If the human species is to save the life and beauty of this planet from the ravages of its own domination and degradation, we must recognize, develop and act upon a community of interests and aspirations founded upon a respect for all life and for the substances and processes of Nature. We must know that there is a very basic interrelationship among all things in this Earth community and that we humans are responsible, at this desperate hour particularly, morally and practically for the whole. The arts, the sciences, ecology, agriculture, conservation, animal protection, religion, education, all human endeavors have the urgent need and, if we will only realize it, the great opportunity and impetus to aspire together and to work together in a common dedication and in a common goal. With this cOImnunity of interest we are inspired and motivated by the realization that the word community in this context of planetary salvation encompasses all life forms, all that is, animate and inanimate, not just human beings, within the area of contemplation, be it small or be it the whole world. Then we realize that without this world community, without Nature, human life and aspirations will stultify and become sterile and decadent. Without Nature and the community of life


This study attempts to provide the insight about payment method in international trade, especially by using Letter of Credit both conventional way and Islamic way. This study is exploratory and using qualitative method of research. This study reviews and analyses the previous literatures and other secondary data to conduct the study. The secondary data for this research were gathered through library research. This study also doing the document analysis. Based on the data collected, Letter of Credit is the most secured and commonly used as the method of payment for International Trade. But a lot of contents on the Conventional Letter of Credit is not Shariah-compliant. Islamic Financial Institutions around the world trying to comes up with Islamic Letter of Credit, but to implementing Islamic Letter of Credit creates some new issues and challenges. This study attempts to provide the insight about payment method in international trade, especially by using Letter of Credit both conventional way and Islamic way.


Training image-based reinforcement learning (RL) agents are sample-inefficient, limiting their effectiveness in real-world manipulation tasks. Sim2Real, which involves training in simulations and transferring to the real world, effectively reduces the dependence on real data. However, the performance of the transferred agent degrades due to the visual difference between the two environments. This research presents a low-cost segmentation-driven unsupervised RL framework (Seg-CURL) to solve the Sim2Real problem. We transform the input RGB views to the proposed semantic segmentation-based canonical domain. Our method incorporates two levels of Sim2Real: task-level Sim2Real, which transfers the RL agent to the real world, and observation-level Sim2Real, which transfers the simulated U-nets to segment real-world scenes. Specifically, we first train contrastive unsupervised RL(CURL) with segmented images in the simulation environment. Next, we employ two U-Nets to segment robotic hand-view and side-view images during real robot control. These U-Net are pre-trained with synthetic RGB and segmentation masks in the simulation environment and fine-tuned with only 20 real images. We evaluate the robustness of the proposed framework in both simulation and real environments. Seg-CURL is robust to the texture, lighting, shadow, and camera position gap. Finally, our algorithm is tested on a real Baxter robot with a dark hand-view in the cube lifting task with a success rate of 16/20 in zero-shot transfer.


Nowadays advanced technology of Wireless Sensor Networks used in many applications like health, environment, battle field etc. The sensor nodes equipped with limited power sources. Therefore, efficiently utilizing sensor nodes energy can maintain a prolonged network lifetime . One of the major issues in sensor networks is developing an energy-efficient routing protocol to improve the lifetime of the networks. In this paper, we propose EELBCRP (Energy-Efficient Level Based Clustering Routing Protocol), a protocol for wireless sensor networks. Network partitioned into annular rings by using various power levels at base station and each ring having various sensor nodes. Also consider the residual energy of each node and distance from the BS of nodes as the principle of cluster-head election. The mathematical formulae for election the cluster head is provided. The model developed is simulated in MATLAB. The results are obtained in terms of three metrics- lifetime of the network, number of clusters and energy consumption of clusters heads. From the results of simulation, it is observed that the performance of EELBCRP is better in terms of energy consumption of CH, number of clusters and lifetime of network compared with LEACH.


During the Qing Dynasty,due to the increase of immigrants,the conflict between Natives and nonnative often occurs in Hunan Province. There are three main reasons: one is the cultural differences conflict; the other is the shortage of land resources; another is the competition for economic benefits.


Since the 1980s interest group activism in New Zealand has entrenched a pro-imprisonment public mindset and statutory framework. This creates a political and social environment which is hostile to groups seeking rehabilitative reform and the advancement of prisoner's rights. Using social movement theorising on 'strategic choice' this article examines the advocacy of New Zealand's pro-rehabilitation groups. Interviews with pro-rehabilitation advocates illustrate the importance of emotional commitment and an expectation of 'future impact' on the strategic choices made in what is a highly constrained policy environment.


Available online xxxx JEL classification: C22 C32 Keywords: Asymptotic expansion Autocovariance function Fractional pole Fourier integral Generalized function Long memory Long range dependence Singularity a b s t r a c t A commonly used defining property of long memory time series is the power law decay of the autocovariance function. Some alternative methods of deriving this property are considered, working from the alternate definition in terms of a fractional pole in the spectrum at the origin. The methods considered involve the use of (i) Fourier transforms of generalized functions, (ii) asymptotic expansions of Fourier integrals with singularities, (iii) direct evaluation using hypergeometric function algebra, and (iv) conversion to a simple gamma integral. The paper is largely pedagogical but some novel methods and results involving complete asymptotic series representations are presented. The formulae are useful in many ways, including the calculation of long run variation matrices for multivariate time series with long memory and the econometric estimation of such models.


Above all,the paper introduced the working principle of circulating fluidized bed boiler, and then explained the importance of bed temperature control system. The facts influencing the bed temperature control system are analyzed,and modeling researches were done on coal feeding quantity and primary air flow. On analysing the date of a power plant in Shanxi,the mathematic models of coal feedingbed temperature and primary air flow- bed temperature were built,and the correctness of the models were confirmed.


The invention relates to a high-temperature-resistant UV-curing paint which is prepared from the following raw materials in parts by weight: 30-35 parts of aliphatic polyurethane acrylic resin, 14-16 parts of maleic anhydride, 4-6 parts of propanediol, 2-3 parts of copper naphthenate, 2-4 parts of gas-phase silica white, 2-4 parts of polyacrylamide, 2-3 parts of ketone anhydride, 2-3 parts of bistetradecyl alcohol ester, 5-8 parts of silicon oxide powder, 18-24 parts of epoxy acrylic resin and 4-5 parts of assistant. The UV paint has the advantages of favorable coating toughness, favorable adhesive force, outstanding wear resistance and outstanding corrosion resistance; by adding the ketone anhydride, the high temperature resistance of the paint is enhanced; and by adding the gas-phase silica white and silicon oxide powder, the strength and wear resistance of the paint are enhanced. The assistant enhances the dispersivity of the paint, so that the paint has favorable leveling property and smooth and bright coating.


The relationship between cardiovascular risk factors and coronary artery disease (CAD) was studied in 9878 patients undergoing coronary arteriography. The smoking history of patients with CAD was compared to that of controls for each of 9 anatomic locations using a case-control method. The odds ratio (OR) estimate of relative risk of CAD for smokers to nonsmokers was greater for right coronary artery stenosis (OR = 5.8) than for circumflex artery (OR = 3.5), or left anterior descending artery (OR = 2.1). The risk of CAD for diabetics relative to nondiabetics increased with increasing severity of diabetes. The risk was highest for insulindependent diabetes (OR = 3.0). Serum cholesterol> 6.07 mmol/L and systolic blood pressure> 140 mm Hg were both associated with a significant increase in risk. The odds ratio estimates of the relative risk of significant coronary artery disease for women who were using estrogen after menopause relative to those who were not was 0.4. The relative risk in current estrogen users remained the same after adjustment for age, cigarette smoking, diabetes, cholesterol, and hypertension. These data indicate that post-menopausal use of estrogen reduces the risk of angiographically significant coronary artery disease, that cigarette smoking is associated particularly with lesions of the right coronary artery, that the risk of CAD increases proportionately with the severity of diabetes mellitus and that diabetes mellitus, elevated serum cholesterol, and high systolic blood pressure are associated with significant stenosis of the proximal, mid, and distal segments of all major coronary arteries.


Abstract Magnetically induced electric polarization is shown graphically for many types of ferroelectric twinned domain. The graphs are compared with our experimental curves obtained at about 5 K with a twinned crystal of magnetite subjected to various directions of mechanical stress. On the basis of our supposition that the angle between the b axis and the c axis is not right-angle, strong dependence of stressing on the induced electric polarization is explained by change of triclinic ferroelectric domain states. The most probable ferroelectric twinned domain which should be realized in the sample is discussed when a mechanical stress is applied to it only along [111] direction in the bc plane. Volume fraction of the domains is estimated by assuming that an additional stress in the ac plane makes untwinned state.


The continuous-state GARCH model is misspecified if applied to returns calculated from discrete price series. This paper proposes modifications of the above model for handling such cases. The focus is on the AR-GARCH framework, but the same ideas could be used for other stochastic processes as well. Using Swedish stock price data and a stochastic optimization algorithm, simulated annealing, I compare the parameter estimates and asymptotic standard errors from the approximative model and the extended models. I find small deviations between the models for longer time series and small tick sizes, but larger differences for shorter series and for larger tick size to price ratios, mainly in the conditional variance parameter estimates. None of the models provide continuous residuals. By constructing generalized residuals, I show how valid residual diagnostic and specification tests can be performed in some cases.


The electronic chip industry embodies the height of technological sophistication and economics of scale. Fabricating inexpensive photonic components by leveraging this mighty manufacturing infrastructure has fueled intense interest in silicon photonics. If it can be done economically and in an energy efficient manner, empowering silicon with optical functionality will bring optical communications to the realm of computers where limitations of metallic interconnects are threatening the industrypsilas future. The field is making stunning progress and stands to have a bright future, as long as the community recognizes the real challenges, and maintains an open mind with respect to its applications. This talk will review recent dasiagame changingpsila developments and discuss promising applications beyond data communication. It will conclude with recent observation of extreme-value statistical behavior in silicon photonics, a powerful example of how scientific discoveries can unexpectedly emerge in the course of technology development.


