Woodlands comprise only about 1% of the landscape of the northern plains and provide valuable habitat for wildlife including breeding birds. Surveys were conducted between 1986 and 2000 for breeding birds on a native and a reclaimed woodland to evaluate the potential of mitigated woodlands lost to surface coal mining operations as replacement for native woodlands. Vegetation characteristics such as species composition and density, canopy cover, structure, amount of edge and ground cover were evaluated. Breeding bird surveys were conducted from mid-May through mid-June using the spot-mapping method. The native woodland had greater plant species diversity, stem density, canopy cover and height structure than the 18 year old reclaimed woodland. Both woodlands had a similar amount of edge of habitat. Breeding bird densities were higher in the native woodland throughout the study period 1986 to 2000. Species richness was higher 12 of 13 sampled years in the native woodland. Trend in density and species richness of breeding birds on the reclaimed woodland was higher throughout the study. Given sufficient time the reclaimed woodland may perform similar functions to native woodlands. Additional


This paper reports further results of long-term research on citrus
rootstocks in Sardinia started in 1969. Two rootstocks (sour orange and
« Troyer » citrange) have been compared for « Hamlin » and « Frost Navel »
sweet oranges, and «Frost Eureka» lemon. Five rootstocks (sour orange,
« Troyer» citrange, «Rubidoux» trifoliate orange, « Orlando» tangelo, and
« Palestine» sweet lime) were also compared for « Frost Marsh» grapefruit.
The growth and productivity for all of the stock/scion combinations were
evaluated from 1973 to 1977. The results showed that both growth and
productivity of «Frost Navel» orange were better on «Troyer» citrange
than on sour orange. «Hamlin» orange productivity was also improved by
« Troyer» citrange, while sour orange increased the tree-growth. In « Frost
Eureka» lemon both growth and productivity were increased by sour orange.
The fruit quality was normally improved by «Troyer» citrange in comparison
with sour orange. The growth and fruit production of «Frost Marsh»
grapefruit were mainly increased by «Orlando» tangelo and «Palestine» sweet lime. Intermediate growth and productivity were found on sour orange
and «Troyer» citrange. The lowest growth and yield were recorded on
« Rubidoux» trifoliate orange, but it and « Troyer» citrange improved fruit
quality.


This paper presents a gain scheduling control of a nonlinear system in which the reference trajectory is given in advance. Multiple frozen operating times are chosen on the reference trajectory and ...


Using natural language processing (NLP) to ascertain missing outcomes from unstructured notes has great potential for enhancing real world data to assess the care of patients with multiple sclerosis and other diseases. The novel approach of Alves et al. uses the full information available in unstructured notes to address missingness in the expanded disability status scale (EDSS). This blurs the important distinction between extraction of information that is plainly in the medical records and single imputation of missing information using prediction based on correlations with other variables. This novel approach raises new and interesting questions. We focus on two that we believe warrant further consideration when dealing with missing patient outcomes.


Isoacteoside was isolated from Clerdendron trichotomum Thunb that belongs to Verbenaceae family. We found that isoacteoside the heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) expression in a time dependent manner, Furthermore, isoacteoside increased the expression of NF-E2 regulated factor 2 (Nrf2), which is a transcription factor of HO-1, in a time dependent manner. Moreover, isoacteoside increased the phospho Erk expression. Our data suggested that isoacteoside showed antioxideant effects via Erk activation, induction of Nrf2, and HO-1, in Chinese hamster lung fibroblast cells.


Analytical models based on the compatibility of deformations and equilibrium of forces are presented to predict the stresses and deformations in concrete beams strengthened with fiber composite plates epoxy-bonded to the tension face of the beams. The models are given for beams having rectangular and T cross sections. A parametric study is conducted to investigate the effects of design variables such as plate area, plate stiffness and strength, concrete compressive strength, and steel reinforcement ratio. The moment versus curvature diagrams for various combinations of these variables are plotted and compared. The results indicate that bonding composite plate to a concrete beam can increase the stiffness, yield moment, and flexural strength of the beam. The method is particularly effective for beams with a relatively low steel reinforcement ratio.


Summary Introduction: The word "compliance" de- scribes the following of behavioural instruc- tions from doctors. Most often these instruc- tions apply to more or less intensive lifestyle changes for the patient. Discussion: Attempts to change the lifestyle of patients have been, on the whole, unsuc- cessful. Non-compliance results in poor treat- ment outcomes. This leads to various reac- tions on the part of the therapist from frus- tration to aggression. The expression "non- compliant" often has negative connotations and implies that the patient has such a thing as a free will or - assuming he has a free will - a lack of will to behave in a healthy way. This problem complex will be described with regard to the treatment of chronic wounds. Schlusselworter Non-Compliance, Therapieversagen, Auf- tragsklarung, chronische Wunde


Significant barriers exist with hepatitis B (HBV) case detection and effective linkage to care (LTC). The emergency department (ED) is a unique healthcare interaction where hepatitis screening and LTC could be achieved. We examined the efficacy and utility of automated ED HBV screening for Overseas Born (OB) patients.


Abstract 2054 Background: No clear consensus exists for the setting of supportive care after induction chemotherapy given for newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML). While many centers provide care exclusively via in-patient settings, others including the Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute select suitable patients for discharge following chemotherapy and provide supportive care in out-patient infusion centers. Our single center practice offers 7 day a week transfusion and antibiotic support from skilled subspecialty nurses and midlevel practitioners. For ambulatory, afebrile AML patients with appropriate caregivers and social support allowing ∼q48 hour visits we encourage early discharge after administration of chemotherapy but before recovery from marrow aplasia. Patients are then readmitted if febrile or if other circumstances mandate hospitalization. This study presents results of this approach. Methods: We analyzed results of management including the option of early discharge in a series of 347 consecutively treated newly diagnosed adult AML patients receiving cytarabine based, aplasia inducing chemotherapy between 2003 and 2010. 334 patients received 7 days of infusional cytarabine with 3 days of anthracycline or anthracedione ("7+3" – in a few cases with additional agents), while the other 13 received bolus high or intermediate dose cytarabine with other agents. Patients were ages 18–85 years (median age 60). All received induction chemotherapy in the hospital. We classified cases into those discharged prior to recovery of neutrophils (ANC) to >500/ul or with ANC>500 but before the ANC nadir was reached ("Early" discharges), those kept in hospital throughout the period of ANC Results: Early discharge (after chemotherapy but prior to recovery of ANC>500) was employed in 259/347 patients of median age 60 years (range 18–85). They were outpatients for a median of 13 (range 1–23 days), of the initial 28 days from the start of chemotherapy (defined as day 0). 185/259 required readmission for sepsis or other complications prior to recovery of neutrophils. 234/259 recovered to ANC>500 at days 15–132. OS for this early discharge group was 96.1%, 90.0%, and 59.5% at 28, 60, and 365 days respectively. We analyzed predictive factors for survival at day 60 (OS60) in this group. While pretreatment WBC, platelets and albumin values were not related to OS60, greater age and unmarried status correlated with death prior to day 60. Mean age for those with survival at D60 was 55.89 and for those dying by D60 was 69.70 (95%CI 7.909 to 19.72 for the difference between means and p 500, all surviving to day 60. Thirty patients of 347 died during the first hospitalization. Conclusions: In this retrospective review, early discharge following AML induction chemotherapy was generally safe and was offered to 259 of 347 patients treated. Risk factors for death at day 60 in this group included advanced age and unmarried status. Prospective studies will be needed to confirm these data. This work has implications for safe and cost effective management of AML. Additional analysis is underway. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


This paper presents a unique experience in educating students from mechanical and electrical engineering majors in a course on senior design projects involving the design and production of two proof-of-concept electric vehicles, the mini-ZEM and ZEM (stands for Zero EMissions) vehicles. The ZEM vehicles combined positive aspects and latest technologies in electric vehicle design, solar/electric power conversions, and ergonomic human power into one affordable and environmentally sustainable vehicle for urban transportation. The 55 mechanical and 10 electrical engineering majors plus 7 students from business participated in this multidisciplinary project spanned over three academic years. The students involved in this multi-year endeavor gained valuable experiences in real-world working environment with multifunctional and multi-year subgroups. The success of this new attempt in conducting senior design projects classes have set a model for faculty members in the authors' university in conducting similar courses.Copyright © 2010 by ASME


In an age of diminished resources for higher education, the ranking of programs takes on special significance, particularly for programs that rate poorly in the eyes of their peers. Before cost-conscious administrators use the apparent precision of the National Research Council's 1995 ratings to justify rewarding highly rated programs, and penalizing those that fared less well, an analysis of the factors that contribute to ratings success—particularly department size—draws attention to the importance of factors that lie outside the range of departmental control. Our motivation is only partly 'academic'. As members of a faculty that rated poorly in this exercise (UB political science ranked 72nd out of the 98 programs surveyed on faculty quality and tied for 48th on "effectiveness"), we have a special interest in reminding our colleagues, and especially our administrators, that our less-than-stellar performance reflects a variety of considerations, only some of which are our "fault." Rating academic departments as the NRC has done by relying on peer perceptions (nearly 8,000 graduate-faculty members participated in the ratings survey) involves tapping into a complex set of social processes that are not easily measured. However, we contend that the outcome of this process can be modeled successfully and parsimoniously with a six-variable model of the "determinants of ratings success." We estimate the parameters of this six-variable model in this article, and show that the most statistically robust and important predictor of ratings success—department size—reflects a characteristic of departments that is beyond their control, and has no direct bearing on the quality of the members of the departments concerned, while a second important indicator—the proportion of full professors—is at least in part similarly beyond departmental control. Our confidence that this model taps central features in the ratings game is enhanced by the consistency of its performance in explaining the ratings of other social science departments.


