To the editor, In response to our correspondence from the 3 rd of September 2013, we have a number of revisions to our work entitled " Independent associations of childhood and current socioeconomic status with risk of self-reported doctor-diagnosed arthritis in a family-medicine cohort of North-Carolinians ". The helpful comments made by the reviewers enabled us to make substantial improvement to our manuscript, and we are grateful for their thoughtful critique. This letter first establishes the major modifications we made to the manuscript, and follows with a more detailed response to the points raised by each reviewer. Summary of major changes An arresting point raised by reviewers was that we called for research into causal mechanisms without ourselves assessing the plausible role of BMI in our analyses. Notwithstanding common problems in establishing causality in observational data, we have now assessed the impact of BMI on our models, and discuss our findings. Moreover, we now present our results with sequential adjustments for covariates, in order to provide readers with greater transparency. Table 2 received special criticisms from the reviewers, and this revised version attempts to clarify its results and implications. While we considered removing this analytical approach altogether, we contend it is useful to avoid the " black-box " pitfall prevalent in lifecourse epidemiology, and to better situate our own work within the literature. The discussion section has been expanded by nearly 50%, and now goes further in describing the various implications and limitations of our models; for instance, we added detail on the role of race in our analyses, and on the possibility of reverse causality. Summary This paper describes the association of childhood and adult socioeconomic factors with general arthritis in a family medicine cohort in North Carolina. It has several strengths, including the careful examination of different SES factors, the analysis of trajectories, and the sample representative of a family medical practice setting. The authors discuss some limitations, which include the lack of specificity on the type of arthritis. Taking into account age, sex, race, and body mass index, the findings suggest a modest residual influence of childhood SES factors and highlight the importance of adult SES. My main concern, besides lack of clarity in some sections, is that the authors do not appear to consider the possible mediating effects of BMI and potential role of demographic factors in determining the trajectory to adult SES. Interpretation of the …


ABSTRACT We introduce and study two directional derivatives adapted to the case of set optimization. We motivate our approach by the novelty and the flexibility of these constructions for set optimization problems and by their relations, in some particular cases, to known objects of generalized differentiation. We prove optimality conditions for unconstrained problems on the basis of these derivatives and we extend these conditions to constrained problems by means of a penalization result and some calculus rules.


Any literary text irrespective of its genre or trend represents a unique and aesthetic image of the world, created by the author according to his communicative intention and his subjective modality. Hence, the subjective is the organizing axis of a literary work, for, in expressing his vision of the world, the author represents reality in the way that he considers to be most fitting. The interaction and co-existence of subjective and objective factors find their realization in the stratificational structure of the text, i.e. in its multi-layered constitution. The interdisciplinary methodology of research, employed in the article involves some essential data of the theory of literature, linguo-stylistics, text interpretation and linguo-pragmatics.


AbstractExtensive investigations including dianosis based on DSM-III criteria, physicaf examination, neurological examination, CT scans, EKG, toxicological screening, and biochemical tests were conducted on a randomly selected group of 75 psychiatric inpatients to assess the prevalence of previously undetected hysical illnesses. The illnesses that were Betected by the research team were divided into those that were (a) incidental, (b) a health burden, and (c) causative of or exacerbating psychiatric illness. Of the 30 hysical illnesses which were a healtx burden, 22 were undetected by the primary psychiatrists. Six of the 18 physical illnesses causing or exacerbating sychiatric illness were identified by tie primary psychiatrists. The most useful tool for detection of physical illnesses was physical examination following a standardized systems review and medical history at a time when the patients were able to provide a medical history and cooperate for a physical examination.


Although ultrasound‐guided peripheral nerve blocks have become increasingly popular, it is arguable at present whether ultrasound guidance is a necessary tool for peripheral nerve blocks. The purpose of this study was to assess the significance of ultrasound‐guided peripheral nerve blocks in reducing complications.


often questionable tasks anthropology (or, more precisely, minority studies and ethnology) has been put to by the Communist Party. When forced to deal with sensitive political or personal issues, Guldin tends to avoid his responsibility as an anthropologist of Chinese anthropology and simply presents a bland account of the main facts without attempting to analyse the underlying causes of the tortuous path that anthropology in China has had to travel. A second point of criticism is that Guldin makes no secret of his preference for anthropology as a comprehensive science of man: the so-called four-fields anthropology of cultural and social anthropology, archaeology, biological anthropology, and linguistic anthropology. This rather dogmatic American suit does not, by his own admission, fit Chinese anthropology all that well; moreover, it leads Guldin to overemphasize the importance of Southern China, and especially the department of anthropology at Zhongshan University in Guangzhou, where this view happens to predominate. Guldin has much less to say about developments at, for instance, Beijing University where a rather different brand of anthropology has gained an institutional foothold since 1987. Despite these critical notes, The Saga of Anthropology in China is the first comprehensive history of the field and is recommended to all those who have a professional interest in the anthropology of China.


With the demand of car lightweight,more and more high strength steel is being used in wheel rim,and rolling has been the main processing method of steel wheel rim.A 3D elastic-plasticity simulation model of wheel rim rolling(WRR) is established by the finite element code ABAQUS/Explicit,and the simulation of whole process of WRR is carried out.Using springs to connect the guiding wheels along the rim edge so as to achieve flexible contact and the effect of boundary conditions on simulation results is studied.The results indicated that the section thickness evolution rules are accorded with experiment values,which proves that the finite element models of WRR are valid.


The operation Schoot is a joint venture of which the shares are co-owned by Schoot Glas and Glaverbel S.A. Schoot Glas is engaged in the manufacture of special glasses (e.g. television screens,…


PURPOSE: To achieve high performance and low cost by forming an uniform current distribution over the surface of an electrode by gradually increasing electrode catalyst loading in a direction along a gas flow channel from an inlet to an outlet. CONSTITUTION: An electrode layer is formed in an inclined nonuniform region in such a manner that an electrode catalyst layer has the highest density in a gas inlet and has the lowest density in a gas outlet along an electrode axis parallel with an electrode base material. This effects an adjustment so that a non-uniform gas diffusion electrode is formed on the surface of an electrode depending on reactor gas composition or temperature gradient. As a result, an uniform current distribution can be achieved over the the surface of the electrode, and an active electrode catalyst can efficiently interact to realize high performance. A nonuniform layer can be simply and properly formed at low cost by screen printing technique. COPYRIGHT: (C)1995,JPO


The experiences of evaluating the degree of coordination among 23 community social welfare agencies participating in a juvenile delinquency demonstration have led to several generalizations about the problems of doing research when the units of analysis are complex organizations and the focus of the research problem is on the actual social situation. More specifically, the focus is upon the development of evaluation research on the coordinating activity of a demonstration agency and the existing community agencies participating in the demonstration, whose programs are to be coordinated. The demonstration agency was developed by the community agencies in response to and funded by the President's Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Development. The focal issue was to develop and demonstrate programs in a target area to further youth development and prevent juvenile delinquency by a large scale action program. Although evaluation could have been made by the demonstration agency's research staff, they felt that the study of coordination activities could be best evaluated by an outside, uninvolved social scientist. The present remarks are based on the experiences, then, of the outside social scientist, a university affiliated sociologist, brought in to evaluate changes in interorganizational coordination by the demonstration program. For the researcher, evaluation of multi-agency coordination provided an opportunity to add to the rather limited knowledge about interorganizational relationships, that level of analysis which focuses upon the relationships between organizations and takes whole complex organizations as the basic units for analysis. For the past two years we have been engaged in a study of a community welfare system and our specific concerns have included inter-agency coordination and conflict, adaptation and change, power relationships, and specialization. All of these concerns have placed us in the relatively uncharted area of interorganizational analysis. This is not meant to suggest that the area has been totally ignored, nor that no significant work has been done. A small number of' significant studies have been done, mostly by the community organization people in the field of social work. These, however, have generally focused on some limited aspect of interorganizational relations without consideration of the complexity of the total situation in which the relationships occur. As a result of this unstructured situation, the major portion of the two years of the study has been devoted to developmental and exploratory research. Employing an eclectic approach at the outset of the study, we are now in the process of developing a more specific analytical framework as we closely observe the dynamics of the demonstration and the welfare system of the community. Thus, while this paper should be viewed as a tentative working-paper, several major issues pertinent to both researchers and actionists have evolved from these experiences. The present paper is an attempt to specify and elucidate these generalizations


Background: The number of blind people increases every year by 2 million and is expected to double by the year 2002. Increasing public awareness and encouraging utilization of eye care services are important tools to reduce blindness. The aim of this study was to assess eye care service utilization and associated factors among adult residents in Gondar city.


A method of extracting rules from neural networks trained using evolutionary algorithms (EAs) is presented. The EAs used are a genetic algorithm (GA) with deterministic mutation (DM) and a random optimization method (ROM) with DM. The DM is performed on the basis of the result of neural network learning. It can evolve chromosomes of individuals to increase their fitness functions in a deterministic manner. The EAs are utilized to reduce the number of neural network connections. The network connections surviving after training represent rules to perform pattern classification. The rules are then extracted from the network in which hidden units use signum functions to produce binary outputs. Simulation results show this method can generate a simple network structure and as a result simple rules for the iris data classification.


: The subject of this paper are the ritual, magical and social aspects of the curse in the frames of the Macedonian folk culture. In the ritual and magical context, that presupposes a syncretic unity of the verbal and non-verbal magic, the focus is put upon the ritual side of the cursing act. The examination of the social dimensions is concentrated upon the reasons for approving the curse as a mechanism for rebounding evil.


