The present invention relates to a dielectric ceramic green sheet-forming slurry. The present invention is the dielectric ceramic in the sheet forming slurry, a process aid, and paraffinic provide a dielectric ceramic sheet forming slurry, characterized in that the boiling point solvent is added, the paraffin having a boiling point solvent is the amount of addition to the mineral spirit at least 1wt% to less than 5wt% are preferred. According to the invention, according to the present invention, the green sheet during manufacture paraffin as a process aid in the slurry for forming a boiling point solvent, in particular by addition of mineral spirits, and then proceeds laminating and contact bonding by removing the external flaw of the chip yield of chips It can enhance, and there is an effect that it is possible to remove the step and winding phenomenon of the internal electrodes to the internal electrodes, improve the structure, such as a multilayer capacitor, enhance product characteristics through them in the condenser. Dielectric, multilayered ceramic slurry, MLCC, processing aids, mineral spirit


In order to improve the information elements in fashion design display ability, feature extraction and pattern information for modeling clothing texture, a clothing texture pattern texture segmentation method the dynamic characteristics and speed up robust feature matching based on sparse interference on clothing texture acquisition case scattered point segmentation and denoising, color the introduction of Hessian component RGB scale clothing texture pattern decomposition method to decompose, clothing texture pattern feature extraction by the interference of texture segmentation, using Taubin smoothing operator clothing texture map in case of three-dimensional reconstruction of image pixel space, linear texture pattern reorganization of the clothing RGB component by Radon transform, to achieve the extraction of pattern features for clothing texture. The simulation results show that the extracted pattern features by using this method to achieve the texture of the clothing, clothing color information fusion of shape vision information can improve the information expression ability of dress texture, and the feature extraction of output pattern is better.


In this paper, broadband transitions from substrate integrated coaxial line (SICL) to a conductor-backed coplanar waveguide (CBCPW) are proposed and designed. Measurement results show that the insertion loss and return loss are better than i0:5dB and i10dB, respectively from 0 to 13GHz. Then, for verifying the performance of SICL and the validity of SICL transition design, a 3dB SICL rat-race coupler operating at 2.3GHz is designed, fabricated, and measured. Compared with the conventional microstrip line coupler, this SICL coupler maintains good performance but with a remarkable 24% reduction in size. At last, a 10dB dual-band coupled SICL coupler operating at 2.4/5.8GHz is proposed, and the measured results agree well with the schematic and electromagnetic simulated results. The measured results demonstrate that the fabricated bandwidths are 30% and 12.8%, the jS31j are i10:1dB and i10:3dB, the directivities are 18dB and 20dB at the low (2.4GHz) and high (5.8GHz) operating frequencies, respectively. Compare with the dual-band coupled microstrip line coupler, performance of the dual-band coupled SICL coupler is enhanced.


Objective To investigate the role of hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) in the development of human cancer of larynx and the relationship between HGF and clinicopathological factors.Methods The concentration of plasma HGF in 36 patients with larynx cancer and 25 young healthy men were measured by the quantitative sandwich enzyme linked immunoassay technique. Results The content of plasma HGF in the patients with larynx cancer was nearly four times higher than that of the healthy men , and the content of serum HGF decreased significantly after surgery. Correlation analyses showed that the HGF level was correlated with tumor size ,vessel involvement ,node status ,and TNM stage. No significant associations were found between the serum HGF content and age ,menopause status ,estrogen receptor , progesterone receptor.Conclusion HGF may play an important role in the development and progression of human cancer of larynx. The concentration of circulating hepatocyte growth factor may act as an independent prognostic indicator in primary cancer of larynx.


Fossils described as Gloverilina pratti new genus and new species are all from a single locality in West Texas. Equally informative Permian limoids are not known elsewhere in the world. Usually they are represented by poorly preserved small collections, or single specimens in which hinge characters are not observable. Inevitably, they are species in name only.


Background . Patient satisfaction is an indicator of the quality of care. Methods . We used an internationally standardised and validated instrument for patients' evaluations of general practice care developed in a series of studies. Sample. 60 consecutive patients in 36 practices in Slovenia were approached and offered a self-administered questionnaire. Results . I've got 84% response rate. The respondents' mean age was 50 years. 64% were female, and 36% male. Higher satisfaction was predicted by eight variables: higher age of the patient, higher number of office visits, patient satisfaction with the organisation of the health care system, lower self-evaluated health status, lower number of anxiety and depression signs, not being visited in home during out of hours services, higher number of home visits made by a family practitioner daily and active appointment system. Conclusions . The patients evaluate parts of the health care system as a whole. The survey showed necessary changes in order to improve patient satisfaction. Introduction of appointment system in primary care seems to be unavoidable. Communication skill besides family medicine curricula and vocational training in family medicine should be included in each curricula for undergraduate teaching as well in vocational training. Those who did not benefit of such training courses in communication skills should be offered. Home visits as one of the basic characteristics of family practice should be supported professionally and with financial incentives.


We present and discuss recent research aiming at fast, cost-effective, and easy-to-use spectral imaging. Methodologies presented include using a stereoscopic camera with additional optical filters, extending the color filter array beyond RGB, and illuminant estimation.


Nikishin type systems of analytic functions are considered. For such systems, convergence of the main diagonal of the associated Hermite-Pade approximants is proved, when interpolation is equally distributed between the functions. If interpolation is "nearly" equally distributed, then convergence in capacity takes place. Multipoint Pade approximation plays a key role in the proof.Bibliography: 16 titles.


To Invest in Mainland China becomes Taiwan corporationsâ high priority by virtue of Chinaâs vast internal consumer market, the trade liberalization after joining WTO, low labor cost, and easy communication in Chinese language. However, the special relationship between Taiwan and China induces Taiwan corporationsâ investment risks due to political uncertainties. The establishment of information and communication network between headquarters in Taiwan and their mainland subsidiaries enables the governance and coordination between two sides. However, bearing these special relations, it is a nontrivial question to ask any unique information infrastructure and system that Taiwan corporations adopt which may be consistent with or different from prior literatures in multi-national corporations.
This thesis develops a conceptual framework to identify the relationship between the factors and IT configurations, and then proposes propositions to explain findings from three Taiwan companies, which have subsidiaries in China. This study asserts that the political uncertainties that influence the IT configuration of Taiwan companies with subsidiaries in China are common with multinational firms whose headquarter and subsidiaries have normal relationship. The major contribution of this study is to explore the factors that affect Taiwan companiesâ IT governing practice toward their China subsidiaries.


An analog median circuit has been designed and built in a 2pm CMOS process. The active area is 0.18mm2, and the circuit dissipates 1 ImW from a single 5V supply. The design trade-off between speed and accuracy allows for about lOmV of "corner" errors, while the circuit settles in less than loons, making it suitable for video applications.


In this work, a planar phased array antenna was engineered with ultra-wideband (UWB) performance that covers portions of the L-, S-, and C-bands. The unit cell design contains a driven layer that is directly connected to a single coaxial feed and a parasitic layer located above the driven layer separated by free space. This design does not require a balun or any vias between the antenna ground plane and the driven layer, resulting in a simple antenna stack-up consisting of only planar layers, aside from the feed structure. As a consequence, the complexity, and potentially sensitivity to mechanical tolerances, is reduced. The simulated results of this unbalanced phased array are discussed and experimentally validated.


In the past, most studies in innovation management have adopted the creator's perspective. Few researchers have adopted a user's or gatekeeper's view. Furthermore, research on gatekeeping in innovation, R&D management, and creativity seldom focus directly on the gatekeeping itself. To fill this gap, this study tries to clarify exactly what gatekeeping is. The study follows the logic of Lewin's gatekeeping theory and introduces the evolution perspective. It also integrates the technology gatekeeper, Csikszentmihaly's system model, and institutional theory to examine gatekeeping in selecting creative ideas. This paper proposes five key factors in the gatekeeping construct: the ability to earn creators' trust, the ability to raise creators' motivation, the selection of professional abilities, standards of evaluation, and the degree of interaction. Then, following Lewin's


Background: In-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA) is common and often fatal. To date, the time from admission to IHCA has not been described, and the association between timing of cardiac arrest and likelihood of survival to discharge and subsequent hospital length of stay (LOS) is unknown.

Methods: Within the national Get with the Guidelines Resuscitation registry, we identified 175,904 patients admitted between 2000 and 2013 with an IHCA. For each patient, the time from admission to IHCA was determined and categorized as early (7 days). Multivariable hierarchical logistic regression models examined the association between timing of IHCA and both survival to discharge and, among survivors, subsequent LOS from date of IHCA.

