The accuracy of the multiplication depends on the precision of the multiplier. The variable precision floating point multiplier will have more accuracy when compared with the fixed precision multiplier. In this paper a variable precision floating point multiplier is considered. An effective BIST test pattern generator for variable precision floating point multiplier is proposed. A BIST TPG consists of pseudo random test pattern generator for the variable precision floating point multiplier and a comparator is used to compare the output response and the expected response, a control unit is used for selecting either primary inputs or the test pattern for the variable precision floating point multiplier. The Linear feedback shift registers are used to generate the pseudo random test pattern generation. The LFSR are very much efficient in producing the random test vectors which is used to produce high


The current generation of intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) have successfully produced learning gains without the use of natural language technology, but the goal for the next generation is to add natural language dialogue capabilities. Since it is already a tremendous effort to add domain and pedagogical knowledge to the current generation of ITSs, adding natural language dialogue capabilities can further increase the development time by requiring that language knowledge also be engineered. Rather than having natural language knowledge become an additional engineering burden, we seek to build tools that will allow us to attack the problem of pedagogical and language knowledge engineering in tandem. In this paper, we describe the authoring tool suite we are building to address this problem. We have found that our prototype tools do facilitate the rapid development of natural language dialogue interfaces for ITSs. With these tools we were able to build knowledge sources for our dialogue interface to an ITS in only 3 man months. The resulting dialogue system was able to hold natural language dialogues with students on 50 physics concepts and students showed significant learning gains over seeing only monologue text hints [8].


The utility model discloses a roof rainwater collection reusing system for buildings, which comprises a gutter arranged on a building roof, a rainwater hopper, a rainwater pipeline, rainwater processing equipment including sedimentation tank, filter tank, and a reservoir mounted with a water pump, wherein the rainwater pipeline comprises a connecting pipe, a hanger tube, a drainage vertical pipe, an underground drainage pipe and an underground connecting pipeline; one end of the connecting pipeline is connected with the rainwater hopper and the other end is connected with the hanger tube; one end of the drainage vertical pipe is connected with the hanger tube and the other end is connected to the sedimentation tank; the filter tank and the reservoir are connected via the underground pipeline. The rainwater hopper can collect the rainwater a the top of a building, rainwater flows into the sedimentation tank via the drainage vertical pipe to be filtered and used to irrigate, green and flush toilet, thereby completely utilizing rainwater resource and reducing the consumption of tap water.


The University of AucklandBusiness SchoolThe science of personality measurement in the workplace has developed a greatdeal in the past 2 decades, and the Þve-factor model (FFM) is generallyrecognized as the most notable taxonomy of OnormalO personality. Meanwhile,coaching has become a well-established method of one-on-one leadershipdevelopment in many organizations. Given the research investigating the rela-tionship between the FFM and work-related behavior and performance, includ-ing leadership, the authorsO aim is to advocate the proÞling of personalityagainst the FFM to provide a useful framework for behavioral change inexecutive coaching. Coaching typically deals with skill deÞcits, performanceproblems, change challenges, and issues raised by the executive himself orherself, and a research-based understanding of personalityÐbehavior linkagescan provide valuable insights for the coach and coachee and a path forward toa wide range of coaching challenges.Keywords: coaching, executive coaching, Þve-factor model, leadership devel-opment, personality


Green Supply Chain Management practice is a multi-dimensional concept which can be measured from different perspectives. The study purpose was to assess effects of green supply chain management on organizational productivity: a survey of Textile Industries in Eldoret. Its objectives were; to analyze the effects of green procurement, green manufacturing and the effects of operations and reverse logistics on organizational productivity in Textile Industries in Eldoret Town. The study was guided by public value theory and institutional theory; the study adopted descriptive survey research design. The research was carried out in all the departments of Textile Industries in Eldoret Town. For the purpose of getting a representative sample, the researchers used a census of the target population. Questionnaires were used as data collection instruments. The data was analyzed using both descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages, mean and standard deviation and inferential statistics (multiple linear regression model) the findings was presented in tables. The study findings indicate that all the three predictor variables; green procurement, green manufacturing and operations and reverse logistics showed a strong relationship with the dependent variable organizational productivity. The study thus mechanisms should be put in place by the textile industries to address the challenges that are hampering the implementation of green procurement. It should consider the environmental aspects to performance criteria when making purchasing decisions, also, organizations should adopt production processes which use inputs with relatively low environmental impacts, which are highly efficient, and which will generate little or no waste or pollution, this can lead to lower raw material costs, production efficiency gains, reduced environmental and occupational safety expenses, and improved corporate image, further, textile industries should adopt reverse logistics practices in order to conform to set environmental regulations, this should include all activities of the flows of products, information and services between the point of origin and the point of consumption. Lastly the study recommends that organizations should increase diversity and dynamics, environmental issues which are important in ensuring organizational productivity. This will ensure organizations reduce the impact on the environment on the procurement process and to develop sustainable transport and supply chain strategies. This research that a research of the same kind since the study only focused on the effects of green procurement, green manufacturing and operations and reverse logistics of textile industries in Eldoret Town, a comparative research is suggested with other regions of the same characteristics. Further owing to the limitations of the study it is suggested that same study be done but in other sectors as the results on the current study may not be generalized to other institutions, also, as more reliable data becomes available on green procurement and organizational productivity, it may also be useful to determine whether or not the relationships examined in this study hold over time.


Drawing on concepts from the risk and regulation literature, this article contributes three points to the ongoing policy discussions on how best to address potential misuse of the life sciences: 1) Any new regulatory measure introduced must build on the regulatory measures and influences already present in the regulatory space; 2) The coercive, normative and mimetic modes of regulation all have important roles to play and truly effective regulatory frameworks will couple coercive modes of regulation with both normative and mimetic modes; 3) Overlapping regulatory measures for life science oversight at successive stages in the R&D process are necessary to deal with the contextual variation of biological laboratories. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.


Temperature dependent absorption and emission cross-sections of 5 at% Yb(3+) doped yttrium lanthanum oxide (Yb:YLO) ceramic between 80K and 300 K are presented. In addition, we report on the first demonstration of ns pulse amplification in Yb:YLO ceramic. A pulse energy of 102 mJ was extracted from a multi-pass amplifier setup. The amplification bandwidth at room temperature confirms the potential of Yb:YLO ceramic for broad bandwidth amplification at cryogenic temperatures.


Sampling from the lattice Gaussian distribution has emerged as a key problem in coding, decoding and cryptography. In this paper, the Gibbs sampling from Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods is investigated for lattice Gaussian sampling. Firstly, the error function of random scan Gibbs sampling is derived, and we show that it is partially determined by the selection probabilities over the sampling components. Then, in order to minimize the error function for a better sampling performance, a reinforcement learning mechanism is proposed for random scan Gibbs sampling to adaptively update the selection probabilities by learning from the random samples generated along with the chain. Finally, simulation results based on MIMO detection are presented to confirm the performance gain at the expense of limited complexity cost.


In recent years, reinforcement learning (RL) and approximate dynamic programming (ADP) have been widely studied in the community of artificial intelligence and machine learning. As an important class of RL and ADP methods, adaptive critic designs (ACDs) with function approximation have been studied to realize online learning control of nonlinear dynamical systems. However, how to construct efficient feature representations for approximating value functions or policies is still a difficult problem. In this paper, ACDs with graph Laplacian (GL) are proposed by integrating manifold learning methods into feature representations of ACDs. An online learning control algorithm called graph Laplacian dual heuristic programming (GL‐DHP) is presented, and its performance is analyzed both theoretically and empirically. Because of the nonlinear approximation ability of feature representation with GL, the GL‐DHP method has much better performance than previous DHP methods with manually designed neural networks. Simulation results on learning control of a ball and plate system, which is a typical nonlinear dynamical system with continuous state and action spaces, demonstrate the effectiveness of the GL‐DHP method. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Abstract Streamflow predictions are vital for detecting flood and drought events. Such predictions are even more critical to Sub-Saharan African regions that are vulnerable to the increasing frequency and intensity of such events. These regions are sparsely gaged, with few available gaging stations that are often plagued with missing data due to various causes, such as harsh environmental conditions and constrained operational resources. This work presents a novel workflow for predicting streamflow in the presence of missing gage observations. We leverage bias correction of the Group on Earth Observations Global Water and Sustainability Initiative ECMWF streamflow service (GESS) forecasts for missing data imputation and predict future streamflow using the state-of-the-art temporal fusion transformers (TFTs) at 10 river gaging stations in the Benin Republic. We show by simulating missingness in a testing period that GESS forecasts have a significant bias that results in poor imputation performance over the 10 Beninese stations. Our findings suggest that overall bias correction by Elastic Net and Gaussian Process regression achieves superior performance relative to traditional imputation by established methods. We also show that the TFT yields high predictive skill and further provides explanations for predictions through the weights of its attention mechanism. The findings of this work provide a basis for integrating Global streamflow prediction model data and the state-of-the-art machine learning models into operational early-warning decision-making systems in resource-constrained countries vulnerable to drought and flooding due to extreme weather events.