We study the performance of L-branch equal-gain combining (EGC) and maximal-ratio combining (MRC) receivers operating over nonidentical Weibull-fading channels. Closed-form expressions are derived for the moments of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the output of the combiner and significant performance criteria, for both independent and correlative fading, such as average output SNR, amount of fading and spectral efficiency at the low power regime, are studied. We also evaluate the outage and the average symbol error probability (ASEP) for several coherent and noncoherent modulation schemes, using a closed-form expression for the moment-generating function (mgf) of the output SNR for MRC receivers and the Pade/spl acute/ approximation to the mgf for EGC receivers. The ASEP of dual-branch EGC and MRC receivers is also obtained in correlative fading. The proposed mathematical analysis is complimented by various numerical results, which point out the effects of fading severity and correlation on the overall system performance. Computer simulations are also performed to verify the validity and the accuracy of the proposed theoretical approach.


Background: This study was performed to evaluate the results of vaccum assisted wound therapy in patients with open musculoskeletal injuries or infected or exposed implant in situ (excluding arthroplasty) or traumatic wounds after debridement, infections after debridement at a tertiary care hospital, from 2013 to 2015. Materials and Methods: 23 Patients were prospectively treated using NPWT{Negative Pressure Wound Therapy}.Mean Age of patient was 39±18yrs yrs (range,18 to 76yrs).All patients had wounds with underlying tendon or bone exposure due to RTA OR CRUSH INJURY or ACUTE TRAUMA had to be debrided before applying NPWT.T The optimal level of negative pressure appears to be around 125mmhg and is more effective as evidenced if applied in a cyclical fashion at least three times a day for 15 mins either continous or intermittent. In our study we use a sterile polyurethane sponge which is cut to suit th wound surface and placed to contact with entire wound surface. A romovac suction drain tube runs from the sponge to an another tube, which is connected to suction apparatus sponge. An adherent plastic sheet (cling drape or op sites) is used to adhere sponge to surrounding skin to form a closed system of wound. Results: Exposed tendons, bones, raw area wounds and exposed implants were covered by granulation tissue successfully and was managed by either a skin graft or other definitive procedures. No major complication occurred that was directly attributable to treatment. Conclusion: NPWT was found to facilitate rapid formation of granulation tissue on wounds with Exposed tendons, bones, raw area wounds and exposed implants hence shorten healing time and minimize secondary soft tissue defect coverage procedures. The technique we used is indigenous and modified as per our situation. This technique can be used in treatment of many of soft tissue injuries including degloving injuries, wounds and various soft tissue injuries prior to surgical closure, grafting or reconstructive surgeries. VAC is a cost effective and economical mode of treatment with suggestive evidence when compared with other conventional therapies with the added advantage of reduced hospital stay, no need for plastic surgery and better cosmetic acceptance.


Introduction Anne Hellum and Henriette Sinding Aasen Part I. Potential Added Value of the CEDAW: 1. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination of Women Andrew Byrnes 2. The United Nations Working Group on the Issue of Discrimination against Women in Law and Practice Fareda Banda 3. CEDAW: a holistic approach to women's equality and freedom Rikki Holtmaat 4. CEDAW as a legal framework for transnational discourses on gender stereotyping Simone Cusack 5. From CEDAW to the American Convention: elucidation of women's right to a life's project and protection of maternal identity within inter-American human rights jurisprudence Cecilia Bailliet 6. Pulling apart? Treatment of pluralism in CEDAW and in Maputo protocol Celestine Nyamu Musembi Part II. Actual Added Value of the CEDAW: Socio-Economic Rights: 7. Engendering socio-economic rights Sandra Fredman 8. 'Women's rights are human rights!' The practice of the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Fleur van Leeuwen 9. Property and security: articulating women's rights to their homes Ingunn Ikdahl 10. Maternal mortality and women's right to health Henriette Sinding Aasen Part III. The CEDAW in National Law: 11. The implementation of the CEDAW Convention in Australia: success, trials, tribulations and continuing struggle Andrew Byrnes 12. The Canadian experience with the CEDAW: all women's rights are human rights - a case of treaties synergy Lucie Lamarche 13. India's CEDAW story Madhu Mehra 14. Judicial education on the Convention on Elimination of Discrimination against Women in Nepal Kabita Pandey 15. From ratification to implementation: 'domesticating' CEDAW in state, government and society. A case study of Pakistan Shaheen Sardar Ali 16. Zimbabwe and CEDAW compliance: pursuing women's equality in fits and starts Choice Damiso and Julie Stewart 17. The CEDAW after all these years: firmly rooted in the Dutch clay? Marjolein van den Brink 18. CEDAW in the UK Sandra Fredman 19. Domestication of the CEDAW in France: from paradoxes to ambivalences and back again Helene Ruiz Fabri and Andrea Hamann 20. Rise and fall of the CEDAW in Finland: time to reclaim its impetus Kevat Nousiainen and Merja Pentikainen 21. Making space and giving voice: CEDAW in Norwegian law Anne Hellum Conclusions Anne Hellum and Henriette Sinding Aasen.


This descriptive correlational study was conducted among students of the Faculty of Nursing, National University of Trujillo during the months of April to June 2010 with the purpose of determining the relationship between eating habits and physical activity nutritional status of students. The sample consisted of 106 students who attended the various courses of study. The instrument was a questionnaire - survey which includes questions regarding physical activity and eating habits developed by the authors taking into account the size under study and the proposed theoretical framework.
The results were tabulated and presented in graphs and tables in a double-entry, numerically and percentage. The statistical analysis was applied to test independence of criteria (X2) Chi square, to measure the degree of association.
According to the results, 68.9% had a normal nutritional status, 23.6% are overweight and 7.5% obese, and students with limited physical activity account for 81.1%, 17% have an adequate level of physical activity and only 1.9% are physically inactive, 77.4% have regular feeding habits, 17.9% of their habits are good and only 4.7% have bad habits.
The study confirms the influence of physical activity level of the students on their nutritional status, with a value chi-square = 28,578 with a probability of 0.00 still is highly significant, ie a relation between the variables. On the other hand, to relate the type of eating habits with nutritional status of students, has a chi-square value = 6186 0186 with a probability of this being not significant, there is no relationship between variables.


The objective of this experiment was to evaluate the performance of laying quails fed diets containing 21 and 24% crude protein, three electrolytic balances (200, 275 and 350 mEq/kg diet) and two forms of electrolytic balance increase (potassium and sodium + potassium). A total of 720 quail with 120 days of age, for 84 days, divided into four periods of 21 days, in two tests distributed in random blocks design with six replicates and 10 birds per experimental unit. Were evaluated three levels of electrolyte balance and the inclusion of two sources of cations in the feed. The comparison of means was performed by Student Newman-Keuls test (SNK) and the F-test (5%). For the level of 21% crude protein, the addition of potassium carbonate (K2CO3) promoted increase in egg mass. For the level of 24%, the results showed that the combined addition of potassium carbonate and sodium carbonate (K2CO3 + Na2CO3) presented better laying rate, egg mass, feed intake and feed conversion. Regardless of the protein level utilized, the best results were achieved with 200 mEq/kg diet.


s, pp. 1089–1093. Wessels, S.A., De La Pena, A., Kratz, M., Williams-Stroud, S. & Jbeili, T., 2011. Identifying faults and fractures in unconventional reservoirs through microseismic monitoring, First Break, 29, 99–104. Witten, B. & Shragge, J., 2017. Microseismic image-domain velocity inversion: Marcellus Shale case study, Geophysics, 82, KS99–KS112. Whitmore, D.N., 1983. Iterative depth imaging by back time propagation, in Proceedings of the 53rd Annual International Meeting, SEG, Expanded Abstracts, pp. 382–386.s, pp. 382–386. Williamson, P.R. & Worthington, M.H., 1993. Resolution limits in ray tomography due to wave behavior: numerical experiments, Geophysics, 58,


While prototyping ASIC designs on multi-FPGA platforms, challenges like partitioning, multiplexing limited I/O interconnections and mapping multiple clock-domains manually, cause significant delays and unpredictability in schedule. This process also requires highly skilled engineers who have deep understanding of the SoC designs. Automating this partitioning process of large designs onto multiple FPGAs using machine-learning techniques can potentially reduce time-to-market (TTM) in addition to potential savings in engineering resources. The problem requires clustering the various IPs in the design such that the number of signals between these clusters is a minimum, while ensuring the total resources of all IPs in a cluster does not go beyond the available limit in an actual FPGA. Once we get these clusters, we then need to map them to the exact FPGA on the multi-FPGA platform. We propose an algorithm modifying the GAP framework proposed in [4] that will automate the entire process of clustering and mapping, eliminating human intervention. We see good quality partitions with our experiments on 3 SoC designs and confirmed the feasibility of the generated partitions by manually mapping these onto the hardware and checking routing feasibility.


The denial of service(DoS) attack is becoming a serious threat to the distributed application system.A mobile agent-based architecture for the distributed application system is presented.The architecture can protect the application server and improve its DoS resistant ability.To be more secure in the case of DoS attacks,a proxy host grouping method based on the generic algorithm is presented.In the end,the DoS resistant ability of the system is analyzed.


With the universal improving of our living status,the incidence of colorectal cancer in our country as well as in the whole world is leaping.In western countries, colorectal cancer is the second most important cause for cancer death,approximately a quarter of patients with colorectal cancer have liver metastasis when being diagnosed,while liver metastasis is the main reason for the death of patients with advanced colorectal cancer.To study the mechanism of colorectal liver metastasis, we may find better way to diagnose and cure this disease along with improve patients' living quality and survival perioid.


