Abstract The World Bank has reviewed its environmental and social policies at a moment of intense production of international instruments dealing with land tenure, all of which take the form of soft law. This endeavour is motivated by the progressive acknowledgement of the importance of secure and equitable access to land for the realization of human rights and food security. The latest contribution of the World Bank to this debate is of great significance. This article aims to unveil the effects that the new Environmental and Social Framework is likely to generate in this context. It analyses the protection of access to land and security of tenure contained in the World Bank's Environmental and Social Standards in light of the developments occurring at the international level. To this end, the article reviews the changes to the standards in the context of the social impacts when a lending project affects land holders or users directly or indirectly; addresses the mechanisms for protecting, compensating and improving livelihood opportunities for those affected by the projects; and comments on the safeguarding of indigenous peoples' lands. The article finds that the World Bank, by incorporating some of these emerging standards, has confirmed the relevance of emerging principles and guidelines on land, even if they are contained in non-binding instruments. On a critical note, the article recognizes the refusal of the World Bank to adopt the underlying discourse and fully embrace human rights achievements in the context of land issues.


A role of tobacco products in cancer incidence is commonly known and accepted. It is estimated that roughly 1/3 of all the cancers is resulted from previous exposure to tobacco. An impact of tobacco smoke carcinogens in formation of DNA lesions and mutations is well established. Contrary to that, less is known about rearrangements of chromosomes. Nevertheless, there are many indications associating rearrangements of chromosome arms 3p, 3q, 8q, 9p, 17p i 18q with a clastogenic activity of tobacco smoke. An evolution of cytogenetics from conventional techniques to molecular cytogenetics provides an opportunity to find some links between chromosome aberrations and activation of oncogenes as well as deactivation of tumor suppressor genes.


In dry land areas of the western half of Iran, chickpea due to exposure to rotation with wheat and barley play an important role in maintaining survival of agriculture in these regions. Seed priming is a simple and cheap method and is highly efficient and acceptable, especially in areas with low fertility. In this study, effects of different times of hydropriming on yield, yield components, phenological characteristics and percentage of protein of chickpea ( Cicer arietinum L.) were examined in a randomized complete block design with three replicates in 2010. Seeds of chickpea were exposed at six different hydropriming times (2 h, 4 h, 6 h, 8 h, 10 h and control). The results of this experiment showed that the effect of hydropriming treatments for main branch and lateral branch number, number of pod per plant, biological yield, grain yield, time from planting to emergence, emergence to flowering, flowering to bloom and pod forming and growth length was significant. However, there was no significant difference between treatments in terms of plant height, number of seed per pod, number of empty pod, seed thousand weight, harvesting index, pod forming to seed pods and blooming to maturity, and percentage of seed protein.


We investigate possible renormalization effects on the low-energy mass spectrum of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM), using a calculable model of strongly coupled hidden sector. We model the hidden sector by N=2 supersymmetric quantum chromodynamics with gauge group SU(2)xU(1) and N{sub f}=2 matter hypermultiplets, perturbed by a Fayet-Iliopoulos term which breaks the supersymmetry down to N=0 on a metastable vacuum. In the hidden sector the Kaehler potential is renormalized. Upon identifying a hidden sector modulus with the renormalization scale, and extrapolating to the strongly coupled regime using the Seiberg-Witten solution, the contribution from the hidden sector to the MSSM renormalization group flows is computed. For concreteness, we consider a model in which the renormalization effects are communicated to the MSSM sector via gauge mediation. In contrast to the perturbative toy examples of hidden sector renormalization studied in the literature, we find that our strongly coupled model exhibits rather intricate effects on the MSSM soft scalar mass spectrum, depending on how the hidden sector fields are coupled to the messenger fields. This model provides a concrete example in which the low-energy spectrum of MSSM particles that are expected to be accessible in collider experiments is obtained using strongly coupled hiddenmore » sector dynamics.« less