The Mediterranean spider crab, Maja squinado, is depleted due to overfishing. The crab has virtually disappeared from areas where it was abundant, such as the Balearic Islands and the Catalan coast. Maja squinado, is economically and ecologically very valuable, and it is essential to obtain information on its biology and rearing conditions to attempt to repopulate the damaged stocks of the species in the Mediterranean basin. Herein, we describe the first successful rearing of M. squinado under laboratory conditions. Our results show that M. squinado is an excellent candidate for restocking using cultured juveniles. Two consecutive broods with a 1–4 day interbrood period were observed in the laboratory in wild-caught females, the maximum observed duration of embryonic development of the egg mass being 32 days at 18.4 ± 0.9°C, and went through four different stages. The complete larval and first juvenile development was studied in laboratory cultures fed enriched Artemia metanauplius. At 19.6 ± 0.6°C, development from hatching to first crab moult took 17 days, and it comprised two zoeae stages and one megalopa stage. The survival rate at the different stages was monitored, and 7.13 ± 2.3% was achieved at the first crab instar.


The present invention relates to the field of food processing, and particularly relates to a method for preparing sauces. Seasoning sauce according to the present invention and a certain proportion of the material is made of method steps: Morel flavor materials, fresh beef, soy sauce, salad oil, butter, sesame oil, green onions, garlic, spices, soy sauce , sugar, salt. Sauces of the invention both umami taste of morels have other ingredients, without added MSG, the flavor was rich, unique flavor, natural, healthy, nutritious sauce.


Mentoring has been suggested as a means to assist with role transition, career planning, and retention in the profession by providing opportunities for personal and professional growth lead to satisfaction. Satisfaction is especially crucial for the retention of Registered Nurses in a time when the profession has been experiencing a critical shortage. This quantitative study examined the influence of mentoring for RNs who have been employed in acute care facilities for the first time for less than 2 years. Using Bouquillon's mentoring instrument and based in the frameworks of King and Kram, the study suggests mentoring is occurring among new nurses (protégés). The protégés reported mentoring antecedents, and both the psychosocial and the career development functions that Kram states are important to be present if mentoring is to occur. These RNs clearly describe an individual as a " mentor ". In this study, those nurses who achieved a higher level of goal attainment (mean > 36) and were in a mentoring relationship had greater levels of role satisfaction. 4 DEDICATION There have been many people in my life who have been supportive of my efforts. Judy Buhrman and Pam Collins, fellow nurse practitioners and friends, encouraged me to pursue this degree. Patti Vanhook and Joy Magness, fellow doctoral students, have been through this process with me, and because of them I have learned and grown as we all attempted to rise to the challenges a doctoral program presents. My husband, Trip, and my family have supported me through the process and because of them I have succeeded. But I wish to dedicate this work to two individuals, William George Benz, Jr., my father, and Ruth Lowrance Street, my grandmother. They both gave me the confidence to begin this journey. I know they are smiling now that I have finished. 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS On the first day of class we are told pursuing a doctoral degree is like a journey. We know where we should end up. However, along the way we often find ourselves taking different paths to reach the destination. If we are lucky, we meet those who make the journey enjoyable as well as educational. The faculty at East Tennessee State University has made this journey enjoyable. Dr. Jo-Ann Marrs, chair of my dissertation committee, provided the road map with which I was able to find my way from " here " to " there ". Dr. Lois Lowry …


ABSTRACTPharyngoesophageal diverticula are epithelial-lined pouches that protrude from the esophageal lumen. They were studied byZenker in 1878,receiving the denomination of Zenker's diverticulum. They are false diverticula since they don't have all layer sof the esophageal wall. Although they are most common esophageal diverticula . Their incidence is of 3% of the patientpresenting dysphagia. Current , there are several therapeutic modalities, from dilatation of the esophagus to surgery withresection of the diverticulum. The report refers to three patients with Zenker's diverticulum who underwent conventionalsurgical treatment ( Rev. Col. Bras. Cir. 2006; 33(3): 200-202 ).Key words : Zenker diverticulum; Deglutition disorders; Surgery. REFERENCIAS 1. Okano N, Vargas EC, Moryia T. Diverticulo de esofago: analisede 24 pacientes portadores do diverticulo de Zenker. Acta CirBras. 2000; 15(Supl. 2):60-2.2. Townsend CM Jr., Beauchamp RD, Evers M. Sabiston Textbookof Surgery: The biological basis of modern surgical practice. 16


Letter from Katrine Deakins, Secretary to Amon Carter, to A. A. Paradis, American Airlines, regarding memorial book for Mrs. Hammond.


The ability to perceive students' emotions in real time is related to whether the description of the student's state is accurate, and it is also related to whether the goal of achieving the students' individual learning needs can be achieved. This paper studies the students' boring emotion in English learning, and builds the recognition system of students' boring emotion in English learning based on fuzzy neural network. Moreover, this paper combines the actual needs to construct the system function modules, and carries out the algorithm analysis and framework construction, and uses the mathematical modeling method to add the emotional factor to the English learner state modeling. In addition, according to the actual needs of the system constructed in this paper, the boring emotion of English learners is recognized. In addition, this paper designs experiments to verify the performance of the model, and analyze the system reliability from the theoretical perspective and the practical perspective. The experimental research results show that the model constructed in this paper meets the expected goals.


This paper describes an integrated dual-mode DC-DC converter and its seamless auto-mode transition between the pulse frequency modulation (PFM) and the pulse width modulation (PWM), resulting in reduced inductor current peak and output voltage overshoot. The key idea of auto-mode transition is to keep a control voltage level as a constant by forming a negative feedback loop with a compensator in the PFM operation. The DC-DC converter was implemented in the L6LP (65nm) process and achieved maximum 91% of measured efficiency for the load current ranging from 5mA to 200mA.


The Discussion and Diagnosis can be found on page 1856. Case A five-year-old boy was referred from the Department of Pediatrics to the Department of Ophthalmology because of extreme photophobia. At the age of two, he was referred to our department because of a chalazion. The parents described at that time that the boy was prone to eye infections on a regular basis. The chalazion did not require surgery and the boy was treated with topical antibiotics whenever necessary. There was no corneal involvement, at that time and no photophobia. When the boy was 4 years old, the parents consulted a general ophthalmologist because the child complained of an itching sensation in both eyes. The ophthalmologist did a general ophthalmological examination and concluded that the boy had allergic ⁄ vernal conjunctivitis and prescribed topical antihistamines and steroids. It is noted that he also had signs of blepharitis. He was examined monthly by the ophthalmologist, but because of photophobia he was referred to the Pediatrics department for evaluation and allergy testing. In parallel with him being followed by the ophthalmologist, the child grew increasingly isolated and photophobic. He handled the photophobia by covering his face with a baseball cap (Fig. 1) which resulted in increasing social problems and psychological problems, prompting parents and professionals around him to think that he had a psychiatric diagnosis. He never verbally complained of pain. In the day care centre, the personnel discussed the child's behaviour with the parents concluding that a severe personality disorder could be the cause of his behaviour. The mother has a family history of schizophrenia and she was worried that this behaviour might represent the onset symptom of this disease. There was no evidence of any social or psychological problems in the boy's immediate family. We saw him at the ophthalmology department for the first time approximately one year after initial contact with general ophthalmologist. It was impossible to do an ophthalmological examination sufficiently as he constantly covered his face and one could only get to see his face in a completely dark room. He did not allow one to shine any kind of light into his eyes. He responded relevantly to questions posed to him, and all other clinical examinations such as stethoscopi were carried out without any problems in the dark. Figure 1 Sørensen et al. Social impairment due to extreme photophobia


[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The last thing a community banker wants to hear from a new customer is that he thinks he made a mistake picking your bank. Yet that's just what Josh Guttau's people told him one new commercial customer was saying. Staff had to go back to this customer not once, but twice to get essential information about his business. And he began having misgivings. "He finally said, 'I'm not sure I want to bank with you guys if you can't get these things right the first time,'" says Guttau. It might have been a sobering slap in the face. But for Guttau, president and CFO at Treynor (Iowa) State Bank, it was merely confirmation of something he'd already observed. His frontline staff worked too fast. "For some reason, they felt that they needed to be getting the client out the door as quickly as possible when opening accounts," says Guttau. And they were succeeding at that self-imposed mission, he continues. "But they were speeding things up so much, they were leaving things missing so that staff in the backshop were having to fix all those items at the back end." Managers scratched their heads. "We wondered, 'Where is this attitude coming from?'" Guttau says. The bank was working with process experts from a firm that Guttau's family had worked with on a project for a manufacturing company that it holds a part-interest in. The Guttaus asked them to adapt their techniques to the family's $260 million-assets bank. In assessing the state of affairs at the bank on arrival, the consultants found that the frontline team had concluded that their job was to serve people quickly, "because everybody is in a hurry." "Well, that wasn't the case," says Guttau. "This is not like selling people Ho Hos and Twinkies in a convenience store. This is their financial life we're talking about." So, one of the early fruits of the consultants' work was clarification to the frontline that it's not only acceptable, but desirable to spend more time with clients. Don't think for a moment that Guttau and his advisors haven't been interested in improving processes and throughput. But a critical lesson and mission has been to not lose sight of the goal: efficiently serving customers. Indeed, Guttau says the consultants' process advice turned around the bank's human-resources planning. The consultants' flow charts and calculations gave the bank new ways at looking at things. In the end, Guttau says, "I went from telling our management team that we needed more bodies to realizing that we were 20% overstaffed." Layoffs? No; the family bank isn't about that. Instead, Guttau views the surplus as the reserves he needs to have in place as his organization continues to expand its horizons. "We have capacity to grow into," he explains. "If we can grow to utilize that staff, we'll be where I want the bank to be, in terms of my target for our net overhead expense ratio." Beating the numbers In its yearend 2012 Community Banking Study, FDIC dwelt on the "efficiency gap" it found in comparing community banks to non-community banks. In discussing efficiency, productivity, and economies of scale with Guttau and five other community-bank leaders in a roundtable discussion, bankers made two things clear. First, they know they need to improve their efficiency ratios-none had a ratio they wanted to brag about. And they have all been working on it steadily, in many ways. But second, they recognize that community banks can't strictly play by the numbers. They need to recognize that their customers are their business, and that all efforts must revolve around that fact. And they also recognize that when tweaking for performance, you can't manage to national norms; you must be in synch with your own market. You can't force efficiency You may be able to guide a river, but you can't force a river. …


Given a graph G = (V, E) the classical theorem by Hanani [1] and Tutte [6] says that G is planar if it can be drawn in the plane in such a way that every two non-adjacent edges cross an even number of times (including 0 times). This is the so-called 'strong' version of the theorem. The 'weak' version differs from it by imposing the condition of even number of crossings on all pairs of edges, not only the non-adjacent ones. The original proofs of the theorem used Kuratowski's characterization of planarity, but there are more recent proofs, which are elegant and algorithmic. A particularly nice one was given by Pelsmajer, Schaefer, and Štefankovič [3]. Can the statement analogous to the Hanani–Tutte theorem be true for surfaces other than the plane? It is known that the weak version of the theorem indeed generalizes to all surfaces [4]. But a positive result about the strong version of the theorem is known only for the projective plane [5]. Recently, Fulek and Kynčl [2] have provided a counter-example to the extension of the strong Hanani–Tutte theorem for all orientable surfaces of orientable genus at least four. The remaining cases are open. The goal of the thesis is to study the presented area, to understand the current state of the art and to provide its self-contained exposition.