This paper applies the artificial neural networks' techniques to model financial literacy in higher education institutions in Portugal. The modeling of financial literacy of students enrolled in higher education was accomplished through the measurement of their financial knowledge on credit cards, loans and savings plans, as well as through the analysis of the determinants of that knowledge. The results indicate that knowledge on credit cards is significantly dependent on the students' enrollment year, age group and possession of a cellular phone price plan; a strong relevance was also obtained between the permanency with a cellular phone price plan and the knowledge level of the respondents on credit cards (n=666; 11.39%; 10.76% and 10.13%, respectively). The research demonstrates that Portuguese students' knowledge on credit cards is very good in less than 1% of the sample and very limited in more than 60% of the sample. Concerning knowledge on loans and savings plans, the results indicate that more than 70% of the respondents present a high level of financial illiteracy. The most relevant and determinant factors for this study were: age, the fact of living in their own house, the fact of possessing a cellular phone price plan or being a credit card holder.


In the thought system of the Marxist theory, practice undoubtedly is its most fundamental principle. Marx gives clear explanation of the thought in one of his theoretical literatures. Therefore, the discovery of and the research on the definition of practice is the real starting - point of founding the world outlook of materialism as well as the necessary cornerstone of the theory of all the world outlooks of materialism. With the deepened development of human social history and the accelerated progress of modern course, the definition of practice becomes richer than ever, and we can not remain where the definition of Marxist practice is understood as the human purposed sensible activities to change the world but develop and deepen it. Based on the presumption, the writing attempts to explore the definition from the two perspectives of existence and practice.


The suspension polymerization of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) was carried out at two different constant temperature conditions (52.5°C and 57.5°C) and at two‐stage variable temperature conditions (52.5–57.5°C). The molecular weight and molecular weight distribution were characterized by gel permeation chromatography (GPC). The unstable chlorine content, total double bond content, and conjugated diene content were explored via phenol substitution, catalytic bromine addition, and ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy (UV–Vis). pH meter and thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA) were used for the determination of the thermal stability. According to the results, due to the gradual consumption of the impurities and the effect of the local high temperature in the early stage of polymerization, which caused more molecular chain‐transfer and more structural defects, a large number of oligomers generated. A rapid increase in the molecular weight could be found until the conversion was close to 23%. A lower temperature should be conducive to reducing the structural defects in molecular segments. Based on these observations, we applied two‐stage variable temperature polymerization and compared the PVC resin at a similar molecular weight at a constant temperature of 56°C. The PVC resin produced by the two‐stage variable temperature polymerization process obtained a similar Polydispersity index (PDI), reduced the unstable chlorine content by 15.11%, reduced the total double bond structure content by 8.81%, reduced the conjugated diene structure content by 13.86%, and increased the thermal stability time by 13.91%, thereby improving the thermal stability of the PVC resin. J. VINYL ADDIT. TECHNOL., 25:E80–E87, 2019. © 2018 Society of Plastics Engineers


The care of patients in teaching hospitals presents a persistent challenge: a primary commitment to the health of patients must be combined with the educational goals of the teaching institution. These goals include the mastery of procedural skills by house officers. When a medical novice attempts to perform an invasive procedure, the risk of harm to the patient increases, even when the novice is under expert supervision. This risk is accepted for several reasons: it is in society's interest to train physicians to perform procedures; the inexperience of house officers is accepted by patients (or their surrogates) through explicit or . . .


Oxo-bridged manganese polynuclear complexes have applications in a variety of technologies, such as single-molecule nanomagnets, catalysis and photosynthetic redox chemistry. The reason that these types of compounds are capable of such important and varied technologies is thought to be because they possess ground states with large spin values. However, the electronic, structural and magnetochemical relationships are not well understood and need to be thoroughly investigated to adequately explain why Mn is such an integral part of so many useful processes. X-ray photoemission spectroscopy was used to study the Mn 3p, 3s and valence band electronic behavior as a function of Mn cluster structural properties, where the cluster size and nuclearity are systematically varied. Results show a chemical shift of the Mn 3p{sub 3/2,1/2} spin-orbit pair related to the cluster size and nuclearity. Also, the Mn 3s {sup 7}S and {sup 5}S final state multiplet components shift since it involves the binding energy of a ligand valence electron. In addition, the branching ratio of the {sup 7}S:{sup 5}S states is related to the 3s-3d electron correlation. Specifically, in the {sup 7}S state, the remaining 3s electron is well correlated with 3d electrons of parallel spin, while in the {sup 5}S statemore » the two spins are antiparallel. Changes in this electron correlation are clearly observed in the {sup 7}S:{sup 5}S branching ratio as a function of cluster size and ligand electronegativity.« less


Based on Buchmann-Williams key exchange protocol, a Buchmann-Williams Authenticated Key Agreement (BWAKA) protocol with pre-shared password is proposed. Its security relies on the Discrete Logarithm Problem over class groups of number fields. It provides identity authentication, perfect forward secrecy and key validation.


The speed real time operating performance of the wheeled tractor engine directly influences the working performance of the wheeled tractor.A novel technique applied in wheeled tractors was introduced which was able to carry out the opened-loop and closed-loop control.The application of it helps realize the remote control and enables the engine's full-range automation speed modulation to obtain its full display.


Multicentric Castleman's disease (MCD) is a systemic disease characterized by generalized lymphadenopathy and the proliferation of plasma cells. Recently, Takai et al. reported three patients showing a constellation of symptoms ; thrombocytopenia, anasarca, fever, reticulin fibrosis and organomegaly (TAFRO syndrome). We present a case of MCD developing in a 78-year-old woman with a 17-year history of sarcoidosis, which had several features of TAFRO syndrome. The first part of this patient's clinical course has already been reported. Here, we report the all parts of the clinical course, from diagnosis to death. The administration of steroid-pulse therapy and prednisolone was ineffective, although treatment with tocilizumab proved highly effective. But 15 months after initiation of tocilizumab, the patient died of disease progression and complications. A 60-year-old woman was diagnosed as sarcoidosis in 1993 according to the criteria by the laboratory data (the elevation of serum angiotensin-converting enzyme to 23.6 IU/L and lysozyme to 10.8 μg/mL) and skin and breast biopsies (non-caseating epithelioid cell granulomas). She was followed by observation without the administration of any treatment but in 2003, she developed third-degree atrioventricular block as a result of cardiac sarcoidosis. A pacemaker was implanted, and again she was followed by observation. In December 2010, at the age of 77, the patient came to our hospital with a slight fever and epigastric pain. Two weeks later, she developed dyspnea and systemic edema and was admitted to our hospital. Her weight had increased from 48.0 to 57.1 kg in one month. A physical examination revealed bilateral cervical and axillary lymph node swelling and legpitting edema ; however, no rheumatological, dermatological, neurological or ophthalmological abnormalities were observed. The laboratory findings showed a white blood cell count of 8,600/μL ; however, the C-reactive protein level had increased to 15.94 mg/dL. A coagulation disorder was evident with a fibrin/fibrinogen degradation product level of 51.3 μg/mL and a D-dimer level of 24.9 μg/mL. While the serum levels of calcium, angiotensin-converting enzyme, lysozyme, IgG and IgG4 were within normal limits, the serum interleukin-6 (IL-6) level was found to have increased slightly to 18 pg/mL. The serum level of vascular endothelial growth factor increased to 69.4 pg/ml. Human herpesvirus-8 (HHV8) DNA was not found in the serum. Table 1 shows additional data. A serological test for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was negative, as were both quantiFERON®-TB and tuberculin tests. The arterial blood gas test was unremarkable, and cultures of blood, sputum and the fluids of ascites and pleural effusion were sterile. A closer inspection of the ascites and pleural effusion revealed unremarkable results, except for a marked increase in the IL-6 levels (Fig. 3). Chest radiography showed bilateral hilar lymphadenopathy and dull costophrenic angles ; however, no abnormal opacities were


This paper uses a detailed industry-level data base of industry prices in the manufacturing sector in Canada and the United States to investigate whether prices are co-integrated in the two countries and whether the relationship between the two sets of prices follows the law of one price. We find that aggregate Canadian price movements track U.S. price movements closely, but not perfectly, in the long run. But there are substantial deviations from the law of one price in the short run. Moreover, many individual industries deviate from the law of one price. These deviations are related to the degree of tariff protection and to the degree of product differentiation at the industry level.


According to the problem of being high cost and leng development cycle in the present machine vision ststem, which is with hardware as core, using LabVIEW as development platform a new machine vision system has been developed with software as core. The drive of image acquisition card of DAHENG, image processing, image matching and robot snatch programming is designed and applied to examine seal quantity of the capsule. The real operation indicates that the system has integrality, real time and is easy to develop twice.


The aim of the study was to examine the habits of high school and primary school students related to diet and physical activity before and after the period of social isolation. Furthermore, the relationship between parents' attitudes about the importance of physical activity and their children's motivation to engage in it was examined. The online questionnaire was completed by 25,274 parents of primary school students and 5,169 high school graduates from the Republic of Croatia. The results show a trend of decreasing motivation to engage in physical activities, as well as an increase in the number of meals consumed per day among all students. Furthermore, there was a low positive correlation between parental attitudes and the motivation of their children to engage in physical activity both before and during social isolation. In conclusion, this large-scale study showed that due to social isolation there was a significant decrease in the motivation for physical activity and an increase in the number of daily meals.


