The pattern of adverse reactions associated with the administration of sulphonamides is already well known, although it required 30 years for its definition. The combination of trimethoprim with sulphamethoxazole has been available for medical use since October, 1968, since when approximately 25,000,000 standard treatment courses have been given.


Integrity testing calls for evaluation criteria far different from measures used in judging navigation accuracy. Evaluation methods now planned could be improved, especially in regard to bias detection sensitivity near the Containment Warning Level. This investigation was prompted by conflicting demands for large data ensembles and practicality of tests, exacerbated by added requirements for high confidence levels. Complexity of sole means FDI sequences adds still more demands beyond those of integrity test for supplemental navigation. A new criterion of performance is offered as a solution. Present plans for GPS integrity testing-for both sole means and supplemental navigation-are envisioned without the recommendations herein. Existing concepts are based on GO/NO-GO testing throughout and, at least for sole means, there is one external flag (for availability; alarm flags are internal). Concepts herein are offered as potential solutions to unforeseen future events (e.g., tighter protection radius demands) or to marginal coverage (which has always exerted a limiting influence on GPS integrity).<<ETX>>


ABSTRACT As a documentary educator and practitioner in Australia, 'truth' is an area of concern for both my students and I in undertaking the risky capturing and the representation of the lives of others. Documentaries are deceptively difficult to make, especially for the novice, and most especially when considering hybrid non-fiction genre forms. The questions my students pose often centre on how much can they blend reality in the 'post truth' moment, and what are the practical and ethical challenges of doing so? This paper urges teachers and makers alike to refer to established documentarians who investigate at truthful depictions that often transcend the didactic recitation of facts. Citing the examples of Conjuring the Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story (directed by Martin Scorsese, 2019) and The Rehearsal (created by and starring Nathan Fielder, 2022), I present a pragmatic discussion as to how disruptive non-fiction form a pure triadic relationship between participants, audiences, and filmmakers, which necessarily involves the overlap of ethics and creativity. I refer to a recent student hybrid documentary film Bustard Head (directed by Lucy Lakshman, 2021) as an example outcome of this pedagogically oriented approach.


This guide created by SUNY ESF Associate Librarian Jane Verostek reviews the history of The Roosevelt Wildlife State and connects users to archival items relating to the The Roosevelt Wildlife Station and Theodore Roosevelt located at SUNY ESF.


Background: The genus Candida comprises 163 species, the most common pathogen in the genus is C. albicans, however, other Candida species are considered as emergent pathogens. Because there are species-specific differences in the susceptibility of Candida spp. to the currently used therapeutic drugs, species identification is critical for therapeutic planning and accurate epidemiological records. The objective of this study is to evaluate the performance of tRNA intergenic length polymorphism (tDNA-ILP) analysis for the accurate identification of Candida species. Methods: For the identifying the 7 type strains and 54 clinical isolates of Candida, the suitability of tDNA-ILP was evaluated. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using a pair of primers or a single primer was performed. The PCR products were separated by electrophoresis in 2% agarose gels for 70 min. Results: In seven Candida type strains, tDNA-ILP using a single primer (reverse) can be easily analyzed by visual comparision. Fifty-three of 54 strains were identified as the same species with conventional identification. Conclusions: The tDNA-ILP analysis can be useful for the simple and rapid identification of Candida species in routine laboratories. [Kor J Med Mycol 2006; 11(1): 13-18]


1___Introductio n This paper describes developments o f the RAMP system, a m ultiprogramming syste m designed for use in small machines of th e PDP°8 class for operation in real-tim e processing environments. Several of thes e systems ace currently operating in proces s control, message switching and termina l control applications. The development o f this system was largely the result of th e need for relatively sophisticated dat a communications systems for use by remotel y located process control and interactiv e graphics terminals. Early versions o f this system, as described in [1, 2, an d 3], sustained aggregate transmission rate s of about 500-1000 characters-per-secon d for as many as twenty-four terminals. Further uevelopment has resulted i n an enhanced throughput and an attractiv e interface to which special-purpose job-program subsystems can be attached [4]. The newer system incorporate a genera l storage allocation technique whic h provides both for the dynamic loading o f page-relocatable job-program subsystem s and for the temporary storage of contro l information and I/O buffers. The concep t of task, program, and real/task-tim e processing is given precise definition , and the interface to device servic e routines is simple and powerful. Finally , I/O message transmissions are accomplishe d in a record-oriented rather than a byte-oriented fashion, so that high-speed I/ O devices can be efficiently connected. This construction has resulted in a two-to tour-told improvement in the aggregat e transmission rate and a much mor e efficient utilization of core storage. Although the primary implementatio n goal in the new RAMP system was increase d through p ut and flexibility as compared t o the old system, the development of the ne w system has been different enough from th e old that it is presented here in toto ; an d familiarity with the old system is no t assumed requisite in the exposition. Order No. 716. Furthermore, although both the nee and th e old systems were coded for the PDP-8 family of machines, the im p l e mentatio n techni q ues described here are obviousl y not restricted for use on this machine , but are appropriate for use on any "small " machine requiring I/O interrunts on a character-by-character basis. In fact, i t will develop that many of the constructio n techniques are really special adaptation s of those used …


Observations in the subsolar low latitude boundary layer (LLBL) during reconnection show counter-streaming suprathermal ions on rare occasions. Composition measurements for one event presented here indicate that the ions are from the magnetosheath although no similar equal energy per charge suprathermal He2+ and H+ populations were observed there. Acceleration of magnetosheath ions either across the magnetopause or in the LLBL followed by magnetic mirroring of the initially parallel suprathermal ions best explains these observations.


Child homelessness has recently reached levels unprecedented in the United States since the Great Depression. Contemporary research has attempted to isolate the effects of homelessness on education, with mixed results. This study reports results from a study in one large urban area and finds that there is no meaningful difference in achievement between homeless and housed low–socioeconomic status (SES) elementary school students. Furthermore, we find that attendance is a mediator of lowered achievement and that commonly suspected school-level characteristics do not predict homeless student success. Implications for policy, practice, and research are discussed.


Provided is a polyester film which is industrially practicable, while having an excellent balance between the mechanical characteristics in the MD direction and the mechanical characteristics in the TD direction, excellent impact resistance and the like. This polyester film is formed of a polyester resin that contains 60% by mass or more of a polybutylene terephthalate, and has an elongation at break in the MD of 80% or more, an elongation at break in the TD of 80% or more, a plane orientation of 0.12-0.14, an impact strength of 0.05 J/mum or more and a puncture strength of 0.5 N/mum or more.


This paper gives out a mode of cold chain logistics of agricultural products based on the management of VMI.From the perspective of cost control,it proposes a model for agricultural products inventory-transportation integrated optimization under the management of VMI and identified demand to determine the best order quantity and order cycle.In such condition the total cost of inventory and transportation is lowest.It also makes a clear explanation by a numerical example.


Although selective laser sintering (SLS) has been widely applied in many fields, more research work is needed to develop proper polymer microspheres for SLS. Thermal-induced phase separation (TIPS) is a facile way but rarely reported to prepare the polymer microspheres. The roles of liquid–liquid phase separation (LLPS) and crystallization in the TIPS process are not clear. In this study, proper polypropylene (PP) microspheres for SLS are successfully prepared via TIPS with xylene. The diameters and morphologies of these PP microspheres can be regulated easily by changing the PP concentration and the quench temperature. The large undercooling drives the solution into the metastable LLPS region and produces PP microspheres with smooth surfaces. The PP crystallization occurs both on the LLPS interface and inside the polymer-rich phase when the solution is quenched to a temperature near the binodal line, and the tiny bent lamellae are formed on the microsphere surface. At higher temperature only PP crystallization occurs, which results in the formation of PP particles consisting of packed lamellae. The PP microspheres prepared here are suitable for SLS and promote the development of SLS potentially. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2016.


ABSTRACT A novel (+)-γ-lactamase used for the resolution of racemic γ-lactam from Bradyrhizobium japonicum USDA 6 was found as a result of sequence-structure guided genome mining. It consists of 409 amino acids, only 49% of which are identical to the amino acid sequences of the known (+)-γ-lactamase from Sulfolobus solfataricus. This is only the third (+)-γ-lactamase gene to be reported.


Single crystals of scandium doped germanium sillenite (BGO:Sc) were obtained by the Czochralski method. The absorption and photochromic spectra were investigated as a function of temperature. For comparison the same spectra for nominally pure crystals were measured too. Scandium doping influences significantly on spectral dependences only at about 8000 cm-1. But the presence of Sc ions modifies strongly the temperature dependences of spectra. The characteristic photochromic temperature T0 for BGO:Sc is determined to be about 100 K. This value is higher than T0 for pure material. The main part of the photochromic spectrum is divided into 4 absorption bands (at 8350, 11660, 18090, 21350 cm-1). The fifth band is in the UV and it was not investigated in this paper. On the base of different temperature dependences the above four absorption bands are attributed to two centers.


Technical barriers in the trade liberalization debate refer to the elements of trade that hinder the free trade of goods and services by adapting and applying different standards, technical regulations, certification procedures, and inspection systems to other parties. Standard has dual meaning in the industrial view: first, it can increase the effectiveness of economic activities and preoccupy the market. This preoccupied standard, however, becomes obstacles for late players to overcome and barriers for the free trade system. If so, what point of view do the Korean companies have about 'Standard and Technical Regulation' functioning as technical barriers? This study aimed to focus on Korean small and medium corporations, examining the extent of recognition on standard as trade barriers, whether they recognize standard as the measures for market preoccupation and what can enhance the recognition on standard. By literature research, this study covered the concepts and trends of technical barriers, while the concepts of standard and international standardization activities were examined. Then by surveying 151 Korean SMEs, the study empirically examined the recognition and utilization of standard as trade barriers, and the satisfaction level about the support system to increase such recognition. Finally, policy directions were made on how Korean SMEs can enhance the recognition on standard as trade barriers and the function as standard makers.