Breast recovery together with mastectomy and retention of skin and nipple-areola complex is optimal from the point of view of cosmetics by method of surgical treatment of breast cancer. 45 patients with I-III stages of breast cancer underwent this operation. Complications of this treatment method are shown. TRAM-flap is the best option for filling new «gland». Satisfaction of patients with this method of treatment is over 95%.


A polyurethane with a high coefficient of friction, composed of the following raw materials in parts by weight: 90-100 parts of a natural rubber, 100-110 parts of acetone, 80-90 parts of toluene, 70-90 parts of a polyester polyol, 40-50 parts of butanediol, 30-40 parts of silicon dioxide, 20-30 parts of toluene diisocyanate, 6-8 parts of a catalyst and 4-6 parts of an anti-aging agent. In the preparation process, the polyurethane can be better blended with the natural rubber through a magnetic stirring method, and a centrifugal washing method is used to improve the coefficient of friction of the material, so that same is suitable for the manufacture of sports gloves.


Background: The prognostic influence of hyperglycemia in acute stroke has been well established. While in cortical stroke there is a strong association between hyperglycemia and poor outcome, this relation is less clear in lacunar stroke. It has been suggested that this discrepancy is present among patients treated with intravenous tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), but confirmation is needed. Methods: In two prospectively collected cohorts of patient treated with intravenous tPA for acute ischemic stroke, we investigated the effect of hyperglycemia (serum glucose level >8 mmol/L) on functional outcome in lacunar and non-lacunar stroke. Poor functional outcome was defined as modified Rankin Scale score ≥ 3 at 3 months. Results: A total of 1012 patients was included of which 162 patients (16 %) had lacunar stroke. The prevalence of hyperglycemia did not differ between stroke subtypes (22 % vs 21 %, p = 0.85). In multivariate analysis hyperglycemia was associated with poor functional outcome in non-lacunar stroke (OR 2.1, 95 % CI 1.39–3.28, p = 0.001). In patients with lacunar stroke, we did not find an association (OR 1.8, 95 % CI 0.62–4.08, p = 0.43). Conclusion: This study confirms a difference in prognostic influence of hyperglycemia between non-lacunar and lacunar ischemic stroke.


In this Scienti cWriting, talking about how to create a JPEG compression application using the function - MATLAB standard function. Compression application is intended to perform an image compression memory size be- comes smaller so that the memory limitations on the stor- age media can be overcome. The method used to compress the image in this application is the method of quantitation, where the quantization method is a method that reduces the degree of gray to represent an image. The application of this compression produces an image with color quality decreases but does not appear prominently in human vi- sion. The use of MATLAB programming language, because MATLAB in addition to reliable to display the data vector or matrix into a graph can also be used to display image data (images). This is due basically in the form of image data matrix with the degrees of gray color (gray scale) speci c. This application uses the standard functions of MATLAB to generate an interface where the compression operation has been provided by MATLAB by default. From these results, it can be concluded that the application of compression is to produce images with a smaller memory but color quality is declining because of the dual color values ??in the im- age will be broken which causes the number of pixels in the image is reduced, thereby reducing memory consumption. Bibliography (2004-2008)


This research focus on using wavelet method for hiding secret data in the audio signal. The audio signal is transformed to frequency domain by using Haar wavelet transform. The wavelet coefficients are utilizied to host secret data with exact retrieval capability. For embedding process the magnitude modulation mechanism was applied. The introduced method makes checking for extracted hidden data to be sure that the host block can hold secret data, and can exactly reproduce the hidden data. The performance of hiding method was tested using the fidelity measures Mean Square Error (MSE), and Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) to describe the overall error rate. Hiding rate was computed to asses the embedding power of this method. The test results indicated that the proposed system can give maximum hiding rate which is %5.10 when the value of threshold is 6, quantization step is 8 and block size is 16. The maximum PSNR is 42.94 when the block size value is 16, threshold value is 6, quantization step is 2, and don't make subjective deterioration in quality of audio.


Abstract The eggs, larvae, and pupae of Steremnius carinatus (Boh.) are described and characters given to distinguish them from those of Steremnius tuberosus Boh. A key separates the larvae and pupae of S. carinatus from those of S. tuberosus, species of Pissodes, and Scolytidae. The relationship of Steremnius to Pissodes and Hylobius is discussed briefly.


The devastation left behind from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (ChNPP) Unit 4 accident which occurred on April 26, 1986 presented unparalleled technical challenges to the world engineering and scientific community. One of the largest tasks that are in progress is the design and construction of the New Safe Confinement (NSC). The NSC is an engineered enclosure for the entire object shelter (OS) that includes a suite of process equipment. The process equipment will be used for the dismantling of the destroyed Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (ChNPP) Unit. One of the major mechanical handling systems to be installed in the NSC is the Main Cranes System (MCS). The planned decontamination and decommissioning or dismantling (D and D) activities will require the handling of heavily shielded waste disposal casks containing nuclear fuel as well as lifting and transporting extremely large structural elements. These activities, to be performed within the NSC, will require large and sophisticated cranes. The article will focus on the unique design features of the MCS for the D and D activities. (authors)


"Microcomputers perform the same functions as larger computers and offer a tremendous variety of architectures. The availability of complete working systems for a few hundred dollars means that even small schools can afford to give their students a range of computer experience." 'The problem of how to represent general knowledge, faced by the computer scientist, is very much like the problem of how to repre meaning, faced by the linguist."


Primary cutaneous lymphomas comprise a heterogeneous group of B‐cell and T‐cell malignancies which often show an indolent course, but can progress to aggressive disease in a subset of patients. Diagnosis is often delayed owing to clinical and histopathological similarities with benign inflammatory conditions. Especially during early disease, cancer cells are present at relatively low percentages compared with the inflammatory infiltrate, an interplay that is currently only insufficiently understood.


Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations 1 Introduction: Empire in Denial 2 State-Building States without Sovereignty 3 The Governance of Government 4 The Ethics of Empire in Denial 5 Denial of the EU's Eastern Empire 6 Denying the Bosnian Protectorate 7 Techniques of Evasion (1) Anti-Corruption Initiatives 8 Techniques of Evasion (2) The Rule of Law 9 Conclusion: Six Theses on Phantom States and Empire in Denial References Index


However, for a respectable number within the Dominion (and for a special elite without) Canadian Economic Thought will provide much that is interesting. And if the author reveals little that has been heretofore unknown, he presents a great deal of material that is difficult to come by. Moreover, his organization exhibits a laudable originality. One even finds it easy to agree with his conclusions.


At present, the number of diabetes mellitus patients in China ranks first in the world, and diabetic kidney disease is the most common disease in complications. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a predictive model for early diagnosis of diabetic kidney disease. The model predicts the risk of diabetic kidney disease in the general Asian population, and recognizes high-risk groups, then warns the onset of diabetes. The data were obtained from the electronic medical record of patients in Beijing Pinggu Hospital. Twenty-nine initial candidate indicators including age, ALB, and A/C were selected. The random forest algorithm was used to predict diabetic kidney disease, and the classification accuracy was 89.831%. The importance weight ratio of each factor index was also given, Microalbuminuria (ALB), albumin-to-creatinine ratio (A/C), serum creatinine (SCr), Serum albumin (umALB), and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) accounted for a relatively high proportion of the weight of the characteristic variables. So these five indicators can be the primary indicators of our classification prediction, and the accuracy can reach 87.453%. Some other typical classification algorithms, liking KNN, logistic regression, and decision tree, were compared to classify and predict diabetic kidney disease, and precision recall f1-score and area AUC under ROC curve were used to evaluate these models. By experiments, random forest model was better than other algorithm models on both the classification accuracy and the evaluation indicators. The results can be applied to the screening of patients with high risk of diabetic kidney disease and the guidance of risk intervention measures. Consequently, the detection rate of undiagnosed diabetic kidney disease in the population can be improved, and the prevention effect of diabetic kidney disease can be enhanced as well.


Palaeoenvironmental evidence from existing late-Holocene palaeoenvironmental sequences suggests that important atmospheric and oceanographic changes took place during the last 5000 years in southern South America and southern Africa. Several oscillations were contemporary with three well- known Neoglacial episodes that occurred between about 4500 and 4000 BP, between 3000 and 2000 BP and during the last 1000 years. The scale of change involved during these climatic episodes consisted of temperature departures of 1-2 °C, and sea-level oscillations of ± 1-2 m. In at least two winter rainfall regions, an increase in precipitation was concomitant with most of these Neoglacial episodes. Minor northward latitudinal shifts of frontal systems, and relatively strong atmospheric circulation, were probably involved in the detected climatological trends. Minor, but significant, expansions of polar waters into the Humboldt and Benguela Currents are probably additional, and important, role players during these Neoglacial phases. Further establishment of more palaeoenvironmental sequences is needed in order to generate and test explanatory models.


