Ficuzza Royal Hunting Lodge: a royal presence in inland Sicily. Sicily, a land of legend and myth, an exotic island of overwhelming charm, full of colour, perfumes and flavours is likewise, sadly, well-known for the sinister menace of the 'Mafia'. An obscure phenomenon rooted in the past, deriving from the heart of latifundism, it remains one of the worst scourges of modern society. An endemic evil that attracts and then kills, the blood it spills staining the whole community and depriving it of honesty, justice and dignity. This scourge is most greatly concentrated in inland Sicily, where a lack of faith in the institutions, unemployment and desperation at not being able to escape from misery results in delinquency and violence, which in turn spread terror that leads to a wall of silence. This land tells the story of people massacred by Mafia gangs and of ferocious crimes. Corleone and Ficuzza are places historically linked to the Mafia. Ficuzza Wood has formed the backdrop to part of the area's history: a hideout for armed bands, unauthorised farming, animal theft, kidnappings and 'dulcis in fundo' crimes that have become legendary. Some sources mention an unspecified number of bodies, Mafia victims, buried here.


This article endorses using the "sacred" and the "secular" as distinct yet interrelated perspectives, experiences, spaces, and practices, rather than as static categories, polar opposites, or mutually exclusive or sequential processes. The secular is not merely a space left over from, or neatly opposed to, the sacred or religious (Asad 2003 and Lambek 2003), and the sacred and religious are not exactly equivalent. Nor does the secular always emerge from social change as more modern than the sacred (Comaroff and Comaroff 1993). Yet, to demarcate a domain as sacred implies some distinctiveness from another domain (Parkin 1991). This article argues for detaching "sacred" and "secular" from their literalist frames and viewing them as experiences or perspectives. Doing so requires reformulating the sacred, albeit not in evolutionary, functionalist, or structuralist terms. The value of doing so is demonstrated in a case study of the Tamajaq concept of al hima, which denotes approximately sacred, enchanted, or protected land in Tamajaq-speaking Tuareg communities of northern Mali and Niger. (Religion, symbolism, ritual, modernity, Tuareg).


Summer drew to an end, and early Autumn—it was past Michaelmas, but the harvest was late that year, and a few of our fields were still uncleared.
 Mr. Linton and his daughter would frequently walk out among the reapers: at the carrying of the last...


The Government of India set up the National Commission on Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS) on 20 September, 2004 under the chairmanship of Professor Arjun Sengupta. The other members of the commission are K.P. Kannan, T.S. Papola, Ravi Srivastava and B.N. Yugandhar with V.K. Malhotra as the member-secretary. The terms of reference of the Commission included reviewing the "social security system available to labor in the informal sector" and making "recommendations for expanding their coverage." In pursuance of these terms of reference, the Commission has prepared a report titled Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in the Unorganized sector. The report was submitted to the Governement of India in August, 2007. The following is a summary of the Report and its key recommendations.


Biometric systems usually do not possess a cryptographic level of security: it has been deemed impossible to perform a biometric authentication in the encrypted domain because of the natural variability of biometric samples and of the cryptographic intolerance even to a single bite error. Encrypted biometric data need to be decrypted on authentication, which creates privacy and security risks. On the other hand, the known solutions called "Biometric Encryption (BE)" or "Fuzzy Extractors" can be cracked by various attacks, for example, by running offline a database of images against the stored helper data in order to obtain a false match. In this paper, we present a novel approach which combines Biometric Encryption with classical Blum-Goldwasser cryptosystem. In the "Client - Service Provider (SP)" or in the "Client - Database - SP" architecture it is possible to keep the biometric data encrypted on all the stages of the storage and authentication, so that SP never has an access to unencrypted biometric data. It is shown that this approach is suitable for two of the most popular BE schemes, Fuzzy Commitment and Quantized Index Modulation (QIM). The approach has clear practical advantages over biometric systems using "homomorphic encryption". Future work will deal with the application of the proposed solution to one-to-many biometric systems.


Folate receptors (FRs) are membrane proteins involved in folic acid uptake, and the alpha isoform (FR-a) is overexpressed in ovarian and endometrial cancer cells. For fluorescence imaging of FRs in vivo, the near-infrared (NIR) region (650-900 nm), where tissue penetration is high and autofluorescence is low, is optimal, but existing NIR fluorescent probes targeting FR-a show high non-specific tissue adsorption, and require prolonged washout to visualize tumors. We have designed and synthesized a new NIR fluorescent probe, FolateSiR-1, utilizing a Si-rhodamine fluorophore having a carboxy group at the benzene moiety, coupled to a folate ligand moiety via a negatively charged tripeptide linker. This probe exhibits very low background fluorescence, and afforded a tumor-to-background ratio (TBR) of up to 83 in FR-expressing tumor-bearing mice within 30 min. Thus, FolateSiR-1 has the potential to contribute to the research in the field of biology and the clinical medicine.


Supermassive black holes have a mass somewhere in the region of millions or billions times that of the sun, and many questions remain about how they formed and subsequently evolved. Researchers in the BiD4BESt network are using a variety of methods to learn more about the evolution of supermassive blackholes, as Professor Francesco Shankar explains.


The lattice of the storage ring of KEK Photon Factory (dedicated synchrotron radiation source) is described. The design principle is the availability of straight sections for the wiggler and the flexibility of optics. The final design is checked with respect to the disturbance of beam dynamics by momentum error and magnetic imperfections.


Human development is a development paradigm that puts human (population) as the focus and final target of all development activities, namely the achievement of control over resources (income to achieve decent living), improvement of health status (long life and healthy life) and improve education. To see the success rate of human development, UNDP publishes an indicator of Human Development Index (HDI). This study discusses the achievements of human development that have been pursued by the government. The problem analyzed in this research is the difference of human development achievement in some provincial government in Indonesia. This paper aims to compare the achievements of human development in some provincial governments seen from the achievement of human development index of each province. Research location in Banten Province, West Java and DKI Jakarta.Keywords:Human Development Index, Human Development Achievement


---Waste management in Semarang State University (UNNES) environment has been carried out by cooperation from various parties. College student knowledge about waste management becomes very important, because college students are one of the campus residents who produce a lot of waste. The purpose of this study was to determine college student knowledge about waste management that occurred in UNNES campus environment, while the intended waste management was 3R-based waste management consisting of (reduce, reuse, and recycle). This study uses a quantitative approach with percentage descriptive analysis techniques. The population in this study were UNNES college students consisting of 8 faculties and 1 postgraduate program. The sampling technique uses proportional random sampling technique. Data collection techniques using questionnaires, observations and documentation studies in the form of previous research related to this research. The results showed that, 1) The college students' knowledge about sorting waste between organic waste and inorganic waste was at a high criterion with an average score of 20,79. With a breakdown of the causes of the difference in knowledge they get is due to the amount of information and level of education obtained. 2) College students' knowledge about waste management based on 3R, namely reuse is included in the high category, reduce is included in the high category, then recycle is included in the high category.


The present invention relates to a dosage feeding set for use with a flow control apparatus for delivering a fluid to a patient from at least one fluid source. This set comprises a mounting member on the pipe to be coupled to the pipe and a flow control apparatus for the flow of fluid along the fluid path. The fluid passages extend linearly through the mounting member. The mounting member is configured to have at least two receiving parts, each housing part receiving the identification member. At least one identification member the other functional configuration of administration feeding set and is selectively placed in one or more of the receiving portion of the mounting member so as to be able to identify as having a certain other functional configuration. Another embodiment comprises a method of identifying a dosage feeding set is disclosed. Administration feeding set, the flow control apparatus, the valve mechanism, the pipe, the mounting mechanism, a black material


The primary objective of this paper is to analyze a set of canonical spatial patterns that approximate the daily rainfall across the Indian region, as identified in the companion paper where we developed a discrete representation of the Indian summer monsoon rainfall using state variables with spatio-temporal coherence maintained using a Markov Random Field prior. In particular, we use these spatio-temporal patterns to study the variation of rainfall during the monsoon season. Firstly, the ten patterns are divided into three families of patterns distinguished by their total rainfall amount and geographic spread. These families are then used to establish `active' and `break' spells of the Indian monsoon at the all-India level. Subsequently, we characterize the behavior of these patterns in time by estimating probabilities of transition from one pattern to another across days in a season. Patterns tend to be `sticky': the self-transition is the most common. We also identify most commonly occurring sequences of patterns. This leads to a simple seasonal evolution model for the summer monsoon rainfall. The discrete representation introduced in the companion paper also identifies typical temporal rainfall patterns for individual locations. This enables us to determine wet and dry spells at local and regional scales. Lastly, we specify sets of locations that tend to have such spells simultaneously, and thus come up with a new regionalization of the landmass.


The new Schiff base 1-[(2-{1-[(dicyclohexylamino)-methyl]-1H-indol-3-yl}-ethylimino)-methyl]naphthalen-2-ol (HL) was prepared from 1-{[2-(1H-Indol-3-yl)-ethylimino] methyl}-naphthalen-2-ol and dicyclohexyl amine. From this Schiff base, monomeric complexes [M (L)n (H2O)2 Cl2] with M = Cr, Fe, Mn, Cd, and Hg were synthesized and characterized based on elemental analysis (EA), FT-IR, mass(MS), UV-visible, thermal analysis, magnetic moment, and molar conductance. The results showed that the geometrical structural were octahedral geometries for the Cr(III) and Fe(III) complexes, square planer for Pd(II) complex, and tetrahedral for Mn(II), Cd(II), and Hg(II) complexes. Kinetic parameters such as ΔE*,ΔH*, ΔG*, and K of the thermal decomposition stages were calculated from the TGA curves using Coats-Redfern method. Additionally, density functional theory (DFT) was applied for calculations of both electronic structure and spectroscopic properties of synthesized Schiff base and its complexes. The analysis of electrostatic potential (EPS) maps correlates well with the computed energies providing on the dominant electrostatic nature of N-H---O interactions. The biological activities had been tested in vitro against Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, as well fungi like Penicillium expansum, Fusarium graminearum, Macrophomina phasealina, and Candida albicans bacteria in order to assess their antimicrobial potential.