Seed germination is the first and the most susceptible stage in plant's growing phases, so could be considered as an index to evaluate the effect of newly developed materials like nanoparticles (NPs), providing useful information for researchers. In our experiments, germination tests have been carried out in Petri plates, containing wet filter paper and nano-primed seeds. We had biosynthesized seven nanoparticles in our previous researches, including calcinated and non-calcinated zinc oxide, zinc, magnesium oxide, silver, copper and iron nanoparticles. The effect of these biogenic nanoparticles and their counterpart metallic salts including zinc acetate, magnesium sulphate, silver nitrate, copper sulphate and iron (III) chloride was studied on two popularly grown plants, wheat and flax, in laboratory condition to obtain preliminary information for future field experiments. Germination percentage, shoot length, root length, seedlings length, root-shoot ratio, seedling vigor index (SVI), shoot length stress tolerance index (SLSI) and root length stress tolerance index (RLSI) were calculated at 2nd and 7th days of the experiment. According to the results, the response of the plants to metal containing nanoparticles and metal salts mainly depend on type of the metal, plant species, concentration of the NP suspension or salt solution, condition of the exposure and the stage of growth.


Aim: The aim of the research is to present which elements related to teaching English to older adult learners have the greatest influence on creating a propitious and friendly learning environment. In order to achieve this firstly, I wish to present older adults' observations regarding problems encountered in the classroom environment related to the lack of teaching materials, mixed age and ability groups or being discriminated against by fellow students and teachers. Secondly, I would like to propose some solutions to improve the efficiency of both students and teachers in the classroom environment.
Methods: The subjects of the study were 40 older adult learners of English who attended the classes at the University of the Third Age in Wrocław. In the study the participants were asked to choose the answers which, according to them, have the greatest influence on their learning the foreign language in later life. The participants also wrote additional comments that explained their choices. The analysis was qualitative in nature.
Results: The analysis shows that teachers (n=35) and teaching materials (n=31) are considered to be the two most important factors in learning a language in later life. The third most vital factor in creating a good classroom environment is related to other students (n=17). The subjects' comments, however, point to numerous problems encountered in the aforementioned areas that affect the process of foreign language learning in later life.
Conclusions: Older adult learners' needs, abilities and learning preferences should be taken into account while designing language courses as, according to the subjects of the study, at present it is not the case. Moreover, there should be more awareness on behalf of the teachers as to the age-related changes that make certain tasks difficult and the learning environment unnecessarily hostile.


Departure from Darcy's law in the flow of fluids through granular beds can be interpreted as due to a regular secondary flow being set up. That view is supported by reference to White's experiments on helically wound tubes, and by reference to recent experiments on the flow of viscoelastic liquids through granular beds. Experiments are here described which establish a single non-dimensional curve to describe the results of the flow of air and of liquids through granular beds of spheres and of irregular particles. The model of a granular bed is discussed and experiments are described which establish the identity of the flow through helices with that through the same cylindrical tubes bent into coplanar S shapes. An equation is given relating the resistance of a granular bed to the flow through it when Darcy's law is no longer applicable.


Although the act of conscientious objection entered modern consciousness largely as a result of the Vietman War, Americans have, in fact, long struggled to reconcile their politics and pacifist beliefs with compulsory military service. While conscientious objection in the twentieth century has been well documented, there has been surprisingly little study of its long history in America's early conflicts, defined as these have been by accounts of patriotism and nation-building. During the period of conscription from the late 1650s to the end of the Civil War, many North Americans refused military service on moral grounds. In this volume, Peter Brock, one of the foremost historians of American pacifism, seeks to remedy this oversight by presenting a rich and varied collection of documents, many drawn from obscure sources, that shed new light on American religious and military history. These include legal findings, church and meeting proceedings, appeals by nonconformists to government authorities, and illuminating excerpts from personal journals. These accounts contain many poignant, often painful, and sometimes even humorous episodes that offer glimpses into the lives of conscientious objectors of the era. One of the most striking features to emerge from these documents is the critical role of religion in the history of American pacifism. Brock finds that virtually all who refused military service in this period were inspired by religious convictions, with Quakers frequently the most ardent dissenters. Only in the antebellum period did the pacifist spectrum expand to include nonsectarians such as the famous abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, founder of the New England Non-Resistance Society. A dramatic and powerful portrait of early American pacifism, Liberty and Conscience presents not only the thought and practice of the objectors themselves, but also the response of the authorities and the general public.