Results: Overall, the mean and median times from admission to IHCA were 5.3 ± 6.3 days and 3 days (IQR: 1-8), respectively. Nearly half (83,811 [47.6%]) of patients had their IHCA 7 days from admission, respectively. After adjustment for patient and and cardiac arrest factors, cardiac arrests occurring later during the hospitalization were associated with modestly lower survival (reference: 7 days: adjusted OR 0.89 [0.86-0.92]; P<.01). However, this association pertained only to patients with a shockable IHCA (P for interaction between shockable and non-shockable rhythms: <0.001). Lastly, among those surviving to discharge, later timing of IHCA was associated with much longer subsequent LOS (reference: 7 days: 6.8 additional days [6.3-7.3]; P<0.001).

Conclusion: Most IHCA occur after the first 72 hours of admission. Patients with IHCA >3 days from admission had significantly lower hospital survival and longer hospitalizations from the time of cardiac arrest.


At the present stage of development in the economy of Ukraine there is the problem of attracting investment. Various countries of the European Union and other countries are ready to invest in the Ukrainian economy. Investments develop the economy of Ukraine, namely, support small and medium-sized businesses, introduce the latest technologies, improve public authorities and more. It is necessary to intensify foreign investment in the Black Sea (southern) Region. Based on statistics, the most stable increase in exports of goods is observed in the economy of Mykolaiv region, which indicates the development of projects and programs of European and Euro-Atlantic integration, but in Donetsk, Odessa and Kherson regions unstable increase in exports of goods, so it is necessary to increase projects and programs European and Euro-Atlantic integration to attract investment, as well as increase the implementation of international experience exchange programs for small and medium-sized businesses. Based on statistical data, the unstable increase in imports of goods was revealed, which does not show the significant negative impact on the economy of the Black Sea Region of Ukraine, but it is necessary to increase investment efficiency and implement investment projects. As the result of the analysis the growth of foreign direct investment in the economy of the Black Sea Region of Ukraine is investigated, which shows insufficiently effective development of the economy of the Black Sea Region of Ukraine, therefore it is necessary to increase the attraction of foreign investments in the economy, to support small and medium business in the economy and to introduce international experience exchange programs for small and medium business in the economy of the Black Sea Region of Ukraine, etc. It is considered that to increase the implementation of projects and programs of European and Euro-Atlantic integration to attract investment in the Black Sea Region of Ukraine it is necessary to perform the following actions: implement anti-corruption programs, realization training for civil servants of Ukraine, introduce international experience exchange programs, etc.


Microstructural evolutions during thermal exposure and their effects on the mechanical properties of GTD 111 have been investigated. After standard heat treatment, polycrystalline GTD 111 specimens were thermally exposed up to 10000 hours in the temperature range of 871-982 o C. Distribution and composition of the existing phases have been analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively using electron microscopy, EDS and image analyses. The activation energy calculated for J' coarsening was similar to that for self diffusion. In this alloy eta(K ) phase may form during casting, standard heat treatment and thermal exposure at and below 927 o C. MC carbides decomposed into K + M23C6 during thermal exposure at 871 o C and 927 o C rather than M23C6 + J'. Precipitation of sigma(V ) phase was observed in the vicinity of MC or M23C6 carbides, especially in the specimen exposed at 871 o C. During thermal exposure at 982 o C, both precipitation of continuous J' + M23C6 film along the grain boundary and dissolution of fine K within J-J' eutectic have occurred. Tensile tests and constant load creep tests with thermally exposed GTD 111 have been conducted to understand the effect of thermal exposure and grain boundary structure on mechanical properties. Formation of intergranular K phase reduces the room temperature ductility, but does not affect creep rupture life and high temperature ductility in the present study.


This paper dealed with a method of improving on human-machine interface for the fiber moisture con- trol system of medium density fiberboard. The keyboard was connected to parallel interface chip 8255A, with the interruptive intercross structure. The LED were driven LED display decoder driver ICM7228, in order to rebuild the display model from time-share to separately displaying each parameter. As a result, the paramters was intuitionistic and convenience.


During the 1920's, Mexican federal authorities sought to consolidate their political regime. To that aim, they used the Police forces of Mexico City as an instrument for political control. Besides guaranteeing the city's public security, they used their own force to repress dissident or subversive political manifestations. By taking advantage of their own command, the Police forces established an extremely violent system based on corruption and impunity. After provoking multiple scandals that shocked the public opinion, the Police authorities developed campaigns to cover-up senior officers by using scapegoats.


Forest floor samples were obtained from three mature, even-aged, naturally regenerated conifer stands which varied with respect to drainage and indigenous soil fertility. Field moist subsamples were stored for 200 days in a refrigerator maintained at 4 °C and in a freezer maintained at − 10 °C; in addition, forest floor samples, dried at 60 °C for 48 h, were stored at room temperature. Subsamples were extracted initially and at predetermined time intervals with 2 N KCl (to determine mineral NH4+-N and NO3−-N), with neutral 1 N ammonium acetate (to determine water-soluble + exchangeable K, Ca, and Mg), and with distilled water (to determine soluble P). At 4 °C, extractable NH4+-N changed little during the first week of storage but increased steadily thereafter at rates which appeared to increase with increasing total N. Nitrification, present only in the sample taken from the most fertile site, commenced after 40 days of refrigerated storage. Concentrations of soluble P decreased initially, but rose therea...


The article starts describing the enormous
dynamism of the real estate sector, providing
data extracted from the activity of the Directorate General for Cadastre.
After that, the article continues with
a description of the historical problems in
Spain related with the Coordination between
the Property Registry and the Cadastre, and
analizes the effects of the Law 13/1996 and
the recently passed Law 13/2015.
The different kinds of coordination between the Cadastre and the Property Registry
are described.
It is emphasized that the Law 13/2015
does not favor any of them, and arguments
that allow a teleological interpretation of the
rule are provided, in order to opt for any of
the possible.
Subsequently, the main novelties of Law
13/2015 are outlined, and their incidence in
the cadastral activity.
In a second part of the Article, it can be
found a description and brief history of Cadastral Cartography and its main characteristics and ways of updating, as well as its
dissemination policy.
Next, and in relation to the Coordination
between Cadastre and the Property Registry,
the role of the different actors involved (Notaries, Registrars, Technicians, Jurists, Citizens) is described, as well as the main operations subject to registry (inmatriculation,
segregation), proposing an operative workflow that guarantees both the incorporation
of the information to the Cadastre as well as
the Coordination with the Property Registry
in a reallistic way.
In the Final Section, the conclusions of the
work are listed and recapitulated in order to
highlight the purpose and objectives of Law
13/2015 and the way to achieve them.


The development of a complex mechanical device with microcontroller control using of model-based design and Mathworks software products is described. The object was a robotic arm based on a parallel structure mechanism with six degrees of freedom. To create a microcontroller control system for this manipulator, a solution to the inverse kinematics problem was proposed. The operability of the model was proved using a moving computer model of geometric primitives in MATLAB. Analysis of the physical properties of developing object was carried out on the basis of its three-dimensional model, implemented by Simscape Multibody package and composed of solid-state models. The operability of the control system hardware was proved by Embedded Systems Toolbox, which also allowed to generate an executive code for selected Arduino Mega 2560 microcontroller board. The manipulator is a complete electromechanical device with cyclic microcontroller control, which allows to move the moving platform according to the predefined trajectories.


The utility model discloses a molecular sieve device for removing fine particles from smoke with a wet method, which belongs to the technical field of dust removing equipment. The molecular sieve device comprises a water tank and a removing chamber, wherein a molecular sieve is arranged in the removing chamber, a water cover is arranged on the top of the removing chamber, and a drainage plate is arranged between the water cover and the removing chamber; the first output end of the water tank is communicated with the water cover through a first water inlet pipe, and a first water nozzle is arranged on one end of the first water inlet pipe, which extends into the water cover; a first water outlet pipe which is communicated with the water tank is arranged at the bottom of the removing chamber. The device has the advantages of safety and reliability in operation, simple and compact structure, low cost, long service life and high removing efficiency of the fine particles.