The paper analyses social dynamics at processes that involving migration, consumption and identity. In the first case, are studied the cultural and migration flows of persons from Paraiba's State Region (Brazil northeast) that departing towards Rio de Janeiro's State Region at southeast country. This experience allows to perceiving transformations in the spaces of origin and destination, motivated too for these citizens, while yours trajectories. Different of the most studies on Brazil internal migration that were preoccupied predominantly with socioeconomical transformations it saw at national structure level and were shared dichotomical notions that which the sub-development of some regions are understood like past survival and don't selecting new interpretative ways, that translate the quotidian from such migrants, breaking so with the analysis linked to homogeneity that hidden the real social relations, the coexistences of temporal-spatial segments, the interlaced livings and practices and memories that composing yours cultural trajectories. The second case it reporting to Chinese migrants in Brazil linked at some informal commerce nets. A part from these Chinese emigrated of definitive way to country and other part staying only transitorilly, as strategy to maintain social and economical bonds, allowing manages and great opportunities at two different points of the globalization context and commodities flows. Such bonds it shows kinship relations and the migratory nets like strategic elements for the maintenance and continuity from these commercial practices. One other important point of that analysis are the related processes of identitary fragmentation and ambivalence, that let at these Chinese from some way «negotiate» with your ethnic identity, finding thus, gears that them helping to living with the foreigner migrant condition. These two migration processes are linked with economic questions and cultural flows, and because this, both study cases reflecting the concept of culture from one dimension that yonder to include the productions of symbolical goods and their processes of circulation and legitimization, also can it seen like socio-economical strategies whole that implying questions of identity, difference and nation.


Making its début in 1985 and continuing in alternate years, the Festival de théâtre des Amériques (FTA) was held for the tenth time in 2003. Under the direction of Marie-Hélène Falcon from the beginning, its achievements have been remarkably consistent: It has regularly brought to Montreal outstanding avant-garde directors and productions; it has included openings of some of the most renowned theatre from Quebec, including FTA co-productions and important new plays; and it has deployed not only established theatres and new ones but all manner of playing spaces, indoors and out. Falcon's canny choices have amounted to an acute sense both of trajectories in the theatre and of the historic moments that its performers and audiences have found themselves in, socially and politically. For twenty years, the FTA has been a strategic seeing-place from which to survey our certitudes, expectations, apprehensions and ideas of community and commonality, our alliances and oppositions


Present paper gives a birds eye view about the empirical study on homophobia among post graduate students group in Kolkata. The importance of the present study is to identify the differences in the irrational fear about the shamefulness of homosexuality among boys and girls studying post graduation in Kolkata. The sample of the study consisted of 15 boys and 15 girls with age group of 21-23 years were drawn from different post graduate colleges in Kolkata. The scales used were Homophobia scale by Wright, L. W., Adams, H. E., &Bernat, J. (1999). The Homophobia scale includes items that examine social avoidance and aggressive acting, when individuals are measured with this scale. A t-test was used to identify the significant differences between boys and girls in terms of homophobia level among them. The results of the study clearly indicate that there is no significant difference among the sexes with respect to the irrational fear about discrimination, rejection from the community regarding homosexuality.


The present invention discloses a new method of reducing the viscosity over time for suppressing an aqueous liquid comprising hyaluronic acid or its acceptable pharmaceutical salt. The method comprises inhibiting the viscosity of the aqueous liquid decreases acceptable salt thereof, or a pharmaceutically-containing hyaluronic acid, which method is characterized in that the allowable mixed 入普拉洛芬 aqueous liquid pharmaceutics in or on salt.


Nanoparticle-containing media can be used for efficient high-order harmonic generation of laser radiation. We present the results of studies of the harmonics generated in the laser-produced plasmas containing Cr2O3, Ag, Cu, and Au nanoparticles. These results are compared with the harmonics generated in the plasma produced on the surface of bulk targets at different delays between the subnanosecond heating prepulse and femtosecond pulse and different intensities of prepulse on the target surface. We discuss the harmonic enhancement, which was observed in the case of nanoparticle-containing plumes with regard to the monoparticle-containing plasmas. Morphological studies of plasma debris confirmed the presence and integrity of nanoparticles in the plumes.


It is shown that interchannel crosstalk can always be eliminated before the channel signals enter the beamformer, provided crosstalk levels do not exceed a maximum permissible upper bound and are known exactly. The crosstalk upper bound (in decibels) is shown to be −20 log N, where N is the number of channels in the array. The beam pattern of a general array with arbitrary crosstalk levels, steered in any direction, is derived. Sample beam patterns are presented for arrays of 50 and 100 elements. Expected, or average, beam patterns are derived for interchannel crosstalk coefficients modeled as statistically independent random variables. It is shown that pointing error can occur when crosstalk has nonzero mean. It is also shown how to correct for nonzero mean crosstalk before the signals enter the beamformer, provided these means are known.


This paper describes the start-up phase of the ALAN-K (Advanced LeArning Network in Kyoto) project, which is part of a major effort to create new learning environments for elementary, junior high and high school students in Kyoto, Japan. Our visions of digitally fluent and creative citizens are largely influenced by the visions, ideas, and experiences of Alan Kay and his colleagues. We view the Squeak system (Ingalls et al., 1997; Guzdial and Rose, 2002) as powerful learning tools and media for enabling both active independent learning and collaboration. A series of Squeak workshops were designed and conducted at two elementary schools, which will be the basis for designing further activities.


VISAMÄKI Business management and entrepreneurship Author Mirlinda Kosova-Alija Year 2015 Title of Master's thesis Project Review on Implementation of Responsive Web Design on SharePoint 2013


Pet keeping is found to be common and popular among various societies, especially in the West (Shipman, 2010; Serpell & Paul, 2011). When it comes to explaining pet attachment, Holcomb et al. (1985) explained it as a close relationship between pet and owner, characterized by establishing intimacy and enhancing bond through various activities.Two components, relationship maintenance and intimacy were highlighted for pet attachment. Relationship maintenance was interacting physically and emotionally with the pet while intimacy was making the bond stronger and further enhancing it physically and emotionally (Holcomb et al., 1985).Empathy and the role that pet attachment may play in its development has been explored by different researchers such as Daly and Morton (2006), and Silberstein (2013). Caruso and Mayer (1998) explained emotional empathy as the ability of a person to understand others' suffering, promote positive feelings, pay attention and to be able to understand others. They also highlighted six components of empathy which included suffering (the ability to feel for the pain of others), positive sharing (the ability to undergo positive feelings and emotions), responsive crying (the use of appropriate affect in order to respond to others' distress), emotional attention (being attentive to others' emotional manifestation), feel for others (the ability to be affected by others' emotions) and emotional contagion (personalized sensitivity to others' emotions) (Caruso & Mayer, 1998).Relationship between Pet Attachment and EmpathyStudies have shown a positive relationship between pet attachment and empathy (Beck & Madresh, 2008; Daly & Morton, 2009; Kurdek, 2009). Serpell (2004) found that individuals owning pets in childhood were more empathetic in their later life. Daly and Morton (2009), Paul (2000) and Silberstein (2013) also found similar results. Higher levels of empathy have also been reported for strong pet ownership in adulthood. Bierer (2000) and Merril (2012) reported a positive relationship between pet attachment and empathy for adults. Daly and Morton (2006) also found similar results.Rothgerber and Mican (2014) highlighted the predictive role of pet attachment and found that owning pets in childhood had predictive value for developing empathy in adulthood. Anderson (2003) also highlighted the predictive nature of pet attachment with regard to empathy development in late adolescence. Furthermore, stronger attachment may significantly predict empathy development in later life (Hergovich et al., 2002).Pet Attachment and Empathy among Young AdultsKeeping pets promote positive attitudes of nurturance, love, affection and concern for the welfare and it may help certain individuals to cope with life transitions (Walsh, 2009). Pets may also function as significant attachment figures (Beck & Madresh, 2008). It has also been found that adults having such bonds may be more empathetic toward others (Silberstein, 2013). Mueller (2014) explored a positive relationship between pet attachment and empathy among adults. He further found that individuals who played an active role in taking care of their pets contributed more toward their society's welfare.Even though researches on pets is abundant in the Western countries (Beck & Madresh, 2008; Daly & Morton, 2009; Mueller, 2014; Silberstein, 2013), there has not been a single study carried out in Pakistan on pets or pet owners, despite pets are found in our society. This highlights the importance of studying how the presence of pets can effect the lives of its owners.In Pakistan, empathy has been studied with a number of different variables such as religious orientation, sympathy and parental acceptance and rejection (Arzeen & Hassan, 2012; Khan, Watson, & Habib, 2005). However, it hasn't been studied with pet attachment. In the West, pet's role in empathy development has been shown to be positive (Hergovich et al. …


Amorphous silicon active matrix flat-panel imagers have gained considerable significant in digital diagnostic medical imaging applications in view of their large area readout capability. The pixel, forming the fundamental unit of the active matrix, consists of a detector and readout circuit. The most widely used architecture is a passive pixel sensor (PPS) where the pixel consists of a detector and an a-Si:H thin-film transistor readout switch. While the PPS has the advantage of being compact and amenable towards high-resolution imaging, reading the low PPS output signal require external circuitry such as column charge amplifiers. More importantly, these amplifiers add a large noise component to the PPS that reduces the minimum readable sensor input signal. This work presents an alternate pixel architecture that can perform on-pixel input signal amplification, i.e. an active pixel sensor (APS). Two operating modes of the APS, voltage output (V-APS) and current output (C-APS) are introduced but the focus is on C- APS. Theoretical calculations indicating the feasibility of the C-APS for low-noise, real time imaging applications (e.g. fluoroscopy) are presented. Specifically, signal gain, dynamic range, readout rate and noise of the C-APS are examined. Lastly, initial experimental results of C-APS linearity and gain are presented in addition to a discussion on APS threshold voltage stability.


The paper studys the existence of the solutions for second order impulsive integro-differential equations in Banach space by using fixed point theorems. The results improve the some results obtained by Dajun Guo, Jinli Sun and Yihai Ma. Besides,the results greatly simplify the proof of Jinli Sun and Yihai Ma. Based on our results, there is only need for the contraction conditions, but no need for any monotone condition used by Jinli Sun and Yihai Ma.