Until recently most experimental research linking diet to hypertension was related to dietary salt levels. However, recent evidence suggests that elevations in blood pressure, initially attributed to high salt intake, may be due to other factors in the diet, such as the level and type of fat consumed. Studies in animal models and humans suggest that blood pressure can be lowered during high salt feeding by supplementing the diet with polyunsaturated fatty acids such as linoleic acids. This review outlines key points that delineate the effect and possible interactions of dietary lipids on blood pressure regulation.


Abstract The 35-h workweek regulation, fully adopted in France in 2000, has been one of the most significant regulatory shocks imposed on any large economy. Yet the effects of the regulation remain controversial. In this paper, we evaluate the effects of the 35-h workweek regulation on unemployment and real GDP in France using a counterfactual analysis. We exploit the dependence of unemployment and GDP growth among different economic entities and construct the counterfactuals using data from countries other than France. We find that the 35-h workweek regulation reduced France's annual unemployment rate by 1.58% and raised the real GDP by 1.36% from 2000 to 2007.


One of essential minerals magnesium tastes bitter, so human love to remove magnesium from salt. But magnesium is also essential for cell functions in the body. Salts are getting purifying only NaCl from sea water. It means other minerals are gone out. So other essential minerals easily are getting to deficiency in the body. Recently the technique of purification of salt from sea water has developed. But the contents of magnesium other than [NaCl] is getting decrease. So deficiency symptom is easily occurred. The important role of magnesium is control of higher function of nervous system, behavior, memory and learning in the human. So we have to intake a lot of magnesium from many kinds of salts including sea water.


It is shown that when the shape (complex envelope) of the communicated signal is known, the directivity of the phase-shifter based array and the ratio of main-lobe area to sidelobe area can be improved by utilizing a correcting function to the complex weight, based on the signal complex envelope. Because many weighted arrays already employ controllable amplitude and phase (complex weighting), the compensation can be achieved with extra software. In order to calculate the compensation, the array factor of a planar uniform phased array is expressed in terms of the complex envelope of the signal that is communicated. This is performed for a phase-shifter based array and for a true-time-delay based array. The required correction is determined by approximating the directivity of the true-time-delay based array by the directivity of the phase-shifter based array. The resulting compensation is signal- and main-direction dependent.<<ETX>>


Optical fiber waveguides may be subjected to unique adverse environments onboard spacecraft, including wide temperature ranges and low dose rate radiation exposures. Since fiber reliability is essential, an accelerated lifetest has been designed to simulate deployment on the Space Station. The initial induced losses following exposure at -150 C are much lower in the fibers with pure than in those with doped silica cores. Good long term recovery is evident at this low temperature in fibers which do not contain P provided light is being transmitted in the waveguide since photobleaching is the dominant recovery mechanism in both types of fiber at -150 C. Except for the P-doped waveguides, the worst-case incremental losses are extrapolated to be < 10 dB/km for a 10 year, 1 rad/day exposure at -150 C with a -20 dBm signal in the fiber. Thus, optical fibers are attractive for use in spacecraft exposed to low dose rate natural space radiation environments.


We consider sample-matrix-inversion (SMI)-type estimates of the minimum-mean-square-error (MMSE) and the linearly constrained-minimum-variance (LCMV) linear filters obtained from data records of limited size. We quantify theoretically the (detrimental) effect of the desired-signal energy level on the mean square (MS) filter estimation error and the normalized output signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) by deriving a new exact analytical expression and a lower bound, respectively. For cases where accumulation of pure disturbance observations is not possible, we show theoretically how certain intuitive, pilot-assisted, and decision-directed adaptive filter implementations that utilize desired-signal-present data/observations perform close to their desired-signal-absent counterparts. Simulation studies illustrate our theoretical developments in the context of spread-spectrum communications over multipath fading channels under perfect and nonperfect synchronization.