This paper analyses the asymptotic properties of portfolios that sustain Pareto Optimal consumption allocations in an in…nite horizon stochastic endowment economy with many Bayesian agents with heterogeneous preferences and priors. Since Pareto optimal allocations are typically history dependent, we adapt and extend the method developed by Lucas and Stokey (J. of Econ. Theory, 1984) to provide a complete recursive characterization. We also show that agents'…nancial wealth (and their corresponding portfolios) in a dynamically complete markets equilibrium converges on a path if and only if both the likelihood ratio of the agents'beliefs over distant future events on that path as well as the agents'posterior beliefs over the unknown parameters converge on that path. Afterwards, we show that if agents know the likelihood function generating the data and have prior beliefs over the unknown parameters with positive and continuous density on an open set containing the true parameter, then investor's equilibrium holding of assets of any speci…c maturity converge with probability one and consequently any genuine asset trading vanishes with probability one. Finally, we provide examples in which asset trading does not vanish asymptotically because either (i) no agent has the true parameter in the support of his prior or (ii) agents disagree on the likelihood function that generates the data.


Common responsibility is located within a neoliberal socio-political framework of policies designed to structure an ordered and 'disciplined society' emphasizing strong work-ethics and self-reliance. This article presents findings of three qualitative studies into welfare-recipient experiences under interventions allied to common responsibility. The studies were of 14 (2000), 32 (2007) and 15 (2014–15) individual mothers in receipt of Centre link payments. Participants voiced concerns over interventions targeting individuals predominantly already contributing in essential roles, fear of misdirected coercive punishments, increased stigmatization, a lower real standard of living and unimproved prospects for suitable employment. The article explores past and present rhetoric and implementations of common responsibility policies, and their impacts for people receiving welfare benefits. Ongoing critical analysis of such interventionist policies is essential to ensuring that the ostensible goals of addressing poverty and disadvantage are achievable and without excessive unforeseen consequences to society. Are they in the interests of social justice and stability?


Purpose: Arylamine N-acetylation capacity by the N-acetyltransferase (NAT) may be an important causative factor in the initiation of colorectal cancer. Vitamin E (aipha-tocopherol) has been known for many years as an antioxidant and act as an important component of anticancer regimens. The activity of NAT and the effect of vitamin E on NAT activity in healthy colon and colon cancerous tissues (in vitro) were investigated. Materials and Methods: Forty human healthy colon and colon cancerous tissue cytosol (subcellular fraction) were investigated for NAT activity. The effect of vitamin E on the activity of NAT was also examined by high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) using 2-aminofluorene and p-aminobenzoic acid as substrates in this study. Results: NAT activity are higher in colon cancerous tissue cytosol than in healthy colon tissue cytosol and vitamin E could decrease NAT activity in healthy colon and colon cancerous tissue cytosol. Conclusion: The results may suggest a clue to the use of vitamin E in treatment and prevention of human colon cancer. In future, in vivo study will be investigated.


The invention relates to a method, a computer program and to devices (110; 210) for remotely controlling a vehicle (200) by a mobile device (110). The method includes determining (10) a proposal for triggering a function of the vehicle (100). The method further includes outputting (20) the proposal via an output device. The method further includes detecting (30) a reaction of a user of the mobile device (100), wherein the reaction from an input via an input device, or from the absence of an input is. The method further comprises transmitting (40) a trigger signal for the functionality of the mobile device (100) to the vehicle (200) if the input within a time period fails or if the input does not match a termination of the proposal.


A novel leg-wheel robot, Transleg, is proposed in this paper. Differing from the existing leg-wheel robots, Transleg is driven by wire, so the transmission mechanism is simple and the weight is reduced. Transleg adopts a transformable leg-wheel mechanism which has two degrees of freedom in the legged mode and one degree of freedom in the wheeled mode. The motions in and switching between the two modes are achieved by the same actuators. That is to say only two actuators are needed in one leg-wheel mechanism. The spine contributes significantly to the motion of the quadrupeds, so a compliant spine mechanism is designed for Transleg, which is actuated by two actuators and can bend in yaw and pitch directions. The leg-wheel and spine mechanisms and their kinematic analysis are described in this paper. To verify the feasibility of the leg-wheel mechanisms, the motions of Transleg without spine bending in legged and wheeled modes and switching between the two modes are simulated. Experiments on the motion of the prototype of the leg-wheel and spine mechanisms are also performed to validate the effectiveness of the two proposed mechanisms.


"Migration is a one way trip. There is no "home" to go back to". Stuart Hall (1) "Minorities and majorities emerge explicitly in the process of developing ideas of number, representation, and electoral franchise in places affected by the democratic revolutions of the eighteenth century, including satellite spaces in the colonial world [...] But minorities do not come preformed. They are produced in the specific circumstances of every nation and every nationalism. They are often carriers of unwanted memories of the acts of violence that produced existing states, of forced conscription, or of violent extrusion as new states were formed. And that is because minorities are not born but made, historically speaking. [...] So, rather than saying that minorities produce violence, we could better say that violence, especially at the national level, requires minorities." Arjun Appadurai (2) Modernity and Globalization: the Simultaneity of Non-Simultaneous Realities. It can be said that the upside of globalization is that central cultures are impacted, almost cannibalized, by their own policies. Starting with modernity, we have to remember that it was always a central project for the West which, according to Marshall Berman and other theorists, not only implies the promotion of modernization and the technologization of central and local markets. Modernity also includes the ideology of progress. In some places of the world, it became a political ideology in the second half of the nineteenth century, especially in the case of the Argentine Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and his famous dichotomy of civilization and barbarism. The author chose this dualism to show the need that Latin American new republics had to face in order catch up with the central powers (Europe and eventually the US). According to the Argentine writer, teacher, politician, and president of his country, progress was the main value and a necessary achievement. In those days progress meant several things: modernization, democracy, the development of urban societies, the advancement and acquisition of new technologies, liberalization of markets and extended education, among others values.The project of modernization also involved the welcoming of masses of immigrants to Argentina. That aspect of modernity was supposed to enrich the culture and economy of the New World with the old wisdom of the European spirit, especially from those immigrants from the north of Europe. But instead, Argentina received poor immigrants mostly from Spain and Italy, along with Eastern Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. In late 1800s and early 1900s the results of such ideology sometimes were different from what the provincial writer and teacher imagined. Early modernity started in the sixteenth century with scientific and geographical discoveries, the ascension of capitalism, urban societies, and new philosophies and perspectives in religion. America was the main discovery of those times, and cultural diversity emerged as an enormous challenge. The industrial revolution represented the second stage of modernity, and along with the empowering of a new social class, the bourgeoisie, it also represented a new stage in terms of the opening of markets and the need for natural resources. Again, the challenge of diversity showed up when the progress of colonialism made clear that those areas rich in resources also carried within new peoples, cultures, and languages. Around the nineteenth century central Western societies realized that one of the consequences of modernity was the progressive although problematic implementation of the process of democratization. It came along with the development of a very powerful mass media, the presence of a middle class that grew strong, and all that was accompanied by the development of social behaviors such us consumerism. As Marshall Berman puts it: The maelstrom of modern life has been fed from many sources: great discoveries in the physical sciences, changing our images of the universe and our place in it; the industrialization of production, which transforms scientific knowledge into technology, creates new human environments and destroys old ones, speeds up the whole tempo of life, generates new forms of corporate power and class struggle; immense demographic upheavals, severing millions of people from their ancestral habitats, hurtling them halfway across the world into new lives (Berman, 1982, 2). …


Our motivation to devise this predetection fusion algorithm was twofold: one reason is the inapplicability of traditional decentralized detection to a realistic scenario in which target locations are unknown, while the other was the need for an efficient way to process the data generated in a large network of low quality sensors. As our ultimate goal is tracking, we will end this section by pointing out the benefits of predetection fusion to that.


The construction and acquisition of visual categories.- Q-Learning with Adaptive State Space Construction.- Modular Reinforcement Learning: An Application to a Real Robot Task.- Analysis and Design of Robot's Behavior: Towards a Methodology.- Vision Based State Space Construction for Learning Mobile Robots in Multi Agent Environments.- Transmitting Communication Skills Through Imitation in Autonomous Robots.- Continual Robot Learning with Constructive Neural Networks.- Robot Learning and Self-Sufficiency: What the energy-level can tell us about a robot's performance.- Perceptual grounding in robots.- A Learning Mobile Robot: Theory, Simulation and Practice.- Learning Complex Robot Behaviours by Evolutionary Computing with Task Decomposition.- Robot Learning using Gate-Level Evolvable Hardware.