This study to investigate the causality between human capital, energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and economic growth in Indonesia. The data used world development indicator has obtained from the World Bank database during 1985-2017. The analysis method used vector error correction model. The finding of this study, first, there is the validity of long-run balance causality exists only for the model of human capital nor energy consumption; second, neither CO2 emissions per capita nor real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita cause human capital in the long-run causality nor short-run; Third, there is no causal evidence from the human capital, CO2 emission per capita, and real GDP per capita to consumption energy per capita, but in the short-run, there is causal evidence between CO2 emission and energy consumption; fourth, there is no causal evidence from the human capital, consumption energy per capita, and real GDP per capita toward CO2 emission per capita, but human capital, consumption energy, and economic growth cause CO2 emission in the short-run; and the last finding, there is no causal evidence from the human capital, consumption energy per capita, and CO2 emission per capita to real GDP per capita, neither in the long-run causality and short-run.


Most classes in an object-oriented program provide access to an object's state through methods, so that client code does not depend on and cannot interfere with the object's internal representation composed of fields and internal component objects. Methods used for this purpose are sometimes called inspector methods. In order to extend the benefits of inspector methods to specifications, the method contracts of non-inspector methods may be expressed using inspector methods. In this paper, we propose an approach to the verification of programs that use inspector methods in method contracts and object invariants. Performing state abstraction in a programming language that allows aliasing through object references poses a framing problem. Our solution to this framing problem is a formulation of the Boogie methodology in terms of read bags and write sets which, combined with the Boogie methodology's ownership system, abstractly capture a method's effects. We show how programs that are specified using inspector methods can be translated into the input language of the Boogie


Various features and options of -for- in Stata 5.0 are not documented either in the help file or in the manual. The help in for211.hlp provides (unofficial) documentation. Anyone using the forundoc.hlp or for210.hlp previously posted on this list should please consider that _superseded_ by for211.hlp, irrespective of whether they use -for211-. -for211- fixes some small bugs in -for-, particularly with regard to the specification of list types through the l( ) option. There is also a new -numeric- option. Unlike its now-obsolete predecessor -for210-, -for211- now supports the use of multiple quotes in any Stata command.


ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to analyse the emergence and development of Saussurean linguistic thought and structural linguistics in Turkey after the 1920s. Although Saussurean and structural linguistic studies can be traced back to the early stages of Turkey, most of these studies flourished after the 1960s. For example, Cours de Linguistique Générale was translated for the first time in 1976. This study has demonstrated that Saussurean linguistic thought and structural linguistics attracted prominent Turkish linguists' attention. However, probably due to the ideological and nationalistic concerns, conducting a better translation and forming a native linguistic terminology overshadow other linguistic contributions, although Turkish linguists conducted significant works in linguistics.


Introduction Glutathione is present in living tissue in two forms, the reduced form (GSH) and oxidized form (GSSG), with a ratio of greater than 500:1 in normal cells [1]. As the most concentrated form of glutathione, GSH is a major antioxidant in the central nervous system and plays a significant role in the detoxification of reactive oxygen species. It is generally difficult to measure GSH using one-dimensional H-MRS because the proton resonances of the three (glycine, cysteine, and glutamate) moieties of GSH overlap with other metabolite resonances [2]. Spectral editing methods, such as J-difference editing [1] or multiple quantum filtering [3-4], have been employed to measure GSH by distinguishing the CH2 proton resonances of the cysteine moiety of GSH at 2.95 ppm from the upfield slope of the prominent singlet resonance of creatine (Cr) at 3.02 ppm. A few recent reports [5-7] suggested the measurement of GSH by LCModel analysis of short-echo PRESS or STEAM spectra. However, as revealed by the correlation matrix, fully overlapping metabolites can not be reliably retrieved by any quantification algorithm [8]. To improve the quantification of GSH, we propose here a new strategy to resolve the spectral overlap between GSH and other metabolites by optimizing the timing parameters of a standard STEAM sequence through spectral simulation. This single-shot method is insensitive to motion and is simple for implementation. We performed spectral simulation using the GAMMA NMR library [9] and optimized the timing parameters of a standard STEAM sequence, i.e., the echo time and mixing time (TE, TM), for suppressing those overlapping resonances from N-acetylaspartate (NAA), glutamine (Gln), and aspartate (Asp) around 2.54 ppm at 3T and 4T. Methods Spectral Simulation. The C4 proton resonance of the glutamate (Glu) moiety of GSH (glu-GSH) at 2.54 ppm was chosen as the target resonance, since the other proton resonances of GSH are more difficult to resolve from the overlap in a standard STEAM spectrum without spectral editing. The major resonances from other metabolites that overlap the target C4 proton resonance of glu-GSH are the multiplet proton resonance of NAA around 2.48 ppm, of Gln at 2.45 ppm and of aspartate (Asp) at 2.65 ppm. The spectral response of each metabolite to a standard STEAM sequence was calculated throughout the two-dimensional (TE, TM) parameter space in a range of 0 to 200 ms for TE with a step size of 2 ms and a range of 0 to 140 ms for TM with the same step size. The chemical shifts and coupling constants used in the spectral simulation were taken from the literature [2]. The three 90o pulses in STEAM were simulated using ideal pulses for computational efficiency, since a realistic selective 90o pulse does not deviate far from an ideal pulse. As the response of a metabolite spin system to a STEAM sequence is sensitive to the design of spoiler gradients in the two TE/2 periods and the TM period, the simulation on the effects of spoiler gradients was more complete, in which a cubic voxel of 20x20x20 mm was divided into 1000 subvoxels (10 steps each in the x-, y-, or z-direction), and the signals from the subvoxels were summed up. The spoiler gradient parameters were derived from a realistic Siemens STEAM sequence. Search for Optimal (TE, TM) Timing Sets. For each metabolite, 7000 spectra were simulated at various (TE, TM) timing sets, from which a full search was performed to find the optimal timings. An index or cost function was defined for the optimization procedure. The left column of Fig. 1 shows the simulated STEAM spectra of Asp, Gln, NAA, and GSH at 3T and 4T at (TE, TM) = (10 ms, 20 ms), with a line broadening of 5 Hz. Only the region of 1.9-2.85 ppm is shown, for simplicity. The shaded bars indicate the region of the central peak of the target C4 proton resonance (a pseudo-triplet) of glu-GSH. Extensive spectral overlap is shown in the region around 2.54 ppm. To distinguish the target GSH peak form the overlapping peaks, one needs to suppress the other metabolite resonances while keeping the target GSH resonance as strong as possible. As such, an index was designed as F = CGSH [[b]/([a]+[c])] – CAsp AAsp – CGln AGln – CNAA ANAA, where C, as a constant weighting factor in the index, stands for the metabolite concentrations (according to the literature [2], CGSH:CAsp:CGln:CNAA =2:1.2:4.4:10), [b] is the peak area of the central peak of the target pseudo-triplet GSH proton resonance, [a] and [c] are the peak areas of the two outer-wings of the psedo-triplet, and A stands for the peak area of the proton resonances of Asp, Gln, or NAA in the region of the target GSH proton resonance. The boundaries of the [a], [b], and [c] regions were determined based on the simulated GSH spectra at (10ms, 20ms). The index combined two factors: 1) maintaining the intensity of the central peak of the target C4 proton resonance of GSH while suppressing the outer-wings; and 2) suppressing the contaminating resonances of Asp, Gln, and NAA around 2.54 ppm. Results and Discussion Fig. 2 shows the contour diagrams, in the (TE, TM) parameter space, of the index at (a) 3T and (b) 4T. The contours were individually normalized to the maximum at individual field strength. The maximum index, as indicated by the yellow arrow, resided at (90 ms, 36 ms) at 3T and (82 ms, 80 ms) at 4T, respectively. The right column of Fig. 1 shows the simulated spectra at the above optimized sequence timing sets at 3T and 4T. The spectra at the short and optimized timing sets were displayed with the same scale at each field strength. Compared to the corresponding spectra at (10ms, 20ms), the target GSH resonance at the optimal timings appear resolved from the overlapping metabolite resonances. The resolved GSH peak at 2.54 ppm provides a potential to significantly improve the quantification of GSH levels. References [1] Terpstra M et al., MRM 2003; 50:19-23. [2] Govindaraju V et al., NMR Biomed 2000;13:129-153. [3] Trabesinger AH et al., MRM 2001;45:708-710. [4] Zhao T et al., MRM 2006; 55:676-680. [5] Kreis R et al., MRM 2002; 48:949-958 [6] Opstad KS et al., MRM 2003, 49; 632-637. [7] Terpstra M, et al., MAGMA 2005; 18: 276-282. [8] Ratiney H et al., NMR Biomedicine 2005; 18:1-13. [9] Smith SA et al., J Magn Reson 1994; 106A: 75-105.


The utility model relates to a balance valve which is characterized by the capability of equally reducing the heavy load of an engineering machinery hydraulic control system, and in particular relates to an integrated one-way balance valve integrating the functions and structure of a one-way valve and a balance valve. The one-way balance valve consists of a valve body and a valve core; wherein, the valve body is provided with a control valve chamber and a balance valve chamber, and is also provided with an A port, a B port and a control port; wherein, the A port and the B port are communicated with the balance valve chamber; the control valve chamber is communicated with the control port. The valve body has an integrated structure; the axes of the control valve chamber and the balance valve chamber are in the same line; the balance valve core consists of a main valve core and a pilot valve core, wherein, the gap between the front part of the main valve core sealing face and the valve port widens gradually. The integrated one-way balance valve has the functions of both the one-way valve and the balance valve, and has compact structure; as the pilot valve core is provided, the sensitivity of the control is improved; as the gap between the front part of the main valve core sealing face and the valve port widens gradually, the process of opening the valve is stable and smooth, and the descending of the heavy object is more stable.