Materials and methods: A total of 75 patients with complex renal calculi underwent PCNL surgery and were randomized, using random number table, to receive either a PI-DJS (37 cases) or a PI-UC (38 cases). All operations were performed by the same experienced surgeon. Several outcomes were measured, including duration of operation, time to establish passage, level of hemoglobin decline, rate of stone clearance and incidence of complications.


Good afternoon. I want to thank Peter Fisher for inviting me to speak here today. I am particularly pleased to talk about debt management in this new era of budget surpluses. The fiscal year 1999 unified surplus was $123 billion, almost twice the size of the previous year's $69 billion. These surpluses capped seven consecutive years of improvements in the federal budget since the deficit peaked at $290 billion in fiscal year 1992. This represents the longest series of improvements in budget outcomes in the history of the United States. This progress has had a significant effect on Treasury financing. In 1993, federal debt held by the public was projected to rise to $5.4 trillion by 1999. Fortunately, the stock of publicly held debt outstanding now stands at only $3.6 trillion, more than $1.7 trillion lower than it otherwise would have been. As a result, Treasury debt is taking up an ever smaller share of the economy and the capital markets. Treasury debt held by the public has fallen from 50 percent of GDP in 1994 to less than 40 percent today. This string of six consecutive years of declining debt as a share of GDP is the longest since the period ending in 1967 more than thirty years ago. The decline in outstanding debt is expected to continue, dropping to 26 percent of GDP within five years. The change is even more marked in relation to the capital markets. The Treasury's share of gross new issuance in the market has dropped from 38 percent in 1995 to 16 percent through the third quarter of 1999. Since the start of the Clinton administration, the Treasury's share of outstanding debt in U.S. markets has fallen from more than 33 percent six years ago to less than 25 percent today. Reducing Treasury debt held by the public greatly benefits the economy and all Americans. It also brings with it new challenges for Treasury debt managers in achieving our three main goals: (1) to ensure that adequate cash balances are available at all times, (2) to achieve the lowest cost financing for taxpayers, and (3) to promote efficient capital markets. In pursuing these goals, we have sought to promote market liquidity and finance across the yield curve. DEBT MANAGEMENT RESPONSES TO DECLINING DEBT To date, the Treasury has managed the declining debt by refunding our regularly maturing debt with smaller amounts of new debt. To accomplish this, we have used the financing tools of modifying issue sizes, offering schedules, and the types of securities offered. First, while maintaining the frequency of Treasury bill auctions, we reduced their average size. In 1996, the average size of our weekly bill auctions was close to $20 billion. By 1998, the average size of weekly bill offerings had dropped 28 percent, to just over $14 billion. This year, the size has increased modestly to an average of just over $15 billion. Next, we reduced the number of regular coupon issuances by one-third, from thirty-nine to twenty-six a year. We accomplished this by discontinuing the three-year, moving the five-year to quarterly offerings, and discontinuing the November thirty-year bond offering. This has allowed us to continue to issue large, liquid benchmark securities. While average auction size has declined modestly, by 6 percent since 1996, we have been able to maintain it at just under $14 billion for 1999. We continue to consider whether further revisions to our auction schedule would be appropriate. Particularly, we continue to consider the frequency of issuance of one-year bills and two-year notes. Reducing the frequency of these auctions would give us some additional leeway in maintaining the size of our benchmark issues. DEBT MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES While we have been able to meet our debt management goals through these adjustments, we face additional challenges going forward. First, debt held by the public is forecasted to shrink further, by $720 billion over the next five years and by over $2 trillion in ten years. …


In this paper, several interconnect geometries - single interconnect and multiple lines - formed in electromagnetic bandgap substrates are investigated through simulations and measurements. Microstrip lines are used as a benchmark to evaluate the performance of the prototype structures.


A study was carried out in Himachal Pradesh to investigate the water stable aggregate in silver fir and spruce forests under selection, shelterwood systems and clearfelled areas. Macro-aggregate (2-5 mm) and micro (0.10-0.5 mm) aggregates were more pronounced under selection system due to the higher organic matter and clay followed by shelterwood and clearfelled area. Macro-aggregates were higher in top layers while micro-aggregates were higher in lower layers in all sites.


How do engineering physics students come to understand and share their physics learnings as a result of careful integration of oral communication with engineering skills like computer aided design and 3D-printing technology? Based in a sociocognitive theory of situated communication pedagogy, the action research conducted in this study set out to answer this research question in an introductory first-year course in engineering physics. A re-design intervention was planned, overseen, and evaluated by a teaching team comprising three physicists and a communication specialist. The findings—supported by student surveys, reflective field notes from the teachers' observations, and a focus group interview with students—strongly indicate that the students' structured oral engagement with disciplinary content confer learning benefits and promote the development of disciplinary (physics) literacy.


This paper focuses on an evaluative, ethnographic case study of an English language and cultural immersion programme for Hong Kong university students. Prior to a five-week sojourn in England, the 15 English majors completed a survey and interview to determine their expectations and concerns. While in Oxford, they took courses in an English Language Centre, investigated a cultural scene of their choice, visited cultural/literary sites, took part in informal activities with international students, and lived with a British family. They reflected on their experiences across cultures, including stressful or confusing encounters, in a diary. During the sojourn, the researcher (their ethnography teacher) observed, photographed, and recorded their behavior in field notes and gathered additional information by way of informal discussions. Post-sojourn, the students filled in a questionnaire and offered their perceptions about their experiences in interviews and a series of debriefing sessions. The analysis of the triangulated data helped to understand the sojourn better from the students' perspectives and suggested speci-fic issues that should be addressed in future pre-departure intercultural communications seminars. The paper aims to illustrate the valuable role that ethnographic research can play in programme evaluation and enhancement.


A useful command rec tool I recently found: Ascii Cinema

you simply install it via your favourite packaging manager clisudo apt-add-repository ppa:zanchey/asciinemasudo apt-get updatesudo apt-get install asciinemaand you run in your terminalasciinema recand it starts recording right on the stop. After you are done, the recording is automatically uploaded on their web site and a share link is provided. Pretty cool tool....


The epidemiology of malaria in Natal and Zululand before the introduction of insecticides is discussed. The present control measures are outlined. The danger of malaria being reintroduced is always present. It is stressed that the greatest threat stems from illegal immigrants, seasonal workers, and social events along the borders. The cooperation of all doctors, hospitals, and laboratories concerned with the diagnosis of malaria is solicited. S. Afr. Med. J . 48, 1168 (1974).


Since the policy of reform and opening up,the village stratum divides violently, which makes the ideological and political work face the tremendous challenge .Because of the village development, the ideological and political work needs to be strengthened and improved. In that case, it can push the progress of the social modernization in the country.


The January 2013 edition of this journal included a piece by Robert Kunzman and Milton Gaither on existing research into home education. They found the researchers had met with many problems. "First and foremost," they say, "the literature is almost entirely qualitative in nature. While many of these qualitative studies are ambitious and imaginative, taken as a whole, homeschooling research has an anecdotal quality it has yet to transcend." (Kunzman & Gaither 2013, p. 5). There is little numerical data to work on, and, "Additionally, homeschoolers are a notoriously difficult demographic to study because of the diversity of individuals engaged in the practice." (p. 5)  Kunzman and Gaither also found that much of the existing research had been conducted by bodies with prejudices either for or against home education, with a large number performed under the auspices of a prominent American homeschooling advocacy group, HSLDA, the Home School Legal Defence Association. These four problems—the anecdotal quality of the evidence, the variety of the individuals (and organisations) involved, the lack of numerical data and the prejudice of many researchers—are also faced by anyone seeking to evaluate democratic education... ...


The forming accuracy and surface quality of Z-shaped frames which are as the main supporting parts of airframe,cannot be ensured using the traditional machining methods. Based on the CNC four-axis roll bending forming process,a new algorithm of uniform curvature arc approximation is presented to characterize the variable curvature profiles. According to the functional characteristics of the four-axis roll bending machine,variable curvature profile is divided into limited sections of the uniform curvature arc on the basis of the maximum work steps of the four-axis CNC roll bending machine. Furthermore, the springback compensation of each arc curvature radius has been corrected. Finally,Z-shaped variable curvature profiles are processed by CNC roll bending machine and its precision of outline is controlled according to the arc approximation algorithm. The formed parts are examined by the standard template and the result shows that the higher precision parts with Z profiles can be achieved by using the new arc approximation algorithm compared with the previous CAD manual partitioning methods. The rational division for the variable curvature profiles is very important in improving the roll bending parts forming accuracy and machining efficiency.


A technology supported environment in the educational context has been identified as a useful work space with the potential to deepen the learning experience. This study focuses on ways of using it for the development of reflection as a key teaching competence within initial teacher training. It is based on the premise that enriched reflection conducted in a technology supported environment will result in more a specific, more profound and thus deeper learning experience of student teachers. The purpose of this study was to measure the level of depth of the reflection conducted in a regular higher education ELT methodology course after a microteaching session and to compare it with the reflection student teachers provided after their experience had been enriched by other classmates ́ suggestions within VLE. The study was conducted over 2 semesters and the research sample consisted of 52 undergraduate students. Non-probability sampling was applied, namely convenience sampling. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used including content analysis and semi-structured focus-group interviews. To increase the internal validity and objectivity in coding the responses and data interpretation multiple researchers were used. The results of the current study suggest that enriched reflection provided student teachers with such a depth of stimuli that their approach towards their own reflection demonstrated a significant difference in comparison with regular reflection conducted in face to face learning.