The Cuora flavomarginata Gray of Dabieshan region is divided into two natural populations according to characteristics of the breastplate shape as well as the breastplate and the carapace closed degree and so on.The shape biology characteristic of one natural population is reported in this article.This kind of natural population's shape biology characteristic is:middle the breastplate is even,the breastplate and the carapace is not completely closed,the forehead and the four limbs may partly reveal.The statistical analysis indicates that the length of carapace/the width of carapace,the length of carapace/the length of breastplate,the width of carapace/the width of breastplate are 1.37±0.06,1.04±0.02,1.30±0.04 respectively.The simple linear regression equation of the length of carapace to the length of breastplate is Y=1.0512X-1.3141.The simple linear regression equation of the length of carapace to the body height is Y=0.4665X+0.6157.The linear correlation is very obvious.There are more obvious linear correlation in:the weight to the length of carapace,the weight to the width of carapace,the width of carapace to the width of breastplate and so on.There was no obvious linear correlation of the age to body weight(r=0.3640).


Heat pump and photo-voltaic grid impact study at lowvoltage level requires detailed simulation of multiple grids and scenarios, inevitably involving assumptions and scope restrictions. This paper investigates the influence of several assumptions on grid impact indicators, namely voltage levels and load, based on a probabilistic district simulation framework developed in previous work. Grid simplification, simulation and data temporal resolution and sampling repetitions are examined, along with variation in boundary conditions, namely transformer reference voltage and capacity, and heat pump power factor. The sensitivity study shows the accuracy loss resulting from low resolution data and grid simplification, while also highlights the necessity to take into consideration uncertain parameters, such as the reference voltage and heat pump power factor.


Standardized time series of fishery catch rates require collations of fishing power data on vessel characteristics. Linear mixed models were used to quantify fishing power trends and study the effect of missing data encountered when relying on commercial logbooks. For this, Australian eastern king prawn (Melicertus plebejus) harvests were analysed with historical (from vessel surveys) and current (from commercial logbooks) vessel data. Between 1989 and 2010, fishing power increased up to 76%. To date, both forward-filling and, alternatively, omitting records with missing vessel information from commercial logbooks produce broadly similar fishing power increases and standardized catch rates, owing to the strong influence of years with complete vessel data (16 out of 23 years of data). However, if gaps in vessel information had not originated randomly and skippers from the most efficient vessels were the most diligent at filling in logbooks, considerable errors would be introduced. Also, the buffering effec...


We describe a modelling activity for students in a course in which modelling with differential equations is appropriate. We have used this model in our coursework for years and have found that it enlightens students as to the model building process and parameter estimation for a linear, first-order, ordinary differential equation. The activity also provides a lesson in 'knowing what to do when you do not know what to do.' [G. Polya, How to Solve It, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1945].


This paper develops a two-country model in which transmission of financial shocks arises despite a flexible exchange rate regime and substitutable financial assets, contrary to the open-economy literature results under these two conditions. The search and matching approach first accounts for the time needed to restore normal functioning of financial markets following a disruption. It also allows dissociating two types of financial shocks: (i) pure liquidity contractions imply negative co-movements of home and foreign outputs, so that the model nests the standard open macroeconomy results as a particular case; (ii) shocks to banks' capitalization costs in one country do generate international financial contagion.


Objective:To explore the problems in over 600 in-service CT devices in Zhejiang Province to find solutions. Methods:To improve the quality control of the device in our province, we invited relevant experts to have technical support. In 2011, Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Health Economics set up a project team to study the topic "The research for the specifications and methods of CT equipment quality control"(ID: zjwsjjkt2011007). This project team selected 16-row CT models as the object of this study to analyze the impact of key parameters of CT image quality. The CatPhan500 module was selected to establish the quality control database. Results:At the same time, through a wide range of research and survey analysis on the current variety of production and quality testing standards, national testing standards, and international testing standards, test index, test phantoms, testing methods, the standard the database of deviation, an objective assessment methods based on China's national conditions was proposed, and a regional 16-row CT quality control methods and standards was developed. Conclusion:On this basis, the first experimental CT hardware for province-wide quality control has been established.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the results of putting stroke which are face angle at impact, swing path of club, and green slope. For this study, a pendulum putting machine and a movable plate were used. Ball rolling distance was set at 1.2m. The control group(CG) does not have an angle and for example, the face angle is 0 degree, the swing path is 0 degree and the green slope is 0 degree. Nine experimental groups have one other condition. The origin of the coordinate was set at the corner of the plate and the ball was set on(70,0). In this study, x stands for direction, y stands for distance, and x+y unites a distance and a direction. Results suggested that the slope of the green was exposed to affect the big effect on the direction of move of the ball the most. The face angle has an effect on the direction of the ball in case one is big(more than 2 degrees). However, small angle did not change the direction of ball movement. The distance of the ball is almost constant(less than ±5cm) in spite of the transformation of the club. In the case of a distance and a direction, the slop of the green affected the big effect most. The face angle of 3 degrees affected big effect.


Two cases of acute carbon monoxide poisoning in the same family are reported with some discussion of presenting symptomatology and long standing complaints.Pulmonary edema was documented on the first day in both patients.The clinical course emphasizes the extensive dysfunction that can result in acute exposure to carbon monoxide gas.


At present,the research of thematic mapping rule base was very little,because it was hard to summarize the rules and formalize expression.Considering this situation,the thematic mapping rules were summarized from the perspective of technical implementation possibility and practice,and then the ontology representation model was constructed.The ontology representation model focused on the hierarchical structure between the concepts,while the spatial characteristic of thematic elements was taken as the attribute of ontology model and the representation method rules,data processing rules and visual variable rules were taken as the rule definition of ontology model.The model would be useful to improve processing efficiency of searching and applying the rules and raise the intelligent level of the thematic mapping.


An account is given of the examination of carbodiimides and ethyl chloroformate as cross-linking agents for wool. The level of cross-linking was estimated from the extent of swelling of the treated wool in formic acid. Carbodiimide treatments resulted in the condensation of amino and carboxyl side chains to give amide cross-links; ester cross-links were also formed by condensation of hydroxyl and carboxyl side chains, Hydroxylamine treatments, which cleaved the ester but not the amide cross-links, were used to estimate the relative abundance of the two types of cross-link. N-Hydroxysuccinimide strongly promoted the cross-linking of wool with carbodiimides, most of the extra cross-links introduced being esters. The treatment of wool with ethyl chloroformate introduced relatively few cross-links. The main reactions are believed, on the basis of indirect evidence, to be esterification of carboxyl side chains and conversion of amino side chains to urethanes.


Patients with cancer of unknown primary site are common, representing 5%10% of all cancer patients (7). Combination chemotherapy, often used with surgery or radiation therapy, has proved to be potentially curative for several metastatic tumors of known primary site. Likewise, some patients with metastasis of unknown origin (MUO) also have responsive neoplasms and could be treated successfully (2,3). There is no doubt that, unless the primary tumor is promptly diagnosed and treated, most of these cases will have a rapid downhill course. Therefore, time is also an important factor in the workup and management of these patients.


Channel modeling has always been the core part of the design and development of communication system, especially in the sixth-generation (6G) era. Traditional approaches like stochastic channel modeling and ray-tracing (RT)-based channel modeling depend heavily on measurement data or simulation, which are usually expensive and time-consuming. In this article, we propose a super-resolution (SR) model for recovering high-resolution (HR) channel characteristics from sparse sampling data. The model is based on multitask learning (MTL) convolutional neural networks (CNNs) with attention mechanism and residual connection. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed MTL SR model could achieve fairly good performances in terms of mean absolute error (MAE) and standard deviation of error (STDE). The advantages of the proposed model are demonstrated in comparison with other state-of-the-art deep learning (DL) models and visualization of SR performances. The ablation study also proved the necessity of data augmentation and the techniques in the model design. The good generalizability of the proposed MTL SR model leads to discussions of potential applications. The contribution of this article could be helpful in channel modeling, network optimization, positioning, and other wireless channel characteristics-related work by largely reducing the workload of simulation or measurement.


For some children learning the letter-sound correspondences in the phonics approach to teaching reading can be difficult. Set out below is a scheme in which each lower-case letter of the alphabet has been paired with a picture which not only resembles each letter, but also has this letter as the first letter of its name. Through games with the teacher, parents or other children using this scheme, the child learns to associate the letter shape and sound with the picture. Eventually when s/he sees a letter in print and cannot remember its sound the child learns to recall the picture s/he has learnt to associate with it, recall the first sound of the name of the picture and thereby works out the sound of the letter in print.


This paper dealt mainly with the effects of nutritive deficiency upon the formation and physiological characteristics of lateral roots in rice plant. Thirty days old seedlings of the variety Norin No. 1 were grown in culture solutions, from which main nutritive elements such as N, P or K was remorvd respectively (Table 1). Plants were sampled 1 month later for the investigations of ecological characteristics of their primary and secondary roots. Main results were as follows: (1) Under conditions of abnormal nutrition, number of primary roots, especially of the newly emerged ones (A class root), decreased in contrast to those of more aged roots (B, C, D and E classed). The length of all roots classified was almost reversely circumstanced as compared with numbers. The root diameter increased in general (Table 2). (2) Total number of lateral roots per primary root and their density increased particularly in B and C class roots, when plants were affected by abnormal nutritions (Table 2). Lateral roots showed a tendency to appear near the tip of a primary root in those cases (Fig. 2). In addition to this experiment, the effects of nitrogen deficiency on lateral roots of the seedlings were examined. From results of this experiment, it was concluded that their lateral roots were similarly increased by the deficiency of the element (Fig. 4). Moreover, physiologically abnormal branch roots (c and t1), showing less TTC reducing activity (Fig. 3), increased in such a case (Fig. 5).


