octonion projective plane that define a generalized hexagon of order (2,8). A previous paper introduced a common construction that can generate these two tight 5-designs. This paper describes the same construction in terms of octonion arithmetic. An octonion integer construction of the Leech lattice is described using properties of the octonion integers taken modulo 2. The Leech lattice automorphism group is constructed from octonion reflections. The common construction and the Suzuki subgroup chain of Leech lattice automorphisms are described in terms of octonion integers.


In order to determine the presence of Listeria in four artisanal dairies (A, B, C, D) that produce soft cheeses called Adobera, Fresco, Panela and Requeson, 392 samples were collected from raw milk, rennet curd, cheese equipment, surfaces, brooms, and brushes used for cleaning, over a 21-month period from February 1999 to October 2000. Isolation and identification of Listeria was conducted following the methodologies described by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Department of Agriculture (USDA), respectively. Findings showed that the frequency of Listeria per dairy was: Plant A: 55 %; B: 33 %; C: 26 %; and D: 7 %. Surfaces, floor and cleanning utenCitar Citar


: The best way to observe internal exposure to radioactive or hazardous contaminants in the human body is to analyze urine samples. Urine samples from people with thyroid cancer, those with thyroid disorders, and healthy participants are analyzed for alpha emission rate [Eα]. The present study has yielded results about alpha particles, which are described in this research. Objective: This study focuses on the natural radioactivity of alpha emitters in the urine samples collected from participants. Method: The CR-39 detector technique is used to determine the alpha emissions in patients' urine samples by finding their percentages. CR-39 is a simple and convenient method for determining alpha emission in biological samples. Results: The results indicate that the alpha emitters levels in blood samples are higher in S 10 at 0.278 mBq.cm -2 and lower in S 28 at 0.013 mBq/cm 2 , respectively, based on calculations performed on 0.5 g of the samples. We also found the rate of alpha emission of urine samples in mBq.cm -2 as follows: (in people with thyroid disorders is 0.063± 0.006777, while the papillary thyroid carcinoma is 0.076 ± 0.009, and in control (healthy donors' group) is 0.069± 0.008563). Conclusions: These values indicate that they are acceptable within the permissible limits within allowable limit 0.04Bq/cm 2 compared to previous studies. Therefore, these cases do not pose any risk to human life and are not regarded as causes of disease.


Synthetic routes leading to the preparation of 4-substituted 1,4-benzodiazepine-3,5-diones are described. Thus, 2-carbobenzoxyaminobenzoic acid was converted to its p-nitrobenzyl ester (I) and the decarbobenzoxylated product (II) gave, with ethyl α-bromoacetate, N-(2-carboxy p-nitrobenzylate)phenylglycine ethyl ester (III). The latter was hydrogenolyzed to N-(2-car-boxy)phenylglycine ethyl ester (IV), which was coupled with benzylamine to give N-(2-carboxy-benzylamido)phenylglycine ethyl ester (VIa). Saponification of VIa afforded N-(2-carboxy-benzylamido)phenylglycine (VIIa) which was cyclized with DCCI to produce 4-benzyl-2H-1,4-benzodiazepine-3,5(lH,4H)dione (VIIIa). Alternatively, 2-nitro-N-phenylbenzamide (Xb) was reduced to 2-amino-N-phenylbenzamide (XIb) which was converted to N-(2-carboxanih'do)-phenylglycine ethyl ester (VIb). The latter was converted to 4-phenyl-2H-1,4-benzodiazepine-3,5(1H,4H)dione (VIIIb) in an analogous fashion described for VIIIa.


We report imaged-based intrinsic light-scattering single-cell analysis enabled by ultrafast asymmetric-detection time-stretch optical microscopy (line-scan rate >10 MHz) - achieving high-quality dual-contrast images with subcellular resolution at an imaging throughput of 120,000 cells/sec.


The possible ozone depletion due to chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) (Montreal Protocol) has become a very important issue and it is the urgent task to develop harmless synthetic CFC, HCFC and HFC alternatives with a zero ozone depletion potentials and small greenhouse effect potentials (Kyoto protocol). Hydrofluoroolefins (HFO) proposed as one of the perspective alternatives to HFCs. The data necessary for preliminary screening, detailed evaluation and equipment design for screw and centrifuge compressors, air cycle refrigeration, absorption heat transformations, and heat pumps on carbon dioxide are presented.


The determination of 21-amino corticosteroids is based on the reducing properties of the α-amino ketone side-chain. The oxidising agent mercury(II) chloride in methanolic solution was used at room temperature in the presence of sodium acetate. The assay was carried out by gravimetric determination of the mercury(I) chloride formed in the reaction, and the standard deviation of the method was 0·61 per cent.The method was successfully applied to the stability assay of Depersolone injection, and also in the analytical investigation of non-steroidal α-amino ketones.


Organic pollutants were measured in the soft tissue of Mytilus galloprovincialis by Gas Chromatography coupled with Electron Capture Detector (GC/ECD). The animals came from four stations along El Jadida coastline between January and December 2017. The qualitative analysis revealed the existence of the following compounds: aldrin, lindane, heptachlor and heptachor epoxide. Heptachlor epoxide (HE) was quantified at all prospected stations. Levels ranged from 0.065 ± 0.02 μg/g d.w to 0.040 ± 0.01 μg/g d.w. Seasonal variation in the bioaccumulation of this compound has been observed. The highest concentrations are found in animals collected during late winter/early spring while the lowest ones are found during the summer season. The levels of HE detected in the present study remain within the international tolerance value reported by the Suisse DFI prescription in molluscs.


With the rapid development of the national power grid, the demand for efficient and reliable power supply is increasing. As the labor cost and the size of the power grid are increasing, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) power inspection is a new and efficient way of detecting power grid abrasion. By analyzing the data collected by the UAVs, a smart detection and maintenance service can be provided. To improve the model robustness and accuracy, data collected from different companies and regions are required, which may violate the data privacy policy. As a distributed machine learning technique, Federated Learning (FL) can collaboratively train global models without sharing private data. In this article, in order to protect the data privacy between different systems, optimize models' accuracy and convergence performance for non-Independently-and-Identically-Distributed (non-IID) data, we propose an adaptive method that jointly adjusts the learning rate and gradient based on the idea of FL. By recording global gradient information and using the momentum to accelerate the training process, our method adaptively controls the local gradient and learning rate in training of local models, and be more robust to local minima. Finally, we verify the superiority of our model compared with the generic FL model for non-IDD data through experiments.


Cyclical flooding of the Rio Grande and movement of floodwater into distributary channels formerly constituted significant freshwater input into the marshes of the Rio Grande Delta, but dams and flood control projects have eliminated this source of freshwater. The marshes are now dependent on rainfall alone for freshwater input and may be experiencing significant change in species of vegetation, abundance and patterns of distribution. Unfortunately, little is known of the ecology of these marshes. As a first step in providing needed information, multispectral videography was used to distinguish species composition and patterns of zonation in a brackish water marsh at Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, Cameron County, Texas. The line intercept method of vegetation analysis provided ground truth and quantified species distribution and abundance. The vegetation of a typical brackish water marsh is organized into three zones along an elevation gradient. At the lowest elevations there is a distinct zone dominated by maritime saltwort, Batis maritime. At the lowest elevations in this zone where rainwater remains the longest, stands of California bulrush, Scirpus californicus, occur. An intermediate zone supports shoregrass, Monanthochloe littoralis, as the dominant species. A third (highest) zone is dominated by Gulf cordgrass, Spartina spartinae. The upper marginmore » of this zone grades gradually into a shrub-grassland community that occurs on lomas (clay dunes). Each of the zones is distinguished by a distinctive signature in the multispectral videography. The Batis maritime community has a bright pink to red image response. Monanthochloe littoralis has a dark brown color and Spartina spartinae has a light gray to pinkish-tan color. Brackish water marshes may be distinguished from saltwater marshes by the relative positions of the Monanthochloe littoralis and Spartina spartinae communities, but additional data are needed before this possibility is confirmed.« less


Module technology of developing power flairs allows to extend the scopes of the folded presentations in the system of P.E. of students, complementing lessons the unconventional forms of development of certain motive qualities, to extend known for them about meaningfulness of physical culture in life of man, to show the necessity of creative collaboration of student and teacher for the increase of efficiency of lessons.


This article proposes a method of collaborative design tasks dynamic composition based on complex regulation.The aim is to overcome the limits of tasks composition regulation based on the oneness character.A temporal model to establish the tasks and the character system to array the tasks during the collaborative product's development process were studied.For optimized design tasks composition,a multi-object function of regulation rights was put forward to obtain the rights of different regulations available to compose regulations.Operation sequencing was processed in an orderly manner by the weights and the optimized task sequence was confirmed.