Democracy depends on the maintenance of archives, which allow future generations to reevaluate the nation's past and future. The Harper government's systematic war on data and democracy has been carried out through the closure of libraries and archives, as well as the enclosure of the data commons by private interests. This destructive form of memory commemorates even as it obliterates the foundations of remembrance, threatening the possibility of any future dialogue.


The relevance of the problem under study lies in the fact that in the modern world the political situation is constantly changing, and this affects the reputational capital of the regions and the authorities of the Russian Federation. Reputational capital is the totality of knowledge, experience and expectations associated with a region and its economic activity. It can be positive or negative and has a significant impact on various aspects of the development of the regional economy. Reputation capital plays an important role in the socio-economic development of the regional economy. The goal is to study the transformation of the reputational capital of regions and authorities in the context of a changing political situation in the world. In this article, a semantic matrix of definitions of domestic and foreign researchers has been compiled, one of the important factors (political culture) that influences the formation of the region's reputational capital has been studied, a rating of the heads of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation has been formed, and positive and negative properties of the heads of regional authorities have been determined. Also, new directions for the formation of the reputational capital of the regions in the context of a special military operation have been identified. Key words: reputational capital of the region, reputational capital of the Russian Federation, socio-economic development, political culture, region and government of the Russian Federation, companies and regions, image of the region, brand of the region, investment attractiveness of the region.


Software scan diagnosis has been the de facto approach to narrow down possible defect locations in logic circuits by virtue of its speed and effectiveness. However, this capability is not supported for all product yield engineering and custom electrical failure analysis is naturally relied on. By this approach, unless the defects are gross, fault localization of internal logical nodes can be challenging and this directly impacts product yield ramp and time-to-market. This paper describes and demonstrates three effective methods leveraging pre-diagnostic test data and a combination of dynamic EFI techniques, as viable alternatives to scan diagnosis. Case examples will be presented.


Submitted by drupal on Wed, 10/23/2013 18:04 Firm: Adherent Technologies Inc. [2] Award Solicitation: NASA SBIR 2007 Phase II Solicitation [3] Award ID: SBIR_07_P2_074470 Award Topic: Reliable Software for Exploration Systems [4] Award Dollars: 600 000.00 Award Lead Center: Marshall Space Flight Center [5] Proposal Number: X6.01-9530 Proposal Title: Self-Healing Inflatable, Rigidizable Shelter for the Lunar Environment Mission Directorate: Exploration Systems [6] Selection: NASA 2007 SBIR Program Phase II Selections [7] Firm PI First Name: Andrea Firm PI Last Name: Hoyt Haight Firm PI Phone: 5053461685 Firm PI Email: firstname.lastname@example.com Firm Official First Name: Susan Firm Official Last Name: Switzer Firm Official Phone: 5053461685 Firm Official Email: email@example.com Firm Zip: 87111 Firm Zip4: 1522 RI:


In the paper the construction and practical application peculiarities of systems for energy facilities remote monitoring and diagnostics are considered.


We undertake here a systematic study of the rheology of blood in steady-state shear flows. As blood is a complex fluid, the first question that we try to answer is whether, even in steady-state shear flows, we can model it as a rheologically simple fluid, i.e., we can describe its behavior through a constitutive model that involves only local kinematic quantities. Having answered that question positively, we then probe as to which non-Newtonian model best fits available shear stress vs shear-rate literature data. We show that under physiological conditions blood is typically viscoplastic, i.e., it exhibits a yield stress that acts as a minimum threshold for flow. We further show that the Casson model emerges naturally as the best approximation, at least for low and moderate shear-rates. We then develop systematically a parametric dependence of the rheological parameters entering the Casson model on key physiological quantities, such as the red blood cell volume fraction (hematocrit). For the yield stress,...


NHS unions have accused the government of trying to manipulate the nurses' pay review body (RB) to keep this year's pay award below the rate of inflation.


Many areas of science and industry require 3D measurements made in real time. One example is a human-to-computer interface where hand gestures are used to control a computer. Structured-light illumination (SLI)1 is a noncontact, optical, active, triangulation-based 3D reconstruction technique that is well known for its simple implementation, low cost, and high accuracy.2 However, the high rate of processing demanded in real time has, until now, proved unattainable. Structured light works on the same principle as stereo vision, where an object's coordinate in 3D space is derived by triangulating between pixels of two cameras. SLI avoids the computational complexities of matching pixels across camera views by replacing one of the two component cameras with a projector that generates a series of striped patterns. By analyzing the change in the pattern at a particular point on the target object's surface (a process known as demodulating the captured images), unique correspondences can be derived between the camera and projector pixels. However, decoding the projected patterns and deriving absolute 3D coordinates for each pixel of the captured images are two significant bottlenecks that limit the achievable pixel rates. To overcome these issues, many solutions are available3 including, for example, new pattern-decoding algorithms4 and a dedicated graphics-processing unit,5 but the improvements these methods offer are limited because of the complexity associated with classic demodulation. We have derived a novel set of decoding equations, efficiently implemented by a series of look-up tables (LUTs). Our system is comprised of a high-speed camera/projector pair (see Figure 1) that is synchronized by a software-controlled Figure 1. Real-time structured-light-illumination 3D scanner.


Purpose of the article: In the case of highly developed countries quality of human capital (QHC) is currently considered as one of the most important factors determining international competitiveness and growth of economies. The fundamental role of the QHC can be seen in the EU policy documents such as Europe 2020 strategy. In this context the main purpose of the article is to evaluate the QHC in the EU countries at the macroeconomic level and to make comparison between so called "new" member states that joined the EU after the year 2004 and the "old" EU countries. Methodology/methods: QHC is considered as a multidimensional phenomenon. As a result, in the research Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) was applied. The method enables to evaluate the objects in terms of economic phenomena that have multidimensional character based on the set of detailed economic attributes (variables). In the research eight diagnostic variables were used. The synthetic index describing the relative level of QHC in the analysed economies was estimated, which enabled to propose a rating of the countries and group them into homogenous subsets. Scientific aim: The scientific aim of the article was to evaluate the progress obtained by the "new" member states after joining the EU. As a result, two ratings grouping the EU countries from the once with the highest level of QHC to the once with its lowest level in the year 2004 and 2012 were determined. Findings: The comparison of the ratings in the year 2004 and 2012 shows that most of the "new" member states have made a significant progress in the analysed period. Conclusions: The conducted multidimensional research enabled to quantify QHC in the EU countries in the year 2004 and 2012 with application of multidimensional perspective. As a result it enabled to evaluate the changes of that phenomenon in the period and to point the countries that are the leaders in the field.


Results of an investigation into the fungi associated with submerged wood and bamboo in the Plover Cove Reservoir, Hong Kong, are reported. Fifty-seven fungi were identified, including 17 ascomycetes and 40 mitosporic fungi. The frequency of occurrence of these fungi was also investigated. The most common species was Kirchsteiniothelia elasterascus, occurring on 70% of samples, followed by Didymella aptrooti (14%) and an unidentified coelomycete (12%). These species are compared with common species found in other studies. Eight hyphomycetes are new species, and they are described and illustrated three Dactylaria, two Ellisembia, two Monodictys, and one Dictyochaeta species.


The monitoring of the construction of the motorway in SE Slovenia by karst researchers has also proved to be of great value in the exploration of natural heritage through the deepening of knowledge about the formation and development of this part of the Slovenian karst. Characteristic subsoil karst surface was formed under a cover of sediment of varying depth. Subsoil formation of carbonate rock also marks the entire epi-karst and vadose zone. The surface is carved into subsoil stone forests, the surfaces of the karren are smaller and numerous hollow shafts are filled with fine-grained sediment. The outstanding characteristics of the karst surface are primarily the result of large surfaces of stone forests, which are difficult to detect prior to earthwork or geo-physical research. Most of the surface is above the underground water level. There is only one exception of the motorway section, which was not fully uncovered due to the construction method and because lower road beds were put upon a special grounding. For this reason we could only research the karst formations that had been shaped by water percolation through the karst surface. We did not find the characteristic subsoil karren as those discovered during the earthwork along previous sections, which were also formed by the fluctuation of underground water. Karst features discovered during
construction work give us insight into the characteristics and manner of formation of the karst in the wider area of south-eastern Slovenia; they thus unveil yet another characteristic of karstic natural heritage that was hidden from view, but which also provides guidelines for planning activities on the surface.


The articles contained in this special issue were first presented at a doctoral symposium held at the University of the Witwatersrand in August 2007. Both this special issue and the symposium on which it is based represent in some ways intersecting responses to at least three concerns. The first unsurprisingly resided in the need to contribute to and perhaps extend the seminal work on masculinities that is currently being undertaken in South Africa. The second and in some ways more powerful motivation related to what seemed to be a rapid succession of harrowing media reports of violence involving men and boys at the time. In February 2007, three boys were stabbed during a fight at a secondary school in Pretoria. In the space of a single week in late May 2007, there were as many as three different violent attacks (two of them fatal, with one of the victims only 8 years old) on school learners by their classmates in the Western Cape. In the same week, an adolescent boy was murdered, allegedly over a cell phone at a secondary school in KwaZulu Natal. News reports of similar events continued without respite in 2008. For example, in August 2008 the South African public was shocked by a brutal attack by an 18-year old boy at a Krugersdorp school who slashed open the neck of a 16-year-old learner with a Samurai-style sword and proceeded to wound a number of others on the school premises.