This paper empirically investigates the influence of executive wealth diversification on firm equity granting patterns. Risk-averse, undiversified executives that hold substantial amounts of wealth in the firm, discount the value of their equity holdings, which increases costly risk-sharing and reduces incentives provided by equity grants. When executives divest equity from the firm, they insulate their wealth from firm-specific risk, thereby reducing costly risk-sharing and increasing the incentives of equity grants. This study investigates how firms respond to increases in executive wealth diversification that result from equity divestitures. The findings suggest that firms do not fully replenish divested incentives, but target greater equity incentives following an increase in executive wealth diversification. In addition, firms appear to increase the proportion of annual compensation in the form of equity after controlling for grants in response to deviations from equilibrium incentives. Overall, the results support agency theory predictions that wealth diversification is an important component of optimal contracting with undiversified, risk-averse managers.


By analysis of the serious water pollution in Hunan Province where the water quality of about two thirds of observed sections has not reached the grade III standard, it is pointed out that the large volume of under standard industrial and domestic wastewater discharge and wide utilization of pesticides and fertilizers are the main causes of serious pollution. Some countermeasures are discussed for pollution remediation, i.e. accelerating strategic adjustment and improvement of the industrial structure, promoting the clean industrial production, strengthening environment management and pollution source remediation in some key trades, actively implementing the urbanization strategy, advocating environment protection based consumption, strengthening urban and rural wastewater control, adjusting and optimizing the agricultural structure, strengthening the control of water and soil losses, and developing and popularizing practicable technologies for pollution remediation.


The economic pressures are great for smaller communities and rural counties to look for regional solutions to the municipal solid waste (MSW) management challenges they face. While efforts to develop and sustain cooperative ventures often have been successful, there have been a number of notable exceptions, six examples of which are presented. These successful efforts in multi-county cooperation around the country vary from one another in a number of ways, such as geographic and demographic characteristics, the legal mechanism employed, and the specific focus of the cooperative activities, e.g., regional disposal capacity, recycling, composting, and household hazardous waste (HHW) management. The case study methodology involved acquiring written material documenting the history and experience of the effort, a two- to three-day on-site visit involving personal interviews with key participants, and further follow-up telephone interviews with people representing various perspectives or interests related to the effort. The objective of the analysis of these case studies was to identify factors that appear to be critical in either fostering or hindering progress toward effective regional cooperation. Attention was given to economic, political, legal, and social factors that could suggest appropriate implementation methods at the local, regional, or state levels.


The cognitive-correlates approach to the study of fluid intelligence (Gf) has focused on constructs influenced by informationprocessing theory. Evidence for the importance of working memory capacity (WMC) is based upon differential research in younger adults1, whereas proponents of the processing speed (PS) view have based their account on developmental research2. Because many PS tests require active goal maintenance and contain distracting stimuli3, individual differences in WMC may be responsible for the relationship between PS and Gf within young adults. PS proponents argue that low spans show worse performance on Perceptual Speed tasks because they have a slower processing speed. A WMC view contends that although low spans are slower, this is the result of difficulty in maintaining and updating target stimuli and properly parsing target strings during the comparison process.


The Digital Natives and the Net Generation became a popular descriptor of entire generation. Some young people most familiar with digital media challenge educators and traditional educational institutions with new forms of learning and their knowledge of new technologies. Is that a sign for an upcoming new learning culture in modern, so called knowledge society? Or do we lose the perspective for the whole by forgetting to ask: But what about the others? In countries with low Internet penetration like Russia or China we can observe some forms of digital divide. Does the gap becomes smaller or can we expect it further grows? Should we think about the development of a new dimension for multicultural world – digital cultures? Writing about new generation of learners M. Prensky distinguishes two types "digital natives" (born in the age of new technology) and "digital immigrants" (born earlier – see Prensky, 2001). According to this metaphor and Prensky's radical view we could expect a growing digital divide or gap between generations or even within a generation. At least in


ranches, it is almost impossible to operate a business or to grow without using credit. But the changing structure of the agricultural lending industry, along with the increasing importance of risk management, makes it harder for agricultural producers to get credit. The situation will become even more critical for producers nearing the end of their eligibility for Farm Service Agency loan guarantees.


Abstract Echo protocols provide a means to investigate the arrow of time in macroscopic processes. Starting from a nonequilibrium state, the many-body quantum system under study is evolved for a certain period of time τ. Thereafter, an (effective) time reversal is performed that would – if implemented perfectly – take the system back to the initial state after another time period τ. Typical examples are nuclear magnetic resonance imaging and polarisation echo experiments. The presence of small, uncontrolled inaccuracies during the backward propagation results in deviations of the "echo signal" from the original evolution and can be exploited to quantify the instability of nonequilibrium states and the irreversibility of the dynamics. We derive an analytic prediction for the typical dependence of this echo signal for macroscopic observables on the magnitude of the inaccuracies and on the duration τ of the process, and verify it in numerical examples.


The window program manager restoring software designed in the technique of window subclassification perfects the function of window program manager,and it can determine the automatic inspection in the unique applicable program.If it is found to be the unique program,the symbol automatically changes into window.This software has high practicality.In addition,the window subclassification technique and editing concept are helpful to solve other problems.


In order to promote teachers professional development,it is of great importance to understand the practical condition in teachers professional development progress,to sum up the results of teachers professional development,and to analyze existing problems.At a time when primary and middle school teachers schooling,titles and teaching scientific research have entered a higher stage,as the main way of primary and middle school teachers' professional development,teachers' training should put the teachers first,know clearly about teachers' practical needs,strengthen and enhance the efficiency of training work and motivate teachers to take part in training actively.


Brillouin scattering spectra in a photonic crystal fiber with partially Ge-doped core is demonstrated, for the first time to our knowledge, using pump-probe technique. We have observed and characterized Brillouin spectra in the photonic crystal fiber at 1320 nm. One main peak and several sub-peaks are observed. Brillouin loss spectrum of main peak has a Lorentzian shape. The bandwidth ΔνB is 66 MHz and the Brillouin frequency shift νB is 12.054 GHz at room temperature. The peak originating from a higher order guided longitudinal acoustic mode in the graded-Ge-doped core of the photonic crystal fiber is observed for the first time. The temperature related behavior of the photonic crystal fiber is investigated. It is shown a linear dependence for the photonic crystal fiber.


Cesium-137 and cobalt-60 are major radionuclides detected in various categories of radioactive waste streams generated due to the peaceful applications of nuclear technology in our life. Both are γ emitters. Cs-137(γ= 0.662 MEV) is extremely soluble alkaline, highly radiotoxic and long lived element with half-life of 30.5 years. Co-60(T 1/2 = 5.25 years) has two gamma energy peaks at 1.17 and 1.33 MEV. The two radioisotopes reported to have immense applications in medicine, industry, agriculture, research and others. Hence, the generated liquid waste streams spiked with 137 Cs and /or 60 Co need adequate treatment before their release to the environment. During recent years biosorption has gained imperative credibility because of its good performance and low cost. The present work puts forward an effective green chemistry approach to radioactive liquid waste treatment. Spent Black Tea leaves (the dregs), (SBT), have been used as biosorbent for removal of these two radionuclides from their waste simulate solutions at bench scale laboratory experiments. This study aims at evaluating the efficiency of the non–costed SBT as biosorbent for Cs-137 and /or Co-60 from hazard radioactive waste streams. The factors assumed to affect the sorption capacity and determine the suitability SBT as biosorbent for these two radiocontaminants e.g. contact time, biomass dosage, and temperature of the surrounding…were evaluated. Based on the data obtained it is recorded that ~ 90% of the radiocobalt and more than 80% of radiocesium added were removed from the waste simulate stream by the SBT at concentration 150g/L, after one week, at pH value ~ 5.4 and at ambient temperature (25±5oC). Therefore, the present study recommends spent black tea dregs as a cost effective and an easily available biosorbent, substituted for the conventional carbon based sorbents, for radiocontaminants removal.


Azacitidine is a cytosine analog and antineoplastic agent used in the therapy of myelodysplastic syndromes with mild to moderate liver injuries. Accordingly, this research implicated to evaluate the epigenetic effect of azacytidine on mice liver as a model organism and to determine the role of folic acid administration as a protective methyl donor micronutrient. Thus, forty-eight mice were divided into four groups, reliant on the kind of treatment they received, where animals received calculated doses of azacytidine and folic acid twice a week for three months. Then, animals were killed, and their livers were autopsied and examined for histopathological abnormalities, followed by a genetic assessment for the DNA banding pattern profile of the excised livers. It was found that the anticancer drug azacytidine processes a hepatotoxic effect, and it profoundly modifies the DNA banding pattern. While the combination of folic acid with the administration of azacytidine might induce a protective effect against azacytidine toxic effects, these findings might unravel essential insights and highlight new potential cancer therapeutics.


This article describes the initial design of a biomimetic cuttlefish robot. The robot has a similar streamlined shape as cuttlefish, propelled by the complex of the biomimetic undulatory level pectoral fin and the water-jetting. Firstly, the morphology and swimming theory of cuttlefish is analyzed. Secondly, the overall structure of the biomimetic cuttlefish robot is designed and the three-dimensional model is simulated by software FLUENT. Finally, the biomimetic level pectoral fin and the biomimetic mantle actuated by SMA wires are designed. The propulsive thrust and the propulsive efficiency are analyzed. The results show that the robot has good hydrodynamic performance, can achieve slow swimming speed with high efficiency by the level pectoral fin. When the swimming speed is 0.18 m/s, the propulsive fore is 0.047 N, the propulsive efficiency is 89 %. It can also achieve high swimming speed relying on jetting propulsion. The maximum propulsive force is 0.79 N and the maximum swimming speed is above 0.6 m/s, the propulsive efficiency is 31 %.