The spread of public opinion across the Internet in China was proposed by constructing a two-player symmetric evolutionary game model with incomplete information,since most of the players have limited knowledge about the spread and exact nature of public opinion. The twoplayer symmetric game model was presented to decide the strategic choice of players,and the replicated dynamic equation was built to explain the evolution directions of different strategic groups. The memory length of players,updates views and memory list were introduced according to the interaction rules. The simulation result shows that it is easy for players to follow trends under such circumstances,leading to herd behavior and a world in which most players adopt the same view. Furthermore,herd behavior is affected by a series of factors: most notably analysis-strategy based interactive interests,cost coefficients,and memory length. This research offers insights for practical application on how to analyze and guide the spread of public opinion on the internet.


Criteria for establishing a causal role of microorganisms in disease were first outlined by Henle and further developed by his student Koch in the late 19th century to establish the relationship of tubercle bacillus to tuberculosis. The Henle-Koch postulates state that the organism is always found with the disease, the organism is not found with any other disease and cultured organisms isolated from a diseased individual reproduce the disease in a susceptible animal (1). To broaden these criteria for chronic diseases as well as for infectious diseases with related asymptomatic or carrier states and/or multifactorial causes, a broader set of standards were outlined by Hill (2). While not all of the arguments in total, and only a few of the individual arguments, can be required as a sine qua non in any given circumstance, these standards provide a useful basis for discussion of causal inference. In this issue of The Canadian Journal of Gastroenterology, Hermon-Taylor and colleagues (pages 521-539) address "Causation of Crohn's disease by Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis". Elucidating the etiology of Crohn's disease is a major challenge. Crohn's disease exhibits the characteristics of a chronic disease (ie, indefinite onset, a presumed long latent period and crucial dependence on host factors), yet, as proposed by Hermon-Taylor and colleagues, the basis of disease may be microorganism infection. In their review, Hermon-Taylor and colleagues nicely highlight a number of issues that hamper efforts to study the role of M avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) in Crohn's disease. These issues include difficulties in culturing MAP in vitro, the lack of knowledge related to the environmental distribution of MAP, the relatively high prevalence of subclinical MAP infections in domestic animals and perhaps humans as well, and problems with antibody recognition to detect present or past MAP infection. Nevertheless, the authors present some interesting indirect evidence that suggests a role for MAP in Crohn's disease. While the evidence presented in the review is thought-provoking and indicates areas of future research interest, the evidence necessary for inferring a causal role of MAP in Crohn's disease is lacking in several key areas. A cornerstone of many of the standards for causality outlined by Hill is direct evidence from human populations (2). The presumed association between MAP and Crohn's disease, or the ratio of Crohn's disease in those with and without active MAP infection, has not been established, nor has the temporality of the association, or evidence that MAP infection precedes the development of Crohn's disease, been established in human populations. The identification of MAP DNA in Crohn's disease tissue (3) only reveals that MAP infection and Crohn's disease can exist at the same point in time. MAP infection may occur before or after the development of Crohn's disease and in either case may have little influence on the natural history of the disease. There is also a lack of information about the impact of the occurrence of Crohn's disease on the elimination or reduction of MAP from environmental sources such as milk or water. Geographic variation in Crohn's disease incidence (4) must be interpreted with a great deal of caution. Variation may be due to many causal or modifying factors that may or may not be related to the presence of MAP in environmental sources. William Farr erroneously attributed cholera to fetid air in the 19th century based on the observation of a higher inci-


The invention relates to an identification method of ground fault phases in a three-phase ungrounded system and an identification device thereof. The identification method comprises the following steps: firstly selecting any line voltage in the three-phase ungrounded system as reference voltage, determining value domains of phase difference between theoretical zero-sequence voltage of the fault phases and the reference voltage when a ground fault occurs on each phase aiming at the reference voltage, and carrying out real-time online acquisition of the actually measured zero-sequence voltage; if the actually measured zero-sequence voltage is zero, judging no ground fault occurs; and if the actually measured zero-sequence voltage is not zero, calculating the phase difference between the actually measured zero-sequence voltage and the reference voltage, and judging which value domain the phase difference falls into so as to judge that the ground fault occurs on the phase corresponding to the value domain. The identification method can rapidly judge the ground fault occurs on A phase or B phase or C phase in the three-phase ungrounded system and directly point out the ground fault phases while finding out the fault, thus reducing troubleshooting time, being beneficial to eliminate faults timely, and guaranteeing safe operation of the system.


The multispecimen J-integral technique ASTM Test Method for J 1 c , a Measure of Fracture Toughness (E 813-87) has been applied to a series of rubber-toughened polymers to determine the generality of the method for polymeric materials. The experimental procedures produce results that are similar in form with those found in the metals and ceramics literature. However, many of the procedures involving data analysis require reexamination. In this study, the effects of side grooves, ligament depths, and the relationship between critical initiation J and G values are examined. The use of side-grooved specimens for J testing is a viable way of experimentally verifying plane strain conditions. The ASTM E 813-87 recommendation for the allowable range of ligament depths appears to be inappropriate for toughened polymers. However, the recommendation of W/B = 2 as an experimental starting point is sensible. Finally, the J 1 c to G c relationship was explored. In separate, nonstandard K tests involving large specimens, the initiation point, G c , was defined at 2.5% crack growth. J 1 c , as calculated by the ASTM E 813-87 construction, was as much as 50% lower than this G c value. However. when comparing critical J and G values for specific crack growths, good agreement between the two tests was obtained, provided the crack growth was small. Although the current J 1 c construction provides a conservative estimate of the G c value, it is an open question whether the J 1 c value is appropriate for polymer design.


Abstract Language of instruction is a crucial aspect of teaching and learning process in every educational context. The language competence in fact can affect the degree of success of the students and their academic performance throughout their education; especially in postgraduate education level in a foreign language. In this case, it will be very difficult for the international students to pursue their education in an entirely different context with a language they learn for the first time. There is a sizeable amount of existing research carried out on the language difficulties of the international postgraduate students with the medium of instruction (mostly in English). The findings show that inadequacy in language utilization puts a profound negative impact on students' learning and understanding the intended content knowledge. Thus, the current study was conducted to explore the language difficulties that the international postgraduate students experience during their education at Turkish universities with the medium of Turkish, their applied strategies, the given supports, their suggestive solutions and expectations to reduce their current problems. The data was collected through a one-to-one semi-structured interview with 15 international postgraduate students from different countries pursuing their education in different faculties at Mersin University. The results of the study revealed that the main problem of these students was writing followed by speaking, listening and reading respectively. However, the problems related to the language skills were linked to other underlying factors such as poor vocabulary, fast speech rate of the instructors, structural aspects of the Turkish language and some others. Keywords: international postgraduate students; Turkish as the medium of instruction; language difficulties


Objective To explore the clinical effects for extra peritoneal colostomy in treatment of anorectum carcinoma. Methods There were 26 patients with rectal carcinoma received extraperitoneal colostomy from 2003 to 2006 in our hospital. Clinical data of 26 patients followed up for 1~3 years were retrospectively analyzed. Results There were 26 patients in our group. The latter's complications included 1 case of sigmoidostomic catarrh necrosis, 1 case of skin inflammation around the colostomy, 2 cases of the side-colostomy hernia. The other patients recovered better. The patients with extraperitoneal colostomy were followed up for 3~36 months. After 6~9 months, they began to defecate regularly. They defecated 1~2 times every day or the following day, and they defecated clearly every time. 60 percent of the patients got continence colostomy. Conclusion The extrapertitoneal sigmoidostomy has less complication, better functions of defecation and easier management after operation. Then it could improve the life quality of the patients.


Dendrochronology provides two basic types of information useful for archaeological interpretation: chronological-archaeological and nonchronological. The former derives from the assignment of absolute dates to prehistoric remains through the use of the techniques of dendrochronological analysis. Nonchronological information of two types, cultural-historical and environmental, may be derived from archaeological tree-ring collections. Cultural-historical information involves the recognition of unique historic events and the identifica tion of certain cultural practices, such as the stockpiling or reuse of timbers. Recoverable environmental data include the prehistoric distributions of various species of tree and paleoclimatic reconstruc tions derived from dendroclimatic analyses. Most archaeological use of dendrochronological data has emphasized the chronological-archaeological aspect. This orientation produced a large number of absolutely dated sites that have been compared with one another to isolate contemporaneous regional varia tions and to study the processes and rates of culture change. However, the nonchronological aspects of the data have been neglected, and the full potential of dendrochronology for archaeological interpretation has rarely been achieved. This paper presents the results of several experiments designed to explore and illuminate the contributions made by dendrochronological analyses to archaeological interpretation.


Taking the competition of China versus Spain as research subject,and using the method of observation and comparative analysis,this paper analyzes the match between China and Spain.The result shows that the long shot and steal of Chinese basketball team is superior to that of Spain basketball team,but there has big difference on perimeter of shot,rebound and fitness with Spain team.This is the main reason of Chinese team losing the game.It suggests that Chinese basketball team should strengthen the training of shot and improve their fitness.


@ Aqueous concentrates of partially hydrolysed polyvinyl aicohol are used in the production of basic boric acid-starch containing aqueous adhesives which find use in manufacture of corrugated board. The additional components of the adhesive are either present in the concentrate during storage and transport thereof or are themselves made up into concentrates for multiple tank make-up on site of the final adhesive composition.