Objective To study the effect of Interleukin-25 on expressing Th2 inflammatory factor in mouse asthma by nuocyte cells. Methods Nuocytes were collected from mouse spleen of OVA-induced asthma model by density gradient centrifugation. Samples were divided into 3 groups according to different intervention conditions:Interleukin-25 group; control group; anti-Interleukin-25 group. The expression of Interleukin-5 and Interleukin-13 proteins in nuocyte cells supernatant was detected by ELISA. The expression of Interleukin-5 and Interleukin-13 in nuocyte cells was detected by Western blot. The expression of Interleukin-5 and Interleukin-13 mRNA was detected by RT-PCR. The number of nuocyte cells was detected by flow cytometry. Results The expression of Interleukin-5 and Interleukin-13 protein and related gene in Interleukin-25 group was higer than that in the control group or anti-Interleukin-25 group( P 0. 05). The number of nuocyte cells in Interleukin-25 groupwas more than that in control group or anti-interleukin-25( P 0. 05). Conclusions Interleukin-25 can promote the expressing Interleukin-5 and Interleukin-13 in asthma by nuocyte cells and promote the occurrence and development of asthma.


Pile-up carbides in high speed steel W-Mo series in different annealing processes were investigated by means of SEM and the types of pile-up carbides were analyzed by EDS.The results showed that the carbides at the pile-up site was M6C,and the main causes for the pile-up of carbides were the improper choices of the isothermal temperature and time in isothermal annealing process.The piled-up carbides in steels could be eliminated by reannealing at lower temperature.


A new method has been proposed in which the controller is approximated by two low order models, the second being the sensitivity model of the first. Thus a Kind of piecewise solution is proposed in which the system retains the same order irrespective of the number of parameters to be considered for low sensitivity design. The usefulness of the proposed technique is illustrated in the controller design for a direct cycle BWR power plant of 457 MW(thermal) with recirculation control. The mathematical model includes the reactor kinetics, hydrodynamics of the recirculation loop, pressure transients, and the load frequency control system. The response of system variables such as frequency, neutron power, and reactor pressure are plotted with the low sensitivitty controller. The sensitivity function of frequency has been plotted using the conventional and proposed low sensitivity controller for 20 per cent variation in parameter values. The method is specifically recommended for controller design of large size systems.


To characterize peritoneal carcinomatosis (PC) of different histologically proven primary tumors based on diffusion‐weighted imaging (DWI) and 18F‐FDG positron emission tomography (PET).


In this thesis, the design and implementation of an improved current controller for grid-tied converters is discussed. Using this improved current controller, a power factor correction test platform achieves practically zero AC and DC error in steady-state. The power factor corrector accomplishes this by utilizing the parallel combination of a proportional-integral controller and a resonator to form the proportional-integral-resonant controller. The integrator in the controller has infinite gain at 0Hz while the resonator has infinite gain at the fundamental grid frequency. The extreme gain at these frequencies attenuates the error between reference current and actual current to practically zero. In prior art the proportional-integral-resonant (PIR) controller is implemented using the same resonator type that is also used in the well-known proportional-resonant (PR) controller. However, the use of this so-called cosine-form resonator might destabilize the closed-loop system. As a result, such a cosine-form resonator might not be the most suitable option to use in the PIR controller. This thesis researches the use of the sine-form resonator, which has been considered to be inferior to the cosine-form in prior art. The results show that the sine-form resonator can make a PIR controller perform better in terms of stability and disturbance rejection. Simulations and experimental results confirm that both the DC and AC steady-state error is attenuated to near zero, resulting in excellent tracking of the reference current. If multiple harmonic frequencies are present in the grid voltage, additional resonators can be implemented to attenuate these harmonics as well. The second contribution of this thesis focusses on the optimization for the numerically-controlled-oscillator used in the phase-locked loop in terms of computational load. By implementing the numerically-controlled-oscillator using a numerical resonator, an accurate but computationally efficient phase-locked loop is obtained. This originates from the fact that the numerical resonator integrates the angular frequency supplied by the loop filter in the complex plane. Experiments involving the phase-locked loop subroutine running on a Cortex-M4f microcontroller show an improvement in computation time of a factor of three compared to the use of trigonometric functions. In comparison to an implementation using a look-up table with interpolation, execution time is cut in half. The third and final contribution of this thesis focusses on the improvement of the voltage loop bandwidth. This is achieved by the implementation of an adaptive notch filter to remove the second-order harmonic voltage ripple from the DC bus voltage measurements. The notch filter is based on a second-order generalized integrator quadrature-system generator using the information supplied by the phase-locked loop to automatically tune the centre frequency to the second harmonic.


The nonelastic cross section of beryllium for 14.2-Mev neutrons has been measured using the sphere transmission technique. Corrections have been applied to the data, principally for multiple scattering and energy loss of neutrons in elastic collisions. The result is sigma /sub ne/ = 0.50 plus or minus 0.01 barn. (auth)


During an influenza A(H7N7) virus outbreak among poultry in Italy during August–September 2013, infection with a highly pathogenic A(H7N7) avian influenza virus was diagnosed for 3 poultry workers with conjunctivitis. Genetic analyses revealed that the viruses from the humans were closely related to those from chickens on affected farms.


The invention relates to a key structure which comprises a key and an elastic sheet, wherein the elastic sheet comprises a first holding part; one side of the first holding part is abutted with the key, and the other side of the first holding part is provided with at least one first electric connection terminal; the elastic sheet also comprises a curve part extending from the periphery of the first holding part and facing the direction away from the key and a second holding part buckling and extending from the end of the curve part; the curve part is provided with a second electric connection terminal in a pressing direction of the key; the second electric connection terminal is positioned in front of the first electric connection terminal; and the second connection terminal is staggered with the first electric connection terminal in the pressing direction of the key. The invention also provides a portable electronic device using the key structure. The two-section type elastic sheet key structure enables the keys with two different functions to be integrated, and misoperation can be reduced.


The necessity of making the notion «forms of management» more precise from the viewpoint of its relationship with the economic structure in the agrarian sector and on the ground of institutional approach is substantiated in the article. Special emphasis is laid to the fact that identical forms of management can be functioning under different forms of landowning. By the author's opinion, in the process of defining the economic notion of management forms the stresses are being shifted from the dominating role of ownership relations, including the important role of informal ones, to an institutional approach.


The lineal-path function L(z) for two-phase heterogeneous media gives the probability of finding a line segment of length z wholly in one of the phases, say phase 1, when randomly thrown into the sample. The function L(z) is equivalent to the area fraction of phase 1 measured from the projected image of a slab of the material of thickness z onto a plane. The lineal-path function is of interest in stereology and is an important morphological descriptor in determining the transport properties of heterogeneous media


With increasing wind-power penetration, new types of generators are introduced in the power systems and their impact over the voltage stability must be analyzed. This paper is concerned with the effectiveness of voltage stability index in providing information about the proximity to instability of a power system that includes a doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG). The study is carried out over a wide range of system operating conditions by changing the level of wind power penetration and the load of the system. The Western System Coordinating Council (WSCC) 9 bus modified system is used as a test case and simulation is performed using Matlab-based toolbox (PSAT). The results show that the voltage stability of the network can be improved at low levels of wind penetration and for that conclusion a voltage stability index can be used how an important tool.


Many papers have recently reported on the in vitro culture of ovarian tissue or isolated follicles. Strips of ovarian tissue have been cultured to understand the mechanisms and the hormonal requirements of the activation of primordial follicles, their growth, and development of steroidogenic capacities. Isolated follicles, encapsulated in hydrogel matrices, have been cultured to study how to promote follicle development in vitro and how to exploit the reproductive potential of cryopreserved ovarian tissue of pre-pubertal girls with premature ovarian failure or of women needing immediate cancer treatment. Culture techniques have also been proposed as in vitro models to study folliculogenesis, to screen new drugs, and for toxicological studies. Ma ny publications address the optimization of culture media and supplements provision, and of the matrices used for encapsulating ovarian tissue and follicles. Bioreactors have been proposed which are suited to the small scale of the tissue samples, varying for configuration and operation mode with the aim of enhancing and controlling transport of nutrients, oxygen and biochemical cues to tissue. The broadly differing bioreactor types and operating conditions that have been proposed suggest that the optimization of bioreactor design is often approached in empiric fashion without paying due attention to the interplay of occurring flow and mass transport phenomena and cells metabolism. In this paper, the theoretical aspects of solutes transport to cells in ovarian tissue or encapsulated follicle preparations are briefly discussed, and used for analyzing the relevant transport features of some bioreactors proposed for ovarian tissue culture. The analysis suggests that a rational and multidisciplinary approach to bioreactor design for ovarian tissue and follicle culture in vitro is highly desirable to exploit the full potential of in vitro culture techniques and to advance knowledge in the field of assisted reproduction.


The cost accounting plays a great role in the financial affairs.This paper just analyses some problems that we should pay great attention to in the cost accounting and how do the costing better. That means the cost management is a very important measure for increasing benefits of enterprises.


International trade with the economic globalization gaining wide currency has brought along the environmental problems. Transition to environment-friendly high-tech products and schemes in developed countries alleviated the impacts of these problems whereas underdeveloped environmental standards in developing countries still cause deterioration in the environmental quality. For this reason, there are different views on the environmental impacts of globalization. The study investigates the impact of globalization and trade openness on CO2 emissions with reference to the NAFTA countries. Employing panel-data analysis, the study relies on the annual data for a period of 1990–2015. The findings reveal that there is a positive relationship between economic globalization and trade openness, and CO2 emissions. The study further tests the validity of Environmental Kuznets Curve for the target countries. To this end, the research identifies a positive-direction relationship in both linear and square forms between CO2 emissions and economic growth.


