Presents an analysis of computational processes in neural networks, underlying sequential symbol processing. The main problem addressed in this analysis is that computations in neural networks are massively parallel whereas symbol processing is sequential. It is suggested that the two kinds of processes can be reconciled with each other by the idea of causally constructed representations. Such representations are not assumed to encode symbolic structures and, what follows, structure-sensitive procedures are not applied to them. If computations are massively parallel, then a content-sensitivity principle is used in defining consecutive computational steps on such representations. This idea of computations is naturally implemented by a pattern association mechanism appearing in neural networks.


A presentation is made of the cultural assumptions which it is believed underlie a great deal of the role playing in the Mexican family. Examples are given to demonstrate the effect of the assumptions in actual role playing. Remarks are made regarding (1) the areas where neurotic difficulty would be expected from the assumptions and the role playing, and ( 2) some evidence which seems to verify such expectations. It is proposed that opinion polls may serve the purpose of identifying the degree of variation of a given group from the dominant pattern.


The Brazilian soils, in general, are highly weathe red and poor in some cationic micronutrients in soil solution. The adoption of ma nagement practices such as using cover crops and adding organic fertilizers to soil may promote th availability of these micronutrients for plants. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of wo culture systems, with and without cover crops rotation associated to three sources of ferti lization on the availability of copper, zinc, iron and manganese in an Oxisol in no-tillage system. So il samples were collected at 0-10, 10-20 and 20-40 cm depth, in the first and second years of ex periment, installed in 2006. The experiment consisted of two cropping systems (with and without cover crops rotation) and three fertilizer sources (mineral, organic and organic mineral). The sequence of cultures in a rotating system with cover crops was radish + oat + vetch /corn/wheat/mu cuna + brachiaria + crotalaria and in succession system of wheat/corn/wheat/soybeans. The organic and organic mineral fertilizers consisted of application of manure alone and combin ed with mineral fertilizer, respectively. The system in rotation with cover crops promoted increa se on levels of copper and zinc of the soil. The organic and organic mineral fertilizers promote d increases on the levels of copper and zinc in soil at 0-10 cm depth.


*Department of Orthodontics, University of Athens, Greece and Private Practice, Athens, Greece, **Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, UK, ***Clinic of Orthodontics and Paediatric Dentistry, University of Zurich, Switzerland, ****Department of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics, Dental School/Medical Faculty, University of Bern, Switzerland, *****Private Practice, Corfu, Greece


55 Aim The aim of this paper was to analyze the literature published on the research related to salivary alkaline phosphatase and oral health. Materials and methods An Internet search using Google search engine and key words salivary alkaline phosphatase oral cavity and dental health was carried out to obtain details of the published literature in this research area from 1975 to 2016. The data available in the articles were analyzed and presented under broad headings of salivary alkaline phosphatase in periodontitis, dental caries, jaw growth and oral malignancy. Conclusion Monitoring of Salivary Alkaline Phosphatase levels could be used as an additional diagnostic tool for many oral and dental diseases.


In this paper we present a colour calibration framework for cultural heritage preventive conservation. It includes a custom colour chart based on a regular sRGB division and a multi-dimensional calibration approach based on hyper-surfaces that map the original colours to the calibrated space taking information from all the channels. As shown, our work outperforms past proposals. This solution has been designed to be automatic and match the requirements of our cultural heritage surveillance framework needs, such as non-invasiveness and easiness to deploy. Its performance has been compared to publicly available calibration proposals and charts, and their results judged basing on the context and restrictions of the intended goal, such as illumination. Conclusions on the need for adapting technological solutions to the context of the goal, its cases of use when valid and self-designed methods are drawn. This work is part of the MIPAC-CM project.


Optical spectrum of red HgI 2 in the A exciton region was studied by means of wavelength modulated reflectance and magnetic circular dichroism. Many fine structures are observed, some of which shift diamagnetically parallel to each other with an LO phonon energy interval. They are assigned as phonon replicas of the 2 s exciton.


Under Chinese new normal economy, and with the diversities of individual universities having different positions in the whole educational landscape, local undergraduate universities face issues on how to develop themselves in terms of their respective conditions. This article gives a brief introduction to Chinese new normal economy from past, current, and future perspectives, and then analyzes the practice status quo of local undergraduate universities associated with enterprises, identifies some issues, including weak awareness of teachers participating in practice, facial show of school's management and supervision, and inertia of the enterprise practice without distinctive characteristics of local undergraduate universities. According to the aforementioned, the paper puts forward the corresponding measures from three dimensions: government, university, and firm.


Very high order methods, such as ENO/WENO methods [21, 30, 19], Runge-Kutta Discontinuous Galerkin Finite Element Methods [12] and ADER methods [54,46] often use high order (e.g. fifth order) polynomial reconstruction of the solution of a lower (first) order monotone flux as the building block. In this paper we propose to use second order TVD fluxes in the framework of such methods and apply the principle to the finite-volume ENO, WENO and MPWENO schemes. We call the new improved schemes the ENO-TVD, WENO-TVD and MPWENO-TVD schemes respectively. They include both upwind and centred schemes with non-stuggered meshes. Numerical results suggest that our schemes are superior to original schemes with first order fluxes. This is especially so for long time evolution problems containing both smooth and non-smooth features.


: In order to improve the tunneling efficiency of hard rock roadway, its construction process is better controlled. The deep hole presplitting blasting excavation process of 1605 roadway in Guhanshan Mine is taken as the object. The Oracle Crystal Ball software is used to simulate the process of roadway excavation by Monte Carlo simulation. The possible construction period time and distribution law of single cycle of roadway excavation are predicted. The sensitivity of each process is analyzed, and the bottleneck process that has a great influence on the process is found. Then, the process that needs to be controlled is further analyzed and studied. The drilling depth of the drilling process is changed, and the tunneling speed and the change of sensitivity of each process under different drilling depths are analyzed. The results show that the Monte Carlo simulation method can calculate the duration of roadway excavation, find the bottleneck process of roadway excavation process, and find the optimal parameters of its process.


This study presents a multilevel selection simulation of the co-evolution of cooperation and intergroup conflict in a continuously varying environment. The model is inspired by the pastoralist societies of the arid and semi-arid regions of East Africa, relying upon a two-resource ecology—one uniformly distributed (pasture) and the other clustered (well water). A varying climate model drives a dynamically productive ecology, allowing the examination of the consequences of acute shortages occurring when the carrying capacity of an area temporarily falls below population-levels. In sum, I find extensive support for the hypothesis that cooperation and intergroup conflict are co-evolved, and discover several insights into the relationship. Specifically, I find that resource scarcity promotes cooperation, and the effect is most-pronounced when resources are clustered; not coincidentally, this is when in-group cooperation is most likely to yield advantages in gaining and security them. Consistent with this, the tactical advantage of altruism in warfare appears to generate additional selection pressures on cooperation, even if that altruism implies increased individual mortality. Additionally, I find that human sociocognitive advancements—specifically the ability to engage in concerted violence—lends itself more to conflict over clustered than heterogenous resources. Finally, I discuss implications of this research for contemporary issues in human security. In particular, my findings emphasize the role of identities as mechanisms for cooperation, both as means for resolving collective action problems within a group, but also as vehicles shaped by and for intergroup conflict. I consider the possibility that potential climate change-induced resource scarcities during this century could result in increased subnational instability and conflict, even while international conflict may be decreasing.


Support vector regression and its FPGA implementation have been employed in a BOTDA system to extract temperature information. Post-processing of 96,100 BOTDA data points along 38.44-km fiber can be completed within 0.5 seconds.


This paper provides a guideline for the determination of compliance characteristics and the proper location of the compliance center in typical peg-in-hole and peg-out-hole tasks using hands. We first observe the fact that some of coupling stiffness elements cannot be planned arbitrarily. The given peg-in/out-hole tasks are classified into two contact styles. Then, we analyze concluded of the operational siffness matrix, which achieve the give peg-in/out-hole tasks effectively for each case. It is concluded that the location of the compliance center on the peg and the coupling stiffness element existing between the translational and the rotational direction play ompliance on the peg and the coupling siffness element existing between the translational and the rotational direction play important roles for successful peg-in/out-hole tasks. The analytic results verified through simulations.


ABSTRACTOBJECTIVE: To study changes in retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) measured on optical coherence tomography (OCT) after panretinal photocoagulation (PRP) in patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR).METHODS: This quasi experimental study was conducted at Department of Ophthalmology, Lahore General Hospital, Lahore from 1-4-2017 to 30-3-2018. All patients (n=38) diagnosed with PDR requiring PRP were included. Patients having any coexisting ocular pathology hindering the OCT measurement were excluded. Pre-operatively, RNFL thickness in four quadrants and signal strength was measured on OCT and visual acuity (VA) on Snellen's chart. Post-operatively, patients were followed-up after one-month and three-months and VA was measured and OCT performed. RESULTS: The mean age of patients was 60.66±5.51years with 23(60.5%)males. PRP was performed in right-eye of 22 patients. Pre-laser VA in 28 patients was 6/60. Pre-laser total RNFL was 84.32±4.78µm reduced to 83.74±4.61µm one-month and 81.89±4.40µm three-months post-laser (p<0.001). Pre-laser, superior RNFL thickness was 84.97±4.13µm, reduced to 84.39±3.95µm one-month and to 82.21±3.84µm at three-months post-laser (p 0.024). Pre-laser inferior RNFL thickness was 84.89±4.68µm, reduced to 84.00±4.44µm one-month and to 81.71±4.50µm three months post-laser (p=0.032). Pre-laser temporal RNFL thickness was 83.26±3.47µm, reduced to 82.34±3.44µm one-month and to 80.21±3.49µm three-months post-laser (p<0.001). Pre-laser nasal RNFL thickness was 85.16±3.78µm, reduced to 84.26±3.88µm one-month post-laser and to 82.08±3.74µm at three-months post-laser (p=0.043). Pre-laser, signal strength on OCT was 8.26±0.69 and 8.66±0.48 one-month post-laser and 8.55±0.50 three-months post-laser (p=0.009).CONCLUSION: PRP leads to a decrease in thickness of RNFL after one month and three months as compared to pre-laser RNFL thickness.KEY WORDS: Retina (MeSH); Panretinal photocoagulation (Non-MeSH); Retinal nerve fiber layer thickness (Non-MeSH); Diabetic Retinopathy (MeSH); Tomography, Optical Coherence (MeSH); Neovascularization, Pathologic (MeSH); Laser Coagulation (MeSH).