To examine cultural, parental, and personal sources of young adults' long-term romantic partner preferences, we had undergraduates (n = 2,071) and their parents (n = 1,851) in eight countries (Canada, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Malaysia, Philippines, the United States) rate or rank qualities they would want in the student's partner. We introduce and use a method for separating preference patterns into normative patterns (shared across families and generations) and distinctive patterns (that characterized particular families or individuals). We found that youth everywhere wanted partners who aligned with both their own dispositions and their parents' preferences, and these alignments reflected both culturally normative preferences and preferences distinctive to specific individuals or families. Students also predicted their parents' responses: Their predictions were reasonably accurate reflections of what a typical parent prefers, but also reflected distinctive assumed agreement (i.e., they overestimated the degree to which their particular parents shared their particular preferences for qualities that diverged from culturally normative ideals). Culturally normative patterns exerted a stronger influence on actual or assumed parent–child agreement and accuracy in relatively collectivistic Southeast Asia (Philippines and Malaysia) than in relatively individualistic English-speaking North America (the United States and Canada). Conversely, preferences for partners who shared one's distinctive personal dispositions were stronger in Western than Asian countries.


It is well estab 1i shed that the photoperiod in 自 uencesthe gonadal activity of birds in temperate zones. Recently , it has been demonstrated that the eyes are not necessary for the photoperiodic gonadal response in the birds. The purpose of this study is to examine the e 妊 'ectof the short-day treatment and ambient low temperature on the testicular response of Japanese quails. The male quails which were reared under continuous light (24L : 0 D) from the hatching to 8 weeks of age were employed as experinental fowls (Step 1 コ Whenthe birds were transferred from 24L to a short-day (6L : 18D) , a significant and remarkable reduction in the cloacal activity were observed within 3 weeks. Then , a half of the birds were enucleated b i1 aterally. The blind and intact birds were received a short-day treatment unt i1 15 weeks of age (Step 2). They were divided into 4 lot8 , being as follows : 1) NC : intact and temperature controls , 2) NL: intact and ambient low temperature , 3) EC: blind and temperature controls , and 4) EL : blind and ambient low temperature. The birds in NL and EL lots were experienced ambient low temperature during the 2nd long-day (24L) treatment for 3 weeks (Step 3). Thereafter , a1110ts of birds were transferred from 24L to the short photoperiod for 6 weeks and almost a11 the testes and cloacal glands of them showed the resistance against involution (Step 4). These results suggest that the short-day treatment over long period is necessary to induce the resistance of the testes and cloacal glands against involution by the 2nd short-day treatment and that the eyes and experience of ambient low temperature are not essential for the gonadal response to photoperiod in the male Japanese quails.


In the present article we introduce the idea that the economical models, based upon the three traditional production factors, should be revised regarding the incorporation of the Knowledge as an essential instrument of the economical production itself. Through the necessary recognition of this point-of-view, we propose a new concept for the business administration in the Knowledge Society: the Enterprise Intelligence, and we introduce, as well, a model for the management of the Knowledge capital. We also suggest and would like to discuss a few ideas of how developing countries like Brazil should position itself on this new Economics.


noteworthy that another Physicalist, Prof. Otto Neurath, explicitly defends an extreme form of the Coherence Theory of Truth.) I am not sure that Dr. Weinberg really succeeds in making clear the complicated details of Prof. Carnap's theory of language, which involves a good deal of difficult and (to one reader at least) unfamiliar symbolism. But I think he is right in saying that the proposed remedy is worse than the disease, and moreover in contending that it isn't really a remedy at all. For there still remains an irreducible difference between my statements and other people's: e.g. between "I am tired" and "Smith says, 'I feel tired.' " Part V, "Conclusion," consists of two chapters. The first, "An estimate of the Viennese Circle," is in effect a summary of the preceding parts of the book. The other, "The Possibility of an Alternative Theory of Language," is only a brief sketch, and I am not sure that I fully understand it. Dr. Weinberg seems to hold (i) that the doctrine that general propositions are finite conjunctions must be abandoned; (2) that, pace Prof. Carnap and others, there are ostensive propositions which refer directly to empirical data; (3) that Solipsism can be avoided if refutability (as opposed to verifiability) be taken as the criterion of the meaningfulness of sentences. It seems desirable that these suggestions should be more fully developed. On the face of it, the relations between (2) and (3) seem likely to cause trouble. I will conclude with a few criticisms. 1. It must be admitted that some parts of the book are very difficult. Dr. Weinberg, like other experts, sometimes assumes that his readers are as completely at home in the handling of the Russell-Whitehead-Shaeffer symbolism as he is himself. And I doubt whether his exposition of Wittgenstein and Carnap could be followed by anyone who was entirely unfamiliar with the doctrines of those writers; though a reader who (like many of us) has a halffamiliarity with them will certainly learn a good deal. 2. The book contains a number of typographical singularities. Some are outright misprints: e.g. "it is clear that ~ (3x) ~<£x and ~ (3x) — <j>x. can both be true on this theory" (p. 131.) Some are unfortunate conventions. Thus not-p is frequently written not—P, where the unguarded reader might suppose that the long dash was a technical symbol, and might be tempted to read "not not p." (This is all the more likely to happen where the "not" occurs at the end of one line and the long dash at the beginning of the next.) And what are we to say of the statement that "P implies O = df P|P|<t>" (p. 180) ? (I suppose we should substitute P|<J)|<J>.) 3. Dr. Weinberg's English is sometimes difficult. The German abbreviation "resp." (respektive) occurs more than once; e.g. "objective (resp. intersubjective)" (p. 278), and one is occasionally puzzled by curious turns of expression, e.g. "if Wittgenstein's theory of number is contrasted with Russell's in order to see significance" (p. 96).


Inthis paper, ahighpower, highstep-up non- Infact, using anon-ideal modelofaclassical boost converter, isolated DC-DCconverter forfuel cell application isdesigned. amaximal output voltage canbedefined according totheload Thestudied converter isconnected toafuelcell stack which andthedissipative elements oftheconverter. Moreover, in generates electrical powerof30kW under55V.Theloadisa order tohaveasufficient dynamic response thedutyratio battery packwithmaximalvoltage amplitude ofaround620V. Theproposed converter allows tostand-up thefuel cell voltage to cainin bea one ()Te rped converter. i t thebattery packvoltage withfuel cell undulation current lower obtaInig byatwolevel cascaded converter. than1%ofthenominal current. Simulation results arepresented Inorder tolimit thecurrent input ripple, several methods inorder tovalidate theproposed converter structure andthe canbeused. Forclassical structure, thecurrent ripple canbe evolution oftheconverter efficiency will beinvestigated. reduced byincreasing thecomponents commutation switching frequency orbyincreasing theinductance value. According to IndexTerms - Fuelcell model, DC -DC converters, high thepowerlevel ofourconverter, these classical methods voltage step-up converters, interleaved structure, cascadedcannot beused.As a consequence we willpresent an structure. interleaving structure oftwoclassical boosts. Foranyduty cycle oftheconverter, theoptimal shift between thetwo I.INTRODUCTION


Given what IS to come it is perhaps best to make it abundantly clear that I am in most regards an admirer of the Howard government. (See, for example, my piece on 'John Howard and the Constitution' in the April Quadrant.) Nor is this, to put it mildly, the most common outlook to encounter in academia.


The 30th anniversary of 'Archeologia e Calcolatori' has offered the chance to focus on its rich repository of scientific contents and to envisage further strategies to better classify the journal's papers. Mapping web resources is crucial in organizing and managing cultural information in the Semantic Web and Internet of Things (IoT) perspective. In this context, the editorial board has decided to adopt geographical and chronological annotation strategies and to implement established gazetteers of geographical and historical entities. The first step in this annotation project was to experiment with the 'Recogito' Pelagios tool, an international initiative aimed at facilitating better associations between online resources documenting the past. Furthermore, an analysis has been undertaken by means of Social Network Analysis techniques, which in the last years has been developed to cover a wide interdisciplinary field of study, including social and behavioral sciences, economics, psychology, anthropology. The paper illustrates the main results, to highlight connections between themes and technologies in the papers published over the last ten years.


