The SiteChar research on the Southern Adriatic Sea site focused on the investigation of the geomechanical and hydrodynamic behaviour of the storage complex in the case of CO2 injection in a reservoir consisting of fractured carbonate formations. Special attention was paid to the effects that natural faults and fractures might have on CO2 migration, and the effects that injection might have on the stability of faults. This assessment was originally performed via a hydro-geomechanical one-way coupling which relies on an adequate representation of faults in the model, allowing one to simulate fluid flow along the fault plane and inside faults as well as evolution of the stress state due to CO2 injection. The geological model was populated with petrophysical and geomechanical parameters derived either from laboratory measurements performed on samples from a reservoir analogue, or published literature. Since only sparse data were available, various scenarios were simulated to take into account the uncertainties in the fluid flow and geomechanical properties of the model: the different state of faults (i .e ., open or closed) and various in situ stress state, commonly named geostatic stresses as the earth's crust deformation is assumed to be slow regarding the short-term study. Various fluid flow parameters were also considered, although only one set of petrophysical data corresponding to the most realistic ones is considered here. Faults modeled as volumetric elements behave as flow pathways for fluids when they are conductive. The injected CO2 migrates inside and through the Rovesti fault, which is located near the injection well. The fluid flow also induces overpressure in the faults. The overpressure in the Rovesti fault reaches 2.2 MPa while it reaches 4.4 MPa at the bottom hole of the injector. Extending to about 30 km, the pore pressure field reaches the Gondola fault located at 15 km from the injection zone but the overpressure does not exceed 0.1 MPa at such a distance from the injection well. Using this overpressure as loading in the geomechanical model allows one to compute the effective stress variation in the whole geological model. The total effective stress is then computed by adding an estimation of the regional stress. Post-processing is performed to derive the likely damage of the faults according to the Mohr-Coulomb criterion. The results are illustrated on the Rovesti fault, which is located near the injection well and consequently the most likely to be reactivated. On the basis of available data, for all the modeled scenarios (various initial stress regimes, closed or open fault), no fault damage is observed, as the stress state stays below the Mohr-Coulomb criteria.


This article introduces the working mode of the call center service in the process of the analog channel reducing in Wuxi Cable TV.Meanwhile,it analyses the results of the outbound service of this period and puts forwards the corresponding approaches to the various kinds of problems existing in customers who have no Set-top boxes to watch digital TV.


Presents techniques developed for analyzing scattering and coupling in overmoded waveguides using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. Sources and adsorbing boundary conditions for waveguide modes are examined. The stair-step approximation to round surfaces is considered, and a technique for finding the effective radius of a cylindrical model is described. A numerical example of scattering from a step diameter transition in circular waveguides is presented and compared to the analytic solution.<<ETX>>


Staphylococcus aureus at present not only is part of nosocomial microorganisms but also of food borne diseases. Objetive: quantify and characterize by conventional microbiological and molecular analysis methodology to Staphylococcus in beef and pork meat. Method: They were used 160 samples of ground beef and pork chop, 40 outlets in López L., Bettin A., Suárez H. Rev. Costarricense de Salud Pública, 2015, vol. 25 (1) ISSN 1409-1429 114 three locations in the city of Cartagena: 1. Historic North and Caribbean (LH) 2. Bay Industrial (LI) 3. Virgin and Tourism (LV). For microbiological identification was used the plate count technique and the technique of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). Results: The conventional microbiological methods Staphylococcus aureus was identified in 100 % of samples, while the PCR confirmed the presence of Staphylococcus aureus in 88 %. In 72 % of outlets were found counts > 100 CFU/g, 27 % had counts < 100 CFU/g. The highest percentage was found in the industrial town of Bay (48,2 %), followed by the Historical town and North Caribbean with 34,4 %. 32,5 % of analyzed are marketing outlets and ground pork chop unfit for human consumption meat, to present counts that exceed benchmarks for Staphylococcus aureus in raw meat chopped and ground (100-1000 CFU/g). It was determined the presence of the MecA gene encoding strains of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in two samples by molecular methods is not for Staphylococcus aureus.


The article shows the data summarizing the real wage indexes for factory workers of the European Russia and indicating the Russian provinces, based on an analysis made into industrial polls performed in the years 1900 and 1908. The consumers' food basket compiled in covering all the provinces has enabled to identify the real wages in those provinces. The comparison of the data acquired has enabled to see the dynamics of purchasing power of the factory workers.


The paper introduces the special features of N 3500 I type condensers and the way of modelling, reports on the simulation results of various modes of operation, occomponied by a pertinent analyses. This model has already been successfully used for simulating factual cases, is featured by high exactitude and applicability and may be used for simulating various modes of operation. Figs 5 and refs 6


(1) The Thirty-fifth Thailand TESOL International Conference: English Language Education in Asia: Reflections and Directions Dates: January 29–31, 2015 Venue: The Ambassador Hotel and Convention Centre, Bangkok, Thailand For Details, Contact: firstname.lastname@example.com Visit: http://thailandtesol.org/Menu/Conference/2015%20ThaiTESOL%20Conference.php (2) International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (ICFLTAL 2015) Dates: February 12–13, 2015 Venue: Pacific Regency Hotel Suites, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia For Details, Visit: https://www.waset.org/conference/2015/02/kuala-lumpur/ICFLTAL (3) The Second International Conference on Language, Literature & Community (LLC 2015) Dates: February 21–22, 2015 Venue: Sandy Tower Hotel, Bhubaneshwar, India For Details, Contact: firstname.lastname@example.com Visit: http://www.languages3000.com/ (4) The Eleventh Annual CamTESOL Conference: Building Skills for Regional Cooperation and Mobility Dates: February 28–March 1, 2015 Place: Phnom Penh, Cambodia For Details, Contact: firstname.lastname@example.com Visit: http://www.camtesol.org (5) Language in Focus: Contemporary Perspectives on Theory, Research, and Praxis in ELT and SLA (LIF 2015) Dates: March 4–7, 2015 Venue: Lykia Lodge Cappadocia, Nevşehir, Turkey For Details, Contact: firstname.lastname@example.com Visit: http://www.languageinfocus.org (6) The Language Training and Testing Center International Conference 2015: Critical Reflections on Foreign Language Education: Globalization and Local Interventions Dates: April 18–19, 2015 Venue: National Taiwan University, Taipei, ROC For Details, Contact: firstname.lastname@example.com Visit: http://www.lttc.ntu.edu.tw/conference2015_eng (7) The Asian Conference on Language Learning 2015 (ACLL2015) Dates: April 30, – May 3, 2015 Venues: Rihga Royal Hotel & Osaka International Convention Center, Osaka, Japan For Details, Contact: firstname.lastname@example.com Visit: http://iafor.org/iafor/acll2015-faqs/


There are two trains of thought to demonstrate the intrinsic value of the surroundings in the modern west environment ethics trend:the axiology of individualism and the axiology of holism.But we can't obtain an environmental ethics we really need from both of them.This essay proposes a third train of axiology.It thinks that we can construct a new system of values upon the idea of "Big I","The Whole World" itself.Upon it,we can set up a new environmental ethics we really need.


But as history shows, our profession's pro bono legal tradition, by sheer force of necessity, has continually gone beyond its own narrow boundaries. Social movements spark dramatic changes in the legal landscape. Conversely, strategic legal developments, like the birth of the Civil Rights Act in the U.S. in 1964, change the sociopolitical landscape of societies. Both illustrate the norm-setting power of the law.Lawyer "prisoners of conscience" – who had gone through the ordeal of political repression and imprisonment – have played significant roles in history: Cuba's Fidel Castro, the Philippines' Apolinario Mabini and Jose "Ka Pepe" Diokno, India's Mohandas Gandhi, and South Africa's Nelson Mandela, to name a few. In the world today, we see, and need more than ever, genuine and sincere pro bono human rights lawyers in the thick of history- and justice-making.


The difference between Arakawa-positive and Arakawa-nega tive milk was, in the early time of the publication of Arakawa's reac tion from this Laboratory, considered as that of peroxidase content. So it was a great surprise when Nozaki1) in 1934 investigated the relation of Arakawa's reaction and chlorin content, because human milk positive to Arakawa's reaction-good milk in our opinion-turn ed out to be poor in chlorin, while Arakawa-negative milk-bad milk according to our deductions-proved, as Nozaki shows to be abundant in chlorin. He, however, showed that a chlorin-poor milk is a good milk. Recently Ishii2) has found that milk of syphilitic mothers is rich in chlorin and that it will become poorer and poorer in the salt as antisyphilitic treatment goes on. Now I have wanted to know if there is any difference of urea con tent according as Arakawa's reaction is positive or negative. The urea content in human milk was already investigated in 1898 by Camerer3) and Soldner. Then in 1901, Schondorff4) reported that 100c.c. of human milk contained 48.4mgrms. of urea.. Denis and Minot5) improved the method of quantitative determination of urea in


Fifteen tetranucleotide microsatellite loci were identified and characterized for spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum) collected from three vernal pools in the south-eastern USA. These markers revealed a high degree of genetic diversity (7–32 alleles per locus), heterozygosity (31.6–86.3%) and allelic heterogeneity (91% of comparisons were statistically significant). Considerable differentiation among populations was observed as genetic distances (chord) ranged between 0.50 and 0.65, and all FST values (0.08–0.14) were statistically significant. Moreover, genotypic assignment tests correctly classified all individuals to their respective collection. These markers should prove useful for investigating fine-scale population structure and mating system.


In this study, a broadband high-power amplifier with resistive harmonic matching is introduced. The analytical formulations for the drain voltage, output power, optimum load resistance, and efficiency are derived for this type of amplifier under class-B bias conditions. The design is based on a linear model of a laterally diffused metal–oxide–semiconductor transistor. In contrast to the conventional linear method that is based on an equivalent output circuit, the output matching circuit is designed in the presence of the dependent current source and intrinsic elements of the transistor. The design technique permits a broadband amplifier to be realised without load–pull measurement. The broadband power amplifier is intended for operation in the frequency range of 30–1000 MHz and covers the very high-frequency (HF) and ultra-HF bands. The power amplifier delivers 100 W to a 50 Ω load with efficiencies of 38–56%. To validate the design concept, the measured performance of the power amplifier is compared with simulations that incorporate a non-linear model of the transistor. The power amplifier is not driven into saturation and exhibits 2nd and 3rd harmonics of <−20 and <−10 dBc, respectively.