Hong Kong and Guangdong have long been closely related and mutually dependend . At a time after the ending of the Anti-Japanese War, trade between them resumed and developed. However, with the thorough out break of the civil war, social economy of the territory under the rule of KuoMingtung collapsed and the Bureaucrat capital of KuoMingtung monopolized the foreign trade of Guangdong. Smuggling between Hong Kong and Guangdong was so rampant as to be out of control. As a result, normal trade between civilians of Hong Kong and Guangdong shrank continously and went into a state of difficulty. All those prophesyed the imminent ending of Modern trade history between Hong Kong and Guangdong.


The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is applying guidance from the Multi Agency Radiation Survey and Site Investigation Manual (MARSSIM) to demonstrate that remedial actions of radiologically contaminated Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program properties have met dose-based clean-up goals. Manhattan Engineer District ore-processing activities at the Linde site in Tonawanda, NY, resulted in large volumes of contaminated soils being dispersed and buried over the 55 ha (135 acres) site. The principal radionuclides of concern include radium-226 (Ra-226), thorium-230 (Th-230), and total uranium. While characterization data were collected during the remedial investigation, the extent and location of all buried contamination was uncertain at the beginning of the remedial action. As part of the remediation strategy at the Linde site, the USACE followed the Environmental Protection Agency's Triad approach in its application of the MARSSIM final status survey (FSS) process to reduce the uncertainty in the extent of contamination while collecting FSS data. Systematic planning helped develop a conceptual site model, identify data gaps, and target the areas of concern to be addressed before and during site remediation. Pre-remediation sampling and the collection of data from MARSSIM Class 2 areas, consistent with FSS requirements, allowed datasets to support both excavationmore » planning needs and closure requirements in areas where contamination was not encountered above Derived Concentration Guideline Level (DCGL) standards. Real-time technologies such as gamma walkover surveys, large area plastic scintillators, and on-site gamma spectroscopy minimized expensive off-site alpha spectrometry analyses, and at the same time provided the ability to respond to unexpected field conditions. The sequencing of the data collection from various MARSSIM FSS units was optimized to reduce uncertainty and provide most of the Class 2 and Class 3 survey data prior to the completion of the remediation of the Class 1 areas. (authors)« less


Some dynamic compressive tests about polyurethane rigid (PUR) syntactic foams have been done by SHPB experimental set. The stress strain curves of PUR syntactic foams of 3 different densities are obtained at higher strain rates and their dynamic mechanical properties are also investigated at the same time. Based on all the stress strain curves obtained, the characteristics of the energy absorption of PUR syntactic foams are analyzed and discussed furthermore. It is found that the envelope of optimum energy absorption of PUR syntactic foams is the same line in the energy absorption diagram. In addition, the dynamic failure characteristics are studied by means of SEM analyses for PUR syntactic foams specimens after loading.


The lithium–selenium (Li–Se) battery is a promising energy storage system for portable devices owing to its high energy density (2528 Wh L−1) and electrical conductivity (10−3 S m−1). The main issue with Li–Se batteries is their poor stability originating from the dissolution of Se‐containing compounds. Hence, many studies have focused on the immobilization of Se using protective layers prepared via ex situ or in situ approaches. However, these strategies are too complicated and costly for practical use. Herein, a facile in batteria electrochemical treatment to form a protective conductive layer on a Se‐based cathode is introduced. Specifically, aniline monomers added to an assembled Li–Se cell are polymerized into electrically conductive polyaniline. The treated Li–Se cell exhibits 40% higher capacity retention compared to untreated one. Moreover, at a high rate (4 C), the treated cell maintains a capacity of 1538 mAh cm−3, whereas the untreated cell exhibits no capacity. The enhanced cyclic stability and rate capability are attributed to the electrochemical formation of a uniform, ultrathin (≤10 nm) polyaniline layer, to confine lithium polyselenides with its C−N bonds, and improve ionic conductivity by self‐doping with lithium salts to form delocalized polaron lattice in the polyaniline.


Wigner's friend is commonly invoked in discussion of quantum mechanics and its interpretation.. but who is the friend really? A recent paper by Ballentine is relevant.


Local magnetization and current distribution in (La(1-y)Pr(y))0.7Ca0.3MnO3 (y=0.7) crystals are studied by a magneto-optical (MO) imaging technique. MO images below 120 K visualize inhomogeneous magnetization and conduction paths that manifest the percolative conduction originated from the mesoscopic phase separation into ferromagnetic metals and antiferromagnetic insulators. Application of large amounts of current switches the current distribution from inhomogeneous to homogeneous concomitantly with a steep increase in resistivity. These phenomena are discussed in view of current induced collapse of the phase separation through a local heating.


Workers who are paid more for being more productive tend to band together and work harder. That is the key finding of research by Erina Ytsma, to be presented at the annual congress of the European Economic Association in Mannheim in August 2015. The study looks at the introduction of a performance pay scheme known as W-Pay in German academia and finds that the scheme led to greater clustering of the most productive researchers.


A NEWLY APPOINTED JUSTICE often comes to the United States Supreme Court with the opportunity to have an immediate impact on decisions involving some of the significant policy questions of the day. Such an opportunity to influence policy is more meaningful when the "freshman justice" joins a closely divided court on which a single vote may tip the balance on a decision, or when a single president has the opportunity to appoint several like-minded justices in a single term. Recognizing the importance of the appointment process as a means of influencing judicial decisions, presidents throughout history have sought to name individuals who would support the president's policy goals once on the Court. 1 Thus, the question of how a newly appointed justice is likely to vote is of interest not only to the president, but to all who recognize the Supreme Court's policy-making function. Of particular interest is the question of whether the voting behavior of new justices differs from that of more senior members of the Court. Is the voting behavior of newcomers immediately


photographs, found that their unit cells were similar, and concluded that they were related only by solid solution. Buerger, however, (1956) found that the unit cell of bustamite (Table 1) is closely related to, but different from, the cell of wollastonite. He noted that there is a sort of superstructure relation between the two minerals. Liebau et al. (1958) confirmed Buerger's unit cell and guessed that the difference in structures is based only on a different ordering of chains and cations. The structure of bustamite has recently been determined and refined (D. R. Peacor and M. J. Buerger, in press). The structure of wollastonite was determined by Mamedov and Belov (1956) and refined by Buerger 1 Present address: Department of Geology and Mineralogy, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. 2 Present address: Centrai Research Department, E. I. Du Pont de Nemours and Co., Wilmington 98, Delaware. A1 FI PI


To meet the Topaz II Flight Safety requirements, a hardware modification to the Russian‐built reactor is needed to ensure the reactor remains subcritical in the event of an inadvertent accident in which the reactor is submersed in wet sand or water. In April 1993, the American Flight safety team chose the fuel‐out anticriticality device (ACD) (Trujillo, D. A. 1993) as the baseline for the hardware design. We describe the initial stages of the hardware design; show how the mechanism works; and describe its function, the functional and operational requirements, and the difficult design problems encountered. Also described, are the initial interactions between the Russian and American design teams. Because the effort is to add an American modification to a Russian flight reactor, this project has required unusual technical cooperation and consultation with the Russian design team.


Background. The hotel industry is considered to be the most significant type of accommo- dation because of its ability to provide revenue and satisfy the guests needs. There is huge competition in the hotel industry so in order to be able to maintain or improve their market positions and reputations; they need to develop innovations. Because it is not difficult to copy the innovation ideas from each other, they have to think about building very distinctive hotels for distinctive target groups. Research aims. The aim of the study is to explore the innovation of a distinctive hotel in Hungary with the help of definitions of service and tourism innovation. Method. For the research one innovative Hungarian hotel was chosen as a case study and the innovation processes of this hotel were classified into groups determined by the other authors mentioned in the literature review. The innovations of the hotel were grouped ac- cording to the innovation activity and the source of innovation. Reg findings. The research showed that the innovation of the selected hotel is service development and style changes, the innovation activity emphasizes organizational factors, and the sources of the innovations appear to be non-management sources.


In ultra-dense networks, the amount of accessed devices is enormous, so the time costs of traditional inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC) schemes become drastically large, making them unusable anymore. In this paper, a sparse-domain ICIC scheme using wavelet transform is designed. Devices in each cell are first grouped and sorted to reveal the redundancy of the devices' useful signal and interference parameters. The parameters are then transformed to sparse domain by discrete wavelet transform and shortened by retaining only the scaling coefficients. In the end, ICIC is done in sparse domain and the obtained coordination strategy is transformed back to primitive domain by discrete wavelet inverse transform. Extensive simulations show that, compared with the traditional scheme achieving the optimal coordination, the proposed scheme dramatically reduces the time cost while keeping other metrics still close to the optima.