The painting Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? by Paul Gauguin, intended as the painter's final artistic testimony, is the inspiration and framework for this book. In one way, The Gauguin Answer Sheet focuses on the intricate details of the painting and offers its lush Tahitian landscape and characters - a black dog, a pair of conspirators, a shy woman, a pleading goddess, and a crouching mummy among many others. In another sense, Dennis Finnell deeply probes the underlying implications - and personal associations - the painting offers. The poem's own questions, suggested by those in the painting's title, are concerned with origins, identities, and futures - of the poet and others. He reflects on the plight of the characters portrayed in Gauguin's painting and imagines their thoughts and feelings about life in the world outside. Along with his ruminations on these imagined characters, Finnell visits his own family history, reflecting on the lives of earlier generations, to affirm the shared nature of each individual's origins and identities. Time, space, painting and history, and imagination and reality interconnect in Finnell's poetry, offering an unusually imaginative, surprising work of art.


An in-depth analysis is performed on the third-order intermodulation distortions (IMD3) in the switching pair of active CMOS mixers. The nonlinear time-varying switching pair is described by a hypothetical circuit composed of a nonlinear time-invariant circuit cascaded with a linear time-varying circuit. This allows us to apply power and Volterra series for nonlinearity analysis. The analysis reveals that the impedance in the common-source node of the switching pair along with the fractions of the LO period in which both transistors are simultaneously ON are responsible for IMD3 generation. Besides it is noted that the IMD3 is composed of several terms which may in some cases cancel out each other. The analysis is validated with simulations.


Membrane-bound pyrophosphatases (mPPases) are dimeric enzymes that occur in bacteria, archaea, plants, and protist parasites. These proteins cleave pyrophosphate into two orthophosphate molecules, which is coupled with proton and/or sodium ion pumping across the membrane. Since no homologous proteins occur in animals and humans, mPPases are good candidates in the design of potential drug targets. Here we present a detailed protocol to screen for mPPase inhibitors utilizing the molybdenum blue reaction in a 96 well plate system. We use mPPase from the thermophilic bacterium Thermotoga maritima (TmPPase) as a model enzyme. This protocol is simple and inexpensive, producing a consistent and robust result. It takes only about one hour to complete the activity assay protocol from the start of the assay until the absorbance measurement. Since the blue color produced in this assay is stable for a long period of time, subsequent assay(s) can be performed immediately after the previous batch, and the absorbance can be measured later for all batches at once. The drawback of this protocol is that it is done manually and thus can be exhausting as well as require good skills of pipetting and time keeping. Furthermore, the arsenite-citrate solution used in this assay contains sodium arsenite, which is toxic and should be handled with necessary precautions.


Today, Sweden has about forty companies owned by the government. These are active on markets with variable competition. Some have been given special areas of responsibility that in a practical notion make them monopolists. The period when most public companies where formed (and with that the following subjection to competition) during the nineties and early 2000's, forced the formerly protected businesses to act on the terms of the open market. Parallel to this development the brand has for the last twenty years evolved into something great strategic importance for the business, including the business-to-businesses (B2B). This change has also had implications on how Sweden's government owned companies work.

The studied governments owned companies, including the government case firm (Green Cargo), are active on markets that demand increasingly more of the companies to reach the customers. The corporate brand's importance in government owned companies is relatively unknown. The difficulty, for the companies, lies in formulating their brand strategies to match the individual need of differentiation, coordination of communication and the overall competition.

The object of this paper is split into two parts. The first part is aimed at studying how six public companies in the present work with their brands on B2B-markets. The second part is aimed at studying possibilities to develop the case firm's, Green Cargo, brand in a given area of business contacts. The conclusions from the case firm study form a base for an activity plan, meant to be used within the case firm company. Since this plan might include sensitive information about the company, it is not included in this paper. The studies have been conducted through interviews with key personnel within the six public companies, with key personnel and customers of the case company. Theories on the subjects of the brand's function and consolidation within a B2B-company, business communication and relations have been used to form a framework for the study. The paper has two focus areas: Firstly through an illustration of how the six government owned companies works with their brand, second, on how the case firm Green Cargo has worked with their brand and how a brand strengthening program can be deployed in their case. In the latter focus area, a conceptual model has been assembled from the theoretical reference frame to analyze the case firm's work with the brand.