Synopsis: The fluidized bed reduction of powdery iron ores has become the object of the authors' attention in view of special localized conditions in Japan and making practical use of domestic materials. In this experiment, fluidized bed reduction by hydrogen gas of one sample of hematite and magnetite was carried out on a laboratory scale. The apparatus was designed so as to fluidize powdery iron are by flat perforated grids or funnel type grids in a stainless steel pipe. Samples were extracted through a sampling tube at proper time intervals to investigate the effects of various factors on the reduction rate. The results obtained were as follows: (1) The rate of reduction of hematite are under atmospheric pressure reached 90% in 20


II CONTENTS IV 1  INTRODUCTION 1 1.1  Determining the Situation 1 1.2  Problem Area and Purpose of Study 3 1.3  Structure of the Thesis 4 2  THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 5 2.1  Airport Relationships 5 2.1.1  The airport service encounter 7 2.1.2  The airport as a "multipoint service-provider firm" 9 2.1.3  New Model for Airport Relationships 11 2.2  Airport Physical Evidence and Servicescape 13 2.3  Airport Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty 14 2.4  Importance-Performance model 18 3  THESIS MODEL AND HYPOTHESES 20 3.1  Research Questions 20 3.2  Conceptual Model 20 3.3  Research Model 21 3.4  Working Hypotheses 21 4  RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 24 4.1  Research Method 24 4.2  Execution of Research 25 4.3  Sampling Method 25 4.3.1  Target Population 25 4.3.2  Sampling Criteria 26 4.3.3  Sampling Process 26 4.3.4  Non-Response 28 4.4  Interview Development 28


Cooperative multiagent learning poses the challenge of coordinating independent agents. A powerful method to achieve coordination is allowing agents to communicate. We present the Grounded Semantic Network, an approach for learning a task-dependent communication protocol grounded in the observation space and reward function of the task. We show that the grounded semantic network effectively learns a communication protocol that is useful for achieving cooperation between agents. Analyzing the messages transmitted between agents reveals that the agents' policies are highly influenced by the communication received from teammates. Further analysis highlights the limitations of the grounded semantic network, identifying the characteristics of domains that it can and cannot solve.


Studies on RNA from cardiac muscle of rats were performed by labeling the RNA with 32P, extracting it with phenol, and purifying it prior to fractionating and analyzing it on a sucrose density gradient. The major components of RNA found had sedimentation values of 28, 18, and 4 S. Early 32P-labeled RNA ranged in size from 4 to > 45 S. Characterization of RNA from 4 to 18 S showed it to be more rapidly labeled and to have a higher turnover rate than 28 S RNA, to be located, at least in part, in the microsomes, and to have a base composition lower in guanine and cytosine content than 28 S RNA. Labeling of 4 to 18 S and 28 S RNA was equally inhibited by actinomycin. The possibility that 4 to 18 S RNA may represent a portion of messenger RNA in cardiac muscle is considered.


Excite and probe measurements on a GaAs/AlGaAs multiple quantum well pin modulator using sub-picosecond optical pulses are reported. The quantum confined Stark effect allows measurement of a limiting rise time of 170 ps for establishing crosswell photoconductivity.


Middle ear effusions (MEEs) are accumulated middle ear secretions or fluid behind the eardrum during otitis media (OM). A portable, handheld OCT system was developed to non-invasively investigate various optical scattering properties of MEEs in pediatric subjects. Furthermore, clinically relevant parameters of MEEs, including viscosity and bacterial load, were measured from the extracted MEEs after the surgical procedure to treat OM. In vivo OCT images of the middle ear prior to the surgery, OCT images of the extracted MEEs, and biological parameters were correlated to determine the relationship between the optical signatures in MEEs and the clinical findings of OM.


Recent advances have been made in technology of sensor devices. Accordingly, the size of devices has been miniaturized, to which diverse functions can be applied. On top of that, the devices use image processing technology to observe circumstances of users' living spaces and detect risk situations saved in database. In case of detecting risk situations, M2M environment is constructed so that the information can be delivered to other communication devices to immediately raise an alarm. This paper aims to introduce solutions that construct M2M environment by using color detection algorithm of OpenCV and Raspberry Pi, raise an alarm to users in case of fire, and provide information on follow-up measures for it.


Spectroscopic data are presented for the [V(OH(2))(6)](3+) and [Ru(OH(2))(6)](3+) cations, from which inferences are drawn regarding their structures in aqueous solution. EPR and absorption spectra of solutions and glasses are supplemented by spectra of the aqua ions in various crystalline environments, and the electronic and molecular structures inter-related through elementary angular overlap model calculations. It is concluded that in aqueous solution the [Ru(OH(2))(6)](3+) cation is localized in the all-horizontal D(3)(d)geometry, whereas the structure of the [V(OH(2))(6)](3+) cation is close to T(h) symmetry. These results are consistent with the most energetically favored geometries predicted by ab initio calculations.


Digital elevation Model is analysis of stereo data for extraction of elevation information of particular area. Different applications need different accuracy level from DEM. The accuracy of DEM depends upon various important parameters viz. Image quality, type of surface, Interpolation Method etc. Interpolation is prediction of unknown point elevation from known data points. Interpolation is used to enhance DEM. Various Interpolation techniques like Kriging, IDW and Thin Plate Spline used for evaluation of DEM. In this paper we enlisted and implemented different Interpolation techniques applicable for analysis of DEM for Pune Region. Differential GPS survey has been carried out for entire area & same compared with the Interpolation results. Detail Investigation of errors in DEM are carried out.


Synthetic and spectroscopic studies have been made on the ternary copper(II) complexes containing two optically active α-amino acids with charged groups in their side chains. Thus, for all combinations of ligands A and B, where A refers to aspartic or glutamic acid and B to arginine, lysine, or ornithine, the mixed ligand complexes, [Cu(L-A)(L-B)] and [Cu(D-A)(L-B)] except [Cu(L-aspartate)(L-ornithine)], were isolated as crystals. Infrared spectra of the isolated complexes suggested the presence of the geometrical isomers. By comparing the observed circular dichroism spectra of the ternary systems with the spectra estimated from those of the corresponding binary systems, the magnitude enhancements were detected for all the Gu(L-A)(L-B) systems, whereas no such enhancement was observed when one of the ligands was L-alanine or L-valine. The spectral behaviors as well as the solid complexes isolated have been interpreted as indicative of the existence of the intramolecular electrostatic bonding between the o...


Carlos Fuentes, like many other writers of the Boom, discussed his peers' unprecedented renovation of Latin American narrative forms—specifically, the novel (e.g., Donoso; Vargas Llosa). In La nueva novela hispanoamericana (1969; "The New Spanish American Novel"), Fuentes reviews the most influential novels of the 1960s after presenting some of the founders of the literary modernity that preceded the Boom: Jorge Luis Borges, Juan Rulfo, Miguel Angel Asturias, and Alejo Carpentier. Fuentes focuses on the Boom's protagonists—Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel García Márquez, and Julio Cortázar—to highlight his ideas about the groundbreaking contributions of these novels.


The stagnant atmosphere surrounding the therapeutic landscape of ITP has been finally swept away. With the introduction of new targeted therapies such as the next generation of thrombopoiesis-stimulating agents, a breath of fresh air is now blowing. These new drugs, namely romiplostim and eltrombopag, act as thrombopoietin (TPO) mimetics (TPOm) by stimulating the TPO receptor (c-MPL) on the membrane of megakaryocytes and their progenitors and precursors. Megakaryopoiesis and platelet production may thus be increased 8–10 fold. Indeed, after the introduction of splenectomy in 1917 and of corticosteroids in the early 50s, no major progress was made in the management of ITP until the mid 80s when immunoglobulin (Ig) based treatments (intravenous high dose Ig or anti-D Ig) proved effective in producing a good platelet increase for 2–4 wks in most patients. However, to achieve these short term responses, Ig-based treatments have to be administered repeatedly (with high costs) and the drugs are not devoid of severe side effects. In most cases of patients refractory to treatment, only immunosuppressive therapy with limited benefit could be offered. Recently, the off-label use of rituximab has been investigated in uncontrolled studies, mainly following failure of splenectomy or as a splenectomy-sparing agent. Long lasting responses are in the order of 15–20% and the long-term toxicity profile of rituximab in ITP has not been well established. None of these treatments are evidence based and the net balance between favourable or unfavourable outcomes is uncertain, with the exception of very severe cases. In patients with less severe ITP, receiving no treatment may be better than actually receiving treatment, due to the toxicity of the currently available therapies (see the article by Roberto Stasi in this supplement for an in-depth analysis of present limitations of ITP management). This situation may change with the availability of the TPOm, romiplostim and eltrombopag. Romiplostim (reviewed in detail by Adrian Newland in this supplement) proved to be effective in about 80% of cases in phase II, III and long-term extension studies involving about 200 splenectomized or non-splenectomized patients failing several previous lines of treatment. Since romiplostim bears no sequence homology with endogenous TPO (eTPO), as expected, no cross-reacting antibodies against eTPO were observed. Some patients have already been treated for more than 3 yrs with relatively few significant side effects. Although more data on long-term safety are required, romiplostim could already be regarded as the second-line treatment of choice for adult non-splenectomized patients in whom surgery is contraindicated, but therapy is required for bleeding symptoms or excessively low platelet counts which may pose an unacceptable risk of bleeding. In adult splenectomized patients with chronic ITP who are refractory to other treatments (eg corticosteroids, immunoglobulins), romiplostim may be considered as the first choice of treatment. The mechanisms causing thrombocytopenia in patients with ITP have been elucidated in the last 10–13 yrs and they offer a strong rationale for the use of thrombopoiesis-stimulating agents. It is now clear that the simplistic view of autoantibodies opsonizing circulating platelets with their subsequent removal by the reticulo-endothelial system as the sole and major cause of thrombocytopenia is no longer tenable. In most cases, as demonstrated by kinetic studies and by the high rate of response to TPOm, a relatively low production of platelets is also present. This is due to the detrimental effect of autoantibodies which not only exert their action against platelets but also the precursors and progenitors of megakaryocytes. In addition, in patients with ITP, only a slight increase in eTPO levels has been found. Conceivably, TPO is absorbed and consumed by the increased mass of megakaryocytes, so that less free, active TPO remains available for maximal megakaryocytopoiesis stimulation (see article by Drew Provan in this supplement). The reason why some patients are not responsive to TPOm could possibly lie in the heterogeneity of ITP, which remains a diagnosis of exclusion. On the other hand, TPOm are expected to be effective in other types of thrombocytopenias, either immune or non-immune, and several trials are ongoing. To appreciate the impact of these new agents, one has to realize that ITP, although a relatively rare disorder, has a prevalence of around 10 per 100 000 persons with an annual incidence around three per 100 000. Incidence increases with age and as people grow older and live longer, ITP is expected to have even more of an impact on the daily professional activity of physicians. ITP has been largely viewed as a mild disorder by treating physicians and therefore it may come as a surprise to see the Correspondence Francesco Rodeghiero, Hematology Department, San Bortolo Hospital, I-36100 Vicenza, Italy. Tel: +39 444 75 36 26; Fax: +39 444 92 07 08; e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com European Journal of Haematology ISSN 0902-4441