A novel approach to prepare pH-and thermo-sensitive hollow spheres based on a precipitation polymerization method has been demonstrated.The poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)(PNIPAM) nuclei formed in the nucleation stage played the role of non-cross-linked templates,on which cross-linked poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-co-acrylic acid)(P(NIPAM-co-AA)) shells were formed by adding a cross-linker N,N′-methylene-bisacrylamide and acrylic acid to the aqueous solution during the following nucleus-growing stage.A "self-removing" process was found to take place when the temperature of the reaction solution was reduced below the LCST,where the non-cross-linked PNIPAM nuclei spontaneously penetrated through the cross-linked shells to form the hollow spheres.The hollow structure was confirmed by TEM analysis.The zeta potential analysis indicated that,the shells of these hollow spheres contained carboxylic groups derived from the polymerized acrylic acid.These hollow spheres were characterized by light scattering analysis at various pH and temperatures.The results indicated that these hollow spheres could well respond to the change of pH and temperatures.As the pH increased from 2 to 7,the volume of the hollow spheres with 4.76% and 9.09% AA contents increased by about 12 and 18 times,respectively.As the temperature increased from 25℃ to 40℃,the volume of the hollow spheres with 4.76% AA content decreased by about 12 times.


The present work proposes a method for generalising a discrete fuzzy set F, representing a model, given another discrete fuzzy set G representing new evidence. The algorithm proceeds by expressing the fuzzy sets as possibility distributions, and then by extending the focal elements of F with elements from the focal elements of G, constructing a generalised fuzzy set. If the fuzzy model is repetitively updated with the same evidence, a convergence state will be reached, the number of repetitions depending on the relative position of the two sets. This number is considered to give an indication of the conceptual proximity of the two entities represented by the fuzzy sets, and therefore provides a similarity index. This index is further complemented with a second measure, equal to the reduction of the probability assigned to the element with full membership in F, before generalisation and at the convergence state. This proposal for similarity seems to be in better agreement with experimental findings in human similarity judgement, than the approaches based on pointwise distance metrics.


Tuning the television to a popular sports network in 2005, I was greeted by the image of a vast, nearly empty stage. While the final votes were being counted at a major bodybuilding competition, 91-year-old Jack LaLanne was being presented with a lifetime achievement award. From his youthful career as a championship bodybuilder in an era when such accomplishments were regarded suspiciously by mainstream America, the pop-culture icon went on to host a syndicated exercise program that aired for 34 years and to build an eponymous chain of 200 health clubs. He made headlines for celebrating personal milestones by towing heavy boats across large bodies of water while handcuffed or shackled. As I listened, the charismatic champion of a healthy diet and archenemy of sugar punctuated his acceptance speech with volleys of his signature epigrammatic quotes. One of his favorites, "If it tastes good, spit it out," must cause considerable consternation for the proprietors of the restaurants he claims to frequent. That evening, however, he elected to close with the alleged secret of his longevity: "If man made it, don't eat it." Although LaLanne's rhetoric tends to the flamboyant and doctrinaire, his message can be moderated into the sage admonition "Be careful what you put into your body." This is particularly good advice for physicians, whose professional duties include giving patients nutritional or medicinal substances to put into their bodies—or inserting these substances themselves. Two articles in this month's AJSM deal with possible side effects of injecting common local anesthetics into the joints of our patients. The first, "Postarthroscopic Glenohumeral Chondrolysis," reports an alarming series of complications in a group of young patients undergoing surgery for shoulder instability. Hansen et al relate the occurrence of 12 cases of chondrolysis among 177 shoulder arthroscopies that they performed between August 2003 and March 2005. During this period, the authors began noticing with disturbing regularity the syndrome of progressive shoulder pain, decreasing motion, crepitus, and radiographic narrowing of the glenohumeral joint. Symptoms typically appeared 3 to 12 months postoperatively. Evaluation for a possible rheumatologic or infectious origin proved negative in all cases.As they had not previously encountered this complication, the authors were prompted to review all their cases of shoulder arthroscopy to look for possible common etiologic factors. This review uncovered the 12 patients, all of whom had undergone arthroscopic shoulder stabilization surgery. A number of features were common to most of the cases: lateral decubitus positioning with the use of traction, glycine lavage, the use of absorbable anchors, and postoperative ketorolac injection. However, only one factor was common to all 12—preoperative and postoperative intra-articular bupivacaine and morphine augmented by postoperative analgesia utilizing intra-articular 0.25% bupivacaine HCl and epinephrine via continuous infusion at a rate of 4.16 mL/hour for the first 2 days following surgery. These 12 numbered among the 19 shoulders in 17 patients who received intra-articular bupivacaine infusion via "pain pumps" during this period. Conversely, none of 104 other patients receiving extra-articular bupivacaine infusion or 13 undergoing arthroscopic stabilization without pain pumps developed this complication. Prior research examining the effects of bupivacaine on articular cartilage and other joint structures is limited. Since Hansen et al first presented their cases at a 2005 meeting, other researchers have investigated the potential chondrotoxic effects of this familiar local anesthetic. In a controlled in vitro study of the potential chondrotoxicity of 0.5% bupivacaine, Chu et al examined the effects of that drug on isolated bovine articular chondrocytes as well as whole osteochondral cores. After only 15 to 30 minutes of exposure, the isolated chondrocytes demonstrated 99% death or apoptosis (compared with 20% in saline controls), while the whole cores showed 42% cell death if the surface was intact and 75% if it was removed to simulate trauma or degeneration. In an in vivo study in rabbit shoulders, Gomoll et al found that a 48-hour infusion of bupivacaine with or without epinephrine produced histologic and metabolic evidence of chondrotoxicity at necropsy 1 week later. In the second related article appearing in this month's AJSM, Karpie and Chu expand the area of investigation to include the popular anesthetic lidocaine. The investigators again used both isolated chondrocytes and osteochondral cores as experimental models while varying the agent concentration, exposure time, and period of follow-up. They found that exposure to 1% lidocaine for only 15 minutes decreased chondrocyte viability to 77% as measured 1 hour after exposure, compared with 87% viability observed after exposure to normal saline alone. Increases in the length of exposure and lidocaine concentration both resulted in further decreases in viability, which was only 28% after a 60minute exposure to 2% lidocaine. Of even more concern is the finding that viability declined further, rather than recovering, as the period of observation lengthened. One week after 60 minutes of exposure to 2% lidocaine, viability was 17%, compared with 76% after exposure to saline. In contrast to the bupivacaine results reported by the same laboratory, an intact articular surface on the osteochondral cores did not reduce the chondrotoxic effect. In view of the ubiquitous use of these local anesthetics, one is left to wonder why chondrolysis would occur with DOI = 10.177/0363546503262911


Self-similarity matrices have been widely used to analyze the sectional form of music signals, e.g. enabling the detection of parts such as verse and chorus in popular music. Two main types of structures often appear in self-similarity matrices: rectangular blocks of high similarity and diagonal stripes off the main diagonal that represent recurrent sequences. In this paper, we introduce a novel method to model both the block and stripe-like structures in self-similarity matrices and to pull them apart from each other. The model is an extension of the nonnegative matrix factorization, for which we present multiplicative update rules based on the generalized Kullback-Leibler divergence. The modeling power of the proposed method is illustrated with examples, and we demonstrate its application to the detection of sectional boundaries in music.


This research investigated the feasibility of groundnuts shells and peels for bio ethanol production. Proximate and fiber composition analysis conducted on the samples were also reported. Fourier Transform-Infrared Ray (FTIR), Refractometer and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) were used to perform analytical investigation on the peels and shells to determine the functional groups and the surface morphology of the samples respectively. The chemical composition of peels and shells were: moisture content of 6.00±0.09 and 6.50±0.10, ash content of 2.72 ±0.09 and 8.00±0.11, lignin of 27.00±0.28 and 28.00±0.50, hemicellulose of 29.00±0.76 and 46.00±0.01 and α-cellulose of 37.00±0.58 and 34.00±0.28 respectively. The optimum acid concentration (H2SO4) used for the hydrolysis were (4% and 6% w/v respectively), the best reaction time and temperature were noted at (60 min, 100 oC) for peels and (90 min, 120 oC) for shells. About 7.89% and 3.94% of ethanol were recovered from 100 g of peels and shells respectively and the FT-IR spectral proved that the bio-liquid obtained from the samples was bioethanol. The SEM for pre-hydrolyzed biomass shows a well-organized and smooth surfaced structure while the post hydrolyzed biomass showed a ruptured surface that revealed effective hydrolysis during liquefaction process. This study showed that the biomass samples are promising feedstock for bio-refining process.


The research is to improve the interoperability,reusability and extensibility of the existing wargame simulation systems,and to construct an integrated wargame simulation system. Firstly,the main tasks of the research were defined and eleven key technologies in four categories were introduced. Secondly,it was described how to set up an architecture for the Navy arms wargame simulation system based on HLA (High Level Architecture) simulation framework. Also,the design ideas of the information exchange protocol of the system were elaborated,including definitions of object class,interaction class and routing space. At the end,a flow chart and advancing time mechanism were given. The feasibility of design has been verified with an instance.


Engineering Geologic Assessment of Risk to Visitors: Canyon Lake Gorge, Texas. (May 2010) Benjamin David Kolkmeier, B.S., Texas A&M University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Christopher Mathewson Presented here are the results of a study of geological hazards conducted in Canyon Lake Gorge of Central Texas. Canyon Lake Gorge formed in 2002 when the emergency spillway of Canyon Lake was overtopped. Since that time, the gorge has been opened to public tours, and the organization governing the gorge has expressed concern regarding visitor safety. The surveys in this study gathered data through field observations and supplemented those data with non-destructive tests from an impact test hammer. The goal of this study was to gather original field data on potential hazards of the gorge with the hope that insight from these data could be used to enhance visitor safety in the gorge. The field observations made in this study identified the presence of undercut rock ledges that could present varying degrees of risk to visitors. Easily eroded clayey wackestone facilitated formation of these potential hazards. Lithologies such as packstone and grainstone serve to form ledges atop the wackestone. Preexisting fractures and joints in the ledge forming rock, which compound the danger of the unstable masses of undercut ledges, provide failure planes. This study identified current areas of unstable masses by location and differentiates the degree of risk present at each


This paper introduces the basic concepts of a network model and subdivision shipbuilding process. The establishment of the network model and its application during shipbuilding production management are described.