During the last decade, a trend in receiver design has been to integrate more and more tuners on the same chip. When implemented using analog tuners, each tuner requires its own PLL and inductor VCO, increasing chip area and power, while introducing interference issues between uncorrelated frequencies. Digitizing the whole spectrum, also known as Full Spectrum Capture (FSC), moves the channel selection and processing to digital. It allows a high number of received channels on the same chip, while only one clock is required. However, FSC puts a heavy burden on the ADC and digital processing, leading to a high and fixed power consumption as the FSC system samples the entire band, even when only a few channels are needed. To reduce the FSC-power burden, this thesis proposes a power efficient and power scalable architecture. It exploits a mixer-DAC driven by Direct Digital Frequency Synthesis (DDFS) for each channel, using all a single clock. We target 40dB dynamic range (8-bit DDFS-mixer-DAC), which is sufficient for many upcoming applications. We exploit 28nm UTBB FD-SOI CMOS technology, as it has low power digital signal processing capabilities and good MOSFET characteristics even at short channel lengths. Our circuit is based on a mixer-DAC that exploits 8 binary scaled transconductances driven by the same RF-voltage, while summing their currents at the output. The output current is thus the product of the analog input voltage and the digital code (DDFS output) that varies over time as a sampled walking sinewave. This realizes a multiplying-DAC or mixer-DAC. Using a sinewave-like mixing signal enhances conversion gain by I€/2, and improves NF. The binary weighting is implemented putting identical switched-Gm mixer slices in parallel. If enabled, it operates as a linear and low noise CMOS inverter, which has favorable properties like high linearity, class-AB behavior and current re-use. A differential load made of two capacitors is implemented. The two switched capacitors act like an N-path band pass filter and improve the robustness of the receiver for interfering channels non-linearities. A demonstrator with two parallel tuners receiving two uncorrelated frequencies were implemented. Each tuner consumes 9.5mW with a gain of 20 to 30dB, an NF from 7 to 13dB, an image rejection of 42 dB and more than 43 dB of harmonic rejection. Finally, cross-talk rejection between the two tuners'clocks was measured and is superior to 75 dB, which is a high enough value to confirm the adequacy of our architecture for a future development with a lot of tuners in parallel.


A kind of being to be in line with the international conventions embodies the administrative system attestation enterprise is carried out, shallow opinion"three bids an integral wholes " administrative system attestation effect carrying out "three bid an integral whole " administrative system attestation on development of enterprise having very big push effect,the main body of a book to put mass ,environment,healthy occupation safety administrative situation into effect combining with the Zhengzhou electric power designing institute to enterprise.


The term "paratext," preferred by some scholars, might be suitable for speaking of some kinds of literary activity, but it is not really adequate for the task of categorizing literary activity that involves imitation and dependence of one sort or another. By paratextuality Gerard Genette indicates all the "liminal devices and conventions, both within the book and outside it, that mediate the book to the reader: titles and subtitles, pseudonyms, forewords, dedications, epigraphs, prefaces, intertitles, notes, epilogues, and afterwords". Some of these items are preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but it is wrong to suggest that the move from parabiblical to paratextual can be made by the scholar of ancient Jewish texts without causing confusion. Thus the label to be preferred is "hypertext;" it is this term that seems to be useful for insisting that texts are related to other texts interpretatively, a fact which can easily be forgotten. Keywords: hypertext; parabiblical Dead Sea Scrolls; paratextuality


Abstract Deficits in gestural joint-attention behaviors are a prominent feature of young autistic children. Attempts to explain these deficits have called upon the metarepresentational deficit hypothesis (Baron-Cohen, 1988; Leslie & Frith, 1988). However, developmental research suggests that joint-attention skills emerge prior to the cognitive capacity for metarepresentation. Thus, the metarepresentational hypothesis does not appear to provide a parsimonious explanation of autistic joint-attention deficits. An alternative model is proposed that attempts to explain these deficits in terms of the combined negative impact of developmental disturbances in affective, as well as cognitive, processes.


We consider the nonlinear Schrödinger equation on the lattice introduced by Leon and Manna two years ago to describe the slowly varying envelope approximation of some nonlinear differential difference equations. onlinear Klein-Gordon chain, etc.. We show that this equation does not admit local generalized symmetries of order greater than three. In such a way we prove that the Leon and Manna discrete nonlinear Schrödinger equation does not have the same integrability properties as the Toda lattice equation, from which it has been derived. At the end we provide some reasoning to justify the result obtained.


Abstract Results reported on the spontaneous polarization, switching time and rotational viscosity measurement of a FLC compound in neat phase and that in polymer matrix in the present paper. Polymer-dispersed ferroelectric liquid crystal film was formed by photopolymerization due to polymerization induced phase separation. A detailed study has been made on the spontaneous polarization, switching time at different temperatures and measuring field. It has been observed that the magnitude of spontaneous polarization of the PDFLC mixture is not in accordance with their mixing ratio. The switching time in PDFLC mixture is less than that in neat FLC mixture.


Generally,double-wound transformer is equipped with compound voltage lockout overcurrent protection,which voltage is provided by PT on low voltage bus of transformer.When the switch of main transformer's low voltage bus provided by other power supply is turned off,it will cause compound voltage lockout overcurrent protection failure if main transformer and its low voltage bus break down.This paper analyzes the backup protection failure of double-wound transformer.Furthermore,this paper does some researches on the existence of similar problems in three-wound transformer,and proposes several solutions to the failure of backup protection.


In this research, an Inference System of Fuzzy Mamdani system have been designed for the analysis of teaching skills of faculties in academic or educational institutes. Nowadays, various academic institutions have started web-based techniques to collect students' feedback of faculty teaching performance. The performance evaluation of faculty in teaching activities performance is a major key to build a fairer academic institute. Major purpose of faculty performance is to identify strength & weakness of professional development of a teacher. This soft computing technique by using Fuzzy Mamdani Inference System (FMIS) for evaluating faculty teaching performance will be useful for management of organization for evaluate faculty abilities with student outcomes.


Pollution source estimation based on groundwater concentration measurements is an ill-posed inverse problem in that several different sources can supply similar observations. Consequently, constraints on the source must be added. Most of the works in the literature regularize the problem either by introducing parametric source models or by penalizing undesir able solutions. In our work, we use both strategies. In this paper, we focus on point and instantaneous pollution source. Since the source depends on a small number of parameters, the inverse problem becomes over-determined. In addition, the use of prior probability on parameters is a way of dealing with difficult situations in which few observations are available. Information from observations and prior information are combined in a Bayesian framework. The approach leads to a posterior probability given the data that summarizes all the available information about the source. We explore the posterior law with a Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling method and estimate the source characteristics by posterior mean. The proposed method is applied to a simulated case of pollution.


FSO communication by retro-modulation is an innovative way to convey information between an optical transceiver and a semi-passive unit that reflects signals denoted by Modulating Retro Reflector (MRR). This concept is completely different from typical FSO communication systems consisting of two transceivers operating in full-duplex mode. In this paper, we review this new concept, analyze atmospheric effects due to folded paths propagation, evaluate different optical modulator technologies suitable for these applications and their impacts on system performance, and compare analysis results to the commonly implemented active intelligent RFID tags.


Steedman's rejection of Marx's Theory of value rests on the proposition that one can derive both values and prices from physical conditions of production, the real wage and the capitalist drive to accumulate. This proposition is examined with respect to the kind of relations assumed to rule among both economic agents and economic objects in order to accomplish the transformations of physical data into values and prices. It is argued that the transformations not only rest on the adoption of an equilibrium framework, but that they also are rooted in metaphysical notions endowing physical conditions of production with the properties requisite to derive from them economic determinations. It follows that there is no need to accept the 'Sraffa-based critique of Marx', whatever problems one may have with Marx.


The present invention discloses a receptacle ferrule and using at least a single lens system of the optical fiber ferrule receptacle connectors. Also disclosed by the plug ferrule with the receptacle ferrule assembly ferrule fitted is formed, and is formed by the plug connector and the receptacle connector of the connector assembly is fitted. The fiber optic connector and connector assembly is suitable for commercial electronic device, and provides an optical connection or both electrically and optically connected. Monolithic optical system defining an optical outlet path having a focus takes over the front end of the receptacle sleeve. When the optical path of the plug having a plug ferrule with the receptacle ferrule is fitted, the plug and the receptacle of the optical path of the optical path of the optical path to the solid-solid interface of the optical coupling, wherein said through solid-solid interface of the optical path of the light diverging or polymeric, and wherein the liquid is sufficiently purge improper.


This study examines whether firms' risk management policies (i.e., the use of derivatives to hedge firm risk) are associated with the frequency and informativeness of management earnings forecasts. We offer three main results. First, we find that management forecasts increase after firms begin using derivatives; however, the increase only occurs when managers use derivatives to reduce the volatility of earnings. This suggests that managers only increase the frequency of their forecasts when they use derivatives in a way that makes it easier to predict future performance. Second, we find these effects are larger when managers have pronounced career concerns and a lower tolerance for missing previously issued forecasts. This suggests that, when managers otherwise face high disclosure costs, they only provide forecasts when derivatives use makes it easier to predict future earnings. Finally, we find that when managers use derivatives in a way that decreases ex-ante earnings uncertainty (i.e., to hedge volatility risk), their forecasts do not alter analysts' perceptions of future earnings. This suggests that the previously documented increase in forecast frequency does not appear to be valuable to capital market participants. However, when managers use derivatives in a way that increases ex-ante earnings uncertainty (i.e., to speculate), we find that their forecasts have high informational value to analysts. Overall, we find that derivatives use impacts managers' disclosure choices, and that managers do not appear to increase disclosures in response to investor demand when their personal disclosure cost is high.