In mining production,the underground holder is key equipment and has important effect in safety production.Due to bad conditions in mine,common vibration has serious impact on underground holders,in order to avoid underground holders working in shake environment long time cause accidents,model of underground holder in shake environment under mine is set and analysis internal changes of holders when it forced by shake based on simulation,providing theory basis for design of underground holders.


PreScllt appropriations, the house and senate allowances for the sections completed yesterday for tho board of education, follow: Present University of Iowa ............ $2,450,000 University Hospital ........ 1,000,000 Psychopathio Hospital...... 108,000 BMteriologicnl Lab. .......... 14,555 Iowa State Collcge .......... 2,432,950 Senate $1,778,356 1,000,000 108,000 13,099 DES MOINES, ApI'1I 6 (AP)Minor differences between the sen· ate and house on the phraseology of the bIll calling for a state con· vention to pass upon the proposed repeD] of the eighteenth amendment .were ironed out today 'by the can· ference committee, Wllich plans to ask immediate consideration of th~ I'eport, The changes agl'eed to strike from the bill the word "constitu. tional" and provIde tor a "sto.te convention" and a lso the phrase lo "ratify or reject," eliminating the The Situation ill Brief


A dual metasurface‐based wideband antenna is proposed herein. The antenna is fed through the stepped aperture of a coplanar waveguide. One layer of the metasurface is printed directly above the aperture, where the other layer is printed on the dielectric plate and placed above the antenna. The antenna bandwidth is significantly improved by the high‐order modes excited by the double‐layer metasurface. The proposed antenna is simple and compact. The − 10 dB relative impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna is approximately 95.6% (4.8–13.6 GHz), and the main radiation direction deviates from the normal direction by 30°. The proposed antenna has an ultra‐wideband (UWB), which facilitates short‐range indoor UWB positioning.


Background: Dementia disease is usually identified among older patients, but it is not a part of the normal aging process. The number of Dementia's patients in the Arab countries is increasing due to increased longevity and improvement in the health care system. This study aimed to assess the effect of an educational program on Formal Caregivers Burden in Elderly Homes.
Methodology: This study employed a quasi-experimental one-group pre-test-post-test design. The study was conducted in three elderly nursing private homes in Amman, Jordan using purposive sampling of 50 formal caregivers.
Results: Dementia patient's caregivers' burden was decreased after program implementation, with statistically significant between pre- post, and three months after program implementation (p<.001). Findings demonstrated that the formal Dementia caregiver's education program can effectively decrease burden among caregivers.
Recommendation: Conducting continuing education program for Dementia patient's caregivers in the nursing homes to promote their practices and decrease their burden.


Abstract An approximate solution is presented for the postbuckling problem of cross-ply laminated plates having elastically restrained edges and initial imperfections. By the method of Bubnov-Galerkin the governing nonlinear differential equations are reduced to a system of simultaneous nonlinear ordinary algebraic equations depicting nonlinearity between applied loads and plate lateral deflections. As a numerical example, the case of a square plate made of different materials e.g., isotropic, glass fiber reinforced plastic, and carbon fiber reinforced plastic, under the effect of an initial central deflection and having different edge restraints has been studied.


Current cloud computing infrastructure typically assumes a homogeneous collection of commodity hardware, with details about hardware variation intentionally hidden from users. In this paper, we present our approach for extending the traditional notions of cloud computing to provide a cloud-based access model to clusters that contain a heterogeneous architectures and accelerators. We describe our ongoing work extending the Open Stack cloud computing stack to support heterogeneous architectures and accelerators, and our experiences running Open Stack on our local heterogeneous cluster test bed.


Environment administration contracts take part in an important role in our country environment management,but as a result of the lag of fundamental research, the present legislation vacancy,enable the environment administration contract system not to have truly to establish for a long time.The environment administration contracts early appeared in Japan and America.The governments utilized the contracts to confirm environment administration organs and opposite party in environmental protection responsibility,the power,the advantage relations.At the beginning of the 80's,the environment management domain of our country started to introduce the environment administration contracts,and widely suit to government unit's pollution,the items of basic construction of environmental protection,the energy development,resources mining and so on.Through to the analysis of overseas environment administration contract system,the comparison,as well as research of our country environment administration contract practice,has provided the brand-new theory angle of view and the effective realization way for our country environment administration.


Attempt to construct the object of research of technique, specifying it in system of philosophical disciplines, and being capable to integrate various approaches and directions in this knowledge branch is undertaken. The author position consists that the object of technique philosophy research is presented by relations of technique to the world and the man. The technique, at such approach, appears as means of harmonization of human being with the nature world. The subject of technique philosophy differs from general philosophical object of research by strongly pronounced creative aspect.


Biominerials formed by biomineralization can enhance the machinical protection function, strength and rigidity of wood, thus improving the overall performance of wood .This paper tentatively recommends some cconceptions to apply biomineralization principles in wood science as follows: ①simulating biomineralization process to fabricate wood-biominerilazation sturcture composites;② using natural biominerals and their analogs as raw materials to produce new composites;③biomimetic synthesis of woodceramics;④designing and manufacturing wood-based panels with analog structure of biominerals.


This study is based on problems that Many students who can not achieve the learning outcomes as expected by the educators in this case a failure in learning. The research goal is to describe the failure of student learning before and after the given service information, and determine the effectiveness of the implementation of information services in addressing the failure to learn. The method used in this research is True experimental design with pretest form-Posttest Control Group Design. With a sample of experimental class is class XI-TITL one of 25 students and the control class is class XI-TITL2 many as 22 students so as the total sample of 47 students. Data were analyzed using the Wilcoxon rank test signesd and Kolmogorov Smirnov 2 with the help SPPSS version 20.00. The results obtained in the experimental group of researchers pretest posttest 94.3 and 99.6 and the control group pretest posttest 87.3 and 93.7. Test the hypothesis produce the experimental group Z on pretest-posttest with values -3,727b and signed pretest-posttest worth 0.00, whereas in the control group pretest-posttest Z on the value -3,232b and signed pretest-posttest berniai 0.01. At posttest and posttest control experiments signed (2-tailed) 849 experimental group and the control group 940, while the average veriabel the experimental group 93.7273 99.6800 in the control group. The conclusion is that the researchers obtained the experimental group was higher than the control group. Keywords: Information Services, Overcoming Failure Study


After a brief overview of slab geometry work published to date we report on the zig-zag optical path slab laser work at Spectra Technology by describing a 100 Hz slab YAG system (CENTURION) and a 10 Hz dual slab glass system (GEMINI). We will also describe some of the major diagnostic work performed and in the process illustrate the major mechanisms responsible for beam distortion observed in these types of slab lasers.


C G7 |-----3-|--3---1__0-|--0-----------|-------------|----------|--------------| |-------|-----------|--------3---1-|-1----0------|----------|--------------| 3 |-------|----0------|--------------|----------2--|--0----0--|-0-----2---0--| 4 |-------|-----------|--------------|-------------|----------|--------------| |-------|--3--------|--3-----------|-3-----------|----------|----2---------| |-------|-----------|--------------|-------------|----3-----|-3------------| A way, in a man ger, no crib for His bed, the lit tle Lord