The slide mass in front of the dam of the Lijiaxia hydropower plant has been in an unstable condition since the reservoir impounding. The impact waves caused by the acting forces of slide failure would exercise a great influence on the safety for the dam. The investigation of the slide mass in front of the dam and the analysis of observed data to obtain a more detailed understanding of its restoration and creep characteristics are discussed in this article. The computation and evaluation of the slide mass stability both before and after impounding using Sarma method were carried out. It was concluded that the slide mass would be in a state of limit equilibrium, and the creep during the period of reservoir exploitation and the opportunities of failure were considered to be insignificant. This will be of great importance for the normal operation of the project.


This article is based on the assumption that Ibn Ishaq (704–67) and al-Waqidi (747–823) were responsible for my main sources, the compilations entitled Kitāb sīrat rasūl Allāh and Kitāb al-maghāzī, respectively. Such an assumption is justifiable. To take Ibn Ishaq's Biography in the recension of Ibn Hisham (d. 834), we know that the Ziyad ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Bakkaʾi (d. 798) text used by Ibn Hisham was authorized by Ibn Ishaq himself, and indeed had been confirmed by the use of both samʾ and ʾarḍ techniques as a correct version. At the same time, Ismail K. Poonawala confirms that the redaction of Salama ibn al-Fadl (d. 807) compares closely with the text of Ibn Hisham, indicating that the text of Ibn Ishaq had probably been fixed: Salama's redaction was based on a papyrus manuscript of Ibn Ishaq transmitted by Muhammad ibn Humayd ibn Hayyan al-Razi, and was used by al-Tabari in his narration of the Prophet's life, which forms a part of his compilation Taʾrīkh al-rusul waʾl-mulūk. As for the text of al-Waqidi, evidence indicates that it had been established by al-Waqidi himself from beginning to end, for he not only prefaces his work with the names of his chief transmitters of tradition but also provides the basic chronology of all the events that are discussed in his work.


insurmountable challenges" to the project of translation, transculturation, and ultimately, to European thought (63)—in this case evident in John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). Rivett's readings of very diverse materials are unfailingly convincing and too numerous to summarize here. One important aspect of her argument is that Native materials reconfigure Euro-American writing, thinking, and even aesthetics through the nostalgic appeal many white authors attributed to Indian culture. This "nostalgic yearning" is apparent, for instance, in Le Clercq's selection of the Mi'kmaq pictographs "as keys that might potentially grant access to a lost Eden" (77). It also (as is perhaps more apparent in Cooper's fiction) depends on misinterpretation, symbolic erasure, or even imaginary annihilation of Native culture, which becomes transported to a remote, primitive past. Such fictions not only obscure the real Native peoples who were sometimes surviving and thriving, it also appropriates their imagined pasts as a source of inspiration for the new literary nation. Yet Rivett takes care to note that her entire archive does not function in this essentially predatory way: the current survival and revival of the Mi'kmaq and Wampanoag languages is aided by Native contributions to historic missionary linguistic documents, for example. Ultimately, Rivett's interventions are as numerous as her readings and also affect Native studies. It is especially her side by side readings of French and English sources that both respond to a long-identified need for multilingual work in early American studies and do so in ways that are simultaneously rigorous and innovative.


In a study of cross protection between plant viruses, two severe cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) isolates from field grown pepper plants, CMV-SD2 (subgroup I) ...


The invention provides an electric mechanism for a disconnecting switch for an electrified railway contact net. On the basis of control of an electric operating mechanism, the electric mechanism comprises a motor and a speed reducer, wherein the motor is used for providing power; the speed reducer has preset positive rotation limit angle and reverse rotation limit angle; when the speed reducer rotates to the limit angles, further rotation is limited by a limiting component fixed on the speed reducer and a position signal is sent out to the electric operating mechanism; a power output end of the speed reducer is connected with and provided with a change-over switch mechanism; and the change-over switch mechanism can start closing of a breaking breaker and breaking of a closing breaker in a time-sharing manner, or simultaneously start closing of the closing breaker and breaking of the breaking breaker in the time-sharing manner. According to the electric mechanism, positive rotation and reverse rotation of the motor are achieved by changing a positive electrode and a negative electrode of a power supply for a DC motor; and the power supply for the motor can be automatically cut off after breaking and closing are ended, so that the problems of misoperation, refusal-operation, false display and the like of the disconnecting switch can be effectively solved. The electric mechanism is suitable for coordination with an existing disconnecting switch; and anti-misoperation electric control of breaking and closing is achieved.


The freedom of assembly is one of the fundamental freedoms declared in a series of international legal documents and sanctioned in the domestic law of many states. In recent years, under the influence of economic, social, and political circumstances or those related to the pandemic, this freedom has been a tool in the hands of citizens or different entities to organize together and voice their concerns and grievances. In addition to the progress made in Albania, in practice, in many cases, problems have been identified in guaranteeing the exercise of the freedom of assembly of citizens by public authorities due to a lack of understanding of the purpose of the law or the lack of training of State Police employees in regards to taking measures for the management of gatherings. In addressing freedom of assembly in this paper, the methodology based on the assessment of the legal framework has been taken into consideration, as well as the challenges arising in the implementation of this right in an Albanian context. The sources of information are based on the reports of various institutions inside and outside Albania, on the legal framework that regulates the freedom of assembly, as well as on concrete situations of the organization of assemblies and emerging problems. The paper in conclusion reflects some recommendations in the context of improving legal guarantees as well as the taking of measures by public authorities in Albania in the exercise of freedom of assembly.

Received: 05 May 2022 / Accepted: 16 May 2023 / Published: 20 May 2023


Detecting transport modes in near-real time is important for various context-aware location based services and understanding urban dynamics. In this paper we present a simulated study on detecting transport modes in near-real time using a neural network. We have shown how detection accuracy will vary with different temporal window sizes and different combination of modes. Since in urban environment transport modes move slowly due to traffic, considering movement attributes or kinematics alone for mode detection is not sufficient. That is why we investigated how spatial information can improve mode detection accuracy. The model has achieved 82%-95% accuracy using different simulation designs and proves its efficacy over other detection models.


The theme of this year's annual conference, "Vista '93: Beyond The Horizon" creates a mental view stretching over an extensive range of time or sequence of events. Let us at this time reflect on those factors which are affecting the health and social agenda today and for the rest of the nineties. Let us consider our desired role in influencing the landscape and position ourselves for the journey. I shall be giving you an overview of the travel conditions and road signs, project an image of hovv occupational therapists can contribute within this context and explore with you some strategies which could secure the inside lane on this vista of challenges and opportunities. The first, highly profiled but poorly understood factor marking the roadway is globalization. It has caused governments to examine relationships between wealth creation, wealth distribution, the quality of our social environment and its effect on health as compared to other countries (Mustard, 1993). Expenditures on health and social services are increasingly assessed within the broader context. Rising costs of social programmes and a slow economic recovery have created unprecedented stresses in the health care sector. Provinces across Canada have developed health reform, all at different stages of implementation, but all based on common fundamentals. We have documented our support of these fundamental principles as a health provider group: • desire to improve health status O affirmation of the principles of the Canada Health Act • desire for a more cost-effective systern • provision of a continuum of services characterized by a shift from institutional to community-based services, healthy public policy and health promotion (Ontario Ministry of Health, 1993)


Abstract : Two types of free radical film systems, designated as vinylidene and styryl, respectively, were prepared for argon ion laser recording applications. Vinylidene films produce blue images on a pale yellow background, while the styryl films give magenta imagery on yellow backgrounds. Latent imagery may be optically developed by exposure to red-near infrared radiation and fixing is accomplished by heating the film to 170 C for one minute. No reciprocity failure was noted from exposures with a scanning laser beam even when spot dwell times of 10 to the -9th power seconds were employed. Laboratory samples of these films produced net unit density from exposures of 12-17 ergs/sq cm. Although the practicality of these films and the processing concept have been established for argon ion laser recording at 488 nm, additional work is required to improve the shelf life, quality of machine coatings and processing technology. Preliminary machine coating studies resulted in the preparation of a vinylidene pilot coating which required 50-55 ergs/sq cm for net D=1. after 4 minutes of development with red radiation and fixing for 1 minute at 170 C; a styryl pilot coating required 225-260 ergs/sq cm for net D=1 using similar processing conditions. Coating conditions for these preliminary efforts were not optimized and only unpurified ingredients were employed. A camera working styryl film was also prepared which exhibited a speed of 0.9-1.2 ASA.


In linear control theory the frequency domain approach and the state-space approach are equivalent. But for the implementation of numerical algorithms the use of state-space equations is preferred. To avoid the numerical problems caused by a polynomial arithmetic, the use of an interval arithmetic with variable length of the mantissa is suggested. Some basic algorithms for polynomial and transfer function matrices implemented in interval arithmetic will be stated. A control example shows the feasibility of this method.