Abstract Background: The associations of coffee consumption with the circulating level of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) remains controversial. We conducted a meta-analysis of observational studies to sum up the existing evidence about this matter. Methods: A comprehensive literature-search up to January 2020, using PubMed, Embase and Web of Science databases, was conducted to identify the relevant observational studies that examined the associations of coffee consumption with the circulating level of ALT and AST. The standard mean difference (SMD) for the level of ALT and AST, odds ratio (OR) for the elevated ALT and AST and their corresponding 95% CIs for the highest versus lowest categories of coffee intake were determined. Results: A total of 19 observational studies, which involved 222,067 individuals, were included in this meta-analysis. The combined SMD suggested that coffee consumption was associated with a lower level of ALT (SMD = –0.14, 95% CI: –0.22 to –0.06; p = 0.001) and AST (SMD = –0.17, 95% CI: –0.20 to –0.13; p < 0.001), respectively. Meanwhile, the overall multivariable adjusted OR showed that coffee consumption was inversely associated with the elevated ALT (OR = 0.69, 95% CI: 0.60 to 0.79; p < 0.001) and AST (OR = 0.62, 95% CI: 0.48 to 0.81; p < 0.001), respectively. Conclusion: The results of this meta-analysis suggest that coffee consumption is inversely associated with the circulating level of ALT and AST, and elevated ALT and AST. More randomized controlled trials are needed to elaborate the concerned issues.


Purpose: We evaluated the results of revision total hip arthroplasty using a Wagner revision femoral stem. Materials and Methods: We enrolled 54 patients who underwent hip arthroplasty using a Wagner revision stem between 1996 and 2004. The mean age at revision surgery was 65.4 years and the mean follow up period was 7.2 years. There were 42 aseptic loosenings and 12 periprosthetic fractures. The pre-operative femoral defects were classified according to the Paprosky classification system. Clinical and radiological results were evaluated. Results: The mean Harris hip score improved from 43 preoperatively to 89 at the latest follow up. There were 2 cases with inguinal pain and 1 with thigh pain; in each case pain was reduced by medications. All cases showed endosteal bone formation around the stem. Five cases showed radiolucency in Gruen zones 1 and 7. Six cases had hips that showed subsidence (average=3.1 mm). There was 1 dislocation (1.8%) and 1 intraoperative periprosthetic fracture (1.8%). There were no re-revisions. Conclusion: Use of a Wagner revision femoral stem for revision total hip arthroplasty elicits satisfactory results including stable fixation of the stem, a low rate of subsidence, and a low rate of dislocation.


In a recent issue of The Auk: Ornithological Advances, four South American researchers reported new ecological information, including video and sound recordings, for the northern subspecies of Black Tinamou (Tinamus osgoodi hershkovitzi), an elusive bird with a disjunct range on the lower montane slopes of the eastern Andes (Negret et al. 2015). As one of the editors of The Book of Eggs (Hauber 2014), this new article jumped out at me for a couple of reasons. First, although the book included images of the egg of the Black Tinamou, we reported that almost nothing was known about the breeding and reproductive behavior of the species; in a perfect example of a sudden shift in scientific data, this has now changed. Second, I became curious about the subspecies' name, since I had worked for mammalogist Philip Hershkovitz at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago in the early 1980s. The Book of Eggs features eggs primarily from the collection of the Field Museum. As far as we know, the Black Tinamou eggs photographed for the book are the only set in any museum. They were collected in the early 1950s from the Marcapata Valley near Cuzco, Peru, by Celestino Kalinowski (Traylor 1952), a Peruvian naturalist and taxidermist who had a long association with the museum. But the Field Museum has other strong links with this tinamou species, and they read like a Who's Who of zoology department history. Tinamus osgoodi was described in 1949 by H. Boardman Conover (Conover 1949) from specimens also collected by Kalinowski. An engineer turned ornithologist, Conover was associated with the museum from 1920 until his death in 1950. He specialized in ''game birds'' (defined by him to include Tinamiformes, Anseriformes, Galliformes, Gruiformes, Charadriiformes, and Columbiformes); his collection of more than 18,000 specimens is now housed at the Field Museum. He named the new tinamou species T. osgoodi after his late friend and mentor Wilfred H. Osgood, for many years chief curator of the museum's department of zoology. In 1951, Phil Hershkovitz, a Field Museum assistant curator of mammals (and my former colleague), collected three specimens of tinamou from the eastern Andes in Colombia. Phil doesn't mention the birds in his field notes, which focus on mice and primates; he may have shot them for dinner, since he tended to stay out in the field for months or even years at a time. The specimens were brought back to Chicago, where they were described by associate bird curator Emmet R. Blake as a new race of T. osgoodi and given the subspecific epithet hershkovitzi. Sightings of T. o. hershkovitzi have increased recently in Colombia and Ecuador (Gomes and Kirwan 2014), but the Field Museum collection still may contain the largest number of specimens of the species, including what appear at this time to be the only three museum specimens of T. o. hershkovitzi. The Peruvian locale from which the eggs were collected indicates that they are the southern subspecies T. o. osgoodi. The Ecuadoran sightings may indicate that the range of the Black Tinamou is more extensive than has been thought. But a recent analysis suggests that the two subspecies may deserve to be treated as different species (Negret and Laverde-R. 2015).


Russell Kirk: American Conservative. By Bradley J. Birzer. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. 2015. Pp. vi, 574. $34.95. ISBN 978-0-8131-6618-6.)Russell Kirk (1918-1994) was one of the three or four most important figures in the revival of American conservatism after World War II. Although he worked for Barry Goldwater in 1964 and was a friend of President Reagan in the 1980s, his conservatism was more cultural and literary than political. Political activists on the right regarded him as an impractical dreamer. Whimsical, mannered, a baroque stylist, he gathered disciples and admirers at his out-of-the-way home in Mecosta, Michigan.Bradley Birzer was one of them. He is now the Russell Amos Kirk Professor of History at Hillsdale College, and there can be no doubt that this admiring, sympathetic, and generous biography is an inside job. He makes the common biographer's mistake of overestimating his subject's importance and implies, at times, that the survival of Western civilization through the grimmest years of the Cold War depended on Kirk's wisdom. The upside is that he has enjoyed access to all of Kirk's papers and the sympathetic help of Kirk's family and friends, giving us the fullest account of his subject's life hitherto.Kirk, born in 1918 in Michigan, came of age in the Depression, took an early dislike to academia during an M.A. program at Duke University, and was drafted into the army in 1942. Bizarrely, he spent the whole of his four-year enlistment at a chemical weapons testing station in the Utah desert, hated it, but had plenty of time for the encyclopedic reading on which his erudition was based. To his own astonishment the book version of his postwar Ph.D. thesis (from St. Andrews in Scotland) became a best seller. It was The Conservative Mind (1953), which identified Edmund Burke's protest against the French Revolution as the fount of modern conservatism.Birzer is at his best in tracing the intellectual influences on Kirk, which led him first to Stoicism and then to a mid-life Catholic conversion. His greatest debts among the moderns were to Irving Babbitt, Albert Jay Nock, and T. S. Eliot. What made Kirk troublesome to many of his conservative contemporaries was that he detested philosophical materialism, and regarded capitalism as hardly better than communism. This belief intensified. As Birzer shows, early editions of The Conservative Mind paid tribute to libertarianism and praised one of its advocates, Isabel Paterson. Later editions (there were seven in all) suppressed these passages completely.Kirk's name is often linked with that of William F. Buckley, Jr. …


This study deals with the planning of anti-cancer therapy in mice with drug-resistance using mathematical modeling and optimal control. By making use of experimental data in order to develop our mathematical models, we herein propose a promising methodology by which cancer progression in mice with resistance to docetaxel, a widely-used anti-cancer drug, can be controlled. We leverage experimental findings on the reduced fitness of drug-resistant cells, in terms of their ability to compete for nutrients with the sensitive cells, in order to control total cancer growth; during therapy, growth of sensitive cells is inhibited, however during a drug-free period the sensitive cells have an advantage and prevail. Using optimal control, we demonstrate that the optimal planning of the frequency and magnitude of treatment interruptions is key to the control of cancer progression in subjects with resistance and should be further investigated in an experimental setting.


The net burden of in-migrants on the population of a city is calculated in this article by multiplying the income distribution of in-migrants by an income-based per capita distribution of revenues and expenditures. A measure of the burden which compensates for different revenue-expenditure patterns among cities is developed. These statistics are used for examining the costs imposed by in-migration on 94 large U.S. cities. The assumptions and implications of the methodology are examined in detail. Among the cities studied, 1955-60 in-migrants imposed in 1960 a median net burden per city of $2,500,000; the median net burden per migrant was $72 and that per city resident, $8. Considerable regional dispersion in the size of the relative burden was noted. The conclusion of the study is that significant costs of in-migration do exist. Some of these costs may be only temporary, but they are positive and represent a subsidization of migrants by nonmigrant residents of a city for a period of time immediately following migration.


SUMMARY Rates of water entry were measured for 11 soil series representing many of the soils in parts of Nebraska where urban growth is most intensive. The wetting procedure in making the tests is critical and a 24 hour wetting time as usually recommended is not adequate for all soils if the percolation test is made during a dry season. Rates of water entry differed among soils even though a large amount of variation was evident within the same soil series. Differences in rate among holes at two different depths were not consistent even though it appeared that in some soils the rate beneath a clay pan was greater than in the clay pan. Rates of water entry measured at the same sites in spring when the soils were near field capacity were not different from those determined during the dry season of the preceding year indicating that the longer wetting period used was adequate. Statistical analysis showed a highly significant negative relationship between both clay content and bulk density and rates of water entry. No significant statistical relationship between sand content and rate of water entry in the soils was evident. Lack of significance was attributed to the fact that the soils studied either contained very little sand, or the effect was masked by the very compact nature of the soils that contained appreciable amounts of sand, such as those formed in glacial till of Kansan Age. Linear regression coefficients were found to be highly significant when clay content or bulk density were compared with rate of water entry and prediction equations were calculated. A summary of the use of rate of water entry or percolation test data to plan the size of an absorbing field for a septic tank is presented .