Numerous samples of archaic transport Corinthian B type amphorae coming from the archaeological excavations of Gela (Sicily, South Italy) were analysed using non-destructive X-ray fluorescence (portable InnovX-Systems 'Alpha 4000'). Between the 6th and the 5th century BC the Corinthian B amphorae were diffused throughout the Western Mediterranean regions and Greece. Some researchers assigned these amphorae to different production areas, both in Southern Italy and in Greece, although, up to now, the exact attribution to the production centres is still under discussion. In this paper, with the aim to characterise the production sites of this important typology of amphorae, common ceramics, undoubtedly produced in Corinth, Corfu and Sybaris, were also analysed as these important Greek and Magna Graecia cities are considered by the archaeologists as the production centres of 'Corinthian B' amphorae. The multivariate analysis, performed on selected elements, clearly distinguished two groups of amphorae which, on the basis of archeological considerations, and by the comparison with reference ceramics, were assigned to Magnae Grecia (Sybaris and surroundings) and Greek productions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


It may be used in pharmaceutical applications, 4- [6-methoxy-7- (3-piperidin-1-yl - propoxy) quinazolin-4-yl] piperazine-1-carboxylic acid (4-isopropoxyphenyl) - amide crystalline form of the sulfate are disclosed. Specific single crystalline form of the sulfate salt is characterized by a variety of characteristics and physical measurements. Similarly, a method of producing the sulfate, as well, by using such salts, inhibit excessive tyrosine kinase activity in a subject, many diseases (cardiovascular disease (e.g., arteriosclerosis and vascular reocclusion), cancer (e.g., leukemias such as acute lymphocytic leukemia), for glomerulosclerosis fibrotic diseases and inflammation glomerular sclerosis treating mentioned are), as well as for the systemic treatment of cellular proliferative diseases of ways also be considered.


A NEW FAMILY OF DESIGNER nucleating agents selectively and efficiently nucleates the growth of different crystal structures of isotactic polypropylene, imparting drastically improved physical properties, according to scientists in Europe. The compounds—substituted 1,3,5-benzenetrisamides—were discovered by researchers at Bayreuth University, in Germany; the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (???), Zurich; and Ciba Specialty Chemicals, Basel, Switzerland (Macromolecules 2005,38,3688). "There is a pressing need to improve properties of mass-produced materials, such as bulk polymers, to more efficiently use the precious resources from which they are made," observes ??? professor of polymer technology Paul Smith. Additives are commonly used to enhance nucleation of crystal growth and, therefore, the rate of production of polymer artifacts, and to improve material characteristics, he says. "Isotactic polypropylene is one of the premier industrial polymers," he continues. "Our new family of compounds permit...


Based on our current World map on a scale of differentiation and map projection relations, this paper conducted a preliminary research, and summed up the scale variations on the world map. The results show that map scale is inversely proportional to the size of the difference with the scale and map projection distortion is proportional to the scale of the problem of differentiation selected projection map. The map progressively downsizing and other factors has a direct relationship.


Based on analysis of grain distribution,the granularity fractal dimension of fault gouges and the special micro structural features of quartz in fault gouges from the site of one pumping power station are discussed.And the activities and age of faults are calculated in the engineering area,the effects of the fault activities in primary workshop site on the regional stability are obtained.The analysis of fault activity plays an important role in evaluation of regional stability in underground engineering,and selecting appropriate site designing tunnel and ensuring the safety of underground engineering.


Excerpt Metronidazole has been used to treat some infections and Crohn's disease. We report the first case of pancreatitis caused by metronidazole; there was recurrence on rechallenge. A 29-year-ol...


In order to solve the problem of detecting of underground deep ore target with high-resolution,based on the advantage of near field survey,a new configuration named as wire-source with short-offset TEM(SOTEM) was proposed for deep detection and the detecting technique was studied.After analyzing the detection ability of this system,such as time-domain response,as well as detecting depth,the conclusion can be drawn that this kind of configuration has more merit than long-offset TEM(LOTEM).The proposed method is easier to operate and can be used to obtain larger detecting depth and higher detecting accurate.It also shows that SHOTEM is a kind of method worth to be developed.


In this paper, we study the uniqueness of entire functions and their differences. We have proved: Let f(z) be a transcendental entire function of ρ2(f) < 1 and g(z) = b−1+ ∑ n i=0 bif i(z+ηi), where b−1 and bi(i = 0 . . . , n) are small meromorphic functions of f , ki ≥ 0(i = 0 . . . , n) are integers, and ηi(i = 0 . . . , n) are finite values. Let a(z) 6≡ ∞, b(z) 6≡ ∞ be two distinct small meromorphic functions of f(z). If f(z) and g(z) share a(z) and b(z) IM. Then f(z) ≡ g(z). 1. main results In this paper, we assume that the reader is familiar with the basic notations of Nevanlinna's value distribution theory, see [10, 28, 29]. In the following, a meromorphic function f(z) means meromorphic on C, n ∈ N. By S(r, f), we denote any quantity satisfying S(r, f) = o(T (r, f)) as r → ∞, outside of an exceptional set of finite linear or logarithmic measure. Let a be a complex numbers. We say that two nonconstant meromorphic functions f(z) and g(z) share value a IM (CM) if f(z)− a and g(z)− a have the same zeros ignoring multiplicities (counting multiplicities). For a given meromorphic function f : C → P and nonzero vector η = (η, η, . . . , η) ∈ Cn\0, we define the shift by f(z + η) and the difference operators by ∆ηf(z) = f(z 1 + η, . . . , z + η)− f(z, . . . , z), ∆ηf(z) = ∆η(∆ n−1 η f(z)), n ∈ N, n ≥ 2, where z = (z, . . . , z) ∈ C. Suppose |z| = (|z1|2+ |z2|2+ · · · |zn|2) 1 2 for z = (z, z, . . . , z) ∈ C. For r > 0, denote Bn(r) := z ∈ C||z| < r, Sn(r) := z ∈ C||z| = r. Let d = ∂ + ∂, d = (4π √ −1)−1(∂ − ∂). Then dd = √ −1 2π ∂∂. We write ωn(z) := (dd log|z|), σn(z) := dlog|z|Λω n (z), for z ∈ C a nonzero complex number. υn(z) = dd |z|, ρn(z) = υ n(z), for z ∈ C. 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. 30D35, 39A32, 32H30.


Due to their openness and low barriers to enroll, most Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) offer free access to knowledge for almost everyone. This attracts a large number of learners, each with their own individual intentions and motivations to join a course. However, personal support and guidance can almost never be provided at this scale. All learners have to follow the same usually weekly structured content and the learning success is only measured by the achievement of a certificate. To overcome this one-size-fits-all approach with technical means, we introduced a tool for Personalized Learning Objectives. This enables learners to achieve more individual objectives in courses, follow different learning paths, and link their motivations and intentions to the definition of learning success. Previous studies have already examined, among other aspects, the usefulness, acceptance, and achievement rates of learning objectives in MOOCs. In this complimentary research, the satisfaction of students with and without a selected learning objective is compared in a course on topics from the field of Design Thinking.


Joe Bird is the son of Charles Asbury Bird and Sally Bird. Joe attended the School for the Deaf and Dumb in Morganton, North Carolina, because he was partially deaf from a childhood accident. At the school he studied to be a linotypist and went on to become co-editor of the Bryson City Times and later on, the Sylva Herald (Jackson County Heritage 73).In this letter, Joe is writing to his parents Charles and Sally. Charles Bird worked as a farmer, Qualla Township political figure, store clerk, and was at one point a chairman of the Jackson County Board of Commissioners.Joe writes about the measles outbreak in his school, his homesickness, and his witnessing a barn burning. The theme of home and family remain constant throughout the letter. Joe mentions two of his brothers and expresses his desire to return home when the school closes for break instead of working for someone else.


The translation criterion,concerned by translation field,is the core issue of translation research with the closest relation to the prosperous development of translation theory and practice,which is debated endlessly.The translation criterion is the yardstick for translation practice and measurement for the quality of the translated version.It is still a matter of academic discussion.Some famous translation theoreticians both at home and abroad give various kinds of definitions of translation and translation criterion and propose the main views about translation criterion as well.The translation criterion is not eternal and fixed.Times and practice endow"faith"principle with more fresh ideas.


Researchers have reached a consensus that early childhood educators should have sufficient knowledge and skills in child development and early childhood education issues. This is because the quality and success of programs designed for early childhood education lie in the qualifications of the teacher in charge of such programs. These requirements are especially true for vulnerable and disadvantaged children. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the early childhood educators to provide the children and their families with rich and meaningful educational experiences because they are often held accountable for the outcome of the children. This literature review demonstrates that one way in which early childhood educators can achieve this is through peer coaching. Peer coaching provides early childhood educators with excellent opportunities for experimentation, exchange of professional ideas, shared problem-solving, observation, and reflection. Although research has neglected peer coaching in early childhood, the small number of available studies demonstrated that peer coaching can effectively enhance professional growth for teachers in early child education. This observation is strengthened when the studies investigating the effect of peer coaching in K-12 are considered. Studies have adopted both qualitative and quantitative designs in their approaches. The samples have often involved student teachers on practicum, practicing teachers in early childhood education, as well as K-12 teachers, and some have used early childhood experts as coaches. Instruments that have been used for data collection have been reliable, as demonstrated by their measure of internal consistency. Findings from these studies call for changes in the way practicum is approached, and also in the way professional development for teachers in early childhood should be done. Further, the


PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an acoustic wave probe, etc. which allow wires to be led out from multiple transducers by a simplified configuration.SOLUTION: The acoustic wave probe 100 comprises a recessed acoustic wave transmittance/reception unit structured in a polyhedron by combining a plurality of acoustic wave transducer units 110 each of which has a plurality of acoustic wave transducer elements 104 arranged on flat surfaces 111 of polygonal substrates. The acoustic wave transducer unit 110 has a plurality of the acoustic wave transducer elements 104 arranged on a polygonal flat surface.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1-1


The Pilliga forest in northern inland New South Wales, Australia, is one of the largest surviving remnants of native forest on the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range. The Pilliga landscape is a challenging environment for molluscs, dominated by dry sclerophyll forest and with limited and largely ephemeral aquatic habitats. A field survey of the area in 2006–2012 identified a surprisingly rich and relatively intact aquatic native molluscan fauna with five species of bivalves in three families and nine species of freshwater gastropods (four families), including some rare species and range extensions. The native land snail fauna comprised 18 species (six families), including an unusually rich pupillid fauna with nine species. Some range extensions are recorded and some species are narrow-range endemics. The distributions of many aquatic and terrestrial species were correlated with geology or soil type. Introduced molluscs were predominantly found in anthropogenic habitats and include two freshwater gastropods (two families) and nine terrestrial snails and slugs (eight families). This study provides insight into the original molluscan fauna of the western slopes prior to landscape-scale agricultural development and provides a benchmark for future reference.