Cirebon Port has spacious work and water area that provides opportunities to be developed in industrial sectors, particularly the petrochemical industries such as ethylene and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). In atmospheric condition, they are classified as volatile gas. Either in processing or transporting, they are stored in closed system. However, they still have a probability to be released to the environment and may lead to a fire or explosion. This probability is increased in the existence of coal stockpile in the port area which can evoke a fire. Therefore, a safety study is needed to identify the risk of the loading-unloading activities. The problem was solved by following steps. First, the data such as physical properties, layout area, and geographical condition around the port were collected. Then, the hazardous nodes were identified qualitatively, and then the quantitative analysis was done using As Low As Reasonably Practicable (ALARP) analysis. From the safety study, a suitable handling and safety system is provided to ensure safety viability in the ethylene and LNG loading-unloading process at the Cirebon port.Keywords: ethylene; hazard assessment; LNG; loading-unloading process; Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA)


The present invention pertains to a heterogeneous ethylene/alphaolefin copolymer having a relatively high melt index range (I 2 from 1.1 to 1.6 dg/min.), low density (0.915 to 0.919 g/cc) and narrow molecular weight distribution (I 10 /I 2 from 7.0 to 7.7), and highly separated composition distribution as determined by SCBD; a process for making such a copolymer; blends thereof with additional polymers; and fabricated articles, especially films, made there from.


This issue contains two reviews on cognitive reserve and decline, and five further papers examine various aspects of cognition and psychiatric disorder. Three papers focus on aspects of depression, and three individual papers examine a variety of topics.


Digital transformation of education is the focus and hot spot of education reform at present, and digital transformation will bring radical changes to the field of education and teaching. Foreign language teaching, because of its special characteristics, can receive more attention and changes, and can produce a process from quantitative to qualitative changes. How to make a good digital transformation of foreign language teaching is very important to promote foreign language teaching methods, innovation and application as well as to explore new teaching modes under digital conditions. Through the introduction of the current background and the research of the current situation at home and abroad, this paper elaborates the significance of digital transformation of foreign language teaching, and introduces the teaching scenarios, teaching contents and teaching forms under digital transformation respectively, and finally summarizes the current opportunities and challenges.


Digital divide research has benefitted from theories that account for unevenness between individuals, households, and geographic units in access to, and uses of information and communications technologies (ICTs). The objective of this paper is to explain and examine important digital divide theories, compare and contrast their major features, and identify appropriate methodologies to test them. Four theories examined are Adoption-Diffusion Theory (ADT), van Dijk's Theory of Digital Technology Access and Societal Impacts, Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), and Spatially Aware Technology Utilization Model (SATUM). The theories are compared based on their independent and outcome factors, units of analysis, spatial components, and amount of scholarly literature. The methodologies utilized depend on sample size and range from varied regression and multinominal logit models to structured equation modeling, event history, and spatial analyses. The strengths and weaknesses of the digital divide theories are compared and can inform investigators on appropriate theoretical choice for particular settings.


This paper complements and extends the research of Lu & Teulings (2016). I investigate the effect of demographics on real interest rates and house prices for six developed countries by using their stylized overlapping generations model. The current demographic structures, which consist i.a. of a baby boom followed by smaller cohorts, are far from a balanced growth path, in which real interest rates would equal population growth. The relatively large cohort causes the population to be biased towards saving. Oversaving results in the real interest rate undershooting the new lower population growth/decline. The low real interest rates are most likely to stay until 2030. This result is backed by observing Japan where the demographic transition took place 15 years earlier. Finally, I find that the growth of a bubble is a natural and efficient response to the asset shortage and low interest rates and consistent with the observed increase in real house prices over the past decades.


This study focused with the development and psychometric properties of a scale that measures teacher effectiveness in higher education. Extant literature on effective teachers served as bases for the construction of a 107-item initial scale and 497 higher education students served as participants. Results of the study showed that there were four dimensions of teacher effectiveness in higher education. These dimensions identified in the scale posses the psychometric properties of internal consistency and validity. The internal consistency estimate of the sub-scales using Cronbach coefficient α ranged from 0.707 to 0.968 while the overall internal consistency estimate of the scale was 0.972. On the other hand, validity was evaluated using factor analysis with items having factor loadings of 0.500 and above retained. Thus, the resulting Teacher Effectiveness Scale in Higher Education (TESHE) is a psychometrically sound scale that measures the multidimensional aspects of teacher effectiveness in higher education.


The effect of tetrodotoxin, a specific inhibitor of the Na+ channel, and 5‐(N,N‐dimethyl)‐amiloride, a specific inhibitor of the Na+/H+ exchanger, on the mechanical and metabolic derangements induced by hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) was studied in the isolated perfused rat heart. The isolated rat heart was perfused aerobically at a constant flow rate and driven electrically.


Background: Evidence on the cardiovascular benefit of dual glucagon like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA) and sodium-glucose co-transporter-2 inhibitor (SGLT2i) therapy is lacking.
 Aim: To compare the benefit of dual GLP-1 RA and SGLT2i therapy to other dual type 2 diabetes therapies with respect to heart failure and major cardiovascular adverse events (MACE).
 Methods: From 2010-2021 patients from the Danish nationwide registries were followed from start of dual second-line type 2 diabetes treatment. Primary outcome was heart failure, and secondary outcomes were MACE and all-cause death. The estimated risk following 1 of 4 dual therapy combinations was determined using a longitudinal causal inference framework assuming all patients followed one dual therapy for 5 years.
 Results: A total of 87,201 persons were included (GLP-1 RA and SGLT2i: 14,831, GLP-1 RA and DPP4/SU/TZD: 20,417, SGLT2i and DPP4/SU/TZD: 22,803, dual DPP4/SU/TZD: 29,150). The 5-year risk ratio (95% CI) of dual GLP-1 RA and SGLT2i therapy compared to reference (dual DPP4/SU/TZD) for heart failure was: 0.93 (0.87;1.00), for MACE: 0.91 (0.87;0.95) and for all cause death: 0.78 (0.74;0.82), see Figure.
 Conclusion: Dual therapy with GLP-1 RA and SGLT2i showed a benefit on heart failure compared to other dual therapies. Dual therapy with GLP-1 RA and SGLT2i showed a benefit on MACE and all-cause death compared to the reference treatment.

 B. Zareini: None. T. A. Gerds: None. K. K. Sørensen: None. K. K. B. Clemmensen: Employee; Novo Nordisk A/S, Stock/Shareholder; Novo Nordisk A/S. K. Kvist: Employee; Novo Nordisk A/S. J. David: Employee; Novo Nordisk A/S, Sanofi. C. Torp-pedersen: Research Support; Novo Nordisk, Bayer Inc.


Background: Preterm babies with abnormal doppler velocimetry during second and third trimesters of pregnancy pose various early neonatal morbidities like recurrent hypoglycaemia, feed intolerance and prolonged hospital stay. In our study we compared the incidence of hypoglycaemia, feed intolerance, risk of necrotising enterocolitis (NEC) and length of hospital stay among preterm babies with abnormal doppler flow to the gestational age matched preterm babies with normal umbilical artery doppler flow velocimetry.Methods: 30 preterm babies who had abnormal umbilical artery flow during their last antenatal doppler scan were included as study group and gestational age matched 30 preterm babies who had normal doppler study had been taken as controls. The incidence of hypoglycaemia, feed intolerance, NEC, length of hospital stay had been compared between two groups.Results: The case group with abnormal umbilical artery doppler had increased incidence of hypoglycaemia (15 of 30 babies in case versus 5 of 30 babies in control) which was statistically significant. Feed intolerance, necrotizing enterocolitis and length of hospital stay were all significantly increased in preterm babies with abnormal umbilical artery doppler when compared to preterm babies with normal umbilical artery doppler flow.Conclusions: Preterm babies with abnormal umbilical artery doppler were at increased risk of hypoglycaemia, feed intolerance, NEC and prolonged hospital stay. Knowledge on this is important to monitor closely for hypoglycaemia, gradually increase feeds and explain parents about expected morbidities which can increase the length of hospital stay in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).


The [Ru3O(Ac)6(py)2(CH3OH)] + cluster provides an effective electrocatalytic species for the oxidation of methanol under mild conditions. This complex exhibits characteristic electrochemical waves at -1.02, 0.15 and 1.18 V, associated with the Ru3III,II,II/Ru3III,III,II/Ru 3III,III,III /Ru3IV,III,III successive redox couples, respectively. Above 1.7 V, formation of two RuIV centers enhances the 2-electron oxidation of the methanol ligand yielding formaldehyde, in agreement with the theoretical evolution of the HOMO levels as a function of the oxidation states. This work illustrates an important strategy to improve the efficiency of the oxidation catalysis, by using a multicentered redox catalyst and accessing its multiple higher oxidation states.


Firms' systemic credit risk in China stems from economic cycles and economic transition,but current studies lack enough emphasis on the latter.By constructing an ECTM model,this paper selects two factors of economic cycles and three factors of economic transition,which significantly affect firms' systemic credit risk,and measures the direction and extent of their effects.The results show that the increase in diversification degree of enterprise ownership and the financial marketization reform in the future will be advantageous to the reduction in systemic credit risk,but the decrease in the dependence on foreign trade may subject relevant firms to the shock.So the banking in China should pay attention to the detection and prevention of firms' systemic credit risk.