The continuously rising costs in healthcare, the growing size of the population who will need healthcare services, and the rise of expectations regarding the quality of healthcare services all create a high need for new approaches to reduce healthcare costs with good management. In this paper we focus on design an autonomic cloud environment to help management of healthcare services by design perfect monitoring system. We applied Service-oriented architectures (SOA) to minimize cost by distributed services for many users, and realized integrated services in healthcare. To evaluated our system design we take as case study, analyze and monitoring ElectroMyoGram (EMG) data by software services. Furthermore, an application that analyzes collected data is demonstrated.


In this note, we show that the Hausdorff operator $H_{\Phi}$ is unbounded on a large family of Quasi-Banach spaces, unless $H_{\Phi}$ is a zero operator.


This work intends to contribute to the use of techniques to represent free forms in didactic activities. It enlarges a previous study using only one technique to represent parametric curves and surfaces. It includes the NURBS technique, without discharging the BEZIER technique used before. Some exercises were structured using both techniques to model a representative example of Architecture: the Ronchamp Chapel . architect Le Corbusier. The tasks were compared to highlight the knowledge elements existing in both activities and its necessity of enlargement to move from one to another. Its is observed that the use of different techniques, as NURBS and Bezier, emphasize the specific characteristics of the geometric entities, establishing the control of parameters for free forms in the context of architectural graphics.


The D10G4.1 T cell line has a receptor for I-A/sup k/ and conalbumin. The monoclonal mouse antibody 3D3 binds to and activates this receptor. In the presence of either IL-1 or IL-2, and 3D3 antibody, D10 cells are stimulated to divide. If 3D3 antibody was added to the cells first, IL-1 or IL-2 could be added up to 12 hours later, with only about 45% decrease in response as measured by tritiated thymidine (/sup 3/HTdR) uptake at 72 hours. Similarly, if IL-2 was added first, the addition of 3D3 antibody could be delayed as much as 12 hours with only slight decline (18%) in /sup 3/HTdR uptake. However, if the cells were exposed to IL-1 for only two hours before the addition of 3D3, the response was reduced by 76%, and if 3D3 addition was delayed to 12 hours, the response was reduced by 95%. These results suggest that exposure of D10 cells to IL-1 alone, in the absence of an antigen stimulus strongly inhibits the subsequent response to antigen.


The development of a system able to detect and track moving people is described. Given a sequence of time-varying images, the goal is to count the number of people crossing a counting line. A motion detection module first determines whether any person has entered the scene; a tracking module combining prediction and matching then follows people until they reach the counting line. The efficiency of the proposed approach is illustrated and assessed using sequences of images taken in a real environment.<<ETX>>


and implications New methods for genotyping large numbers of genetic markers have been developed, which are cheaper and faster than previous techniques. Iowa State University researchers helped to develop a tool known as the porcine 60K SNP chip that can genotype 64,232 genetic markers simultaneously in a single pig. Similar SNP chips are available for many other species, including sheep, chicken, cattle and dog. These new chips allow for trait association studies to be conducted using many more genetic markers spread across the genome (known as genome-wide association studies or GWASs). In our lab GWASs were performed for a variety of traits in pigs, sheep, and dogs. In pigs, a number of candidate genetic markers and chromosomal regions were associated with feed intake, average daily gain, body composition (such as 10 rib backfat and loin muscle area), feet and leg structure (such as overall leg action, front and rear leg pasterns), and reproductive traits. Other work in pigs involved looking for duplicated regions of the genome to identify genes that were duplicated, which could impact many traits in the pig. In sheep, chondrodysplasia (a condition in which the legs are malformed and other problems arise) was found to be associated with a group of consecutive markers on one chromosome. SNP chip research in dogs is ongoing to look for genes associated with cryptorchidism (retained testicles). These findings offer a promising list of genetic markers that can hopefully be used in the near future to improve animal production via lowered input costs and reduced incidence of disease.


A new CNC incremental process with ORIGAMI method in which a shell is formed from a flat blank by means of pre-bending process (ORIGAMI process) and subsequent incremental stretch-expanding process has been proposed in order to prevent the thinning phenomena. Although the process has the advantage of preventing the thinning phenomena, a method for preventing the forming defects, such as wrinkling, remains unknown. In this study, the forming defects occurred in the process have been experimentally investigated. Aluminum and its alloy blanks were bent into a shape inscribed in an automobile trunk-lid-type panel, and then stretch-expanded to the panel shape, and the deformation behavior was examined. It was found that formability of the process is dependent not only on the degree of surface distortions of the panel, such as wrinkling and puckering, but also on the remainder of pre-bent shape caused by elastic deflections during the stretch-expanding process. Experimental results showed that these distortions and the remainder of pre-bent shape can be overcome by employing the stretch-expanding process with reciprocating tool-path.


The model has been evolved as continuation of earlier findings by Donna G.T. (2009) from the point of identification of relatedness between knowledge area and performance indicators. The attempt to establish the strength of the relationship between the KA and PI has drawn also the attention of researcher to introduce the artifact as input and performance deliverable as output. Using mixed model approach throughout the study for assessing the managerial implication of research, added value to the PMBOK of project management professionals to meet future career challenges. -Prof A Selvarasu, Annamalai University


Last year, Jean-Laurent Casanova published a landmark article in Science demonstrating that a child had life-threatening influenza because of genetic loss of interferon regulatory factor 7 (1). This paper provided the first evidence that severe influenza could be due to mutations in genes encoding factors that are specifically required for responding to influenza infection rather than mutations that cause a general immunodeficiency. The study followed on two decades of research from Dr. Casanova's laboratory demonstrating that individual cases of severe infection can result from an underlying human genetic defect in a number of different infectious diseases. With this year's Stanley J. Korsmeyer Award, the ASCI recognizes Jean-Laurent Casanova's pioneering work in the field of human genetics of infectious diseases (Figure 1). The JCI recently had the opportunity to speak with him about the prize and his research accomplishments. JCI: What attracted you first to a career in medicine and then in research? Casanova: Immediately after high school, I began both a medical and a scientific curriculum, with the intention to pursue both careers together. I tailored my own physician-scientist training program at two separate universities, Paris Descartes University for the MD and the residency in pediatrics, and Paris Pierre et Marie Curie University for the MSc and the PhD in immunology, sometimes in the same year (the MD and MSc [...] News


The present study contains the most important results from the sedimentological and petrophysical analysis of two Cretaceous cores (SVS-225/229) located in the Block IX of Lake maracaibo, northwestern Venezuela. In order to better define and locate sites for exploratory drilling, a study was undertaken to describe calcareous facies and their relationship to matrix porosity, open fractures, sedimentary and flow units. The sedimentary units were grouped on the basis similar characteristics and vertical and horizontal extrapolation potential. They also serve as indicators to determine the major sedimentary environments and help define the sedimentological model for the section under study. The most promising calcareous facies are composed of dolomites, wackestones, packstones and grainstones. They are all related to the open fractures, their orientation and density. The flow units were determined using these characteristics together with the oil impregnation observed in the cores. Also they were found to be mainly related to the coarsening upper sedimentary sequences. The identification of these units and their correlation to neighboring areas is useful for in the effectively managing processes for the Cretaceous oil reservoirs.


PURPOSE: An outer casing of a microwave oven is provided to prevent the deformation of an outer casing due to the exterior force and to improve the reliability of the appearance of a product by making the outer casing elastically restore the shape. CONSTITUTION: An outer casing(110) of a microwave oven has an upper face(112) and a side(114) extended downwardly from both upper sides. A reinforcing bead(112a,114a) recessed inwardly or outwardly along the edge of the upper face or the side is formed on the upper face or the side of the outer casing. According to the reinforcing bead, the outer casing has sufficient supporting power against the exterior force.


The invention relates to an artificial eye lens (1) having an optical member (2) having a direction of an optical main axis (A) of the artificial eye lens (1) is considered first optical side (4) and an opposed second optical side (5) , being formed in a haptic (3) of the artificial eye lens (1) and / or at least partially surrounding in an optical portion (2) and the haptic (3) different enclosure (6) has a structure with at least one recess, the structure (7, 8) is constructed as microperforation having a plurality of perforation zones (7a, 8a) and at least some perforation zones (7a, 8a) are filled at least partially to produce a drug depot comprising at least one drug. The invention also relates to a method for producing such artificial eye lens (1).


Air pollution by particle matter (PM10 - particulate matter with a diameter between 2.5 and 10µm) is going up recently in Ruse region, Bulgaria [1,2]. It becomes clear also recently that the mean values of the temperature in Ruse region are slightly goes up for the last 40 years and they are bigger than the mean temperature for Bulgaria. This could be a proof for climate change and warming in Ruse region. The presence of PM10 maybe affects the main atmospheric characteristics - temperature, atmospheric pressure and humidity. In our work [3] we examined in more details the influence of the temperature on the PM10 contamination during January months. This paper is one continuation of [3] and is devoted to examine the PM10 pollution in Ruse region during winter and its relationship with some other atmospheric characteristics (atmospheric pressure and humidity). It presents a statistical analysis of the level of PM10 air pollution in Ruse using data from the monitoring stations in the city [4]. The measurements cover the period since 2011 up to now. Descriptive statistics of PM10 as well as linear regression modeling are also presented and commented in the paper.Air pollution by particle matter (PM10 - particulate matter with a diameter between 2.5 and 10µm) is going up recently in Ruse region, Bulgaria [1,2]. It becomes clear also recently that the mean values of the temperature in Ruse region are slightly goes up for the last 40 years and they are bigger than the mean temperature for Bulgaria. This could be a proof for climate change and warming in Ruse region. The presence of PM10 maybe affects the main atmospheric characteristics - temperature, atmospheric pressure and humidity. In our work [3] we examined in more details the influence of the temperature on the PM10 contamination during January months. This paper is one continuation of [3] and is devoted to examine the PM10 pollution in Ruse region during winter and its relationship with some other atmospheric characteristics (atmospheric pressure and humidity). It presents a statistical analysis of the level of PM10 air pollution in Ruse using data from the monitoring stations in the city [4]. The measuremen...