In this concept paper an attempt will be made to investigate the effects of government regulation on higher education, and particularly Malaysian Polytechnic sector. Malaysian government has put a greater attention on making polytechnic sector as the main provider of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in the nation since TVET is a hope to promote nation aspiration in achieving developed nation status by the year 2020. National Higher Education Strategic Plan (NHESP) implemented in 2007 has become the pivotal policy that contributes to the expansion of polytechnic sector. According to [59], NHESP is master key in the higher education transformation. This paper will employ [78] approach to decompose the Hick–Moorsteen index to examine the productivity and efficiency changes experiences by polytechnic sector before and after the regulation. This method makes no assumption for firms" returns to scale condition.[30] suggested that this approach is suitable in measuring the productivity changes index.


Magnetoresistance and scanning Hall probe microscopy studies of Nb-film/Ni-dot structures are reported. The dots act as pinning sites for superconducting vortices. The transport measurements focus on the effects of introducing disorder into the positions of the pinning lattice near the superconducting critical temperature Tc in structures with 250 nm diameter Ni dots randomized about an ideal square lattice with lattice constant a=560 nm. Features observable in the ordered arrays at higher multiples of the matching field H0=Φ0/a2 are washed out in the disordered arrays, but those at H0 remain. Scanning Hall probe microscope images were taken of the vortex configurations at fields up to 1.2H0 in ordered arrays of 1-μm-diameter dots on a 5.2 μm×4 μm rectangular lattice. These show that despite the relatively weak pinning of the magnetic dots, ordering commensurate with the dot lattice occurs even for fields below H0. Both transport and imaging studies point to the importance of interstitial vortices in dete...


The coordination and organometallic chemistry of metal nitrogen and metal-sulfur bonded compounds have come to occupy a prominent position in the research due to their economical importance in the field of agricultural, medicinal and industrial chemistry. Although N4-tetraamide derivatives of transition metal ions have been synthesized and some of their structures, interaction with main group metal ions and the formation of their coordination complexes are subjects of current interest. This communication deals with a description of synthetic procedure and structural characterization on the bais of analytical and spectroscopic techniques of a new class of coordination compounds of organotin(II) with N4-tetraamide moiety derived by the dicarboxylic acids and 1,4-diaminobutane. Attempts have been made to assess the comparative growth-inhibiting potential of the synthesized complexes against a variety of fungal and bacterial strains. The results demonstrate that the concentrations reached levels sufficient to inhibit and kill the pathogens. The results of the biological studies have also been compred with a conventional standards, Bavistin and Streptomycin, taken for antifungal and antibacteral activities, respectively. The emphasis has been given in vivo on male rats by performing bio-chemistry and fertility test. The results of these findings have been discussed in detail.


Male, female and cystocarpic specimens of Audouinella arcuata (Drew) Garbary, Hansen et Scagel were collected from British Columbia, Canada, and the details of reproductive morphology are described for the first time. The plants consist of one to four branched axes which arc upward from a unicellular base. Each cell contains a single stellate chloroplast with a central pyrenoid. The thalli are mostly bisexual although small plants may bear only male or female gametangia. Spermatangia develop in short, two-celled filaments which are clustered apically on swollen terminal cells of the main axes. Carpogonia are conical with short bulbous trichogynes and generally terminate short lateral branches. After fertilization a compact monopodial carposporophyte develops which may have up to seven cells in the primary axis and bear up to 25 ovoid carposporangia. Audouinella vaga commonly co-occurs with A. arcuata and is proposed as the possible tetrasporophyte. The reproductive features of A. arcuata are compared to o...


Young adults with disabilities face multiple challenges in obtaining successful post-school outcomes. In a National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 report, Wagner, Newman, Cameto, Garza, and Levine (2005) found that for former students with disabilities, 70% had engaged in paid employment since leaving high school, though only 40% were employed at the time of interview –clearly unfavorable to the 63% employment rate of their peers without disabilities, and similar data have been reported for former students with disabilities in Kentucky.


Cite as:Smith, G. (2015) A focus on freeze-drying. Podium presentation at APS Parenteral Focus Group meeting; January 28; Burleigh Court, Loughborough, UKPresentation Overview1. Freeze-drying – Process steps and questions?2. QbD in Freeze-Drying3. Freezing Stage – Critical process parameters : solidification end point, eutectic
formation, glass formation – PAT in the freezing Stage (development & production)4. Primary Drying Stage – Critical process parameters : collapse temperature, drying rate,
drying end point – PAT in the 1ry drying Stage (development & production)5. LyoDEA – A new PAT – Equivalent circuit modelling – Determination of the ice nucleation onset, the ice solidification time and the thermal equilibration time – Impact of sucrose on mannitol crystallization – Annealing times and the prediction of primary drying duration – In-vial determination of the glass transition temperature, Tg' – Strength/fragility of glass forming liquids – Primary drying rates and end point determination – Product collapse


Version 1.0 of the INCOSE Systems Engineering Applications Profiles have been published in traditional report form (INCOSE AFWG, 1996). This paper describes the design, implementation, and presentation of Systems Engineering Applications Profiles (SEAPs) on the World Wide by Graduate Students in the Master of Science in Systems Engineering Program at the Institute for Systems Research, University of Maryland, College Park. We believe that the educational and professional benefits of presenting Systems Engineering Application Profiles in a hypermedia format on the World Wide Web extend well beyond simple delivery of data/information. The use of Java Applets for on‐line interactive analysis of simple systems analysis problems will be described. This paper concludes with a summary of the student feedback in this course and our current plans for further development of on‐line applications profiles.


A connectionist model for recognizing unconstrained handprinted digits is described. Instead of treating the input as a static signal, the image is canned over time and converted into a time-varying signal. The temporalized image is processed by a spatiotemporal connectionist network. The resulting system offers shift-invariance along the temporalized axis, a reduction in the number of free parameters, and the ability to process images of arbitrary length. For a set of real-world ZIP code digit images, the system achieved a 99.1% recognition rate on the training set and a 96.0% recognition rate on the test with no rejections. A 99.0% recognition rate on the test set was achieved when 14.6% of the images were rejected.<<ETX>>


Blocking the heat shock chaperone mortalin kills BRAF-mutant and MEK-ERK pathway–driven tumor cells. Mortalin blocks oncogenic cell death Oncogenic stress can kill cells, yet oncogenic mutations in the kinase BRAF result in enhanced cell survival, often despite the use of targeted inhibitors. Wu et al. found that a heat shock protein (HSP70)–related chaperone protein called mortalin was critical to blocking a cell death mechanism in BRAF-mutant cells. They found that aberrant activity of the MEK-ERK signaling cascade caused by BRAF mutation or RAF-derived fusion protein promoted a protein-protein interaction that, in the absence of mortalin, induced mitochondrial-mediated cell death. Depleting mortalin or treating cells with HSP70 inhibitor derivatives was cytotoxic selectively to BRAF-mutant cells, including those resistant to the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib, suggesting that blocking mortalin might be therapeutically effective in BRAF-MEK-ERK pathway–driven tumors. Mortalin [also known as heat shock protein family A (HSP70) member 9 (HSPA9) or glucose-regulated protein 75 (GRP75)] is a mitochondrial molecular chaperone that is often up-regulated and mislocalized in tumors with abnormal activation of the kinases MEK and ERK. Here, we found that mortalin depletion was selectively lethal to tumor and immortalized normal cells expressing the mutant kinase B-RafV600E or the chimeric protein ΔRaf-1:ER and that MEK-ERK–sensitive regulation of the peptide-binding domain in mortalin was critical to cell survival or death. Proteomics screening identified adenine nucleotide translocase 3 (ANT3) as a previously unknown mortalin substrate and cell survival/death effector. Mechanistically, increased MEK-ERK signaling activity and mortalin function converged opposingly on the regulation of mitochondrial permeability. Specifically, whereas MEK-ERK activity increased mitochondrial permeability by promoting the interaction between ANT3 and the peptidyl-prolyl isomerase cyclophilin D (CypD), mortalin decreased mitochondrial permeability by inhibiting this interaction. Hence, mortalin depletion increased mitochondrial permeability in MEK-ERK–deregulated cells to an extent that triggered cell death. HSP70 inhibitor derivatives that effectively inhibited mortalin suppressed the proliferation of B-RafV600E tumor cells in culture and in vivo, including their B-Raf inhibitor–resistant progenies. These findings suggest that targeting mortalin has potential as a selective therapeutic strategy in B-Raf–mutant or MEK-ERK–driven tumors.