Recommender systems are an effective solution to the information overload problem, specially in the online world where we are constantly faced with inordinately many choices. These systems try to find the items such as books or movies that match best with users' preferences. Based on the different approaches to finding the items of interests to users, we can classify the recommender systems into three major groups. First, content based recommender systems use content information to make a recommendation. For example, such systems might recommend a romantic movie to a user that showed interest in romantic movies in her profile. Second, collaborative filtering recommender systems rely only on the past behavior of the users such as their previous transactions or ratings. By comparing this information, a collaborative filtering recommender system finds new items or users to users. In order to address the cold-start problem and fend off various types of attacks, the third class of recommender systems, namely trust-aware recommender systems, is proposed. These systems use social media and trust information to make a recommendation, which is shown to be promising in improving the accuracy of the recommendations. In this chapter, we give an overview of state-of-theart recommender systems with a focus on trust-aware recommender systems. In particular, we describe the ways that trust information can help to improve the quality of the recommendations. In the rest of the chapter, we introduce recommender systems, then trust in social media, and next trust-aware recommender systems. Trust-Aware Recommender Systems 3 1.1 Recommender Systems With the development of Web 2.0, information has increased at an unprecedented rate which aggravates the severity of the information overload problem for online users. For example, a search for "smartphone" returns 1,664,253 results in Amazon products or a search for "best movies to watch" in Google videos returns about 219,000,000 results. Due to the information overload problem, the decision-making process becomes perplexing when one is exposed to excessive information [58, 55, 19, 1]. Therefore, with the rapidly growing amount of available information and digital items on the web, it is necessary to use tools to filter this information in order to find items that are more likely to be of interest to the users. One can use search engines to overcome the information overload problem. In this case, the user has to refine the search terms or has to pick more specific query terms to narrow down the results. Another solution to overcome the information overload problem is to use top-k recommendations. In this approach, the system keeps a list of the most popular items and utilizes the list to recommend items to the user. For example, Ted is a website that uses this technique to recommend items to users. It can be seen in Figure 1.1, users can sort items bases on the different approaches such as overall popularity (most viewed), popularity in the past week (most emailed this week), or popularity in the past month (most popular this month) among others. Similar to search engines, top-k items are not usually customized based on users' preferences and interest. In particulate, a top-k-item system returns the same list of items to people with different preferences. Therefore, customization is the major problem associated with these two approaches. Recommender systems are introduced to tackle the information overload, and the customization problem. Recommender systems are a subclass of information filtering systems that consider users' preferences and recommended items that match with users' preferences and interests [23]. These systems have become extremely common in recent years and are applied in a variety of applications including recommending products, social links, and digital items. The most popular ones are probably movies, music, news, books, and products in general [58, 70, 19, 26, 60]. Further, recommender systems are frequently used on recommending social links such as recommending people to follow on Twitter, befriend on social networks or dating sites [67, 37]. Furthermore, these systems are also used to accurately estimate the degree to which a particular user (from now on termed the target user) will like a particular item (the target item) [73]. Based on the type of data that recommender systems use, we can classify 1http://www.amazon.com 2https://www.google.com/#q=best+movies+to+watch&safe=active&tbm=vid 3http://www.ted.com/ 4 Trust-Aware Recommender Systems FIGURE 1.1: Ted.com uses a top-k item recommendation approach to rank items them into two major classes: content-based and collaborative filtering based recommender systems [76, 60]. Content-based recommendation systems use items' features and characteristics to rank the items based on the user's preferences. Collaborative filtering recommendation systems rely on the user's past behavior e.g., purchases or ratings, to find similar users or items and utilize this information in order to find the items of interests to the user. In general, recommender systems are utility functions that predict the rating of item i from the item set I for user u from the user set U in the form of U × I → R, where rui is the rating of the item i for the given user u. The task of recommender systems is to predict user u's rating for the given item i for which rui is unknown and use r̂ui to represent the predicted rating. The ratings, ru,i, can be any real number but often ratings are integers in the range [1, 5]. We use R to show all of the ratings. In real-world recommender systems, only a few users rate the items of interests (this number for many recommender system is less than 1%). Matrix 1.1 shows an example of a rating matrix with missing values. The goal of recommender systems is to predict these missing values. R =  5 2 3 4 3 4 2 2 5 3 5 5 3  (1.1) Trust-Aware Recommender Systems 5 Algorithm 1 Content-based recommendation 1: Describe the items that may be recommended. 2: Create a profile of the user that describes the types of items the user likes 3: Compare items to the user profile to determine what to recommend. The profile is often created and updated automatically in response to feedback on the desirability of items that have been presented to the user. 1.1.1 Content-based Recommendation Content-based recommender systems uses items' and users' features to create a profile for each item or user. For example, movie profile might include attributes such as gender, participating actors, director, and office box popularity. User profile includes demographic information and users's interests [28]. These systems use supervised machine learning to induce a classifier that can discriminate between items likely to be of interest to the user and those likely to be uninteresting [52, 5, 49]. The recommender recommends an item to a user based on a description of the item and a profile of the users' interests. Algorithm 1 shows the main steps of a content-based recommendation. We usually use vector space model to represent users' and items' features. In this model, every item or user is represented as a vector. i = (t1, t2, ..., tn) (1.2) where tj is the frequency of term j in item i. To model users or items more accurately, instead of frequency we can use tf-idf which can be calculated as follows: tft,i = ft,i max{fz,i : z ∈ i} idft = log N nt (1.3) wt,i = tft,i × idft (1.4) where ft,i is the frequency of term t in item i, max{fz,i : z ∈ i} is the maximum term frequency in item i, N is the total number of items, nt is the number of items where term t appears. tft,i denotes the frequency of term t in item i, and idft denotes the inverse document frequency of term t, which inversely correlates with the number of items, that term t is appeared in their descriptions. The similarity between user u and item i can be calculated using Equation 1.5. sim(u, i) = ∑ t∈T wt,uwt,i √∑ t∈T w 2 t,u √∑ t∈T w 2 t,i (1.5) where T indicates the set of terms that appeared in item and user description. 6 Trust-Aware Recommender Systems 1.1.2 Collaborative Filtering (CF) Collaborative filtering is the process of filtering the information or patterns using techniques involving collaboration among multiple agents, viewpoints, data sources, etc [69]. Collaborative filtering systems use the user's past behavior, and recommend items that match their taste. Collaborative filtering recommender systems can be classified into memory-based and model-based collaborative filtering. In memory-based approach we predict the missing ratings based on similarity between users or items. In model-based approach, we use given user-item ratings to construct a model and use the model to predict missing ratings. We'll give a detailed description of these two approaches in the following sections. The main advantage of this method is that the recommender system does not need to have any information about the users and content of the items to recommend. User-item ratings are the only information the system needs to operate. The following are assumptions for collaborative filtering systems [76]: • Users with similar ratings on some items are more likely to have similar ratings on future items, and • Items with similar ratings in the past are more likely to have similar ratings in the future. Figure 1.2 illustrates this approach for a small set of users and movies. The goal is recommending a new movie to Jack. In the first step, the system finds three other users that have similar movie taste as Jack's. The next step it looks for other movies that these users liked. All three of them liked "Once Upon a Time in the West", and two of them liked "Spider man". Therefore, the top recommendation would be "Once Upon a Time in the West". 126.96.36.199 Memory-based Collaborative Filtering In a memory-based approach, the recommender system aims to predict the missing ratings based on either similarity


The article examines the identity of modern man in the context of globalisation processes and crisis of culture and also in the state of multiculturelism. The aim of the article is to grasp the meaning of the role and the place of culture of consent in the existence of modern man


Thoracobiliary fistula (TBF) is a rare but highly serious complication of thoraco-abdominal trauma. The most significant factor in the early diagnosis of TBF is considered to be a laceration of the diaphragm and accompanied mostly by hepatic injury in the trauma of lower thoracic region. Fever, chills, biliptysis, abdominal and chest pain, pleural effusion, hepatomegaly and leucocytosis are among the most common presenting symptoms of TBF. Existence of indirect biliribun in sputum and/or pleural fluid is also supporting agents in the diagnosis. Even though there exist no optimal management of TBF, surgical and conservative approaches in its management are available. In cases where TBF treatment is started late, development of bile empyema with acute necrotizing bile bronchiolitis, pneumonia and sepsis is inevitable. In this article, a biliary-bronchial fistula case, which developed as a late complication after a gunshot injury and resulted in mortality, is presented.


Properties of GaN and its alloys are strongly controlled by impurities and strain. Using large hydrostatic and biaxial pressure we identify the role of donor dopants and stress induced fields. The doping of Si and 0 as relevant representatives of group-IV and group-VI impurities are studied in Raman spectroscopy. For pressures above 20 GPa we find that oxygen induces a strongly localized gap state while Si continues to behave as a hydrogenic donor. Such a DX-like behavior of 0 indicates and corresponds to doping limitations in AIGaN alloys. The site specific (ON, SiGa) formation of a gap-state is attributed to bond strengths of the respective neighbors. In photoreflection of pseudomorphic GaInN we observe pronounced Franz-Keldysh oscillations corresponding to piezoelectric fields of 0.6 MV/cm. An observed redshift of the luminescence is found to originate in electric field induced tailstates. A reduced but similar effect is expected for GaN possibly explaining observations of persistent photoconductivity in a wide range of materials.


A case study is made on the funeral for the unnaturally dead by the Yi ethnic people in Zhiju.The funeral taboos are described and analyzed in detail concerning their origins and influences on the social life.The findings are significant to the understanding of the social structure,interpersonal relationship and economic situation in ethnic communities.


This article presents the pre- liminary results of a research project that studies the political instability of the argentine presidential systems, both in the national and sub-national govern- ment, in the period 1983-2006. The first section proposes a classification of the forms of political instability in the presidential democracies and identifies the variables to undertake, from a com- pared perspective, the study of the rela- tion between political and institutional factors and classes of presidential political instability. The paper concludes with an initial hypothesis on the relation that is studied: that the divided party more than the divided government qualifies as a rele- vant political factor to give place to the different types of instability that exhibits the presidential dynamics in Argentina,


wise cordial reception. We are fortunately unanimous in our desire to do honour to our brethren, who will be, for a few days, our visitors; and, in honouring them. to recognise the high value and importance of the Association to which we all belong. The exceptions to this remarkable unanimity are so singularly few, and when existing, in nearly every case on sufficient ground, that I feel it an imperative duty to give the fact an emphatic prominence. There has been no party or individual jealousy; and, whether we fail or succeed in the object we have ardently desired, all have frankly co-operated to deserve success. In the name, then, of the unanimous profession of Leeds, I bid you welcome. I will not waste the precious moments which can be given to this address by speaking of myself. You, all of you, according to the direction of your mental activity, form some estimate of the impress these meetings produce on the advancement of your common and individual interests, and so you may imagine how I regard, at once, the honour and the responsibility of presiding over you, and leading your councils. But few of you, and those only who have been recently similarly circumstanced, can know the anxiety with which we have prepared for this momentous week. The growing interest, and the augmenting reputation and influence of the Association, and the natural desire, on our part, that this reception should not fall behind, or suffer in comparison with, those which have immediately preceded it, will readily occur to you. You will have fresh in your memories the delightful visits recently paid to two of the most celebrated seats of learning of the empire-the quiet and repose so congenial to, and productive of, thoughtful generalisation, and the remarkable addresses there delivered, taking their tone from the geniuis loci -so full of deep reflection and close reasoning, so well appreciated by their attentive auditory. When I remember these, the elicitous description of the Latin poet comes to my mind-


This paper reports the first observation of the optical mixing due to conduction electrons in $n$-type germanium. The measured magnitude and anisotropy of the third-order susceptibilities are found to be in good agreement with the nonparabolicity effect calculated with a $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{\mathrm{k}}\ifmmode\cdot\else\textperiodcentered\fi{}\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{\mathrm{p}}$ method involving eight bands at the $L$ point in the reciprocal lattice. It is concluded that the mechanism of momentum-dependent relaxation times contributes negligibly to the observed nonlinearity.


One of the most fundamental problems in computer security is protecting sensitive digital information from unauthorized disclosure. There are a number of challenges, such as spyware, removable media, and mobile devices, which make this a very hard problem. The problem becomes even more difficult when the adversary is somebody who is authorized to view the data. This is what is commonly referred to as an insider information leak. Insider leaks often occur out of malice, but sometimes are just due to plain negligence, as was the case with a recent leak of 26 million U.S. veterans' names, birth dates, and social security numbers. Current systems make an attempt to protect against this type of disclosure, but use rudimentary techniques that can be easily bypassed by a knowledgeable attacker. Examples include disabling "print" and "save" menu options within an application or scanning network traffic for signatures of known sensitive content. This paper examines a new method for protecting sensitive content from unauthorized disclosure, a View-Only File System (VOFS). VOFS relies on trusted computing primitives and virtual machine (VM) technology to provide a much greater level of security than current systems. In VOFS, a secure virtual machine on the client authenticates itself with a content provider and downloads sensitive data. Before allowing the user to view the data in his or her non-secure VM, the VOFS client disables non-essential device output. This prevents the user, or any malicious software, from printing, uploading, or stealing the sensitive content. When the user is done viewing a sensitive file, VOFS will reset the machine to previous state and resume normal device activity. Our goal is to provide near-seamless access to view-only files, while at the same time securing them from unauthorized digital replication. This paper presents the initial design, development plan, and evaluation plan for VOFS.


