Frogs and other specialized track work needed to handle railroad junctions are costly components to build and replace, so interest in making them as durable as possible is high. Four prototype No. 20 frogs are being tested under heavy axle loads. Each has a unique modification in its surface profile to see which best reduce impacts at transition points. Reducing grinding maintenance is also a goal. Revenue service tests are starting up in a second round of tests, which will provide a wider range of wheel profiles for the frog to handle. One key element is to change the geometry of the frog running surface to it is better married to the wheel profile. One design reduces the amount of grinding maintenance needed by two-thirds compared to conventional frog designs. Field tests are also taking place on crossing diamonds. Researchers are also trying to develop a foundation that will be able to withstand forces at high-impact areas such as special track work, bridge approaches and road crossings. Ideally, the foundation would have optimal damping. Another project is studying nitrogen-alloy steels to see if they can add strength without sacrificing toughness.


By interviewing 50 physical Education school coaches from the different cities in ShanXi province questionaries and statics,We conclude that there exist a lot of problems in coaches sport experiences,training conditions knowledge structures,information resources PE scientific research and train.They influence ShanXi youngsters track and reserve talented persons foster.It is quite important to improve the youngsters track and field coaches qualities.


The objective of this research is to formulate a specific class of integral inequalities of Gronwall kind concerning retarded term and nonlinear integrals with time scales theory. Our results generate several new inequalities that reflect continuous and discrete form, as well as giving the unknown function an upper bound estimate. The effectiveness of such inequalities arises from the belief that it is widely relevant in unique circumstances where there is no valid utilization of various available inequalities. Applications are additionally represented to display the legitimacy of built-up hypotheses.


A research project submitted to the University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, Wits School of Education, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Science Education.
November 2014


The study of the action potential of cardiomyocytes is as important as the study of nerve fiber cells. The theoretical basis of the action potential of cardiomyocytes is the ionic theory formed by nerve fiber cells. Its core point of view: the decline phase of the action potential of cells is dominated by K+ outflow. Applying the principle of the K+ channel "origami windmill" model, the mechanism of action potential generation of nerve fiber cells has been reasonably explained, and a point contrary to the ion theory has been drawn: the phase of the action potential decline is dominated by K+ influx. Similarly, applying the principle of the K+ channel "origami windmill" model can also give a reasonable explanation for the mechanism of action potential generation of cardiomyocytes.The difference between cardiomyocyte action potential and nerve fiber cell: In addition to K+, Cl-, Na+, the process of generating cardiomyocyte action potential also involves the participation of Ca2+. Ca2+ inflow in the rising phase will shorten the depolarization time; Ca2+ inflow in the falling phase will prolong the repolarization time. K+, Ca2+ space substitution proportion: rotate into 2 K+, squeeze out 3 Ca2+, and 4 extra negative charges in the cell, the proportion is 2: 3: 4; Conversely, squeeze out 2 K+, rotate into 3 Ca2+, 4 extra positive charges the cells, the proportion is 3: 2: 4. Na+, Ca2+ space substitution proportion: rotate into 1 Na+, squeeze out 1 Ca2+, and 1 extra negative charges in the cell, the proportion is 1: 1:1; Conversely, rotate into 1 Ca2+, squeeze out 1 Na+, there is 1 more positive charge in the cell, and the proportion is 1: 1: 1.Application of "origami windmill" model principle, can reasonably explain the cardiomyocytes action potential generation mechanism, further proveding "origami windmill" the model theory, "the theory of dove-like particles""the theory of braincell activation" of science, also proved that the viewpoint of "action potential descending phase, dominated by K+ internal current" is correct. The scientific and rational interpretation of the action potential of cardiomyocytes has far-reaching impact and great significance to the basic theoretical research and clinical practice of the heart from now on.


Thanks to the development of deep learning, research on machine anomalous sound detection based on self-supervised learning has made remarkable achievements. However, there are differences in the acoustic characteristics of the test set and the training set under different operating conditions of the same machine (domain shifts). It is challenging for the existing detection methods to learn the domain shifts features stably with low computation overhead. To address these problems, we propose a domain shift-oriented machine anomalous sound detection model based on self-supervised learning (TranSelf-DyGCN) in this paper. Firstly, we design a time-frequency domain feature modeling network to capture global and local spatial and time-domain features, thus improving the stability of machine anomalous sound detection stability under domain shifts. Then, we adopt a Dynamic Graph Convolutional Network (DyGCN) to model the inter-dependence relationship between domain shifts features, enabling the model to perceive domain shifts features efficiently. Finally, we use a Domain Adaptive Network (DAN) to compensate for the performance decrease caused by domain shifts, making the model adapt to anomalous sound better in the self-supervised environment. The performance of the suggested model is validated on DCASE 2020 task 2 and DCASE 2022 task 2.


We present equations for calculating dry weight from body length for 14 common and widely distributed taxa of crustacean zooplankters; these were generated by regression from weights of individuals...


Uncontrolled energization of large power transformers may result in magnetizing inrush current of high amplitude and switching over-voltages. The most effective method for the limitation of the switching over-voltages is controlled switching since the magnitudes of the produced transients are strongly dependent on the closing instants of the switch. We introduce a harmonic index that it's minimum value is corresponding to the best case switching time. Also, this paper presents an Artificial Neural Network (ANN)-based approach to estimate the optimum switching instants for real time applications. In the proposed ANN, Levenberg–Marquardt second order method is used to train the multilayer perceptron. ANN training is performed based on equivalent circuit parameters of the network. Thus, trained ANN is applicable to every studied system. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed index and accuracy of the ANN-based approach, two case studies are presented and demonstrated.


Architectures are common means for organizing coordination between components in order to build complex systems and to make them manageable. Despite the progress of the state of the art over the past decades, there are still a lot of foundational issues that remain unsolved. In this talk we present a general framework for modeling architectures and their properties.


Previous investigations of the behavior of concrete under multiaxial loading configurations have identified levels of significant change in the behavior of the material under increasing stress and have established the envelopes which are formed by the variation of these levels in stress and strain space. Tests on a particular concrete using different stress paths in the triaxial stress domain indicate that these envelopes are path dependent. The effect of stress path on each of the envelopes has been quantified and the paths giving the most critical envelopes identified. /Author/


Vehicle dynamics models tend of fall into of two categories. The first uses a multi-body approach to generate the equations of motion, where the vehicle is described as a collection of rigid bodies connected by appropriate joints and internal forces and subject to external forces. The external force is used to start the motions of the developed simulation model. The equations in a multi-body system are automatically generated and solved by the solver, which is dependent on the package offered by the multibody software's developer. Among the multi-body software's available in today's market are DADS, CARSIM, AUTOSIM and ADAMS. The success of modeling in multi-body system depends on the details of the modeling pre-determined by the researchers before running the simulation such as the number of joints, locations of joints and type of joints. The second type of vehicle dynamics modeling is known as simplified model. They are three main types of simplified vehicle model often used in vehicle dynamics analysis namely quarter-car, half-car and full-car models.


Abstract : The I&ES is one component of the Maintenance Performance System- Organizational (MPS-O) which is an integrated system designed to monitor and evaluate the performance of Army organizational level maintenance. This document supports Volume 1 by providing samples of data entry forms, task lists, and report formats specified in the I&ES description.


Anhedonia, a prominent symptom of depressive syndromes, occurs in most patients with bipolar depression and has been associated with poorer treatment


Although L2 Motivational Self System has received extensive attention over the past decade or so, its relations with the Big Five Traits and their impact on effort expended towards L2 learning within a dynamic Model of Personality has remained largely unexplored in second language (L2) studies. Accordingly, this article details a quantitative study drawing on McAdams's (1995) model to investigate the contribution(s) of the Motivational Self System and the Big Five Traits on L2 learners' intended effort. To this end, 654 Low-intermediate to Intermediate English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners were asked to complete the Big Five Inventory-2 along with the Motivational Factors Questionnaire. The predictive power of the variables under the study were analysed through multiple regression including standard and sequential regressions. Among the personality traits, Open-mindedness had the greatest impact and Conscientiousness had significant, yet moderate effect on the learners' intended effort. Among the motivational facets, Ideal L2 Self had the greatest contribution, Attitudes Towards Learning English had the second most significant part, and lastly, Ought-to L2 Self had moderate, yet significant effect on learners' intended effort. The findings also indicated that the motivational facets overshadowed the personality traits when they were entered in to the model simultaneously. The implications and suggestions for further research were also highlighted.


Extended dehydrated chicken meat rings were prepared by utilizing spent hen meat (80%), optimized level of rice flour, refined wheat flour, potato starch, spice mix, common salt and sodium tripolyphosphates. The control product was prepared in a similar manner except that rice flour substituted by equal quantity of spent hen meat. The products were vacuum packaged in nylon-LDPE-aluminum foil-LDPE laminates and analyzed at regular interval of 0, 15, 30 and 45 days during ambient storage at 30±2°C. Significant effect of treatments on the moisture content, thiobarbituric acid reacting substances (TBARS value), peroxide value, total plate count (TPC), yeast and mould count and also on pH value of the products were noticed. Days of storage significantly affected pH value, moisture content, TBARS value, peroxide value, redness, yellowness, hue value, chroma value, TPC, yeast and mould count, appearance (of both dried and rehydrated and cooked products), flavour, texture, meat flavour intensity, juiciness and also on overall acceptability of the products. Treatment × storage days interaction significantly affected moisture content of the dehydrated chicken meat rings during storage.