With the increasing need to construct long-term climate-quality data records to understand, monitor, and predict climate variability and change, it is vital to continue systematic satellite measurements along with the development of new technology for more quantitative and accurate observations. The Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership mission provides continuity in monitoring the Earth's surface and its atmosphere in a similar fashion as the heritage MODIS instruments onboard the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Terra and Aqua satellites. In this paper, we aim at quantifying the consistency of Aqua MODIS and Suomi-NPP Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Land Surface Reflectance (LSR) and NDVI products as related to their inherent spatial sampling characteristics. To avoid interferences from sources of measurement and/or processing errors other than spatial sampling, including calibration, atmospheric correction, and the effects of the bidirectional reflectance distribution function, the MODIS and VIIRS LSR products were simulated using the Landsat-8's Operational Land Imager (OLI) LSR products. The simulations were performed using the instruments' point spread functions on a daily basis for various OLI scenes over a 16-day orbit cycle. It was found that the daily mean differences due to discrepancies in spatial sampling remain below 0.0015 (1%) in absolute surface reflectance at subgranule scale (i.e., OLI scene size). We also found that the MODIS-VIIRS product intercomparisons appear to be minimally impacted when differences in the corresponding view zenith angles (VZAs) are within the range of -15° to -35° (VZAV - VZAM), where VIIRS and MODIS footprints resemble in size. In general, depending on the spatial heterogeneity of the OLI scene contents, per-grid-cell differences can reach up to 20%. Further spatial analysis of the simulated NDVI and LSR products revealed that, depending on the user accuracy requirements for product intercomparisons, spatial aggregations may be used. It was found that if per-grid-cell differences on the order of 10% (in LSR or NDVI) are tolerated, the product intercomparisons are expected to be immune from differences in spatial sampling.


The mixing of two fluids is important in enhancing chemical reactions in a micro TAS. Some devices or methods are needed to enhance the mixing, because the Reynolds number is very low, on the order of 1. In the present research, we studied the possibility of using micro-bubble emission boiling. A heater made of a platinum wire of 30 micrometer was installed in a Y-shaped micro-channel whose cross sectional area was 2 mm × 0.5 mm. The heater was directly powered by electric current up to 1.5 A. The maximum heat flux was 7.47 MW/m2 , which was well above the burnout heat flux. The subcool was 80 degrees and the velocity of fluid (colored water) was changed from 0.5 to 2.0 mm/s. When micro-bubble emission boiling occurred, the mixing was improved drastically. The mixing efficiency reached above 90% at v = 2.0 mm/s and q = 7.47MW/m2 . In contrast, the mixing efficiency was poor in the case of normal nucleate boiling. The effect of the mixing chamber was also examined.Copyright © 2007 by ASME


This paper expounds the connotations and features of the claim,introduces the processes and methods of the claim of the construction project,and probes into the position and functions of the supervising engineer in the course of the claim of the construction project.


With the objective to establish the nutritional requirement of lysine for light and semi-heavy laying hens, in the period from 34 to 50 weeks old, 360 laying hens (half Lohmann and half Lohmann Brown) were submitted to a basal ration containing 2.850 kcal ME/kg, 15.0% CP, supplemented with five levels (0.00, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15 and 0.20%) of L-lysine, to provide 0.584, 0.634, 0.684, 0.734, and 0.784% of digestible lysine in the rations. A 5 x 2 (lysine level and laying [...]


This article presents the exact elastic buckling of annular plates with elastically restrained edges against rotation and translation at inner and outer periphery. The classical plate theory is used to derive the governing differential equation for annular plate with elastically restrained edge support system. The buckling mode may not be axisymmetric as previously assumed. In certain cases, an asymmetric mode would yield a lower (critical) buckling load. This is due to switching of mode. This work presents the critical buckling load parameters for axisymmetric and asymmetric buckling modes. Extensive data is tabulated so that pertinent conclusions can be arrived at on the influence of rotational and translational restraints, Poisson's ratio and other boundary conditions on the buckling of uniform isotropic annular plates. The numerical results obtained are in good agreement with the previously published data. In this article, the characteristic equations are exact; therefore, the results can be calculated to any accuracy.


Characterised as a traditional technique for the production of food and biomass, intercropping is a practice mainly used by small rural producers. In general, the practice has sought to maximise the use of environmental resources in an area, as well as to promote the ecological balance of different ecosystems. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of radish intercropped with coriander in a region of semi-arid climate. The experimental design was of randomised complete blocks, with five replications per treatment: 1) 'Cometo' radish intercropped with coriander, 2) monocropped 'Cometo' radish, 3) 'Saxa' radish intercropped with coriander, 4) monocropped 'Saxa' radish, and 5) monocropped coriander. The coriander and/or radish plants from each treatment were harvested 30 days after sowing. The following parameters were evaluated in the radish: number of leaves per plant, fresh shoot weight, shoot length, taproot length, taproot diameter, taproot weight and productivity; while in the coriander the following were evaluated: number of stems per plant, fresh shoot weight, shoot length and productivity. The Area Equivalence Efficiency (AEE) was also evaluated for the main crop. The 'Saxa' radish showed the highest productivity, both as a single crop and when intercropped (15.40 and 14.32 t ha-1 of root, respectively). AEE values were greater than 1 in both intercrops, 2.13 and 1.70 for the intercropped 'Cometo' and 'Saxa' radish respectively, showing this cropping system to be an important way of optimising coriander cultivation in the area of study.


We present relative astrometric measurements of visual binaries, made in 2009 with the speckle camera PISCO at the 102 cm Zeiss telescope of Brera Astronomical Observatory, in Merate. Our observing list contains orbital couples as well as binaries whose motion is still uncertain. We obtained 345 new measurements of 259 objects, with angular separations in the range 0.″18–4.″6, and an average accuracy of 0.″011. The mean error on the position angles is 0.°6. Most of the position angles were determined without the usual 180° ambiguity with the application of triple-correlation techniques and/or by inspection of the long integration files. We have found a possible new close component for ADS 2377, which would be a new quadruple star system. We also present new revised orbits for ADS 8035, 9982, 11484, and MLR 198, partly derived from those observations, and infer estimated values for the masses of those systems that are compatible with the spectral types (© 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)


This article describes the causes leading to formation and activities of the radical religious organizations, mainly the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Hizb ut-Tahrir, and other movements in the Central Asian region, including interference of international Islamic radical centers into internal affairs of the Central Asian countries. It is noted that the above-mentioned factors lead to destabilization of the political situation in the countries of the Central Asian region.


Rapid technology improvement of silicon-carbide (SiC) MOSFET transistors combined with their extraordinary characteristics are key drivers for their utilization in medium voltage (MV) applications. For typical MV modular converter applications, power-cell (pwr-c) is a critical piece. Pwr-c systematic assessment methodology is crucial to prevent destruction and to fully test exploring its capabilities, prior to implementation at the converter level. Thereby, this paper presents assessment methodology of an MV half-bridge pwr-c with dc bus rated voltage at 6 kV, based on XHV-6 high current 10 kV SiC MOSFET module. Critical considerations, challenges and solutions are presented as well as the detailed assessment workflow and limitations of the pwr-c. The pwr-c is validated through continuous operation at 6 kV, 84 Arms, 10 kHz exhibiting over 99.3% efficiency, switching with dv/dt up to 100 V/ns.


This research reported the determination of salicylic acid analyzing by the square-wave voltammetric method on a simple pencil-lead electrode. The pencil-lead electrode (Pentel Super Hi-Polymer 0.7 mm Medium Line HB Lead) was fabricated as a working electrode in the laboratory. The method was linear over the salicylic acid concentration range 2.0-20.0 mM, with a detection limit of 1.3 mM. In addition, precise study of analysis using the pencil-lead electrode was also investigated. It was observed that the percentages of relative standard deviation (%RSD) for intra-day and inter-day were 3.4% (n=7) and 7.6% (n=5) respectively.Furthermore, the proposed system was applied for salicylic acid analysis in pharmaceutical samples. The results provided good agreement compared to the 'Trinder test' as a standard method.


A new synchrotron radiation exposure station dedicated to deep-UV exposures has been installed at the synchrotron light source at the Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices (CAMD). It complements the activities in synchrotron-based lithography including X-ray lithography, deep X-ray lithography, and under way, ultra-deep X-ray lithography. The UV station branches out of the X-ray lithography beamline. A retractable Si mirror reflects the incoming synchrotron radiation beam by 90 deg through a CaF2 window. Three insertable bandpass filters allow the selection of broad-band transmission spectra around the wavelengths of two excimer lasers at 248 nm (KrF) and 193 nm (ArF), and at a shorter wavelength of 187 nm. The station allows for exposures under vacuum or in an inert gas atmosphere.


Several single valued measures have been proposed by researchers for the quantitative performance evaluation of medical image retrieval systems. Precision and recall are the most common evaluation measures used by researchers. Amongst graphical measures proposed, precision vs. recall graph is the most common evaluation measure. Precision vs. recall graph evaluates di®erent systems by varying the operating points (number of top retrieval considered). However, in real life the operating point for di®erent applications are known. Therefore, it is essential to evaluate di®erent retrieval systems at a particular operating point set by the user. None of the graphical metric provides the variation of performance of query images over the entire database at a particular operating point. This paper proposes a graphical metric called Complementary Cumulative Precision Distribution (CCPD) that evaluates di®erent systems at a particular operating point considering each images in the database for query. The strength of the metric is its ability to represent all these measures pictorially. The proposed metric (CCPD) pictorially represents the di®erent possible values of precision and the fraction of query images at those precision values considering number of top retrievals constant. Di®erent scalar measures are derived from the proposed graphical metric (CCPD) for e®ective evaluation of retrieval systems. It is also observed that the proposed metric can be used as a tie breaker when the performance of di®erent methods are very close to each other in terms of average precision.


We develop a semiclassical approximation method for calculating correlation functions of the outgoing field of dissipative quantum systems. The method is strictly valid for linear quantum systems, and can be extended consistently to the nonlinear case. It can be used even at bifurcation points where linearization is no longer possible. It is applied to the dc-pumped degenerated Josephson-junction parametric amplifier. We demonstrate that the linearized fluctuation analysis can severely overestimate the maximum obtainable degree of squeezing.