The invention discloses a notch chamfering machine of a steel pipe, which is capable of realizing the processing on notch burrs and a chamfer of the steel pipe. The technical scheme is that the notch chamfering machine of the steel pipe comprises an electric motor, a belt wheel, a transmission shaft and a material selecting disc, wherein the electric motor drives the transmission shaft through a belt on the belt wheel, one end of the transmission shaft is connected with the belt wheel, the other end of the transmission shaft is provided with a tool bit, the material selecting disc is located at one side of the tool bit, the steel pipe is placed on the material selecting disc, and the steel pipe is enabled to move towards the direction of the tool bit after the electric motor is started.


Operating While Intoxicated (OWI) is a serious problem on Wisconsin's highways. The public laws regarding this subject have been topics of considerable debate in the recent past and, in all likelihood, will continue to be a focal point for discussion, particularly with regard to the establishment of a uniform legal miniumum drinking age nationwide. The Department of Transportation and the hundreds of county and municipal law enforecment agencies throughout Wisconsin are vital participants in the public effort to keep the OWI problem under control. This report draws upon the vast amount of accident data that these enforcement agencies have collected. It summarizes information regarding the relationship between driver age and alcohol-related accidents in Wisconsin from 1973 through 1984. For example, Wisconsin in 1984, drivers under the age of 25 collectively accounted for 634,592 licensed drivers, or 19.9 percent of the total; 64,296 of the 178,422 drivers involved in accidents, or 36.0 percent of the total; 10,395 of the 20,911 drivers involved in accidents who had been drinking, orr 49.7 percent of the total; 170 of the 407 drivers involved in fatal accidents who had been drinking, or 41.8 percent off the total; 11,044 of the 31,704 Operating While Intoxicated (OWI) convictions, or 34.8 percent of the total. (Author)


Aim: A new eye-contour balm product containing melatnin 0.1%, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) butter, a tetrapeptide and hyaluronic acid has been recently developed. So far, no objective data are available regarding the anti-wrinkle effect of topical melatonin in the eye contour area. We performed an open, prospective, 2-month, trial in 20 women (mean age 52 years) with mild-to-moderate wrinkle in the eye-contour area.
Subjects and methods: Participating subjects were instructed to apply a melatonin-based eye contour balm (MECB) twice daily (morning and evening). An Antera 3D evaluation of fine wrinkle volume and skin roughness of the crow's feet area was performed at baseline and after 2 months. The software of the device automatically calculated the roughness index (a parameter linked to fine wrinkles) expressed in mm. Primary outcome was the evolution of skin roughness in the target area. Secondary outcome was the evaluation of skin local tolerability.
Results: All the 20 enrolled subjects completed the trial. The product was very well tolerated. At baseline the eye- contour roughness index mean(SD) value was 19.5(3.0) mm. After 2 months of MECB treatment this parameter was reduced to 13.5(2.8) mm, an absolute difference of 6 mm, representing a 31% reduction. This difference was statistically significant (P=0.001).
Conclusion: A melatonin-based eye-contour balm has demonstrated in this prospective Antera 3D trial a clinically significant anti-wrinkle effect in women with mild-to-moderate eye contour fine wrinkles with very good skin tolerability.


The Elliot Lake area is characterized by Proterozoic sediments containing uranium-bearing conglomerates separated by quartzite beds 10 to 100 ft (3.0 to 30.5 m) thick. The geological structure consists of a broad syncline with an east–west axis plunging about 5 °W, cut by northwest trending faults, and with steeply dipping east–west extension joints. All the mines use a stope-and-pillar method of extraction with narrow rib pillars about 250 ft (76 m) long on dip and sill pillars on strike.After the Elliot Lake Laboratory was established, detailed studies were undertaken to evaluate the methods that were available for the determination of the mechanical properties of the rock mass and its state of stress before mining. Practical studies were then made on the pillars, roofs, and abutments.Testing techniques were improved for the rock substance and the rock mass; however, much remains to be done to be able to characterize adequately the mechanical properties of the rock mass. A novel random sampling approach...


ABSTRACT Geographic information systems are geographical position-based and analysis and information-sharing systems that can be used for all scientific studies. Google Earth software provides cartographical map information and satellite images to all internet users and shows the smallest settlement units of countries and cities. Researchers can also access map information quickly and are able to locate their geographical position. We used this system during a study of the determination of Eriophyoidea (Acarina) species, their hosts, distribution, natural enemies, and population development of Aculus schlechtendali (Nalepa, 1892) on ornamental plants in Ankara.


Generation of electron-positron pairs by high-energy photons in strong interplane fields of single crystals is considered. The effect of volume pair formation is predicted, as well as radiative polarization of the channeled particles in a bent single crystal exposed to a photon beam having a considerable angular divergence. We estimate prospects of employing this effect to obtain high-energy beams of transversely polarized electrons and positrons in modern proton accelerators.


The models of various structures characterizing the peculiarities of Middle Onon geological structure based on the gravimetric researches are presented


The reaction 11Li(p,t)9Li(gs) at an incident energy of 4 MeV is treated in terms of a simplistic distorted-wave Born approximation transfer. The halo neutrons involved in the reaction are treated as a di-neutron cluster transferred in a simultaneous process. This appears to be a good approximation of the mechanism. The dominant contribution to the reaction comes from the known (1s1/2)2 structure component of the ground state of 11Li, and the cross section angular distribution seems to be relatively insensitive to the fact that 11 Li has an anomalously large radius due to its Borromean halo properties. Significantly this simple treatment of the reaction is in much better agreement with the experimental angular distribution than a more sophisticated calculation.


Classification teaching is one of the important part of English teaching reform in colleges.Several problems are discovered in English classification teaching of J College which plays as certain obstacles to most of Higher Vocational Colleges.Higher Vocational College must work out a series of countermeasures to promote and deepen English Classification teaching reform,which include cultivation objective,multi-level and multi-class teaching,course construction,specialty combination,teaching administration and teaching groups construction etc.


In work results of the analysis of efficiency of use of a wide range of working substances as working bodies of central airs are presented. The analysis is carried out on the basis of the technique developed by authors which assumes equality of temperature pressures between the heat-carrier and a working body in the evaporator and the condenser with the fixed parameters of heat-carriers in heat exchangers. Besides, in work the analysis of use of regeneration in cycles and influence of concentration of fluororganic substances as a part of mixed composition on thermodynamic efficiency of a cycle is submitted.


This article shows our analysis of the 509 papers presented at the Brazilian Association of Researchers in Journalism (SBPJor) conferences between 2003 and 2007. The analyses were based on four reference categories: 1) types of research; 2) formal standardization; 3) the type of methodological models; 4) the writers' level of training. The goal is to identify the level of professionalization in specialized studies in journalism, highlighting the types of research and manuals, theoretical influences, and prevailing methodological methods. The main results highlight the predominance of doctoral writers and empirical research. We also noticed a lack of adherence to formal standardization.


Excavators are increasingly being equipped with guiding and automation systems on modern building sites. Recent research has focused on comparing the bucket tip estimation results with the motion measuring method of the boom, stick, and bucket, as well as sensor selection. The method of measuring the cylinder length of the boom, stick, and bucket, as well as the method of measuring the cylinder length of the boom, stick, and bucket, were chosen for this study. The methods of measuring the cylinder length of the boom, stick, and bucket, as well as the method of directly measuring the boom, arm, and bucket, were chosen for this study. These methods are commonly used in guidance and automation systems. To apply the aforesaid methods to a commercial excavator, a low-cost sensor that can be mounted and detached in a modular manner was used. KS best fit predictive test has been conducted for predictive positioning .A default data sheet has been acquired. The entire model was prototyped and designed over a CAD model presented in Solid works. KeywordsIndustrial Excavator, Shovel Positioning, Inertial Measurement Unit, Wire Drawn Sensor,Ks Best Fit Test, Solid Works, Path Projection


In the framework of finite control set model predictive control (FCS-MPC), a multi-axis motion system predictive contour control strategy based on the idea of unified modeling is proposed in this paper. This method does not require any cascade PI controllers or cross-coupling controllers, which are generally adopted by vector-based multi-motor control system, can effectively improve the dynamic performance and accuracy of the contour trajectory. First, the candidate voltage vectors are selected by taking the tracking errors as the main index. Then taking the contour errors and the performance of motors as evaluation indexes, a unified predictive model and the cost function of multi-axis motion system are built to achieve the collaborative optimization of multi-objective variables. Meanwhile, optimal voltage vectors are picked out from the candidate vectors according to the principle of minimizing the cost function. Finally, experimental results verify that the proposed method is superior to the cascaded PI+CCC (cross-coupling controller) structure in terms of modeling intuitiveness, control complexity, contour tracking accuracy and dynamic response speed.


A recent review in The Historical Journal of The rise and fall of Anne Boleyn: family politics at the court of Henry VIII has raised questions about the interpretation of the few remaining documents bearing on this queen's life. Although a variety of issues were addressed, the question of how three documents or sets of documents, in particular, are analysed is crucial to an understanding of the reasons for Anne Boleyn's rise and fall. First, the letter she wrote from Veure where she was sent as a child to learn French has gained widespread attention because it has been argued that it could not have been written by a seven-year-old. Unfortunately, the process of photographing the letter for inclusion in this book resulted in the handwriting being greatly reduced in size. In this reduced state the original spelling and writing errors are obscured, a state that has misled some reviewers into believing it was written in a style and script too polished for a child's efforts. Hugh Paget, who was the first scholar to translate the French accurately into English, said about this form letter, which he thought had been dictated to Anne by her writing teacher: ' so far as it can be deciphered'; ' written in curious French';' almost incomprehensible passages in her letter which can only be understood (if at all) by reading them phonetically'. Even though Paget assumed she was about thirteen, he also asserted that she was in Malines to be educated with the prince and princesses, who lived apart from the court of Margaret, regent of the Netherlands. In his analysis, Paget did not take into consideration that one of those children, Mary, the future queen of Hungary (b. 1505), was quite young. A view of the actual manuscript, which is at Cambridge University, confirms Paget's assertions about its writing style and content.