Objective: To screen the antibacterial drugs from different solvent extracts of tissue of marine gastropod Harpa davidis against clinically isolated human pathogenic bacteria and fish pathogens and to evaluate the biochemical composition and functional groups of the sample. Methods: Crude extract of gastropod was tested for inhibition of bacterial growth. Antibacterial assay was performed by disc diffusion method. Biochemical composition of the tissue extract was analyzed using standard procedures. Moreover, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) spectrophotometry analysis was also studied. Results: The antimicrobial activity was measured based on the zone of inhibition around the disc impregnated with gastropod extract. The maximum zone of inhibition (10 mm) was observed against human pathogen Bacillus cereus in the crude methanol extract of H. davidis and the minimum zone of inhibition (2 mm) was noticed against Shigella dysentriae in the crude ethanol extract of H. davidis. In the case of fish pathogens, a maximum zone of (5 mm) was observed by methanol extract against Vibrio anguillarum and a minimum zone of 2 mm was observed by ethanol extract against V. alginolyticus. The proximate composition, such as protein, carbohydrate, and lipid contents of H. davidis tissue, was estimated. The results of this study revealed that the protein composition was high 38.42% followed by carbohydrate 9.61% and lipid 3.14%. FTIR spectrum of the sample H. davidis showed that 6 major peaks were shown at 3560.35, 2925.81, 2854.45, 1554.52, 1413.72, and 667.32/cm showing the presence of carboxyl, alkanes, aromatic, and alkyl functional groups. Conclusion: The present study indicated that the marine mollusc collected from the Kanyakumari coast possessed several bioactive compounds of therapeutic interest. Further studies are going onto isolate specific compounds and to study the biological activities present in them. Keywords: Harpa davidis, Human pathogens, Fish pathogens, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy.


Introduction. Acute coronary syndrome is a collective concept that reflects any form of exacerbation of coronary heart disease from unstable angina to acute myocardial infarction. Modern principles for the diagnosis and treatment of this syndrome are coronary angiography and urgent stenting of the affected coronary artery. These patients, having survived a life-threatening condition and surgical treatment, have a high probability of acute erosive and ulcerative gastroduodenal lesions and dependent gastrointestinal lesions. As a result, conservative treatment of acute ulcers and erosions complicated by bleeding remains unsatisfactory, mortality ranges from 36.4 to 50-80%.The aim of the study was to evaluate effectiveness of the proposed measures to prevent erosive and ulcerative lesions of the stomach and duodenum and gastrointestinal bleeding in patients with acute coronary syndrome who underwent coronary artery stenting.Materials and methods. The study included 614 patients who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention and stenting of the arteries of the heart due to the development of acute coronary syndrome. The patients were divided into two groups. The first group included 284 patients treated in 2018. Prevention of acute erosive and ulcerative gastroduodenal lesions was not routinely performed in this group. The second group included 330 patients treated in 2019. All patients in this group underwent prophylaxis and included omeprozole 40 mg per day from the first hours of the patient's stay in the hospital.Results. During the entire study period, 31 patients died in the early and late postoperative period in the first group, 18 of them during the first hospitalization. In the second group, 35 patients died during the entire study period in the early and late postoperative period, 21 of them during the first hospitalization. With the development of gastrointestinal bleeding, the probability of a full recovery in a patient with acute coronary syndrome is extremely low, and the system of preventive measures avoids this problem.Conclusion. Prevention of stressful acute erosive and ulcerative gastroduodenal lesions due to use of intravenous proton pump inhibitors in increased dosages (omeprozole 40 mg per day) is indicated to the patients of the studied group; in the presence of additional risk factors, the prophylactic dosage of proton pump inhibitors is doubled (omeprozole 40 mg 2 times a day). Mandatory non-invasive diagnosis of Helicobacter pylori for all patients is also indicated; if the condition is detected, eradication therapy is to be carried out. It is also required to apply proton pump inhibitors for the entire period of dual antiplatelet or anticoagulant therapy.


BÖHLER M789 AMPO is a newly developed maraging steel, which combines the mechanical properties of 1.2709 with the corrosion resistance of 17-4PH. This patent bending grade can easily printed without any preheating and achieves a hardness of about 52 HRC with a very easy heat treatment. Furthermore, this material shows an excellent polishability, which makes it the ideal choice for inserts with conformal cooling in plastic injection molding and in any other application where a high hardness and corrosion resistance is of need.


Cross-sectional Associations between Particulate Matter (PM2.5) and Depression (PHQ-9) in the Elderly Kyung Hee Jo, So Yeon Ryu, Mi Ah Han, Seong Woo Choi, Min Ho Shin, Jong Park Researcher, Department of Preventive Medicine, Chosun University Medical School, Gwangju; Professor, Department of Preventive Medicine, Chosun University Medical School, Gwangju; Professor, Department of Preventive Medicine, Chonnam National University Medical School, Hwasun, Korea


This article presents the research and development of a large-scale image search system applied to launch a word-wide innovative service that enables searching billions of historical images archived from the web since the 1990s. Contributions of this work were applied to enhance the Arquivo.pt web archive with an image-search service where users submit text queries, through a web user interface or an API, and immediately receive a list of historical web-archived images. However, supporting image search over web archives raised new challenges. The volume of data to be processed was big and heterogeneous, summing over 530TB of historical web data published since the early days of the web. The main contributions of this work are a toolkit of algorithms that extracts textual metadata to describe web-archived images, a system architecture and workflow to index large amounts of web-archived images considering their specific temporal features and a ranking algorithm to order image-search results by relevance. This research was applied to launch an enhanced image-search service that is publicly available since March 2021. All the developed software is fully available as free open-source software.


Using results from the theory of nondegenerate conducting polymers like cis-polyacetylene, we generalize our previous work on dense baryonic matter and the soliton crystal in the massless Gross-Neveu model to finite bare fermion mass. In the large $N$ limit, the exact crystal ground state can be constructed analytically, in close analogy to the bipolaron lattice in polymers. These findings are contrasted to the standard scenario with homogeneous phases only and a first order phase transition at a critical chemical potential.


Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the detection of Mycobacterium leprae was applied to fresh skin biopsies and slit-skin smears from 122 untreated leprosy patients. The PCR positivity rates in biopsies were 95.6% in multibacillary (MB) cases and 44.2% in paucibacillary (PB) cases. Following 1 month of treatment, MB cases declined by 54.3% and PB cases by 61.8% of initial values. Six-month values also declined from initial positivity rates to 50.3% and 53.8% of initial values in MB and PB, respectively. Larger declines in the rate of positivity were seen for skin-smear samples at 1 and 6 months in both MB and PB, but overall PCR positivity rates were lower than biopsy rates for M. leprae.


The myocardial infarction (MI) results in the change of the levels of N‐terminal pro‐brain natriuretic peptide (NT‐proBNP) in blood. In addition, attention is paid to the dependence of NT‐proBNP levels on the patients' age. However, the behavior of natriuretic peptide levels has not been recognized well enough in the elderly with MI treated with invasive methods.


As a part of a research project concerning software maintainability assessment in collaboration with the development team, we were interested in the frequent use of metrics as predictors. Many metrics exist, often with opaque and arguable implementations. We claim metrics mix the assessment of presentation, structure and model. In order to focus on true detectable maintainability defects, we computed metrics solely based on the structure of the program. Our approach was to parse the source code of Java programs as a graph, and to compute metrics in a declarative query language. To this end, we developed Javanalyser and implemented 34 metrics using Spoon to parse Java programs and Neo4j as graph database. We will show that the program graph constitutes a steady basis to compute metrics and conduct future machine-learning studies to assess maintainability.


A wide range of experiments has been conducted in order to obtain the neutron capture ..gamma.. ray spectrum for the low capture cross section nucleus /sup 209/Bi. Analysis of the results revealed a Q value of 4604.58 +- 0.14 keV which subsequently permitted the determination of several low lying level energies to be established with an average precision of 0.2 keV. The absolute intensity for the observed transitions was found and essentially all the primary strength was assigned. Because the cross section can be accounted for by s-wave neutron capture and since the spins of many low-lying levels are known, multipolarity assignments could be made. Analysis indicated the electric quadrupole strength to be higher than expected.


Discusses the main characteristics of the peculiarities of the management activities, criteria of the effectiveness of social control in the professional activities of the supervision of the driver in the system of education.


Background: Thereisalittleconsistencyamongprenatalcareguidelines. Anevidence-basedguidelinecanbeusedtoimprovethe qualityof themotherandchildhealthcare. Thisstudywasdesignedtocomparetheconsistencyof theIranianintegratedmaternal health care guideline with evidence-based prenatal care manuals and American guidelines. Methods: Inthiscomparativestudy,theIranianguidelinerecommendationswerecomparedwiththecontentof Americanprenatal careaccordingtoobstetricsandgynecologyrecommendationsof theU.S.preventiveservicestaskforceandevidence-basedprenatal care. The strength of the recommendations was assessed based on evidence-based medicine. Results: In this study, 71 recommendations were compared in four parts. About 18.3 percent of the recommendations were consistent with all guidelines. Screening for group B streptococcus, performing chorionic villous sampling and amniocentesis for at risk women, and anomaly screening were not mentioned in the Iranian guideline. The Iranian guideline was consistent with the content of U.S. preventive services task force in 38% of the recommendations, American Obstetricians and Gynecologists expert panel guidelines in 75.6% of the recommendations, and with evidence-based care in 66.2% of the recommendations. Conclusions: Although there was a little consistency among guidelines, the Iranian guideline had a good consistency with the American guidelines and evidence-based care recommendations. Updating clinical tests and the prenatal screening part of the Iranian guideline based on the results of this study may increase the effectiveness of the prenatal care and ultimately improve the mother and child's health.