In this paper a scenario is proposed to explain the lack of young globular clusters in the Galaxy. It is argued that the formation of the Galactic disk would induce tidal compressions on protoglobular clouds during passage through the Galactic disk. Such a compression would trigger the onset of thermal instability in typical protoglobular cluster clouds, leading to rapid cooling and contraction and subsequent star formation. The clouds are thus unlikely to survive several passages through the Galactic disk following its formation. Instabilities preferentially occur in clouds with relatively high metallicity and with orbits lying more nearly in the plane of the Galaxy, possibly leading to the formation of a population of clusters with small orbital inclination, similar to the population of disk clusters observed in the Galaxy. 22 refs.


Free-moving magnetic particles in the presence of a magnetic dipole interaction between their magnetic moments can be arranged in dense phases, the simplest of which is a linear chain. The nonlinear dynamics associated with the displacement of particles in such a chain is studied with taking into account the magnetic dipole interaction and the molecular Van der Waals interaction. It is shown that this chain has interesting properties of a nonlinear dynamical system. For it one can construct exact solutions which describe propagating nonlinear waves of a constant amplitude with a wavelength comparable with a distance between particles, as well as soliton solutions. A role of the nonlinearity of oscillations turns out to be very important for a problem of stability of a chain with respect to the transition to a dense three-dimensional cluster.


Imposing tax rebates on export products is common during cross-border transactions and not a violation of WTO rules.Jianghan Oilfield Administration had managed to win the support of relevant agency in local government to get tax rebates on export goods.Issues such as the customs clearance for export are the emphasis of tax refund work in overseas projects which are hindered largely by workers' unfamiliarity with the rules and procedures of reimbursement claim.To improve the practices of tax cuts on export goods in overseas projects,this paper had outlined an array of measures including revising the related institutions,educating workers on the relative state policies and stepping up the communication and coordination with agency in charge.


Abstract Although ebonite has been discovered for a long time, its applications were still limited to some household products. Recently, ebonite rubber has become of interest, especially for structural applications due to its high and adjustable strength and rigidity. The rigidity can be enhanced by several folds by utilizing appropriate curing conditions. In this study, we investigate the effect of curing conditions on the mechanical properties of ebonite at various cure time. Here, the crosslink densities were determined qualitatively both before and after compression cycles to investigate the change in crosslink networks. After the pre-molding stage, the curing process was either continued in the compression mold, in the air-oven, or under nitrogen atmosphere. For the compression-mold and nitrogen-atmosphere curing, crosslink densities and the compressive moduli increased significantly with cure time, whereas, for air-oven curing, only slight increases in the afro-mentioned properties were observed. Af...


We briefly present current criteria with an approach which attempts to synthetize usual industrial processes. After noticing discrepancies between theoretical results and experimental ones, we suggest a procedure which permits to obtain better predictions


Left ventricular remodeling is an adaptive process modifying the ventricular size, shape, structure and mass of the myocardium. The ensuing cardiomyocytes loss, thereby activate intracellular signaling pathways, inflammatory reaction, and stimulate the renin-angiotensinaldosterone (RAAS) and sympathetic nervous systems (Pfeffer et al., 1990; Rouleau et al., 1993). All of these result in myocardial fibrosis formation and ventricular cavity dilation (Liu et al., 2012; Van Berlo et al., 2013; Xie et al., 2013). Left ventricular remodeling remains the major determinant of cardiac function and survival after recovery from acute myocardial infarction (AMI) (White et al., 1987). Different available and promising therapeutic approaches are available to treat and attenuate the adverse effects of cardiac remodeling process by targeting the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms. Mainly, the RAAS regulates post-AMI cardiac remodeling process (Belge et al., 2014). As a consequence, blocking RAAS acts in a manner to stop left ventricular remodeling, reduce mortality and improve shortand long-term survival (Pfeffer et al., 1990). The goal of this Research Topic was to understand how aberrant cardiac remodeling contributes to the development and progression of heart failure (HF) and how to exploit this knowledge for therapeutic benefits to improve cardiac function and to prevent HF progression. In this Research Topic we have eight original research articles and one review article summarizing the recent advances in myocardial remodeling. In their study, Zhang et al. intend to investigate the role and mechanisms of Sestrin2 (Sesn2), a stress-induced protein, in cardiac hypertrophy with the use of Sesn2 transgenic and AMPKα2 knockout mice by establishing a pressure overload-induced cardiac hypertrophy model via aortic banding surgery. Regarding cardiac hypertrophy in women, Wang et al. investigated the effects of G protein–coupled estrogen receptor 30 (GPR30), a membrane receptor of estrogen that displays protective roles in diverse cardiovascular diseases and investigated the effects of GPR30, activation on transverse aortic constriction (TAC)-induced cardiac hypertrophy of aged female mice. The novel finding of this study was that GPR30 activation could reduce TAC-induced cardiac fibrosis through downregulation of the MMP-9 level, which may provide the potential therapeutic targets for the treatment of pathological cardiac hypertrophy in postmenopausal women. Mitochondrial dysfunction also plays an important role in the pathology of cardiac hypertrophy. Findings by Chen et al. suggested that quercetin, a natural flavonol agent, protected mitochondrial function by modulating SIRT3/PARP-1 pathway, contributing to the inhibition of cardiac hypertrophy in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) and H9c2 cells. Edited and reviewed by: Francesco Rossi, University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Italy


In this study, it was aimed to determine the effects of preemptive intravenous, spinal and epidural morphine on analgesic consumption, and stress response in the early postoperative period. Sixty ASA I-II patients who were undergoing lower abdominal surgery were randomly divided into three groups. Group I patients were admisnistered 5 mg iv morphine 5 minutes before induction, Grup II patients were administered 0.5 mg of intrathecal morphine 5 minutes before induction, Group III patients were administered 5 mg epidural morphine 30 min before induction of anesthesia. Induction of anesthesia, was performed with 0.1 mg kg fentanyl and 4-7 mg kgthiopental sodium. For muscle relaxation 0.1 mg kg vecuronium were given. Anaesthesia was maintained with 1-2% sevoflurane and 50% NO. Pre and postoperative hemodynamic parameters, VAS (Visual Analog Pain Scale) scores, time to first analgesic requirement, total analgesic consumption were recorded. In addition, to evaluate the stress response blood samples were taken three times before the administration of preoperative medications, preoperative 30th minute, and postoperative and 2nd hour. In our study, postoperative VAS scores between groups was significantly different at all times for the iv group and the spinal group and iv group and epidural group (P<0.05). In terms of time to first analgesic requirement, total analgesic consumption of group iv and iv with a group of spinal epidural group and the difference between groups was significant (P<0.05). Operative in terms of prolactin and ACTH between groups was significantly different at all times for the iv group and the spinal group and iv group and epidural group (P<0.05). Cortisol, glucose, and insulin levels postoperatively for 2. hour intravenous group and the spinal epidural group and iv group and the difference between groups was significant (P<0.05). As a result of preemptive spinal and epidural morphine in relieving postoperative pain and suppress the stress response was found to be effective in group iv.


Vietnam is in the emerging stage in supporting and protecting people with disabilities (PWDs) in terms of employment rights and opportunities. The main purpose of this study was to explore how Vietnamese perceive their coworkers with disabilities in general workplace settings. In addition, the secondary objective of this study was to explore how Vietnamese perceive community acceptance and inclusive education of PWDs in different environmental contexts. Results indicated participants had generally positive affective reactions toward their coworkers with disabilities in the workplace. However, findings also indicated that Vietnamese people possessed hierarchical attitudes toward people with different types of disabilities in terms of community acceptance and educational rights.


Spectral properties of spin-wave excitations in the Mott-Hubbard antiferromagnet are studied in the intermediate-coupling regime, wherein extended-range spin couplings are present in the equivalent spin-1/2 Heisenberg model. A systematic expansion in powers of [ital t][sup 2]/[ital U][sup 2] is developed for the spin-wave propagator in the random-phase approximation, and its quantitative usefulness is investigated. In two dimensions the spin-wave density of states exhibits a peak structure, resembling the broadening effect of spin-wave damping. Implications for recent light-pair scattering experiments in La[sub 2]CuO[sub 4] wherein the complete spin-wave spectrum is accessible in principle, are discussed.


As 5G networks are gradually rolled out worldwide, it is important to ensure that their network infrastructures are resilient against malicious attacks. This work presents VET5G, a new virtual end-to-end testbed for 5G network security research experiments or training activities such as Capture-The-Flag competitions. The distinguishing features of VET5G include a home-grown 5G core network emulator written in Rust to ensure memory and thread safety, integration of OpenAirInterface's Radio Access Network emulator and the official Android emulator to achieve full end-to-end 5G network emulation, inclusion of a reference P4 software switch to assist with prototyping of defense mechanisms for 5G data planes, implementation of Python APIs for easy 5G network experimentation, and adoption of JupyterHub to support multi-user experimentation. In our experiments we demonstrate how to use VET5G for two attack scenarios in 5G networks as well as its performance when it is used in a 5G hacking project for a Mobile Systems Security course.


Aim To evaluate the relationship between diabetic retinopathy(DR) and subclinical coronary atherosclerosis(CAs) on coronary 64-slice multidetector computed tomography angiography(MDCT) in individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus.Methods From July 2007 to December 2009,114 and 124 type 2 diabetic patients with and without CAs were enrolled.They received fundus photochromy,coronary 64-slice multidetector computed tomography angiography,physical examination,and measurement of fasting plasma glucose(FPG),glycosylated haemoglobin(HbA1c),plasma lipid profile,estimated glomerular filtration rate(eGFR) and urinary albumin excretion rate(UAER).Then the analysis of the relationship among the detection and measurement outcomes were conducted.Results Diabetic patients with CAs had a higher prevalence of DR than those without CAs(67.5% vs 33.1%,P 0.001).After adjustment for the traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease,CAs was independently associated with DR(OR = 5.0,95% CI 2.6 ~ 9.8).There was significant difference in the prevalence of CAs by the number of CAs vessels among patients without DR(NDR),those with pre-proliferative retinopathy(pre-PDR) and those with proliferative retinopathy(PDR)(P 0.01).The prevalences for CAs,the prevalences of CAs ≥3 vessels involved by plaque,and proportions of vessels with significant coronary plaque and of involved vessels in all detected coronary arteries were significantly increased with the presence and severity of DR(NDR vs Pre-PDR,Pre-PDR vs PDR,P 0.01 for each).Conclusions The severity and extent of CAs were significantly increased with the incidence and progression of DR,and much of CAs and DR could be still multifactoral with common pathway.