OBJECTIVE To improve synthetic technology of(9S)-Erythromycylamine.METHODS(9S)-Erythromycylamine was synthesized from Erythromycin through nucleophilic addtion,diazotization and hydrogenation reactions.RESULTSThe total yield of(9S)-Erythromycylamine was 45.8%.CONCLUSIONThis method is convenient and available for industrial production.


Abstract : Design, processing and characterization of high-speed implanted-apertured, lateral-current-injection, dielectric-mirror vertical cavity surface emitting laser and InGaAs based MEM detectors and mixers. We have achieved following goals: I. Designed 1,55 micron InP/InGaAs based tunnel junction structure and purchased two samples with good quality. The VCSEL is being processed. II. Designed SiO2/TiO2 based top and bottom DBR mirrors. III. Performed the thermal simulation of flip-chip double-side dielectric DER mirror VCSEL. IV. Collaborated with Keith Aliberti and Paul Shen in ARL to fabricate InGaAs based MSM detectors and mixer. V. Simulation of Pulse and DC Responses for Schottky Barrier Enhanced InGaAs MSM Photo-Detectors And OE Mixers VI. Developed Submicron Inter-Digitated Finger Process To Reduce the Device Capacitance And Dark Current VII. Working with ARL To Redesign the MSM Array Mask To Reduce Device Parasitic Capacitances.


The minimum spanning tree problem with diameter constraint is an important problem for many applications such as network design and reliability. The diameter constraint makes it be different from the common minimum spanning tree problem, it is difficult to get the optimal solution, even the feasible solution can not be obtained by the traditional method. To address this problem, in this paper, a new crossover algebra is designed to ensure that the crossover tree still satisfies the diameter constraint. During the crossover process, structure of the subtree will be retained, thus avoiding the problem that the new generated tree is not a feasible solution. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the improved algorithm.


Genomic studies of Alzheimer disease (AD) have primarily focused on non‐Hispanic White (NHW) participants affected by the late‐onset form (LOAD; onset age: >65), or the study of early onset AD (EOAD; onset age <=65) cases showing Mendelian inheritance patterns associated with mutations in the APP, PSEN1 and PSEN2 genes. However, mutations in these three genes explain ∼10% of EOAD cases. There are no large‐scale efforts to collect and study EOAD cases not explained by these genes, despite this unexplained category accounting for ∼90% of EOAD cases.


By an addition of lipase in the preparation of flour dough, the dough decreased its hardness and elasticity, and the gluten prepared from this dough was remarkably extensible and soft. In chemical analysis of the gluten, it was proved that the ratio of lipid and protein was not influenced by the lipase addition, but the glutenin content in the treated gluten was distinctly smaller. As for the protein composition of the dough with lipase addition, the contents of 70% EtOH-soluble N, probably gliadin, and 5% K2SO4-soluble N were both, increased, while glutenin content was decreased.It was suggested that a part of glutenin in gluten changed into gliadin by the addition of lipase in the dough.


Calcium phosphate (CaP) coating is an effective technique for surface functionalization of biomaterials. The objective of our research is to prepare calcium phosphate (CaP) coatings on a hydroxyapatite/collagen (HAp/Col) nanocomposite and subsequently provide it with gene delivery function through the immobilization of DNA in the coating. We have specifically selected the HAp/Col nanocomposite since it has the high potential as bone substitutes due to its similar composition, nanostructure, and biological properties to those of human bone. CaP coatings consisting of different sized particles were prepared on the HAp/Col nanocomposite membrane by immersing it in supersaturaterd CaP solutions (so-called RKM solutions) with the varied Ca and P concentration levels. We immobilized DNA in the CaP coatings together with lipid and fibronectin by supplementing DNA, lipid, and fibronectin to the RKM solutions (DLF-RKM solutions). Gene transfer capability of the resulting HAp/Col nanocomposite membrane was improved with decreasing concentration level of the DLF-RKM solution. It was confirmed that the present CaP coating technique was effective in providing the HAp/Col nanocomposite membrane with gene transfer capability and that the Ca and P concentration level of the DLF-RKM solution was a controlling factor affecting the gene transfer efficiency.


In the chapter are indicated the main links of the isotopies between the static information and the different ways of graphic representation for the readers of online newspapers. Besides, a set of examples of news is presented with statistic data, analyzing those that boost or discourage iconicity and the ease of understanding. Finally, a study is made of the link between the statistic and the use of the comic to draw the attention of the user. Statistics and Graphics Online: Links Between Information in Newspapers and User Experience Evaluation


In an optically thin exosphere such as those of Mercury and the Moon, the optically stimulated emissions are directly proportional to the stimulating solar flux. An important quantity in relating measured emission to column abundance in remote-sensing observations is the g_value. The g_value is proportional to the f-value of the emission line and to the solar flux at the emission frequency. The solar flux varies inversely with the heliocentric distance from the Sun, but also with the heliocentric relative velocity of the emitting atom. The heliocentric relative velocity of the planet Mercury varies by ±10 km s−1, however, the atoms may additionally have high velocities relative to the planet owing to high-energy processes or through acceleration caused by radiation pressure. In this paper we extend g_values to heliocentric relative velocities ±50 km s−1. In addition to 12 species for which g_values have been published previously, we have computed g_values for two additional species, Mn and Al, that were discovered in Mercury's exosphere in the course of the MESSENGER mission. We have not included updated g_values for C or OH, as these were not observed by MESSENGER. In this work, we employ the TSIS-1 hybrid reference solar spectrum for most calculations, with the SOLSTICE data being used in the EUV/far-UV. We note that the method employed here could be extended for application at extrasolar planets and comets, with the solar spectrum substituted by an appropriate stellar spectrum.


Self-organized quantum dots have been used with great success in quantum dot infrared photodetectors (QDIPs), wherein intersublevel transitions between confined electron states are utilized. Many attributes make self-organized quantum dots attractive for the realization of intersublevel infrared light sources for the mid- to far-infrared wavelength range. Intersublevel electroluminescence has been demonstrated from both bipolar and quantum cascade unipolar structures, with coherent emission observed in the bipolar case. Coherent mid-infrared emission from bipolar selforganized quantum dot devices has been observed at room temperature, centered at 13μm. The cavity is designed to support both intersublevel and interband light, so that interband lasing can quickly depopulate the ground state of the quantum dots. Devices show a distinct turn-on at 1.1kA/cm2 but suffer from broad linewidth. Unipolar quantum dot cascade structures are being designed with a strain-compensating GaAs1-xNx / GaAs injector region. Using this material system, structures with as many as 30 cascade periods have been successfully grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). TE polarized electroluminescence at 22μm has been observed from such structures at cryogenic temperatures.


A statically indeterminate system consisting of rods which are prescribed in the initial state by unit vectors is considered. The basic equations of balance and equilibrium are presented in dimensionless form until the critical deformation in the elastic and elastoplastic domain in the rods is reached. The given basic equations allow taking into account the additional loading or unloading of the rod system at the point of reaching critical deformation in the elastoplastic domain. The process of loading the system in the case of simple loading is shown and the process of deformation of a specific rod system is described.


Clinicians want prognostic tools that not only aid prognostic classification, but also give quantitative probabilities of survival.1 We describe a way of generating survival estimates that uses existing survival data and generates survival curves online dynamically.

On the website http://finprog.primed.info/ a selection of prognostic factors are available for case-match survival estimation (figure).* The default selection in the drop down list for each factor is "all," which means that no selection has been made for the specific factor. The user can enter a prognostic factor profile by selecting any of the categories in the drop down lists. The software then queries the database to retrieve data on patients with matching prognostic profiles and known outcome and calculates a survival curve according to the Kaplan-Meier product-limit …


IN ST IT U TE edation and analgesia are considered by many gastroenterologists to be an integral component of the ndoscopic examination. For example, more than 98% of ndoscopists in the United States routinely administer edation during upper and lower endoscopies.1 Sedation s intended primarily to reduce a patient's anxiety and iscomfort, consequently improving their tolerability nd satisfaction for the procedure. Endoscopic sedation lso minimizes a patient's risk of physical injury during n examination and provides the endoscopist with an deal environment for a thorough examination. Despite he benefits of sedation, its use remains problematic. edation delays patient recovery and discharge, adds to he overall cost of an endoscopic procedure, and inreases the risk of cardiopulmonary complications. Notithstanding these considerations, the use of sedation uring endoscopy continues to increase throughout the orld.1– 4 Sedation may be defined as a drug-induced depression n the level of consciousness. Four stages of sedation have een described, ranging from minimal (anxiolysis) to oderate (conscious sedation), deep, and general aneshesia.5 Although many tolerate endoscopy with moderte sedation, some patients will require deep sedation. nowledge of the pharmacologic profiles of sedation gents is necessary to maximize the likelihood that the esired level of sedation is targeted accurately. Nonetheess, individuals differ in their response to sedation and a atient may become more deeply sedated than the level hat was intended. Therefore, practitioners should posess the skills necessary to resuscitate or rescue a patient hose level of sedation is deeper than that planned. This review is designed to standardize the practice of ndoscopic sedation within the United States. Whenever ossible, the statements and recommendations were deeloped systematically from an evidence-based analysis of he literature. There are many areas in which evidence rom randomized, controlled studies is absent, and conlusions are drawn from case series, retrospective dataase studies, and the opinion of experts in anesthesia and ndoscopy. It is hoped that practitioners will use this ocument to develop a structured sedation protocol uited to the needs of their patients and practice. Impleentation of an evidence-based sedation protocol has een shown to improve the quality of practice and reduce he incidence of sedation-related adverse events.6,7


The autonomous homing process of parafoil-payload systems is investigated in this paper. Three models are established, including a 9-DoF multi-body dynamics model for precisely describing the system dynamics, a 4-DoF particle model for trajectory planning, and a reduced third-order model for model predictive control (MPC). In trajectory planning stage, a coronavirus optimization algorithm (COVIDOA) is adopted to minimize the landing error and energy consumption. For tracking the planned trajectory, a dynamic reference point selection method (DRPSM) is proposed to address the problem of time sequence mismatch between the planned trajectory and actual trajectory. A model predictive controller is then designed to track the reference trajectory. Simulation for the whole airdrop process is at last presented.