From existed experiences and application practice at home and abroad,there are autologous advantages and broad application range in metal beam-column barrier. Metal beam-column barrier,besides corrugated beam barrier,are used little in bridges of China. Improving recognition of metal beam-column barrier in production and applicationIt can provide references for exerting advantage of metal beam-column barrier and enriching bridge barrier types.


A light-emitting device includes a cathode, an anode, a first light-emitting layer that is disposed between the cathode and the anode and that emits light of a first color, a second light-emitting layer that is disposed between the first light-emitting layer and the cathode and that emits light of a second color different from the first color, and an intermediate layer that is disposed between and in contact with the first light-emitting layer and the second light-emitting layer and that functions to prevent energy transfer of excitons between the first light-emitting layer and the second light-emitting layer. The intermediate layer includes a first intermediate layer disposed in contact with the first light-emitting layer and mainly containing a first intermediate material and a second intermediate layer disposed in contact with the second light-emitting layer and mainly containing a second intermediate material different from the first intermediate material.


Jiang Ze mins thinking on the all round development of an individual is a new summary of the development requirements of the times ,and has an abundance of new connotation,thus brining a new realm to the thinking on an individuals development.Jiangs is a new extension of Marxists thinking on a persons all round development.


A manufacturing method of a deposition mask for an organic light emitting display device is provided to generate an accurate pattern without a shadow by using the deposition mask of an accurate taper shape. A manufacturing method of a deposition mask for an organic light emitting display device includes the steps of: forming a photosensitive film on a substrate(S100); patterning the photosensitive film by the liquid immersion exposure and developing of the photosensitive film(S110); forming an electroplating layer on the patterned photosensitive film(S120); and separating the electroplating layer from the substrate(S130). The photosensitive film has a taper shape in the patterning step.


Information available in the literature concerning the composition of lipids in wheat germ and in wheat germ oil is critically reviewed. After a brief introduction to the botanical and technological aspects of wheat germ, the yield of oil and its physico-chemical properties are described followed by the composition of fatty acids, acyl lipids and non-saponifiable components. The importance of distinguishing between dissected germ and commercial wheat germ and between germ oil and germ lipids is emphasised. The triglycerides account for the major part of the fatty acids, of which linoleic acid is the principal component, and the content of free fatty acids depends on the rancidity of the germ and also on possible post-extraction processing in the case of commercial oil. Polar lipids consist mainly of phospholipids and available information suggests that glycolipids are present only at very low concentration and that galactosyl glycerides may be absent from the embryo of the quiescent wheat grain. Most reports of tocopherol composition concern wheat germ oil and there is less information about the tocopherols of dissected wheat germ. α- and β-tocopherols are found in wheat germ but tocotrienols are probably absent from dissected germ and only occur in commercial germ as a result of bran and endosperm contamination. Wheat germ oil exhibits a range of sterols. 4-methyl sterols and triterpenoid alcohols, and β-sitosterol and campesterol are the major components. The hydrocarbon composition of wheat germ oil has been reported but the significance of the results is uncertain. Flavonoid pigments, xanthophyll and xanthophyll esters have been shown to be present in wheat germ. Most of the studies of the non-saponifiable fraction were based on germ oil and commercial wheat germ and little is known of the nature of this fraction in dissected wheat germ.


On the basis of sequence stratigraphy,we analyzed numerous data of outcrops and wells,and established the sequence stratigraphic framework during Zhangxia Age in the North China,then studied its sedimentary facies and lithofacies paleogeographic characters.The research indicates that Zhangxia strata are dominated by clear water carbonate deposition,and especially developed oolitic limestone.The primary sedimentary facies of Zhangxia Age is oolitic beach facies,between which occur open marine facies.The main reservoir rocks of Zhangxia Age are oolitic limestone and dolomitized oolitic limestone,and the former is poorer than the latter in porosity and permeability.According to the distribution of sedimentary facies and regional properties of Dolomitization,we predict that the favorable reservoirs of Zhangxia Age in North China may develop in the north of Shijiazhuang – Linfen Line and the south of Datong – Beijing Line.


The base comprises between 40% and 10% by weight of starch, between 10% and 40% by weight flour and 50% by weight of fat, of which 5% to 10% by weight of stearin playing the role of agent thickening agent to give the base a viscous and stable texture. To prepare the base, a main mixing fat and flour, heating the mixture and a liquid phase is obtained, then cooled liquid mixture. Before cooling the mixture, added with a thickening agent to obtain a viscous phase after cooling, and the mixture was stirred while being cooled to, after cooling, maintain the solid particles in suspension in the viscous phase.


A theory for the growth of columnar microstructure in thin films is presented. The zone II columnar microstructure is shown to result from a balance between shadowing (which results in zone I microstructures) and surface diffusion (which tends to smooth the surface). The zone I to zone II transition temperature is predicted together with the type of unstable modes. The surface morphology and the columnar grain structure are obtained both analytically and numerically. The scaling behavior of the grain size with film thickness is derived. Monte Carlo computer simulations follow the temporal evolution of three‐dimensional zone II microstructures, and account for growth competition between adjacent grains, and the formation of film texture. These results agree with experimental data.


We have studied the temperature dependence of the CdTe–HgTe valence‐band discontinuity with x‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS). The samples have been cooled at 110 K for the XPS experiments and at 50 K for UPS. At room temperature, we measure a valence‐band discontinuity of 0.35±0.05 eV, in agreement with previous photoemission results. The valence‐band discontinuity is found to change by only a few millivolts between room temperature and 50 K, with an estimated uncertainty of ∼60 meV.


We report the first eight-wavelength hybrid dense wavelength-division multiplexing/subcarrier multiplexing (DWDM/SCM) transmission over 800 km (ten spans) of standard single-mode fiber, with 1.04-Gb/s payload on each wavelength in 35 6-MHz 64-quadrature amplitude modulated (QAM) channels, without dispersion compensation. Forward error-correction coding (FEC) was used to achieve error-free performance. Error-free performance on the majority of channels was also achieved for 64-QAM without FEC and for 256-QAM with FEC over 400 km. We used electroabsorption modulated laser transmitters.


This paper presents a review of technical reports available for the structural assessment of pipe bends. Compared with smooth bends, the volume of literature available for joint bents (mitres) is less and least explored in challenging applications, such as low temperature use. The issue that affects a pipe bend is discontinuity stresses and cross-section ovalisation. These lead to delay in the enlargement of non-linear analysis of pipe bends. The constrains of pipe work designers are thoroughly analyzed and discussed, together with the effects of loading and out-of-circularity. The scope for additional work on the effect of combined loading, and end effects, out of- circularity are high. Limit, collapse and disintegrate loads are not yet obtainable across the entire continuum of bends and loading parameters. Creep and optimization is least explored as far as pipe bends are concerned. The presence of unforeseen vibration is a common source of high-cycle weakness collapse in pipe work, resulting vibration-induced fatigue studies.


An azimuth-dependent dispersion curve inversion (ADDCI) method is applied to Rayleigh waves to extract 3D velocity and azimuthal anisotropy. The synthetic tests show that the ADDCI method is able to extract azimuthal anisotropy at different depths. The errors of the fast propagation direction (FPD) and the magnitude of the anisotropy (MOA) are less than 10° and 1-2%, respectively. The 3D anisotropic model shows large variations in the FPDs and MOAs with depth and blocks; strong contrasts are observed across major faults, and the average MOA in the crust is approximately 3%. The FPDs are positively correlated with the GPS velocity direction and the strikes of regional faults in most of the blocks. The low-velocity zones (LVZs) in the middle to lower crust are widely observed in the Songpan Ganze Terrence, the north Chuan-Dian block, and surprisingly in the Huayingshan thrust and fold belt. The LVZs in the middle crust are also positively correlated with the low-velocity belt in the uppermost mantle. These observations may suggest that large-scale deformation is coupled vertically from the surface to the uppermost mantle. Crust shortening by the pure shearing process, which involves the thrusting and folding of the upper crust and the lateral extrusion of blocks, may be the major mechanism causing the growth of the eastern Tibetan Plateau.


Background: A potential research for the evaluation of CT scan accuracy in blunt abdominal trauma wascarried out by comparing operative and CT scan observation. About 60 patients undertook the blunt abdominaltrauma in three years. CT scan was performed on these stabilized patients for its further comparison withoperative results. Moreover, all the documented data comprised of scan results, sex, age and type of injuries.Aim of Study: The objective of our current research was to discover the accuracy of CT scan results forblunt abdominal trauma which was evaluated by surgeons in duty compare with operative findings.Results: From 60 patients, 40 pts (66 .6 %) underwent surgery. 20 pts (33.3%) were conservativelymanaged. 5 pts were died. Hemoperitoneum was perceived in fifty five patients. The patients having littlehemoperitoneum on CT scan along with reasonable clinical observations were conventionally managedwhereas those patients having huge hemoperitoneum needed surgical investigation. Out of all the patientsinvolved in study, 13 had splenic, 3 pancreatic, 15 hepatic, 4 vascular and 5 renal injuries, however, 12showed retroperitoneum hematoma.Conclusion: In comparison between clinical monitoring, CT in the evaluation of blunt abdominal traumawith accuracy 86-100% (over all accuracy 94%).