A R T I C L E H I S T O R Y Content list available at http://ijltr.urmia.ac.ir Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research 10.30466/ijltr.2019.120737 72 Sh. Donyaiea & H. Soodmand Afshar/EFL teachers' reflective ... Introduction Teachers formerly focused mainly on the 'methods' of foreign language teaching which urged them to have a basically top-down relationship with learners (Akbari, 2007). The 'post-method' paradigm revolutionized this top-down relation, held teachers accountable for their actions and encouraged them to reflect over what they had been doing in their classes (Kumaravadivelu, 2001). Subsequently, in light of such paradigm shifts, reflective teacher education came into existence wherein teachers were no longer considered as passive followers of others' theories, but as reflective practitioners theorizing their practices and practicing their theories (Kumaravadivelu, 2006; Griffiths, 2000). Accordingly, reflection has become inextricably intertwined with every classroom practice as teachers actively engage in doing reflection while they are teaching (reflection-in-action), on the things that they have taught and done in their classes (reflection-on-action) and for the things they are going to teach (reflection-for-action) (Schön, 1983). Hence, imagining an educational context in which teachers act without reflection is now impossible (Akbari, 2007). Moreover, considering the need for the persistent and continued progress in teaching, teachers should pursue their improvement through both individual and collective reflective practice (Moradkhani & Shirazizadeh, 2017). Reflection is thus one of the tools through which teachers would be able to think over, challenge and reconstruct their faulty instructional activities and classroom behavior. One of the major means through which teacher reflection can take place is RJW as employed in the current study. Journals as "speech written down ... allow writers to observe, question, speculate, digress and show self-awareness" (Casanave, 2011, p. 4). RJW is of crucial importance in teaching, learning and research due to its three various roles mentioned by Casanave (2011) which include personal, cognitive and social functions that encompass expressing feelings openly, becoming aware of self and building up relationship with others respectively.


Background: The role of job satisfaction is essential for the operation of public Primary Healthcare Centers in Greece. The dimensions of job satisfaction can be used to gauge employees' engagement and performance. Methods: Job Satisfaction Survey was employed among healthcare professionals in 32 Primary Healthcare Centers, between June 2019 and October 2020. The 36 items of the questionnaire are expressed on a six-point Likert scale divided into 9 aspects: salary, promotion, supervision, fringe benefits, contingent rewards, operating procedures, co-workers, nature of work, and communication. Additional questions were added covering sociodemographic characteristics. Results: A total of 1,007 professionals completed the questionnaire (83.92% response rate), of which 51.04% were nurses, 27.61% physicians, and 21.35% other healthcare employees. The average overall job satisfaction score indicates ambivalence (3.63 out of 6). Participants were dissatisfied with salaries (2.38) and promotion (2.84) aspects and ambivalent regarding fringe benefits (3.04), operating procedures (3.23), and contingent rewards (3.30). Moderate satisfaction was reported for the nature of work (4.53), supervision (4.52), co-workers (4.37), and communication (4.22). Nurses by far reported the lower levels of satisfaction in all dimension except communication compared to the other groups. Conclusions: The findings suggest that decreasing administrative workload and the improvement of working conditions, procedures, payment, and provision of better opportunities for the promotion of PHC professionals might be the most effective ways to subsequently improve their subjective well-being and their job satisfaction which in turn will improve their performance. (www.actabiomedica.it)


Sir, I appreciate the opportunity to respond to the critical comments raised by Drs Laake and Bugge regarding my presentation on 'Prevention and treatment of post-operative acute renal failure' at the Scandinavian Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine (SSAI) Meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, this year (1). They criticize my 'list of recommendations directed at preventing post-operative acute renal failure (ARF)', presented at the end of my presentation, as being 'not supported by evidence' and that 'some may even turn out to be harmful'. One question that immediately arises from their Letter is: Why did Drs Laake and Bugge not express any of their concerns regarding my presentation 'in plenum' at the meeting? Furthermore, their comments reminded me of a statement from one of my mentors in clinical science: 'There are three types of clinical scientist, one who performs prospective randomized clinical trials, a second who performs meta-analyses of already published trials and a third whose major contribution to clinical science is to criticize the work of the first'. Unfortunately, Drs Laake and Bugge have misunderstood the main messages presented in the final three concluding slides of my presentation. In my presentation, I distinguished between single agents vs. combined therapy for the prevention/treatment of ARF. When used as single agents in post-operative ARF, neither dopamine (2, 3) nor furosemide (2) has a preventive effect or has been shown to improve renal outcome (dialysis) in prospectively randomized controlled trials (RCT) (4, 5). However, it has been shown in a RCT that combined treatment with dopamine, furosemide and mannitol infusion clearly decreases the incidence of dialysis when compared with bolus doses of furosemide (or torasemide) alone in early post-operative ARF (6). This multimodal approach to the treatment of early postoperative ARF was one of my recommendations on the final slide. This distinction between a single-agent and multimodal approach for the treatment of early ARF was obviously not understood by Drs Laake and Bugge. Dopexamine and fenoldopam were not included in my 'list of recommendations'. Although it has been shown that both dopexamine and fenoldopam prevent a fall in creatinine clearance after cardiac surgery (7, 8), there have, until recently, been no studies on the effect of these agents on renal outcome. Drs Laake and Bugge refer to a recent RCT (published after the SSAI Meeting), which showed that fenoldopam does not reduce the incidence of dialysis (or death) in early post-operative ARF compared with placebo (9) Drs Laake and Bugge also state that furosemide 'might even be harmful' in the treatment of ARF, referring to an observational study by Mehta et al. (10) using a propensity score model with significant potential shortcomings (11). The findings of Mehta et al. that diuretics were associated with a higher mortality in critically ill patients was, however, not confirmed in a recent, large, prospective, observational study using adequate statistical analysis (12). On the contrary, these authors concluded that the use of diuretics should not be discouraged in critically ill patients with ARF. Furosemide decreases renal oxygen consumption (13) by inhibiting active sodium transport in the medullary thick ascending limb of Henle (14), and should therefore, theoretically, improve the renal oxygen supply—demand relationship during ischaemia. Numerous studies have shown that furosemide increases the tolerance to ischaemia in experimental ARF [see Swärd et al. (13)]. A RCT on the effects of furosemide on renal outcome in early ARF has not yet been performed and should be encouraged, as also suggested by the B.E.S.T. Kidney Investigators (12). Mannitol increases the sodium load to the thick ascending limb of Henle and may increase the oxygen requirements of the outer medulla (15). However, when mannitol is combined with furosemide, the net effect is an increase in medullary tissue PO2 (15). It would therefore be logical to combine mannitol and furosemide in the treatment of early clinical ARF, particularly as it has been shown in experimental ARF that increased tubular solute flow by mannitol relieves tubular obstruction. Tubular obstruction, caused by luminal casts of epithelial cells, is considered to be an important pathophysiological mechanism of early ARF (16). I agree with Drs Laake and Bugge that maintaining haemodynamic stability is one of the most important criteria to prevent the need for dialysis. However, I do not share their opinion that norepinephrine 'reduces the glomerular filtration rate in healthy volunteers'. It has repeatedly been shown in healthy volunteers (17—21) that norepinephrine-induced renal vasoconstriction does not change the glomerular filtration rate, indicating that norepinephrine induces a balanced preand post-glomerular vasoconstriction. Haemodynamic instability was a major problem in the studies by Allgren et al. (22) and Lewis et al. (23). They failed to show a statistically significant improvement in dialysis-free survival, or a decreased need for dialysis, with atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) compared with placebo, most probably because they used a dose of ANP (200 ng/kg/min) that was too high, and therefore had significant problems with hypotension in the ANP group compared with the placebo group. Ninety-four per cent of the ANP group vs. 45% of the placebo group became hypotensive, that is, had a systolic blood pressure of <90 mmHg. We have shown in two pharmacodynamic studies that the optimal dose of ANP is 50—100 ng/kg/min with respect to renal blood flow and glomerular filtration rate (24, 25). At a dose of 100 ng/kg/min or higher, both the glomerular filtration rate and renal blood flow decline towards pre-treatment levels in conjunction with a fall in the mean arterial blood pressure (24). In our study on the effects of ANP on the incidence of dialysis and dialysis-free survival (26), we used a dose of 50 ng/kg/min. The incidence of hypotension was similar in the ANP and placebo groups. Another limitation of the studies by Allgren et al. (22) and Lewis et al. (23) was that the duration of the anaritide infusion was only 24 h, compared with 4—6 days in our study. Finally, renal dysfunction at patient enrolment was much more severe in the studies by Allgren et al. (22) and Lewis et al. (23) compared with the patients in our study. This indicates that the beneficial effects of ANP on renal function and outcome are seen in patients with early renal dysfunction. We and others (26—28) have commented on these limitations of the studies by Allgren et al. (22) and Lewis et al. (23) in a 'Letter to the Editor' (27), in our recent paper (26) and in an 'Editorial' on our recent paper (28). Acta Anaesthesiol Scand 2006; 50: 256—258 # 2006 The Authors Printed in UK. All rights reserved Journal compilation # 2006 Acta Anaesthesiol Scand


Solid state NMR spectra of ${}^{29}\mathrm{Si}$ are reported from pure and vanadium-doped zircon $({\mathrm{V}\ensuremath{-}\mathrm{Z}\mathrm{r}\mathrm{S}\mathrm{i}\mathrm{O}}_{4})$ samples. The vanadium concentration is varied up to $\ensuremath{\sim}1\ensuremath{-}\mathrm{mol}%{\mathrm{V}}^{4+}$ by using both conventional-firing and sol-gel routes, and ${}^{51}\mathrm{V}$ NMR data are also recorded. ${}^{17}\mathrm{O}$ NMR of ${}^{17}\mathrm{O}$ isotopically enriched samples shows that the initial gel is completely amorphous with the whole range of possible $M\ensuremath{-}\mathrm{O}{\ensuremath{-}M}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ linkages detected, and that this structure evolves into a fully ordered ${\mathrm{ZrSiO}}_{4}$ structure with calcination. Static ${}^{91}\mathrm{Zr}$ NMR data is reported from a pure zircon sample. The NMR data are used to quantify the amount of vanadium entering the zircon structure, and to elucidate its site preference within the lattice. Two contact shifted peaks with very different ${T}_{1}$ relaxation from the main zircon peak but attributable to the zircon lattice are observed in the ${}^{29}\mathrm{Si}$ NMR spectra for all samples. These spectra are consistent with vanadium substitution on both the tetrahedral and dodecahedral sites, with a slight preference for the silicon site. The data show that the relative occupation of these two sites is almost independent of the preparation method and vanadium concentration. At a higher vanadium concentration a third additional peak is observed which may indicate another substitution site. Variable temperature NMR and susceptibility measurements indicate the hyperfine nature of the interactions influencing silicon from ${\mathrm{V}}^{4+}$ ions in the different sites.