A series of antiviral active compounds consisting of an intercalating acridine‐derived part, a spacer region and a reactive EDTA‐derived conjugate was synthesized in an easy sequence. Thus, suitably mono‐protected 1, ω‐alkyldiamines gave, upon reaction with 9‐chloro‐2‐trifluoromethoxyacridine, followed by deprotection and reaction with EDTA dianhydride, the target molecules. Incorporation of their Fe(II) complexes in the presence of ascorbate gave a reduction of the phage titer of MS2 phages by several logarithmic decades.


[Objective]The purpose was to study the correlation between main agronomic traits and single plant lint yield in upland cotton with high quality.[Method] Twenty-four upland cotton lines with high quality were analyzed for single plant lint yield and 10 agronomic traits in a randomized,complete block at the agriculture experimental station of JXAU,Nanchang,China in 2007.They were divided into three types(high,medium,low yield) based on single plant lint yield by Ward's method.A total of 11 traits of three types were compared.Correlation analysis and stepwise regression analysis of 10 agronomic traits to single plant lint yield were carried out.[Result]There existed statistically significant difference in bolls per plant,lint percentage,lint index,fruit node numbers,growth period for three yield types.The high yield type exhibited the highest bolls per plant,lint percentage and lint index,the lowest fruit node numbers and the shortest growth period.Bolls per plant,boll weight and single plant lint yield were significantly and positively correlated.Fruit node numbers and single plant lint yield were significantly and negatively correlated.Bolls per plant,boll weight,and fruiting position number were the most important factors influencing single plant lint yield of upland cotton lines with high quality.[Conclusion]The results will have certain significance for the development of upland cotton variety with high quality.


There are two competing types of account of state consciousness on the philosophical market: higher-order representational (HOR) accounts and first-order representational (FOR) accounts.1 HOR accounts attempt to explain state consciousness in terms of a mental state's relation to higherorder mental states. FOR accounts, on the other hand, attempt to explain state consciousness in terms of a mental state's relations to environmental


The properties of PHB may be affected by the carbon source used in its production and this may affect nanofibres made from this polymerbyelectrospinning.Inthisstudy,P(3-HB)wasproducedfromglucose,rapeseedoil,andoliveoilby Ralstoniaeutropha H16. Cell growth and polymer production were higher in olive or rapeseed oil supplemented media compared to glucose supplemented media. FT-IR, 1 H-, 13 C-NMR, and ESI/MS n confirmed that the synthesized polymers were P(3-HB). SEM micrograph showed the formation of nanofibres from P(3-HB) samples with the fibre diameters dependent on the source of the carbon used in polymer synthesis and the concentration of the polymer in the electrospinning solution. GPC showed that P(3-HB) from glucose (G-PHB) had a higher molecular weight ( 7.35 × 10 5 gmol −1 ) compared to P(3-HB) from rapeseed (R-PHB) and olive (O-PHB) oil. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) showed that the crystallinity of the electrospun polymers reduces with decreasing polymer concentration with R-PHB having lower crystallinity at all concentrations used. These observation shows that more PHB yield can be obtained using either rapeseed or olive oil compared to glucose with glucose producing polymers of higher molecular weight. It also show that electrospinning could be used to reduce the crystallinity of PHB fibres.


We report the integration of a strained-Si/sub 0.75/Ge/sub 0.25//Si hetero-structure channel in a manufacturable CMOS process using selective epitaxy. The enhancement of drive current is demonstrated for pMOSFETs. The concerns on device design for strained SiGe/Si hetero-structure transistors are discussed, particularly the dependence of hole mobility enhancement.


A routine procedure, consisting of three steps, is presented for calculating the stresses in and the stability of plane frameworks. In the first step the preliminary sizes and gages of the bars are chosen upon tentative assumptions for the end-fixity. In the second, the assumptions made are checked by rational approximate methods. In the third and last, the final check of both stresses and stability is obtained in a single step by the use of James's version of the Hardy Cross method of moment distribution. I t is suggested that the procedure here described be denoted the Lundquist-Stanford method of proportioning frameworks as distinct from the Lundquist method of determining critical loads.


Abstract An airborne scatterometer system operating at six frequencies simultaneously between 1 and 18 GHz has been developed for the measurement of the microwave scattering of vegetation, forests, sea and other targets. After a description of the instrument, some C- and L-band results are presented.


A method of quantitative analysis on content uncertainty for harmful trance elements in coal includes the steps of collecting and sorting test data and analysis data of the contents of harmful trance elements in various types of coal to make a data sample; constructing an empirical distribution function by the data sample, extracting subsamples according to set re-sampling times by the empirical distribution function, and fitting distributions of all the subsamples; statistically analyzing statistic indexes of all the subsamples after fitting; analyzing uncertainty of the harmful trance elements in the coal, and analyzing the uncertainty of the harmful trance elements and possible causes on basis of the obtained statistics and geochemical characteristics of the different types of coal. By the method, the sample data more approximate to real overall ample distributions can be obtained to the maximum extent, so that the uncertainty of the content data distributions can be analyzed more objectively.