Calliandra (Calliandra calothyrsus) have a lot of benefit, such as for firewood, charcoal, charcoal briquettes or wood briquettes � �. To support the plantation of this species, it is necessary to use good seeds quality, and one of the way to get seeds quality is by selecting of the seeds. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of selection on the viability of Kaliandra (Calliandra calothyrsus) seeds. Selection was using a mesh, with diameter of 5.75 mm, 5.35 and 5 mm. The results showed that the 1000 grain weight was affected by seed moisture content of the seeds. The lowest seed moisture content was occured on seeds originated from Tabek Patah, i.e. 5.74% with 1000 grain weight of 45.35 g. The highest seed water content achieved by those original from Mega Mendung, i.e. 8.87% with a weight of 1000 grain of 53, 17g. The best seed germination and seedling height growth of kaliandra came from the mesh size criterian of large (>5,75mm) and medium (5,35 - 5,75mm).


Research purposes: According to the situation of some of shield tunnels with internal secondary lining in China,in order to prove the interaction mechanism between the secondary lining and segment lining,the corresponding analysis model was offered for the purposes of evaluating the function of the secondary lining correctly and providing the reference to the proper application of the secondary lining.Research conclusions:The analysis model of shearing and compressing resistance for double-layer lining was used to analyze the characteristics of the internal force properties of the structure under three representative kinds of conditions.The result proved that adding secondary lining might increase the moment and decrease the axial force of segment lining,and this effect was especially obvious when water leakage occurred in the segment lining.Compared with segment lining,the secondary lining only plays an assistant role in the load bearing.With adding the secondary lining,the entire load-bearing of the double-layered lining was not more reasonable.The ideal combined bearing effect of double-layered liner only happened under conditions of specific load,ground parameters and structure parameters.The secondary lining could mainly bear the load when the segment lining completely failed and it played an assistant t role in load bearing.


Basic aim of this study is to find out relation between organizational citizenship behavior and affective commitment. With this aim, an empirical study conducted on 136 employees working in textile, automotive and food sector. According to the results of this study, it is proved that there is a positive and significant association between organizational citizenship behavior and affective commitment of the employees. However, the results indicated that there is no significant relation between courtesy and consciousness dimensions of organizational citizenship behavior and affective commitment.


By means of intracortical microstimulations the organization motor cortex nonlinear mice grey (aguti) and black painting was studied. Asymmetry of an arrangement of motor representations of the jaw and whisker that it was not observed at mice of grey painting has been found out in mice of black painting. Were found authentically high (р


Abstract: The distinguishing feature of the microstructures of 2xxx, 6xxx and 7xxx series aluminium alloys, used extensively by the automotive and aerospace industries, is that they contain a distribution of precipitates. The mechanical properties of these alloys are largely controlled by the nature of the interactions between dislocations and precipitates and therefore tailoring the precipitate distribution is one of the methods to improve the engineering performance. In this chapter, an outline of the current state-of-the-art in describing quantitatively (modeling) precipitation processes in Al alloys is presented. Emphasis is placed on the effects of time and temperature, but the role of alloy chemistry, precipitate shape and the role of plastic deformation are also introduced. The advantages and disadvantages of the different modeling approaches are outlined.


The utility model provides a shock absorbing door stopper which comprises a sucker provided with a magnet at one end and a base which is provided with a step hole. The other end of the sucker is arranged in the step hole and is provided with a gasket. A bumper pin is arranged outside the gasket. A first spring threaded on the sucker is arranged between a flat base of the step hole and the gasket. A first step is arranged in the middle of the sucker, a second step is arranged at the top of the base, and a second spring threaded on the sucker is arranged between the first and second steps. With two springs, the sucker is elastically contacted with the base, so that the overlarge time effect between the door and the door stopper is avoided. The shock absorbing door stopper is simple in structure and convenient to use.


Mini-satellite propulsion systems have been studied since 1960s and are still proving to be challenging both in scientific investigations and practical applications. It has shown a significant growth during the past three decades and the study on the development of microthrusters for altitude control and attitude correction of satellites in orbit using green propellants is one of the major areas of research now. Microthrusters which are capable of producing thrusts around 1N to 10N are used to orient mini-satellites and even nano-satellites, known as 'CubeSats'. These thrusters operate in pulsed modes with each pulse lasting only a few milliseconds. This work presents the computational analyses carried out to investigate the influence of nozzle geometry on the performance of 5N thrust-class rectangular, linear, supersonic micro-nozzles. The dimensions of the nozzle reduce proportionally with the design thrust of the nozzle, and correspondingly the boundary layer effects become dominant and more significant at this scale. Nozzle throat aspect ratio and corner fillet radius effects were studied and optimum values were determined at this scale.


The present study focused on investigating the professional quality of life of special education teachers of primary and secondary education in Greece. In particular, the three dimensions of the professional quality of life of special education teachers were investigated, based on participants' responses and some demographic-general characteristics. In addition, the possible relevance of the three dimensions of professional quality of life to each other was investigated. The sample of the study was 106 special education teachers of primary and secondary education. The Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQOL)-Compassion Satisfaction and Fatigue, Version 5 (Stamm, 2009) was used i Correspondence: email email@example.com Christopoulou Foteini, Sarris Dimitrios, Zaragas Harilaos, Zakopoulou Victoria, Giannouli Vasiliki PROFESSIONAL QUALITY OF LIFE OF SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS IN GREECE European Journal of Special Education Research Volume 5 │ Issue 3 │ 2020 101 to assess professional quality of life. The statistical package SPSS version 21.0 was used for statistical analysis of the data. Statistical assumptions were tested for a default level of statistical significance a=.05. The analysis of the data showed that the level of participants' job satisfaction was high, while the level of secondary traumatic stress and burnout was low. A statistically significant relation was found between specialization in special education and job satisfaction, secondary traumatic stress and burnout of special education teachers, respectively. Age and years of service of special education teachers were found to be statistically significant in relation to their burnout. It also emerged that teachers' secondary traumatic stress was associated with job satisfaction and burnout. The findings of the present study are expected to contribute to improving the professional quality of life of special education teachers.


Does granting birthright citizenship help immigrant children integrating in the host country's educational system? We address this question using a reform of the German naturalization law in 1999 that entitled children born after January 1, 2000 with birthright citizenship. We use a difference-in-difference design that compares children born shortly before and after the cut-off in years of policy change and years where no policy change took place. Our empirical analysis relies on administrative data from school entrance examinations and on the German Micro Census. We find positive effects on immigrant children's educational participation, both in non-mandatory preschool and upper secondary school. In addition, birthright citizenship enhances children's socio-behavioral development.


New metallo-supramolecular nanocellulosic derivatives were prepared by surface modification of cellulose nanocrystals with 4-chloro-2,2′:6′,2″-terpyridine and subsequent coupling with other terpyridine-functionalized derivatives via RuIII/RuII reduction. The terpyridine-modified cellulose nanocrystals (CTP) were characterized using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), magic angle spinning 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (MAS-13C NMR), elemental analysis, as well as Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and UV-Visible spectroscopy. Metallo-CTP with different optical properties, and expected magnetic and catalytic properties, were easily obtained upon reaction of the prepared CTP with different di- and trivalent transition metal ions (Fe+2, Mn+2, Co+2, and Ru+3). Metallo-supramolecular nanocellulosic derivatives with different properties were prepared by subsequent coupling of RuIII-CTP complex with other terpyridine ligands bearing different functionalities.


In the present dissertation the operating behaviour of biogas plants is analysed via the Anaerobic Digestion Model No. 1 (ADM1). Therein, three concepts for a flexible production of electric energy are considered compensating fluctuation in the electric energy grid. In the first concept, the biogas plant is operated in a constant operating point. The generated biogas is stored and can be converted in a combined heat and power plant, if it is needed. In the present analysis, a diagram is suggested that combines all information about the operating behaviour. It is used for selecting optimal operating points, for comparing different reactor configurations as well as for identifying principle influences of the reactor design on the operating points. Secondly, dynamic operation of biogas plants for on demand gas production is considered. Thereby, undesired overloading of the biogas plant has to be avoided. In the present dissertation, the transient behaviour after load changes is analysed regarding different measurement values. The objective is a reliable detection of upcoming overload states early enough such that an intervention prevents the system failure. In the third concept, the biogas can be upgraded to biomethane and fed to the natural gas grid. One technical option for this is the direct injection of hydrogen into the biogas plant and the methane generation by microbes that are in the microbial community of a biogas plant anyway. In the present dissertation, stationary operating points of such a reactor as well as the transient behaviour after step changes are analysed. Furthermore, a control concept is suggested, which ensures keeping the biogas plant within the desired operation range. Overall, fundamental mechanisms and interdependencies of the biogas process are revealed using the mathematical model. This results can help experimental working scientists by interpreting their findings and by planning new experiments. Furthermore, different diagrams are suggested that reflect the operating behaviour of biogas plants and can help during the design process and for the operation of biogas plants.


Sisal fibers (SF) were surface treated by different techniques, such as acetylation, cyanoethylation, KMnO 4 treatment, IDI treatment and coupling agents treatment, and then powdered, unsaturated polyester/sisal fiber composites were prepared by means of press moulding The relationship of the impact strength,bending strength, wear resistance, electrical properties, and water absorption of the prepared composite were studied The results showed that the treating techniques had little effect on the electrical properties, thermal properties and water absorption; the effect of SF content on the mechanical properties and wear resistance was obvious, but the effect on the electrical properties was little; when SF was treated by coupling agents or TDI, and SF content was 10%, the composite had better strength, wear resistance and overall property


We propose that predictability is linked with profitability in a complex manner. We look at ways to measure predictability of price changes using information theoretic approach and employ them on historical data for NYSE 100 stocks. This allows us to determine whether frequency of sampling price changes affects the predictability of those. We also study relations between price changes predictability and the deviation of the price formation processes from iid as well as the stock's sector. We also briefly comment on the complicated relationship between predictability of price changes and the profitability of algorithmic trading.