A presentation is made of a rectangular plate bending element, the use of which corresponds to the finite difference method. The element stiffness matrix is arrived at by approximation of the strain energy of the element by suitably selected finite difference expressions which contain not only values in respect of the deflection, but also values of its first derivatives. On the basis of the connection found between the two methods, some changes are suggested in the finite difference method, which involve a more realistic way of considering the detailed distribution of the loading. The effect of these modifications is illustrated in two applications.


This work studies Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas' poetry in "Leprosorio". It examines the problems of culture in conflict: the perspective of both exiled people who have left Cuba and the marginalized population left on the island, the use of slang and idioms created by people in the 1960s and 70s, and the impact produced by political terror.


Minority-carrier lifetimes have simultaneously been measured on a single-crystal CdTe sample using three transient decay techniques. These measurements are microwave-reflection photoconductive decay (μ-PCD), time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL), and transient free-carrier absorption (TFCA). The sample is a 0.8-mm-thick single-crystal CdTe sample from JX Nippon Mining & Metals USA, Inc., which is nominally undoped but has a hole concentration of about 2 - 3 × 1014 cm-3. Excess carriers are generated using a Nd:YAG laser with 5-ns pulses, and lifetimes are measured at room temperature. Using 532-nm excitation, the decay curves show an initial short-lifetime component, as carriers are generated near the unpassivated front surface. While TRPL shows a short lifetime of ~7 ns, both μ-PCD and TFCA have relatively long single-exponential decays after the initial 100 ns response. These decay times, which are more dominated by the bulk lifetime after the initial surface recombination, are 190 ns for both μ-PCD and TFCA. Simultaneous measurements using twophoton (1064 nm) excitation show bulk-dominated recombination for all three techniques. Lifetimes for both μ-PCD and TFCA are 270 ns, while the TRPL lifetime, which still shows some surfacelimited initial decay, is 160 ns.


In this paper, an experiment of spike detection based mental task with ayes movement stimuli is reported. The approximation of ICA algorithm is required to eliminate artifacts and detect a pike of brain activity according to the given stimuli which are normal, closed, and blinking ayes. A comparison of ICA algorithms based Extended Fourth Order Blind Identification and Algorithm for Multiple Unknown Signal Extraction is tested. The quality of the extracted signals is measured through the value of the signal to interference ratio and signal to distortion ratio. The extracted results indicate that the best spike detection is achieved using AMUSE algorithm.Keywords:EEG,spike, IndependentComponent Analysis (ICA).


Mycotoxins are secondary fungal metabolites which are identified in a broad range of food and feed ingredients worldwide. These metabolites have been shown to limit animal health, performance and reproduction through a variety of negative effects including depressed feed intake, diarrhea and compromised immune function. Ruminants are often considered to be less susceptible to mycotoxins compared with monogastric species due to natural detoxification by rumen microbiota, but the extent of degradation is dependent on the type of mycotoxin present and is influenced by other factors including toxin concentration, co-occurrence, duration of exposure and specific conditions in the rumen such as ruminal pH. Therefore, a variety of negative effects associated with mycotoxin exposure have been reported in dairy cattle. Although much research related to mycotoxins has been conducted since the mid-20th century when aflatoxins were first identified, there are still many unknowns when it comes to these toxic fungal metabolites and their consequences in animals, especially ruminants. However, mycotoxicology, the study of mycotoxins and mycotoxicoses, or diseases produced by mycotoxins, is a growing area of research that has continued to expand what we know and provide better options for mitigating mycotoxin challenges throughout various stages of dairy production.


OVERVIEW: Although the world has changed drastically in the past year, the need for businesses to invent products that people want and are willing to pay for has not changed. At The Dow Chemical Company, this innovation is managed so as to create maximum value for the company. There are a number of key strategies that Dow uses to manage innovation. These include balancing the timing of investments versus cash flows, managing fads, prioritizing across the company, savvy portfolio management, and as system of metrics that measure real success. Ultimately, successful leaders will do whatever is necessary to stick to their long-term strategy, especially during tough economic times.


Dithiopyr[3,5-pyridinedicarbothioic acid, and 2-(difluoromethyl) 4-(2-methyl propyl)-6-trifluoro methyl)-S, S-dimethyl ester] are widely used for the control of annual grass weeds in turfgrass management. This study was focused on the effect of weed control in zoysiagrass (Z. japonica) by reducing volume of spray water for dithiopyr application. Field experiment was conducted on the mature turf of zoysiagrass. Treatments evaluated were 0.48 kg・(32%) of dithiopyr applications at 10 mL・, 20 mL・, 30 mL・, 100 mL・ and 200 mL・ of water spray. In all the spray water volume treatments, weeds were controlled over 95.3% at 15 weeks after application, and no injury was developed. Thus, it is suggested that the application of dithiopyr in 10󰠏20 mL・ of spray water was efficient volume for controlling annual weeds in zoysiagrass.


Quantification in surface analysis using Auger electron spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy has been the topic of significant work at NPL. A new approach to the quantification of materials that are homogeneous over the analysis volume has been developed using new average matrix relative sensitivity factors. These show agreement between theory and experiment at ~10% for all peaks and elements analysed. For samples that are not homogeneous, layer thicknesses are often required. For ultra-thin gate oxides, the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors requires 1.3% accuracy. For this purpose, angle-resolved XPS is a good candidate. In a wide study under the auspices of the Consultative Committee for Amount of Substance (CCQM), the accuracy of measurements of the thicknesses of SiO2 layers <8 nm thick on Si have been assessed. This study involved 45 sets of measurements in laboratories using MEIS, NRA, RBS, EBS, XPS, SIMS, ellipsometry, GIXRR, NR and TEM. The relative strengths and weaknesses become clear. These show that if XPS is used under reference conditions it can be reliable and fast with an accuracy, based on a calibration from the study, ~ 1%. Inter-method correlations as good as 0.05 nm are achieved over the 8 nm range. Furthermore, certain methods, thought to be accurate, suffer from incompleteness of the measurement method. For thicker layers, sputtering is generally used. Here a new method has been tested to generate a sputter yield database, for argon ions, of 26 critical elements. This database has been used to help evaluate a new semi-empirical theory of sputtering yields that includes terms missing from the current semi-empirical theories and removes errors that are up to, and may exceed, a factor of 5. The new theory agrees with published data at ~ 10% and shows why certain elements have anomalously high yields.


Distinctive from the context of workplace discrimination where multiracial complainants articulate their own legal complaints, the housing context is characterized by an absence of such direct complaints. The issue of multiraciality in housing discrimination is instead raised by partners in interracial marriages with multiracial children. Yet, like in the employment context discussed in Chapter 2, the content of the complaints are focused on the hostility with non-whiteness and blackness in particular (as all but one case encompassed non-black racial groups). One paradigmatic case (of the several discussed in the chapter) is of a white mother's challenge to a 2003 eviction in Ohio based upon the landlord's expressed prejudice against her two biracial sons of white and black ancestry. The landlord expressed concern that "two black boys" lived with the complainant and stated "I don't want your money, I want your. … niggers out of my house." While the mother may have described her sons' personal racial identities as biracial, the discrimination she described was rooted in societal anti-black bias.


A study was made to determine gamma-ray induced significant changes in chicken meat; various methods were applied, and various important components were taken into account. The experimental results show that, apart from a partial stimulation in the range of low doses, no marked changes can be detected in the soluble proteins, the proteolytic activity, and in the nucleic acid pattern of chicken meat extracts irradiated with doses up to 0.5 Mrad. The only exception here is the DNA in which damages can be detected already after irradiation with 0.05 Mrad. A clear identification of irradiation damages in the soluble proteins is possible only after irradiation with high doses (preservation doses), with the meat of chicken legs being more sensitive to irradiation than the meat of chicken breasts, showing signs of degradation earlier than the latter. As regards the proteolytic activity, both types of meat exhibit a clear decrease of that activity after irradiation from 0.5 Mrad onwards, with the enzymes of leg meat being more effectively damaged by preservation doses than the breast meat. The ratio of low-molecular to high-molecular RNA increases continuously with increasing irradiation dose up to 5 Mrad. Considering the total RNA and DNA, only irradiation withmore » 0.5 up to 1 Mrad will produce detectable changes. The significant response of the RNA/DNA ratio after gamma irradiation is due to a strong degradation of the DNA. An irradiation dose of 2 Mrad completely destroys the DNA, whereas irradiation below 0.5 Mrad can be detected only by gradient centrifugation. (GE)« less


Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is a deep learning algorithm which is widely used in image processing and pattern recognition due to its robustness to feature invariance. However, it is also computation-intensive that results in a bad real-time performance. Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) has good performance in energy-efficiency, flexibility of parallel processing and pipelined operations. Thus it is expected to be used for accelerating deep learning algorithm. In this research, a FPGA based system is developed to realize the real-time Hand Gesture Recognition. We train a designed CNN model with caffe framework and obtain the model's parameters on PC. Bilinear interpolation algorithm is used to adjust the size of the image captured by camera. Then we use FPGA to implement the inference process of Hand Gesture Recognition with obtained parameters by designing an accelerator using Xilinx SDx tools.


presented the results of a questionnaire administered to more than 600patients treated in a campaign to perform cataract surgery in Sao Paulo. The study showed a sad reality forpatients excluded from the comprehensive eye care. Almost half of all patients interviewed were unable togain access to cataract surgery before the campaign, because they have abandoned the free public service asa result of the long waiting lists or for failing to schedule their surgeries (19%), or did not have the resources toafford the costs associated with surgeries performed by health insurance or private care (29%). The costsreported by patients who had not sought public service ranged from R$ 1,000 to over R$ 4,000.00. Authorsrightly emphasized in their conclusions "the need to continue to carry out community campaigns to meetpeople who would not have access to surgery by conventional means." I also believe it is important to considerthat, despite the campaigns being indispensable at the present time the Brazilian public health, we mustkeep in mind that, ideally, access to health care should be possible for the whole population without theneed to create specific campaigns.Patients with anophthalmic cavities were evaluated in two articles


In structural engineering as well as other engineering disciplines the finite element approach is widely used to model systems described by partial differential equations. One difficulty in using these models for controller design results from the large number of states these models tend to have, and from their lumped structure. A recently proposed modified finite element approach, which is based on the framework of infinite dimensional spatially interconnected systems, is here extended to finite dimensional systems interconnected over arbitrary graphs. One benefit of this modeling approach is its flexibility in handling nonhomogeneities within the structure as well as boundary conditions. In order to verify the applicability of this modeling framework experimentally, it is applied to a test bench consisting of a thin aluminum beam.