American Eel (Anguilla rostrata) were used as a case study to assess whether Ontario's Endangered Species Act proponent-driven regulatory approach resulted in successful imperilled species management outcomes. American Eel observation databases and proponent-prepared mitigation plans and monitoring data were used to assess whether: ( i) facilities within the distribution range were registered, ( ii) effects monitoring protocols were adequate to evaluate adverse effects of facilities, ( iii) proponents implemented mitigation actions that followed best management practices (BMPs), and ( iv) effectiveness monitoring designs were adequate to evaluate effectiveness of mitigation actions. Less than half of the facilities (8 of 17) within the extant species range were registered. Few eels were observed at each facility, precluding proponents from effectively evaluating the facilities' effects. Mitigation actions following BMPs were only implemented for eel out-migration at three facilities. Half of the registered facilities implemented effectiveness monitoring, but experimental designs did not follow best practices and standards. To improve this proponent-driven approach, regulators could reduce ambiguity in regulation language and provide clearer, quantitative requirements for facility registration, effects monitoring, mitigation actions, and effectiveness monitoring. Proponents could improve monitoring efforts to establish species occurrence and generate baseline data to measure facility effects and mitigation action effectiveness.


One of the current forefront in the field of photonic are flexible photonic research and development. The desired deliverable is to adjust the mechanical properties of materials to fabricate flexible photonic systems with various applications, e.g. gratings, channel waveguides, solar cells, protective coatings. It is well known that sol-gel metal oxide coatings may find applications as flexible coatings in photonics. Moreover, these materials can be easily functionalized to obtain materials with additional special, desired, properties like easy-to-clean, anti-fingerprint, anti-fogging and others, what is attractive for the potential of future commercialization of flexible photonic materials. In this work, we present the first step of research aimed to obtain silica-based coatings with appropriate adhesion on flexible substrates as poorly wettable surface – polymer PET and Ti-6Al-4V and 316L metallic thin foil as active oxide surface. The use of various types of substrates was aimed at presenting diversity in the possibilities of using the proposed coating materials. Nanoindentation, tensile test and scratch test of the investigated samples were studied. Measuring the mechanical properties of thin oxide films is difficult because it is usually impossible to detach of coating, not destroying its, from substrates. The thickness of coatings can range from a dozen to a few hundred nanometres, so complete methodology to determine a full set of mechanical properties is still lacking. In literature, the surface of samples is measured without a clear indication on coating properties, but on features which are the results of substrate-coating combinations.


E-201-11 is one of the components of heat exchanger which serves to increase the temperature of distillated crude oil before it going into the furnace. The use of segmental baffles on the heat exchanger causes dead zone. The fouling phenomenon that arises from the deposition of the compound content in the service fluid in dead zone can result in leakage of the shell and tube. It affects the performance of heat exchanger and production efficiency. The use of discontinuous helical baffle on the shell side minimizes fouling. Research on the variation of helical baffle angle by using Bell-Delaware method resulted in performance value of heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop on the shell side. Fluid flow behavior on the shell side with helical baffle was analyzed by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The fluid flow velocity is a factor that affects the value of heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop. Heat exchanger with an angle of 10o have fluid flow velocity of 0,893m/s resulting in the highest heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop value compared to angles of 15o and 20o with values of 585.725W/m2K and 13642.395Pa. The heat exchanger with helical baffle at 10° helix angle presents the best performance among the others variant helical baffles


This paper describes the results of a three-year job placement project for moderately and severely handicapped individuals in Virginia. This project developed a training and advocacy approach to placement that involved client training by staff at the job site. Staff advocacy also took place with co-workers and employers. All clients were paid by employers as part of the regular workforce. Although the project is still ongoing as it seeks to replicate training and placement procedures throughout Virginia, at the three-year point, 63 clients have been placed, with 42 currently working, for a retention rate of 67%. These individuals have collectively earned $265,000 and paid well over $26,000 in state and federal taxes. Moreover, most of these clients had long records of exclusion from non-sheltered and even sheltered work, since they were viewed by professionals and parents as "realistically unemployable." This report highlights the major characteristics and conclusions drawn from staff efforts to this point.


This paper presents a novel image dataset with high intrinsic ambiguity specifi1 cally built for evaluating and comparing set-valued classifiers. This dataset, built 2 from the database of Pl@ntnet citizen observatory, consists of 306,146 images 3 covering 1,081 species. We highlight two particular features of the dataset, inher4 ent to the way the images are acquired and to the intrinsic diversity of plants mor5 phology: i) The dataset has a strong class imbalance, meaning that a few species 6 account for most of the images. ii) Many species are visually similar, making 7 identification difficult even for the expert eye. These two characteristics make the 8 present dataset well suited for the evaluation of set-valued classification methods 9 and algorithms. Therefore, we recommend two set-valued evaluation metrics as10 sociated with the dataset (top-k and average-k) and we provide the results of a 11 baseline approach based on a deep neural network trained with the cross-entropy 12 loss. 13


Security things––intrinsic aspects of the built environment––offer a way to understand an important subset of life encounters while offering up clues of surrounding social relations and political structures. Security projects inveigle citizens in pursuit of everyday goals. For authorities, they set up special challenges both for gaining public acquiescence and for dealing with those who oppose them. As with all public objects, including those as mundane as trash bins, outcomes––for better or worse––involve specific manipulations and negotiations, material as well as ideological. Especially when justified as "security," they have––we argue––negative consequences on other individual and collective goals. We have detailed this argument in the companion piece to this essay (see Part I: Background & Research Starts by same authors in this volume; see also Molotch, 2012) and carry it forward here toward some larger implications.

Keywords:

artifacts;
security;
materiality;
city


In this paper we show how a continuous set of orientations can be represented as a positive definiteness test on a given matrix. When this continuous set is restricted by the maximum allowed orientation error in some or all directions it is shown that the requirement for an orientation to satisfy these restrictions is equivalent to positive definiteness for a certain matrix. The problem of finding the optimal orientation that satisfies these restrictions is hence transformed into an optimisation problem on the Riemannian manifold of linearly constrained symmetric positive definite matrices. Thus, the problem of finding the optimal orientation can be solved as a standard optimisation problem with the constraints written in the form of linear matrix inequalities or barrier functions. Linear matrix inequalities have been extensively studied in the optimisation communities and good and efficient algorithms are available.


Telemedicine holds vast amounts of potential in changing the way outpatient Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery is practiced. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic Video Conferencing (VC) was utilized by a small fraction of medical specialties. However, since the start of the pandemic, CMS and the largest private health insurance companies have relaxed regulations to allow the majority of specialties to use VC in lieu of in-person visits. Most importantly, VC minimizes patient and physician exposure in situations such as these, and decreases risk in the immunocompromised population. VC, which has been shown to be just as safe and efficacious in treating patients, offers the ability to follow up with physicians while saving time on travel, as well as travel-related expenses. This, in turn correlates with increased patient satisfaction. VC also allows physicians to expand their reach to patients in rural areas seeking advanced professional advice. Incorporating VC into existing practices will make for a more efficient practice, improve patient satisfaction, and decrease cost to patients and the health care system.


the dorms and do catalog searches on LCS. The engineering librarian has observed that students search entire reading lists on LCS rather than "just enough to get by" as in the card catalog. A pilot survey of LCS users and card catalog users indicates that the only statis tically significant difference between the users of LCS and the users of the card catalog is that a higher percentage of men than women are LCS users.


In many fields of science and engineering there are mathemati cal models given in terms of differential equations with random coefficients. The randomness is due to errors or uncertainty. Closed solutions are few, and usually numerical approximations need to be calculated. Polynomial chaos is a powerful method in this regard. Here we apply this method to several modeling approaches for the time evolution of photosynthetic bacterial populations. Usual methods used in microbiology are contrasted with approaches based on differential equations with random coefficients. Numerical results based on laboratory data fo r two different species of bacteria are presented.


We report the methanol synthesis from CO2 and H2 on metal (M = K, Ti, Co, Rh, Ni, and Cu)-modified model Mo6S8 catalyst using density functional theory (DFT). The results show that the catalytic behavior of a Mo6S8 cluster is changed significantly due to the modifiers, via the electron transfer from M to Mo6S8 and therefore the reduction of the Mo cation (ligand effect) and the direct participation of M in the reaction (ensemble effect) to promote some elementary steps. With the most positively charged modifier, the ligand effect in the case of K–Mo6S8 is the most obvious among the systems studied; however, it cannot compete with the ensemble effect, which plays a dominate role in determining activity via the electrostatic attraction in particular to stabilize the CHxOy species adsorbed at the Mo sites of Mo6S8. In comparison, the ligand effect is weaker and the ensemble effect is more important when the other modifiers are used. In addition, the modifiers also vary the optimal reaction pathway for methan...


I analyze discrete-valuation model of the Anglo-Dutch auction with exogenous entry and derive a complete ranking between this auction and its components-the ascending and rst-price auctions. I nd that the Anglo-Dutch auction can revenue-dominate for a small set of parameters, and similarly ranks revenue-last in a small number of cases. For most parameter values the Anglo-Dutch auction ranks as intermediate. I also show that the auction performs particularly well when bidders face small entry costs and almost- common values.


Multidrug-resistance associated protein (MRP), a member of ATP-binding cassette superfamily transporters,confers multi-drug resistance by reducting intracellular drug concentrations and/or altering the pattern of intracellular drug distribution. Using mrp gene knockout models, researchers have found that a total block of mrp is compatible with life and its physiological functions seem to be an ATP-depending pump to co-transport free GSH and some presently unknown endogenous metabolites to protect the normal extracellular environment.