For the production of integrated circuit devices, thereby forming on the substrate the polishing stop film and the semiconductor film. Sulfonate using a slurry composition which comprises a step to improve the composition and the abrasive particles comprising a combination of a compound of series and compound having a terminal amine, a polishing stop layer and optionally the polishing of a semiconductor film is a semiconductor film from the exposed surface at the same time.


Photo‐aligned ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) display reveals a perfect alignment in case of asymmetric boundary conditions, when the competition in aligning action of two solid surfaces is avoided. In this case a stable uniform photo‐alignment on one of the cell substrates spreads out to the other, which is prepared to sustain planar alignment with a degenerate azimuthal direction. In the paper, a thin polyimide film was involved to improve smoothness of planar substrate, resulting in the better electrooptical properties of FLC display. A contrast ratio of 300:1 in a static addressing mode and 82:1 in a multiplex mode was demonstrated together with a perfect bistable switching of FLC display in static and multiplex addressing regimes.


A cosmic solution to the world's upcoming energy crunch and one man's persistent drive to realize a workable and acceptable concept is described. Photovoltaic cells ,the same equipment that for 30 years has converted sunlight to electricity for communication satellites are at the core of the proposal. Once a series of 'sunsats' reach geosynchronous orbit, the cells, arranged in huge grids, are bathed in almost perpetual sunlight. Each grid is equipped with devices for converting the electricity produced by the solar cells into microwaves and transmitting them to receiving stations on earth. The rectifying antennas, or rectennas, convert the microwaves into direct-current electricity, which is fed into the local utility's power supply. The status of proposal, development and opposition to solar power satellites is discussed. Relevant technologies associated with laser development, the SDI, moon-based solar stations, and those evolving from research in other countries continue to lend credence to eventually developing a practical solar power satellite program.


Both waste management policies and the economic theories underlying them model the behaviour of a representative company or establishment using. For example, toxic wastes such as dioxin are regulated by the mean emission volume standard measured per Nm3, where the mean is estimated using data. As we will show, most establishments (particularly combustion plants) satisfy the required emission standard, while only a few exceed the regulation limit and must be checked by the authorities until regulation standards are met. But regulators must monitor all establishments incurring unnecessary costs. Fullerton and Kinnaman 1995, among other theoretical contributions, show that taxing downstream establishments can achieve the second best policy. (See also Walls & Palmer 1998, who discuss more general market conditions.) Recent research shows that regulating downstream establishments promotes research and development by firms in upstream stages of a supply chain under certain market conditions (Calcott & Walls, 2000; Greaker & Rosendahl, 2006). These theoretical implications are important for policy making about how to design a tax system, but these theories also assume a typical producer and the regulation standard with respect to their mean emissions of waste materials. In practice, however, even though the coefficients of variation for the distributions of heavy metals in fly ash found in municipal solid waste are known to reach 50% (Nakamura et al., 1997), little statistical evidence in the published literature exists on the variation in industrial establishments' waste generation and reuse-recycling per unit production, which is basic information required for economic and ecological design and general policy decisions. In this paper we fill this gap in the literature and show the distributions of generation rates for various types of wastes and by-products in the production processes of establishments in Japanese manufacturing industries. We use the METI survey data (Survey on the Industrial Waste and By-Products, Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 2005 and 2006). This survey gives the amounts of 37 types of industrial wastes generated for four different levels of the production processes (generation, intermediate reduction, reuse-recycle, and disposal to landfill) at 5048 establishments.1


The objective of present study was to investigate the impact of the sow herd replacement in a Hungarian commercial swine farm with 1200 sows comparing with other 3 farms that belong to same management. Data were obtained from 2003 to 2011 considering that a total herd replacement has been carried out in the examined farms in 2005. In the paper were observed the annual mean of the main breeding indicators: number of mating/sow, number of farrowing/sow, farrowing rate, litter size/parturition, feeding indicators like the feed intake/sow, feed intake/fattening pig and some economic indicators in terms of herd replacement: medicine cost/sow, feed cost/living weight in all farms. The results showed that the sow replacement had a positive effect for each examined breeding indicator, which was observed during 2-3 years. Furthermore, this herd replacement decreased significantly the cost of medicine, too.


A digital intermediate frequency (IF) to RF transmitter targeted for 2GHz wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) is presented. The proposed transmitter integrates a 3-level digital IF current-steering cell, an up-conversion mixer with a tuned load and an RF variable gain amplifier (RF VGA) with an embedded semi- digital finite impulse response (FIR) reconstruction filter. A 4 th -order 1.5-b IF bandpass sigma delta modulator (BP ΣΔM) is designed to guarantee in-band signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and error vector magnitude (EVM) performances while the out-of-band quantization noise due to noise shaping is suppressed by the embedded FIR reconstruction filter to meet spectrum emission mask and ACPR requirements. The on-chip RF VGA provides 50dB power scaling in 10-dB steps with less than 1dB gain error. Together with the power control at the ΣΔM stage, the 74-dB dynamic range at RF frequency is achieved. The design is fabricated in a 4-metal 0.18-∝m CMOS technology with a total core area of 0.8 × 1.6 mm 2 . The IC delivers 0dBm output power to the 50Ω load at 2GHz and it draws approximately 120mA from a 1.8V DC supply at the maximum output power.


The thesis is dealing with the questions of the diet composition in connection with lifestyle diseases in our population. The characterization of basic food nutrients (proteins, lipids, saccharides), essential nutritional factors (vitamins, minerals) and biologically active sub-stances (antioxidants) is done. Well-balanced intake of the nutrients is very important for healthy growth, progress and recovery of the organism. Abundance and deficiency of these nutrients can have a negative effect on our health. At present there is continually high, often precocious, presence of non-infections diseases in mass occurrence, namely overweight and obesity, hypertension, osteoporosis, gout, dia-betes type II, atherosclerosis, cardiovascular diseases, tumor diseases, which increases morbidity and mortality in the Czech population in comparison with other countries. From many reasons which contribute to this situation the malnutrition is very important. That is the reason to introduce nutritive recommendations to the work, which could help in obser-vation of health nutrition in our population.


This paper demonstrates how a company can implement a product platform in 35 man-days. Instead of developing a new platform, the main idea of this platform is to make decisions concerning good solutions to a product assortment, essentially by determining what is value-creating variance. The main benefits are reduced costs, reduced lead time and increased ability to focus engineering resources on aspects providing value to the customer. A so-called visual approach has been utilised. By means of a Product Family Master Plan, the content and scope of the platform have been modelled and visualised. This has contributed to commitment on the management and operational levels in the whole chain, from customer to production and delivery.


The oxidase and dioxygenase reactions of 3,5-di-tert-butylcatechol (DTBC, I) in the presence of V-polyoxometalate were studied. It was found that the addition of a Lewis base quenched the V-polyoxometalate-catalysed catechol dioxygenase reaction and catalysed the oxidase reaction selectively. The existence of V-polyoxometalate accelerates the autoxidation rate of I as demonstrated by the rate measurements. ESR and UV-VIS spectra showed that the Lewis base destroyed the dioxygenation reaction catalyst as formed and restrained its regeneration by suppressing the coordination of catechol radical to vanadium. The by-products of the dioxygenation and oxidation reactions are H2O and H2O2, respectively.


The responses of biology majors in their first year of college differed significantly from those of first-year non-biology majors on only 3 of the 20 items on the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution survey instrument. Despite these differences, and regardless of whether students were or were not biology majors, several findings from the survey stand out: (a) surprisingly high percentages of students accepted creationism-based claims, (b) students' views of evolution and creationism when they entered college were strongly associated with the treatment of evolution and creationism in the students' high-school biology classes, and (c) on average, incoming biology majors' views of evolution and creationism were similar to those of nonmajors. In this article, these results are discussed relative to the ongoing popularity of creationism among biology majors and biology teachers.


We derive an operator solution for the fermion in the chiral Schwinger model with a Wess-Zumino term and study the quantum structure of the model in a manifestly covariant operator formalism. The U(1)/sub L/ gauge symmetry restored by the inclusion of the Wess-Zumino term gets spontaneously broken and the gauge field becomes massive. The left-handed fermion is found to be confined. The right-handed fermion, on the other hand, remains a massless free field in spite of the fact that the left- and right-handed sectors of the model are coupled through the anomaly. This massless fermion is interpreted as the Nambu-Goldstone mode associated with the spontaneous breakdown of the global U(1)/sub R/ symmetry.


The association of HLA-B27 with ankylosing spondylitis accounts for 20 to 50% of the total disease risk. It varies markedly among racial and ethnic populations. The main purpose of the present study is to perform an investigation regarding the distribution of the human leukocyte antigen HLA-B27 and its subtypes in Moroccan healthy controls and in patients with AS and to compare this with other reports from other populations. One hundred twenty-five controls and 116 patients with AS were evaluated in this study. Among patients, three cases were associated to acute anterior uveitis. Typing of the HLA-B27 alleles was performed by microlymphocytotoxicity and polymerase chain reaction amplification with sequence-specific primers. A significant association between ankylosing spondylitis and B27 was identified; HLA-B*27 allele was carried by 46.5% of patients and only one subject from healthy controls was found to be positive (p<0.001, RR= 2.95). Among all positive patients, 64.8% were males and 53.7% belonged to 20-29 and 30-39 age groups. Being male aged 30-39 was significantly associated with B27 positivity. Four HLA- B*27 alleles were observed in this study: B*2705 (44.4%), B*2702 (29.6%), B*2703 (9.2%) and B*2708 (16.7%). The only positive subject from healthy controls carried B*2705 allele. B*2708 subtype was identified in all cases with uveitis. This allele showed a significant association with patients being female. Concluding, HLA-B27 is strongly associated with ankylosing spondylitis in Moroccan population. Our results showed a restricted number of HLA-B27 subtypes with predominance of HLA-B*2705, 02 alleles. The B*2708 allele detected for the first time in North Africa, seems to be associated with ankylosing spondylitis in the studied population.