Current rules do not take into account the peculiarities of glue laminated beams under the conditions of slanting bending. In fact, the rules do not consider the real change in the stress-strain behavior of such elements upon the load change from its initial application till fract ure under the conditions of slanting bending due to the fact that material (wood) behavior in the construction is currently assumed as nominally elastic. What is more, this issue is not sufficiently studie d either theoretically or experimentally. This article is devoted to the study of the working peculiarities of glue laminated beams made of glued pine boards under the conditions of slanting bending. The main issues are as follows, the description of research methodology and experimental prototypes, analysis and processing of the research results, working peculiarities of the material as par t of the glue laminated wooden beams under the conditions of slanting bending. The article presents the results of experimental studies on the bearing capacity and deformity of glue laminated beams under the conditions of slanting bending. The results will give the opportunity to design wooden constructions taking into account the profound knowledge on material capacity as well as the working peculiarities of its components, which will lead to a more practical cross section of structural components. Investigation of the process of laminar deformation upon the section height and indication of the peculiarities of the stress-strain behavior of thes e layers due to the stress of physical force under the conditions of slanting bending will allow t o perform more reliable calculations of stress-strain behavior and design of glue laminated beams at different stages.


Aspects of the geothermal district heating for the city of Klamath Falls, Oregon, now under construction, are discussed: geology and hydrology of the geothermal system; boundaries of the pumping districts for the geothermal distribution system; district network design; production well pumps; heat exchangers; controls; and economic analysis. 9 refs.


The influence of structural inhomogeneities artificially generated by a beam of accelerated protons on the LDPE breakdown under an impulse voltage was investigated in this paper.


Welcome to It's By Nature, a contemporary and traditional fine art and craft gallery located in Jackson County, in the heart of Sylva.


The European Innovation Partnership for Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability, or EIP-AGRI, is a new policy instrument for more stakeholder and demand-driven research & innovation in agriculture. It contains several elements that are supportive of organic farming and agroecological innovation. The organic sector, with its history of strong collaboration across disciplines and between researchers and producers, should take advantage of the opportunities the EIP-AGRI offers.
This dossier is there to help the organic sector and the agroecological community understand the implementation of the EIP-AGRI. After a general introduction to the EIP-AGRI in the first chapter, the concepts behind the new approach to innovation are explained. The third chapter addresses the EIP-AGRI activities at EU level. An important part of the work will have to be done, however, by the rural development programmes at the national or regional levels. This is explained in the fourth chapter. Whilst each Member State will take its own approach, the EIP-AGRI is all about learning from each other. Therefore, the fifth chapter describes a number of interesting initiatives in the Member States. The dossier ends with an overview of the wide range of innovations with which the organic sector can contribute to the EIP-AGRI.


The utilisation of recycled coarse aggregate obtained from demolished concrete has gained momentum in recent years due to its contribution towards sustainability by minimising the use of artificially produced materials and eliminating environmental problems due to dumped waste materials. The present research exploited the possibility of producing high-volume fly ash (HVFA)-based recycled aggregate (RA) high-strength concrete. It was found that 50% of desired strength could be achieved even with 50% replacement of cement with fly ash and 50% of natural aggregate (NA) with RA. An attempt was thus made to study the effects of RA and HVFA on durability characteristics. The parameters considered were resistance to chloride ion penetration, acid attack, sulfate attack and sorption. It was found that replacement of NA with RA and cement with fly ash in higher volumes showed a way of considering economy and environmental effects as criteria, given a little bit of compromise towards strength and durability criteri...


Canarium and Acacia plants are commonly used as urban forest and shade plants on the right-left side of streets. Identifying the effect of air pollution to the growth and microscopic anatomy of the leaves will be beneficial in predicting air quality condition of the location. Result of the research showed that canarium plants exposed to air pollutant emission showed a lower diameter growth and higher stoma density compare to the ones unexposed to pollutant. Acacia plants exposed to air pollutant emission showed smaller amount of diameter growth, height growth, length of upper side stomata, length of lower side stomata, leaves thickness, lower side palisade tissue thickness and sponge tissue thickness compare to the plants unexposed to pollutant. Acacia plant was more sensitive to air pollutant because more tissues experienced disturbance and destruction. Acacia plant might be a bioindicator of air pollution.


This paper presents a statistical analysis of the levels, trends and determinants of infant mortality in Nigeria using the logistic regression model. Infant mortality data for each of the five years preceding the 2003, 2008, 2013 and 2018 Nigeria Demographic Health Survey (NDHS) was retrieved and used for the analysis. Findings from the study revealed that infant mortality rates decline have stagnated in the five year period prior to the 2018 survey with an Annual Rate of Reduction (ARR) of 0% relative to an initial ARR of 5.7% between 2003 and 2008. The ARR of 2.039% over the 15 year period spanning 2003 to 2018 suggests that the rate of infant mortality reduction is slow. This study also showed that maternal characteristics such as age and educational levels as well as cultural practises like use of clean water and toilet facilities were statistically significant determinants of infant mortality in Nigeria with P-values < 0.05 across each of the survey years.


The European Commission has explained how heating and cooling in buildings and industry account for half of the energy consumption of the EU. Several studies explain how to achieve an energy saving at home, and the use of smart thermostats will help to reduce energy consumption while increasing the efficiency of households. In this article, a comparative evaluation was carried out between four smart thermostats that are now on the market, whose characteristics vary in terms of price, precision of measurements and set temperature, algorithms, etc. A thermal test chamber was designed and constructed from a refrigerator, a thermal blanket, a Raspberry Pi and the necessary electronic components for its control and data collection. From the tests carried out in the thermal chamber, data on the operation of the four thermostats such as the maintenance and the anticipation of the setpoint temperature, were obtained. It was necessary to run the system enough times for each thermostat to memorize the housing characteristics, such as its inertia and its thermal insulation. This would also allow for the generation of a better algorithm to regulate the temperature, which would create a lower oscillation with respect to the setpoint temperature. The learning of the thermostats was not demonstrated and for the anticipation mode it was seen that the thermostats failed to improve or learn in this aspect, as they did not improve the start-up times of the heating system, with the consequent increase in energy consumption.


Ca2+ sensitization of vascular smooth muscle (VSM) contraction involves Rho-dependent and Rho-kinase–dependent suppression of myosin phosphatase activity. We previously demonstrated that excitatory agonists in fact induce activation of RhoA in VSM. In this study, we demonstrate a novel Ca2+-dependent mechanism for activating RhoA in rabbit aortic VSM. High KCl-induced membrane depolarization as well as noradrenalin stimulation induced similar extents of sustained contraction in rabbit VSM. Both stimuli also induced similar extents of time-dependent, sustained increases in the amount of an active GTP-bound form of RhoA. Consistent with this, the Rho kinase inhibitors HA1077 and Y27632 inhibited both contraction and the 20-kDa myosin light chain phosphorylation induced by KCl as well as noradrenalin, with similar dose-response relations. Either removal of extracellular Ca2+ or the addition of a dihydropyridine Ca2+ channel antagonist totally abolished KCl-induced Rho stimulation and contraction. The calmodu...


The experiment was carried out in a randomized block using a factorial design 4 x 2, using polyethylene bags with 50 cm heights and 36 cm diameters in order to evaluate the effects of 1.25, 2.50, 3.75 and 5.00 L of water twice a week in the presence and absence of soil mulch with (Brachiaria decumbens), on the growth of the yellow passion fruit (Passiflora edulis f. flavicarpa Deg) during the first ninety days after transplanting. The diameter of the stem expressed growth of plants better than height, as it presented the same statistical significance in relation to the number of productive branches, floral buttons, healthy new fruits and dry matter of the roots, stems and leaves. The supply of 10 L of water in two weekly applications of 5 L maintained the substrate water content at a level adequate for crop development, however the soil mulch exercised a positive effect only on the dry matter of stems and roots of the plants.


A complete picture on the boundedness and compactness of the weighted Cesaro operator Lg between Zygmund-type spaces of holomorphic functions on the unit ball is given.


The formation mechanism of a tombolo behind Oki Island in Tateyama Bay was investigated using aerial photographs together with beach survey data. This tombolo was formed on a shallow seabed, which was lifted by 1.6 m during the Kanto Earthquake occurred in 1923. Sand supplied from the Kanita River flowing into south of Oki Island was transported by longshore sand transport generated by wind waves incident from the west. The rate of longshore sand supply was estimated to be 215 m3/yr and windblown sand in winter was another important factor on beach changes.


InAs/AlSb FIEETs with excellent RF and DC properties are reported. The drain currents are 750mAr/mmr with peak transconductance gm of 1.1 S/mm. The gate leakage in is below lnA/plm 2 for low gate bias. The threshold voltages of 0.25 pm and 0.5 prn gate-length devices are -2.5 and -1.5 V respectively, indicating short channel effects are present. Smallsignal measurements on a 0.25 pm gate-length device show f, of 120 GHz and fma, of 100 GHz at drain voltages below 0.4V.