3459. Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology Annual Meeting; May 1, 2018, 2018; Honolulu, HA. 2. The Glaucoma Laser Trial (GLT) and Glaucoma Laser Trial Follow-Up Study: 7. Results. Glaucoma Laser Trial Research Group. Am J Ophthalmol. 1995;120(6):718-731. 3. Richter GM, Coleman AL. Minimally invasive glaucoma surgery: current status and future prospects. Clinical Ophthalmology. 2016;10:189-206. 4. Agrawal P, Bradshaw SE. Systematic Literature Review of Clinical and Economic Outcomes of Micro-Invasive Glaucoma Surgery (MIGS) in Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma. Ophthalmol Ther. 2018;7(1):49-73. 5. Kerr NM, Wang J, Barton K. Minimally invasive glaucoma surgery as primary stand-alone surgery for glaucoma. Clin Exp Ophthalmol. 2017;45(4):393-400. 6. Bovee CE, Pasquale LR. Evolving Surgical Interventions in the Treatment of Glaucoma. Semin Ophthalmol. 2017;32(1):91-95. 7. Lavia C, Dallorto L, Maule M, Ceccarelli M, Fea AM. Minimally-invasive glaucoma surgeries (MIGS) for open angle glaucoma: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS One. 2017;12(8):e0183142. 8. Hutnik C, Crichton A, Ford B, et al. Selective Laser Trabeculoplasty versus Argon Laser Trabeculoplasty in Glaucoma Patients Treated Previously with 360 degrees Selective Laser Trabeculoplasty: A Randomized, Single-Blind, Equivalence Clinical Trial. Ophthalmology. 2019;126(2):223-232. 9. Francis BA, Loewen N, Hong B, et al. Repeatability of selective laser trabeculoplasty for openangle glaucoma. BMC Ophthalmol. 2016;16:128. 10. Durr GM, Harasymowycz P. The effect of repeat 360-degree selective laser trabeculoplasty on intraocular pressure control in open-angle glaucoma. J Fr Ophtalmol. 2016;39(3):261-264. 11. Polat J, Grantham L, Mitchell K, Realini T. Repeatability of selective laser trabeculoplasty. Br J Ophthalmol. 2016;100(10):1437-1441. 12. Khouri AS, Lari HB, Berezina TL, Maltzman B, Fechtner RD. Long term efficacy of repeat selective laser trabeculoplasty. J Ophthalmic Vis Res. 2014;9(4):444-448. 13. Khouri AS, Lin J, Berezina TL, Maltzman B, Fechtner RD. Repeat selective laser trabeculoplasty can be effective in eyes with initial modest response. Middle East Afr J Ophthalmol. 2014;21(3):205-209. 14. Avery N, Ang GS, Nicholas S, Wells A. Repeatability of primary selective laser trabeculoplasty in patients with primary open-angle glaucoma. Int Ophthalmol. 2013;33(5):501-506. 15. Hong BK, Winer JC, Martone JF, Wand M, Altman B, Shields B. Repeat selective laser trabeculoplasty. J Glaucoma. 2009;18(3):180-183. 16. Gazzard G, Konstantakopoulou E, Garway-Heath D, et al. Selective laser trabeculoplasty versus eye drops for first-line treatment of ocular hypertension and glaucoma (LiGHT): a multicentre randomised controlled trial. Lancet. 2019;393(10180):1505-1516. 17. Newman-Casey PA, Dayno M, Robin AL. Systematic Review of Educational Interventions to Improve Glaucoma Medication Adherence: an update in 2015. Expert Rev Ophthalmol. 2016;11(1):5-20. 18. Newman-Casey PA, Weizer JS, Heisler M, Lee PP, Stein JD. Systematic review of educational interventions to improve glaucoma medication adherence. Semin Ophthalmol. 2013;28(3):191201. 19. Friedman DS, Quigley HA, Gelb L, et al. Using pharmacy claims data to study adherence to glaucoma medications: methodology and findings of the Glaucoma Adherence and Persistency Study (GAPS). Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2007;48(11):5052-5057. Copyright © 2021 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of the article is prohibited. AC CE PT ED 20. Tsai JC. A comprehensive perspective on patient adherence to topical glaucoma therapy. Ophthalmology. 2009;116(11 Suppl):S30-36. 21. Tsai JC. Medication adherence in glaucoma: approaches for optimizing patient compliance. Curr Opin Ophthalmol. 2006;17(2):190-195. 22. Tsai JC, McClure CA, Ramos SE, Schlundt DG, Pichert JW. Compliance barriers in glaucoma: a systematic classification. J Glaucoma. 2003;12(5):393-398. 23. Muir KW, Lee PP. Glaucoma medication adherence: room for improvement in both performance and measurement. Arch Ophthal. 2011;129(2):243-245. 24. Kass MA, Gordon MO, Gao F, et al. Delaying treatment of ocular hypertension: the ocular hypertension treatment study. Arch Ophthalmol. 2010;128(3):276-287. 25. Katz LJ, Steinmann WC, Kabir A, et al. Selective laser trabeculoplasty versus medical therapy as initial treatment of glaucoma: a prospective, randomized trial. J Glaucoma. 2012;21(7):460-468. 26. Arora V, Bali SJ, Gupta SK, et al. Impact of initial topical medical therapy on short-term quality of life in newly diagnosed patients with primary glaucoma. Indian J Ophthalmol. 2015;63(6):511515. 27. Balkrishnan R, Bond JB, Byerly WG, Camacho FT, Anderson RT. Medication-related predictors of health-related quality of life in glaucoma patients enrolled in a medicare health maintenance organization. Am J Geriatr Pharmacother. 2003;1(2):75-81. 28. Gupta V, Dutta P, Ov M, Kapoor KS, Sihota R, Kumar G. Effect of glaucoma on the quality of life of young patients. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2011;52(11):8433-8437. 29. Basilio AL, Moura-Coelho N, Passos I, et al. XEN((R)) implant and trabeculectomy mediumterm quality of life assessment and comparison of results. Int J Ophthalmol. 2018;11(12):19411944. 30. American Academy of Ophthalmology. Primary open-angle glaucoma: Preferred Practice Pattern. San Francisco: American Academy of Ophthalmology; 2015. 31. European Glaucoma Society. Terminology and Guidelines for Glaucoma. 4th Edition. In. Savona, Italy: PubliComm; 2014. 32. Fechtner RD, Godfrey DG, Budenz D, Stewart JA, Stewart WC, Jasek MC. Prevalence of ocular surface complaints in patients with glaucoma using topical intraocular pressure-lowering medications. Cornea. 2010;29(6):618-621. 33. Leung EW, Medeiros FA, Weinreb RN. Prevalence of ocular surface disease in glaucoma patients. J Glaucoma. 2008;17(5):350-355. 34. Baudouin C, Labbe A, Liang H, Pauly A, Brignole-Baudouin F. Preservatives in eyedrops: The good, the bad and the ugly. Prog Retin Eye Res. 2010. 35. Wittenborn JS, Rein DB. Cost-effectiveness of glaucoma interventions in Barbados and Ghana. Optom Vis Sci. 2011;88(1):155-163. 36. Stein JD, Kim DD, Peck WW, Giannetti SM, Hutton DW. Cost-effectiveness of medications compared with laser trabeculoplasty in patients with newly diagnosed open-angle glaucoma. Arch Ophthalmol. 2012;130(4):497-505. 37. McIlraith I, Strasfeld M, Colev G, Hutnik CM. Selective laser trabeculoplasty as initial and adjunctive treatment for open-angle glaucoma. J Glaucoma. 2006;15(2):124-130. 38. Nagar M, Ogunyomade A, O'Brart DP, Howes F, Marshall J. A randomised, prospective study comparing selective laser trabeculoplasty with latanoprost for the control of intraocular pressure in ocular hypertension and open angle glaucoma. Br J Ophthalmol. 2005;89(11):1413-1417. 39. Realini T, Shillingford-Ricketts H, Burt D, Balasubramani GK. West Indies Glaucoma Laser Study (WIGLS): 1. 12-Month Efficacy of Selective Laser Trabeculoplasty in Afro-Caribbeans With Glaucoma. Am J Ophthalmol. 2017;184:28-33. 40. Realini T. Selective laser trabeculoplasty for the management of open-angle glaucoma in St. Lucia. JAMA Ophthalmol. 2013;131(3):321-327. 41. Ouattara OAS, Coulibaly F, Ouffoue YG, et al. [Selective laser trabeculoplasty in African blacks]. J Fr Ophtalmol. 2019;42(1):44-48. Copyright © 2021 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of the article is prohibited. AC CE PT ED 42. Goosen E, Coleman K, Visser L, Sponsel WE. Racial Differences in Selective Laser Trabeculoplasty Efficacy. J Curr Glaucoma Pract. 2017;11(1):22-27. 43. Seck SM, Agboton G, Dieng M, et al. [Selective laser trabeculoplasty (SLT): our experience in African blacks]. J Fr Ophtalmol. 2015;38(3):238-246. 44. Tham YC, Li X, Wong TY, Quigley HA, Aung T, Cheng CY. Global prevalence of glaucoma and projections of glaucoma burden through 2040: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Ophthalmology. 2014;121(11):2081-2090. 45. Bourne RR, Taylor HR, Flaxman SR, et al. Number of People Blind or Visually Impaired by Glaucoma Worldwide and in World Regions 1990 2010: A Meta-Analysis. PLoS ONE. 2016;11(10):e0162229. 46. Realini T. Five Years' Experience with Selective Laser Trabeculoplasty in St. Lucia. European Glaucoma Society Annual Meeting; June 2016, 2016; Prague, Czech Republic. 47. Realini T. Selective laser trabeculoplasty: a review. J Glaucoma. 2008;17(6):497-502. 48. Song J. Complications of selective laser trabeculoplasty: a review. Clin Ophthalmol. 2016;10:137-143. 49. Damji KF, Shah KC, Rock WJ, Bains HS, Hodge WG. Selective laser trabeculoplasty v argon laser trabeculoplasty: a prospective randomised clinical trial. Br J Ophthalmol. 1999;83(6):718722. 50. Popiela G, Muzyka M, Szelepin L, Cwirko M, Nizankowska MH. [Use of YAG-Selecta laser and argon laser in the treatment of open angle glaucoma]. Klin Oczna. 2000;102(2):129-133. 51. Martinez-de-la-Casa JM, Garcia-Feijoo J, Castillo A, et al. Selective vs argon laser trabeculoplasty: hypotensive efficacy, anterior chamber inflammation, and postoperative pain. Eye. 2004;18(5):498-502. 52. Damji KF, Bovell AM, Hodge WG, et al. Selective laser trabeculoplasty versus argon laser trabeculoplasty: results from a 1-year randomised clinical trial. Br J Ophthalmol. 2006;90(12):1490-1494. 53. Best UP, Domack H, Schmidt V. [Pressure reduction after selective laser trabeculoplasty with two different laser systems and after argon laser trabeculoplasty a controlled prospective clinical trial on 284 eyes.]. Klin Monatsbl Augenheilkd. 2007;224(3):173-179. 54. Juzych MS, Chopra V, Banitt MR, et al. Comparison of long-term outcomes of selective laser trabeculoplasty versus argon laser trabeculoplasty in open-angle glaucoma. Ophthalmology. 2004;111(10):1853-1859. 55. Van de Veire S, Zeyen T, Stalmans I. Argon versus selective laser trabeculoplasty. Bull Soc Belge Ophtalmol. 2006(299):5-10. 56. Garg A, Vickerstaff V, Nathwani N, et al. Primary Selective Laser Trabeculoplasty for O


The main aim of the present study was to test a motivational model to explain the conditions in which rural high school students form their school performance. The model argues that motivational variables motivate school performance whereas this motivation can be either supported in the classroom by autonomy-supportive teachers, or it would be frustrated by controlling teachers. LISREL analyses of questionnaire data obtained from 365 rural high school students showed the degree of perceived value of schooling predicted students' self-determined motivation and perceived competence. The provision conditions of autonomy support within classrooms predicted perceived competence and school performance. Keywords: Perceived value of schooling, Perceived teacher autonomy support, Self-determined motivation, Perceived competence, School performance ;


: Polymer insert is one of the components of a knee joint endoprosthesis, allowing patients to sustain their mobility. They are mostly made of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) that is not without flaws. Inserts can be manufactured by machining (substractive techniques) or by the use of rapid prototyping techniques (additive manufacturing). In order to increase their strength, is increasingly being considered replacing UHMWPE with polyether ether ketone (PEEK). This material has been analyzed in this work due to the growing interest in using this material for the production of implants. This study contains a comparative analysis of two inserts made using two different methods. Its aim is to verify the effect of the manufacturing technique on material uniformity.


Purpose – The Jeju region has its unique culture, traditions, mythologies and so on. Its cultural identity, which is compared with the...


The current pandemic SARS-CoV-2 (also known as 2019-nCoV and COVID-19) viral infection is growing globally and has created a disastrous situation all over the world. One of the biggest challenges i...


BACKGROUND OBJECTIVE: To assess the vascularity of primary hepatic carcinoma before and after transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE ) with the quantitative parameters obtained by CT Perfusion Imaging (CTPI ).Materials and Methods:33 patients with primary hepatic carcinoma were enrolled in this study. CTPI was performed 1~7 days before and 40~57 days after TACE. Results: In all of the 33 cases, the HAP, HPP and HPI values of normal hepatic tissue was different from those of tumor, no difference was observed in TLP value between tumor and normal tissue. After TACE, the HAP, HPI and TLP values of the non-lipiodol deposition area (residual lesions) significantly decreased, and the value of HPP did not change obviously, the shape of TDC was similar with pre-TACE. Perfusion was not found in the lipildol deposition area. In normal liver tissue, the shape of TDC was similar with that of pre-TACE and the value of HAP, HPP, TLP and HPI were not different from those of pre-operation. Conclusion: TACE had no influence in values and time-density curve of normal hepatic tissue around the tumors and it is an accurate and safe treatment method. CT perfusion imaging can preliminarily diagnosis the residue of tumor after TACE and provide theoretical basis for new therapeutic mode-TACE combined with ablation.


The compact groups such as SU(n) and SO(n) groups have been heavily studied and applied in the study of quantum many body systems. However, the non-compact groups such as the real symplectic groups are less touched. In this paper, it is revealed that the quantum dynamics of two-component Bose–Einstein condensate can be described by a non-compact real symplectic group Sp(4,R) . With this group, an explicit form of the wavefunction in any time of the evolution can be given, meanwhile, this whole time evolution can be shown to correspond to a trajectory in a six-dimensional manifold. By introducing a polar coordinate, we can visualize this six-dimensional manifold in 2d unit disk and reveal the relation between the behavior of the trajectory in this manifold and the eigenenergies of the Hamiltonian. Furthermore, the time evolution of expectation value of a physical observable such as number operator is proven closely related to the behavior of the trajectory in this manifold.


The corpus-driven approach advocates the use of authentic language data,i.e.,corpus data,as the starting point of linguistic research,with established theories and language intuition playing a secondary and subsidiary role. It derives its linguistic categories from the bottom-up description of corpus data,and aims to reveal the recurrent patterns of language use. It is argued that the essence of unified study of language lies in the corpus-driven approach—an inevitable choice in deepening language study,and that corpus linguistics is fully justified as an independent discipline due to the fact that it has its own theoretical stance,research goals,methodologies,and findings.


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Pediatricians want to provide the best medical care possible to infants, and that may start with identifying postpartum depression in mothers.