The advent of technically advanced oil -based drilling fluids, about thirty years ago, simplified many drilling operations that had previously posed extreme problems. Water sensitive shales, hole stability issues, friction related problems, etc. have ceased to be critical causes for concern. Indeed, the freedom from the constraints of water-based drilling fluid has facilitated the extension of drilling practices into new extremes. Extended reach, long horizontal sections, tortuous trajectories and similar applications involving the risk of high torque and drag are now relatively commonplace. Huge challenges can arise when the high performance of oil -based fluids is required but use of such fluids is ruled out . This situation arose recently in connection with two operations in Germany . In one case, it was required to drill a reservoir section, 960 metres long at high angle through a severely depleted, layered structure of sandstone and highly unstable, water sensitive shales. The overbalance was expected to be about 3000 psi and, to mitigate high overbalance , previous drilling campaigns had used an inhibited, low density, foamed drill -in fluid. However, this practice had led to severe washouts and bit -balling, In the second case, the reservoir section was normally pressured but comprised caving shales and the sandstone interval had zones of permeability up to 10 darcies. Previous performance while attempting to drill this section with inhibited water -based fluid had been very poor; with a record of frequently stuck pipe and very high torque levels. Water-based drilling fluids were tailored for each application, resulting in drilling campaigns that achieved all objectives; hole conditions were excellent and there were no fluid -related problems. Rates of penetration and torque and drag figures were very similar to those commonly achieved with oil -based fluid. This paper describes the development procedure and aspec ts of the drilling performance. Also, details are reported of how key aspects of the drilling process were controlled. Introduction Generally speaking, oil based mud (OBM) tends to be regarded as a first choice when dif ficult drilling conditions are expected. Issues of torque and drag, hole stability, shale sensitivity, etc. are well known to be more easily addressed with OBM than when water based mud (WBM) is applied. Two recent developments in Germany posed very serious difficulties and, for various reasons, the use of OBM mud was ruled out. The developments were: • Long horizontal sections of gas storage reservoirs in Breitbrunn in Bavaria 1,2 under very depleted conditions • Highly deviated Mittelplate wells at Wattenmeer (German Sector of the N orth Sea) in very permeable sand strata alternating with tectonically stressed and chemically unstable shale layers. The conditions in each development are described more fully below: Breitbrunn The reservoir section in this formation comprises relatively thin sandstone layers (less than 15 m) separated by strata of active shales. The objective was to drill 8/2 inch diameter sections in the severely depleted , so called Chatt sandstones C and D for use as a gas storage reservoir. The magnitude of the challenge is made clear by the following list of geological and drilling conditions: • Formation pressure of 30 bar (435 psi) and consequen t overbalance up to 195 bar (2830 psi) when u sing a non-aerated water based drilling mud. • Heterogeneous reservoir sandstone contain ing unstable water sensitive shale . • Length of horizo ntal sections up to 960 m. • Inclination of 85 -92 degrees . • Thickness of individual sandstone layers between 3 and 15 m. • Sand permeability varied from to 5 to 60 md (100 md maximum) . During the first stage of the gas storage construction, in order to addr ess the perceived depl etion issue, a foamed inhibitive water based fluid (i .e. 3% potassium acetate) was used as the drilling fluid in the horizontal sections in the target Chatt sand B 2, . During these operations high torque levels, cuttings beds AADE-04-DF-HO-03 Challenging Reservoir Drilling Conditions Overcome by Engineered Water Based Drill-In Fluids. Eric Davidson and Vladimir Gankin , Halliburton ; Egbert Muench, Wolfgang Mue ller and Andreas Neufeld RWE Dea AG. 2 E. DAVIDSON, V. GANKIN, E. MUENCH, W. MUELLER AND A.NEUFELD AADE-04-DF-HO-03 and large washouts were experienced. This behaviour was troublesome during the drilling operations and there were concerns that big hole enlargement in shale sections and in -gauge hole in sand sections would lead to poor cementing quality along the horizonta l interval with the consequent risk of gas leakage. Rock mechanical studies and shale testing predicted that borehole stability in Chatt sands C and D would be enhanced by a higher hydrostatic support pressure in conjunction with inhibition of shale layers . These studies indicated that a higher overbalance would be acceptable, obviating the need for foam. A drilling fluid with excellent inhibitive and lubricating prope rties and having a lower density than that of a water based fluid could have been form ulated as an all -oil based fluid , but for ecological reasons , oil based fluids are unacceptable in that part of Germany. It was therefore imperative to seek to develop a highly inhibitive , non-damaging water based drill -in fluid that would allow safe operatio ns at the highest overbalance when drilling horizo ntally. Mittelplate Project In this case the formation of interest is the Dogger , which shares with Breitbrunn problems involving unstable, caving and reactive shale. The Dogger reservoir is not depleted bu t one of the challen ging aspects is alternating bedding of several water sensitive and tectonically stressed shale layers with sandstone layers of permeability up to 10 darcies. Geological and drilling details of the Mittelplate injection well H -1 are l isted as follows: • Total depth of 3051 m . • Length of deviated sections : 549 m . • Inclination of 60 to 65 degrees . • Reservoir sandstone interbedded with unstable water sensitive shale layer . • Permeability of the Dogger Sandstone 2 to 10 darcies. • Length/thickness of individual sandstone layers between 4 – 30 m [vertical] . • Length/thickness of individual shale layers between 4 – 40 m [vertical] . Historically, drilling on this field with 10% KCl/partially hydrolysed polyacrylamide (PHPA) waterbased fluid showed a record of frequently stuck pipe and very high torque levels, for which reason OBM was the fluid of choice. However, for w ater injection wells an oilbased fluid was not considered acceptable, so the requirement was for a non -damaging water -based fluid of equivalent lubricity and inhibitive properties. Selection of The Drill -In Fluid . Although the conditions on Mittelplate and Breitbrunn differed in several respects , the objectives for the drill -in fluids for each application were extremely similar. The requirements for both e ncompassed : • Thin, low permeability filter cake for minimal invasion of filtrate into the formation, minimal mud losses and reduced risk of differential sticking. • Excellent shale inhibition . • Superior lubricity . • Good rheology for hol e cleaning , particularly in deviated sections. • Maximum prevention of formation damage . In both cases , a solids-free formulation was no t considered to be appropriate. For example, the high overbalance expected on Breitbrun n and the high permeability of Dogg er are both factors that contra indicate use of solids -free fluids. In each case severe fluid loss would be expected. Furthermore, when a solids free fluid is used there is a tendency for drill solids to be swept into the pore volume and a filtercake of dr ill solids might be formed. Such solids are not readily soluble in acid or other solvents so any damage caused would not be readily removed. In order to reduce the potential for formation damage it was considered that the optimum fluid would be able to form a tight filtercake that would be readily soluble if necessary. Sized sodium chloride and sized calcium carbonate were considered, but the minimum density of a sized sodium chloride system (1.26 kg/L) would be too high for either application . The basic system selected was a polymer/calcium carbonate fluid. This comprised: • Base brine composition selected on the basis of its shale inhibition performance . • Xanthan gum for rheology: this material disperses easily in low density brines , gives the desired rheol ogical performance and is readily degraded by acid or oxidising agents, which makes the product preferable to some other polymers of microbiological origin. • Modified cross -linked starch as fluid loss polymer. This polymer is also very easily degraded chem ically or by enzymes. • Ground, sized metamorphic calcium carbonate (marble) as bridging agent. This product is available in a variety of size grades . • In order to improve the shale inhibition properties of the fluids, supplementary inhibitors were required . This topic is discussed in more detail later in the paper. • Lubricants also were a requirement . This aspect is also treated in more detail later in the paper. Optimisation Of The Mud Formulations . Based on previous world wide experience the basic brine/polymer composition for both applications was : • Potassium chloride /sodium chloride mixed brine ; density as appropriate for each application , e.g. for Breitbrunn as light as possible and for AADE-04-DF-HO-03 CHALLENGING RESERVOIR DRILLING CONDITIONS OVERCOME BY ENGINEERED WATER BASED DRILL-IN FLUIDS 3 Mittelplate at higher density . • Xanthan polymer 2.8 kg/m 3 (1 lb/bbl). • Modified starch 28 kg/m 3 (10 lb/bbl). This base fluid was considered most likely to possess the desired rheological and fluid loss properties. This basic formulation served as the starting point for the detailed optimisation. The process of arriving at the optimum fluid formulations was , to a large extent , ag


Nabataeans, in constructing their tombs, added many symbols and geometrical forms, plants and animals. Crowsteps, as a geometrical form, are the most common among these symbols. This study investigates the use of the crowsteps motif found frequently on the facades of Nabataean tombs. The primary focus is to replace models of typological explanation for the introduction of crowsteps into the Nabataean rock-cut facades. The study begins with tracing the origin of the crowsteps motif and the way it was adopted by the Nabataeans to become one of the most significant features in the making of Nabataean architectural vocabularies. It then provides a theoretical framework for explaining the use and meaning of the crowsteps in Nabataean architecture. Thematic analysis of related literature and existing architectural remains allows us to suggest that crowsteps served both sacred and secular purposes. Sacredly, crowsteps were used to connect the deceased with the principal deities through metaphorical representation either as a 'high place' or as a 'throne'. Secularly, crowsteps served basic human needs: representing identity, wealth and social structure. The study also considers that the Nabataean rock-cut crowsteps activated the dialogue between different cultural traditions and helped in shaping the ideological cult and identity of the Nabataeans.