Surveys addressing the issues of burnout among teachers of the deaf were sent to teachers in private oral schools. Forty-seven surveys were returned, providing insight into specific factors contributing to burnout.


In the vast ocean, many ecologically important phenomena are temporally episodic, localized in space, and move according to local currents. To effectively study these complex and evolving phenomena, methods that enable autonomous platforms to detect and respond to targeted phenomena are required. Such capabilities allow for directed sensing and water sample acquisition in the most relevant and informative locations, as compared against static grid surveys. To meet this need, we have designed algorithms for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) that detect oceanic features in real time and then direct vehicle and sampling behaviors as dictated by research objectives. These methods have successfully been applied in a series of field programs to study a range of phenomena such as harmful algal blooms, coastal upwelling fronts, and microbial processes in open-ocean eddies. In this brief review we highlight these applications and discuss future directions.


Air passenger estimation is essential since air-travel demand continuously grows. This work proposes to derive an air-passenger estimation model using three forms of gravity model and two machine learning approaches, regression and neural network. Data used in this work are Thailand's domestic air-passengers and affecting factors on air-travel demand collected from publicly available sources. The results show that both regression and neural network with one hidden layer provide low error. Gross domestic product and number of tourists change in the same direction with air-passenger demand. The outcomes of this work give more understandings in employing machine learning to estimate air passengers in Thailand and can be developed for more complex forecast models in the future.


Colorful campus culture was the characteristics of modern church running missionary schools,which maintained that beautiful campus,profound mottos,heartfelt school songs and various extracurricular activities mold the students' body and soul so as to improve the students' abilities.Though campus culture of Christian middle schools had its specified historical background and cultural requirement,the education experience contained in it still can be used for reference and gives its enlightenment for today's education development.


The disciplinary origins of design are resumed based on the dichotomy between the creative logics of an academic and the logics of a common man without academic training as a project architect. The investigative exercise has allowed to recognize that "built-in" cultural practices and collective bets, understood as an intention approved by a social group, can be seen as the substrate that determines the logics of the projective task that transforms the world. These assumptions were decisive at the moment of establishing the position that would define design as a "third area of human knowledge" from the twentieth century until today. The result of this research invites the reader to take a critical stance against the role of design seen as a discipline that oscillates between what is conceived from the logic of the trained project architect and what is completed by the hands of the worker, in a scenario of multiplicity of de facto coexistences that juxtapose one with the other in concrete places and in determined times.


We explore the possibility that the spin-1 triangular lattice magnet NiGa2S4 may have a ferronematic ground state with no frozen magnetic moment but a uniform quadrupole moment. Such a state may be stabilized by biquadratic spin interactions. We describe the physical properties of this state and suggest experiments to help verify this proposal. We also contrast this state with a "noncollinear" nematic state proposed earlier by Tsunetsugu and Arikawa [J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 75, 083701 (2006)] for NiGa2S4.


The LiNbO_3 crystals doped with Cr~(3+) ion (Cr∶LN) in various concentration without macro-defects were grown by Bridgman method under proper conditions in congruent composition (Li/Nb=48.6/51.4 in molar ratio), growth rate of 1~3mm/h, and a temperature gradient around 20~30℃/cm for solid-liquid interface. The absorption spectra of the obtained crystals were measured. The Cr ions exist in state of +3. The concentration of Cr~(3+) ion in crystal increased from lower to upper portion. Electron paramagnetic resonance had been used to investigate the sites occupied by the Cr~(3+) ions. Two Cr~(3+) ion centers located at Li~+ and Nb~(5+) sites were observed. The fluorescence spectra were recorded and the relation between intensity of fluorescence and their absorption coefficient was investigated.


According to the lubrication state diagram of the line contacting,the friction of the radial airproof patch is analyzed and programmed with UG Grip.The distributing rule of the least oil film thickness is gained.


The work deals with issues of national minorities living in the Czech Republic. It draws the attention to problems of particular minorities and searches for the answer why these problems between majority society and minority have arisen. Most of the answers can be found in the historical sources of each culture. Furthermore, the work focuses on the Police of the Czech Republic (PCR) as the institution dealing with national minorities from the point of view of enquiring into their criminal activities but also from the points of view of prevention and searching for solutions of these issues. The work is divided into the theoretical and practical sections. In the theoretical part, the first chapter deals with characteristics of certain national minorities in the Czech Republic including definitions of basic concepts. The second chapter relates to the problems of extremism and racism towards the minorities living in the Czech Republic. The third part of the work introduces the police activities in prevention and also presents the police project called Round Table. Another project mentioned in the third chapter is Strategy of Police Work relating to minorities. The practical part of the work deals with detection of tolerance towards national minorities of PCR members. The research method was chosen a questionnaire.


Through a series of investigation of agricultural cooperation,this paper puts forward the idea of designing and developing invoicing system for agricultural cooperation based on.NET.It presents the system main function and discusses some key technologies in system development,such as encrypting connection string,preventing SQL injection attack and using AJAX technique.


An audio transducer for activating a sounding board and a loudspeaker combined in one structure operating together simultaneously and using only one activating diaphragm to drive a sounding board and to produce sound pressure in an air cavity inside the transducer structure and expelling the sound pressure developed in the air cavity.


The oxidation reaction of hexacyanoferrate(II) by peroxodisulphate (S 2 O 2 - 8 ) is accelerated by irradiation with visible light in aqueous acid solutions containing tris(2,2'-bipyridine)ruthenium(II) ion (Ru(bipy) 2 + 3 ), the latter acts as a photocatalyst. The mechanism of the reaction consists of a chain reaction initiated by the quenching reaction of the photo excited ruthenium(II) complex ion (⊗Ru(bipy) 2 + 3 ), with S 2 O 2 - 8 . The rate law is expressed by the equation k q is the bimolecular quenching rate constant and has been determined kinetically. Other terms have their usual meaning.


Today, Internet service deployment is typically implemented with server replication at multiple locations for the purpose of load balancing, failure tolerance, and user experience optimization. Domain name system (DNS) is responsible for translating human-readable domain names into network-routable IP addresses. When multiple replicas exist, upon the arrival of a query, DNS selects one replica and responds with its IP address. Thus, the delay caused by the process of DNS query including the selection of replica is part of the connection setup latency. In this paper, we proposed Artemis, a practical low-latency naming and routing system that aims at reducing the connection setup latency by eliminating the DNS query latency while keeping the ability to perform optimal server (replica) selection based on user-defined rules. Artemis achieves these goals by integrating name resolution into the transport layer handshake. Artemis allows clients to calculate locally the IP address of a Service Dispatcher, which serves as a proxy of hosting servers. Service Dispatchers forward the handshake request from a client to a server, and the response is embedded with the server's IP address back to the client. This enables clients to connect directly with servers afterward without querying DNS servers, and therefore eliminates the DNS query latency. Meanwhile, Artemis supports user-defined replica selection policies. We have implemented Artemis and evaluated its performance using the PlanetLab testbed and RIPE Atlas probes. Our results show that Artemis reduces the connection setup latency by 26.2% on average compared with the state-of-the-art.


Purpose: Making use of the quantitative method of data envelopment analysis (DEA), this research tries to calculate the efficiency and ranking of public libraries in Iranian provinces in 2008. Methodology: This research is an applied study and was conducted as survey. Data collection was performed from internet. The time interval of the used data was the year 2008 and data were classified with respect to province. Public libraries located in 30 Iranian provinces were evaluated in terms of several input indices, including the number of books, literate population of each province, the number of libraries in each province, the number of librarians, the number of seats, and total number of audiovisual materials in libraries of each province, and also with regard to several output indices, including total number of members, the number of books lent, and the number of clients visiting each library of the provinces. Excel software was used for data collection, while analyzing and solving the model was accomplished using Excel DEA Solver software. Findings: According to the results, the libraries in 15 provinces out of the whole 30 provinces were efficient, whereas the others were inefficient. Using super-efficiency score, it was found that the highest super-efficiency scores among the provinces with efficient libraries belonged in descending order to Ilam, South Khorasan, and Semnan, while among the inefficient provinces, Bushehr, Qom, and Kordestan got the lowest super-efficiency scores. Originality/Value: Performance evaluation has gained a specific position in the library and information sciences literature and has been a matter of debate among the experts. Through employing a quantitative method which is reliable for performance evaluation, the present study tries to evaluate the performance of public libraries in Iranian provinces and propose applied strategies to promote their performance level.


A multi-domain reproducing kernel finite difference method is presented for Burgers equation.It is a domain decomposition method,which combines reproducing kernel finite difference method with penalty method.Firstly,we decompose the global computational domain into a number of subdomains,hence the equation can be solved in subdomains instead of the whole domain.Then,we apply reproducing kernel finite difference method for space discretion,a fourth order Runge-Kutta scheme for time discretion in each subdomain.Finally,we apply penalty method for dealing with the inner boundary condition,so that each subdomain with inner boundary condition can be solved as a whole while not considering it independently.Numerical examples are given to test the efficiency of the represented method.