Objective Electronic health records are a rich source of information on human diseases, but the information is variably structured, fragmented, curated using different coding systems and collected for purposes other than medical research. We describe an approach for developing, validating and sharing reproducible phenotypes from national structured Electronic Health Records (EHR) in the UK with applications for translational research. Materials and Methods We implemented a rule-based phenotyping framework, with up to six approaches of validation. We applied our framework to a sample of 15 million individuals in a national EHR data source (population based primary care, all ages) linked to hospitalization and death records in England. Data comprised continuous measurements such as blood pressure, medication information and coded diagnoses, symptoms, procedures and referrals, recorded using five controlled clinical terminologies: a) Read (primary care, subset of SNOMED-CT), b) ICD-9, ICD-10 (secondary care diagnoses and cause of mortality), c) OPCS-4 (hospital surgical procedures) and d) Gemscript Drug Codes. Results The open-access CALIBER Portal (https://www.caliberresearch.org/portal) demonstrates phenotyping algorithms for 50 diseases, syndromes, biomarkers and lifestyle risk factors and provides up to six validation layers. These phenotyping algorithms have been used by 40 national/international research groups in 60 peer-reviewed publications. Conclusion Herein, we describe the UK EHR phenomics approach, CALIBER, with initial evidence of validity and use, as an important step towards international use of UK EHR data for health research.


ZnO nanodisks on indium-tin-oxide film coated glass substrates were formed using electrochemical deposition with different electrolyte concentrations. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy spectra showed Zn 2p3/2, Zn 2p1/2, and O 1s peaks of ZnO samples, indicative of the formation of ZnO nanodisks. Scanning electron microscopy images showed that the density of the ZnO nanodisks increased with increasing electrolyte concentration. X-ray diffraction patterns showed that the intensities corresponding to the (100), (002), and (101) peaks for the ZnO nanodisks with the wurtzite structures increased with increasing electrolyte concentration, indicative of the preferential formation of the ZnO nanodisks. Photoluminescence spectra at 300 K for ZnO nanodisks showed that the dominant PL peak intensity of the near band-edge emissions decreased with increasing electrolyte concentration.


Class size refers to the number of students of the specific class or teaching group under a specific teacher's guidance,and it is one of the important school environment factors that have impact upon student development.This paper analyzes the historical evolutions and the present conditions of class sizes in today's developed countries,summarizes some major characteristics of the present class size problems in our country,elaborates on the impacts from class size on teachers in terms of environment,teacher's care,students' academic development and human interactions,and makes feasible proposals to improving the class size issues of our country.


The present invention relates to antibodies that interact with the osteoprotegerin ligand (OPGL). The present invention also relates to a method for treating osteopenia disorders by administering a pharmaceutically effective amount of an antibody that binds to OPGL and a method for detecting the amount of OPGL in a sample using an antibody that binds to OPGL.


Hypothesis / aims of study Nerve growth factor (NGF) and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) play a key role in the pathophysiology of overactive bladder (OAB), most probably by changing the threshold for response of bladder sensory neurons. Several groups reported high urinary levels of NGF and BDNF in OAB patients, which subsided after successful antimuscarinic treatment (1,2). Mirabegron is an agonist of beta3-adrenoceptor with a distinct mechanism of action. It causes detrusor relaxation during the storage phase of the micturition cycle by activation of adenylyl cyclase, with the subsequent formation of cyclic adenosine monophosphate. The effect of mirabegron on urinary neurotrophins' levels is currently unknown. In this study we investigated, for the first time, urinary levels of NGF and BDNF in OAB patients treated with mirabegron.


The method, which provides the accounting for expenses on the product's quality on intermediate stages of the technological process, which causes the decrease of finished goods shortage and reduction of financial expenses, has been offered. Запропонована методика, яка передбачає облік витрат на якість продукції на проміжних етапах технологічного процесу, що спричиняє зменшення браку готової продукції і зниження фінансових втрат.


In this paper, we describe a novel low backlash reducer using precessing crown gears. we call this mechanism Crown Reducer. The features of this reducer are low backlash, high reduction ratio, advantage in miniaturizing. These features greatly contribute to design various small mechanisms such as a finger joint of a robot hand. The crown gear pair is meshing in face to face, one acts as a rotor and the other as a stator. The rotor gear has N teeth and the hub is connected to the output shaft. The spokes of rotor gear are elastically deformed according to gears rolling. The stator gear fixed on a housing has N − 1 teeth (or N + 1). The meshing of crown gear pair with several shapes of rack tooth are simulated, and proper parameters of rack to improve high rigidity of teeth are calculated. Finally, backlash and minimum input torque to rotate are evaluated using a prototype reducer.


Genetic changes in insects that result in insecticide resistance can also affect their fitness. Here, we report measurements of development time and survival of the Indianmeal moth, Plodia interpunctella (Hübner), to compare the relative fitness of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt)‐susceptible and ‐resistant colonies. Measurements of larval development time and survival indicated that a fitness cost was associated with resistance to Bt in some Bt‐resistant colonies but not others. Comparisons of geographically different populations revealed inherent differences in development time and survival. In most cases, Bt‐resistant moths suffered no disadvantage when feeding on a Bt‐treated diet. In many cases, the development of Bt‐resistant moths on Bt‐treated diet was slower than the unselected moths on untreated diet, but it is unclear whether these differences would affect the successful mating of susceptible and resistant moths.


Skin diseases such as acne, psoriasis, and eczema are associated with a significant impairment in the quality of the patient's daily life. Several


Abstract.
 The lamination of the masseter muscle was gross anatomically examined in the water deer (Hydropotes inermis). We could distinguish several layers such as the M. masseter superficialis, M. masseter intermedius, M. masseter profundus, M. maxillo-mandibularis, and M. zygomaticomandibularis, The M. masseter superficialis was subdivided into lamina prima and lamina secunda. The lamina prima originated from the facial tuber, facial crest, and zygomatic arch with a broad tendinous sheet. The lamina secunda arose from the posterior facial crest and anterior area of the zygomatic arch and was inserted to the mandible by a broad tendinous sheet. The M. masseter intermedius arose from approximately same origin as the superficialis lamina secunda by a distinct tendinous sheet. Moreover, only one part was confirmed in the M. maxillo-mandibularis and the M. zygomatico-mandibularis and only two parts in the M. masseter profundus pars posterior. Moreover, the most rostral part of the M. maxillo-mandibularis was inserted to the mandible by a small weak tendon. This result suggests that this muscle layer may not restrict the mouth opening more remarkably than that of cervids which develop the tendon. In this study, we could confirm the lamination of the masseter muscle with the simplified layers in the water deer.


The present paper utilises COMSOL Multiphysics to model structural application of graphene as pressure sensor diaphragm. In this study, deflection and strain induced in a graphene diaphragm due to applied pressure were calculated. Pressure operation of the sensor is divided into two ranges, namely normal pressure and abnormal pressure to find the suitable design for these different pressure ranges. Changes in the band structure can be detected electrically, suggesting a potential application as the ultra-sensitive pressure sensor. This study has paved a new path to discover the feasibility of utilising the thinness of graphene membrane in MEMS piezoresistive pressure sensor specifically in intracranial pressure monitoring.


Nowadays,the submergence depth of sucker rod pumping wells in Tahe oilfield of Northwest Oilfield Company is much beyond the average value of other oilfields in SINOPEC.Combined with the carbonate reservoir characteristics as large gas rate,viscous crude and produced naturally,this paper regressively analyzes and matches the dynamic liquid level,submergence depth,pump efficiency,water content,oil density and viscosity of 137 sucker rod pump wells.Then it puts forward the suitable range of submergence depth at different water content and daily fluid production rate.Test shows that the pump efficiency of sucker rod pumping wells has little relationship with gas oil ratio,water cut,oil density and viscosity,polish rod load and has relationship with the submergence depth of sucker rod pumping well.In Tahe oilfield,the submergence depth is designed as 500~1100m for the sucker rod pumping wells with water cut more than of 50%,and the submergence depth is designed as 600~1000m for the sucker rod pumping wells with water cut less than of 50%.When the daily liquid production is more than 35t,the submergence depth of over 500m is suitable.When the daily liquid production is less than 35t,the submergence depth is 600~1500m.It is proved that the suitable submergence depth of pumping well can not only enhance the pump efficiency and production rate,but also can save a great quantity of materials for tubes and rods owing to their obvious prolonged service life.


A higher than normal ratio is reported for the decrease of cosmic ray intensity on 18 December 1965. This value was attributed to the depletion of a low rigidity electron component which also contributes to the counting rate of the IMP 3 detector. Significant difference is observed in the onset times recorded by the IMP 3 detector and Alert neutron monitor.


A syllabus is a guide to where a course will go. It lists the texts that will be read, it presents details of assignments and exams, and it gestures to the corners of a field where the teacher will (and won't!) be taking discussions. In this sense, the syllabus is profoundly future-oriented. But I want to argue that you should re-orient your syllabus to the past—its own past—and use it as a chance to show your sources.


The object of the invention is the use of a composition comprising at least one citrate and at least one lipid, as a plasticizer for polymer composites (s) and / or polymer (s) biodegradable (s ) charge (s) flour (s) plant (s) .L'invention also relates to composites based on polymer (s) biodegradable (s) may charge (s) flour (s) plant (s) comprising at least one citrate and at least one lipid.


A nanoporous gold (NPG) film was formed on a Ti sheet or sputter-deposited thin Ti film by the anodization of a thin gold film on the Ti substrates in oxalic acid. A remarkably low anodic current o...


Objective To design the leg trestles which could easily adjust the height by moving back and forward, and solve the common problems of patient thigh injury caused by loose screw in the leg trestles. Methods The leg trestles of operating table was made of stainless steel, which included main support, bracing, sliding sleeve, supporting leg and caliper splint. The main support and bracing were fixed on the same side of operating table, and sliding sleeve fixed on the main support was connected with bracing. The bracing was made of gas spring, with adjustable length to adjust the height of leg trestles. The caliper splint was fixed on the sliding sleeve by 2 degrees of freedom jackstay. Results It was convenient and safe for surgery, which solved the problems of uneasy operation and safety hazard. Conclusion It is demonstrated that the modified operating table could make the placement time much shorter. It is easy to adjust the angle of 2 legs and improves comfort level for the patient. It is also convenient and reliable for doctors and nurses.


The ability of 4-(1,2-diphenylbut-1-en-1-yl)aniline as a self-assembly inducer is reported. The conjugation of this moiety with aloin or podophyllotoxin resulted in spherical nanoparticles that were characterized by Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and NanoSight technology. A preliminary biological evaluation on two cancer cell lines is reported.