Although recurrent malignancy is the most frequent indication for second stem cell transplantation (2nd SCT), there are few reports that include sufficiently large numbers of patients to enable prognostic factor analysis. This retrospective study includes 150 patients who underwent a 2nd SCT for relapsed acute myeloblastic leukaemia (n = 61), acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (n = 47) or chronic myeloid leukaemia (n = 42) after a first allogeneic transplant (including 26 T‐cell‐depleted). The median interval between the first transplant and relapse, and between relapse and second transplant was 17 months and 5 months respectively. After the 2nd SCT, engraftment occurred in 93% of cases, 32% of patients developed acute graft‐vs.‐host disease (GVHD)  grade II and 38% chronic GVHD. The 5‐year overall and disease‐free survival were 32 ± 8% and 30 ± 8%, respectively, with a risk of relapse of 44 ± 12% and a transplant‐related mortality of 45 ± 9%. In a multivariate analysis, five factors were associated with a better outcome after 2nd SCT: age < 16 years at second transplant; relapse occurring more than 12 months after the first transplant; transplantation from a female donor; absence of acute GVHD; and the occurrence of chronic GVHD. The best candidates for a second transplant are likely to be patients with acute leukaemia in remission before transplant, in whom the HLA‐identical donor was female and who relapsed more than 1 year after the first transplant.


The present work reports on the fabrication and characterization of a thermoelectric generator on the top surface of a power transistor in order to monitor its temperature indirectly through the thermo-generated voltage. The thermoelectric materials used for the generator were n-type Bi/Te and p-type Sb/Te deposited by coevaporation process. We demonstrated for the first time the use of a thermoelectric generator to monitor the thermal health of III-nitride based power transistors.


Classical swine fever (CSF) is a highly contagious viral disease caused by a RNA virus that belongs to the genus Pestivirus within the family Flaviviridae . CSF represents one of the leading worldwide threats to the pig industry. Life attenuated vaccines using lapinized Chinese strain have been used to prevent the disease. The reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is one of the more sensitive methods that have been used in veterinary medicine for RNA virus detection. In the case of CSF virus is very useful, because the nucleic acid could be detected in early stages of the infection and during a long period in recovered animals. The aim of this study was to apply real time RT-PCR assay for the detection of lapinized Chinese strain from the Cuban vaccine strain against CSF. Tonsils of vaccinated pigs were the most positive organ in the detection of RNA vaccinal virus. Interference of the vaccinal virus in diagnosis was proved. The lower threshold cycle values were seen at 12 postvaccination day.


Ferromagnetic interactions in three-dimensionally stacked organic-radical assemblies were deduced under periodic boundary conditions. Although the topological-linkage patterns apparently contained ...


Background: The ctDNA shedding rate, concentration and stability are associated with tumor type, stage, ctDNA degradation and clearance mechanisms. Tumoral heterogeneity together with tissue of origin related genomic alterations adds complexity to genomic profiling. The value of NGS panels capable of detecting variants in both tissue and ctDNA are well recognized. Therefore, it is essential to assess the comprehensive NGS panel(s) performance in both liquid biopsy and tissue by comparing to tissue WES. In this study, we systematically conducted performance evaluation of llumina TruSight™ Oncology 500 gene (TSO500) NGS assay(s) using matched tissue and ctDNA specimens
 Methods: Matched tissue and plasma samples from seven treatment naive stage III/IV CRC patients were utilized for Illumina TSO500 sequencing and WES. Tissue samples were separately analyzed by both WES and the TSO500 tissue panel while extracted cfDNA was analyzed by TSO500 ctDNA panel. Illumina BaseSpace TruSight Oncology 500 platform (CombinedVariantOutput.tsv) was applied to select non-synonymous (frameshift, in-frame, nonsense, missense, translation start site, nonstop and splice site) variants in both cfDNA and tissue samples. Genes found to be mutated by tissue WES were filtered for corresponding mutated genes detected by TSO500 analysis. Next, using maftools, we characterize the most frequently mutated genes and the mutations observed for each patient sample.
 Results: 1,300 variants and 33 copy number variants were observed in the liquid biopsy samples whereas 1,199 variants, 9 genes with high copy number variations and 3 gene fusions were observed in the TSO500 tissue panel. Of these mutations, 889 variants (56.9%) were common between the liquid and tissue in the TSO500 panels. We observed a significant correlation across WES and TSO500-called variants (TSO500 tissue/TSO500 cfDNA r2=0.81, WES/TSO500 tissue r2=0.91 (47 variants), WES/TSO500 cfDNA r2=0.84 (17 variants). In the TSO tissue and cfDNA datasets, 19/20 most commonly mutated genes were the same, while FAT1 was the most commonly mutated gene in both tissue and ctDNA samples. In addition, only 2/20 (APC and TP53) most commonly mutated genes found in the tissue WES dataset were included in the top 20 for two TSO500 datasets. Furthermore, the RTK-RAS pathway had mutations in 22 genes in the liquid and tissue TSO500, by far the most of any pathway.
 Conclusions: Significant concordance between the TSO500 liquid biopsy and tissue datasets were demonstrated, but lesser concordance with the tissue WES dataset. The evidence supports the potential of leveraging both ctDNA and FFPE based genomic observation to enable precision oncology. A deeper analytical dive into each dataset is on-going.
 Citation Format: Dennis O'Rourke, Roman Alpatov, Danyi Wang, Zheng Feng, Juergen Scheuenpflug. Comparing comprehensive NGS panel(s) based approach versus tissue whole exome sequencing (WES) using matched tissue and circulating tumor DNA from late-stage colorectal cancer patients [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr 5105.


In order to improve the property of polyimide(PI) film for corona-resistance,the PI/alumina composites were prepared with a new method of polymerization processing adopted for nano-alumina.The effect of alumina addition on dielectric properties of the composites was studied;the results show that the corona-resistant lifespan of PI film with 23% amount of alumina(counting as Al2O3) was more than 120 hours,about 30 times longer than pure PI film in the condition of 90 MV/m,50 Hz,0.1 mm air gap on the rod-plate electrode system which was made by us.In addition,their chemical structure and micro-morphology were studied by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscope.


So ran a petition of April 1897 from some citizens of Poona (Pune) to the Governor of Bombay. The petition claimed to describe the problems faced by the 'native gentlemen' who accompanied British soldiers in house-to-house searches of the city for unreported cases of a virulent form of plague which had recently begun to spread widely in the Presidency. As the high-caste, status-conscious 'plague volunteers' conceived it, their principal function was to shield Indian women from the unwelcome attentions of the soldiers, believed by many Indians to be possessed by 'sheer animalism'.


In this paper, we are interested in the energy-efficient scheduling of real-time tasks on a non-ideal DVS processor. We assume that tasks are periodic, pre-emptive, dynamic priority, and may concurrent access to a set of shared resources. Based on the well-known earliest deadline first (EDF) algorithm and the stack resource policy (SRP), we propose an approach, called blocking-aware two-speed (BATS) algorithm, to calculate appropriate speeds for task execution. In particular, tasks are executed at a static low speed when blocking does not occur, and a high speed will be calculated dynamically whenever a task blocks a higher priority task. The processor must run at the high speed from the beginning of the blocking until the deadline of the blocked task or the processor becomes idle. The low speed and the high speed are derived based on the theoretical analysis of the schedulability of tasks so that the energy consumption can be reduced without violating the timing constraints of tasks. Compare with existing work, BATS achieves more energy saving because its derived high speeds are lower than that of existing work and the processor has less time to execute tasks at the high speeds.


In this essay I seek to show how gender-based (over-)interpretations of women's political interventions change the meanings of these interventions, enforce political actions, or work counter to them. The essay focuses on two cases of women's left activism in Israel: Checkpoint Watch: an all women anti-occupation grassroots organization, and Tali Fahima, a radical activist who used her body as a human shield to protect a leader of a Palestinian military group. Examining the interplays between the gendered bodily-presence of these activists and their agenda on the national level, I seek to expose the disturbing effects produced at the intersection of identity (gendered, sexed, racilized, nationalized or otherwise defined) and a seemingly "external" political action. I show that when these women's political actions are (mis-)read as integral to their female identities, their oppositional interventions is eventually appropriated to entrench and legitimate the very orders they endeavor to disturb.