The paper shows the possibility to increase the duration of ultrashort pulse which can be decomposed in the one turn meander delay lines. For this purpose, we suggested a condition that increases duration of ultrashort pulse up to a value that is equal to twice the product of the minimum of per-unit-length delays of even and odd modes of a signal and the length of half-turns. Simulation showed the expansion of ultrashort pulses with increased duration when this condition is fulfilled. It has been revealed that such decomposition without proper optimization results in the increased amplitude of the output signal. Therefore, an additional optimization was made to provide additional reduction of the amplitude of ultrashort pulse resulting in 32% of input signal.


Excerpt Though head injuries are usually considered to be the province of the surgeon, the physician, as Richard Bright1remarked over a century ago, is so commonly called upon to alleviate their af...


The structurally unique depsidone furfuric acid (1) has been prepared in one step by the acid-catalysed alkylation of methyl p- orsellinate (6) or of atranorin (4) with physodalic acid (7). This mode of synthesis gives credence to the proposal that (1) is an artefact of the isolation procedure rather than a true metabolite of the lichen Pseudevernia furfuracea .


This work is concerned with the life and the artistic work of the Czech violinist and conductor Josef Vlach. He was born on 8th June, in Ratměřice in central Bohemia, into the family of a butcher and amateur musician. His father and his brother were also his first music teacher. he nerolled for a course at the Prague Conservatory in 1938, to study with St. Novak , J. Micka and J. Slajs. From 1946 - 48 he was asistent leader in the Czech Chamber Orchestra of V. Talich. Following the politically - motivated ouster of V. Talich from the orchestra's top post, the ensemble voluntarily disbanded. In 1947 Vlach completed his conservatory studies and pursued his schooling at the Prague Academy of Music, with J.Feld and J.Pekelský. In 1950 he formed Vlach Quartet, before long scoring major thriumphs at home internationally - including notably first price from the quartet competition of Liege, Belgium , in 1955. In the course of its existence, the ensemble was a regular recording studio feature ( over 160 titles), and until the termination of its work in 1976 appeared on the world's foremost concert platforms . In 1957 J.Vlach re-launched the Czech Chamber Orchestra, whose formidable artistic standard soon earned it invitations to prestigious festivals ( Osaka, Salzburg and others) and concert halls of several contonents, as well as collaboration with an impressive gallery off prominent soloists ( J.Suk, H.szeryng, L.Kogan, I.Moravec) In 1963 J.Vlach made his conducting debut with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra . From 1968 he devoted part of his time to teaching at the Prague Academy of Music. In 1981 he took over as artistic director of the Suk Chamber Orchestra, and st the same time he began to work with the Pardubice Chamber Philharmonic. He died on 17th October, 1988 ,in Swedwn, a country which became his second homeland , and where he had frequently performed and imparted his skills and knowledge as a teacher..


The paper introduces the design and start-up commission- ing of an improved oxidation ditch system with the FAS-Jet aeration system for the treatment of bleaching/washing effluent in an alkaline straw pulping plant.The operation results show that the process and its parameter selection were rational,the operation was stable and the quality of outlet water reached the national standard of water pol- lutant discharge for pulp and paper industry.


PurposeThe authors investigated cocoa farmers' access to subsidized fertilizer in Ghana and implications on productivity.Design/methodology/approachPrimary data were sourced from 435 cocoa farmers. Cragg hurdle and two-step Tobit model with continuous endogenous regressors/covariates were applied for the drivers of cocoa farmers' participation in fertilizer subsidy programme and productivity. Propensity score matching (PSM), inverse-probability weights (IPW) and augmented inverse-probability weights (AIPW) were applied for productivity impact assessment of fertilizer subsidy.FindingsAll the farmers were aware of fertilizer subsidy for cocoa production in Ghana. Farmers became aware of fertilizer subsidy through extension officers, media and other farmers. Half of cocoa farmers benefitted from fertilizer subsidy. Averagely, cocoa farmers purchased 292 kg of subsidized fertilizer. Many socio-economic, farm-level characteristics and institutional factors determine cocoa farmers' participation in fertilizer subsidy programme, quantity of subsidized fertilizer obtained and productivity. Beneficiaries of fertilizer subsidy recorded higher cocoa productivity than non-beneficiaries. Hence, fertilizer subsidy for cocoa production in Ghana leads to a gain in productivity.Practical implicationsThere should be more investments in fertilizer subsidy so that all cocoa farmers benefit and obtain the required quantities.Originality/valueThe authors provide new evidence on cocoa productivity gain or loss emanating from fertilizer subsidy by combining different impact assessment techniques for deeper analysis: PSM, IPW and AIPW.


The theoretical investigation of time-dependent quantum systems requires the solution of the time-dependent Schrodinger (Dirac) equation. The basis generator method presented here allows a systematic construction of dynamically adapted wavefunctions based on a decomposition of the Hilbert space into a hierarchical structure of finite subspaces. For the class of interactions obeying an inverse integer power law, e.g., Coulomb and polarization interactions, an explicit representation of the dynamically optimized basis set is given.


Purpose: Indigenous species and non-popular species are referred to as micro-livestock (ML). Micro-livestock farming provides numerous socio-economic benefits. However, attention for ML rearing is low. Hence the purpose of this study is to find the present status of ML farming in Anuradhapura district in order to provide suggestions to popularize ML as a livelihood and income-generation option among rural communities.Research Method: A survey was conducted with 72 ML farmers selected from multi-stage random sampling in the Anuradhapura district.  Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the socio-economic status of farmers and production details of ML farming.  Logistic regression model was used to analyze the drives of ML farmers' decisions on market participation.Findings: Village chicken was the most popular due to high demand for eggs. Feeding was the least cost component in ML farming. Potentials to expand ML rearing were low labour cost and cost of production and availability of market and infrastructure. Majority of the farmers sell their products to retailer shops. Marketing of ML products is influenced by gender, age, training and distance to market. Lack of technical support and markets, poor extension, diseases, predators and climatic change were identified as constraints for ML rearing.Research Limitations: Micro-livestock farming is the least considered farming practice in the area. The farmers were scattered and they kept ML as a secondary activity. Originality/value: There is a potential to expand ML farming in the area as a remedy for malnutrition and poor income in rural households especially the females.