Despite all the hydraulic infrastructures and groundwater resources at its disposal, the Wilaya of Mascara is suffering from an increasing water stress. The growing water requirements in this region exceed available resources. However, persistent drought, mismanagement, increasing population and an intensification of agriculture activities are all responsible for the reduction of water reserves in the region. Groundwater resources are mobilized mainly from the aquifer system of the Ghriss plain. However, the pressure on the main water resource, in this case the groundwater has led to a quantitative and qualitative degradation of this resource. In addition, and facing an invasive siltation, dams do not fulfill their initial aims. In this context, water managers have opted for a regional water transfer from the desalination station of Mactaa to the towns situated northern of the Wilaya of Mascara, which suffers from a deficit estimated at more than 36000 m 3 / Day. In this work we try to diagnose the water situation in the region, considering the national and regional context. The prospects of water situation for this region are also treated based on the plans set by guardianship and water managers responsible for planning at specialized organizations.


Maternal mortality ratio (MMR) is one of the problems that has made the focus of the Indonesian government to make policies in the health sector. The main factor causing high MMR is unsafe delivery, either not assisted by health workers or was not in health facilities. This study aimed to analyze the correlation between knowledge, attitudes, husband/family support, and the use of health service facilities in the working area of the Mangili Community Health Center. This cross-sectional study consisted of 104 respondents selected using a cluster sampling technique. The data were analyzed univariably and bivariably using the Chi-square test. The results showed that knowledge (p = 0.040), attitude (p = 0.043), and husband/family support (p = 0.027) are related to the use of health service facilities. Health workers, especially midwives, are expected to monitor and do home visits and provide intensive education to pregnant women and their families to ensure childbirth in health care facilities. On the other hand, the role of the husband/family needs to be optimized to support the mother through motivation, attention, and assistance during pregnancy examinations until delivery.


Introduction The Nuclear Chimera: How Deterrence Really Worked Navies in the Cuban Missile Crisis: Weapons of Restraint? Russia's Nuclear Dependence and START Realism and the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Information Warfare and Nuclear Deterrence Limited Nuclear War in the Old and New World Orders Conclusion: The Past and Future of Nuclear Deterrence Suggested Reading Index


As one of new application requirements in network simulation,to dynamically integrate the distributed various services in network to form a new simulation task community(STC) which meets the needs of different users has become current research focus.This paper presents a simulation service selection method based on the particle swarm optimization.The traditional particle swarm algorithm has some shortcomings that may easily fall into local optima and have slow convergence rate.We design a dynamic inertia weight strategy and a selectable method of mutation.The algorithm can improve the convergence speed not only,but also avoid falling into local optimum.Finally,some typical functions are chosen to test the algorithm.And the results show that the algorithm can select services feasibly and effectively for STC.


Reviews, from an anthropological perspective, three 1993 additions to the Gulf Publishing Company's "Managing Cultural Differences" Series. This trilogy is comprised of the volumes Developing the Global Organization: Strategies for Human Resource Professionals, Transcultural Leadership: Empowering the Diverse Workforce, and Multicultural Management: New Skills for Global Success. Examines the five concepts of globalisation, diversity, multiculturalism, transcultural, and empowerment central to the trilogy and to anthropology, and as they are used in both. Views the global paradox — a bigger world economy requires the more powerful smallest of players (e.g., entrepreneurs) — as a useful framework for understanding these and related concepts as they operate in the global village today, and as they may be employed throughout and beyond the 21st century. Finally, reports on: (1) the training, transformation and development tasks of global managers of complexity in business as well as in government, academia, and the military; and, (2) the intercultural learning strategies through which these tasks are achieved and through which these managers, the multicultural workforce and teams they lead, and their organisations are empowered to contribute, collaborate and fully participate in producing their major project: Service, country, group, business, or social structure through the mixture of peoples or technology" (p. 242). This suggests a process, a becoming. In Developing the Global Organization, Robert T. Moran, Philip R. Harris and William G. Stripp continue that globalisation is both a way to think and to act. Specifically, it moves individuals "away from parochialism towards transnationalism". And it nurtures a state of mind geared toward a more effective use of personal and organisational resources (p. 299).


A 56-year-old man presented with severe left-sided headache unresponsive to several aspirin tablets. Although the headache subsided within 3 days, he noted progressive difficulties in articulation and a deviation of his tongue to the left (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Deviation of the tongue to the left.

A magnetic resonance image of the head and neck showed a thickened …


A class of (N+1)-species ratio-dependent predator–prey stochastic mod els, which consists of one predator population andN prey populations (or N subpopulations of a prey metapopulation), is considered. T he influence of a fluctuating environment on the carrying capacities of pr ey populations is modeled as a dichotomous noise. The study is a follow-up of a previous investigation of the above class of models subjected to a colored-noise with low intensity [Physical Review E74, 021101 (2006)]. Relying, in case the growth rates of prey an d predator are widely different, on the mean-field approach, the self-consistency equ ations for prey-populations mean abundance and predator-population abundance are derived. In some region of system parameters, the variations of noise amplitude or correlation time can cause transitions of the mean fie ld from a globally asymptotically stable equilibrium to the stable limit cycle as well as in the opposite direction. T he conditions for the occurrence of such a phenomenon are found and illustrated by a phase diagram. Key-words: Stochastic dynamics, predator–prey models, functional re sponse, ratio-dependent, dichotomous noise, limit cycle, slow-fast cycles, noise-induced transitions .


Leiomyosarcomas are only rarely found in routine cardiac surgery. For the patient they hold, however, a very high-risk potential as only an early diagnosis, and immediate surgical therapy leads to long-term survival. Awareness, timely diagnosis, and immediate radical surgical therapy is imperative. This report describes the case of a 21-year old male with a strong suspicion of leiomyosarcoma of the pulmonary artery. Due to his clinical symptoms, the patient was transferred to operation immediately after completion of all diagnostic measurements. Postoperatively the diagnosis of a leiomyosarcoma proved to be false; instead a rare fibro-histologic tumor was found. Even in the case of a suspected leiomyosarcoma, rapid and radical surgical therapy is imperative due to the poor prognosis of leiomyosarcoma.


Standard sufficient conditions for identification in the regression discontinuity design are continuity of the conditional expectation of counterfactual outcomes in the running variable. These continuity assumptions may not be plausible if agents are able to manipulate the running variable. This paper develops a test of manipulation related to continuity of the running variable density function. The methodology is applied to popular elections to the House of Representatives, where sorting is neither expected nor found, and to roll-call voting in the House, where sorting is both expected and found.


Objective: To determine the interactions of endothelin‐1 (ET‐1) and nitric oxide (NO) in the regulation of endothelial barrier function in skeletal muscle.


Abstract : This thesis focuses on the evolution of the Moroccan economy. It also looks at how the implementation of the Structural Adjustment Program delayed decentralization and how its success led to privatization that resulted in improved performance of the economy. During the first decades after the independence, the Moroccan economy made considerable strides. The intervention of the government was essential and, as a result, the GDP averaged 5.6% in 1968-72 and 7.5% in 1973-77. Investment expanded but savings and exports did not follow the same stream. However, since 1976, financial disequilibrium began to lessen growth and development. Decentralization was institutionalized to avoid misadministration, inefficiency, and to improve decision making. The purpose was to give more autonomy to the communes and more importance to the local market. However, the crisis emerged in 1981 and Morocco was forced to call IMF and launch the Structural Adjustment Program that lasted ten years. The success of the SAP resulted in the implementation of privatization. Actually, the performance of the economy is the best indicator that Morocco would play an important role in the region as interface between Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Finally the analysis suggests that there are many reasons to be optimistic over Morocco's economic future and the development of a viable emerging stock market.


This paper offers a reply to Mr. Shi's on the Jianshi hominid fossils. Shi argues that the age of the "Jianshi hominid" from the Longgudong Cave at Gaoping in Jianshi County of Hubei Province is 1.1Ma BP—1.4Ma BP based on sedimentation rate analysis of the Gaoping Formation. Research on mammalian fossils, hominid fossils, and sedimentary rate from the Longgudong Cave suggests that the two normal polarity events in the geomagnetic column of the Longgudong Cave should be correlated with, respectively, the Olduvai and Reunion events of the geomagnetic polarity time scale. The "Jianshi hominid" is about 2Ma BP in age. Shi's opinion is of mistakes in concept.


The social studies and history of childhood in Brazil had a promising initial impulse at the end of the 1980's. More than 15 years later, these studies appear to have lost their initial impetus, have grown more slowly and have displayed a conceptual and analytical homogeneity. Based on the review of Brazilian and international bibliographies, this article examines some challenges to be confronted by the contributions of the history of childhood in Brazil. On one hand this involves the examinationof the extensive and diversified international literature, particularly thosecalled new social studies of childhood with the goal of broadening the conceptual horizons. On the other hand, it implies overcoming the prejudice that blocks the necessary dialog with the biological and psychological sciences.