Wavelength tunable lasers are increasingly needed as key components for wavelength resource management technologies in future dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) systems. While material systems with multiple quantum wells as an active region are widely used in long‐wavelength tunable lasers, the unique advantages of InAs/GaAs quantum dots (QDs) for low‐power operation, excellent thermal stability, and wide spectral bandwidth may open a new avenue in this field. Combining the advantages of QDs with a special designed half‐wave coupled cavity structure, directly modulated, single‐mode, tunable InAs/GaAs QD lasers are demonstrated at 1.3 µm wavelength range. The half‐wave coupler provides an active–active coupled‐cavity tunable structure without involving gratings or multiple epitaxial growths, producing synchronous power transfer in the two output waveguides and high single‐mode selectivity. 27‐channel wavelength switching is achieved with side‐mode‐suppression‐ratio of around 35 dB. Under continuous‐wave electrical injection, over 9 mW output power can be measured with 716 kHz Lorentzian linewidth, 4 GHz 3‐dB bandwidth, and 8 Gbit s−1 non‐return‐to‐zero signal modulation by directly probing the chip.


Business sections in the national press are taken for granted as major items — but it was not always the case. WILLIAM KEEGAN, economics editor and associate editor or The Observer reflects here on earlier days when he worked for the Financial Times, Daily Mail and the News Chronicle. It was a different age of journalism.


Identification of a person's voice from the different voices is known as speaker recognition. The speech signals of individuals are selected by means of speaker recognition or identification. In this work, an efficient method for speaker recognition is made by using Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) features and Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM) for classification is presented. The input speech signal features are decomposed by DWT into subband coefficients. The DWT subband coefficient features are the input for the classification. Classification is made by GMM classifier at 4, 8, 16 and 32 Gaussian component levels. Results show a better accuracy of 96.18% speaker signals using DWT features and GMM classifier


The desire to study macromolecular complexes within their cellular context requires the ability to produce thin samples suitable for cryo‐TEM (cryo‐transmission electron microscope) investigations. In this paper, we discuss two similar approaches, which were developed independently in Utrecht (the Netherlands) and Albany (USA). The methods are particularly suitable for both tissue samples and cell suspensions prepared by a high‐pressure freezer (HPF). The workflows are explained with particular attention to potential pitfalls, while underlying principles are highlighted ('why to do so'). Although both workflows function with a high success rate, full execution requires considerable experience and remains demanding. In addition, throughput is low. We hope to encourage other research groups worldwide to take on the challenge of improving the HPF– cryo‐FIB‐SEM – cryo‐TEM workflow. We discuss a number of suggestions to this end.


A significant portion of all energy capacity is wasted in over-provisioning to meet peak demand. The current state-of-the-art in reducing peak demand requires central authorities to limit device usage directly, and are generally reactive. We apply techniques drawn from established distributed computing principles to propose a novel and proactive solution to decentralize management of demand and to provide a more scalable and resilient approach to reducing overall peak demand. We demonstrate that such a system approaches the performance of an ideal centralized control authority, and experimentally demonstrate a 10-25% reduction in peak energy demand under conservative assumptions. Under worst-case demand scenarios, our approach has the potential to reduce peak demand by 65-85%.


Competent navigation in an environment is a major requirement for an autonomous mobile robot to accomplish its mission. Nowadays, many successful systems for navigating a mobile robot use an internal map which represents the environment in a detailed geometric manner. However, building, maintaining and using such environment maps for navigation is difficult because of perceptual aliasing and measurement noise. Moreover, geometric maps require the processing of huge amounts of data which is computationally expensive. This thesis addresses the problem of vision-based topological mapping and localisation for mobile robot navigation. Topological maps are concise and graphical representations of environments that are scalable and amenable to symbolic manipulation. Thus, they are well-suited for basic robot navigation applications, and also provide a representational basis for the procedural and semantic information needed for higher-level robotic tasks. In order to make vision-based topological navigation suitable for inexpensive mobile robots for the mass market we propose to characterise key places of the environment based on their visual appearance through colour histograms. The approach for representing places using visual appearance is based on the fact that colour histograms change slowly as the field of vision sweeps the scene when a robot moves through an environment. Hence, a place represents a region of the environment rather than a single position. We demonstrate in experiments using an indoor data set, that a topological map in which places are characterised using visual appearance augmented with metric clues provides sufficient information to perform continuous metric localisation which is robust to the kidnapped robot problem. Many topological mapping methods build a topological map by clustering visual observations to places. However, due to perceptual aliasing observations from different places may be mapped to the same place representative in the topological map. A main contribution of this thesis is a novel approach for dealing with the perceptual aliasing problem in topological mapping. We propose to incorporate neighbourhood relations for disambiguating places which otherwise are indistinguishable. We present a constraint based stochastic local search method which integrates the approach for place disambiguation in order to induce a topological map. Experiments show that the proposed method is capable of mapping environments with a high degree of perceptual aliasing, and that a small map is found quickly. Moreover, the method of using neighbourhood information for place disambiguation is integrated into a framework for topological off-line simultaneous localisation and mapping which does not require an initial categorisation of visual observations. Experiments on an indoor data set demonstrate the suitability of our method to reliably localise the robot while building a topological map.


Abstract Microwear analysis provides a means to extract important information on the activities conducted at Paleoindian sites from meager assemblages. Microwear analysis was conducted on a sample of 10 tools from the Paleo Crossing site in Medina County, Ohio. Tools analyzed included fluted points, end scrapers, blades, gravers, and unifacial knives. Wear patterns indicated that the tools were used to cut, scrape, engrave, and penetrate (i.e., via a projectile) such materials as soft plant, meat, hide, and bone/antler. Several of the tools were hafted and wear patterns were well developed overall. Based on this pilot study, comparison with microwear studies conducted on sites in the Great Lakes region and beyond suggests that Paleo Crossing provides new information on the number, as well as the types, of Paleoindian tools used to cut soft plant.


Purpose – The research intends to examine the role of theory of planned behaviour (TPB) in financial inclusion (FI) along with the moderating effects of both attitude towards place and subjective norm on desire and intention.

Design/Methodology/Approach – This study adopts the CFA / SEM to confirm factors and model respectively. Further, it applies moderation analysis to confirm the two- and three-way interaction of attitude towards place and subjective norm on relationship of desire and intention.

Findings – Relying on the data collected (N = 326) from the tribal districts in India, model based on the three way interaction (moderated moderation) concludes (1) intention involved in FI is completely explained by TPB and, (2) attitude towards place and subjective norm moderates the direct relationship of desire and intention in two- and three-way interaction.

Practical implications – Implementing authorities (like banks) and policy makers can design suitable interventions based on the derived model(s) so to engage beneficiaries in voluntary approach to FI.

Originality/value – Earlier research on the role of TPB were carried out to assess the existing financial behaviors, the contribution of study is first as the theory is explored in finding the theoretical constructs that initiates the intention towards financial behavior in those who are financial excluded residing in rural parts of India.


The effects of rare earth Nd on the microstructures and mechanical properties of as-cast and hot-rolled AZ31B wrought magnesium alloy were investigated.The results show that the mechanical properties of both as-cast and hot-rolled AZ31B alloys at room temperature decrease due to rare earth Nd addition.When rare earth Nd is added into AZ31B alloy,the Nd reacts with Al element to form Al2Nd phase,the Nd may also reacts with Mn and Al to form Al-Nd-Mn intermetallics compounds,the residual Al reacts with Mg to form Mg17Al12 phase.The intermetallics compound containing Al and Mn weakens the grain refinement effect of Al and Mn on AZ31B alloy and results in the declining of mechanical properties of as-cast AZ31B alloy.The thermostable and bulky second phase is another main reason for the declining the mechanical properties of as-cast AZ31B alloy.The bulky second phase is the main reason to result in the declining of mechanical properties of hot-rolled sheet of AZ31B alloy.The mechanical properties of hot-rolled sheet of AZ31B-0.8Nd alloy can be improved through increasing the strain of hot rolling because the second phase are adequately refined by large deformation.


Any functioning system can, of course, perform only a certain set of tasks since it is constrained by its components and the structural and functional relationships among them. Thus, within the nervous system there are certain constraints that limit and, under certain conditions, dominate neural activity, including aesthetic responses. It is not the intent here to define aesthetic response in any complete manner. It should be agreed, however, that nervous system activity is, at least, part of the response to art objects [1]. It follows that the particular characteristics of the nervous system will filter and accentuate sensory information in ways that place constraints on the aesthetic response and that, in one sense at least, partially define the aesthetic response. Examples from several sensory modalities could be used to develop this idea in some detail. However, the visual system provides a number of examples such as responses to edge, line, color, texture, depth and spacing. In the discussion to follow, the response of the visual nervous system to edges and lines will be used since probably more is known about the neural response to this aspect of the visual stimulus than to others. Also edge or line stimulation results in an elaboration, in one form or another, by most neural units responsive to visual stimulation.


The main of this paper is to establish an inequality pro- viding some better bounds for integral mean by using a mean value theorem. Our results generalize the results of Ahmad et. al in (8).


The objective of the present work was to evaluate the efficacy of the extract of the bark of the fruit of Punica granatum L. in the in vitro control of eggs and adults of F. hepatica. The determination of the chemical composition was based on phytochemical evaluation, which is a qualitative technique that confirms the presence or absence of phenolic compounds, flavonoids, tannins, coumarins, terpenes, cardiotonic glycosides, alkaloids and saponins. The egg assay was performed in triplicate from solutions of 0.1%, 0.25% and 0.5% of the extract and on the adults a parasite per plate was used in triplicate similar to


This article unifies the coal enterprise the production reality,separately from reinforcement cost forecast;Establishment material cost responsibility center;The inspection track managed and enlarges the recycling to repair the old dynamics and so on several aspects to introduce how controlled and the reinforcement cost management,reduced the cost to the enterprise,enhanced the benefit to have the vital significance.