If left untreated, postpartum depression can have an adverse effect on infants. Pediatricians are in a unique position to screen


International business (IB) is a relatively new field compared to traditional disciplines in the social sciences. Its contemporary thinking and development has been interdisciplinary, and the field has advanced based on a strong reliance on theories and concepts derived from traditional areas of business viz economics, marketing, finance, and management, that have shaped its scholarly works during the past 40 years. However, to date, IB has not drawn from MIS research to the same extent that it has drawn from the traditional business areas mentioned above. In fact, MIS research has begun shifting from a field highly reliant on other disciplines for initial theory and method, to one influencing other areas (Baskerville and Myers, 2002). Interestingly , while influences on other business disciplines such as economics, accounting, and marketing are noted as well as non-business fields such as agriculture, architecture, and engineering , Baskerville and Myers (2002) do not indicate an influence on international business. There are a number of reasons why it would be of value to assert the importance of global information management (GIM), a subset of MIS, as a referent discipline for IB. First and foremost, IB research is incomplete without a significant GIM and MIS contribution. Why? The impact of global management information systems (GMIS) on internationalization has enabled the MNE to allocate its resources more optimally to enhance performance (Rose & Straub, 1998). We have also observed that inadequate information technology and infrastructure constrains the options available to firms for organizational control and coordina-MIS has a significant contribution to make to IB research. How? When used effectively, the GMIS deployed by firms doing business on a worldwide basis can achieve economies of scale, economies of scope, and economies of coordination and agglomeration (Dunning, 1993). Further , the management of resources-viz physical , human, financial, and technological-in the most efficient manner differentiates the winners from the losers (Barney, 1991). GMISs clearly can enable or constrain management's ability to marshal all resources toward its desired ends. Much of the remainder of this paper will present some prominent IB conceptualizations and explain how GIM/MIS findings can contribute to a fuller understanding of the dynamics involved. Establishing the value of GIM/MIS as a pillar of IB will enhance the standing of research in our domain, potentially elevating it to membership with other business areas as part of the i


Portable fetal monitors have become widely available to purchase over the internet and are proving popular but they cannot provide reassurance because their use in inexperienced hands can lead to tragedy.


The finite-element method is described for modelling and characterising integrated optical devices using an interactive CAD facility. The application of the method to component design is illustrated by a series of examples, ranging from electrostatics to the optical frequency domain. The full vector H formulation of the optical problem is outlined and a new development described in which an electrostatic finite-element solver package is linked to the optical solver for a unified approach to the electro-optic effect.


Abstract : To address its language capability shortfalls, the U.S. Air Force needs to establish a language office, determine its language requirements, identify personnel with the required language proficiency, and recognize the value of the Air Reserve Components as a strategic reserve. The Air Force has met most of its language needs, but just barely. When a crisis arises, the Air Force hastily tries to identify language-proficient personnel in the officer and enlisted ranks, or hire native speakers on a contract basis. But, emerging critical language requirements are not being met and current contracting practices are insufficient to meet the demand. The Air Force does not have a language office to implement an overarching language plan. It has started one, but a recently released draft plan still relies on old methods and excludes the Air Reserve Components. The ability of Air Force personnel to speak a foreign language is a critical component to effectively conducting world-wide military operations in the 21st century. To effectively meet these missions and other emerging contingencies, the Air Force needs to develop and maintain a corps of personnel with language expertise. Identifying language needs is just as important as identifying language-proficient personnel. To be strategic, the Air Force must identify what languages are required and which career fields and ranks need language capabilities. Moreover, by excluding the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve from the overall language plan, that is, failing to identify their language capabilities or to determine which languages they require, the Air Force will fall short of meeting the Defense Language Transformation Roadmap's objectives.


Top-down and bottom-up polymer membrane fabrication techniques each have benefits and drawbacks, but combining the two may be the key to creating uniform, dense nanopore distributions.


The problem of R-edge-connectivity network planning based on hop-constraint is to design a network that meets the constraint of the given edge-connectivity and the number of hops while minimizing the total cost of the edge-linked connection. In this paper, a heuristic iterative algorithm is presented to solve the problem. According to this algorithm, an initial R-edge-connectivity graph is formed. Then the cost is reduced by iteratively exchanging edges. Finally some edges are added to meet the requirement of the number of hops. A better graph is obtained in terms of cost reduction through edge shifting and edge-deleting.


A thraustochytrid marine protist (Schizochytrium sp.) was fed to rotifers (Branchionus plicatilis), which in turn, were fed to cod larvae (Gadus morhua). Samples of larvae 1 and 11 d after hatch, the rotifer diet, and the enrichment were collected for molecular and isotope analyses of fatty acids. Schizochytrium sp. had unusually high proportions of ω6DPA (8.6% α 0.6%), which was reflected in the rotifers fed this protist (8.7% α 0.2%). This fatty acid was also unusually 13C‐enriched in both the protists (211.63% α 0.11%) and the rotifers (‐11.83% α 0.39%). The proportions of ω6DPA were very low in prefeeding cod larvae but they increased 30‐fold by d 11; however, ω6DPA showed the smallest δ13C change from the protist source. This, combined with reports of significantly higher growth rates in cod and scallops fed diets rich in this fatty acid, provide strong evidence for ω6DPA being essential at least in the early life stages of these two very different groups.


Customers are individuals embedded in specific networks between customers,the characteristics of which will affect customers' perception of value,and then customer relationship value. This paper systematically analyses the influences of customer network's characteristics on the dimensions of customer relationship value under B-C environment. Customer network's characteristics include network scale,density,structure hole and center degree; the dimensions of customer relationship value consist of confidence benefits,special treatment benefits,social benefits and relations cost. On this basis,this paper puts forward research hypotheses and uses structure equation model to test the hypotheses with service industry as research object. Empirical results show that each customer network characteristic can affect relations benefits in different degree,among which the influences on confidence benefits,special treatment benefits and social benefits are considerably notable,but the influence on relations cost is not significant.


On the basis of the investigation of germplasm resources in Beijing, we investigated the ratio of arbor to shrub of four types of green space, including public parks, roadside green space, residential quarter green area and green buffer. The representative ratio of arbor to shrub in roadside green space is 1∶2.9, residential quarter green area 1∶1.6, and no representative ratio of arbor to shrub is found in public parks. 61.9% of green buffer possess only arbor species, which means that the ratio of arbor to shrub is 1∶0. The difference of the ratio of arbor to shrub among four types of green space was closely correlated with green spaces function and characteristics.


We have fabricated a new type of LSPR sensor featuring immobilized liposome or phospholipid single layer. LSPR principally shows an ultrahigh sensitivity on surface dielectric environmental change due to interaction with target, but little has been reported so far on applying phospholipid membranes and/or liposomes as model cell membrane. We newly tried to investigate biosensing capabilities using the membranes of the both structures on Au nanostructures of LSPR sensor chip. As a result, it was confirmed that the phospholipid single layer is more effective to improve the sensitivity than the liposome. Finally, we have clearly detected 100 nM target protein of CAB and estimated a possible detection of 10 nM range from wavelength resolution by interaction with the phospholipid single layer.


Women will experience menstrual cycle changes during her productive life. In its effect on the menstrual cycle, anxiety involves the neuroendocrinology system as a major system of its role in female reproduction. This research aimed to determine whether the anxiety as the determinant of menstrual cycle changes in students of Midwifery Department Bina Sehat PPNI Health science institute Mojokerto. This research used comparative analytic design with cross-sectional approach. Its population was all student of Midwifery Department level III Bina Sehat PPNI Health science institute Mojokerto which is a final exam 128 people. The number of samples was 28 respondents using simultaneous sampling technique for 15 days. The data were analyzed by using chi-square test. The result showed that 6 respondents had moderate anxiety, most of them had normal menstrual cycle, 12 students (75%) and 7 respondents had severe anxiety, most of them had oligomenorrhea that was 5 students (71, 4%), chi-square test results obtained I = 0.003, means I lI± (0.05) so that H0 is rejected means there is anxiety becomes the determinant of menstrual cycle. It is suggested to female students to be able to improve their knowledge about the menstrual cycle and excessive anxiety control with technical technique and hopefully can give motivation and good coping to students


The objective : to establish a possible association between the type of agent, the type of infection, the duration of the inflammatory reaction in the mucosa of the urogenital tract, the content of intercellular adhesins on the one hand, and the detection rate increased content markers epithelium mesenchymal transition in the washings from the cervical canal during the period after the eradication of the pathogen in women infected with C. trachomatis, U. urealyticum and M. genitalium. Patients and methods : 236 patients aged 19 to 39 years who underwent urogenital chlamydiosis /mycoplasmosis/ureaplasmosis, confirmed by PCR with the eradication of the pathogen. Depending on the type of source of the clinical course of infection (primary, secondary, latent) were distributed to the patient among the three groups. In turn, each group consisted of 3 subgroups on the type of pathogen. A survey of patients included: measurement of concentrations of intercellular adhesins ICAM-1 and VCAM serum markers of EMT (MMP-9, fibronectin) in cervical swabs, leukorrhea detection in cervical smears, determination of the intensity of the symptoms on the total score of symptoms. These procedures were carried out at 30±2, 60±5, 90±10, 120±10 and 180±10 days after standard antimicrobial therapies. Results . During the study it was found that EMT mucous urogenitalnoogo risk factors tract of women who have had chlamydia, mycoplasmosis, ureaplasmosis is long (more than 30 days) maintenance of elevated concentrations of adhesins ICAM-1 and of VCAM, recurrent and latent during the initial infection. pathogen type does not affect the likelihood of developing EMT. Conclusion . The probability of EMT in the urogenital tract of women who have had an infection caused by C. trachomatis, U. Urealyticum and M. genitalium, is dependent on the duration of the maintenance of elevated concentrations of intercellular adhesins in the serum and increases the risk of EMT 17.2–19.2%. Further studies are needed to determine the determinants of the persistence of the inflammatory mucosa of the urogenital tract reaction after elimination of antigen and methods of influencing them for the prevention of metaplasia and infertility. Key words: chlamydiosis, mycoplasmosis, epithelium-mesenchymal transition, MMP-9, fibronectin, ICAM-1, VCAM, immunopathogenesis, vaginitis, cervicitis.


The esthetic education is one of the core contents,which trains the students' full-scale development. However,the current high public fine arts curriculum has not obtained enough value,appears stresses majors while ignorance the public curriculum studies in the class,the phenomenon disconformities with ideas of comprehensive education for all-around development of the new course revolution. This article attempts to strength Interaction between the high public fine arts curriculum and new course revolution in the harmonious education,realizing the full-scale development of teaches and study.