1. Thermal Equilibrium and Detailed Balance.- 1.1 Introductory Remarks.- 1.2 The Principle of Detailed Balance.- 1.3 Proof of the Principle of Detailed Balance for a Special Case.- 1.4 Derivation of Thermal Distribution Functions from Detailed Balance.- 1.4.1 Maxwell Distribution.- 1.4.2 Boltzmann Distribution.- 1.4.3 Saha Distribution.- 1.4.4 Planck Distribution.- 1.5 Validity of the Reciprocity Relation w(i?f)= w(f?i).- 1.6 Explicit Forms of the Reciprocity Relation w(i?f) = w(f?i).- 1.6.1 Collisional Excitation and De-Excitation.- 1.6.2 Collisional Ionization and Three-Body Recombination.- 1.6.3 Autoionization and Radiationless Capture.- 1.6.4 Line Emission and Absorption.- 1.6.5 Photoionization and Radiative Recombination.- 1.6.6 Free-Free Emission and Absorption.- 1.6.7 Two-Photon Emission and Absorption.- 2. Kinetic Equations of Particles.- 2.1 Kinetic Equations.- 2.2 Elastic Collision Terms.- 2.2.1 Boltzmann Collision Terms.- 2.2.2 Fokker-Planck Collision Terms.- 2.2.3 General Properties of Elastic Collision Terms.- 2.3 Inelastic Collision Terms.- 2.3.1 Collisional Excitation and De-Excitation (Atoms).- 2.3.2 Collisional Ionization and Three-Body Recombination (Atoms).- 2.3.3 Collisional Excitation and De-Excitation (Electrons).- 2.3.4 Collisional Ionization and Three-Body Recombination (Electrons).- 2.3.5 Dielectronic Recombination.- 2.4 Collision Terms Due to Radiative Processes.- 2.4.1 Line Emission and Absorption.- 2.4.2 Photoionization and Radiative Recombination (Atoms).- 2.4.3 Photoionization and Radiative Recombination (Electrons).- 2.4.4 Bremsstrahlung and Inverse Bremsstrahlung (Electrons).- 3. The Kinetic Equation of Photons.- 3.1 The Equation of Radiative Transfer.- 3.2 Emission and Absorption.- 3.2.1 Bound-Bound Transitions.- 3.2.2 Free-Bound Transitions.- 3.2.3 Free-Free Transitions.- 3.3 Scattering.- 3.3.1 Scattering by Stationary Particles.- 3.3.2 Scattering by Moving Particles.- 4. Moment Equations and Fluid Description.- 4.1. Moment Equations for Particles.- 4.1.1 One Particle Type a.- 4.1.2 One Particle Species A.- 4.1.3 Several Particle Species.- 4.2 Moment Equations for Photons.- 4.3 Fluid Description of a Gas.- 4.4 Fluid Description of a Gas with Radiative Interactions.- 4.4.1 Preliminary Discussion.- 4.4.2 Covariant Form of the Transfer Equation and the Energy-Momentum Tensor of the Radiation Field.- 4.4.3 Radiation Pressure, Radiative Heat Conductivity, Radiative Viscosity.- 4.4.4 Hydrodynamic Equations with Radiative Terms.- 5. H Theorem for Gases and Radiation.- 5.1 Entropy and Entropy Production.- 5.1.1 General Definitions.- 5.1.2 Entropy of a Classical Gas.- 5.1.3 Entropy of Radiation.- 5.2 Proof of the H Theorem.- 5.2.1 Elastic Collisions (Identical Particles).- 5.2.2 Elastic Collisions (Unlike Particles).- 5.2.3 Emission and Absorption.- 6. Energy Exchange Between Matter and Radiation.- 6.1 General Remarks.- 6.2 Optically Thin Plasmas.- 6.2.1 Physical Reactions.- 6.2.2 Some Illustrative Results.- 6.3 Non-LTE Line Transfer by Two-Level Atoms (I): Basic Relations.- 6.3.1 Kinetic Equation of Photons.- 6.3.2 Kinetic Equations of Two-Level Atoms.- 6.3.3 Approximations.- 6.3.4 Line Profile Coefficients.- 6.3.5 Redistribution Functions.- 6.3.6 Stimulated Emission.- 6.4 Non-LTE Line Transfer by Two-Level Atoms (II): Results.- 6.4.1 The Standard Problem.- 6.4.2 Dimensionless Quantities.- 6.4.3 Boundary Conditions.- 6.4.4 Complete Redistribution: Static Approximation.- 6.4.5 Complete Redistribution: Diffusion Approximation.- 6.4.6 Exact Solutions.- 6.5 Multilevel Atoms.- 6.5.1 Atomic Line Profile Coefficients of a Three-Level Atom.- 6.5.2 Laboratory Line Profile Coefficients of a Three-Level Atom.- 6.6 Non-Maxwellian Electron Distribution Functions.- 7. Momentum Exchange Between Matter and Radiation.- 7.1 General Remarks.- 7.2 Approach to Thermal Equilibrium Through Interaction with Blackbody Radiation.- 7.2.1 Line Radiation of Two-Level Atoms.- 7.2.2 Thomson Scattering of Electrons.- 7.3 Radiative Forces.- 7.3.1 Scattering.- 7.3.2 Bound-Bound Transitions.- 7.3.3 Free-Bound Transitions.- 7.4 Compton Scattering.- 7.4.1 Kinematics of Compton Scattering.- 7.4.2 Reciprocity Relation.- 7.4.3 Compton Collision Term (Electrons).- 7.4.4 Compton Collision Term (Photons).- 7.4.5 Transformation of Cross Sections.- Appendices.- A. Transformation Formulas for Radiative Quantities.- A.1 Transformation Formulas.- A.2 Is the Distribution Function a Relativistic Invariant?.- B. Atomic Absorption and Emission Profiles.- B.1 Definitions and General Remarks.- B.2 Two-Level Atom (I): One Level Broadened.- B.3 Two-Level Atom (II): Two Levels Broadened.- B.4 Three-Level Atom.- B.5 Atomic Redistribution Functions.- B.6 Absorption and Emission Profiles in Terms of Generalized Redistribution Functions.- C. The Boltzmann Equation.- D. Brownian Motion and Fokker-Planck Equation.- D.1 Brownian Motion.- D.2 Fokker-Planck Equation.- E. Reciprocity Relations for Inelastic Collisions with Heavy Particles.- E.1 Excitation and De-Excitation.- E.2 Ionization and Three-Body Recombination. Dissociation and Recombination.- F. Elastic Collision Term of the Standard Problem.- General Bibliography.- References.


The development of new aircrafts, such as A380 and B787, has provided new opportunities in the field of electronic devices and power electronics. One of the most interesting areas is focused on the protection devices field and the management of the loads by means of the Solid State Power Controllers (SSPC). This fact is mainly due to the great increase of these devices in the architectures of the electrical power distribution systems used in the new airplanes. In this paper, the areas of interest for research groups regarding SSPC in onboard platforms are presented. Also, behavioural SSPC model has been developed according with different manufacturers datasheets. Moreover, experimental validation with commercial SSPC are presented.


Docetaxel (D) or secondary hormonal therapy (SHT) each combined with androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) represent possible treatment options in males with metastasized hormone‐sensitive prostate cancer (mHSPC). Real‐world data comparing different protocols are lacking yet. Thus, our objective was to compare the efficacy and safety of abiraterone acetate (AA)+ADT versus D+ADT in mHSPC.


Crystalline α-bistetramethylammonium hydrogencyclotriphosphate [N(CH3)4]2HP3O9 (Pcab), which were synthesized via a low-temperature route (<60 °C) shows an irreversible first-order phase transition to β-[N(CH3)4]2HP3O9 (P212121), which was investigated by differential scanning calorimetry, X-ray powder diffraction, and solid state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The crystal structure of β-bistetramethylammonium hydrogencyclotriphosphate was solved and refined from X-ray powder diffraction data by the Rietveld method using constraints obtained by 31P, 1H, and 13C NMR spectroscopy. The new compound crystallizes in an orthorhombic space group with a = 9.3828(1), b = 11.8196(1) and c = 16.0396(2) A.


Chronic liver injury leads to progressive liver fibrosis and ultimately cirrhosis, a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. However, there are currently no effective anti-fibrotic therapies available, especially for late-stage patients, which is partly attributed to the major knowledge gap regarding liver cell heterogeneity and cell-specific responses in different fibrosis stages. To reveal the multicellular networks regulating mammalian liver fibrosis from mild to severe phenotypes, we generated a single-nucleus transcriptomic atlas encompassing 49 919 nuclei corresponding to all main liver cell types at different stages of murine carbon tetrachloride (CCl4)-induced progressive liver fibrosis. Integrative analysis distinguished the sequential responses to injury of hepatocytes, hepatic stellate cells and endothelial cells. Moreover, we reconstructed the cell-cell interactions and gene regulatory networks implicated in these processes. These integrative analyses uncovered previously overlooked aspects of hepatocyte proliferation exhaustion and disrupted pericentral metabolic functions, dysfunction for clearance by apoptosis of activated hepatic stellate cells, accumulation of pro-fibrotic signals, and the switch from an anti-angiogenic to a pro-angiogenic program during CCl4-induced progressive liver fibrosis. Our dataset thus constitutes a useful resource for understanding the molecular basis of progressive liver fibrosis using a relevant animal model.


About the theme of the novel ' The Necklace written by Maupassant, different people have different opinions. There are mainly two opinions: One regards it as a tragedy of personality, the other regards it as a tragedy of fate. This article analyses the novel "The Necklace from the perspective of tragedy of society and offers new thought for the readers.


Edge detection is an established image processing field with various applications. The work uses the novel image edge detection technique based on the Al-Alaoui FIR Filter for different purposes that include sharpening, histogram equalization, and range filtering. The edge detection technique which is based on applying masks or kernels on images is further mapped to an improved parallel implementation on CUDA using shared memory and coalescence that is compared and proven better than the Image Processing Filter provided through the NVIDIA GPU Computing SDK on various GPUs. This technique is necessary in this field and can be used for any image processing application which involves masks.


Clustering algorithm has an important effect on the performance of wireless sensor network. In this paper, energy efficient clusterbased routing (EECR) algorithm is proposed to prolong life time of wireless sensor networks. EECR selects the cluster-heads according to the two parameters remaining energy and node degree. Also cluster-heads select its members according to the two parameters of sensor remaining energy and the distance to its cluster-head. EECR is done in three phases quickly. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm, increase the network lifetime more than 18 percent in compare of LEACH protocol.


Diffusion is an integral part of many geologic processes and an increasing portion of the geologic literature is devoted to the measurement, estimation, and application of diffusion data. This compilation is intended to be a guide to recent experimentallydetermined diffusion coefficients and, through the papers cited, to important older literature. To provide a context for the tables, a brief summary of the equations required for a phenomenological (macroscopic) description of diffusion follows. Although the equa tions for well-constrained experiments are relatively straightforward, the application of the resulting diffusion coefficients to complex geologic problems may not be straightforward. The reader is urged to read one or more diffusion texts [e.g., 99, 121, 32, 147, 13.51 before attempting to use the data presented here.