The invention relates to a fuselage structure of an octorotor unmanned aerial vehicle. The fuselage structure comprises a vehicle body, a flight control cabin, battery compartments, a parachute cabin, several foldable arms, undercarriages, several propellers and a power unit for driving the propellers to rotate. The foldable arms and the vehicle body can rotate relative to each other. The foldable arms and the vehicle body are connected through reinforced vertical plates and carbon fiber cards. The outer end of each foldable arm is connected to two propellers. The flight control cabin, the battery compartments and the parachute cabin are respectively arranged inside the vehicle body. Each foldable arm is provided with pneumatic thermovents. Connecting pieces used on the vehicle body all adopt the carbon fiber cards for connection. Thus, strength is guaranteed, and interference of metal connecting pieces with an airborne magnetic compass is avoided as much as possible. According to the fuselage structure of the large-load octorotor unmanned aerial vehicle which is convenient to use and transport, metal connecting pieces are less used, and an electron speed regulator which needs to dissipate is arranged in an air duct between an inlet and an outlet.


Copolymer poly(ionic liquids) (PILs) are fascinating new polymerized polyelectrolytes that can provide the properties of ionic liquids with others combined into one. In this work, a thermoregulated random copolymer PIL (PILL) with the side chains of both ionic liquids and atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) ligands was designed and synthesized to form a macrocomplex with CuBr2 and serve as an ATRP catalyst to establish a thermoregulated phase separated catalysis (TPSC) system and further applied in a typical ICAR (initiators for continuous activator regeneration) ATRP process for the catalyst separation and recycling in situ for the first time. This novel TPSC system could simultaneously recycle transition metal catalyst and ligand easily just by changing temperature from polymerization temperature to room temperature. Additionally, even if the highly efficient recyclable PILL with Cu catalyst was separated facilely and reused 10 times in situ, it nearly did not sacrifice the controllability over ...


Abstract We prove the convergence of Galerkin approximations for a second-order quasilinear elliptic problem of a divergence form with nonlinear mixed boundary conditions. The existence and uniqueness of a weak and approximate solution is studied as well.


For the square-planar complex compounds lrans-ML2TX (M = Pt(II), L = Cl", X = Cl~, Τ = H", F" , Cl", Br", I" , OH" , CN", N C j , CH¡\ CO, H 2 0 , SH2 , NH 3 , PH 3 , C 2 H 4 ) it has been investigated the trans-influence of the Iigand Τ on the trans M-X bond and the kinetic trans-effect of Τ on the substitution of the trans-standing ligand X. Employing the semiempirical CNDO method with geometry optimization, minimum-energy structures were determined for the complexes and for the trigonal-bipyramidal species tT&ns-ML2TXY (Y — CI ) , which are considered to be transition states of the substitution reaction. It turns out that the CNDO method does not satisfactorily describe the bonding in the linear fragment T-M-X to reflect detailed structural properties. Otherwise, the method is able to comprehend the relative kinetic behaviour of comparable reactions. For a strong trans-effect of σ-bonding ligands the destabilization of the complex ground state is more important than the stabilization of the transition state. From the calculations it is concluded that this destabilization of the complex ground state is less connected with a weakening of the M-X bond, i.e. strong trans-influence of the ligand T, as it is often assumed, but rather with the weakness of the M-T bond.


Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)-based seismic interpolation methods recover the missing traces by feeding the corrupted data to a trained neural network, whose parameters are obtained by training pairs of corrupted data and their complete labels. Compared to traditional reconstruction approaches, these methods require less human-computer interaction and computation time, therefore, CNNs approaches have been popular for 2D/3D seismic interpolation. 5D seismic data interpolation methods recover missing traces simultaneously in five dimensions, considering all the physical coordinates with high-accuracy. Unfortunately, existing deep learning frameworks (such as Tensorflow and Pytorch) only provide low-dimensional convolution operators (no more than 3D), which makes it difficult to generalize to 5D seismic reconstruction directly. To this end, we propose an effective 5D-CNN by cascading low-dimensional convolution to deal with 5D seismic interpolation, referred as CCNet-5D. First, based on the definition of convolution and the theory of tensor decomposition, 5D convolution operator is approximated by the sum of multiple cascading of low-dimensional convolution operators. Then, we demonstrate the CNN architecture for 5D convolutional operators by cascading of 3D and 2D convolutional layer, termed as CC-3D2D module. The final CCNet-5D is constructed by stacking the four resulting CC-3D2D modules. In our setup, 5D-CNN outperforms the existing 5D traditional method and 3D CNN-based method.


Background: Measurement of customer satisfaction is an important element in providing better, efficient and more effective service. This study aims to determine the effect of health facilities and work motivation on patient satisfaction through service quality in inpatient units at Haji Makassar Hospital, South Sulawesi Province. Method: The research design used in this study was an analytic survey with a Cross Sectional Study approach. Sampling was done by total sampling method with a total sample of 68 people. Methods of data analysis using statistical analysis calculations using the SPSS program using path analysis. Results: The results showed that from the Sobel test there was a significant and positive effect of the health facility variable at t count 3.984> 1.987 and work motivation t count of 3.011> 1.987 on patient satisfaction through service quality, there was a significant effect of the health facility variable 0.000 <0.005 on satisfaction, no there is a significant effect of work motivation variable 0.155> 0.000 on patient satisfaction, there is a significant influence of the health facility variable 0.000 <0.005 and the work motivation variable 0.001 <0.005 on service quality, and there is a significant effect of the service quality variable 0.000 <0.005 on patient satisfaction.Conclusion: The conclusion of the study shows that there is an effect of health facilities and work motivation on patient satisfaction through the quality of service at Haji Makassar Hospital, South Sulawesi Province. So it is suggested to the hospital to maintain the quality of its service.


Since primary education is the base of formal education, the main goal of Indian Government is to improve its primary education system by introducing a number of development initiatives suited for the country. However, there still prevails wide range of regional disparities in terms of educational attainments throughout the whole India. The present study about the block level status of primary education in Birbhum district depicts the spatial patterns of ten facilities provided for the betterment of primary education by the Govt. applying Z-score and mapping techniques. The result shows that there is huge disparity in terms of infrastructural as well as institutional facility provided to the primary schools where as only few block maintain the balanced situation. This haphazard distribution also consequences in the uneven distribution pattern of Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) over the district.


Abstract A progressive iterative approximation technique for rational least squares fitting curves is developed. The format is interesting in CAGD (Computer Aided Geometric Design) and improves the recent algorithms. An improved chord method for the root finding based on rational operators is also presented.


An operator controllable transformer having a shunt magnetic path with a control coil is provided. The transformer includes phase control circuitry to control the output of the transformer by phase controlling cur rent flow in the shunt coil, thereby controlling the flux through the shunt magnetic path and the flux coupling with the secondary coil. Power for the control circuitry is derived from the current induced in the shunt coil.


The current society and the market have need of comprehensive talents,which is the objective of colleges' talent education.The traditional teaching model of architectural design course has many maladies.Aiming at this problem,this paper mainly expounds the teaching reforms of the course——Large and middle scale public buildings design.The author proposes many kinds of science teaching patterns.The practice indicates that the gradual teaching improvement obtains the good result.Its reformatory mentality and method accumulate the experience for the next step of architectural teaching reform.


It is well known that the planar Hall effect (PHE) is deeply intertwined with the anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) characterizing strongly spin-orbit coupled materials. The amplitude of the PHE is indeed precisely set by the AMR magnitude, and vanishes when the driving electric field is aligned with the external magnetic field. Here we demonstrate that two-dimensional trigonal crystals with strong spin-orbit coupling can display a PHE of a completely different nature. This effect has a quantum origin arising from the Berry curvature of the Bloch states, and survives even when the applied current is aligned with the planar magnetic field. Moreover when the electric and magnetic fields are aligned perpendicular to a mirror line of the crystal, the PHE can occur as a second-order response at both zero and twice the frequency of the applied electric field. We demonstrate that this non-linear PHE possesses a quantum part that originates from a Zeeman-induced Berry curvature dipole.


The Business Situation in Texas; Trade; Production; Natural Resources; Construction; Agriculture; Public Utilities; Prices; Labor; Finance; Transportation; A New Index of Business Activity in Texas


A series of scales were developed on the basis of the pattern of change of responses on Addiction Research Center Inventory items produced by drugs including morphine, pentobarbital, chlorpromazine, alcohol, LSD, pyrahexyl, and amphetamine in post addicts. The pattern scales were compared with empirically developed scales that measure the effects of each drug as contrasted with placebo. It was found that the empirical scales show a greater sensitivity to general or non-specific drug effects than pattern scales, i.e., all drugs in the series produced significant elevations on empirical scales. Because of this characteristic, less differentiation between drugs is possible with empirical scales. On scales which reflect patterns of drug actions, greater differentiation between drugs was shown. Higher doses produced more specific drug effects than lower doses. This difference was produced probably by a relatively greater contribution of non-specific drug effects for lower doses. Significant reliability coefficients were obtained for all scales. Reliability of scales across conditions was related to the type of scale and similarity of conditions. As indicated by several findings, condition-similarity has implications for relating personality to drug effects.