Rare‐earth (RE)‐based transition metal oxides (TMO) are emerging as a frontier toward the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), yet the knowledge regarding their electrocatalytic mechanism and active sites is very limited. In this work, atomically dispersed Ce on CoO is successfully designed and synthesized by an effective plasma (P)‐assisted strategy as a model (P‐Ce SAs@CoO) to investigate the origin of OER performance in RE–TMO systems. The P‐Ce SAs@CoO exhibits favorable performance with an overpotential of only 261 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and robust electrochemical stability, superior to individual CoO. X‐ray absorption spectroscopy and in situ electrochemical Raman spectroscopy reveal that the Ce‐induced electron redistribution inhibits CoO bond breakage in the CoOCe unit site. Theoretical analysis demonstrates that the gradient orbital coupling reinforces the CoO covalency of the Ce(4f)─O(2p)─Co(3d) unit active site with an optimized Co‐3d‐eg occupancy, which can balance the adsorption strength of intermediates and in turn reach the apex of the theoretical OER maximum, in excellent agreement with experimental observations. It is believed that the establishment of this Ce–CoO model can set a basis for the mechanistic understanding and structural design of high‐performance RE–TMO catalysts.


University's place as a paramount player in a global system increasingly driven by knowledge, information and ideas. Knowledge is replacing other resources as the main driver of economic growth and education has increasingly become the foundation for individual prosperity and social mobility.


In this paper, domain switching induced by applied stress and thermal treatment was compared in (Na0.5Bi0.5)TiO3−xBaTiO3 (NBT-BT) solid solutions and the monolithic components by Raman spectroscopy. Despite possessing a Ti-O6 structure, the titanate materials exhibit quite different patterns of switching upon indentation generation, which might be associated with the presence of distinct stable polarizations. Significant stress induced a→c domain switching occurs around the indentation print and along the cracks for stress relaxation during crack propagation in the case of BT, while for NBT and related solution, remnant domains exist and a switching of the domains to other polarization, e.g., ⟨ 110 ⟩ may occur, showing a dependence on the BT addition content. Thermal treatments at temperatures above the Curie point were found to show different influences on domain patterns due to distinct changes in the microstructure in the presence of residual stress fields, suggesting the possibility of a combinatory effect of thermal treatment and residual stress for domain controls.


Two information-theoretic principles—maximum entropy, and minimum description length—dictate a computational model of associative learning that explains cue competition (assignment of credit) and response timing. The theory's primitives are two cue types—state cues and point cues—and two stochastic distributions. The preferred stochastic model gives the relative code lengths for an efficient encoding of the data already seen; it predicts the data not yet seen; and the associated hazard function roughly predicts the observed timing of anticipatory (conditioned) behavior. State cues use the exponential distribution to encode, predict and time; point cues use a form of the Gaussian distribution that allows for event failure. An implementation of the refined minimum-description-length approach to stochastic model selection (Rissanen 1999) determines which stochastic model best compresses the data, and hence which is the best predictive model for a given protocol. The model brings into sharp focus the need to focus neurobiological inquiry on the coding question in memory.


This study examined the role of maternal attribution in parenting behaviors of mothers who have a child with developmental disabilities. Using an attributional model, it assessed whether maternal attributions about the child's knowledge, capacity, expectation, and responsibility for behavior problems have effects on maternal behaviors of affect, authoritarian control, and overprotect. The sample consisted of 161 mothers of elementary children with developmental disabilities. Multivariate regression analysis revealed that maternal attribution about the child's capacity for misbehavior had positive influence on maternal affect and negative influence on authoritarian control behaviors, and that maternal attribution of responsibility for misbehavior positively influenced maternal authoritarian control and overprotect behaviors. Also, maternal attribution about the child's knowledge for misbehavior had negative influence on maternal overprotect behaviors. In addition, such background factors as number of disability, maternal education, and job of mother were significant predictors for maternal attribution, while maternal self-esteem was a strong significant predictor for mothering behaviors. The findings suggest the importance of maternal attributions in parenting.


Starting from inconveniences in life resulting from design,analyzed the relationship between people and design,advanced design must pay attention to the needs of consumers at different levels,thus orientated design to meeting the needs of safety,love and belonging,esteem,and then points out that the consumer needs is the core of design. On this basis,it probed into the three levels of the human-centered design:the physical level,mental level and social level. It emphasized that the eco-design was the ethical axis of the human-centered design,and suggested that the human-centered design was more than just a design method,it was a philosophy of design,the duty and criterion of conduct for designers.


Despite various collaborative software that supports expressing ideas, people still largely prefer physical notebooks or whiteboards. The reason is that they provide free-form expressions, co-presence of all participants and easy collaboration. However, when working with remote participants, people often choose the convenience of video conferencing, perhaps with screen sharing. We propose CollaboVR, an open-source reconfigurable framework for distributed and co-located multi-user communication in Virtual Reality. We tested CollaboVR with an application that lets participants create freehand drawings and 3D objects, while allowing participants to adjust two key variables: (1) User arrangement (participants adjust the location of their views of other participants) and (2) Input orientation (participants adjust the input to be vertical or horizontal). Preliminary user studies show that CollaboVR is a useful collaborative tool. Users report that some user arrangements and input orientations work best for brainstorming, while others work best for presentation or collaborative refinement of designs.


An insulated PFC electronic ballast for a xenon short arc lamp is presented in this paper. The proposed two stage structure (flyback and buck) allows both particularities of the PFC and the lamp to be satisfied. The analysis method of the PFC ballast is presented in detail, permitting the design of the principal elements of the ballast. Lamp ignition is also studied. The experimental results have shown that the proposed system reliably achieves the high input power factor of the ballast and the low lamp current ripple necessary for the lamp operation.


Atherogenesis involves an interplay of inflammation, tissue remodeling and cellular transdifferentiation (CTD), making it especially difficult to precisely delineate its pathophysiology. Here we examine the single-cell transcriptome of entire atherosclerotic core (AC) plaques and patient-matched proximal adjacent (PA) portions of carotid artery tissue from patients undergoing carotid endarterectomy. We use a novel tissue dissociation strategy, single-cell RNA sequencing, and systems-biology approaches to analyze the transcriptional profiles of six main cell populations and identify key gene drivers of pathogenic biological processes in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) and endothelial cells (ECs). Our results reveal an anatomic continuum whereby PA cells promote and respond to inflammatory processes and eventually transition through CTD into matrix-secreting cells in the AC. Inflammatory signaling in PA ECs is driven by IL6, while TNFa signaling defines inflammation in both PA ECs and VSMCs. Furthermore, we identify POSTN, SPP1 and IBSP in AC VSMCs, and ITLN1, SCX and S100A4 in AC ECs as key drivers of CTD in the atherosclerotic core. These results establish an anatomic framework for atherogenesis and suggest a site-specific strategy for disruption of disease progression.


ABSTRACT In this paper, a compact cavity-backed logarithmic spiral antenna with an integrated broadband planar balun is presented. This fully planar antenna is used for detection of anti-personnel (AP) landmines in GPR systems. Unlike conventional spiral antennas, which are fed by unbalanced coaxial cable or vertical baluns, and these feed lines make them bulky and frail, in this design, a microstrip-to-parallel strip balun is integrated with the spiral antenna and makes the whole structure compact, planar, and robust. Moreover, a metal cavity is utilized at the back of the antenna to prevent backward radiation and enhance the forward penetration depth to the ground. In choosing the operational frequency bandwidth, a compromise is made between the penetration depth and detection resolution. A prototype of the antenna is fabricated and its performance in landmine detection is evaluated with measurements. The measured results show that the antenna works over the frequency range of 1.5 GHz−4.5 GHz (bandwidth = 100%) with |S11| < −10 dB, a penetration depth of 10 cm in the soil with good detection resolution, gain >8 dB and axial ratio <3 dB. These factors make the proposed antenna a suitable candidate for pulse radar applications, in which low pulse distortion and wide bandwidth are key factors.


Abstract The Tactical Conflict Assessment Framework was used by British forces in Helmand Province to attempt to quantitatively understand how best to combat the insurgency in Afghanistan – but it was soon discontinued. David Wilson and Gareth Conway examine why this method fell out of favour, the specific lessons learnt, and what methodologies may be more appropriate.


We investigated the effect of low-dose exposure to glyphosate on 3 months old male Wistar rats that received p.o. for 28-day doses of 0.1 mg kg-1 b.w. of the acceptable operator exposure level-(AOEL), 0.5 mg kg-1 b.w. consumers acceptable daily intake (ADI), 1.75 mg kg-1 b.w. of the chronic population-adjusted dose (cPAD), 10 mg kg-1 b.w. (100xAOEL) and the same volume of phosphate buffer without glyphosate (negative control). Positive control received 300 mg kg-1 b.w. of ethyl methanesulphonate over the last three days of experiment. The samples of whole blood, plasma and liver samples were analyzed for the levels of plasma cholinesterase activity, oxidative stress (lipid peroxidation (thiobarbituric reactive substances, TBARS), glutathione (GSH), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), reactive oxidative species (ROS)) and DNA damage in whole blood and small (non-parenchymal cells) and medium (parenchymal cells-hepatocytes) liver cells. The exposed animals gained less weight than control. The cPAD and the 100xAOEL groups' liver weight increased. AChE was inhibited with all treatments, but the AOEL and ADI groups significantly differed from control. Total ChE and plasma/liver ROS/GSH levels did not significantly differ from control, except for the 35 % decrease in ChE in the AOEL and ADI groups and a significant drop in liver GSH in the cPAD and 100xAOEL groups. AOEL and ADI blood GSH-Px activity dropped significantly, but in the liver, it significantly increased in the ADI, cPAD, and 100xAOEL groups vs. control. Exposure lowered TBARS valuesin all exposed groups, with significant liver changes in the AOEL, ADI, and cPAD groups and plasma changes in the AOEL and cPAD group. Exposure also produced significant primary DNA damage in the leukocytes and liver cells. All these findings show that even exposure to low glyphosate levels can have serious adverse effects and points to a need to change the approach to risk assessment of low-level chronic/sub-chronic glyphosate exposure, where oxidative stress is not necessarily related to the genetic damage and AChE inhibition. This work was financially supported by Project Organic Pollutants in Environment – Markers and Biomarkers of Toxicity (OPENTOX), funded by the Croatian Science Foundation (grant number 8366).