The novel techniques of fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLI) and FLI-microscopy (FLIM) in the frequency domain enable the mapping of the spatial distribution of fluorescence lifetimes of a specimen. The analysis of FLI(M) data is described. Two computer programs were developed to determine nanosecond fluorescence lifetimes from digitized phase-resolved images produced by the FLI(M) instrument, for single- and double-component systems, respectively. Image processing routines were incorporated for optimal display of the lifetime analysis. The combination of analysis and image processing yields images of the fluorescence lifetimes and of the associated analytical and statistical parameters. The error analysis enables the estimation of the quality of the FLI(M) data at each pixel of the image. The features of the programs are illustrated by simulated and experimental FLIM data, generated in the latter case with commercially available fluorescence microspheres as references for spatial and temporal resolution.


The concept of language learner autonomy has influenced ComputerAssisted Language Learning (CALL) to the extent that Schwienhorst (2012) informs us of a paradigm change in CALL design in the light of learner autonomy. CALL is not considered a tool anymore, but a learner environment available to language learners anywhere in the world. Based on a work-cycle as a practical framework for implementing autonomy in online courses (Legenhausen, 2003), the current study introduces WebQuest to be used as ideas and an activity bank. Work cycle design takes several principles of learner autonomy such as goal setting, content and format choice, self-evaluation and reflection in action and is defined as a learner-based approach that emphasises metacognitive knowledge that raises students' awareness to become more conscious of their own language learning process, strengths and weaknesses (Ter Haseborg, 2012). The idea and activity bank at the top of a work cycle provides learners with the opportunity to plan and negotiate, make decisions, do project work and evaluate their learning in a cyclic mode. Thus, the current article argues that because of its flexibility and accessibility, WebQuests lend themselves to the work cycle approach in online courses aimed at fostering autonomy. Moreover, the findings of the current study indicate that WebQuests contribute to the development of learner autonomy by encouraging critical thinking among learners.


The purpose of this paper is to present the DC power supply for unmanned remote wellhead platforms (WHP). In several recent WHP projects, there are a number of difference aspects in Bongkot and Arthit Fields in the PTTEP's Gulf of Thailand and one of them is the DC power supply. PTTEP by Wellhead platform department intends to standardize the design of DC power generation for Generic Wellhead Platforms (Generic WHP) for either Bongkot or Arthit fields.


The study investigated the causal relationship between worry and insomnia. A 2 x 2 design (Worry x Induced sleeplessness) with repeated measures was employed. In all 96 female undergraduate students who scored high or low on a measure of worry (Penn State Worry Questionnaire) completed the study. The induced sleeplessness variable consisted of two levels defined by a double-blind distribution of 300 mg caffeine and placebo. The repeated measures were nocturnal cognitive activity, as measured by the Night-Time Thoughts Questionnaire, and sleep parameters derived from a sleep diary and an actigraph. The data were obtained from two consecutive nights. Worry was found to be associated with nocturnal cognitive activity on both nights and with subjective sleep parameters on the first night. The findings indicate that nocturnal cognitive activity occurs as an epiphenomenon of wakefulness. The results are discussed in terms of their relationship to various categories of cognitive activity and models of insomnia. A core implication of the findings is that cognitive activity caused by induced sleeplessness may be conceived of as rumination. There is a need for the development of an instrument that can distinguish between types of nighttime rumination, under which worry is one subgroup. Cognitive Activity 5


ower The ''island of inversion,'' a group of deformed neutron rich nuclei at and near the neutron magic number N520, poses an important test of our understanding of the phen enon of shape coexistence in atomic nuclei. While sh coexistence occurs throughout the table of isotopes @1#, the island of inversion seems to be unique in that the ''intrude configuration that is formed by promoting two neutro across theN520 shell gap becomes the ground state. build an understanding of this phenomenon, we must only measure nuclear structure properties of nuclei wit the island~for example, see@2–4#! but also at and near th boundary of the island of inversion @3,6#. In the boundary nuclei, we expect that the intruder configurations occur low excitation energies with normal configurations domin ing the ground states. In this Brief Report, we report the result of a measu ment of the boundary nucleus Al using the technique of intermediate-energy Coulomb excitation @7#. With Z513 andN521, this aluminum isotope is located between Si, in which the ground state appears to be dominated by nor configurations@5#, and the island of inversion isotope Mg. We observe ag ray in Al at 65769 keV. A comparison of this result with calculations in the literature @8,9# suggests that this g ray connects an intruder state with the norm deformed ground state. The experiment was performed at the National Superc ducting Cyclotron Laboratory. The primary beam of 8 MeV/nucleon Ca was produced with the laboratory K1200 cyclotron. The secondary beam of 68.1 MeV/nucle Al was made via fragmentation of the primary beam in Be production target of thickness 376 mg/cm 2 located at the midacceptance target position of the A1200 fragm separator@10#. A 702 mg/cm Au foil was used as the secondary ta get. The secondary beam slowed significantly in this tar


We study existence and stability of travelling waves for nonlinear convection–diffusion equations in the one‐dimensional Euclidean space. The diffusion coefficient depends on the gradient in analogy with the p ‐Laplacian and may be degenerate. We also prove that the solution converges to ±1 outside an interface which moves with constant velocity; our results include both generation and propagation of interface properties. In particular, unconditional stability is established with respect to initial data perturbations in L1(R) .


The role of the psychiatrist has been studied fairly frequently, but almost all of these studies have concentrated on a theatrical analogy of role, and have looked at the "roles psychiatrist's play" during therapy. While it is interesting to look at the psychiatrist playing a "role", this usage of the term has lead to considerable confusion. This paper will take the position of social psychological role theory in order to develop hypotheses, based on studies of social systems, about psychiatrist behaviours.


This paper proposes a model of selective attention for visual search tasks, based on a framework for sequential decision-making. The model is implemented using a fixed pan-tilt-zoom camera in a visually cluttered lab environment, which samples the environment at discrete time steps. The agent has to decide where to fixate next based purely on visual information, in order to reach the region where a target object is most likely to be found. The model consists of two interacting modules. A reinforcement learning module learns a policy on a set of regions in the room for reaching the target object, using as objective function the expected value of the sum of discounted rewards. By selecting an appropriate gaze direction at each step, this module provides top-down control in the selection of the next fixation point. The second module performs "within fixation" processing, based exclusively on visual information. Its purpose is twofold: to provide the agent with a set of locations of interest in the current image, and to perform the detection and identification of the target object. Detailed experimental results show that the number of saccades to a target object significantly decreases with the number of training epochs. The results also show the learned policy to find the target object is invariant to small physical displacements as well as object inversion.


A query burst is a period of heightened interest of users on a topic which yields a higher frequency of the search queries related to it. In this paper we examine the behavior of search engine users during a query burst, compared to before and after this period. The purpose of this study is to get insights about how search engines and content providers should respond to a query burst. We analyze one year of web-search logs, looking at query bursts from two perspectives. First, we adopt the user's perspective describing changes in user's effort and interest while searching. Second, we look at the burst from the general content providers' view, answering the question of under which conditions a content provider should ``ride'' a wave of increased interest to obtain a significant share of clicks.


(MBHOs) are responsible to their customers and enrollees to ensure that psychotherapy services meet accepted standards of quality and effectiveness. To this end, MBHOs engage in a variety of credentialing and quality-improvement activities. With respect to credentials, typical MBHOs (1) verify that participating therapists have valid licenses to provide behavioral health services, (2) specify a minimum number of years of experience, and (3) require that there be no evidence of malpractice. To ensure quality, most MBHOs encourage the use of empirically supported treatments established in psychotherapy clinical trials. Under these standards, MBHO care managers review treatment plans submitted by qualified therapists and approve only those deemed appropriate. Thus, quality assurance in most MBHOs is to determine the following: the ability of the licensed therapist to propose a treatment plan to a care manager that involves an empirically supported treatment for a specified disorder. However, advances in research methodology have enabled researchers to more critically examine the accumulating clinical evidence upon which these quality assurance standards are based. One advancement is that of meta-analysis, which is a statistical method for combining results from a large number of studies and thereby permitting the investigator to draw conclusions that could not be drawn from individual studies. A second advancement is that of hierarchical linear modeling, which is an extension of multiple regression and allows for analysis of data that are hierarchical. Recent reviews of clinical trials based on these advancements have indicated that the commonly utilized quality assurance standards may no longer be adequate.The past 2 decades of meta-analytic studies have revealed that differences in the relative efficacy of various psychotherapies are minimal at most. Therefore, treatment plans based on empirically supported treatments for specified disorders do not ensure that the proposed treatment will be more effective than other treatments. One could certainly argue that although treatment plans based on empirically supported treatments do not ensure the most effective treatment, this approach at least ensures that the treatment being delivered is at an acceptable standard. Despite its logical appeal, this assertion holds true only if (1) therapists are sufficient-


Background Dendrobium catenatum is a valuable traditional medicinal herb with high commercial value. D. catenatum stems contain abundant polysaccharides which are one of the main bioactive components. However, although some genes related to the synthesis of the polysaccharides have been reported, more key genes need to be further elucidated. Results In this study, the contents of polysaccharides and mannose in D. catenatum stems at four developmental stages were compared, and the stems' transcriptomes were analyzed to explore the synthesis mechanism of the polysaccharides. Many genes involved in starch and sucrose metabolisms were identified by KEGG pathway analysis. Further analysis found that sucrose synthase (SUS; EC 126.96.36.199) gene maybe participated in the polysaccharide synthesis. Hence, we further investigated the genomic characteristics and evolution relationships of the SUS family in plants. The result suggested that the SUS gene of D. catenatum (DcSUS) had undergone the expansion characterized by tandem duplication which might be related to the enrichment of the polysaccharides in D. catenatum stems. Moreover, expression analyses of the DcSUS displayed significant divergent patterns in different tissues and could be divided into two main groups in the stems with four developmental stages. Conclusion In general, our results revealed that DcSUS is likely involved in the metabolic process of the stem polysaccharides, providing crucial clues for exploiting the key genes associated with the polysaccharide synthesis.