The single European currency is not only a technical matter facilitating economic exchanges but also as a political symbol with relevance to citizens' everyday lives: "A currency produces global values of a society and at the same time is its expression". As Murray Edelman noted, political symbols – such as flags or political terms like "unemployment" – are icons of mass culture that involve language and rituals, touch the experiences of people, and carry "a range of diverse, often conflicting meanings that are integral aspects of specific material and social situations". In this respect, national currencies have come to represent a multitude of everyday lives' frustrations and expectations. For instance in reference to the German Mark, Jürgen Habermas has used "DM-nationalism" as a term to describe how Germans of the Federal Republic in the aftermath of World War II have replaced obsolete national pride with a "substitute consciousness" based on their "libidinous occupation" of the Deutsche Mark. Embodying ideas of stability and well-being, the Mark has infused Germans with a sense of security and trust, much in contrast to the former Reichsmark or a currency, such as the Italian Lira, which is seen as unstable and weak. In the dynamics of European integration, the project founded on the Maastricht Treaty to launch the euro as the single currency of 12 member states in 2002 will certainly mark the most visible threshold toward an "ever closer Union", so far. However, although it is certain that from that year on, citizens in the "eurozone" will use the euro on a daily basis, it is less certain whether it will become a political symbol of European union, or will enhance European consciousness, a European identity and solidarity, as some of the most ambitious supporters of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) hope. We might expect difficulties in materialising such visions for several reasons. First, the launch of the single currency occurs in the aftermath of Maastricht, when the "permissive consensus" of mass publics support for elite driven supranational integration policies has deeply eroded in EU-member states. 7 Second, the legitimacy of the EMU is contested on most different principles and norms, from scepticism about abandoning a stable national currency to opposition against building the European Union around a Central Bank. And, ultimately, even many of those political analysts and elites supporting the single currency, rationalise it through the lens of "European nationalisms", taking for granted, hence, the


Google Earth is determined to be useful in the realm of archaeology because of its unique perspective , advanced capability, extensive usage and low-cost price, which would be indispensable for the detecting and studing of cultural heritage.


In recent years researchers have paid much attention to Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) thin-film solar cells with Zn(O,S) buffer layers due to their high photovoltaic conversion efficiency [1] and non-toxic buffer layers. The solar-cell efficiency is significantly influenced by the chemical composition of each layer in the device, particularly the CIGS absorber and the Zn(O,S) buffer. Thus, it is of great importance to determine accurately the local stoichiometry of these layers in the final device. Scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) combined with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDXS) is a powerful technique for quantitative analysis of the local chemical composition with high spatial resolution. However, even for thin TEM specimens the accuracy of quantitative STEM/EDXS composition analyses can be severely affected by X-ray absorption and other effects. X-ray absorption is particularly influenced by the composition and local thickness of the TEM specimen, and these two parameters are generally unknown. Due to significant quantification errors for EDXS analyses of CIGS solar cells only intensities of X-ray lines are usually given in the literature [2, 3].


The relevance of the study is determined by the dynamics of social environment development and the need for the legal system to respond to the changes including digitalization of all types of communication that take place in society. The authors assert that with transformations caused by digitalization (especially in such legally and socially significant areas as lawmaking), spontaneous changes in legislation should be avoided. This principle formulated the purpose of the study - to identify the priorities of legal policy in the field of digitalization of lawmaking. To solve the tasks, the authors apply the methods of system analysis, formal logic, and synthesis. Based on the results of the study, the following conclusions have been obtained. The system of legal policy priorities allows to select the right means of its implementation, and the methodology of system analysis is well suited for prioritization. This methodology offers a scheme for optimizing legal regulation, on the basis of which the authors have identified the priorities of legal policy in the field of digitalization of lawmaking.


Objective: To clarify the clinical characteristics of patients having both anti‐U1RNP antibodies (anti‐U1RNP) and anti‐centromere antibodies (ACA) in comparison to subjects having either anti‐U1RNP or ACA alone. Subjects and methods: One hundred and fifty‐six subjects who had anti‐U1RNP and/or ACA were enrolled. They were classified into three groups: anti‐U1RNP alone group (n = 64); ACA alone group (n = 82); and anti‐U1RNP+ACA group (n = 10). The anti‐U1RNP alone and ACA alone groups were also divided into the low‐titre and the high‐titre subgroups, respectively. The frequencies of the specific clinical findings and laboratory data were compared among the groups or subgroups. Results: The frequencies of persistent proteinuria or lupus nephritis (LN, 50.0%) and primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC, 30.0%) in the anti‐U1RNP+ACA group were higher than that in the anti‐U1RNP alone group (17.2%, p<0.01; 3.1%, p = 0.075; respectively). The frequencies of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE, 60.0%), persistent proteinuria or LN (50.0%), anti‐Ro (70.0%), and anti‐La (30.0%) in the anti‐U1RNP+ACA group were higher than those in the ACA alone group (11.0%, p<0.01; 4.9%, p<0.001; 23.2%, p<0.01; and 6.1%, p = 0.085; respectively). The frequency of systemic sclerosis (SSc) in the high‐titre subgroup (30.0%) was higher than that in the low‐titre subgroup (11.8%) in the anti‐U1RNP alone group, without significance (p = 0.072). The frequency of interstitial pneumonia in the high‐titre subgroup (26.8%) was higher than that in the low‐titre subgroup (2.4%) in the ACA alone group (p<0.01). Conclusions: The clinical characteristics of patients with anti‐U1RNP+ACA were clarified in comparison to subjects having either anti‐U1RNP or ACA alone.


The Plug and Play theory becomes a focus in the micro-grid research. However, the research ongoing both at home and abroad concentrates mainly on designing the electronic power control systems for a single micro-source with little attention paid to the coordinated control strategies of multi micro-grid elements. This paper first introduces the advantages and disadvantages of the micro-grid, as well as the theoretic application foundation of the 'Plug and Play' in the micro-grid. A 3-tier control system is established which contains the power grid Agent, the micro-Grid Agent and component Agent, and elaborates the control system. A 'Plug and Play' model is also set up which is based on combination of the power electronic technology and Multi-Agent system (MAS)and finally the coordinated control strategy of the model is closely examined and studied.


Image compression is an application of data compression on digital images. Several lossy/lossless transform coding techniques are used for image compression. Discrete cosine transform (DCT) is one such widely used technique. A variation of DCT, known as warped discrete cosine transform (WDCT), is used for 2-D image compression and it is shown to perform better than the DCT at high bit-rates. We extend this concept and develop the 3-D WDCT, a transform that has not been previously investigated. We outeywords: edical image compression iscrete cosine transform (DCT) arped discrete cosine transform (WDCT) -D DCT line some of its important properties, which make it especially suitable for image compression. We then propose a complete image coding scheme for volumetric data sets based on the 3-D WDCT scheme. It is shown that the 3-D WDCT-based compression scheme performs better than a similar 3-D DCT scheme for volumetric data sets at high bit-rates. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. -D WDCT . Introduction The objective of image compression is to reduce the redundancy f an image data in order to store or transmit data in an efficient anner. There are two basic types of image compression schemes: ossless compression and lossy compression [1–4]. A lossless ompression scheme encodes and decodes the data perfectly, nd the resulting image matches exactly with the original image. herefore, there is no degradation or loss of data. Lossless coding echniques include run length encoding, Huffman encoding, ntropy coding (Lempel/Ziv), and area coding. Lossy compression chemes, on the other hand, remove redundant and non-essential nformation that the human eye cannot observe. Typically, with ossy compression schemes, there is a trade-off between comression and image quality. Usually, lossy compression techniques re more complex and require more computations [1,3,4]. The ltimate goal of lossy compression is that the final decompressed mage must be visually lossless. The primary focus of this paper Please cite this article in press as: K.M.M. Prabhu, et al., 3-D warped discrete Control (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bspc.2012.04.004 s on transform-based coding techniques. More specifically, we re interested in coding schemes which use the discrete cosine ransform (DCT) or related transforms [5]. One of the motivations ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: email@example.com, prabhu firstname.lastname@example.com K.M.M. Prabhu), email@example.com (K. Sridhar), firstname.lastname@example.com (M. Mischi), email@example.com (H.N. Bharath). 1 Presently with Verizon Data Services India Private Limited, Chennai 600 032, ndia. 2 Earlier at Signal Processing Systems Group, Department of Electrical Engineerng, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands. 746-8094/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bspc.2012.04.004 for defining the warped discrete cosine transform (WDCT) is that the DCT fails to compress, if the block of image contains mostly high frequencies [6,7]. The warped discrete Fourier transform (WDFT) computes the frequency samples of the discrete-time Fourier transform (DTFT) at unequally spaced frequency points [8]. In this paper, we extend this concept to an adaptive discrete cosine transform referred to as WDCT, which computes the DCT samples by warping the frequency axis by means of an all-pass transform [6]. The WDCT can be implemented as a cascade of DCT and an infinite impulse response (IIR) all-pass filter whose parameter is used to adjust the transform according to the frequency contents of the input signal [5,6,9]. More precisely, the input signal is warped by an all-pass function in such a way that it has a frequency distribution which is suitable for coding. We can represent the WDCT by a single matrix, similar to the DCT. For example, when there are only eight samples in a block, the output of an IIR filter can be represented by a linear combination of the first eight samples of the impulse response of the IIR filter transfer function. Thus, the outputs of all-pass filters can be represented by the multiplication of a known matrix with the input vector. Yet another way of implementing WDCT is by interpreting DCT as a filter bank [6]. In this paper we have used the filter bank approach to implement WDCT. This approach is explained in Section 3 of the paper. This paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we discuss the DCT-based coding schemes. In Section 3, we briefly introcosine transform for MRI image compression, Biomed. Signal Process. duce the 1-D version of the WDCT and extend this concept to 2-D and 3-D versions. The properties of WDCT are outlined and a detailed explanation concerning encoder complexity is discussed. Section 4 explains the encoding and decoding schemes used in the ARTICLE IN PRESS G Model BSPC-321; No. of Pages 9 2 K.M.M. Prabhu et al. / Biomedical Signal Processing and Control xxx (2012) xxx– xxx


Objective: Neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is a prognostic inflammatory biomarker in patients with cardiovascular disease and hemorrhagic stroke. This metaanalysis aims to evaluate the prognostic values of NLR in predicting clinical outcomes in patients with ischemic stroke. Methods: A literature search was performed using the databases PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and China National Knowledge Infrastructure. Two reviewers independently retrieved papers that met the inclusion criteria. Subgroup analyses were performed using in-hospital mortality, 90-day mortality and 90-day poor outcomes (mRS>2) as the outcome measures. Results: Eight studies with 3855 patients were included in the analysis. An elevated NLR was a strong predictor for in-hospital mortality (OR: 1.05; 95% CI: 1.03-1.07, p<0.001) and for 90-day poor outcomes (OR: 2.28; 95% CI: 1.39-3.73, p<0.001), but not for 90-day mortality (OR: 3.04; 95% CI: 0.74-12.55, p=0.12). After performing subgroup analysis, the NLR was found to predict 90-day mortality with a high (>5) cut-off values (OR: 6.69; 95% CI: 1.70-26.33, p=0.007). The lower cut-off values had no significance (OR: 2.17; 95% CI: 0.43-10.86, p=0.35). Conclusions: A high NLR was significantly associated with higher rates of inhospital mortality and 90-day poor outcome in patients with ischemic stroke, especially with a high mean NLR or high cut-off values. With a high cut-off value (>5), NLR could predict the 90-day mortality after ischemic stroke.