This essay focuses on the emergence of an international labor market connecting Europe with southern Africa and south and southeast Asia, showing the intertwining of commercialization and proletarianization in the institution that created and coordinated perhaps the most important international labor market connecting Europe to the Far East.


In this paper, an attempt has been made to investigate the impact of free space transfer function taking into effects of atmospheric turbulence, pointing errors and path loss factor on the performance of free space optical communication system. The performance of the proposed free space optical communication system is studied by developing a MATLAB simulator using simulink in which free space is used as a communication channel. Finally, we evaluated the Bit Error Rate (BER) performance of the proposed system varying with different system parameters such as distance, transmitter power, path loss factor, atmospheric turbulence and received signal power. The BER is highly degraded on severe atmospheric turbulence condition ever for a short distance of free space channel. The effect of path loss factor due to dense fog is also severe on the BER even though the turbulence effect and free space distance is short. The optimum transmitted input power and receiver antenna radius at which the BER is minimum, is strongly dependent on free space distance and atmospheric parameters.


ABSTRACTCurrent commercial computer aided design (CAD) tools limit a parallel engineering design workflow by only allowing a single user in the CAD model at a time. The NSF Center for e-Design at BYU has recently developed multi-user CAD tools which enable a parallel design workflow by allowing multiple users to simultaneously contribute to the same CAD model in real time. The combined challenges of consistent distributed naming and robust interoperation with commercial file types have created scalability and usability issues for previous multi-user CAD implementations. This paper presents persistent naming methods and a file-based architecture that address these challenges. An implementation of these methods shows that multi-user design within commercial CAD is increasingly scalable.


To enhance the tribological performance of the conventional TiCrN coating, the MoS2–TiCr coatings are deposited onto the TiCrN layer by magnetron sputtering. In general, the MoS2 is implemented to enhance the friction reduction performance of the TiCrN coating, while the Ti and Cr are doped to increase the density of the structure and prevent MoS2 from oxidizing. The results reveal that with an increase in the content of Ti and Cr in the MoS2–TiCr top layer, the hardness and the coating–substrate adhesion force of the composite coating increase, respectively, due to the compact top layer. Further, the optimized Ti and Cr doping in the MoS2 top layer greatly enhances the tribological properties of the TiCrN/MoS2–TiCr composite coating with a friction coefficient as low as 0.06 and the wear rate is only 6% of the TiCrN coating. The main reason for the excellent tribological properties of the TiCrN/MoS2–TiCr composite coating is probably due to the recrystallization of the MoS2 in the process of wear.


: The situational problem is one of the didactic tool used in the organization of learning activities and numerical assessment for the operationalization of the competency-based approach. The new institutional recommendations, in the curricula of Moroccan formal education, particularly in the second cycle of education for scientific disciplines, and specifically for the life and earth sciences, underline the importance of the activities of problem-based learning and assessment, in the development, in learners, of problem-solving skills (a skill of the 21st century). However, our work will assess the ability of learners to solve problematic situations in digital-assisted teaching. This observation led us to take an interest in the practice of problem-based evaluation among EL teachers and to conduct research aimed at elucidating their conceptions of problem-based evaluation. We opted for an exploratory methodology based on a questionnaire addressed to EL teachers as a means of collecting information, with the aim of identifying the degree of coherence and difference existing between what the teacher actually conceives and what that he must design didactically on the evaluation. This research work has made it possible to identify a certain gap in the transposition and digitization of this strategy from upstream (didactic research) to downstream (teaching practice).


ABSTRACT The angular distribution of luminance on a combination of a white organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panel and optical films was investigated through an experiment and through optical simulation. Applying an appropriate combination of separate optical films onto the OLED panel provided a great deal of flexibility in shaping the luminance profile of OLED lighting. This was due to the existence of thin air gaps between the OLED and the optical film on it as well as between the optical films, as supported by optical simulation. This flexibility may supply the OLED lighting with an additional degree of freedom, which is effective in adjusting the luminance profile freely.


The adjacent relation of condominium ownership in the building is a new type in contiguous relations.The legislation of our country lacks this kind of provision.But actually there exists a great deal of situations relating to the adjacent relation of condominium ownership in the building in objective and the disputes of this kind of adjacent relation are common occurrences.This text defines this new type of adjacent relation and analyzes it in comparison with the condominium ownership,then summarizes all types of relation dispute of the adjacent relation of condominium in the building and puts forward lawmaking suggestions.


This article provides an overview of recent developments in digitizing nineteenth-century printed and archived material, and argues that while mass digitisation offers incredible opportunities for research and scholarship, it also increases the considerable distance between nineteenth-century reading practices and our own. Digitized content implicitly privileges certain types of reading practice and use which the extant printed material does not.


The article is dedicated to the use of soviet cinema as a historical source in modern Russian historiography. The purpose of the study is a definition of current trends and main streams in this field of historical science. The author considers some methodological aspects and most popular topics raised by the researchers, highlighting the works of a historical perspective. The following approaches in historiography are distinguished: the study of cinema as a historical source of daily and political history of a particular era; cinematography as a tool of official soviet ideology and indoctrination; reflection in films of society's dominant views on historical events of pre-revolutionary Russia and USSR; cinematography as a teacher suggesting "correct" patterns of behavior for Soviet Union's citizens; the creation of an actual image of "enemies" in cinema.


With Earth Observation (EO) missions generating tens of TB of data every day, much of it available in a free and open manner, systematically observing our planet, the opportunities for society to benefit from this data are endless. There are, however, remaining challenges of reusability, reproducibility, and scalability of the scientific analysis run on EO data. This often results in interesting findings addressing the situation from a year or two ago, due to time required for validation of the data.


Behavioral training techniques of direct care staff have helped institutions serving dependent populations to progress from custodial settings to therapeutic environments. Most of the recent literature on staff training has focused on contingency management procedures, especially feedback procedures. Long-term studies of these procedures suggest that individual verbal feedback on the performance of the staff member is the best assurance of maintenance of these procedures.


Pseudomonas aeruginosa WJ-1, an indigenous rhamnolipid (RL)-producing bacterium, was isolated from petroleum-reservoir brines. The authors studied the effects of carbon and nitrogen sources, and the ratio of carbon to nitrogen (C/N, wt/wt) on RL production. The results demonstrated that waste sunflower oil (at 80 g/L) and NaNO3 was optimum carbon and nitrogen source. The optimized C/N ratio was 8. RL production in 3,000 L intelligent fermenter showed that the maximum yield of RL was 50.2 g/L under optimum conditions. The surface tension of culture decreased from 67.59 to 24.5 mN/m. Physical simulation experiments on microbial enhanced oil recovery showed that the maximum oil recovery of strain WJ-1 and its biosurfactant in sand-packed column was 23.02%.


e15615Background: Gallbladder cancer (GBC) is a rare cancer; the minority of patients have resectable tumor at diagnosis. Based on retrospective, single-institution data, extended cholecystectomy (...


In this paper we describe the systems we used to participate in the task TAG-it of EVALITA 2020. The first system we developed uses linear Support Vector Machine as learning algorithm. The other two systems are based on the pretrained Italian Language Model UmBERTo: one of them has been developed following the Multi-Task Learning approach, while the other following the Single-Task Learning approach. These systems have been evaluated on TAG-it official test sets and ranked first in all the TAG-it subtasks, demonstrating the validity of the approaches we followed.


Due to its nature, cyber security is one of the fields that can benefit most from the techniques of artificial intelligence (AI). Under normal circumstances, it is difficult to write software to defend against cyber-attacks that are constantly developing and strengthening in network systems. By applying artificial intelligence techniques, software that can detect attacks and take precautions can be developed. In cases where traditional security systems are inadequate and slow, security applications developed with artificial intelligence techniques can provide better security against many complex cyber threats. Apart from being a good solution for cyber security problems, it also brings usage problems, legal risks, and concerns. This study focuses on how AI can help solve cyber security issues while discussing artificial intelligence threats and risks. This study also aims to present several AI-based techniques and to explain what these techniques can provide to solve problems in the field of cyber security.


Objective:To develop a clinically relevant genotypic resistance score for boosted atazanavir (ATV) in protease inhibitor-experienced patients. Methods:At baseline, 62 patients with HIV-1 RNA > 1000 copies/ml switched to a boosted ATV regimen (300 mg ATV, 100 mg ritonavir once daily); two were excluded from analysis at 3 months as they had undetectable plasma ATV. The impact of baseline protease mutations on virological response (> 1 log10 copies/ml plasma HIV RNA decrease) at 3 months was analysed using Fisher's exact test. Mutations with prevalence > 8% and P < 0.2 were retained. Cochran–Armitage's test was used to select the combination of mutations most strongly associated with reduced virological response. Robustness of the score was investigated using bootstrap resampling. Results:At 3 months, 82% of patients had a virological response and 56% had RNA < 50 copies/ml. Eight mutations (10F/I/V, 16E, 33I/F/V, 46I/L, 60E, 84V, 85V and 90M) were retained in the genotypic resistance score (P = 8.67 × 10−9) and virological response was observed in 100%, 100%, 80%, 42%, and 0% of patients with none, one, two, three, and four/five mutations, respectively. There was 100% response in patients with a score < 2 independently of the number of active drugs, whereas in patients with a score ≥ 3 there was a gradient of response according to the number of active drugs (0%, 29% and 60% with none, one and two/three active drugs, respectively). Conclusions:The occurrence of three of the eight mutations in the ATV/RTV genotypic resistance score predicted a clinically identifiable reduced response in patients.