This paper presents the adaptive control strategies developed in order to improve the process implying the rotary hearth furnace; mainly, the rotary hearth furnace is driven by two induction motors which are further to be controlled. The control strategy that is proposed is the fractional-order PID controller. This controller is approximated using the Oustaloup approximation and then it is discretized with a variable sampling time. The artificial intelligence techniques are used to develop the adaptive control strategy of the FOPID controller. The coefficients of the Oustaloup approximation for the FOPID controller are generated using the implementation of the neural networks, being functions which depend on the sampling time. The main advantage of the proposed method is the fact that even if the behavior of the two induction motors is a strongly nonlinear one, the controller is able to track the different speed values, with high performances, fact that is proven through simulations.


Adhesion improved synthetic class of inhibitors of plaque kinase (FAK) is provided wherein the use of expensive palladium-based catalyst is reduced, the reaction yield and product purity is improved. Two important reactions of coupling of aryl halides with aniline, a palladium-based catalyst is optimized by the surprising discovery that may be completely unnecessary in one of the reaction. The present invention also provides the use of a FAK inhibitor compound in the treatment of inflammatory disorders and immune disorders, as well as arthritis.


Mony Almalech draws our attention on the semiotic differences between visual colors and the linguistic color terms. He recognized two forms of existence of the language of the colors – Verbalized and Visual (non-verbalized). The visual colors are percept by the ocular perception, i.e. all colors are percept simultaneously. The verbalized form is when we use the natural language to designate color. The verbalized Color language is subordinate to the linear or syntax order of the natural language. Almalech used the Test of Free Linguistic Associations (of Kent-Rossanof) to form the Bulgarian Norm of associations on colors (Apendix 1). The list of word-associations (Apendix 1) is taken as a dictionary of non-color meanings of colors. In his previous book in English – Balkan Folk Color Language – Almalech proves a list of universal and non-universal color meanings of Visual colors in folklore marriage and burial. He used the Prototype theory of Rosch and Lakoff to comment the Norm of associations and the list of visual color meanings.
Almalech relates the verbalized associative non-color meanings of different words (basic color terms white, black, red, etc.; prototype terms light, darkness, sun, fire, blood, sky, sea, etc.; prototype rival terms linen, cherry, duckling, ruby, wine, sapphire etc.; terms for the basic features of the prototypes clean, pure, immaculate for light; hot, warm for fire; fresh for plants etc.) to the non-color meanings of the visual colors in folklore. He finds a small kern of mutual universal meanings which become a semiotic key for decoding the messages of advertisements.
The colors and the signs of femininity are described by Almalech as independent sign systems in terms of the semiotic triangle of Frege. The previous researches of Almalech on colors gave him the possibility to trace semantic and semiotic links between the signs of femininity and the colors. The analysis of 44 advertisements (pictures in Appendix 2) is an application of his Color theory.

Subjects: Advertisements, Semiotics, Cognitive Color Theories, Femininity, Psycholinguistics, Pragmatics, Anthropology, Relativity vs. Universality.


In this paper, we show how structures and strategies employed by thin-stemmed plants can be adapted to improve robot access to unstructured and congested environments. Specifically, we show how the use of vine-inspired movement strategies can enhance long thin continuum robot exploration and inspection operations. We introduce a new theoretical plant growth-inspired approach for modeling and motion generation of continuum robot backbones. The approach is demonstrated in numerous experiments including inspection within a high fidelity, full-scale mock-up of the International Space Station at NASA Johnson Space Center, using novel robot tendril hardware.


The use of "Z drugs" has recently increased; in 2013-14 zopiclone was the sixth most common drug among enquiries to the UK National Poisons Information Service's online database, TOXBASE.1 Weich and colleagues noted an increased risk of mortality with hypnotic drugs,2 amid increasing concern about non-medical misuse.3 4 Furthermore, people's increasingly consumerist approach to healthcare provision provides …


This essay argues that The Great Gatsby may be fruitfully read against African American models of identity formation of the late teens and Twenties. Like Gatsby, passing and Americanization fiction render racial and national identity theatrical. Gatsby's parties, given minimal attention in Fitzgerald scholarship, miniaturize the process of identity formation that characterizes the novel as a whole. Theatrical modes of identity formation are not limited to the novel's parvenus, however: showing how even the novel's elite are fully implicated in the culture of imitation, Fitzgerald refutes the possibility of any identity as "the real thing."


In this paper it is presented the design of a dual device aimed to carry out film coatings by triboadhesion and wear assessment of hip prosthesis. The coating device was designed with three degrees of freedom in such a way that only the upper hemisphere of the prosthesis femoral head could be coated. On the other hand, the wear device was designed as an interchangeable section of the coating device, and the movement trajectories described by the prosthesis and the loads applied to the prosthesis were obtained from the ISO 14-242-1 standard.


The rotatingback acceleration and the accurate positioning of laser gyro platform are the key techniques of ratebias laser gyro.The authors introduce the design and the accomplishment of a mechanism in this paper,which can not only increase the rotaingback acceleration of ratebias laser gyro,but also accurately locate its rotateback position.The results indicate that the rotatingback acceleration can be increased 1.5 times higher by this mechanism,which reaches to 12 778 (°)/s,and the accuracy of rotateback position is about 1 ″.The rate control of laser gyro platform won't be made more complex.In addition, the mechanism is simple and reliable,and plays an active role in system safety.


"Naimi's informal assessment—which he emailed to to Gizmodo broken down by flavor and millimeter yields, and which Gizmodo is as yet unable to confirm due


ABSTRACTThe discovery of a single interment during construction of facilities at the Ina Road Wastewater Treatment Plant, Tucson, Arizona, in 1975 is reported. The associated lithic artifacts are described, and they are interpreted as typical of the protohistoric Sobaipuri. The archaeological rarity of Upper Piman burials led the authors to consult seventeenth through twentieth century documentary sources for comparative data, and the results of this research are presented as a description of Upper Piman burial practices. Discussion of variation in mortuary customs is offered, along with considerations of Piman cemetary locations and the identification of Piman interments.


Our relationships to the things we study are always problematic. Early in my career as a comparative politics specialist, I noticed that those academics who studied the politics of one of the "Great Powers," France for instance, seemed to acquire more status among their peers than those who studied the politics of, say, Mali. By the very fact that they studied French politics, they seemed to be taken more seriously; that is, they appeared in the eyes of many of their academic colleagues to be more intellectually sophisticated, perhaps also more urbane. Occasionally, the hierarchy of reflected status can be upset. I confess, therefore, that now, when we suddenly need to make sense of the political events in Mali, I do chuckle. Status, sophistication, seriousness, glory, and the proverbial brass ring, gravitas: These are rewards to be handed out sparingly, which makes their distributors and the aspiration to acquire these bestowed rewards all the more intriguing to track. Each one of these intellectual accolades is gendered; that is, all too often each is masculinized. By "masculinized," I mean that each quality is imagined to attach itself most naturally to a person with seemingly manly qualities, even if the person perceived by political scientists as owning these apparently manly qualities is Hannah Arendt. The field of international relations is not immune to these questionable dynamics of reflected topical glory and perceived gravitas. In fact, IR may be especially prone to these dynamics because it has been considered to be the academic field in which states (not mere voters, not lowlevel civil servants, not slum dwellers, not ethnic-minority communities) are presumed to be the chief actors. It is not surprising, therefore, that of all the fields of political science, IR has been perhaps the most resistant to taking feminist-informed gender analysis seriously. As Laura Sjoberg notes in her ambitious, valuable new book, Gendering Global Conflict, those academic specialists who have focused specifically on war have wielded disproportionate influence in the wider field of IR. There are, of course, several possible causalities at work to explain this outsized influence. First, war (especially interstate war) might indeed be the most analytically important phenomenon for all of us to try to explain. That is, if we examined the full range of internationalized political relationships— human migrations, financial investments, trades in goods and services, flows of cultural influences, territorial expansions and contractions, international organizations, and international law—we might conclude that if we cannot explain the causes and consequences of interstate wars, we cannot explain any other of these international/interstate relationships. Thus, war studies deserve their intellectual primacy because war itself is so causally potent. There is an alternative possibility, however: It could be that war is deemed the most aesthetically appealing (dare we say exciting?) phenomenon to study. The corollary: This common allure is what confers so much intellectual prestige on the students of war, especially if they set their sites on interstate wars, in which one of the state parties is considered a Great Power. But this in turn depends, as Laura Sjoberg strongly implies, on studying wars at arm's length, standing at a distance fromwar'smyriad actors, eschewingwar'smessiness. Gendering Global Conflict succeeds, I think, in revealing how limited this conventional IR war studies perspective is. In doing so, Sjoberg takes up the challenge laid out persuasively by Ann Tickner. Repeatedly, Tickner has demonstrated that feminist-informed gender analysts of international politics can engage in meaningful conversations with their nonfeminist, gender-dismissive IR colleagues (most recently in A Feminist Voyage Through International Relations, 2014). It is sometimes, admittedly, a slog. But Tickner, and now Sjoberg, show that it is a slog that reaps considerable intellectual rewards. First, such an explicit engagement shines a bright light on the often unspoken but consequential assumptions made by gender-dismissive war analysts. Second, such a conversation holds out the promise that IR's war studies can become smarter.Moreover, since war studies have become so central to the whole field, such a conversation suggests that IR itself is redeemable. This latter point is not made sarcastically. Many of today's serious gender analysts who have cast their academic lot with international relations not infrequently wonder aloud whether the field is redeemable. International relations—and political science as a whole—will be the poorer if these thoughtful, productive analysts answer in the negative. Taking this optimistic (though not sanguine) approach, Sjoberg walks us carefully through the currently dominant theories of war (particularly those offered by political scientists). One by one, she weighs each theory's (or cluster of theories') explanatory value. After all, it is not "elegance" that is the proof of the theory pudding; it is explanatory value: How much of war's reality does any given theory explain, and how reliable is that explanation? Sjoberg gives each conventional war theory its due. There is nothing smug in her assessments. She concludes time and again that most of the explanations of war offered by gender-dismissive IR practitioners are inadequate. They underestimate how much—and what sorts of—power it takes to wage wars. They undercount the costs of war. They set their stopwatches on war's ending prematurely. Each of the widely held gender-dismissive theories of war suffers from what Sjoberg calls an "explanatory deficit" Cynthia Enloe is currently a Research Professor in the International Development, Community, and Environment Department at Clark University (email@example.com).