Integrins are heterodimeric receptors composed of non-covalently associated αand β subunits which have distinct functions on different cell types. α7β1integrin is an important laminin receptor in s ...


In expectation of a curariform activity with little side effects, methiodide of 3, 3'-polymethylenediquinolizidines (I : n=4, 6, 8, and 10) were synthesized. Condensation of the potassium salt of 3-ethoxycarbony1-4-oxoquinolizidine and polymethylene bromide, followed by saponification and decarboxylation, and reduction with lithium aluminum hydride of the lactam compound so obtained afforded the objective compounds (I). (I : n=4) was also obtained through 3-(4-phenoxybutyl) quinolizidine (IX) as an intermediate and compounds obtained by the two procedures were found to be identical. The curariform activity of (I) (n=4 and 6) was one-quarter that of tubocurarine chloride while their toxicity was 6 and 10 times, respectively, of tubocurarine. The compound with n=10 had a strong antibacterial and antifungal activity.


A new switched current (SI) memory cell is proposed in the paper. Analysis and simulations show very good properties of the cell. Layout of a sample and hold (SH) circuit composed of the memory cell is also presented. This SH circuit is a basic cell of bilinear integrators and delay lines, being components of one- and two-dimensional SI filters. The method and tools for automated design of such filters are briefly described.


The present invention relates to game technology, and more particularly, to a method, apparatus and recoding medium which provide various game screen configurations in accordance with touch-type games, and provide a touch game requesting various types of user control methods according to the various game screen configurations.


To enhance learning and maximise student satisfaction while simultaneously optimising costs and resources within the modern context and environment of integrated anatomy education, it is vital that innovative methods of delivering learning and teaching are considered for implementation into medical curricula. The development of learning processes including observation, visualisation, haptic reasoning and visuospatial ability are strongly associated with the use of artistic approaches. In addition to being crucial for medical student learning of anatomy and other life sciences, such skills are also relevant for training in surgery, clinical observation and diagnosis. The twelve tips outlined here have been identified with the intention of providing guidance for anatomy educators aiming to incorporate innovative creative and artistic approaches into their own teaching practice within medical curricula. These proposals are underpinned by educational theory and recent research that has investigated artistic learning methods in medical education. Recommendations are also based on our personal experiences from both the undergraduate student point of view as well as the academic educator perspective with respect to the usage of creative and artistic learning approaches in anatomy education at Newcastle University.


The article presents the results of the experiments in radiotransparency of ice covers in the microwave range. It is found that at plastic deformation under mechanical stress, there appear noncoherent additional electromagnetic waves in the ice structures. These waves could be used for observing ice structures flowing. The method of two-position radiolocation is considered for registering ice flowing.


Abstract This article by Andrea Longson, the Senior Librarian, outlines the history of both the Advocates Library and the Faculty of Advocates. It describes the collections and services offered by the library.


The present study was undertaken to investigate the effect of a major compound of Alternanthera philoxeroides, 3-O-β-D-glucopyranosiduronic acid 28-β-D-glucopyranosyl-oleanolate or chikusetsusaponins IVa (compound 1), on the production of nitric oxide (NO) in lipopolydaccharide (LPS)-stimulated RAW 264.7 macrophage cells.The results showed that compound 1 significantly suppressed NO production in a dose-dependent manner. The studies on structure-activity relationship of compound 1 have demonstrated that both acid and alkaline hydrolysis products, compound 1a (oleanolic acid) and compound 1b (oleanolic acid 3-O-β-D-glucoronide), also exhibited significant NO inhibitory activity, with the relative potency was compound 1b > compound 1 > compound 1a, respectively.


Ionic Polymer Metal Composites (IPMCs) are known to be compliant, reliable and able to produce a large current when deformed under a wide range of frequencies. In a previous study, our group demonstrated that cylindrical IPMC hair-like transducers can be used as mechano-electrical sensors. In this paper we characterize the sensing performance of the IPMC hair-like sensor and present methodologies on how to increase its sensitivity while reducing its size. Furthermore an array of 4 hair-cell sensors is built and characterized for tactile sensing texture detection.


The development objective of Infrastructure Finance And Public Private Partnership Project is to increase private investment in the Kenya infrastructure market across sectors and to sustain this participation over an extended period of time. Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: (i) cash compensation for affected land equivalent to replacement value, taking into account market values for agricultural land; (ii) cash compensation for affected community land equivalent to replacement value taking into account market value; (iii) cash compensation to the tenant or lease holder for the harvest or product from the affected land or asset, equivalent to average market value of last 3 years, or market value of the crop for the remaining period of tenancy or lease agreement, whichever is greater; (iv) land for land replacement where feasible, or compensation in cash for the entire landholding of the farmer or title holder according to Project Affected Persons (PAPs) choice equal to replacement cost; (v) Cash compensation equivalent to average of last 3 years' market value for the mature and harvested crop, or market value of the crop for the remaining period of tenancy or lease agreement, whichever is greater; (vi) cash compensation for affected business land; (vii) opportunity cost compensation equivalent to two months net income based on tax records for previous year (or tax records from comparable business, or estimates), or the relocation allowance, whichever is higher to the business person who is a lease holder; (viii) for the land and assets used for residence severely affected, land for land replacement or compensation in cash according to PAP's choice, based on the replacement cost; (ix) cash compensation for affected building and other fixed assets; (x) For squatter or informal dweller, cash compensation for affected structure without depreciation; (xi) for street vendors, assistance to obtain alternative site to re- establish the business; and (xii) ensure that the livestock owners have access to land for grazing or ways to sustain their livelihoods.


A compact ultra wide band impedances transformer based on new configuration of composite right/left handed transmission line is presented. The proposed design introduces ultra wide band pass frequencies extended from 2 GHz up to 11 GHz with perfect matching transmission coefficient. However, the whole topology is designed using new loaded inductor configuration of CRLH. This L-CRLH is implemented using loaded inductor to construct shunt tank of gap capacitor and strip inductor, and shunt tank formed using patch capacitor with shorted strip inductor. Furthermore, the paper present analytical study, equivalent circuit model, 3D fall wave simulation and fabrication measurement results. The results shows perfect insertion losses equal 0.2 dB and return losses reach to 19 dB within extended band pass band from 2 GHz up to 11 GHz. Moreover, it introduces very compact size equal 2.7×8.6 mm2 (58% size reduction compared to single frequency λ/4 transformer).


BACKGROUND
Kinetic energy (KE) of intracardiac blood flow reflects myocardial work spent on accelerating blood and provides a mechanistic window into diastolic filling dynamics. Diastolic dysfunction may represent an early stage in the development of heart failure (HF). Here we evaluated the hemodynamic effects of impaired diastolic function in subjects with and without HF, testing the hypothesis that left ventricular KE differs between controls, subjects with subclinical diastolic dysfunction (SDD), and HF patients.

METHODS
We studied 77 subjects (16 controls, 20 subjects with SDD, 16 HFpEF, 9 HFmrEF, and 16 HFrEF patients, age- and sex-matched at the group level). Cardiac magnetic resonance at 1.5T included intracardiac 4D flow and cine imaging. Left ventricular KE was calculated as 0.5*m*v2.

RESULTS
Systolic KE was similar between groups (p>0.4), also after indexing to stroke volume (p=0.25), and was primarily driven by ventricular emptying rate (p<0.0001, R2=0.52). Diastolic KE was higher in heart failure patients than controls (p<0.05) but similar between SDD and HFpEF (p>0.18), correlating with inflow conditions (E-wave velocity, p<0.0001, R2=0.24) and end-diastolic volume (p=0.0003, R2=0.17) but not with average e' (p=0.07).

CONCLUSIONS
Diastolic KE differs between controls and heart failure, suggesting more work is spent filling the failing ventricle, while systolic KE does not differentiate between well-matched groups with normal ejection fraction even in the presence of relaxation abnormalities and heart failure. Mechanistically, KE reflects the acceleration imparted on the blood and is driven by variations in ventricular emptying and filling rates, volumes, and heart rate, regardless of underlying pathology.


Standard of care refers to treatment modalities of specific diseases that are widely accepted by the majority of physicians, insurance companies and certain health care related organizations. Such standard treatments have evolved over the years as a result of clinical experience, basic science research, clinical research and technical innovation with the goal of leading to uniformly acceptable outcomes. Some of the outcomes are unsatisfactory to many physicians and researchers, but never-the-less these outcomes are accepted because they are the best that can be achieved given available knowledge and expertise. The vast majority of physicians practice in very similar ways on most of the well known and long established conditions and diseases. Of course, this is to be expected, and it is a paradigm that holds true not only for medicine but for all human endeavors where evolution is the key to progress, and where the "minority" is always the catalyst for change.