Abstract While there is much work and many conjectures surrounding the intersection theory of the moduli space of curves, relatively little is known about the intersection theory of the Hurwitz space ℋk,g{\mathcal{H}_{k,g}} parametrizing smooth degree k, genus g covers of ℙ1{\mathbb{P}^{1}}. Let k=3,4,5{k=3,4,5}. We prove that the rational Chow rings of ℋk,g{\mathcal{H}_{k,g}} stabilize in a suitable sense as g tends to infinity. In the case k=3{k=3}, we completely determine the Chow rings for all g. We also prove that the rational Chow groups of the simply branched Hurwitz space ℋk,gs⊂ℋk,g{\mathcal{H}^{s}_{k,g}\subset\mathcal{H}_{k,g}} are zero in codimension up to roughly gk{\frac{g}{k}}. In [S. Canning and H. Larson, The Chow rings of the moduli spaces of curves of genus 7,8{7,8} and 9, preprint 2021, arXiv:2104.05820], results developed in this paper are used to prove that the Chow rings of ℳ7,ℳ8,{\mathcal{M}_{7},\mathcal{M}_{8},} and ℳ9{\mathcal{M}_{9}} are tautological.


1
Nuclear proteins have been prepared from isolated nuclei of various rat and mouse tissues. The effect on these proteins of incubation of nuclei at 37° C, storage at –40° C and Triton washing is described.

2
Examination by one-dimensional dodecylsulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis indicated that incubation at 37° C brought about degradation of the Tris-saline-soluble proteins of nuclei prepared from rat liver, spleen and kidney.

3
Two-dimensional electrophoresis, combining isoelectric focusing and dodecylsulphate electrophoresis, indicated a similar effect on the Tris-saline-soluble nuclear proteins of mouse liver; degradation affected all protein species.

4
Examination of histones and non-histone chromatin proteins from mouse liver by two-dimensional electrophoresis showed these protein groups to be stable during incubation of isolated nuclei at 37°C.

5
Storage of rat liver nuclei at –40° C and omission of routine Triton washing during preparation of nuclei were found to have little effect on the Tris-saline-soluble proteins, all degradation being a consequence of the subsequent incubation at 37°C.

6
Degradation of this same group of proteins did not occur during incubation of isolated nuclei from a rat ascites tumour or regenerating rat liver, 16 h after partial hepatectomy.


The present invention provides a variable capacity turbocharger comprising a variable nozzle mechanism, the purpose of the invention is to reliably and acting on the nozzle to stably moment acting in the opening direction of the blade is increased when the variable nozzle mechanism failure safety, and improved control accuracy of the variable nozzle mechanism, the variable geometry turbocharger comprising a variable nozzle mechanism, the variable nozzle mechanism so as to surround the turbine wheel (7) around an outer circumferential side of the turbine wheel (7) the turning axis provided at equal intervals with a nozzle vane (41a), and the nozzle vanes (41a) of the blade angle can be varied, wherein the variable capacity turbocharger that, with said nozzle vane (41a) of the nozzle shaft ( 41b) at right angles to the direction of the blade cross section is formed in a shape, in more than the rotational center C by the trailing edge (51) at least a part side, that the pressure surface (45) side is bent in a recessed portion (53) concave shape, to the rotational center C closer to the top edge (49) formed in the convex side of the pressure surface (45) of the shape of the side surface position of the rotational center to form a substantially S-shape as a boundary.


This article investigates the effects of the choice of lag length on the estimation of long run cointegration relationships using the Johansen estimation procedure. This issue is of particular interest to applied researchers using time series data, see for example Awokuse (2005), Bacchiocchi et al . (2005), Gallegati (2005), Gomes and Paz (2005), Hasan (2005) and Pieroni and Ricciarelli (2005), among many others. An empirical example is used to demonstrate some of the issues that applied researchers face when they wish to use cointegration analysis. First, the number of lags to include in the model must be determined. However, different lag length selection criteria often lead to a different conclusion regarding the optimal lag order that should be used. Second, as demonstrated in this article, the choice of lag length can drastically affect the results of the cointegration analysis.


Introduction Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are among the most widespread organic contaminants and their atmospheric concentrations have to be monitored closely due to their adverse effects on organisms. Monitoring POPs at several sites to determine their spatial variations has technical, physical and economical limitations when active air samplers are used. Biomonitoring the POPs via tree leaves, needles, and bark for routine spatial and temporal monitoring has been used as a low–cost alternative method 1,2 .


ABS TRACT Ob jec ti ve: Be nign pros ta te hyperp la si a (BPH) is a com mon he alth prob lem thro ug ho ut the world. The aim of the study was to eva lu a te the con se qu en ce of BPH on part ners by using Tur kish ver si on of a spe ci fic qu a lity of li fe (QoL) sca le for part ners of BPH pa ti ents. Ma te ri al and Met hods: The study gro up con sis ted of part ners of 300 BPH pa ti ents who we re ad mit ted to uro logy out pa ti ent de part ments of two uni ver sity hos pi tals (Düz ce Uni ver sity and Ce lal Ba yar Uni ver sity) with lo wer uri nary tract symptoms. BPH pa ti ents we re as ked to fill out In ter na ti o nal Pros ta te Symptom Sco re (IPSS) form, whi le fe ma le part ners we re se pa ra tely re qu es ted to comp le te the spe ci fic QoL qu es ti on na i re. Re sults: The me an age of pa ti ents with BPH was 63.8 ± 7.2 ye ars and it was 56.3 ± 6.5 ye ars for fe ma le part ners. The re sults of the spe ci fic qu es ti on na i re sho wed that QoL of partners we re sig ni fi cantly affected. Par ti cu larly, most of the the part ners had the fe ar of can cer de ve lop ment and pos si bi lity of sur gery for the ir hus bands, 77% (231/300 part ners) and 79% (237/300 part ners), res pec ti vely. At night ma jo rity of part ners woke up fre qu ently be ca u se of the ir hus bands, however mostl of them dec la red no or litt le dis tur ban ce in terms of being ti red du ring the day. On the ot her hand, it was re ve a led that the re was a sig ni fi cant cor re la ti on bet we en QoL deg re es of part ners and IPSS va lu es of BPH pa ti ents (p< 0.001; cor re la ti on co ef fi ci ent 0.664). Conc lu si on: BPH sig ni fi cantly im pa irs the QoL of fe ma le part ners. This ne ga ti ve im pact cor re la tes with the IPSS va lu es of BPH pa ti ents. The re fo re, the physi ci ans sho uld al so con si der bur den of the fe ma le part ners in the ma na ge ment of BPH pa ti ents.


Young Adult Patients Tap into LongDistance Support The University of Colorado Cancer Center won a 2019 ACCC Innovator Award for development and implementation of a virtual support group for young adults with cancer who would have difficulty attending an in-person support group. Plus, tips for setting up a similar program: know your state's jurisdiction and licensing laws; consider starting with a non-billable virtual support group to avoid billing challenges; select a platform that is easy to use for both facilitators and participants; and more. by Laura Melton


The short-run value of nonutility power (NUP) is defined in this work as the total sum of payments that the utility can offer to the NUP suppliers without affecting the total produc¬ tion costs of electricity for the same total generation level. This definition is based on two policy objectives. First, the ratepayers should be indifferent as to whether the base case of no NUP or the case of the substitution of NUP generation for utility-generated power is used. Second, the utility's total production costs are assumed to be the same under either case; that is, the utility should not incur any losses or enjoy any extra profits from purchasing nonutility power. The first objective is called the "Ratepayers Indifference Principle." Because the utility capacity stock does not change in the short run, the two assumptions imply that the variable operating costs (including fuel costs and payments to the NUP generators) of the utility should be the same for the base


This paper is aimed at optimizing the deep brain stimulation system. Firstly, Hodgkin-Huxley (H-H) single neuron model was used to analyze the discharge activity of neurons under the action of deep brain stimulation. The different discharges of neurons under different stimulus combinations were analyzed, and their corresponding relationships were quantified. And then, the classifier is constructed by support vector machine (SVM) method to realize the converse selection from the neuron discharge to the stimulus parameter to meet the actual needs of the control process. The results of this work are helpful to give a new idea for the use of deep brain stimulation.


The objective of this study is to identify the demographic factors and behavioural biases affecting the financial planning of the Millennials. For this purpose the investing behaviour of the Millennials in the IT Industry as a representative sample with respect to retirement planning has been studied using the Retirement Wellness Score. Logistic regression analysis was performed to determine the likelihood of whether the Millennials are ready for retirement with the main aim of showing the relationship between the study variables. An attempt has been made to develop a predictive model that would help in determining the Millennials' readiness for retirement given their demographic variables and dominant bias presence. This research contributes to developing an understanding of Millennials' financial planning for retirement.


A world key to the genera Cryptothecia and Myriostigma is presented. Four species of Cryptothecia : C. albomaculans, C. elata, C. elongata and C. superphyllinica , and a Myriostigma : M. nicobaricum are described as new to science from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. Cryptothecia albomaculans has a heteromerous thallus, whitish ascigerous areas not elevated above the thallus, ellipsoid, 9–11 × 3–5 septate ascospores of 47–57 × 24–30 µm and produces 2'- O -methylperlatolic acid. Cryptothecia elata has a homoiomerous thallus with distinctly raised ascomata, ascospores of (72–)84–122 × (25–)36–62(–72) µm and contains 2'- O -methylmicrophyllinic acid. Cryptothecia elongata has a heteromerous thallus, raised, irregular, 1–4 mm wide ascigerous areas covered by a photobiont layer, narrowly ellipsoid-oblong, 16–24 × 2–6 septate ascospores of 90–114 × 21–30 µm, and produces gyrophoric and lecanoric acids. Cryptothecia superphyllinica has a homoiomerous thallus, whitish, raised, rounded to linear ascigerous areas 0.5–1.5 mm in diam., broadly ovoid to ellipsoid, 9–15 × 3–6 septate ascospores of (45–)58–76(–80) × (22–)24–33(–38) µm and 2'- O -methylsuperphyllinic acid. Myriostigma nicobaricum has a homoiomerous thallus, whitish, raised, rounded, ascigerous areas 0.3–0.8 mm in diam.,  broadly ellipsoid to ovoid, 8–11 × 2–4 septate, 34–48 × 16–22 µm ascospores and confluentic acid. Cryptothecia aleurodes , C. eungellae and C. striata are new additions to the lichen biota of India. Ascospores of Cryptothecia eungellae are described for the first time and illustrated.