In the present study, duplicate diets (four-day survey) of 28 Ethiopian children were analysed for iron, zinc and iodine. The mothers of the children filled out a food frequency questionnaire describing general intake of local food ingredients. The average daily intake of zinc was found to be 5.7 ± 5.2 mg, while the daily intake of iron and iodine was 52 ± 43 mg and 0.13 ± 0.10 mg, respectively. Most of the investigated children had an adequate nutrient intake of zinc and iodine, while the intake of iron was high compared to international recommendations. There was a great individual variation in intake of these trace elements, and even though the mean and median values were above or in the range of the requirement, some children had a too low intake of zinc and iodine. The iron intake varied the most, and was generally high. The diet was cereal based and contained little fruit and food of animal origin which may reduce the availability of iron and zinc.


In order to understand attitudes towards work- related ethics and the teaching of business ethics in management programmes at universities, a survey was conducted with management students at two universities, one in the Republic of Cyprus (hereafter referred to as Cyprus) and the other in the Republic of South Africa (hereafter referred to as South Africa). An attempt was also made to investigate whether such differences, if any, were linked to differences in national culture. The findings indicate that no significant differences between the two samples exist on four of the five dimensions of national culture (Hofstede, 1994) and, accordingly, differences in attitudes towards workplace ethical issues cannot be said to be linked to this variable. Significant differences were found between the two samples on certain questionnaire items that related to workplace practices with the Cypriot sample, more so than the South African sample, appearing to be willing to engage in certain workplace practices that would be deemed unethical in society. It is recommended that ethics education be integral to a business curriculum and that teaching methodologies explore ways in which to develop moral reasoning in students.


Verlinde (2016) has proposed a new modified theory of gravity, Emergent Gravity (EG), as an alternative to dark matter. EG reproduces the Tully-Fisher relationship with no free parameters and agrees with the velocity curves of most massive, spiral galaxies well. In its current form, the theory only applies to isolated, spherically symmetric systems in a dark energy-dominated Universe, and thus can only be tested fairly with such systems. This paper presents a framework for rotation curve tests of EG using isolated dwarf galaxies. Here I extend the EG equations to axisymmetric distributions for the first time. I also perform a preliminary test of the predictions from EG versus the maximum velocity measurements of 452 isolated dwarf galaxies. I find that EG predicts the maximum velocities of these systems somewhat well for galaxies with measured velocities around 100 km/s. EG severely underpredicts the maximum velocities for dwarf galaxies with measured velocities greater than this value and overpredicts for those with measured velocities less than this value. Rotation curves of these isolated dwarf galaxies would provide the definitive test of EG.


In the Baroque period, which was very important in the music history, crucial Dynamics such as science, art, philosophy, social structure were questioned with the changing World order. This process had wide reflections on music in the 17th Century and had a lead on the development swhich were milestones in humanity. Under the effects mentioned and with the compositions of the musicians of Camerata, GroundBass was gradually replaced by the musical forms like Opera, Madrigal, Concerto, Sonat, Choral-Prelud, Tocatto, Fuga, Dance Suite and reappeared in the 20th Century. Keywords: 17thCentury Music,


For the sake of the development of the electronic technology and the more severe competition, the teaching method should be improved so as to raise the teaching quality and cultivate the practical talents that adapt to the feature of vocational technology education. The heuristic teaching should be paid more attention and thus activate the creative ability of the students. Meanwhile, under the principle of more practice and less theory, the teaching material should be used with pertinence so that the teaching quality can be enhanced.


Compared with commercial industry of the ordinary industry, ethnic culture tourism creative industry has the characteristics of the reliance of commercial model, value networks, risk, high demand of operation, etc. The strategies such as establishing the development environment of commercial model, the orientation of products and development, the industry brand marketing, market industry operation, industrial chain extension, the construction of industrial clusters are the effective commercial models of ethnic culture tourism creative industry of Phoenix Old City. The successful experience of the commercial models of ethnic culture tourism creative industry of Phoenix Old City has a strong referential significance to external environment of constructing commercial model development in other ethnic areas of our country, exploring the source of commercial model value based on ethnic culture tourism creation, innovating the realization model of industrial value, and realizing the value extension of commercial model and developing culture tourism creative industry.


The integration of the photovoltaic (PV) solar systems into distribution networks has brought new challenges to the network planners. One of the most interesting is to prevent the impacts of the PV intermittent character on the steady state system operation conditions. This work is aimed to investigate such effect on voltage performance, conventional generator daily behavior and automatic voltage regulator operation. Simulations were conducted on a 33-bus IEEE radial distribution power system. In order to provide a reliable study, a real PV power profile was considered. Obtained results over a period of 24 hours revealed that the PV integration contributes to an enhancement of the overall voltage profile, a considerable saving in the total amount of the produced active power and a reduction of power losses. However, the PV intermittent character causes significant transformation in buses voltages daily profiles as well as changes in production plan. To sum up, this paper reports the alterations, caused by the PV source intermittence, which must be taken into consideration by the distribution networks planners to maintain the overall network parameters within safe operating condition


Introduction: 9 out of 10 stroke events are attributable to modifiable (including lifestyle) risk factors. Therefore, long-term preventative health behaviour changes (PHBCs) is critical for reducin...


The main hosts in plague natural foci play a key role in the spread of plague and the preservation of Yersinia pestis . However, the plague hosts in natural foci have been showing diversity in recent years. Especially the non-primary hosts in plague natural foci have become a classic mode of plague transmission, posing a serious threat to human health. The relationship between hosts and plague transmission is presented in this paper to provide guidance for the development of measures for plague monitoring, prevention and control.