Abstract : A single form of consistency relations between generalized forces and displacements for systems exhibiting power-law behavior is presented. The later discussion focuses on certain details regarding applications of the relations to nonlinear fracture mechanics, emphasizing the finite element analysis of a single edge-cracked strip subjected to remote tension under plane strain conditions. Within the last decade there has been observed a serious computational effort towards obtaining numerical solutions to problems of nonlinear fracture mechanics. The handbook formatted reference gives extensive tabulations of important parameters for various configurations, loadings and material behaviors, which makes it useful for engineering analysis, and a review of prior work in the field permits its use it as a good starting point for further research.


Today, most Internet users are worried about protecting their personal information, which may be gathered by Web services. This concern can have a profound influence on finding a way for applying privacy-aware policies on Web services. In this regard, there are just a few accessible Web services on the Web, which usually provide users with simple operation and are not able to apply the user preferences. In this paper we present a new method for applying the users' interests within the privacy-aware policies on the Web services. In this method, an extensible method for describing the users' preferences on the Web services is proposed, which along with general rules it can cover desired criteria according to privacy-aware policies.


Discusses the functions of the practical teaching on the training of comprehensive skill, the relations between the practical teaching and the classroom teaching and how to do the DSM experiment teaching well.


The effects of Calphostin C (CAL ; a potent inhibitor of protein kinase C (PKC)), and H89, a protease inhibitor that inhibits c-AMP dependent protein kinase (PKA) and c-GMP dependent protein kinase (PKG), on thermotolerance of BHK21 and tsAF8 cells were investigated in this study. The cells were preheated at 45°C for 20 min and incubated at 37°C (BHK21) or 34°C (tsAF8) for 6 h with CAL or H89. They were then heated at 45°C and the surviving fractions were examined. The thermotolerance of the cells was suppressed by 2.5-10,uM CAL (BHK21) or 0.25-0.5pM CAL (tsAF8), but was promoted by 2.5 or 5.0 pM H89. When the cells were treated with H89 (0.025-30/2M) between two heatings of 45°C for 20 min and 80 min (BHK21) or 40 min (tsAF8), the surviving fractions of both of the cell lines became the relative minimum at a concentration of 0.05,uM, and the maximum at 2.5A/M. The concentrations of these minimal and maximal points were close to those of H89 which inhibited PKA and PKG respectively. In conclusion, our results suggest that thermotolerance of BHK21 and tsAF8 cells may be developed by PKC and PKA but suppressed by PKG.


Congestion is a very big issue in mobile ad hoc network. In MANET has various congestion control algorithm to solve this issue. RED algorithm is the one of the congestion control algorithm. It increasing buffer space of the queue and it reduce the packet loss and control transmission delay. In the proposed technique first fine out the energy aware auction based route selection then used the red algorithm to control the congestion. This techniques give a better result comparatively other techniques. Reduce the transmission delay so it increase the network throughput and avoid the packet losses and also give a better packet delivery ratio.


[Objective] To observe the effect of the general anesthesia combined with epidural anesthesia for radical operation on congenital megacolon disease of infant under laparoscope and the effect of "gas-abdomen" on the respiratory and cardiovascular function. [Methods] 40 infant patients with congenital megacolon disease were randomly ranged to receive operation under general anesthesia combined with epidural anesthesia. ECG, HR, MAP, SpO2, PETCO2, PIP were continuously monitored. [Results] The Anesthetic effect was satisfactory and the tracheal extubation time is (15.5±4.6) min. Compared with the data before the "gas-abdomen", HR, MAP, PETCO2, PIP increased significantly (P 0.05) after the"gas-abdomen"while SpO2 maintained stable. [Conclusions] "gas-abdomen" had an obvious influence on the respiratory and cardiovascular function of the infant patients. General anesthesia combined with epidural anesthesia can provide a stable and effective anesthesia method for the radical operation on congenital megacolon disease of infant under laparoscope.


Coccidiodes can cause severe or disseminated disease in a minority of patients, but coccidioidomycosis resulting in septic shock is rare. We describe a case of fulminant C. immitis infection whose diagnosis was delayed by a markedly elevated serum procalcitonin. We review the published literature of coccidioidomycosis complicated by septic shock.
 Case Report
 A 74-year-old man presented with cough, fever, and three weeks of progressive decline. He was febrile at 39.1°C, tachycardic, and tachypneic with crackles in the left lung; an initial procalcitonin (PCT) was 1.73 ng/mL. Broad-spectrum antibacterials were administered. His condition worsened on the 2nd day, requiring vasopressors, endotracheal intubation, and hemodialysis. PCT rose to > 400 ng/mL. Respiratory cultures grew fungi consistent with Coccidioides. Liposomal amphotericin B (AmB) was initiated. His shock progressed, and he died on hospital day 6.

 We performed a MEDLINE and Google Scholar search using the terms "coccidioidomycosis", "Coccidioides", "sepsis", and "septic shock". Indexed articles and conference abstracts were included if the patient had confirmed coccidioidomycosis and vasopressor-dependent shock with no alternate cause. Data on age, sex, ethnicity, comorbidities, antifungal therapy, and outcome were tabulated.

 We identified 18 reports describing 31 patients with vasopressor-dependent septic shock due to Coccidioides since 1993 (table 1). Of these cases, 23/31 (74.2%) died. Of those with reported race/ethnicity, 20/23 were Latino, 4/23 of African descent, 5/23 Asian-Pacific Islander, and 3/23 white. 27/31 (87.1%) were male. All but two were adults (median age 51.5 years). 21/31 (67.7%) had reported comorbid conditions. 20/31 patients (64.5%) and all of the survivors received AmB-based therapy.
 Table 1 - Published cases of coccidioidomycosis complicated by septic shock. All ages are in years. Abbreviations: HIV/AIDS = human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome; CAD = coronary artery disease; COPD = chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; ESRD = End stage renal disease; SLE = Systemic Lupus Erythematosus; APC = recombinant human activated protein C (drotrecogin alfa).

 Coccidioidomycosis is an elusive diagnosis in critically-ill patients due to its rarity, the lack of rapid diagnostics, and its propensity to mimic other infections. Mortality is high, potentially due to delays in diagnosis. The marked elevation in PCT has not been previously noted in coccidioidomycosis and may further confound diagnosis. Improved diagnostics and the rapid institution of AmB may reduce mortality in patients with coccidioidal sepsis.

 All Authors: No reported disclosures


Introduction.  The  article   is  aimed   at  a  comprehensive  and  holistic  analysis  of  the judgments  existing in Orthodox circles regarding physical culture and sports, reflecting the Orthodox   worldview and  its  values.  The  novelty  of  the   article   lies  in  the   empirical substantiation of the  role of the  physical and spiritual development  of believers  against the  background  of sports  practices,  as  well as  the  substantiation of contradictions  and problems  of perception,  sports practices  in the conditions of the Orthodox worldview. Methodology and  sources. A  comprehensive  approach  to the  problem  of studying and analyzing sports practices  is used as a methodological  basis. The main research method  in the work is an Internet survey.Results and discussion. According  to the  study, it should be  noted  that  there  is no unity among Orthodox people in understanding  the role of physical culture in Orthodox spiritual development.  Most people believe that the call for the development  of their body is not the work of the church, they do not see  any sin in the underdevelopment of their body. This is the  result  of the  influence  of various values  that  are  in one  or another  society  in which people  live. Therefore,  it is especially important  to emphasize  the role of the church in the educational process  of physical culture among young people and the younger generation.Conclusion. In general,  the author  of the article comes  to the conclusion  that there  is no unity among  Orthodox  people  in understanding  the  role of physical culture  in Orthodox spiritual development.


Because of the non-linear and complexity of the milling system model,it is hard to control the milling process parameters.The Matlab software is used to simulate the relationship between the spindle speed and the axial limiting cutting depth,and the effect of cutting parameters on cutting stability is analyzed.As the simulation results,with the increasing of the spindle speed,the axial limiting cutting depth changes periodically,adding the radial cutting parameters makes that the axial limiting cutting depth will be decreased.And,adding the system damp can lead to the increasing of the axial limiting cutting depth


This paper highlights some theoretical arguments and empirical results on whether legal-based minority protection affects corporate cash dividends in Finland. The Company Act in Finland states that shareholders having one tenth of all shares can demand a so-called minority dividend, which is half of the profit of the fiscal year, yet not more than 8% of the equity. Minority dividend, as in Finland, is rarely used in EU countries. I find, that minority protection is a better influence over managerial control than controlling shareholders having absolute voting power. When there is no controlling shareholder and coalition costs are lowest, minority protection in Finland is better than minority protection in mandatory dividend countries. Combining strong shareholder rights (as in the USA) and minority dividend (as in Finland) could decrease agency costs both vertically and horizontally.


Motivated by the problem of optimization of force-field systems in physics using large-scale computer simulations, we consider exploration of a deterministic complex multivariate response surface. The objective is to find input combinations that generate output close to some desired or "target" vector. Despite reducing the problem to exploration of the input space with respect to a 1-D loss function, the search is nontrivial and challenging due to infeasible input combinations, high dimensionalities of the input and output space and multiple "desirable" regions in the input space, and the difficulty of emulating the objective function well with a surrogate model. We propose an approach that is based on combining machine learning techniques with smart experimental design ideas to locate multiple good regions in the input space. Note to Practitioners—ReaxFF is a force field that incorporates complex functions with associated inputs in order to describe the inter- and intra-atomic interactions in materials systems. A typical ReaxFF force field consists of hundreds of parameters (inputs) per element type. During the development of a force field for a molecular system of interest, using computer simulations, these parameters are optimized to reproduce hundreds of material properties close to some benchmark reference values. Finding "good" combinations of hundreds of parameters that produce hundreds of reference values close to their gold standards is a challenging problem because there may be several parameter combinations that may be "almost equally good" or "equally desirable." To add to the complication, several input combinations simply lead to a system crash, not producing any output at all. Standard global optimization methods do not address such a problem. We propose a novel framework that can address this problem. Beyond the ReaxFF optimization, it can be applied to multiobjective optimization in engineering and the physical sciences, where there are unknown constraints and the focus is on obtaining several good points that can serve as alternatives to a single global optimum.