The conclusions of the study are divided along the two focus areas. In recent times, the brand's importance has grown inside the studied public companies and is increasing in the strategic areas of the businesses. How well the brand is integrated within the companies is, according to the authors' findings, dependent on the companies' competitive situations. In the study of the six companies no conclusions can be securely drawn regarding how government ownership affects brand management. Additionally, the study shows that the companies do not measure the brand's financial value but half of the questioned firms conduct surveys of their brand images. The findings of the second focus area of the study include; that the case firm's work with the corporate brand is well underway, but that it's lacking an overall strategy of conduction. Additionally the author has found that an efficient communications management is lacking, when handling information originating from within and outside of the company.


The dynamics of a magnetic vortex are influenced profoundly by non-linear effects at large and small amplitudes. For example, a strongly driven magnetic vortex is unstable with respect to internal deformation, leading to reversal of its core magnetization. At small amplitudes, a non-linear response is associated with pinning of the vortex core. Given these phenomena, there is an acute need for a global picture of vortex dynamics over a wide range of excitation amplitudes and frequencies. We have constructed a phase diagram of vortex dynamics in permalloy (Ni 80 Fe 20 ) disks by probing the response spectrum over four orders of magnitude in excitation power. We identify the boundary separating pinned and unpinned dynamics in a phase space of amplitude and frequency. Our approach allows for a highly quantitative analysis of the pinning potential for localized defects and can be used to trace the dynamics of a single vortex from deep in the pinning regime to the onset of core reversal.


Repetitive control (RC) is used to track and reject periodic signals by including a model of a periodic signal in the feedback path. The performance of RC can be improved by including an inverse plant response filter, but due to modeling uncertainty at high frequencies, a low‐pass robustness filter is also required to limit the bandwidth of the signal model and ensure stability. The design of robustness filters is presently ad‐hoc, which may result in excessively conservative performance. This article proposes a new automatic method for designing the robustness filter based on convex optimization and an uncertainty model. Experimental results on a nanopositioning system demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the traditional brick‐wall filter approach.


The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze a series of texts of four authors of the Rio de la Plata: Leopoldo Lugones (1874-1938) , Horacio Quiroga (1878-1937) , Silvina Ocampo (1903-1993) and Felisberto Hernandez (1902-1964 ), in order to examine some common elements that appear in their works, such as the uncanny and weird character of these stories; the crisis of the ego, to the extent that many of the stories of my corpus show a split of subjectivity, often confused with the idea of the double ( doppelganger ), but refers to an equally complex problem, although essentially different: the split of the personality; posed the analogy between these accounts represented the logic of the world and the logic of tropes, as observed in the presence of these tropes not only at the level of discourse, but also  – and especially – in the story and the use of certain resources as the stylization of the grotesque and the spectacle and the ritualization of the actions. These elements are manifested in the work of each author through several motifs and, together, build a canon and show how this strange stories form a solid narrative tradition established a network of relationships and communicating vessels even when the authors present in this research profess conceptions of writing that can become radically different and, in fact, belong to different times. Thus we analyze modulations borders and the fantastic, but also, and above all the singularities of the strange and sinister (the Freudian concept of uncanny, as already mentioned above), and also show the difficulty of classifying these accounts under the stable parameters of a particular discourse genre.


Most of the Indonesian population has not made reading activities a basic need. Several factors contribute to the low interest in reading in Indonesia, namely the growing development of technology, making the current generation more busy with gadgets than reading books, this is not in line with the progress of learning media innovation. The purpose of this study was to determine (1) the process in developing Educational Game-Based Read & Play media to foster reading interest, (2) the feasibility of Educational Game-Based Read & Play media to foster reading interest, (3) students' responses to the implementation of Read & Play Educational Game-Based Play to foster interest in reading. The research method is Research and Development (R&D) using the 4D model by Thiagarajan which consists of 4 stages, namely define, design, develop, and disseminate. The results of research at SDN Kutabaru 1 in class 2 with a total of 31 students showed that Educational Game-Based Read & Play media was very feasible to foster students' interest in reading. This is proven by the validation results from two media experts with a percentage of 93.5% in the category "Very Eligible", two linguists with a percentage of 81% in the category "Very Eligible", two material experts with a percentage of 86% in the category "Very Eligible". The response of students' reading interest to Educational Game-Based Read & Play media in the trial of 31 respondents was 97% in the "Very Good" category.