This paper presents new structural and training strategies for neural control systems. First, we show that the existing neural control structures can be brought to a single learning structure. Then, a new FeedForward Error Propagation (FEP) learning algorithm is tailored especially for training controllers in a direct manner without the use of identifier or any form of the plant model. This avoids the uncertainty and the computational and storage requirements related to the forward model. Finally, The main features of proposed schemes are evaluated using simulation examples. Key-words: -Adaptive and optimal control, neural networks, training algorithms, FEP algorithm. 1 Unified Direct Learning Control Structure The key problem in control systems is to design a controller which generates the desired control input so that the behavior of the plant meets a collection of specifications constituting the control objective. Usually, these specifications are expressed in terms of speed, accuracy, and stability. There are mainly, two classes of control problems: Tracking problems in which the objective is to follow a desired trajectory or a reference model. The self-tuning regulators (STR) and model reference adaptive control (MRAC) are the mostly used methods in such situations. Optimal control problems in which the objective is to extremize a functional of the controlled system's behavior. The key issue is constrained optimization. Dynamic programming is the well known approach for converting dynamic optimization into static ones. The approach proposed in this paper does not assume any special form for the plant model, but we are rather interested in unknown MIMO nonlinear plants. However, for the sake simplicity and clearness, we use a SISO plant described by the nonlinear autoregressive moving average (NARMA) model [1] )] ( ), ( [ ) ( k U k Y f d k y m n (1) where f : n+m is a nonlinear function, Yn(k) = [y(k), y(k-1),..., y(k-n+1)] is the output sequence, Um(k)= [u(k), u(k-1),..., y(k-m+1)] is the input sequence, and d denotes the relative degree which represents the pure delay from input u to output y (resulted from the inertia of the physical plant). This notion of relative degree will be used later to explain some training problems of neural controllers. If the control problem is expressed in terms of trajectory tracking, then the aim is to determine control law of the form u(k)=g1[Yn(k),yr(k+d),Um(k)] so that the error ec(k+d) at the future instant (k+d), between the plant output y(k+d) and the desired trajectory yr(k+d), becomes small. This problem is usually addressed by the STR approach. However, in the MRAC the control law u(k)=g2[Yn(k),r(k+),Um(k)] is to be found so that the plant output matches or tracks as closely as possible a reference model output. Here r(k) denotes the reference input signal. In the second family of control problems, the aim is to determine a control law u(k)=g3[Yn(k),Um(k)] which optimizes some performance criterion. If a neural network is used to implement the nonlinear control map gi(.), then the key issue is to find the convenient way to adjust the controller network weights. The main difficulty here is that of credit assignment, that is how the error in the plant output should be used to modify the controller since the unknown physical plant lies between the controller output and the plant output. Various strategies have been tried to overcome this problem. The simplest solution is to train a controller to imitate a knowledgeable controller (i.e., a teacher) which already knows how to control the plant. This supervisor can be a human expert or an artificial expert (e.g., a rule base) as proposed in [2][3]. Yet, this solution is not often practical. The second approach, referred to as generalized inverse modeling [4], is to train directly a neural network to learn the inverse dynamics of the plant and then to use it as a controller to generate the control signal. Unfortunately, this approach suffers from some drawbacks: the learning procedure is not goal directed and the minimization of the error on the controller output does not guarantee minimization of the overall system error, and in a nonlinear system the mapping is not one-one then an incorrect inverse can be obtained. Even the scheme proposed in [5], based on a single network with a switching logic, inherits the same problems. Currently, two main approaches are used to tackle the problem of training the controller net. Both of them make use of an extra network to overcome the credit assignment problem stated above. Reinforcement learning in which a critic network is trained, using one of the adaptive critic methods, to provide reinforcement signals to the action network (i.e., controller) and to assign credit to its individual actions. The critic network output plays the role of an error measure in the update of the action network weights [6][7]. Since reinforcement learning refers only to information of the kind 'right or wrong' to guide the training process, it does not require the network to generate approximations to the desired detailed input-output mappings as in the case of supervised learning schemes. Forward Modeling approach which uses a sensitivity model(i.e., a Jacobian or a neural identifier) of the plant to serve as a channel to backpropagate the error at the plant output up to the plant input [4][8][9]. This method is considered as a general purpose control scheme in the neural control literature. However, if little knowledge of the nonlinear plant is available, it is impossible to obtain an analytical expression for the Jacobian. Furthermore, the technique of neural identification can lead to wrong results when the plant involves significant delays [10]. Briefly, the NARMA model (1) means that the input at instant k affects the output only d units of time later. Therefore, if a neural identifier is used, then the back-propagated error at the controller output will always be zero since only delayed values affect the identifier output and hence no weight updating will be occurred in the controller. The authors in [11][12] have proposed the idea of dynamic back-propagation (through the delay lines). The back-propagated delayed versions of the error can be appropriately added to get the error at the controller net output. Hence, we need to store past values of error at nodes to implement this backpropagation and this also requires some prior knowledge regarding the plant structure. Another approach to deal with this issue is to use dynamic or recurrent neural networks [10][13][14]. These are trained directly as a parallel plant model but require more complex training algorithms, such as back-propagation through time [15], and hence are computationally intensive. This is a brief reminder of neurocontrol issues, proposed schemes, and related limitations which have motivated our work. The basic idea outlined throughout the paper is to overcome the credit assignment problem with an identifier-free approach. The FEP learning algorithm developed in the next section is tailored especially for this purpose. It computes the output errors (i.e., between the plant outputs and their desired values) at the controller inputs and then propagates them forward through the network to the get the hidden and the output layer errors required for the weight update. Unified direct Learning control structure: In the control literature, the Indirect control relies on a system identification procedure to form an explicit (or a parametric) model of the plant and determining the control rule from the model, whereas the direct control uses only an implicit model (or nonparametric identifier) to adjust the controller parameters. In neurocontrol, the identifier is used as a channel to back-propagate the error at the plant output up to the controller output. However, in the remain of this paper, we refer to direct scheme to the identifier-free design which does not need any form of explicit or implicit model of the plant(Fig.1). yr + u Physical Plant Controller


Methods for tracking the key functional mediators of different immune responses are limited by the short half-lives and spatial restriction of effector molecules. We have used a gene knockin strategy that relies on replacement of target genes with genes linked via internal ribosomal entry sites to heterologous markers. In this way, cells transcribing a given locus can be identified in tissue sections or after their dispersal using flow cytometry. Key cytokines induced during allergic immunity include the proteins whose genes are closely linked in the genome, IL-4 and IL-13. Additionally, alternatively activated macrophages, which can be identified by expression of arginase-1, have been seen in these types of host responses. Cells that express IL-4 and IL-13, as well as alternatively activated macrophages, have been functionally implicated in the elaboration of allergic immunity, in that these responses become attenuated in their absence. Using mice whose cells are marked to allow identification of these responses at the individual cell level, we have followed the cells marked in this way during allergic immune responses induced by helminth infection or by allergic lung sensitization. These observations have allowed us to identify early events in the elaboration of this type of host response.


Aqueous zinc ion batteries (AZIBs) are considered as one of the most promising energy storage technologies due to their advantages of being low in cost, high in safety, and their environmental friendliness. However, dendrite growth and parasitic side reactions on the zinc metal anode during cycling lead to a low coulombic efficiency and an unsatisfactory lifespan, which seriously hinders the further development of AZIBs. In this regard, metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are deemed as suitable surface modification materials for the Zn anode to deal with the abovementioned problems because of their characteristics of a large specific surface area, high porosity, and excellent tunability. Considering the rapidly growing research enthusiasm for this topic in recent years, herein, we summarize the recent advances in the design, fabrication, and application of MOFs and their derivatives in the surface modification of the zinc metal anode. The relationships between nano/microstructures, synthetic methods of MOF-based materials, and the enhanced electrochemical performance of the zinc metal anode via MOF surface modification are systematically summarized and discussed. Finally, the existing problems and future development of this area are proposed.


The release and form distribution,transformation of Cd in different Cd polluted soils affected by simulated acid rain (SCR) were studied. Results showed that soil pH after soaked in SCR was higher than that without SCR and SCR pH,which indicated H+ consumption in the processes of Cd2+ desorption. The quantity of active fraction of Cd in soils soaked in SCR increased and the active ability enhanced with the increase of rain acidy. The active ability of Cd also promoted with the increase of contamination degree,and the ability of residual fraction of Cd transferring to active fraction became stronger with the increase of rain acidy. On the condition of soil pH decreased from 7.2 to 6.42 in Kunshan City,the activation grade of Cd increased by 0.34% ~ 3.29%,which indicated the high risk of Cd to human and environment in Kunshan City.


In this paper, an approach in predicting thickness of Titanium Aluminum Nitrite (TiN) coatings using Adaptive Network Based Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) is implemented. The TiN coatings were coated on tungsten carbide (WC) using Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) magnetron sputtering process. The N2 pressure, argon pressure and turntable speed were selected as the input parameters and the coating thickness as an output of the process. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was used to design the matrix in collecting the experimental data. In the ANFIS structure, three bell shapes were used as input membership function (MFs). The collected experimental data was used to train the ANFIS model. Then, the ANFIS model was validated with confirmatory test data and compared with other prediction models in terms of the root mean square error (RMSE), residual error and prediction accuracy. The result indicated that the developed ANFIS model result was the lowest RMSE7 and average residual error, besides the highest in prediction accuracy compared to the other models. The result also indicated that the limited experimental data could be used in training the ANFIS model and resulting accurate predictive result.


Purpose : to optimize indications to refundoplication. Main procedures : laparoscopic refundoplication, esophagogastroduodenoscopy, contrast roentgenoscopy of esophagus and stomach, manometry, endosonografiya. Main results: data of inspections are analysed, clinical symptomatology of 67 patients with recurrence after anti-reflux operation, 20 patients were performed endosonography additionally.The age of patients was ranging from 28 till 72 years, middle age was 52,0 ± 2,2 years. Main conclusions. Diagnostic procedures with usage of the modern standard allow to distinguish recurrence of reflux and recurrence of hernia and to optimize indications for performing refundoplication.


Maria de Molina tunnel which will join paseo de la Castellana and Velazquez street with the N-II highway (Madrid - Barcelona) will be the largest municipal underground work in Spain. The tunnel is 1171 meters long and it will absorbe a traffic of 30000 vehicles going out every day. The initial part of the tunnel has been designed as false tunnels made with foundation walls and slabs. The concrete has been cast over the ground and the tunnel has been excavated afterwards in order to minimize the effect of the work on Madrid traffic. Once a sufficient depth has been reached, two different construction systems have been proposed, depending on the conditions the tunnel finds in each case. The project presents some singular points in which the solutions adopted are structurally extraordinary.


submission. Funding: This work was supported by the National Center for Complementary & Alternative Medicine Health [1R01AT005216-01, 2009-2015] Conflict of Interest: All authors declare no conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise.


Sided optical film has an elongation lenslets formed elongated prisms are formed on one main surface, and the opposite major surfaces. Some or all of the prisms is a compound prism comprising an intermediate portion disposed between the tip portion two inclined surfaces, respectively, the base portion, and the tip portion and the base portion of the composite prism, the intermediate portion and the distal end parts forms a concave shape, or the intermediate portion and the base portion to form a convex shape, or vice versa. The prism surface of the film, for example, oblique incident light enters the like from the light guide, the output beam is emitted from the lenslet face of the film. The output beam has an intensity distribution of steep left beam edges and steep right beam edges, the beams edges 7 degrees or less, 6 degrees, 5 degrees, 4 degrees, 3 degrees, or 2 ° has the following 10% to 90% of the transition angle.


The present invention belongs to the field of magnetic material, particularly relates to a method for preparing magnetic microspheres. The method uses ferric and ferrous ions, a magnetic fluid prepared, such as methyl methacrylate was added microspheres are prepared. The initiator used was sodium persulfate or dimethyl azobis isobutyrate. Microspheres prepared according to the present invention, good biocompatibility, can be used for immobilization of enzymes in the process of gene sequencing.


Binary is the data form used in computer machine.It introduced the virtual dynamic interaction techonogy based on VRML and Java,applied Java/JavaScirpt language to create the new in-insert node and sensing node,which drived and controlled all virtual spaces.The scence of dynamic interaction design was researched by using VRML and Java,and the display of dynamic interaction between binary and decimal was implemented.The system was used into teaching successfully.The new idea of the paper was that models had optimized using PRO/E.