This book is an English translation of 'Praktikum der Makromolekularen Stoffe' published in 1999, which was based on three previous editions of 'Praktikum der Makromolekularen Organischen Chemie' (1966/1971/1979). The book consists of five chapters, each having a current list of references providing further reading. All basics, essential and important aspects of polymer chemistry are included in this book. The theoretical treatment in chapters 3, 4 and 5 are supplemented by 110 selected and detailed experiment.


Electric vehicles are equipped with a number of electric motors and their inverters. In order to reduce the space of the motors, we have proposed a motor with two concentrically-arranged rotors which can be independently controlled, and a common outer stator. However, the previous motor was difficult to be practically used due to its complicated support structure. Therefore, we proposed an improved motor with two axially-arranged rotors. In this paper, the static and dynamic characteristics of the motor are computed and verified by carrying out measurements on a prototype. Both results were in good agreement, and the effectiveness of the proposed motor was shown.


The Revolution Thursday, April 28, 42931 Am I a nihilist, unable to accept submissively the common knowledge of the world? Am I a pessimist? Very much the way I was not able to foresee fifteen years ago the sudden liberation that happened overnight, I was not able to anticipate the fall of the Liberal Party under Syngman Rhee. I was too young to foresee the liberation, and that's that. But now? The eleven-year-old me and the twenty-six-year-old me, we are the same political dimwit. Will I be able to write anything with such dull senses? For the last ten days, actually, for more than a month, I have been a bystander to the revolution. To put it nicely, I have been a friendly onlooker. Rather than joining the people on the streets, gathering in the plazas, I have been in this shabby secret room of mine, peering at the revolution's progress. Most likely, I will benefit from this democracy to which I have contributed nothing, like the thousands, tens of thousands, of other bystanders. Is it fair? Even if it isn't,


A global chemical transport model GEOS‐Chem was applied to examine the concentrations of PM2.5 and O3 in China, related health burdens and the relative importance of changes in air pollutants and population aging over 2015–2060 under carbon neutral pathway (Shared Socioeconomic Pathway limiting end‐of‐century radiative forcing to 1.9 W m−2, SSP1‐1.9). Results showed synergistic reductions of 100.0%, 72.0%, and 24.4% in net CO2 emission, concentration of annual mean PM2.5, and the 90th maximum daily average 8‐hr (MDA8) O3 over China, respectively, during 2015–2060. Pollutants‐related deaths owing to changes in pollutants and population were simulated to increase by 38.1% over 2015–2060 because of population aging. Over 2015–2060, sensitivity studies showed that the decline in pollutants alone would mitigate deaths by 5,172.7 thousand, while the population aging alone would increase deaths by 2,633.3 thousand. Carbon neutrality will avoid 3,520.0 thousand deaths in 2060 relative to a higher‐carbon pathway (SSP5‐8.5).


Based on the preliminary design scheme of the ventilation system in the Song-shan Lake tunnel of Guan-Hui intercity railway,this paper introduced the network model of this tunnel ventilation system and established one-dimensional numerical method to simulate the tunnel ventilation.This paper also studied the feasibility of removing the track exhaust system under the platform,which can not only shorten the project cycle but also save the initial investment and fan energy consumption,and concluded that the thermal environment in the tunnel can satisfy the design requirement.For the air velocity in some piston ventilation shafts exceeding the project limitation during normal operation and affecting the system security,this paper presented the method of increasing the local resistance in the piston ventilation shaft,the results of which show that the maximum velocity can decrease to the project requirement value and the system safety can be improved.


The review presents data about etiology and pathogenesis of antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) and genetic susceptibility to its development. The latest international criteria for diagnostics of AРC and its variants are presented. This syndrome can affect multiple organ systems depending on thrombosis localization; therefore nowadays APS problem is multidisciplinary. Clinical manifestations of APS are rather general (thromboses of different localization); so APS diagnosis can be verified only in presence of antiphospholipid antibodies. The differential diagnostics of APS is discussed.


Context: Breathing is the most vital function for maintenance of life. Slow and deep breathing is an integral part of Pranayama and it reduces dead space ventilation and renews air throughout the lungs. The reported beneficial effects of deep breathing as a part of either long term or short term practice of pranayama on pulmonary functions are well documented. However our knowledge about the effects of deep breathing on human respiratory parameters is poor. In the present study, we examined the relationship between exposure to deep breathing and performance on Respiratory parameters before and after the deep breathing. Aim: The present study was done to evaluate the effect of deep breathing on respiratory parameters. Settings & Design: The present study was a comparative prospective study consisting of 30 male healthy subjects of 18-20 years age. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted in the Department of physiology, Adichunchanagiri institute of medical sciences, Mandya after the institutional ethical clearance and written consent from each participant. The participants were asked to perform deep breathing. The duration of the study was twelve weeks. Pre and post deep breathing respiratory functions were assessed by measuring respiratory rate, chest expansion and breath holding time. The parameters were analyzed by Student't' test and p<0.05 was considered the level of significance. Results: There was significant decrease in respiratory rate, and significant increase in chest expansion and breath holding time compared to pre deep breathing practice. Conclusions: This study showed beneficial effects of deep breathing on respiratory functions in normal healthy individuals.


Various studies point to a blood pressure-independent relation between activation of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) and the development of ischaemic cardiovascular disease such as myocardial infarction and chronic heart failure [1]. Thus, hypertensive patients with high plasma renin activity have been shown to be at higher risk of myocardial infarction than those with low renin activity [2–4]. Also, the deletion polymorphism DD of the angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) genotype may be associated with higher levels of plasma ACE without an effect on arterial blood pressure. Interestingly, there is evidence for an increased cardiovascular risk in these patients [5, 6]. Furthermore, with the development of ACE-inhibitors it became evident that these drugs reduce coronary ischaemic events which could not be explained by the drugs' haemodynamic effects alone [7]. The underlying pathophysiologic mechanisms of these findings have not yet been completely understood. Experimental evidence suggests that angiotensin II (A II), besides its well-known effects on blood-pressure and extracellular fluid volume, may also affect growth and proliferation of various tissues such as fibroblasts and vascular smooth muscle cells, stimulate extracellular matrix formation by an increased production of collagen and other proteins, increase the adhesion and infiltration of platelets and monocytes, promote oxidative stress, and may be involved in the regulation of fibrinolysis and apoptosis.


The process of evaluating and selecting the best available techniques confers various characteristics for each country. In the case of EU, the BAT is selected through a TWG meeting after the first screening, mass and energy balance, impact assessment, and decision support process. Korea has proposed four principles for the selection of BAT that can be carbon neutral for each environmental infrastructure,in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To evaluate and select the best available technique, it is necessary to differentiate the methods based on its general application at the current workplace, whether it is a single technique or a combination technique, and whether it is a technological or management technique. In the case of single technique, flirther evaluation is required whether it is applied at the workplace, excessive cost,superior environmental performance over BAT, and secondary environmental pollution. In the case of multiple techniques, it is necessary to examine whether the emission standards are met and whether the pollutants can be treated at the same level as BAT. In the case of BAT candidates for management techniques, evaluating their direct/indirect contribution in lowering the emission level of pollutants can be an important factor. In the case of environmental techniques that are not generally applied at the workplace, it is recommended that the following 8 steps be carried out, including those prescribed by law. The first stage lists the performance evaluation factors. In the second stage, the level of disposal of pollutants and the level of satisfaction with standards are listed. The third stage lists the environmental evaluation elements, and the fourth stage lists the economic evaluation elements. Step 6 lists the pollution and accident prevention evaluation factors, step 7 quantitatively evaluates the technical working group, and step 8 is the BAT confirmation through deliberation of the central environmental policy committee.


A study on the interference effects of overlapping tandem rotors in forward flight is conducted using the time-marching free-wake panel method which adopts field velocity boundary integral formulation. The conventional boundary integral formulation is numerically unstable for the cases when the blade and the wake are in close proximity to each other. In order to avoid this problem, this study applies the field velocity method and modifies the boundary integration formulation. The improved method is used for the parametric study on the advance ratio and the distance between the rotors. These are the parameters that most affect the interference of the tandem rotor in forward flight. Comparison of the aerodynamic performance shows that the horizontal distance between the rotors negligibly influences the overlap-induced power factor for high advance ratio. In addition, it shows that the overlap-induced power factor is inversely proportional to the squared vertical distance between the rotors, and that the overlap-induced power factor increases to a certain extent and decrease back as the advance ratio increases.