Jorge Vallejo Bustamante1 Rebeca Ribeiro-Palau2, Claude Fermon3, Myriam Pannetier-Lecoeur3, Sophie Guéron1, Meydi Ferrier1, Gilles Montambaux1, Jean-Noël Fuchs1, Helene Bouchiat1 1 Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, CNRS Université Paris-Saclay, 91400 Orsay, France 2 C2N, CNRS Université Paris-Saclay 91120 Palaiseau, France 3 SPEC, CEA, CNRS Université Paris-Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France. email@example.com Measuring the chemical potential dependence of orbital magnetisation in a 2D material reveals fundamental aspects of its band structure, which cannot be detected by usual transport experiments. In particular, the orbital susceptibility has been predicted to exhibit a singularity when the chemical potential reaches the saddle point of an energy band: a paramagnetic logarithmic divergence is expected at the Van Hove singularity of the density of states [1]. Graphene is particularly interesting in this respect, since it can display both diamagnetic and paramagnetic divergent susceptibility, depending on the Fermi energy. The diamagnetic divergence occurs at the Dirac point, and is associated to the emergence of the zeroth Landau level due to the π Berry phase in graphene. The paramagnetic divergence is associated with van Hove singularities (vHs) at the band edges. In pure graphene, vHs are too far in energy to be reached with electrostatic doping and thus these paramagnetic divergences cannot be measured. However, in a moiré of graphene and boron nitride, the superpotential creates mini bands where satellite Dirac peaks appear surrounded by vHs. These features are at lower energies, reachable at moderate gate voltages, in contrast with those in pure graphene. In this experiment, we explored the orbital magnetism of such a moiré system using the same method that allowed the recent detection of the diamagnetic divergence in graphene [2]. The detection of both type of response was possible thanks to the use of giant magnetoresistance sensors (GMRs), insensitive to the out-of-plane field, combined with a gate voltage modulation which enhances sensitivity. We found a set of peaks (both diamagnetic and paramagnetic) that are compatible with the expectations from the band structure and density of states, where a satellite DP is located between two vHs, as shown in figure 1.


Abstract The quality of carbon steels working at variable loads mainly depend of microstructure, but also of impurities. The quantity and morphology of non-metallic inclusions and spaces between impurities are correlated with the content of admixtures in the alloy, while their phase composition and structure, in particular shape, dimensions and dispersion, are determined by the course of metallurgical processes. Non-metallic inclusions as impurities found in steel can affect its performance characteristics. Their impact depends not only on their quality, but also, among others, on their size and distribution in the steel volume. The literature mainly describes the results of tests on hard steels. The article discusses the results of a study investigating the effect of the number of large non-metallic inclusions (over 10 μm in size) on the fatigue strength of structural steel during rotary bending. The study was performed on 6 heats produced in an industrial plant. Fourteen heats were produced in 140 ton electric furnaces. All heats were desulfurized and refined with argon. The experimental variants were compared in view of the tempering the research steel. The fatigue strength of steel with an impurity spaces was determined during rotary bending: the results revealed that fatigue strength is determined by the impurity spaces and tempering temperature.


Ranking is a very important part of information retrieval systems. There are some ranking techniques, but search engine ranking algorithms are closely guarded secrets. This paper deals with the mathematical basis of ranking, and details some principles that determine the relevancy of a web page. There are techniques to improve ranking. These techniques include two broad categories: techniques that search engines recommend as part of good design, and those techniques that search engines do not approve of because they try to manipulate search engine results.


Instability in the Malay institution of marriage was a hot issue discussed during the 1950s to 1970s. The high divorce rates among the Malay community at that time attracted the attention of various quarters. However, there was little research conducted on marriage and divorce by local historians. To fill this gap, this study is presented by focusing on the Malay community in the state of Terengganu during the 1950s to 1970s. The study aims to analyse the problems that arise in the marriage institution among the Terengganu Malay community and to identify the factors that had caused these problems. In addition, this study also discusses the efforts taken by the Terengganu State Islamic Religious Affairs Department in addressing the problems. This study utilises archival and library research to obtain data. The findings indicate that marriage and divorce among


A scheme for enhancing the electron injection charge in a laser-driven bubble acceleration is proposed. In this scheme, a thin foil target is placed in front of a gas target. Upon interaction with an ultra-intense laser pulse, the foil emits electrons with large longitudinal momenta, allowing them to be trapped into the transmitted shaped laser-excited bubble in the gaseous plasma target. Two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation is used to demonstrate this scheme, and an electron beam with a total electron number of 4.21×108 μm−1 can be produced, which is twice the number of electrons produced without the foil. Such scheme may be widely used for applications that require high electron yields such as positron and gamma ray generation from relativistic electron beams interacting with solid targets.


Abstract The innovation efficiency of an enterprise is subject to the behavior of the innovation subject, while the equity pledge behavior of the controlling shareholder not only brings convenience for innovation investment and financing, but also brings risks which has an impact on the innovation output of the enterprise. In this paper, we investigate how equity pledge of controlling shareholders affect the enterprise innovation efficiency using the data of China's A-share listed companies from 2014 to 2020, and examine the effect of property right structure on the relationship between them from the two dimensions of equity nature and equity concentration. We find that equity pledge of controlling shareholders are signifcantly negatively related to innovation efficiency, meaning that equity pledge inhibits the innovation behavior of enterprises and reduces the innovation efficiency. We further provide evidence to show that the impediment effect of equity pledge of controlling shareholder on enterprise innovation efficiency is more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises and decentralized equity enterprises. Moreover, our analysis shows that different equity concentration levels have different effects in the process of equity pledge affecting enterprise innovation efficiency and the effect of concentrated equity enterprises is lower than that of decentralized enterprises.


the use of adjuvant immunosuppressive therapies (we have not used T-cell depleting therapies, whilst Kamar and Rostaing have in 50% of reported cases). Both reports describe excellent graft survival compared with historical accounts, but lack the necessary controls, patient numbers, and duration of follow-up to make firm conclusions about efficacy, emphasizing the need for controlled trials, as impressed in our article (1). The mainstay of our treatment protocol for AMR is plasma exchange with IVIg. Rituximab is added in an attempt to turn off refractory cases. This overall regimen has been effective in the patients we have treated thus far. However, neither in our report nor now do we make the claim that this benefit is attributable to the rituximab alone. Establishing the efficacy of rituximab in AMR will require controlled trials in which patient populations are clearly defined. The definition of AMR has evolved over time and now requires measurement of donor-specific antibodies and C4d staining of biopsies (3). Current studies compare outcomes to earlier reports, which included patients with humoral, vascular, and steroid-resistant rejection which probably largely represented patients with AMR but were not necessarily confined to them (4). A further complicating factor is that the severity of rejection included in reports is not standardized. Additionally, mixed antibody and cell-mediated rejection should probably not be compared with pure AMR. For all these reasons randomized controlled trials are needed to verify the current data. We agree with Kamar and Rostaing that our study did not define the optimal dosing regimen for rituximab that was never our intention, and we again call for these studies to be performed. Although we await such trials, we have used a low-fixed dose regimen with patient safety in mind. We have also avoided the use of anti-thymocyte antibodies for that reason along with the paucity of data available in regards to their efficacy in AMR. Using their protocol for treatment of humoral or vascular rejection, Rostaing et al. (5) describe short-term graft survival of 77.3% but highlight an exceptionally high incidence of infections (86.4%) with 3 deaths. Although these infections cannot be solely attributed to rituximab, it cannot be excluded from playing a role particularly if T-cell depleting therapies are being used contemporaneously. Combined Tand B-cell depletion would be predicted to result in profound immunosuppression placing the patient at considerable risk of complications and as such we will continue to avoid this strategy. Although rituximab is regarded as having a relatively favorable safety profile, reports of infective complications are emerging (6) and given the evidence supporting rituximab for AMR is limited, we contend that exercising restraint in dosing is indicated.