This paper tries to shed more light on the history of Islamic Petra and concentrates particularly on the Jabal Haroun area. Five new Islamic inscriptions dated to the early, middle and late Islamic periods are published below for the first time. These confirm the sanctity of the site during these periods.


A successful scoping study has led to Ferrum Crescent Ltd applying for a mining right over its Turquoise Moon iron ore project in South Africa. Ramp-up for the project is expected to begin in mid-2014 with full production occurring by mid-2016.


Double-electron-excitation processes of He atoms by multiply-charged-ion impact have been theoretically investigated using the close-coupling method in the MeV/u energy regime. Hyperspherical wave functions are adopted to take full account of the strongly correlated motion of two atomic electrons in He. The Born series is used to analyze the results of cross sections obtained by the close-coupling method. The cross section of the process to the 2p2p $^{1}$${\mathit{D}}^{\mathit{e}}$ state is found to show the most rapid increase as the projectile charge ${\mathit{Z}}_{\mathit{p}}$ increases, while that to the 2s2p $^{1}$${\mathit{P}}^{\mathit{o}}$ state indicates the slowest in the double-electron-excitation processes to the (2l,2l') manifold. For high ${\mathit{Z}}_{\mathit{p}}$ at 1.5 MeV/u, the 2p2p $^{1}$${\mathit{D}}^{\mathit{e}}$ cross section becomes dominant in the excitation processes to the (2l,2l') manifold. Physical interpretation based on the rovibrator model is given concerning the correlated motion of two atomic electrons.


Having analysised the importance of model compiund in model base management system (MBMS), the paper dicusses all kinds of problems of model compound in MBMS in detail, introducing the two kinds of cimpound of midels: parallel connection and series connection, and at the same time gives some examples to illustrate them in detail.


This paper deals with the existence of weak solutions for semilinear elliptic equation with nonlinearity on the boundary. We establish the existence of a maximal and a minimal weak solution between an ordered pair of sub- and supersolution for both monotone and nonmonotone nonlinearities. We use iteration argument when the nonlinearity is monotone. For the nonmonotone case, we utilize the surjectivity of a pseudomonotone and coercive operator, Zorn's lemma and a version of Kato's inequality.


The effect of salinity stress on external shoot morphology in relation to panicle development was studied. Three rice cultivars, Nipponbare, as a Japonica-type rice, Blue bonnet as a Javanica-type, and Konosuke, a Japonica-type sensitive to soil stress were used and were grown in pots by sand culture method with various concentrations of sodium chloride. Injury symptoms in different cultivars were expressed in various ways. Treatment during the young panicle formation stage caused green leaves to become pale yellow followed by browning, starting from leaf tip to base, and the lowermost leaf was affected first, followed by younger upper leaves on the same culm. Under conditions of increased salinity and with prolonged duration of treatment, flag leaf burning became more pronounced. The injury symptom during late panicle growth period was expressed as a reduction in culm length, and a number of late-grown tiny tillers came out on upper nodes in some plants. Heading time was so remarkably delayed that the period of heading was prolonged. Under higher salt conditions, basal part of the panicle started to emerge earlier, while the tip remained inside the leaf sheath. The similarities in effects of salt stress on shoot morphology with those of other adverse environmental conditions are discussed.


The utility model belongs to inspection equipment and particularly relates to a flatness inspection tool. A work piece positioning board (2) is fixed at the left side on an inspection tool body (1) by a screw (14); measuring heads I, II, III and IV (3, 4, 5 and 6) and two positioning bases (15) are mounted on the work piece positioning board (2); a mounting base (18) is fixed at the right side on the inspection tool body (1) by the screw (14); a calibration piece (16) and a counter weight (17) are respectively placed in a mounting groove of the mounting base (18); the measuring heads I, II, III and IV (3, 4, 5 and 6) are correspondingly connected with sensors I, II, III and IV (10, 11, 12 and 13) through lead wires (7); the sensors I, II, III and IV (10, 11, 12 and 13) are respectively mounted on a processor (8); the processor (8) is connected with a microcomputer (9) through the lead wire (7); and a touch screen (9-1) is mounted on the microcomputer (9). The flatness inspection tool has the advantages of convenience in operation, high detection precision and low using cost.


Since the mid-1930s in the Senate and the late-1.960s in the House, members of Congress have been permitted to cosponsor legislation. Many members have become very active in cosponsoring legislation, while others have shown some reluctance. This article investigates several possible reasons for differing levels of cosponsorship activity. The goals of securing re-election, gaining influence within the Congress, and producing good public policy, as well as the member's general level of legislative activity, are examined as influences on cosponsorship activity. The findings indicate that the representative's cosponsorship activity is influenced by ideology (the representative's measure of good public policy), by the representative's general level of legislative activity, and by the representative's re-election prospects if in the Senate and seniority if in the House.


The Nordic summer school in synchrotron radiation science, Advanced Research Using New X-ray Sources, was held from June 13–21, 2011 in Sweden. The school was organized by MAX-lab with economic support from the Nordic Academy for Advanced Studies (NorFA) and the Swedish German Röntgen-Ångström consortium. The school was divided into two parts. The first lecture part was held at Odengården, a cosy conference facility in the countryside of Skåne, Sweden's most southern province, followed by practical exercises at the MAX-lab synchrotron radiation laboratory.


In this paper we focus our studies on LTE, which is a development under 3G technologies Release-8 of the 3GPP Project plan and is considered a baseline and step towards the LTE-Advanced. In orthogonal frequency division multiplexing networks, inter-cell interference results in poor performance, especially universal frequency reuse scheme has already been used. Soft Frequency Reuse (SFR) scheme, one of the most promising inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC) schemes, has been introduced in LTE-Advanced networks. In this paper, we develop an analytical queuing model for the SFR scheme taking into account the features of SFR scheme and its impact on system performance firstly. Then, we improve the iterative algorithm called successive over-relaxation (SOR) to solve the set of linear equations and get the steady state probability distribution. Finally, performance analysis shows that maximum number of resource that cell-edge users can use and the number of cell-edge users correlate with the performance of SFR scheme.


Powerful collective memories—whether real or concocted— often lie at the root of conflicts, nationalism and cultural identities. In most societies, history textbooks are the "agents of memory" and function as a sort of "supreme historical court." This article reviews initially how controversies over history textbooks have become sources of conflict in East Asia and then examines the activities of a trilateral history textbook writing project between China, Japan and the Republic of Korea. It also aims to contribute to the theoretical discussion about why history textbooks are worth fighting over and how joint history textbook writing can be used as a means for peacebuilding.


The present study aims to highlight the importance of adaptation in translation. To convey the message, translators need to take into account not only the text, but also extra linguistic factors such as the target audience. The present paper claims that adaptation is an unavoidable translation strategy when dealing with texts that are heavy with religious and cultural themes. The translation task becomes even more challenging when dealing with children's literature as the audience is children whose comprehension, experience and world knowledge is limited. The study uses the Arabic translation of the short story "Christmas Every Day" by William Dean Howells (1837- 1920) as a case study. The short story will be translated and the pragmatic problems involved will be discussed. The focus will be on the issue of adaptation. i.e., the source text should be adapted to the target language audience's social and cultural environment.


Applications and development of rare earth metals in steel and iron as well as their principal functions are reviewed. Mechanism research results and functional features of them are analysed and summarized. The tendency toward further research and development is presented.


Culture-led urban regeneration strategies are becoming interesting processes at European,national, regional and local level, able to activate innovative productivity systems whereinterplay culture and creativity in urban districts, adaptive reuse of buildings and industrialsites, and bottom-up cooperation. A culture-led regeneration process is able to set the sceneand create the enabling conditions to promote cultural and creative industries, supportingalternative and situated forms of governance and management of local resources.According to this approach, the research aims at responding to a yet open question in placebasedregeneration policies and strategies: how the cultural and creative production couldimplement inclusive strategies of culture-led urban regeneration, in a framework of CircularEconomy, through evaluation processes? The paper introduces the experience of the socalled"PLUS – Pisticci Laboratorio Urbano Sostenibile" (Pisticci Sustainable Urban Lab),a "community hub" developed within the framework of Matera ECoC 2019, in Pisticci(MT), the third-largest town in Basilicata (Italy).Keywords: community values, cultural creative enterprises, local circular economies


In recent years, the importance of urban planning in the Tokyo metropolitan area has been advocated with an awareness of the activities around residential areas. The purpose of this study is to obtain knowledge about the actual situation of people's activities around their residential areas, while paying attention to the changes in the urban structure of the Tokyo metropolitan area over the 50-year period since the 1970s. As a result, through the classification of traffic behavior patterns using the data of the Tokyo Metropolitan Area PT Survey, it was shown that private activities near the home have been diversifying, and that the change in the nature of shopping trips and the increase in exercise trips are particularly characteristic. In order to develop the next generation of sphere of daily existence, it will be important to consider the railroad station as the core of the area and to develop a network that enriches walking.