Surface-charge configurations, together with stability under bias-temperature (BT) stress, for F-doped and Na-doped lead borosilicate glass were investigated by using C-V and I-V measurements on metal-glass-silicon capacitors and on diodes passivated with the glass. The C-V characteristics showed an increase in negative charge for F doping and in positive charge for Na doping. Alkali impurities in the glass mainly controlled the surface-charge shift during BT, but additional changes, similar to those for Na doping but reversing the sign of the charge, took place by F doping. The leakage current decrease in the diode passivated with F-doped glass, which contradicts the results of C-V measurement, may be due to the education of the generation current by the interaction between the silicon surface and F/sup -/ ions. >


Renin (0.15 U) administered intraventricularly twice daily for 2 weeks produced natriuresis at the end of the first week in dogs drinking tap water and a progressive sodium retention in dogs drinking saline. When the saline intake was limited to 4 L/24 hr, renin (0.1 U) administered intraventricularly twice daily for 4 weeks did not induce sodium retention despite an increase in fluid intake. An increase in mean arterial pressure during the first week (f 12 ± 3 mm Hg) and third week (f 21 ± 6 mm Hg) was recorded. The pressor effect was not related to the amount of saline intake, since the maximum fluid intake occurred during the first week and decreased during the second and third weeks (2.5 ± 0.4, 1.5 ± 0.3, and 1.3 ± 0.3 L/24 hr, respectively). Despite the renin treatment, both mean arterial pressure and saline intake returned to control levels during the fourth week. Chronic intraventricular administration of renin elicits transitory hypertension related to an increase in systemic vascular resistance in dogs drinking saline but with their fluid intake limited to 4 L/24 hr. In dogs having free access to saline, chronic administration of renin produced a volume-dependent hypertension related to sodium retention, probably resulting from a salt-induced renal dysfunction.


Messiaen's 'Saint Francois' Martin Anderson Ohana's 'Office des Oracles' and 'Messe' Caroline Rae Recent Roberto Gerhard recordings Malcolm Hayes John McCabe: Fourth Symphony and Flute Concerto Paul Conway Second Viennese School Piano Music on Naxos Malcolm Hayes Part and Kancheli Peter Quinn


In fish hatcheries, high densities of eggs are maintained in incubators with microbial loads that vary from those in the natural habitat. Moreover, the accumulation of organic debris on tools used in the hatchery facility assists the spread of infectious diseases. This study was designed to evaluate the effect of different iodophor concentrations (10, 50, 100 and 150 ppm) for different contact times (5, 10 and 15 min) on total bacterial count (TBC) and total fungal count (TFC) and hence on the hatchability percentage of tilapia eggs. In addition, the effect of common salt (NaCl), sunlight exposure, 1% Halamid®, 1% Virkon S® and 3% Aquazix® for contact times (5, 10 and 15 min) in reducing TBC and TFC on hatchery equipment (buckets, nets and dishes)was also evaluated. Iodophor treatment at 10 ppm for 15 min resulted in significant reduction of both TBC and TFC on tilapia eggs by ≥ 4 log10 reductions but failed to achieve complete disinfection of egg surface. Conversely, 50 ppm or higher iodophor concentrations did not display antimicrobial activity after all tested contact times. Hatchability percentage was insignificantly different between 0 ppm (90%) and 10 ppm (94%) of iodophor. However, 10 ppm iodophor was significantly different (P < 0.05) from 50 ppm (85%) and 100 ppm (65%). At 150 ppm, there was no hatchability. After application of different disinfectants, limited to general bactericidal activity of ≥ 4 log10 reduction was observed in common salt (NaCl 150 g /7 liters) after 15 min in dishes only, sunlight exposure after 10 min in dishes onlyand 3% Aquazix after 15 min in all tools. Significant and 100% log reduction of both TBC and TFC was observed in 1% Halamid®after 10 min and 1% VirkonS®after 15 min.


Silicon nanowires have received attention for nanoscale electronic devices and chemical and biological sensors. The thermal oxide grown on the silicon nanowires could be used in a variety of devices, so the oxidation of the silicon nanowires is investigated in this work. Silicon nanowires with an average radius of 37nm were grown for these experiments using the vapor-liquid-solid technique with Au to mediate the growth. Etching of the Au tips from the silicon nanowires was performed prior to oxidation to avoid local accelerated oxidation at the nanowire tip. Oxidation was performed at 700°C for 1–121h and at 650 and 750°C for 4h in O2, and the oxidized nanowires were examined by transmission electron microscopy. Depending on the conditions for oxidation, an oxide shell as thin as 6nm was observed, or the entire nanowire was oxidized. The kinetics of oxidation differ from those of a planar silicon wafer and are discussed in this work.


A Public Conference on the Information Consumers Need to Evaluate Weight Loss Products and Programs REPORT OF THE PRESIDING PANEL This is the Presiding Panel's report of the conference proceedings. The views expressed herein by individual government participants do not necessarily reflect the views of their respective government agencies.


Salinity is an increasing problem in many irrigated areas of crop production and is a significant factor in reducing crop productivity. Developmental, physiological, and molecular responses to salinity were studied in order to improve our understanding of these responses. Improvements in our understanding of plant responses to salinity are necessary in order to develop crops with improved salt tolerance. Previously, in Israel, it was shown that Sorghum biccolor can adapt to an otherwise lethal concentration of NaCl. These experiments were refined and it was shown that there is a specific window of development in which this adaption can occur. Past the window of development, Sorghum plants can not be adapted. In addition, the ability to adapt is not present in all genotypes of Sorghum. Cultivars that adapt have an increased coefficient of variation for many of the physiological parameters measured during the mid-phase of adaptation. Therefore, it is possible that the adaptation process does not occur identically in the entire population. A novel gene was identified, isolated and characterized from Sorghum that is induced in roots in response to salinity. This gene is expressed in roots in response to salt treatments, but it is not salt-induced in leaves. In leaves, the gene is expressed without a salt treatment. The gene encodes a proline-rich protein with a novel proline repeat, PEPK, repeated more than 50 times. An antibody produced to the PEPK repeat was used to show that the PEPK protein is present in the endodermal cell wall of the root during salt treatments. In the leaves, the protein is also found predominantly in the cell wall and is present mainly in the mesophyll cells. It is proposed that this protein is involved in the maintenance of solute concentration.


We show that the shape of P Cygni line profiles of photospheric-phase supernova can be analytically inverted to extract both the optical depth and the source function of the line—i.e., all the physical content of the model for the case when the Sobolev approximation is valid. Under various simplifying assumptions, we derive formulae that give S(r) and τ(r) in terms of derivatives of the line flux with respect to wavelength. The transition region between the minimum and the maximum of the line profile turns out to give especially interesting information on the optical depth near the photosphere. The formulae give insights into the relationship between line shape and physical quantities that may be useful in interpreting observed spectra and detailed numerical calculations.


Estimation of distribution algorithms (EDAs) try to solve an optimization problem by finding a probability distribution focussed around its optima. For this purpose they conduct a sampling-evaluation-adjustment cycle, where search points are sampled with respect to a probability distribution, which is adjusted according to the evaluation of the sampled points. Although there are many successful experiments suggesting the usefulness of EDAs, there are only few rigorous theoretical results apart from convergence results without time bounds. Here we present first rigorous runtime analyses of a simple EDA, the compact genetic algorithm, for linear pseudo-boolean functions on n variables. We prove a number of results showing that not all linear functions have the same asymptotical runtime.


The Sydney water supply headworks system consists of 9 major inter-connected reservoirs with Warragamba Reservoir being the largest. The major object of the investigation reported here is to better understand the risks associated with various operating rules and define the 'best' operating rules which minimise the costs and maximise the reliabilty of water supply. An optimisation mode of the WATHNET software package is used to define the space where to search for the 'best' operating rules. The 'optimum' operating rules are then found using the simulation mode of WATHNET software package with a limited number of trial and error attempts. This process defines the trigger levels for pumping and restrictions which produce the minimum operating costs and satisfies the predefined severity-frequency-duration criteria.


Belgian and French scientists have detected elevated levels of organolead compounds, linked to use of gasoline antiknock additives, in one of France's most famous wines, Chateauneuf-du-Pape. The team of researchers, which included analytical chemists and enologists, analyzed samples of 19 vintages of the wine produced by a vineyard located near the junction of two busy auto routes in the Rhone region of France. The results, which the researchers describe in last week's Nature [370, 24 (1994)], show that levels of triethyllead peaked in the 1962 vintage, whereas trimethyllead levels in the wine hit an all-time high in 1978. These organolead compounds are the degradation products of gasoline antiknock additives tetraethyllead and tetramethyllead, respectively. Concentrations of organolead compounds in the samples correlate well with leaded gasoline consumption in Western Europe over the past four decades. During the 1960s, tetramethyllead replaced tetraethyllead as a gasoline additive. Trimethyllead levels ...


In this paper, the main conceptualizations about cultural heritage in the province of San Luis are analyzed through the analysis of their legal, provincial and municipal regulations and their relationship with national regulatory frameworks, as well as through the study if provincial plans and programs related to this topic. The main objective is to identify the most important aspects associated with heritage and to investigate the way in which key issues such as identity, citizen participation and socio-cultural sustainability are addressed. Through this analysis, we intend to discuss prevailing approaches and perspectives on cultural heritage in this province in light of the national legal framework and the objectives of sustainable development. We hope that this paper will deepen the reflection on these issues and constitute a contribution in view of future heritage management projects in the region.


Experiments were designed to determine the effects, if any, of anti‐immunoglobulin (anti‐Ig) sera on T cell‐dependent proliferative responses in vitro. Using rabbit lymphoid cells there was no inhibition of the proliferative response, but instead, an additive effect of anti‐Ig and either antigen or phytohemagglutinin added together, suggesting stimulation of two different cell populations. Pretreatment of mouse lymphoid cells with anti‐Ig and complement caused a detectable inhibition of the proliferative response, which was probably due to the removal of B cells. Pretreatment with anti‐Θ and complement resulted in a much stronger inhibition.