Total ozone amounts are shown to vary with the motion systems of the stratospheric polar vortex. Two cold outbreaks, one over Europe in 1959 and the other over North America in 1960, produced similar pronounced minima in the total ozone records. The results support the hypothesis that major anomalies in the horizontal and seasonal distributions of total ozone are related to dynamical activity in the polar-night vortex and the stratospheric warm belt.


father, Lionel Trilling, never told the story of his life. He waited too long, not guessing how little time he had left. Cancer drained away his physical and mental strength, and only a few jottings testify to the memoir he longed to write. I have trouble imagining the kind of book it might have been. My father rarely spoke to me of himself. Although he was happy to share his intellectual enthusiasms, he never told me how he came to think as he did. His great professional disappointment was that he ended up writing so little fiction: that much I always knew. As for the more personal choices and necessities that made him who he was, he never spoke of them at all. The past had closed in behind him, and the future opened only from moment to moment. I cannot picture him setting down his hopes and fears, even the most cerebral ones, for strangers to read. If my father was an introspective man, it was in the old sense of the word, before it became hopelessly confused with public self-revelation. In particular, his lifelong commitment to psychoanalysis, not just as an interpreter but as a patient, suggests a dogged willingness to understand himself. Dogged, because he apparently never hoped for glamorous insights or a decisive cure. He believed that people always had, and always would have, unconscious motives in direct conflict with their conscious ones.


Germination of California poppy seed was suppressed by white light from fluorescent and incandescent lamps. Seeds were most sensitive to light-suppression of germination during a period between 8 and 12 h from start of imbibition. Far-red, red, and blue wavelength bands were suppressive with far-red being most effective. Although they interacted, photoreversibility of red and far-red radiations did not occur. Addition of nitrate ion or of kinetin increased suppressive effects of far-red and of red radiations. Gibberellic acid relieved suppressions of germination induced by continuous radiation.


Purpose: The authors intended to analyze the operative results of tarsal tunnel syndrome. Materials and Methods: Twenty-one patients with tarsal tunnel syndrome were followed for more than 1 year after operation. The mean age was 44 years, and the mean follow up period was 2 years and 9 months. Clin...


The work presented in this text is part of a doctorial dissertation in mathematics education (Ba 2006) about the teaching and learning of vectors, translations, forces, velocity and movement of translation in mathematics and physics. Here, we present the evolution of the teaching of vectors and vector quantities in mathematics and physics from the end of the 19 th century up to now. We analyse this evolution in the light of the ecology of knowledge, as developed by Yves Chevallard (1994). This helps us understand the difficulties in recent periods, in order to create a successful interdisciplinary approach in the teaching of these notions in mathematics and physics.


In this paper, the catalytic behavior of nonstoichiometric nickel oxides was investigated in the ethane oxidative dehydrogenation reaction (ODH). The oxide was obtained by heat treatment in the range 250 – 400°C of β-Ni(OH)2 synthesized by precipitation-oxidation. The structural properties of the catalysts were characterized by XRD, FTIR, UV-vis, and SEM. The selective ODH reaction was quantified by gas chromatography. The samples showed pure NiO cubic structure with different degrees of crystallinity, crystallite size, and specific surface area. The increase of calcination temperature caused an increase in the average crystallite size from 28 Å at 250 °C to 104 Å at 400 °C, whereas the shape of the particles showed no significant differences; pore diameter increased from 35 Å to 69 Å and specific surface area decreased from 245 to 82 m2/g. The test carried out at 240°C showed a decrease in conversion, from 8.75% to 4.25%; the more crystalline samples displayed the highest intrinsic activity with selectivity to ethene close to 60%. No influence of band-gap energy on catalytic properties was observed.


As more and more mission critical service are now transported over high-speed networks, It becomes an important issue to make use of the relativity of multiple link/node failures and improve transport performance for high-speed networks. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm called Low cost an S disjoint paths algorithm (LCSD for short) to Establish a SRLG disjoint active path and backup path pair for network protection. Based on the TF algorithm, LCSD algorithm introduces the number of links which relate to the SRLG as a new constraint. Through link weight adjustment before the second time SPF calculate, the backup path can avoid the risk sharing with active path. Theoretical analysis and experiment results have shown that LCSD algorithm resolved the trap problem and path pair total cost non-optimal problem under SRLG disjoint constraint. Compared with RF and TF algorithms, LCSD algorithm is significantly superiority in the successful ratio to find feasible solution and can guarantee minimum total cost of active and backup path.


The understanding of basic surface properties and the relationships between temperature and the configuration of the polymer surface are the key to further understand the first interaction mechanism of the polymer with the body. To this end, some poly(carbonate tetramethylene ether)urethane (PCEU), poly(carbonate siloxane tetramethylene ether)urethane (PCSiEU), and their 1:1 gravimetric mixture (PCEU/PCSiEU) membranes were prepared. In order to establish the relationships between temperature and the chemical structure of polymer surface, the polyurethane (PU) membranes were analyzed by attenuated total reflectance–Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The temperature has a significant influence on these PU surface structures. Surface characteristics such as wettability and surface free energy were also analyzed since the interaction between biomaterials and blood occurs at their interface. The preliminary cytotoxicity screening showed no cytotoxicity of these PU membranes. The PU samples do not accelerate the clot formation mechanisms under the tested conditions. The results suggest that these PU membranes are promising materials for the preparation of cardiovascular scaffolds.


The present invention discloses a hand-held surgical handle assembly, for use in surgical operating room surgical end effector and the handle assembly engaged and method of use. The present invention provides for the adapter assembly is configured to perform at least one operative end effector is configured and operated to actuate the end effector of the surgical device is selectively connected to each other, wherein the end effector comprising a first axially translatable drive member and a second axially translatable drive member, and wherein said surgical device comprises a first rotatable drive shaft and a second rotatable drive shaft.


Driven by the increasing needs for condition monitoring and maintaining stable operation using process data, a multi-sensor data fusion method based on adaptive weighting strategy using analytic hierarchy process (AHP) algorithm and cross-correlation function fusion (CCFF) algorithm is proposed in this paper. On this basis, a health index (HI) is developed based on the distance using the time-domain characteristic value of the fused vibration signals. By considering the location of sensors and data relevance, the weight coefficients could be more reasonable. The effectiveness of the proposed condition monitoring method is demonstrated by a case study from a three-plunger reciprocating pump in the industrial field, and the test results show its advantage in operation monitoring and abnormal detection Keywords—adaptive weighting strategy, multi-sensor data fusion, cross-correlation function fusion algorithm, analytic hierarchy process algorithm, condition monitoring


Hyperbolic differential operators with constant coefficients introduced and studied systematically by Gårding (4), were characterized by the existence of the fundamental solution with some cone condition, according to Hörmander (6). Recently Ehrenpreis, extending the notion of hyperbolicity due to Gårding, has defined hyperbolic operators for distributions with compact support in the convolution sense. Under the hypothesis that the operator is invertible as a distribution, he has established a theorem analogous to the theorem of Hörmander mentioned above (3).


Michael W.Apple,an outstanding representative of critical educational research,is influential in the international education field.He is known as one of the most distinguished scholars,who devoted their time to establish a critical and democratic education.Apple's theory provides an important methodology basis,which critically examines the issues of the Basic Education Curriculum Reform.Six main points composing of the critical curriculum theory are as follows:legalization of official knowledge is the nature of knowledge;curriculum knowledge has the hidden and sheltered ideological nature;development of curriculum standards needs to work together;curriculum evaluation methods should be diversified;curriculum delivery should achieve the "reflective practice";teachers should develop critical thinking ability of students.As a representative of critical theory,his theory tends to be critical and democratic,but it also has some limitations,such as his pan-ideology and the lack of critical practice.Accordingly,this paper sums up four implications for the Basic Education Curriculum Reform in China:returning to nature and searching of justice;building networks and achieving dialogue;multiple evaluation and appropriate delegation of authority;enhancing the training and Empowering.


Multi-sensor systems provide a purposeful description of the environment that a single sensor cannot offer. Fusing several types of data enhances the recognition capability of a robotic system and yields more meaningful information otherwise unavailable or difficult to acquire by a single sensory modality. Because observations provided by sensors are uncertain, incomplete, and/or imprecise, we adopted the use of the theory of fuzzy sets as a general framework to combine uncertain measurements. We developed a fusion formula based on the measure of fuzziness. This fusion formula satisfies several desirable properties. We established a fuzzification scheme by which different types of input data (images) are modeled. This process is essential in providing suitable predictions and explanations of a set of observations in a given environment. After fusion, a defuzzification scheme is carried out to recover crisp data from the combined fuzzy assessments. This approach was implemented and tested with real range and intensity images acquired using an Odetics Range Finder. The goal is to obtain better scene descriptions through a segmentation process of both images. Despite the low resolution of the images and the amount of noise present, the segmented output picture is suitable for recognition purposes.