The presence of numerous haors (seasonal lakes), and the occurrence of flash floods and sedimentation are among the dominant physical and hydro-climatic features of North-East Bangladesh. These features for one of the haors (Hail Haor) in the region are studied using a conceptual hydrological model and a hydraulic routine. The hydrologic model used for daily runoff estimation from rainfall and evaporation information is the widely used tank model. Both soil-moisture movement and stream-flow routing are considered in the developed model. The tank runoff is used as an input to a hydraulic routine for estimation of stream water temperatures and suspended sediment load. Based on the stream sediment concentration, sedimentation in a downstream lake (Hail Haor) is estimated and it is found to be about 25 mm per annum. The relationship between monsoonal flooding and thermal response of the haor is investigated with one-year measured data of haor temperatures and water level. Different heat fluxes and thermal stability parameters are also estimated. The advection flux and the Richardson number are found to be sensitive to flooding in the haor. The unique feature of the Hail Haor found in the context of lake ecology is that thermal stratification occurs during sunny days under calm weather and complete mixing occurs in the event of large flash floods. Keywords : tank model; suspended sediment; water temperature; thermal stratification; buoyancy flux; Richardson number; haor. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/jhm.v6i1.5480 Journal of Hydrology and Meteorology , Vol. 6, No. 1 15-25


I N THIS paper, I will contend that death is a natural event in the course of human life. If I am correct, there is something strange if not perverse in the very notion that an argument such as mine need be given. There is hardly any event as universal as death. How could such an ingredient element of human history be regarded as anything but natural? What would be the need of arguing that death is natural? What would be at issue in such a dispute? What sort of problem is in need of solution? The issue is a somewhat vague one-a set of loosely bound presuppositions of modern western culture which lead to an implicit cultural judgment: that death is unnatural. Western thinkers have developed a way of seeing the condition of individual men such that their death is not only regretted, but seen as adventitious. It is as if men were naturally immortal and death an accidental entry into human history. Such an appreciation of death makes it an event to be denied and opposed at all costs, rather than anticipated and articulated in one's anticipation of the future, as ingredient to human life, providing in part for the shape and character of life. First, I want to make clear that I do not intend to propose an argument against individual immortality, except to suggest that an argument for immortality cannot succeed. Yet, even if one cannot demonstrate immortality, its possibility is not excluded. I do, though, hope to suggest that immortality would be gratuitous, by the grace of God, not of human nature. However, this paper will not offer arguments, at least not in any strict sense. My attempt, rather, will be to sketch the lineaments of a view of man in terms of which death can be seen as natural. I will suggest that such a view can allow us to deal better with our finitude, to live better with death and our own dying, hoping to show, thereby, the plausibility of taking counsel from our finitude.


The invention relates to a taxol nano targeting slow-release long-circulating liposome and a preparation method thereof. The taxol nano targeting slow-release long-circulating liposome of the invention mediates the structure of polyethylene glycol modificatory chitosan derivative by folate receptor; and the invention utilizes the chitosan derivative as an auxiliary material to prepare a novel taxol preparation by a reverse phase evaporation method or film dispersion method, and the prepared taxol nano targeting slow-release long-circulating liposome has the grain size smaller than 100nm, can freely run in the blood, penetrates the endothelial cell of a target tissue, can be uptaken by a tumor cell to enter the cell, releases the contained taxol in the cell, and greatly improves the utilization efficiency of medicaments. In addition, the surface of the prepared taxol nano targeting slow-release long-circulating liposome is also covered by a layer of polyethylene glycol (PEG) which can prolong the dwell time of liposome in the blood, reduce the uptaken amount of liposome by liver and spleen reticuloendothelial systems, and is beneficial to the absorption of tumor tissues and lesion parts.


: In this paper, we have proposed a Proximal support Vector Machine based Face recognition using subspace analysis. The Proximal support vector Machine (SVM) aims at generating two parallel planes such that the each plane is closest to one of the two face classes to be classified and the two planes are as far apart as possible. The proximal support vector machine uses two parallel hyper planes for face classification while standard Support vector machine with Bayesian similarity is used for Hierarchical agglomerative clustering. The simple pair wise binary tree strategy is used to classify the multi class patterns using proximal Support Vector Machine. The Proximal support vector machine is computationally more efficient than the standard Support Vector Machine. The Experimental results confirm that our method outperforms some of the existing methods.


To the limitation of current group round robin scheduling algorithm,an novel idea of queue grouping strategy called virtual weighted queue based grouping strategy was presented.With this grouping strategy,combining DRR and WF2Q,a fair packet scheduling algorithm called virtual weighted queue group round robin(VWQGRR) was proposed.The simulation results show that VWQGRR exhibits better delay property and fairness property.


The development of technological solutions satisfying nondiscriminatory requirements is one of the main current challenges for data processing. Back-end operators for preparing, i.e., extracting and transforming, data play a relevant role w.r.t. nondiscrimination, since they can introduce bias with an impact on the entire data life-cycle. In this article, we focus on back-end transformations, defined in terms of Select-Project-Join queries, and on coverage. Coverage aims at guaranteeing that the input, or training, dataset includes enough examples for each (protected) category of interest, thus increasing diversity with the aim of limiting the introduction of bias during the next analytical steps. The article proposes an approach to automatically rewrite a transformation with a result that violates coverage constraints, into the "closest" query satisfying the constraints. The approach is approximate and relies on a sample-based cardinality estimation, thus it introduces a trade-off between accuracy and efficiency. The efficiency and the effectiveness of the approach are experimentally validated on synthetic and real data.


OBJECTIVE
Ongoing HIV replication while receiving combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) may reduce survival. Viremia copy-years (VCY) has shown improved mortality risk prediction over single time-point viral load (VL) measures. However, the timing of a patient's VL history most associated with later mortality has not been studied. Here we determined the optimal duration and temporality of VL history for predicting mortality.

DESIGN
Survival analysis among HIV-positive men who initiated cART in the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (1995-2015).

METHODS
VCY measures were derived from area-under-the-VL-curve. The overall VCY based upon the complete post-cART VL history was compared to 20 VCYs derived from VLs assessed during different shorter time periods (the most recent 1-10 years and initial 1-10 years following cART initiation) for associations with mortality.

RESULTS
Each 10-fold increase in VCYs based on the most recent 3-8 years was significantly associated with 23-26% decrease in survival times, a magnitude of effect greater than that of the most recent VL (16%). These associations were independent of CD4 cell count and single time-point VLs. In addition, the degree of pre-cART immunodeficiency did not affect the mortality prognostic value of VCY based on VLs in the most recent 3 years. Conversely, the overall VCY and VCYs based on VLs immediately following cART initiation were not independent predictors of mortality.

CONCLUSION
Among cART-treated men, VCY based upon VLs in the recent 3 years (6 VLs), has a mortality prognostic value greater than that of the overall VCY and single time-point VLs, making the former a more feasible measure for use.


A second-moment turbulence closure model of the type widely used in modeling geophysical flows is extended to include the effects of rotation on turbulence. The model is the product of a systematic scaling analysis of the Reynolds stress equations in terms of deviations from local isotropy. Both spanwise and axial rotation cases are considered. The model is shown to be conceptually equivalent to, but more self-consistent than, the turbulence models widely used in the simulation of flows in turbomachinery. It is also shown that rotation imparts tensorial properties to eddy viscosity. In the limit of analytically tractable local equilibrium approximation, interesting effects such as complete suppression of turbulence are readily revealed. It is shown that at sufficiently strong destabilizing spanwise rotation, destabilization gives way to restabilization, leading to eventual suppression of turbulence. Also Monin-Obukhov-type similarity theory is applied to the constant flux region of rotating turbulent boundary layers.


Walking facilities are important infrastructures that must be designed to accommodate the behavior of pedestrians in order to be effective. Heterogeneity in pedestrian composition is one important factor generally overlooked in walking facility design guidelines. Particularly, individuals with disabilities are often ignored due to lack of available data on their pedestrian behaviors. A controlled, large-scaled walking experiment involving individuals with disabilities was conducted at Utah State University to observe individual pedestrian behaviors in various walking facilities; these facilities include passageway and bottleneck formations. The purpose of this report is twofold: (1) to model time headway between different individual types using a mixed distribution model, and (2) to estimate passageway and bottleneck capacities and to identify the impacts of involving individuals with disabilities on capacity estimations. Results showed that the proposed model had good performance for pedestrian time headway modeling. Analysis also revealed that visual impaired individuals and individuals using motorized wheelchairs had the minimum and maximum capacity reduction effect on passageways and bottlenecks. The findings are expected to improve the facility capacity estimations required and to meet a preferred level-of-service for heterogeneous populations.


Abstract The study explored teachers' perceptions of maladjustment problems manifested by pupils in South African primary schools using the psycho-social lens to view and interpret the phenomena. Thirty-two primary school educators participated in the study. The sample of educators was randomly selected from eight primary schools in the Central Johannesburg district. The survey design adopted combined both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Data were collected through questionnaires and interviews. The study found that teachers who were not adequately trained to deal with maladjusted pupils did not endeavour to implement any interventions to alleviate them. It also revealed that not all maladjusted pupils cause disciplinary problems for teachers as some of the pupils who are unsocial, withdrawn, unhappy, depressed, fearful and nervous do attract very little attention to themselves. In examining the causes of pupil maladj ustments the study found that these can be traced to some unfulfilled or thwarted psychosocial needs. Therefore the implementation of intervention strategies is likely to be more successful with adequate training and support for school personnel especially teachers.


There seem to be few more popular topics to write about these days than happiness. We have noted before this rising tide in happiness studies (Guha & Carson, 2014). The authors of this latest treatise are from the Wellbeing Programme at the London School of Economics. Of the authors, I had only come across the work of Richard Layard before. Readers of this journal looking for a readable introduction to the field might find this tome heavy going and certainly Richard Layard's other book Happiness: Lessons from a New Science (Layard, 2011) is a more gentle introduction to this area. This book sets out to chart happiness over the life span, and that is exactly what it does. The first part looks at what makes a happy adult? The second, what makes a successful child? The third part is entitled, "So what?" Perhaps not the wisest choice of title? This is not an easy read. The authors do however warn us on Page 11, "... in this book we rely on naturalistic evidence, subjected to multiple regression analysis...most of the equations are broad brush linear equations..." There are, however, helpful summaries in layman's terms at the end of each chapter for the "faint hearted." Here, as in a lot of Lord Layard's writing, we learn that "... the most common cause of deprivation is not poverty or unemployment, but mental illness." The authors of the book have policy makers as their target readership and suggest that rather than focussing exclusively on poverty, unemployment, education and physical health, the state needs to pay more attention, inter alia, to domestic violence, alcoholism, depression and anxiety. Herbert Van Rompuy, who was president of the European Council at the time, once gave copies of Leo Bormans' World Book of Happiness to many of the world's leading politicians (Bormans, 2012). I somehow doubt that he will be giving this book away.