Civil engineering is one of the oldest branch of engineering that includes planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of infrastructure. This include roads, airports, railroads, buildings, bridges, canals, harbors, terminals, Power plants, nuclear reactors, towers, water and wastewater treatment plants, sewers, drainage, flood control, water supply, landfills, and many other facilities. With the advancement of technology and the use of computers, civil engineering has now no limits. From tall sky scrapper in the sky to the tunnels beneath the sea, civil engineering has touched new horizons. Without Civil engineering, today's world and life would have been a mere imagination. And so today's civil engineers along with thorough knowledge of basic concepts should also have to be updated with new studies, the latest technology and advancement in the field. The course structure and curriculum of the universities producing civil engineers should be in accordance with the Civil engineering requirement of today. The structure, curriculum and the evaluation methods at the Maharaja Sayaji Rao University of Baroda, situated in Gujarat state of India is a bit different from the one at the University of Florida. It has four years undergraduate program which consist of eight semesters, two semesters each year, and the curriculum, includes mainly the fundamental concepts with the less use of the computers, the evaluation and the exams system also differ from the University of Florida in various ways. The paper deals with the in depth study about the curriculum, examination and evaluation methods, at the Maharaja Sayaji Rao University of Baroda and at University Of Florida. The Result of the paper shows advantages and disadvantages of the excessive use of computers, online evaluation and assessment system, distance learning programs. With all this, it highlights some of the possible modification in such areas so that it can satisfy the educational requirement of both the countries and the requirements of today's civil engineering. Introduction The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, named after Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad, one of the visionary rulers of Baroda, is one of the renowned universities of India and the largest university in Gujarat state of India. It is well known throughout Asia for the Faculty of fine Arts, Technology and Engineering and many more. The Faculty of Technology and Engineering and the Faculty of Science are the best in Gujarat. This distinguished institute for education, Established in 1881, was originally known as Baroda College of Science. It was recognized as a university in 1949 after the independence of the country, It is both teaching and residential university in the sense that it offers all its courses under a single roof. It is the only university. In the present day, the university has more than 15 different colleges including college of Page 14325.2 engineering, college of medicine, college of performing arts and many more with approximately 35000 students every year. Florida's largest and the United State's fourth largest, University of Florida was founded in 1853, and has been recognized as a "Public Ivy". UF is currently ranked 49th overall among national universities in the 2009 U.S. News & World Report rankings. The University of Florida is one of the largest universities in the United States, with 51,913 students as of fall 2007. It has one of the biggest budgets in the United States at nearly $4.377 billion per year. Florida has 17 colleges and more than 100 research, service and education centers, bureaus and institutes. Many undergraduate majors are offered with about 1,200 freshmen and sophomores taking part in the honors program. This programs offer nearly 100 honors courses per semester within which students no more than 25 per class are enrolled .


The aim of this paper is to identify postediting guidelines that need to be highlighted in the context of translation training. The analysis of a corpus of texts post-edited by 10 translation trainees reveals how they intuitively approach postediting. The corpus shows that stylistic and phraseological changes are kept to a minimum, and that most errors occur in the field of calque or translation loss. On the basis of the intuitive post-editing strategies observed, a number of recommendations are made for teaching purposes, and they include the need for error analysis of MT output.


Fourier ptychography (FP) is geared toward high-resolution imaging with a large field of view efficiently. In the original illumination-based FP scheme, the aberrations in optical systems can be well reconstructed, which plays a prominent role in simple and compact optical arrangements. Unfortunately, the reconstruction strategy for recovering an optical system's pupil function fails to carefully consider the nature of the field-dependent pupil function in the aperture-scanning FP scheme, which affects the quality of the reconstructed image to a certain extent. Based on this observation, we report a phase diversity-based FP (PDFP) scheme for varying aberration correction. We image USAF resolution target with the proposed PDFP scheme and demonstrate our ability to correct varying aberration and improve image quality. The reported approach allows aperture-scanning FP technology to use simpler optical systems for imaging and may facilitate the further development of FP in practical applications such as industrial inspection and long-distance imaging.


Romantic musicians in the 19th century displayed rare fanaticism and made a remarkable contribution to its development and maturity.Analyze its interdependent relationship with romantic music style in 19th century from the point of view of concept and expound its expressive techniques concretely.


The spine is the column that carries the weight of the head and the torso and contains the medulla spinalis that is a part of the Central Nervous System within the canal inside it. Changes occur in the anatomical structures of the vertebrae in cases of infections involving the vertebrae and fractures and deformities arising from traumatic or non-traumatic causes. The determination of such changes in the vertebrae is critically important in terms of treatment or surgical intervention. Morphometric measurements have an important place in the detection of these changes. Moreover, recently, cervical vertebral measurements have been used in sex identification, the preliminary diagnosis of genetic diseases and age identification. We aimed for the results of our study to support clinical interventions to be made in the cervical vertebrae, forensic medicine applications and anthropological applications as a reference in the literature. In the study, 54 cervical vertebrae in the form of dry bones belonging to the neck region were used as the material. Twenty-three different parameters were measured with a digital caliper at a precision 0.01 mm. In the cervical vertebral measurements of the Turkish population in our study, we observed that the results on corpus vertebrae height and transverse diameter varied based on races, and the measurements of the Turkish population were higher. In addition, low, medium and high positive-negative relationships were determined by performing correlation analysis between the vertebrae. Accordingly, we think that these analyses will be helpful in the preparation of the atlas and the drawing of vertebrae.


Left ventricle (LV) remodeling often occurs after acute myocardial infarction (AMI), and early detection and prompt treatment on this condition may improve prognosis of the patients. Basal soluble ST2 and Global Longitudinal Strain (GLS) 2D-speckle tracking echocardiography can detect early changes before LV remodeling occurs. This is an analytic observational study using one group pre-test and post-test design for correlation. Forty-five patients of AMI during August until December 2015 from ICCU and cardiology ward were analyzed and followed up for 12 weeks. There were 45 subjects with AMI, 38 (84.4%) patients with STEMI and seven (15.6%) patients with NSTEMI. There were significant differences of left ventricle end diastolic volume (LVEDV) baseline from 76±29.69ml/m2 to 98.11±36.84ml/m2 after 12 week follow-up (p=0,003). There was significant correlation between high baseline soluble ST2 with and low GLS baseline with LV remodeling (p=0.015). High baseline soluble ST2 and low GLS value can predict LV remodeling in patients with AMI.


We tried to fabricate pure Co0.9Fe0.1 ferromagnetic metal nano-contacts in the insulator layer of AlOx. First, we verified the effect of natural oxidation (N.O.) and in-situ annealing process, and we clarified the formation mechanism of Co0.9Fe0.1-AlOx NOL. In N.O. process, Al is migrated from Co0.9Fe0.1/Al mixing layer (as deposition state) and cohered on the surface by oxygen. As the result, Co0.9Fe0.1 path is pure. By in-situ annealing, Al near the surface migrate to the Co0.9Fe0.1/Al mixing surface by residual oxygen in the ultrahigh vacuum chamber, and the other Al diffuse to Co0.9Fe0.1 at the same time. Next, we observed the surface of Co0.9Fe0.1-AlOx NOL by in-situ conductive AFM (c-AFM). We confirmed the metal paths in an area with a diameter of about 1 nm.


Top buzzwords on the international policy scene in 2012 are "green economy" and "sustainable development." The use of these terms is likely to peak next month. That's because in June, world leaders, business executives, environmental activists, farmers, indigenous peoples, and others from throughout the world will converge on Rio de Janeiro for a major global conference. There, they will discuss how to bring about an economy that sustains natural resources while lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. That event, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, is largely focused on what the UN calls "a green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication." In addition to strong economic performance, the concept of a green economy emphasizes equity within and among generations. It strives to balance social, economic, and environmental goals in both public- and private-sector decisions, according to the UN. Negotiators preparing for the ...


: Diseases caused by emotional disturbances are on the rise these days. Many such disturbed emotions are fast paving their way into our life, altering our nature and behavioural responses, and thus indirectly impacting our health and immune system. One such most basic, disputed and misunderstood emotion is, ANGER. Anger is a natural feeling, but when it interferes with our ability to live a normal life, causing diseases, intervention (whether medical or psychological) becomes necessary in order to live a healthy life both mentally and physically. This research is mostly focused on anger issues and its impact on health. As this was an exploratory study, it included an exploration of different aspects and several facets of anger. Considering all the parameters out of 50 cases 22% showed marked improvement, 40% moderate improvement, 30% mild improvement, 4% showed no improvement and 4% got worse. So, from above study it concluded that 92% of the cases responded well to the indicated Homoeopathic remedy.


Wincenty Skrzetuski, an outstanding political writer, lawyer and historian, in his handbook Prawo polityczne narodu polskiego – The Political Right of Polish Nation – or – The Constitutional Law of Polish Nation), when discussing the issue of the functioning of the political and legal system of the gentry Republic, presented a short draft about the Crown and Lithuanian Tribunal, which were the gentry's supreme court in the years 1578–1794. For the gentry the Tribunal was the supreme court, to which appeals were made from lower courts, both in civil and criminal suits. Polish piarist made interesting digressions which showed some of the weak points of the functioning in the Tribunal. Wincenty Skrzetuski, discussing a procedure of the supreme court sessions. A characteristic feature of the Tribunal was the fact that it was not divided into specialized departments investigating several cases simultaneously. It was decided that the passed judgments would only have the proper authority if they were passed by all the judges from Poland and Lithuania, who in this way represented the majesty of the gentry Republic. The opinions and viewpoints presented by Skrzetuski allow to ascribe him to the group of the Polish political writers, who postulated some drafts of the reforms in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.