The use of seat belts is shown to cause a specific pattern of internal injuries. Skin bruise corresponding to the site of the seat belt is known as the "seat belt mark" (SBM) sign and is associated with a high incidence of significant organ injuries. No study has yet defined the exact incidence of injuries requiring intervention at the presence of this sign. The objective of this study was to find the incidence of surgically correctable injuries in belted car occupants with a SBM sign and to define strategies of early detection and treatment of such injuries. The prospective study included consecutive patients involved in road traffic accidents who were admitted at an academic Level I trauma center. Of 650 car occupants, 410 (63%) were restrained and 77 (12%) had a SBM across the abdomen, chest or neck. The injuries of these 77 patients were compared with the injuries of belted patients without an SBM sign. Of patients with SBMs, 9 per cent had neck bruises, 32 per cent had chest bruises, 40 per cent had abdominal bruises, and 19 per cent had bruises in multiple sites. No significant neck injuries were detected. Three patients were found to have myocardial contusion, and 10 patients had intra-abdominal injuries (predominantly bowel and mesenteric lacerations) requiring laparotomy. There was a near 4-fold increase in thoracic trauma (22.5% versus 6%; P = 0.01) and a near 8-fold increase in intraabdominal trauma (23% versus 3%; P < 0.0001) between the groups of patients with and without SBMs. The presence of the SBM sign should alert the physician to the high likelihood of specific internal injuries. Routine laparotomy or mandatory evaluation by specific diagnostic tests is not justified; rather, a high index of suspicion with a low threshold for appropriate diagnostic evaluation and/or surgical exploration should be maintained for the optimal management of such patients.


Through this thesis will be studied the contribution and the timeless evolution of business ethics in shipping industry and international business. Additionally, will be studied the value of an internal code of ethics to achieve the operation's objectives, its smooth function and the maximum collaboration and productivity of its workers. At the same time, will be examined all the theories according to the meaning of business ethics and will be presented its definition through its historical and social evolution. Finally, will be examined the extent to which the application of ethics in the internal rules of a business has the ability to influence its consumers - clients and to lead in the creation of a modern model of ethical development, which will have also benefits in society.


The molecular weights of lignosulfonates (LSs) are modified by a rather simple process involving an alkaline oxidative treatment at moderate temperatures (70–90 °C) and atmospheric pressure. Starting from LSs with an average molecular weight of 90,000 Da, and using such a treatment, one can prepare controlled molecular weight LSs in the range of 30,000 to 3500 Da based on the average mass molecular weight. The LS depolymerisation was monitored via reverse-phase and size-exclusion chromatography. It has been shown that the combination of O2, H2O2 and Cu as a catalyst in alkaline conditions at 80 °C induces a high LS depolymerisation. The depolymerisation was systemically accompanied by a vanillin production, the yields of which reached 1.4 wt % (weight percentage on LS raw basis) in such conditions. Also, the average molecular weight and vanillin concentration were correlated and depended linearly on the temperature and reaction duration.


The quantum fluctuation of photon counting limits the field application of optical time domain reflection. A method of photon counts modulation optics time domain reflection with single photon detection at 1.55 μm is presented. The influence of quantum fluctuation can be effectively controlled by demodulation technology since quantum fluctuation shows a uniform distribution in the frequency domain. Combined with the changing of the integration time of the lock-in amplifier, the signal to noise ratio is significantly enhanced. Accordingly the signal to noise improvement ratio reaches 31.7 dB compared with the direct photon counting measurement.


Alt and Lowry (2000) show that Democrats generally target more of state income for public budgets than do Republicans, though exact party positions vary from state to state, and unified governments adjust faster than divided. McAtee, Yackee, and Lowery (2003) question these results. However, their estimated revenue changes ignore income shares, usually set independent variables equal to sample rather than subsample means, and omit some fixed effects. Modeling short-run changes during transitions must take note of different conditions under which different partisan configurations assume power. When their estimates do this, predicted revenue changes relative to income line up as we expected. Their analysis raises other issues regarding polarization and the distribution of partisan configurations across space and time that merit further investigation.


Jonathan Gienapp, Stanford University, and Brendan McConville, Boston University reflect on the historiographic and scholarly contributions of Gordon Wood's The Creation of the American Republic.