In this paper, we introduce PDE-LEARN, a novel deep learning algorithm that can identify governing partial differential equations (PDEs) directly from noisy, limited measurements of a physical system of interest. PDE-LEARN uses a Rational Neural Network, $U$, to approximate the system response function and a sparse, trainable vector, $\xi$, to characterize the hidden PDE that the system response function satisfies. Our approach couples the training of $U$ and $\xi$ using a loss function that (1) makes $U$ approximate the system response function, (2) encapsulates the fact that $U$ satisfies a hidden PDE that $\xi$ characterizes, and (3) promotes sparsity in $\xi$ using ideas from iteratively reweighted least-squares. Further, PDE-LEARN can simultaneously learn from several data sets, allowing it to incorporate results from multiple experiments. This approach yields a robust algorithm to discover PDEs directly from realistic scientific data. We demonstrate the efficacy of PDE-LEARN by identifying several PDEs from noisy and limited measurements.


The rabbitfishes Siganus luridus and S. rivulatus are two Lessepsian species that have invaded a large part of the Mediterranean Sea and offer a unique opportunity to examine ecological and morphological variation during the process of invasion and establishment. Using and integrated geometric morphometric and stable isotope approach we investigated ecological adaptation in these two species from native into novel Southern Mediterranean habitats. A total of 490 fish were collected over two years (2014 and 2015), which showed a greater overlap in morphological variation in the novel habitat (Mediterranean Sea) compared to the native Red Sea. On the other hand, stable isotopes indicated that the invading populations segregated trophic niches more starkly than in the native habitat. The introduction of genetic markers to infer population expansion uncovered a more marked decrease in genetic variation in S. luridus compared to S. rivulatus, during the process of invasion. Collectively, data contribute to reconstruct the jigsaw puzzle underpinning the success and ecological diversification of these coastal species, raising considerations for their management and that of the environment that changes around them.


On 12 June 2014, the European Parliament and the Co uncil issued the Commission's Proposal for a Directive on Criminal Sanctions for Market Abuse (i.e., insider deali ng and market manipulation) as well as a Regulation on Mar ket Abuse. 1 Given the numerous recent reviews 2 on that topic – many of them suggesting to repel criminal sanctions from money market action and even to withdraw criminal l aw from that field of the economy – 3 it is quite astonishing that former Vice-President and EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding and Internal Market and Services Commissioner Miche l Barnier said: "Today the European Union is sending a clear signal: there must be zero tolerance for manipulato rs in our financial markets. The EU's new market abuse framew ork will ensure that those who commit market abuse will face huge fines or jail across Europe." 4 In fact, the following assessment paints a much less enthusiastic picture of this advance when it debunks two major shortcomings of t hat proposal: First, in the present version, this EU le gislation, on the whole, has no valid basis in Art. 83 para. 2 TF EU (II.). Second, the wording of its provisions on insider de aling and market manipulation is overtly crude, and as such r uns counter to the principle of legality (III.).


After iv [14C]cycleanine dimethoiodide (CDI) 22 VCi/kg in rats, the t1/2 in blood was 4 min. The radioactivity levels in kidney. lung and liver were much higher than those in heart, intestine. spleen and muscle. High levels were attained in 10-30 min. but the kidney kept a high level for 2 h. [14C]CDI bound to plasma protein, kidney and liver homogenates in vitro were 19, 49 and 38%, respectively. In 24 h after ip [14C]CDI II htCi/k9. 58% of the radioactivity was excreted in urine and 6% in feces. By thin layer chromatography (TLC) spotted by Dragendorff, TLC with autoradiography and paper chromatography with radio-scanning, it was found that [14C]CDI were excreted mainly in urine in the shape of the prototype.


In the search for new options for the establishment of the energy matrix of Brazil, the Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Systems (GCPVS) are configured as an alternative to urban centers, because they allow the power generation at distributed mode, that is, generate energy at the place where it will be consumed and inject the surplus energy into the network. Faced with the prospect of installing Grid-Connected Photovoltaic System, the objective of this research is to characterize this type of photovoltaic system installed in Curitiba, State of Paraná, Brazil. This paper highlights that up to July 2017 the State of Paraná has 1031 GCPVS in operation, which corresponds to 6,6MW, while Curitiba has 204 GCPVS that represents 997.4 kW in operation, 82% of which are installed in residences. In addition, the study of a sample of 41 GCPVSs installed in Curitiba shows that 98% of these systems use multicrystalline modules, 75% use single phase inverters and 95% of these use inverters transformerless. This shows that the losses in the conversion process are reduced and the equipment is more compact using better technology than the inverters with transformer. Therefore, the main trend of photovoltaic energy market is to use transformerless inverters.


The article describes the contribution of customs to the implementation of sustainable development goals included in the UN 2030 Agenda. The paper presents the historical outline of the sustainable development concept and explains how basic tasks performed by customs contribute to the achievement of these goals. World Customs Organization plays an important role in activities for sustainable development, especially its numerous political and practical initiatives, including international operations of customs services aimed at combating environmental crime. The article analyzes also the EU customs regulations and activities of the EU Member States' customs services. The decisive role of customs in controlling the compliance with the sustainable development requirements related to international trade in goods as well as a need for wider cooperation with other control services and business is emphasized.


This guide is designed to provide resources for JRN 315. This course guide has been specifically created for this class.


The noise generation mechanisms of two types of direct-acting valve train system, employing hydraulic and mechanical lash adjuster(HLA, MLA), were investigated by taking a series of sound and vibrtion measurements. These measurements were focused on valve cam profile, tappet movement and the others in order to identify noise sources and the noise generation mechanisms in a direct-acting valve train. Further experiments established that impulsive noise(Sound pressure level and sound quality) of a mechanical lash adjuster (MLA) can be greatly reduced by optimizing the cam profile and modifying geometries of other noise generating parts without great loss of engine performance and emission.


Abstract : The results of research on the following investigations are reported: the study of the properties of superconducting electrons by means of ultrasonic techniques; the study of the interaction of nuclear spin waves; and the study of spin-phonon interaction in the rare earth metals. In the mixed state of pure superconductors it is found that the interacting electrons spatially average the order parameter. Measurements in both the normal and superconducting state of rhenium are reported. These data will yield values of the deformation potential in rhenium. The apparent difference in zero temperature energy gaps obtained in a pure superconductor, when low and high temperature data are used to predict the gaps, is resolved. Progress on the nuclear-spin-wave-phonon experiments is reported. A mechanism is theoretically proposed and experimentally verified for spin-phonon interaction in the spin-spiral phase of the rare earth metals. The investigation of the effect of an external magnetic field on this spin-phonon interaction is reported. (Author)


A two-solvent system was employed, notably decand and diethyleneglycol, to test the procedure in the laboratory and find the number of stages needed to produce a standard product. To arrive at a 99% pure anthracene and phenanthrene product requires 14 extraction and 6 washing stages, though the extraction stages decrease with any reduction in the initial phenanthrene content and are replaced by a corresponding increase in the number of washing stages. Samples were analysed by gas liquid chromatography.


With continuous technology scaling, both quality and reliability are becoming major concerns for ICs due to extreme variations, non-ideal voltage scaling, etc. (not to mention the business pressure leading to shorter-time to market). One-time-factory manufacturing test is not sufficient anymore, and in-field testing (e.g., periodically, at power-on, during idle times) is becoming mandatory. Due to the strict constraints of in-field test, transparent BIST is extremely attractive, since it allows to minimize test invasiveness. This paper presents a cheap, high quality and practical SW-based transparent in-field test approach for memories within a system. Instead of using hardware BIST, the proposed scheme re-uses the CPU to perform infield testing for all memories within the system. All quality metrics of the proposed solution (such as defect coverage, test time and code size) are analyzed. Case studies using the ARM instruction set architecture are provided to demonstrate the applicability of the solution. With the proposed approach no hardware BIST is necessary and speed-related faults are tackled, whereas results show the test time complexity of the SW-based transparent tests is the same as the one of the standard hardware BIST test. Moreover, data previously present in the memory is not corrupted with, in average, only a 30% increase in test program size with respect to non-transparent SW-based test.


This article presents an analysis of the effect of three-dimensional orientation of the optical coherence tomography (OCT) scan on the correctness of determination of parameters describing the shape of the human eye retina. The issue of changes in orientation occurs mainly when the ophthalmologist compares the progression of lesions, and the OCT examinations were performed under different acquisition conditions. The authors investigated the impact of the acquisition on the correctness of fovea pit contour (FPC) determination. Experimental research was based on three-dimensional scans of healthy people for whom measurements were made with the use of Optopol REVO NX device.


It provides a semiconductor package capable of reducing the print size of the semiconductor package and the circuit board with it. Printing in accordance with the present invention the circuit board, upon the upper surface pads that are respectively disposed on upper and lower surfaces of the substrate having a chip mounting area on the upper surface of the base, the substrate base, and being formed on the upper surface of the pad, the substrate base of claim 1 corresponding to the upper surface of the pad the second has a pad opening the first upper surface of the solder resist layer covering the chip mounting area, a being formed on the first upper surface of the solder resist layer, having a chip attached to the opening corresponding to the second pad openings and chip attach region corresponding to the upper surface of the pad an upper surface a solder resist layer, and the lower face of the base substrate when being formed on the pad when having a third opening corresponding to the pad includes a solder resist layer.