In cooperation with the American Physical Society, the Computer Research and Applications Group (CIC-3 -- see Section 13 for an acronym glossary) at Los Alamos National Laboratory has developed and deployed a journal archive system called, The Physical Review OnLine Archive (PROLA). It is intended to be a complete, full service on-line archive of the existing issues of the journal Physical Review from its inception to the advent of a full-service electronic version. The fundamental goals of PROLA are to provide screen-viewable and printable images of every article, full-text and fielded search capability, good browsing features, direct article retrieval tools, and hyperlinking to all references, errata, and comments. The research focus is on transitioning large volumes of paper journals to a modern electronic environment.


Objective To explore the application effect of Taohong Siwu decoction in prevention of deep venous thrombosis of lower extremity in patients with lumbar vertebral fracture after operation. Methods Selecting 164 cases of patients with lumbar vertebral fractures, they were randomly divided into observation group and control group. The control group was treated with traditional anticoagulant therapy after the op-eration, while the observation group was given Taohong Siwu decoction based on the control group. The lower extremity deep vein thrombosis(DVT) occurring rate and postoperative day 10 of prothrombin time(PT), activation activated partial thromboplastin time(APTT), fibrin origi-nal(FIB) and D dimer(D-D) content of the two groups were compared. Results The incidence of DVT in the observation group was significantly lower than that of the control group, and the difference was statistically significant(P 0.05). The average PT of the observation groupwas significantly higher than that of the control group, FIB and D-D content of the observation group were significantly lower than those of the control group, and the difference was statistically significant(P 0.05). Conclusion Taohong Siwu decoction for deep venous thrombosis of lower extremity in patients with lumbar vertebral fracture after the operation can obviously improve the hypercoagulable state of traditional lumbar fractures, reduce postoperative FIB and D-D levels, thereby reducing the incidence of DVT, and is worthy of clinical application.


Anthony Plog (b. 1947) has contributed several notable works for brass instruments. He is known for writing extremely technically challenging works that contain angular melodies, fast rhythms and a large degree of chromaticism. Though his music is difficult, it also conveys intense emotions. His music for trumpet, specifically Concerto no. 1 for Trumpet, Brass Ensemble and Percussion and Concerto no. 2 for Trumpet and Orchestra, represents a zenith in his compositional development. This dissertation examines Concerto no. 1 and Concerto no. 2 from a performer's perspective to better understand the stylistic characteristics and challenges encountered in his music. Each concerto is examined in terms of rhythmic structure, intervallic structure, thematic material, motivic material and form.


Abstract A survey of length of stay among inpatients at a regional secure unit (RSU) revealed that 6.7 per cent of all admissions exceeded 2 years. The characteristics of this group were compared with those of a control group. The RSU inpatients were more likely to be the subject of restriction orders, to have committed serious offences, to be socially disadvantaged, to have been admitted from Special Hospitals and to have a long psychiatric history.


There are three main classes of modifiers that can affect the polarity of the sentiments described in natural language texts: negations, intensifiers and diminishers. In this paper, we concentrate on the study of these particular words which have a very important semantic role in any natural language description. Our study is applied on a real data set extracted from the popular Romanian Web site AmFostAcolo dedicated to tourist impressions.


The standard ECG remains the most common non-invasive tool for diagnosing and studying atrial fibrillation (AF). Due to the much higher amplitude of the electrical ventricular activity in the surface ECG, isolation of the atrial activity component is crucial to the analysis and characterization of AF. An average beat subtraction (ABS) based method is developed to perform this QRST cancellation. In contrast with standard methods, two sets of templates are created instead of one: one set for the QRS complexes and one for the T-waves. The QRS complexes are clustered according to their morphology; the T-waves, using both their preceding RR interval and their morphology. Next, spatial optimization (rotation and scaling) is applied to the QRS templates. ECG signals generated by a biophysical model are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method in comparison with two other QRST cancellation methods. The proposed method decreases the averaged relative error by 19.7% and 29.0% in comparison with the standard ABS and the standard spatiotemporal method, respectively


One of the principal elements of the economic reforms program initiated in 1991 was to reduce the fiscal deficit of the central government which, at that time, faced a solvency crisis. This reduction was at least partially achieved by reducing transfers to state governments. As a result, state government budgets faced crises and agriculture, being largely a state subject, was denied adequate investment. This paper reviews the performance of Indian agriculture, particularly in the post-reform period. It attributes this lacklustre performance to the stagnation of agricultural investment whereas there has been a contemporaneous rise in agricultural subsidies. Thus while current operations are being subsidised to some extent resource for augmentation of productive capacity in agriculture are dwindling.


A protective device (14) is attached to a medical instrument (12) provided with a needle (16) and a needle holding part (28), and covers a needle tip (16a) after puncturing of a puncture object by the needle (16). The protective device (14) includes an inner cylinder (36), an outer cylinder (40), and a spring (38), and the outer cylinder (40) receives a cam structure (54) of the inner cylinder (36) and has a guide passage structure (68) configured from one or more guide passages (66). The outer cylinder (40) is provided with a lateral top part (84b) and a distal-end inclined edge part (84d) as resistance force generating parts for causing the inner cylinder (36) to generate a resistance force at a puncture position (92a) or in the vicinity of the puncture position (92a).


Background: Desmoplastic melanoma (DM) represents a relatively rare malignancy. The aim of this study was to describe the incidence and survival of DM in the United States.


Smyth CJ. Angina pectoris and myocardial infarction as complications of myxedema: with especial reference to the danger of treatment with thyroid preparations. Am Heartj7 1938;15:652-60. 2 Steinberg AD. Myxedema and coronary artery disease-a comparative autopsy study. Ann Intern Med 1968;68:338-44. 3 Keating FR, Parkin TW, Selby JB, Dickinson LS. Treatment of heart disease associated with myxedema. Prog Cardiovasc Dis 1961;3:364-81. ' Lotti G, Delitala G, Devilla L, Alagna S, Masala A. Reduction of plasma triiodothyronine (T3) induced by propranolol. Clin Endocrinol (Oxf) 1977;6 :405-10. 5 Levine HD. Compromise therapy in the patient with angina pectoris and hypothyroidism. A clinical assessment. Am J Med 1980;69:411-7. 6 Paine TD, Rogers WJ, Baxley WA, Russell RO. Coronary arterial surgery in patients with incapacitating angina pectoris and myxedema. Am J7 Cardiol 1977 ;40 :226-31. Hay ID, Duick DS, Maloney JD, Vlietstra RE, Pluth JR. Thyroid hormone therapy in hypothyroid patients undergoing coronary angiography and aortocoronary bypass graft surgery. In: Stockigt JR, Nagataki S, eds. Thyroid research VIII. Canberra: Australian Academy of Science, 1980:526-8.


The present status of theoretical predictions for the Lamb shift in heavy few-electron ions is reviewed. We compare theoretical predictions with experimental data and discuss perspectives of testing quantum electrodynamics in a new region: the region of the strongest electrical fields available at present for experimental study. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Abstract : The technology and understanding of acoustic surface wave devices has progressed to the point where they can be used to implement sophisticated processing schemes such as a parallel channel pulse compression filter. The report discusses the design, development and experimental verification of the surface wave dispersive networks necessary to build a 7-channel pulse compression filter with 700 MHz bandwidth and a TW product of 4900. These individual channel filters must be time contiguous with identical linear FM dispersive characteristics. A division synthesis technique is developed for the realization of these filters. The technique is specifically tailored for an acoustic surface wave implementation consisting of one apodized and one unapodized transducer. The resulting filters were quite reproducible and their general characteristics (spectrum shape, bandwidth, and dispersive delay) were essentially as desired.


This study underlines the importance of relationship duration and how it affects procurement and purchasing relationships. Relationship history and relational norms have become significant factors for explaining the scope and stability of purchasing relationships (Dwyer et al., 1987; Sweeney and Webb, 2002; Liu et al., 2009). Relationship duration facilitate in developing a combination of behavioural components, contractual arrangement and trust that overcome organisation problems in inter-firm businesses and it offers an opportunity to ensure stability, and comparative advantages for the procurement partners. The authors explore how the prior length of an inter-firm relationship helps in handling problems associated to behavioural uncertainty, opportunism and ex post transaction costs. The findings highlight the critical role of the prior length of business relationships and how it can help in attenuating organisation problems in procurement relationships. This study supports that relationship duration is a significant antecedent in overcoming organisational difficulties in business relationships and also enhancing relationship quality.


Discloses a biodegradable, water dispersible absorbent article. The absorbent article comprises an absorbent core, a water insoluble, biodegradable film, and a water-dispersible housing; wherein the water insoluble, biodegradable film is laminated to the absorbent core.


Kelvin probe measurements and orientation polarization Previous Kelvin probe investigations of Alq3 films have shown a constant surface potential increase with film thickness (up to 5 V per 100 nm) that is linked to spontaneous orientation polarization of the polar Alq3 molecules but vanishes for various external stresses such as visible light or elevated temperature. This permanent polarization density is around -1 mC/m. SKPM measurements reproduced the surface potential shift on bare Alq3 films as well as in the areas that had been behind a shadow mask during metal evaporation. It corresponds to the potential of the film surface against the substrate in the case of depletion at the transition voltage. After deposition of a metal contact onto the Alq3 layer no such shift was found neither on the metal surface (before FIB cutting) nor in the Alq3 beneath (after FIB cutting with floating top contact). This means that deposition of a metal layer on top of the Alq3 film triggers compensation of the orientation polarization by charge accumulation.


Prior single institution studies suggest MRI may improve the assessment of the extent of cancer within the breast, and thus reduce the risk of leaving macroscopic disease in the breast following breast conservation therapy. We report on the rate of MRI and mammography detection of foci of distinct incidental cancer in a prospective, multi center trial involving 426 women with confirmed breast cancer at 15 institutions in the US, Canada, and Germany.