The invention provides an underactuated autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) adaptive trajectory tracking control device and a control method. The practical positions and the course angles of an AUV which are acquired to a measurement element (3) and reference positions and reference course angle information which are generated by a reference path generator (1) are converted through a diffeomorphism converter (6) to obtain new state variables, then the new state variables and speed and angular speed information which is acquired by a sensor (5) are transmitted to a parameter estimator (11) anda longitudinal thrust and course changing moment controller (14), and a control command is obtained through resolving to drive an actuating mechanism to adjust the longitudinal thrust and the course changing moment of the AUV. By using the underactuated AUV adaptive trajectory tracking control device, the inertial mass parameters of the AUV and hydrodynamic damping parameters are not required to be known and the goal of arriving at designated positions at designated time according to designated speed is realized. Since the AUV considered in the invention is underactuated, the energy consumption and the manufacturing cost of a system can be reduced, the weight of the system can be reduced and the propulsion efficiency can be improved.


In this paper, we propose a cross-correlation property and a related technique based on the validity of image block in a public watermarking and we embed messages into the high frequency band in the DCT domain because of its imperceptibility and fragility. As a result, we were able to inspect the identity of valid block between error corrected original images and watermarked images through experiments. And we confirmed the viability of this cross-correlation as an application for future public watermarking


Objective:To evaluate the efficacy of sequential non-invasive following invasive mechanical ventilation in COPD pa-tients with severe respiratory failure.Methods:Forty-eight COPD patients with severe respiratory failure were studied.After controlling pulmonary infection,24 patients(sequential treatment group A)were extubated and treated by non-invasive mechanical ventilation,24 cas-es(invasive ventilation group B)were kept treating by invasive mechanical ventilation and weaned by PSV mode.The duration of invasive mechanical ventilation,total mechanical ventilaiton,hospitalization and care,the incidence of ventilator associated pneumonia were com-pared between two groups.Results:For treatment group and control group,the incidence of ventilator associated pneumonia was 4.16%(1 case) vs 37.50%(9 cases)(P0.05),the total duration of mechanical ventilation was(9.32±1.87)d vs(15.36±2.16)d(P0.05) and the dura-tion of hospitalization was(15.85±2.72)d vs(25.12±3.12)d(P0.05) respectively.Conclusion:Sequential non-invasive following invasive mechanical ventilation after pulmonary infection control may significantly shorten the duration of mechanical ventilation and hospitaliza-tion,reduce medical expense and the frequency of ventilator associated pneumonia,and enhance the rescue success rate.


A former paratrooper in the British Army with extensive experience of conflict and post-conflict management in the countries of former Yugoslavia, Mark Etherington had just completed a degree in international relations at Cambridge University in 2003 when the British Foreign Office asked him to assume the administration of Wasit Province in southern Iraq on behalf of the Coalition Provisional Authority or CPA.He established a small team in the provincial capital of al-Kut on the banks of the Tigris in order to begin the process of reconstruction - both political and physical - of a province with a predominantly Shia population of 900,000 and a long border with Iran.The province was plagued by poverty and beset by social paralysis. A demoralized and sometimes corrupt police force was incapable of imposing the rule of law. Ba'ath party functionaries had been purged, local municipal authority was weak, and basic services were lacking. More challenging still was an escalating armed insurgency by the followers of Moqtada al-Sadr that culminated in a sixteen-hour firefight for control of the CPA's base in Kut. This gritty and compelling firsthand account of post-conflict Iraq describes the turmoil visited on the country by outside intervention and the difficulties faced by the Coalition in fashioning a new political and civil apparatus.


ABSTRACT One of Mark Textor's main aims in Brentano's Mind is to refute Brentano's claim that intentionality – the capacity our mental acts have for being of, about, or directed on something – is the mark of the mental. I defend the view that Brentano analysed intentionality in terms of intentional inexistence (and so wasn't an intentionality primitivist as Textor suggests). And I argue that we can regard intentionality as being the mark of the mental, but only if we give a non-relational analysis of the idea of intentional inexistence. Textor objects to an analysis of intentionality in terms of intentional inexistence for failing to account for the relationship between the object our mental act is directed on, and the 'immanent' or 'inexistent' object which all mental acts contain. I claim that this problem doesn't arise if the object our mental act is directed on just is the immanent/ inexistent object. I argue that Brentano (at least sometimes) seems to identify the two. I then offer my own view of intentionality according to which our mental acts are directed on immanent/ inexistent objects, and that 'directedness' should be understood non-relationally.


The Pearson site (41RA5) in the Blackland Prairie of East Texas is one of a number of aboriginal archaeological sites recorded during a 1957 archaeological survey of the flood pool of then proposed Lake Tawakoni on the Sabine River; the site is now inundated. The Pearson site was located on several low sandy rises across ca. 25 acres in the Hooker Creek-Sabine River floodplain, and these rises had both aboriginal and European artifacts on the surface. Johnson and Jelks, and Duffield and Jelks have argued that the Pearson site was the Tawakoni-Yscani village visited by a Spanish missionary in 1760 and part of a recently defined Norteno focus, a complex of sites apparently associated with the Wichita tribes. Schambach, by contrast, considers the Pearson site to be an 18th century Tunican entrepot.


Summary Both Disneyland and the New Globe Theatre in London, which purports to be a faithful copy of Shakespeare's Globe, are informed by specific concepts of historical authenticity, reconstruction and entertainment. Using the chance conjunction of the Globe Theatre and Disneyland Paris during the author's holiday in Europe, this article offers a comparative study, in terms of both theory and personal experience, of the nature of these two cultural institutions in a postmodern world.


The peer review system is under severe strain. Corrections have been proposed, but experiments to determine effective measures are difficult to perform. I propose a framework in which alternatives to the current peer review system can be studied quantitatively using agent-based modeling. I implement three possible systems. I show how, all other things being equal, these alternatives produce different results in terms of speed of publication, quality control, reviewers' effort, and authors' impact. This modeling framework can be used to test other solutions for peer review, leading the way to an improvement of how science is disseminated.


GDF‐15 is an established cardiovascular risk marker but is equally implicated in tumour biology. Elevated levels of GDF‐15 have indeed been observed in distinct tumour entities. This study aimed to explore the relation of GDF‐15 to other cardiac biomarkers and the general association of GDF‐15 on prognosis in an unselected cohort of treatment‐naïve cancer patients.


Thyroglossal duct cyst is one of the most common lesions in the midline of the neck and is found in around 7% of the population. It occurs equally in both genders and is detected in the first five years in 25 to 35%, between six to 10 years in 40 to 50% and in adolescence between 75 and 90% of cases and in some cases it preserves tissue. functional thyroid and in 0.17 to 1% it is the absolute ectopic thyroid. The diagnosis is fundamentally clinical, although an ultrasound may be useful. A thyroid scintigraphy is recommended not for a positive diagnosis of a thyroglossal duct cyst, but to demonstrate the existence of a normal thyroid gland and rule out the rare thyroid ectopias, whose inadvertent removal would cause permanent hypothyroidism. Diagnostic errors are the most frequent cause of inadequate surgical technique, which produces a high recurrence rate. Since its introduction in 1920, sistrunk surgery is the ideal treatment with the best results, with recurrence limits of 0.5 to 3%, this technique considerably reduces the risk of cyst recurrence to <3%, and one of the key points for the success of the surgery is the need to resect the medial third of the hyoid bone by approximately 1.5 cm. We present the case of a female patient who underwent resection of a thyroglossal cyst with the sistrunk technique to confirm the effectiveness of the technique in reducing the percentage of recurrences.


Class II malocclusion can be dental, skeletal or a combination of both and is present in approximately 60% of patients seeking corrective orthodontic treatment. Facial Pattern II patient often needs dental decompensation associated with orthognathic surgery to correct the bone bases. With the increasing use of the self-ligating system in Orthodontics, the number of patients who were indicated for extraction as part of their treatment has decreased considerably. Compensatory treatment aims to minimize skeletal deformities with dento-alveolar movements. This paper reports through a clinical case, the efficiency of the self-ligating system in Pattern II patient without extractions with expansionist therapeutic goals in association with the use of Class II elastics. Due to the patient's rejection of orthognathic surgery, the compensatory treatment resulted in the camouflage of the skeletal discrepancies through the self-ligating system. Despite the surgical indication, the compensatory treatment presented significant dental movements, resulting in treatment success with considerable facial improvement.