Given its enormous yield per hectare and high productivity cycle, Oil palm is considered as a stabilizing crop to global food security especially in developing countries. However, in recent years, the domestic consumption of palm oil in West Africa including Nigeria has increased more rapidly than its production with the vast majority of the farmers working at near subsistence level and employing crude production and processing techniques. This study therefore appraised the impact of emerging innovations on oil palm production in Osun state, Nigeria. Specifically, the research examined the emerging innovations in oil palm production, the impact of such innovations on the level of the farmer's output and the factors affecting farmers' acceptability of innovations. A three stage random sampling technique was used to collect data from 100 oil palm farmers using a well structured questionnaire out of which 90 was found useful for the study. Descriptive statistics, T test analysis and the logistic regression model were the analytical tools employed for the study. The result of the analyses showed that there are some emerging innovations in oil palm production in the study area; however, the indigenous technologies still dominates. Farmers who employed modern technologies were found to have higher output when compared to those of indigenous technologies. Farmers' age and level of education were identified as the major factors affecting the acceptability of innovation in the study area. It is therefore recommended that the government should invest more on adult education and there should be increased awareness on the need to embrace modern technologies and innovations for the transformation of the oil palm industry in the country and consequently raise farmers' standard of living. Younger people should also be encouraged to go into oil palm production.


Western impact and Asian and African reaction to it country by country, and will lay its main emphasis on ' the development of these modern states against the background of changing attitudes and ideas '. Dr. Holt's book too is admirable. As one would expect of him, it is precise and careful; the bibliography is useful and there are 37 well-chosen photographs. But it is also sensible and imaginative. Underlying it there is a vision of the continuity of Sudanese history, of the long process whose purpose has been ' to kindle the fire of learning, and bring justice to a vast and remote land '. In recent years the Sudan has attracted a number of good historians, who have modified the picture of the past painted by Wingate and others at the time of the Anglo-Egyptian reconquest. The British officers who ruled the Sudan from 1899 tended, as Dr. Holt remarks, ' to dismiss the past comprehensively as a time of anarchy, oppression and misgovernment'. Mr. Hill, working on the Egyptian archives, and Dr. Holt himself, making use of the papers of the Mahdist period, have already shown how unfair this judgment was; and now Dr. Holt has put together the results of these recent researches and produced the first connected account of the development of the country from the time when it appears in the half-light of history until the present. More specifically, he has made clear the relationship between the three factors which have created the modern Sudan—its indigenous tradition, the influence of Egypt, and that of England, and he has reminded us too of the continuity of the process. It is useful as well as amusing to learn that the Sudanese peasants called the British administration set up in 1899 ' the second Turkiyya ', and referred to the British officials as ' Turks '. Perhaps the most interesting, because the least known, part of the book is that which deals with the history of the Sudan before the Turco-Egyptian conquest: the formation of local kingdoms, the spread of Islam in its mystical form, and the stirrings of a new, more active spirit in the Sufi orders during the eighteenth century. But Dr. Holt is equally penetrating on all periods—for example, when he shows the connexion between the Mahdi's rising and the deposition of the Khedive Isma'il, or defends the claim of the Khalifa to have been an administrator of great talent, or explains the meaning of the recent military revolution. A. H. HOTJRANI


We consider here multitype Bienaym\'e--Galton--Watson trees, under the conditioning that the numbers of vertices of given type satisfy some linear relations. We prove that, under some smoothness conditions on the offspring distribution $\mathbf{\zeta}$, there exists a critical offspring distribution $\tilde{\mathbf{\zeta}}$ such that the trees with offspring distribution $\mathbf{\zeta}$ and $\tilde{\mathbf{\zeta}}$ have the same law under our conditioning. This allows us in a second time to characterize the local limit of such trees, as their size goes to infinity. Our main tool is a notion of exponential tilting for multitype Bienaym\'e--Galton--Watson trees.


Institutional review boards (IRBs) often provide model consent forms for researchers to use or adapt when conducting human subjects research. However, the models themselves often far exceed the 8th-grade reading level recommended for consent forms, with many models measuring grade 12 or higher. In this paper, we look specifically at how muck and how, model consent forms deviate from the desired 8th-grade reading level, as measured by the Flesch Reading Ease formula and the Flesch-Kincaid grade level formula. We discuss quantifiable features measurable by these formulas and by text analysis features available in Microsoft Word (e.g., sentence length, paragraph length, and percentage of passive voice sentences). We outline plans to examine additional features such as nominalization, patterns in the flow of given and new information, and document design. Our findings are designed to help IRBs and researchers prepare consent forms that are more readable and, therefore, more in keeping with legal and ethical guidelines for human subjects research.


In this article a geostatistical model is presented in order to spatially characterize the PM10 pollutant behavior in the city of Medellin, Colombia. The data has been taken from nine monitoring locations in monthly average value (µg/m3) for the period from January 2003 to December 2007. Different models were evaluated by cross-validation tests. The best model is a j-bessel. The model parameters are calculated using ANOVA tests for quarterly groupings. Maps of the pollutant's spatial characterization are obtained with ordinary Kriging and GIS.


Infrared (IR), or radiation, thermometers are widely used in temperature measurements in many different sectors from health, food, automotive, agriculture, iron and steel to chemistry due to their fast measurement capabilities, reasonable prices, wide measurement ranges and ease of use. IR thermometers work based on black body radiation. In this experimental study, the accuracy of measurements made with IR clinical radiation thermometers and calibration systems were determined as a research subject. These became more important with the sudden expansion of the areas of use (schools, shopping malls, workplaces), especially during the epidemic Covid-19 period. The experiment gives students the chance to learn how to ensure the accuracy of the measurements of a measuring device used in daily life by doing their own experiments and it helps students understand how temperature measurements are carried out using the natural temperature-dependent emission of electromagnetic energy (thermal radiation).


GG、AG/GG基因型可能增加ESCC的发病风险,经年龄、性别、吸烟状况、UGIC家族史校正后的OR值分别为1.41(95%CI=1.09~ 1.83)、1.71(95%CI=1.03~2.86)、1.45(95%CI=1.13~1.85)。PLCe1基因rs11599672 T/G SNP等位基因频率和基因型频率总体分 布在ESCC患者组及健康对照组之间无显著性差异(P>0.05)。应用2LD软件对PLCe1基因rs2274223 A/G SNP和rs11599672 T/G SNP进行联合分析显示,两个多态性位点间不存在连锁不平衡现象(D'=0.11)。与最常见的AT单体型相比,GT单体型增加了ES- CC的发病风险(OR=1.36,95%CI=1.08~1.71)。结论:PLCe1基因rs2274223 A/G SNP可以作为高发区人群ESCC遗传易感性的标 志物。UGIC家族史阳性个体、携带PLCe1基因rs2274223 A/G SNP AG、GG基因型的个体罹患ESCC的风险较高,应定期接受食管 2 De- partment of Surgery, Shijiazhuang Pingan Hospital, Shijiazhuang 050021, China Abstract Objective: To explore the association of PLCe1 gene rs2274223 A/G single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and rs11599672 T/G SNP with susceptibility to esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) in a population of Ci County high-incidence region in Hebei Province. Methods: The genotypes of PLCe1 gene rs2274223 A/G SNP and rs11599672 T/G SNP were determined by polymerase chain reaction-ligase detection reaction method in 527 ESCC patients and 527 healthy controls. Results: The frequency of positive family history of upper gastrointestinal cancer UGIC in ESCC patients was 48.6%, which is significantly higher than that in the healthy controls (39.3%) (χ 2 =9.25, P=0.002). The AA, AG, and GG genotype frequencies of PLCe1 gene rs2274223 A/G SNP were 48.0%, 43.9%, 8.1% in the ESCC patients and 57.1%, 37.5%, 5.4% in the healthy controls, respectively. Compared with AA genotype, AG, GG, and AG/GG genotypes enhanced the risk of ESCC. The age, sex, smoking status, and UGIC family history-adjusted OR were 1.41 (95% CI=1.09-1.83), 1.71 (95% CI=1.03-2.86), and 1.45 (95% CI=1.13-1.85), respectively. No significant difference was observed in the frequency of the genotype and allele of PLCe1 gene rs11599672 T/G SNP between the ESCC cases and the controls (P>0.05). PLCe1 gene rs2274223 A/G SNP and rs11599672 T/G SNP were combined for analysis using a 2LD software. Results showed that no linkage disequilibrium exists between these two SNPs (D'=0.11). Compared with the most frequent AT haplotype, the GT haplotype sig- nificantly increased the risk of ESCC (OR=1.36, 95% CI=1.08-1.71). Conclusion: PLCe1 gene rs2274223 A/G SNP might serve as a marker predicting genetic susceptibility to ESCC of the population from Ci County. The subjects with UGIC family history and the AG- or GG-genotype carriers had higher risk of ESCC and should receive periodic upper gastrointestinal fiber tests for early detection and treatment of ESCC.


Over the past 18 years neuromodulation therapies have gained support as treatments for faecal incontinence (FI); sacral nerve stimulation (SNS) is the most established of these. A systematic review was performed of current evidence regarding the clinical effectiveness of neuromodulation treatments for FI.


In this work, we focus on the Cauchy problem for the Poisson equation in the two dimensional domain, where the initial data is disturbed by random noise. In general, the problem is severely ill-posed in the sense of Hadamard, i.e., the solution does not depend continuously on the data. To regularize the instable solution of the problem, we have applied a nonparametric regression associated with the truncation method. Eventually, a numerical example has been carried out, the result shows that our regularization method is converged; and the error has been enhanced once the number of observation points is increased.