Objective: Increased serum ferritin levels, indicating increased body iron stores, have been found in overweight and obese PCOS women. This finding might result from the reduced menstrual losses secondary to from oligoor amenorrhea, or from the hyperinsulinism secondary to insulin resistance because insulin favors the intestinal absorption and the tissue deposition of iron. To explore which of these mechanisms is responsible for the increase in body iron stores in PCOS women, we have monitored the changes in serum ferritin levels during treatment with an antiandrogenic oral contraceptive or with an insulin sensitizer. Research Design and Methods: Thirty-four consecutive PCOS patients were randomized to an oral contraceptive containing 35 μg of ethinyl-estradiol plus 2 mg of cyproterone acetate (Diane Diario) or metformin (850 mg twice daily), and their serum ferritin levels were evaluated at baseline and after 12 and 24 weeks of treatment. Results: Despite the fact that treatment with Diane Diario restored regular menstrual cycles in all the patients, whereas metformin only did so in 50% of them, serum ferritin levels decreased at 12 and 24 weeks of treatment only with metformin, in association with a marked increase in insulin sensitivity. On the contrary, no changes in ferritin and insulin sensitivity were observed with Diane Diario. Conclusions: Our present results suggest that insulin resistance and hyperinsulinism, and not the reduced menstrual losses secondary to from oligoor amenorrhea, are responsible of the increased ferritin levels and body iron stores found in overweight and obese PCOS women. NLM Identifier NCT00428311 The polycystic ovary syndrome is a predominantly hyperandrogenic disorder (1) that affects 6 to 7% of premenopausal women (2-5). Aside from the hyperandrogenic features and ovarian dysfunction characteristic of the syndrome, obesity and insulin resistance are frequently associated with PCOS (6,7). We have reported previously (8) that overweight and obese women with PCOS have increased serum ferritin levels that do not relate to chronic inflammation, indicating that body iron stores are increased in these women in agreement with what has been published for other insulin resistant conditions (9). The increase in body iron stores might contribute to the insulin resistance and ß-cell dysfunction frequently found in PCOS patients (10), as has been previously proposed for insulin resistance (11), the metabolic syndrome (12), and type 2 diabetes (13,14). We hypothesized that genetic factors, the absence of a regular menstrual blood loss, or even the hyperinsulinemia resulting from insulin resistance, considering that insulin might stimulate intestinal iron absorption by up-regulating activity of hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha and down-regulating hepcidin expression (15,16), may have contributed to the increased body iron stores and serum ferritin levels observed in PCOS patients. Our recent results suggest that mutations in the hereditary hemochromatosis gene do not play a role in the increased body iron stores of PCOS patients (17). With the aim of evaluating which, of the two remaining etiologic mechanisms we initially suspected (absence of a regular menstrual blood loss or the hyperinsulinemia resulting from insulin resistance), is the major determinant of the increased iron stores found in overweight and obese PCOS patients, we have monitored serum ferritin levels in a group of PCOS patients randomly submitted to treatment with an antiandrogenic oral contraceptive – that regularizes menstrual dysfunction in all cases but does not improve insulin sensitivity – or to treatment with metformin – that improves insulin sensitivity but does not systematically regularizes menstrual cycles. As will be seen, our novel results strongly suggest that increased body iron stores in PCOS women are a consequence of insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia that improves with insulin sensitization. Research Design and Methods Patients The present study derives from a more ample randomized controlled clinical trial addressing the effects of treatment with an antiandrogenic oral contraceptive compared with the insulin sensitizer metformin on classic and non-classic cardiovascular risk factors (ClinicalTrials.gov NLM Identifier NCT00428311). In brief, 34 consecutive PCOS patients were recruited (18). The diagnosis of PCOS was based on the presence of clinical and/or biochemical hyperandrogenism, oligoovulation and exclusion of secondary etiologies (19). The methods used to evaluate each particular criterion have been described in detail elsewhere (20). None of the patients had either a personal history of hypertension, diabetes mellitus or cardiovascular events, or received treatment with oral contraceptives, antiandrogens, insulin sensitizers or drugs that might interfere with blood pressure regulation, lipid profile or carbohydrate metabolism for the previous 6 months. Written informed consent was obtained from all the participants, and the study was approved by the local Ethics Committee and by the Spanish Drug Agency. After giving informed consent, patients were randomized to receive an antiandrogenic oral contraceptive containing 35 μg of ethinyl-estradiol plus 2 mg of cyproterone acetate (Diane Diario, Schering España S.A., Madrid, Spain) or 850 mg of metformin (Dianben, Merck Farma y Química S.A., Mollet del Vallés, Spain) daily for 24 weeks. Simple randomization was conducted using blocks of 10 sealed opaque envelopes assigning 5 patients to receive Diane Diario and 5 patients to receive metformin. Fifteen patients were allocated to treatment with Diane Diario and 19 were allocated to treatment with metformin. Treatment was started the first day of a spontaneous menstrual cycle or in women with amenorrhea, after excluding pregnancy by proper testing, and patients were instructed to maintain a diet containing 25-30 Kcal per kg of body weight and day and moderate physical activity throughout the trial. Metformin was started at a 425 mg twice daily dose during the first week to minimize gastrointestinal complaints. Patients were submitted to a complete evaluation at baseline and after 12 and 24 weeks of treatment for this and other studies that included anthropometric and laboratory measurements, a 75g oral glucose tolerance test with measurement of serum insulin and plasma glucose every 30 minutes for 2 hours, and several tests of cardiovascular performance. The 15 patients allocated to Diane Diario completed the study, whereas 7 of the 19 patients allocated to metformin discontinued metformin for different reasons (18). For the present study, serum ferritin and C-reactive protein (CRP) concentrations were measured by automated immunochemiluminescence (Immulite 2000 Ferritin and High Sensitivity CRP, Diagnostic Products Corporation, Los Angeles, CA) with lower limit of detection of 0.88 pmol/L and 0.1 mg/L respectively, and intraand interassay coefficients of variation below 10%. The technical characteristics of the assays employed for plasma glucose and serum hormone measurements have been described elsewhere (21-23). The composite insulin sensitivity index was calculated from the circulating glucose and insulin concentrations during the oral glucose tolerance test according to Matsuda and DeFronzo (24). Statistical analysis Data are shown as means ± SD unless otherwise stated. The sample size analysis for the clinical trial indicated adequate 0.80 powers with a total of 22 patients, as described in detail in the previous report of the study protocol (18). Normality of continuous variables was assessed by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and logarithmic transformation was applied as needed to ensure normality. The baseline characteristics of the patients randomized to receive Diane Diario or metformin were compared by unpaired t-test. During the study, the changes in continuous variables were analyzed by using a repeated-measures general lineal model including the arm of treatment as the between-subjects effect and the visit (baseline, 12 and 24 weeks) as the withinsubjects effect. To evaluate the differences in the response to each treatment, the interaction among the between-subjects and withinsubjects effect was calculated. The results obtained when considering only the patients completing the 3 visits of the protocol were also confirmed by intention to treat analysis assuming no changes in dependent variables at the missing visits with respect to the previous evaluation for patients discontinuing metformin. Categorical variables were analyzed by the χ, Fisher's exact and McNemar's test as appropriate. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Analyses were performed using SPSS 10 for Macintosh (SPSS Inc, Chicago, Illinois). Results The complete baseline clinical, anthropometric, biochemical and hormone profiles of the PCOS patients randomized to treatment with Diane Diario or metformin, showing no differences between both groups, have been reported previously (18). Table 1 shows a selection of these variables, as well as the circulating ferritin, CRP and hemoglobin concentrations, hematocrit and mean erythrocyte corpuscular volume, and frequency of patients presenting with menstrual dysfunction at baseline, all of which were similar in the patients allocated to each arm of treatment. Of note, two of the 34 patients, of whom one was allocated to treatment with Diane Diario and another was allocated to metformin, had mean erythrocyte corpuscular volumes below 75 fL in the presence of a hematocrit value above 30%, suggesting a thalassemic trait (25). During treatment, serum ferritin levels decreased in the whole group of PCOS patients (Wilks' λ = 0.741, F = 4.187, P = 0.028, Figure 1; intention to treat analysis: Wilks' λ = 0.741, F = 5.412, P = 0.010), yet this finding was caused by the decrease observed only in patients treated with metformin, considering the statistically significant interact


This paper university computer specialty programming curriculum present situation and problems,the reform method and the problem such as the target are discussed.


ABSTRACT Fundamental frequency (F0) characteristics of non-distress vocalizations produced by four infants during the first twenty-four weeks of life were examined. This study constitutes the beginning of a longitudinal investigation of phonological development displayed by these children from birth to two years. Vocalization samples were obtained from home and laboratory recordings. Period-by-period F0 melody plots and descriptive statistics for each utterance were derived from computer analysis. Mean F0 centred around 335 Hz, with little variation evidenced when data were pooled. Duration, within-utterance range and variability did show developmental change. Individual F0 fluctuations deviating from the mean were felt to be associated with the infant's state, activity levels, and changing vocal repertoire. Sources of variation among studies of infant F0 characteristics appear to be related to differences in sampling and measurement techniques.


— The article substantiates the urgency of competencies transdisciplinary modification among the future physical culture teachers. As a "nucleus" of transdisciplinary, which connects competencies of educational standard 44.03.05 into a single conceptual context, we chose subjectivity. The main research methods are the following: scientific literature analysis, connected with the problem of transdisciplinarity, diagnostic methods, which include content-analysis of competencies, modified V.I. Baydenko questionnaire. For statistical results handling we used software «SPSS v 17.0», Fisher's ratio test φ*. As a result of the empirical study we revealed the features of "subjectivity" in general professional and universal competencies. The authors presented the characteristic of subjectivity indicators, described the blocks of transdisciplinary modification of competencies. The authors underline that transdisciplinary competencies introduction into the teaching process of the future physical culture teachers conditioned statistically significant changes in the competence, priority, tension and modified competencies support in the notions of the future physical culture teachers of the experimental groups.