Halcrow's fire safety engineers develop cost-effective designs for new build and refurbishment. If the worst should happen, even after a severe fire, concrete structures are generally capable of being repaired rather than demolished. Halcrow's teams of materials engineers routinely assess fire-damaged structures and specify repair solutions.


In recent years, deep learning has attracted lots of research interests for pattern recognition and artificial intelligence. PCA Network (PCANet) is a simple deep learning network with highly competitive performance for texture classification and object recognition. When compared to other deep neural networks such as convolutional neural network (CNN), PCANet has much simpler structure, which makes it attractive for hardware design on an FPGA. In this paper, an efficient, high-throughput, pipeline architecture is proposed for the PCANet classifier. The implementation on an FPGA is more than 1,000 times faster than software execution on a general purpose processor. When evaluated using the MNIST handwritten digits dataset, the PCANet design results an accuracy of about 99.46%.


Extraordinary transmission through a periodic array of inhomogeneous dielectric loaded slots in a an infinite metallic shield of finite thickness is demonstrated. We show that the intervals between those transmissions can be controlled by filled slots with inhomogeneous dielectric permittivity.


Environmental perturbations during gestation can alter fetal development and postnatal animal performance. In humans, intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) resulting from adaptive fetal programming is known as a leading cause of perinatal morbidity and mortality and predisposes offspring to metabolic disease, however, the prevalence and impact in livestock is not characterized as well. Multiple animal models have been developed as a proxy to determine mechanistic changes that underlie the postnatal phenotype resulting from these programming events in humans but have not been utilized as robustly in livestock. While the overall consequences are similar between models, the severity of the conditions appear to be dependent on type, timing, and duration of insult, indicating that some environmental insults are of more relevance to livestock production than others. Thus far, maternofetal stress during gestation has been shown to cause increased death loss, low birth weight, inefficient growth, and aberrant metabolism. A breadth of this data comes from the fetal ruminant collected near term or shortly thereafter, with fewer studies following these animals past weaning. Consequently, even less is known about how adaptive fetal programming impacts subsequent progeny. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge of the postnatal phenotype of livestock resulting from different models of fetal programming, with a focus on growth, metabolism, and reproductive efficiency. We further describe what is currently known about generational impacts of fetal programming in production systems, along with gaps and future directions to consider.


Classical plate buckling theory is obtained systematically as the small‐thickness limit of the three‐dimensional linear theory of incremental elasticity with null incremental data. Various a priori assumptions associated with classical treatments of plate buckling, including the Kirchhoff–Love hypothesis, are here derived rather than imposed, and the conditions under which they emerge are stated precisely.


A new efficient method for implementing narrowband FlR jilters is presented. The method is based on an lnterpolated jilter (lFlR) structure and a cascade of comb and integrator (ClC) structures. The novelty ofthís technique ís that the ClC structure is used as an image suppressor in an lFlR structure. The method is useful for narrowband FlRjilter design and some design examples for lowpass and highpass jilters are given.


The title dimeric aluminium amide, [Al2(CH3)4(C6HF5N)2], contains a folded Al2N2 ring with four-coordinate Al atoms [mean Al—N = 1.9910 (14) A and mean Al—C = 1.9452 (19) A]. The pentafluorophenyl substituents on the N atoms adopt a trans configuration.


Abstract : Mechanical contacts between polytetrafluoroethylene (PT FE) and tungsten field ion tips were made in situ in the field ion microscope. Both load and force of adhesion were measured for varying contact times and for clean and contaminated tungsten tips. Strong adhesion between the PTFE and clean tungsten was observed at contact times greater than 2-1/2 min (forces of adhesion were greater than three times the load). For times less than 2-1/2 min, the force of adhesion was immeasurably small. The increase in adhesion with contact time after 2-1/2 min can be attributed to the increase in true contact area by creep of PTFE. No adhesion was measurable at long contact times with contaminated tungsten tips. Neon field ion micrographs taken after the contacts show many linear and branched arrays which appear to represent PTFE that remains adhered to the surface even at the high electric fields required for imaging.


The problem of "the shortest path" has wide application.There are many algorithms to solve this problem and the best one is "Dijkstra's label algorithm".But experiment results show that this algorithm needs to be improved:①The algorithm's exit mechanism is ineffective to non-unicom figure and will fall into an infinite loop;②The algorithm is not concerned in the problem of previous adjacent vertices in shortest path;③The algorithm is not concerned in the problem that more vertices obtain the "p-label" at the same time.This paper improved the "Dijkstra's label algorithm".Experiment results indicate that the improved algorithm can solve above problems effectively.On the basis of the above work,we developed the "Beijing Road optimal route selection system",which help users to select the shorted route,so that people can avoid the most congested road traffic and save time.


---Need analysis is one of the important processes in English language teaching. In vocational education, it is important to ensure that students have competences that match the demands and needs of the industries. This study is aimed to investigate the language needs of Port and Shipping Management students of Politeknik Ilmu Pelayaran Semarang, based on their experience during the internship program. An open-ended questionnaire was used to survey the English-related-tasks that students have to perform, the difficulties that the students face when doing their tasks, and the language competence that the students want to improve based on their experience. 68 students participated in this research. All of them are eighth-semester students and had conducted internship program for twelve months. This study revealed that the four language skills: speaking, writing, listening, and reading are very important. Students have to make reports, engage in discussions, respond to clients or customers' requests, handle documents, and reply letters. Students often find difficulties when doing their tasks due to limited grammar and vocabulary of formal language. They want to improve their communicative competence so that they can communicate fluently and accurately.


The robustness of the traditional A* algorithm of path planning is poor due to its excessive number of traversal nodes, slow search speed, and large turning angle. Aiming to solve the above problems, a multi-scenario adaptive A* algorithm based on extended neighborhood priority search is proposed. Firstly, this algorithm designs the heuristic function that can adapt to various scene changes by quantifying the scene map information, and the search weight is adjusted adaptively to enhance the robustness and adaptability of the algorithm. Secondly, the search strategy based on extended neighborhood priority is adopted to improve the orientation of the algorithm, and the redundant node removal strategy is used to smooth the path to reduce the number of traversed nodes and the turning angle. Finally, simulation tests are conducted in several representative map environments. The test results show that the proposed algorithm is superior to the traditional A* algorithm due to its stronger robustness and significantly improved performance metrics, with an 84.95% reduction in the number of traversal nodes, an 83.84% reduction in the number of path nodes, a 62.28% reduction in turning points on the path, a 77.38% reduction in the total turning angle, and a 58.47% reduction in the search time.


Abstract : This thesis is part of a larger project that will demonstrate the feasibility of powering a commercially sized 7.5-ton cooling system. Excess cooling will be stored thermally using ice. This system has the potential to be used in military bases to reduce energy costs and fossil fuel consumption. A scaled down version would be suitable for data centers and forward operating bases where the transport of fuel can be costly and dangerous. The system will be built and operated at the Turbopropulsion Laboratory (TPL) of Naval Postgraduate School. This thesis concentrates on the choice and location of wind turbines used to power the cooling system. A simulation of Building 216, which is the planned site of the cooling system, was performed. A wind flow analysis found that optimum placement of the wind turbines is at the front of the south end of the building. The method for placing the wind turbines is outlined and applicable to other structures. Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTS) were found to be the most suitable for site location. A transient analysis of the VAWTS was necessary to accurately simulate their performance. This supported the selection of a three-bladed helical VAWT design. Further simulations of wind turbine separation showed some beneficial effects of close spacing.


The gold standard in treating distal femur fractures is internal fixation, which yields good functional outcome [4-7]. Internal fixation is achieved through locked plating and to a lesser extent through intramedullary nailing, both preferably performed in a minimally invasive manner to preserve the fracture vascularization and improve outcome in fracture healing [8]. Since the introduction of lateral locked plating this technique has become increasingly popular since the first publications showing promising levels of union ranging between 90-100% [8-14]. However, later studies that include more complex fractures due to High Energy Trauma showed higher nonunion rates of up to 20 % [4,15].


ABSTRACT Building Computational Thinkers, a three-year research study, explored how educators and designers can most effectively support the development of computational thinking capacity, and how these learning experiences could be customized to meet the needs of different learners. This research study focused on three specific exhibit design approaches that conveyed problem decomposition content in The Science Behind Pixar (Pixar), a 13,000 square foot traveling exhibition about the computer science, mathematics, and science behind Pixar's innovative films. Phase One investigated how novice learners could be supported to interact with exhibits and understand problem solving strategies that tackle complex, creative challenges in computer programming. Phase Two investigated the affordances of these exhibits to build capacity, feelings of efficacy, and interest in problem decomposition content in middle and high school youth. The findings in this paper describe the types of scaffolds that can be used to support computational thinking in novice youth, as well as how a combination of exhibit approaches were found to increase youth perceptions, understanding, and beliefs of computer programming. It will also discuss how two exhibit approaches worked particularly well for engaging girls in problem decomposition content.