The Dubious Link: Civic Engagement and Democratization. By Ariel C. Armony. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004. 312p. $55.00. Ariel Armony's work provides a useful corrective to some of the more extravagant claims made on behalf of civil society, associationism, social capital, and "the third sector." In particular, the crude claim that is sometimes made—namely, that high membership in voluntary associations leads uniquely to a higher quality of democracy—is roundly and justly criticized. "Civil society may or may not lead to democracy," the author claims, "because what matters is the context in which people associate, not because association is inherently and universally positive for democracy" (p. 2).


In this study, the methodology of shift reagents was exploited to distinguish cis and trans unsaturation in oils and fats. The differential binding of silver ions (in the form of AgFOD) to cis and trans double bonds allowed the separation of the allylic and olefinic proton signals in the 1H NMR spectra of mixtures of cis and trans methyl esters of monoene aliphatic acids and unsaturated triacylglycerol mixtures at low frequency spectrometers (300 MHz). Careful integration of the appropriate proton resonances in the recorded quantitative 1H NMR spectra afforded percentage concentrations in very good agreement with the actual values. This 1H NMR methodology was validated by analyzing AOCS Laboratory Proficiency Program GC samples containing various percentages of saturated, cis-mono unsaturated, and cis-polyunsaturated fat as well as trans content. This fast and relatively low-cost NMR methodology could be used on line for obtaining nutrition labeling compositional data (NLCD) required for fat-containing food products. Attempts to differentiate lipid molecules with different degree of unsaturation and positional distribution of cis double bonds were unsuccessful.


Objective: Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy (PCNL) is one of the most effective methods for treating renal calculi. However, complicated renal calculi cannot be completely cleared through rigid nephroscopy with a single tract, whereas PCNL using multiple tracts increases the surgical risk and prolongs the post-operative recovery time. Multi-functional ureteroscopy with active and passive flexibility could provide an alternative option for the treatment of complicated renal calculi. This study aimed to compare the efficiency and safety between flexible ureteroscopyassisted percutaneous nephrolithotomy (FURA-PCNL) and percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL). Methods: From January 2013 to August 2014, 168 patients who underwent either PCNL or FURA-PCNL were included in this retrospective study. Major outcomes including stone free rate and postoperative complications were then compared between these two surgical groups. Other pre-operational and peri-operational parameters were also analyzed. Results: Ninety patients received PCNL and 78 received FURA-PCNL. The average surgical time for FURA-PCNL was significantly shorter than for PCNL (P<0.05). Both the decreases in the hemoglobin and the damages to renal function were milder for FURA-PCNL versus PCNL (P<0.05). The stone-free rate for FURS-PCNL was significantly higher than PCNL. Based on the Clavien grade, the postoperative complication rate was similar between two treatments (P>0.05). Conclusions: This study demonstrates that FURS-PCNL is safer, more efficient, and more versatile compared to PCNL for the treatment of complicated renal calculi.


The purpose of the present paper is to clarify the different ways in which the young Max Horkheimer received Schopenhauer's philosophy in his early writings Aus der Pubertat . The text analysis reveals that the young Horkheimer adopted during the 1914-1916 period a romantic perspective and a more illuministic one in the 1917-1918 period. This paper specifically focuses on a novel from the first period, Eva, from which it appears that Horkheimer subscribed to Schopenhauer's doctrine of the aesthetical genius in an original way.


I this issue of Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, Huang and colleagues investigated the effectiveness of bright light exposure in shift working nurses on an evening or night shift schedule.1 Nurses working in a hospital were divided in two groups, where the treatment group received bright light of 7,000-10,000 lux for 30 minutes at about 8 pm (evening shift) or at about 11:30 pm (night shift), whereas the control group did not receive any light treatment. Both groups were instructed to wear dark sunglasses to avoid outdoor light after work and before sleep. The study period was 10-14 days. The outcome measures were wellvalidated self-report instruments: Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) and Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale (HADS). The results showed that the treatment group impressively improved sleep. Furthermore, the scores on the anxiety and depression scale decreased signifi cantly. No effects were seen in the control group. Many shift workers suffer from poor sleep and sleepiness. The most affl icted workers may be diagnosed with shift work disorder (SWD), a circadian rhythm sleep disorder, characterized by a complaint of insomnia or excessive sleepiness that is temporally associated with a recurring work schedule that overlaps the usual time for sleep over the course of at least one month.2 In nurses, the prevalence of SWD varies according to work schedule, but may be as high as 44% among nurses involved in night shifts.3 On the other hand, it may be surprising that the majority of shift workers, also those involved in night work, do not report insomnia or excessive sleepiness. In addition to poor sleep and sleepiness, some studies show that night workers are at increased risk of anxiety/depression.4 Sleep is regulated by an interaction between homeostatic, circadian, and behavioral factors.5 Shift work, especially when night work is part of the schedule, results in a misalignment between the endogenous circadian timing system and the external 24-h environment. The treatment options for circadian rhythm sleep disorders comprise bright light treatment and exogenous melatonin administration. Both these chronobiotics need to be timed according to specifi c phase-response curves to have the wanted effect. For instance, bright light before the minimum (nadir) of the core body temperature will phase delay the circadian rhythm, whereas bright light after nadir produces a phase advance.5 This means that incorrectly timed bright light will likely worsen sleep and sleepiness complaints. Nadir is usually bright light improves sleep and psychological Health in shift Working nurses Commentary on Huang et al. The effectiveness of light/dark exposure to treat insomnia in female nurses undertaking shift work during the evening/night shift. J Clin Sleep Med 2013;9:641-648.


The article analyzes the social and political role played by the so called .middle class. in Mexico for a little over forty years. For the author, despite the economic difficulties the country has experienced, that social group has been able to maintain its presence and influence at the national stage. Taking into account the internal movements within that group, you may find answers both, to the ups and downs of a globalized economy, as to the national policy not worry about the society it governs, therefore, the author proposes not to overlook the strategic nature that has the middle class in the field of public policy.


In this paper we present a method to visualize large amount of high dimensional data. High dimensional data visualization is very important to data analysts since it gives a direct and natural view of data. In our method we use one icon to represent one group of dimensions. Then we choose features of the icon to display the dimensions within each group. We have performed experiments on a real data set from oil industry, and the result is encouraging although there are still some open questions.


A buried offshore pipeline is essentially axially constrained by the soil cover. Heating by the passage of hot oil at high pressure can plastically deform it. The deformation involves expansion of the diameter, which for thinner pipes can be accompanied by axisymmetric wrinkling. During a lifetime of 20 or more years, lines experience regular startup and shutdown cycles. This study examines how this cycling affects wrinkling and the hoop expansion of such lines. A set of experiments on super-duplex tubes with D/t of 28.5 was conducted using the following idealized cyclic loading history. A tube is first pressurized and then compressed into the plastic range to a level that initiates wrinkling. It is then cycled under stress control about a compressive mean stress while the pressure is kept constant. The combined loads cause simultaneous ratcheting in the hoop and axial directions as well as a gradual growth of the wrinkles. At some stage the amplitude of the wrinkles starts to grow exponentially with the number of cycles N leading to localization and collapse. The rate of ratcheting and the number of cycles to failure depend on the initial compressive pre-strain, the internal pressure and the stress cycle parameters. The problem is modeled as a shell with initial axisymmetric imperfections. A challenge in the simulations is that the cyclic plasticity model that is used must be capable of capturing correctly the type of biaxial material ratcheting that develops. The Dafalias-Popov two-surface nonlinear kinematic hardening model, enhanced and suitably calibrated is shown to capture the prevalent ratcheting deformations correctly leading to predictions that are in good agreement with the experimental results. The model is then used to evaluate the ratcheting behavior of pipes under thermal-pressure cyclic loading histories seen by buried pipelines.Copyright © 2011 by ASME


Although the process of semantic annotation of Arabic Web content is essential for the realization of the Semantic Web, the process of semantic annotation cannot be performed without an ontology suitable for the task. In this paper, we describe the design, implementation and evaluation of the SemTree ontology for lexical semantic relations. The ontology was evaluated for usefulness using a prototype system for lexical semantic annotation of Arabic text. Results of the evaluation indicate that the ontology was fit for the purpose of semantic annotations with lexical relations. The evaluation also reveled important recommendations for designing Arabic semantic annotation tools.


Chapter four focuses on Robinson's five-letter series on German literature, in particular Goethe and Schiller, in the Monthly Register and Encyclopaedian Magazine (1802–03) that accompanied his transmissions of Kantianism to England, as well as his articles on Lessing in the Unitarian Monthly Repository of Theology and General Literature (1806). Read against the backdrop of Robinson's explications of Kant and informal discussion of August Wilhelm Schlegel, all of these writings emerge as erudite, autonomous attempts at resolving the impasse between aesthetic autonomy and literature's moral relevance detailed in the preceding chapter. These attempts are further characterized by an experimental oscillation between Kantian and post-Kantian approaches to art, and demonstrate that Robinson was increasingly regarding literary form as those universal parameters that may facilitate moral discourse across national, cultural, and historical gulfs. The letters on German literature, and afterwards the appreciation of the 'free-thinking spirit and love of humanity' (Diana Behler) in Lessing's cosmopolitanism, hence enabled Robinson to establish in terms of practical criticism his 'ethical turn' away from notions of full aesthetic autonomy and towards his critical principle of 'Free Moral Discourse'.