Based on the characteristics and properties of green machine tool it is presented the main factors of evaluation and green grad of fuzzy comprehensive evaluauon method in this paper.


Prolidase, also known as peptidase D (PEPD), is a hydrolase that cleaves dipeptides containing C‐terminal proline or hydroxyproline. These dipeptides are generated largely during collagen turnover, therefore prolidase catalysis is an essential rate‐limiting step during collagen biosynthesis. Consequently, prolidase plays a significant role in collagen metabolism, matrix remodeling, and wound healing. Defective wound healing is one of the hallmarks of Prolidase Deficiency, a rare autosomal recessive disorder characterized by the excretion of prolidase substrates in the urine. Although prolidase is implicated in wound healing, its molecular and cellular regulation remains understudied. Our initial in silico analysis of the PEPD promoter (PEPDpro) identified key regulatory elements upstream of the transcription start site. We identified Kruppel‐like factor 6 (KLF6), a zinc‐finger transcription factor associated with vascular injury, wound healing, and collagen metabolism. To study the interaction between KLF6 and prolidase, we amplified the promoter from the human genome and inserted it into a luciferase reporter construct. Our preliminary data demonstrate that KLF6 enhances PEPD promoter activity in a dose‐dependent manner. Additionally, KLF6 is regulated by transforming growth factor β1 (TGFβ1), and our data illustrate that TGFβ1 drives PEPD promoter activity. These results will generate new knowledge on the molecular regulation of prolidase and aid in developing therapeutic approaches to regulate prolidase expression in various physiological and pathological conditions such as wound healing.


This research aims to identify the role of ecosystems in the modern financial world. Banks are most actively involved in the formation of ecosystems, concentrating various offers around their traditional areas of activity. The study of ecosystem strategies used by banks revealed the areas that banks consider as the main ones when forming their own ecosystems. The reasons that caused an active interest in the formation of ecosystems by banks are studied. The analysis of the leading financial ecosystems of countries, including the Russian Federation, is made. The main models of banking ecosystems on the market and their features are shown. Factors that have a stimulating effect on the development of ecosystems are identified. Based on this information, General summary conclusions are formulated.


Background: Several scoring systems to assess an individual's risk of heart disease are available to practices. This approach has been advocated to focus practice activities on those at highest risk and to assist in individual patient management.Objectives: To determine the use of cardiovascular risk appraisal systems in general practice, and the view of users and non-users.Methods: Postal questionnaire survey to all general practices in Leicestershire (n=153), addresses preferentially to the practice nurse.Results: Responses were received from 126 practices (82%). Twenty-five (20%) used a risk appraisal system. The most popular were practice-devised systems (11 practices), the Dundee coronary risk disk (11) and the coronary risk calculator (4). Of the users, 12 (48%) targeted all within an age range and 12 (48%) used the score selectively with those specific risk factors. Eighteen practices (72%) used the scores both opportunistically and as part of a well person check. The most popular method of present...


There are about 130 nonmarine free-living freshwater ostracods in 46 genera reported so far from Turkey. Almost half (47%) of these species in about 24 genera is belonged to one family, the Cyprididae fallowed by the families Candonidae (27%) and Ilyocyprididae (9%). Comparing the total numbers of species worldwide (more than 2100 species), this number is apparently underestimated. This is mainly because of lack of studies in more than half of the country. Nevertheless, result of a large dataset (ca. 3000 samplings) collected from different aquatic bodies of Turkey revealed that some of those species do have wider ranges of ecological tolerances to different environmental variables than what we knew before. Geographical distributions and occurrences of those species from different types of habitats in Turkey are most likely corresponding to their cosmopolitan characteristics. In order to describe a species with wide geographical distribution (cosmopolitan) and wide tolerances to different environmental variables (euryoecious), I would like to use a new term "cosmoecious species". Correspondence/Reprint request: Dr. Okan Külköylüoğlu, Abant İzzet Baysal University, Department of Biology, No: 18 Bolu, Turkey. E-mail: email@example.com


A graph theory based reliability evaluation method for a complex distribution network, which combines network lamination with network-equivalent, is proposed. Firstly complex distribution network is laminated, then starting form the last layer the equivalence of the complex distribution network is upwards performed one layer after another layer; thus a simple radial network is equivalent to original complex distribution network and by use of the consequence analysis of fault pattern the reliability index of the complex distribution network can be calculated. To implement the proposed method, the distribution network is regarded as a directed graph and the topology of the network is realized by adjacent matrix of the graph; the adjacent matrix can be modified by inserting or deleting operation of graph, so the topology of the network can be immediately modified while the reliability index can be calculated. It is proved that the proposed method is effective and corrective by example results and its applied reliability evaluation results in Kunming power network.


In view of the customer churn problem faced by banks, this paper will use the Python language to clean and select the original dataset based on real bank customer data, and gradually condense the 626 customer features in the original dataset to 77 customer features. Then, based on the pre-processed bank data, this paper uses logistic regression, decision tree and neural network to establish three bank customer churn warning models and compares them. The results show that the accuracy of the three models in predicting bank loss customers is above 92%. Finally, based on the logistic regression model with better evaluation results, this paper analyses the characteristics of the lost customers for the bank, and gives the bank management suggestions for the lost customers.


In many eye departments it is routine to ask patients to lie completely flat for cataract surgery. However, many patients prefer not to lie completely flat, if given the choice. It is our practice to ensure patients are in a comfortable position before commencing surgery. We conducted a prospective observational study of our routine practice comprising 125 consecutive cataract operations conducted by a single surgeon with local anaesthesia (occasional phaco under general anaesthetic was not included). All patients were initially positioned lying flat on the reclining chair and were given the option of staying in that position throughout the operation or having the chair‐back raised until they were comfortable. Only 27% (34 patients of 125 total) were happy to lie flat (angle between 0° and 5°). The majority of our patients (62% – 78 patients) preferred to sit up slightly, with the chair‐back 10° to 25° above the horizontal; 8% (10 patients) of the patients were sited at an angle of 30° to 35° and 2% (three patients) needed to be sited at 35° or more. Patients who sat up above 30° generally had a medical reason such as orthopnoea (3% – four patients), back pain (5% – six patients), anxiety (2% – two patients), Meniere's disease (1% – one patient). Patients who sat up below 25° chose this position for comfort or preference. Our results show that patient preferences for positioning during cataract phaco‐emulsification under topical‐intracameral anaesthesia should increase overall patient satisfaction without the need to compromise safety.


INTRODUCTION:Behcet's disease (BD) is a rare inflammatory disorder for which limited and contradicting data exists in the context of pregnancy. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of BD in pregnancy and to evaluate the associated maternal and fetal outcomes.METHODS:Using data collected by th


The parent insects of the Arkansas laboratory strain of Sitophilus zeamais Motschulsky were collected by the author from a bin of corn located on a farm near Stuttgart, Ark., in 1955. The strain was retained and reared as a separate culture because the insects were darker and larger than the laboratory strain of "rice" weevils. Also, preliminary efforts to rear the strain on wheat and corn showed that wheat was a non-productive medium for the Stuttgart weevils. These differences (since shown to be non-definitive characters for separating the so-called rice weevil into separate species [Soderstrom and Wilbur 1965, 1966]) suggested further study to establish whether more than one species of rice weevil was involved as had been suggested in studies by Japanese workers (Kiritani [1965] reviews some of these studies). However, some authorities held that the differences were expressions of intraspecific variation within the species and advised that continued growth of the strain on a wheat diet would erase them.


Fish growth has primary importance at industrial cultivation as well as artificially formed conditions of the environment. The research tasks were studying of growth rate peculiarities, increase in body weight of sturgeon fish. It is established that two main factors determinate the success of cultivation and allow realizing the ability of fast development and increase in weight: water temperature and balanced diet. It is shown (in this and earlier published papers) that the growth rate of the object fish can be arranged (according to their declining ability) in the following way: beluga → bester →sterbel → Russian, Siberian sturgeon → stellate sturgeon → starlet.


The biomass and nutrient distribution in Acacia catechu Willd. Plantations of Punjab has been studied at six sites of different ages (20, 22, 23, 24, 28, 32 years). The biomass ranged from 39.4 kg tree -1 to 738.98 kg tree -1 and from 77.29 to 223.46 t ha -1 in all these sites. Productivity ranged from 2.57 t ha -1 yr -1 (at 32 yrs) to 9.31 t ha -1 yr -1 (at 24 yrs). The contribution of individual tree components to total biomass varied as: leaf 1.41 to 4.29%; twig 2.92 to 6.31%, branch 10.95 to 19.98%, bark 6.65 to 10.69%, root 15.29 to 20.61% and bole 42.86 to 56.33%. The per cent contributions of all tree components in all the sites were in the order of bole > root > branch > bark > twig > leaf. Prediction models have been worked out by using allometric regressions. Among prediction variables tried D 2 H were found the most reliable parameters for prediction of biomass. In all these regressions, the biomass of the tree components has been taken as dependent variable and shows significant correlation coefficient confirming linear relationship The amount of various nutrients varies from N- 482.19 to 1041.04 kg ha -1 , P- 30.32 to 92.72 kg ha -1 , K- 194.81 to 767.05 kg ha -1 , Ca - 523.3 to 1425.59 kg ha -1 and Mg - 27.27 to 80.13 kg ha -1 , respectively. The percentage contribution of different nutrients to total nutrients are as; N (29.78 to 35.61%), P (1.61 to 2.76%), K (11.36 to 22.79%), Ca (38.64 to 54.86%) and Mg (2.01 to 2.61%), respectively. Nutrient losses through complete harvesting have been discussed and some suggestions have been given to replenish the nutrient loss and improve the site productivity.