BACKGROUND
Strain (St) and strain rate (SR) imaging are new ultrasound modalities based on tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) that allow quantitative assessment of segmental myocardial contraction or stretching and rate of deformation, respectively.

HYPOTHESIS
Regional peak systolic St and SR could allow repeatable and reproducible assessment of systolic function of the right (RVW) and left (LVFW) myocardial walls in dogs.

ANIMALS
Six healthy Beagle dogs were used to determine the repeatability and reproducibility of regional peak systolic St and SR in the RVW and LVFW (Study 1). These variables were also assessed in 30 healthy dogs of several breeds (Study 2).

METHODS
Longitudinal peak systolic St and SR were recorded in 2 segments (basal and apical) of the RVW and LVFW. Radial peak systolic St and SR of the LVFW were also assessed.

RESULTS
All within- and most (7/10) between-day coefficients of variation were <15%. Absolute values of the longitudinal deformation indices were significantly higher (P < .001) in the RVW (St = -39.5 +/- 5.5% and SR = -5.2 +/- 0.8 s(-1) at the base; St = -36.3 +/- 4.3% and SR = -4.7 +/- 1.1 s(-1) at the apex) than in the LVFW. Absolute values were also higher for the radial (St = 62.9 +/- 10.4% and SR = 5.8 +/- 1.1 s(-1), P < .001) than for the longitudinal LFVW motions.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE
St and SR imaging is a repeatable and reproducible method for assessing systolic myocardial function. The combination of these indices with conventional echocardiographic variables may be useful for screening canine myocardial diseases.


We show evidence for the occurrence of the equatorial temperature anomaly (ETA) during solar minimum by analyzing the temperature and total ion density data from the Neutral Atmosphere Temperature Experiment (NATE) and the Cylindrical Electrostatic Probe (CEP), respectively, on board the Atmospheric Explorer-E satellite. The chosen data refer to a height of ∼254 km in the African and Asian longitude sector (340.1°E–200°E) during a summer season in the Southern Hemisphere. As during the solar maximum period, the spatial characteristics of the ETA are similar to those of the equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA). A minimum in the gas temperature is collocated with the minimum in the ion density at the dip equator, and a temperature maximum on the south side of the equator is collocated with the density maximum of the EIA. The daytime behavior of ETA formation is about the same as that of EIA as both of them are clearly present at around 1300 and 1400 local solar time (LST) only. At 1400 LST the difference between the temperatures at the crest and the trough (ETA strength) reaches a maximum value of about 100°K which is ∼14% of the temperature at the trough. Like the EIA, the ETA also suddenly disappears after 1400 LST. Thus the EIA appears to be a prerequisite for the ETA formation. During the premidnight time (2200 LST), however, while the EIA is nonexistent, the temperature distribution forms a pattern opposite to that at 1400 LST in the daytime. It shows a maximum around the dip equator and a broad minimum at the daytime crest region where the postsunset cooling also is faster and occurs earlier than at the dip equator. This nighttime maximum appears to be related to the signature of the midnight temperature maximum (MTM). Mass Spectrometer Incoherent Scatter (MSIS) model temperatures, in general, are higher than the observed average temperatures for the summer season and in particular for the region around the dip equator around noon hours.


It is well known that a graph $G$ has a symmetric spectrum if and only if it is bipar?tite, a signed graph $\Gamma=(G,\sigma)$ has a symmetric spectrum if $G$ is bipartite. However, there exists a spectrally symmetric signed graph $\Gamma=(G,\sigma)$ such that $G$ is not bipar?tite. In this paper, we focus to characterize the signed graphs with symmetric spectra. Some necessary and (or) sufficient conditions for spectrally symmetric signed graphs are given. Moreover, some methods to construct signed graphs with symmetric spec?tra are found and infinite families of these signed graphs are produced.


To understand the complex phenomena performed in steam explosion, the fast and global measurement of the steam distribution is imperative for this extremely rapid transient stimulation of the bubble breakup and coalescence due to turbulent eddies and shock waves. TROI, the experimental facility requests more robust sensor system to meet this requirement. In Europe, researchers are prefer a X-ray method but this method is very expensive and has limited measurement range. There is an alternative technology such as ECT. Because of TROI's geometry, however, we need axial tomography method. This paper reviews image reconstruction algorethms for axial tomography, including Tikhonov regularization and iterative Tikhonov regularization. Axial tomography method is examined by simulation and experiment for typical permittivity distributions. Future works in axial tomography technology is discussed.


A cell-vertex scheme for the Navier-Stokes equations, which is based on central difference approximations and Runge-Kutta time stepping, is described. Using local time stepping, implicit residual smoothing, a multigrid method, and carefully controlled artificial dissipative terms, very good convergence rates are obtained for a wide range of two- and three-dimensional flows over airfoils and wings. The accuracy of the code is examined by grid refinement studies and comparison with experimental data. For an accurate prediction of turbulent flows with strong separations, a modified version of the nonequilibrium turbulence model of Johnson and King is introduced, which is well suited for an implementation into three-dimensional Navier-Stokes codes. It is shown that the solutions for three-dimensional flows with strong separations can be dramatically improved, when a nonequilibrium model of turbulence is used.


Detailed CaCO3 analyses from Leg 94 Sites 607 and 609 confirm earlier findings from Leg 81 that large-scale Northern Hemisphere glaciation began near the Gauss/Matuyama boundary. At Site 609, the first ice-rafted sand occurs between samples at 2.55 and 2.45 Ma, or effectively coincident with the Gauss/Matuyama paleomagnetic boundary. Although small to moderate decreases in the CaCO3 percentage from maxima in the lower Pliocene began at 3.15 Ma, the lack of ice-rafted debris until 2.55 Ma suggests that this decline must be explained by other factors, particularly dissolution. The records at Sites 607 and 609 show an increase in the amplitude of CaCO3 variations in the last million years. Counts of planktonic foraminifers reveal complex changes in estimated sea-surface temperature (SST) through the last 1.90 m.y., including long-term trends with wavelengths of several hundred thousand years and rhythmic changes with wavelengths of several tens of thousands of years. Relatively warm conditions prevailed until 1.05 Ma, and the lowest SST values of the Pleistocene in this area occurred near 0.8 and 0.7 Ma. In several instances, unusually low glacial temperatures were immediately followed by unusually high temperatures in the succeeding interglaciation.


Very recently, it was demonstrated that the carrier mobility of a molecular monolayer dioctylbenzothienobenzothiophene (C8-BTBT) on boron nitride can reach 10 cm2/Vs, the highest among the previously reported monolayer molecular field-effect transistors. Here we show that the high-quality single crystal of the C8-BTBT monolayer may be the key origin of the record-high carrier mobility. We discover that the C8-BTBT molecules prefer layer-by-layer growth on both hexagonal boron nitride and graphene. The flatness of these substrates substantially decreases the C8-BTBT nucleation density and enables repeatable growth of large-area single crystal of the C8-BTBT monolayer. Our experimental result indicates that only out-of-plane roughness greater than 0.6 nm of the substrates could induce disturbance in the crystal growth and consequently affect the charge transport. This information would be important in guiding the growth of high-quality epitaxy molecular film.


We have reported the crystal structure of the superconducting systems Y2C3 and Li2Pd3B without inversion symmetry. The structure of Y2C3 has the dumbbell-like C-C unit occupying polyhedrally-coordinated void, while the structure of Li2Pd3B has three-dimensional framework of the BPd6 octahedron, which exists at the clearance gap of the Li partial structure. The superconducting transition temperature is strongly dependent on the structural change of the C-C distance in the Y2C3 system and of the distortion of the BPd6 octahedron in the Li2Pd3B system.


From 1954 to 1969, 162 patients at the National Cancer Institute were treated with pelvic exenterations for carcinoma of the uterine cervix. A total cumulative 5‐year survival of 38% was obtained. Sixty‐eight of these patients presented with large, previously untreated lesions not amenable to lesser curative therapy. Their actuarial 5‐year survival was 48%. The remaining 94 patients were treated for radiation recurrent cancer with a 5‐year actuarial survival of 28%. Positive pelvic lymph nodes did not affect prognosis in patients treated for primary cancer, but survival decreased to 11% in those patients with recurrent disease and positive pelvic nodes. The 30‐day mortality was 7%, and the total intrahospital mortality was 17% (1 to 108 days). This mortality correlated with previous radiotherapy, patient age, preoperative medical status, operative time, and intraoperative transfusion requirements. Operative time and intraoperative transfusion requirements appeared to be related to the relative experience of the 17 surgeons involved in this study. Postoperative complications were similarly related to the above factors and have increased over the years in proportion to the degree that preoperative selection criteria have been liberalized. Over the 15 years encompassed in this study, there has been, however, a steady significant increase in cumulative 5‐year survival. Criteria for patient selection for pelvic exenteration are outlined, and salient suggestions are made for operative and postoperative management.


To measure the moisture content in a laundry detergent by different methods will result in different numerical values,which are certainly dissimilar to the theoretical value.In addition to the evaluated errors,the main problem is whether all of the crystal water in the laundry detergent can be gauged.Tests by different methods show that the free moisture and crystal water in a laundry detergent can't be absolutely measured with the traditional oven-dry method in current industry,while its moisture can be completely measured with Karl Fischer technique and the xylene distillation method.


A discussion is given of the techniques, procedures, and restrictions which permit the accomplishment of a testing program in a complete and safe manner. (L.T.W.)