Gate induced drain leakage (GIDL) is frequently described by band-to-band tunneling. This mechanism is insensitive to temperature and occurs only under strong electric fields. Under the condition of small electric fields, however, GIDL exhibits a strong dependence on temperature, which is due to trap-assisted generation of electron hole pairs. This generation mechanism is based on the Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) equation involving field dependent emission probabilities due to Fowler-Nordheim (FN) and Poole-Frenkel effect. The proposed model of an acceptor-like interface trap is able to reproduce the experimental results. Temperature and voltage dependencies for a p-MOSFET are correctly calculated for one single fitting parameter, i.e., the interface trap density corresponding to N/sub t/=1/spl times/10/sup 14/(1/eV m/sup 2/).


With a Jupiter-mass planet orbiting at a distance of only 0.031 AU, the active K2 dwarf HD 189733 is a potential candidate in which to study the magnetospheric interactions of a cool star with its recently-discovered close-orbiting giant planet. We decided to explore the strength and topology of the large-scale magnetosphere of HD 189733, as a future benchmark for quantitative studies for models of the star/planet magnetic interactions. To this end, we used ESPaDOnS, the new generation spectropolarimeter at the Canada-France-Hawaii 3.6m telescope, to look for Zeeman circular polarisation signatures in the line profiles of HD 189733 in 2006 June and August. Zeeman signatures in the line profiles of HD 189733 are clearly detected in all spectra, demonstrating that a field is indeed present at the surface of the star. The Zeeman signatures are not modulated with the planet's orbital period but apparently vary with the stellar rotation cycle. The reconstructed large-scale magnetic field, whose strength reaches a few tens of G, is significantly more complex than that of the Sun; it involves in particular a significant toroidal component and contributions from magnetic multipoles of order up to 5. The CaII H & K lines clearly feature core emission, whose intensity is apparently varying mostly with rotation phase. Our data suggest that the photosphere and magnetic field of HD 189733 are sheared by a significant amount of differential rotation. Our initial study confirms that HD 189733 is an optimal target for investigating activity enhancements induced by closely orbiting planets. More data are needed, densely covering both the orbital and rotation cycles, to investigate whether and how much the planet contributes to the overall activity level of HD 189733.


Background Drug shortages have become all too common and affect all aspects of the health care delivery system. The increased number of drug shortages has had a negative impact on patient care as well as costly financial implications. Objectives This article identifies the current problems and negative outcomes drug shortages have caused and provides a framework for how to best prepare for and combat future shortages. It highlights specific problems faced by health care system pharmacies in the Southeastern United States and the managerial responses to address these shortage situations. Methods A 34-question, multiple-choice survey was distributed to pharmacy directors in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Results Of 549 surveys distributed, 219 (40%) responses were received. Respondents reported that drug shortages cause 1% to 5% error rates in hospitals and that 60% of the time drug shortages create unsafe conditions for patients and staff. Many of the respondents reported a 300% to 500% markup on medications on the shortage list. Seventy-six percent of institutions have autosubstitutions for drug shortages that have been preapproved by Pharmacy & Therapeutics Committees. Conclusions The causes of drug shortages are multifaceted, and the safety and financial implications can be costly. In the short term, health care institutions can utilize pharmacists to assist in circumventing the drug shortage problem. The combined efforts of all health care professionals, the US government, manufacturers, and the lay public are necessary to bring awareness and plausible solutions to the drug shortage problems in the long term.


Towards the end of the nineteenth century, various literary texts presented scenarios of "reverse imperialism", envisioning England as the target of foreign incursion and domination by foes as diverse as the German army, an undead Transylvanian count, or extraterrestrial beings. As fantastic as they may appear, these invasion narratives bring to light uncertainties, doubts, and anxieties that were usually suppressed by imperial discourse. In doing so, they indicate that the narrativization of Empire was more discontinuous, ambivalent, and polyphonic than a widespread post-Saidian conception of "discourse" (as a monolithic force encompassing all Western literature, regardless of genre or other factors) would seem to suggest. The novels investigated here counter the dominant narrative of the Briton as conqueror with scenarios of invasion from without and/or subversion from within, thus illustrating how strongly imperial discourse is shaped by literary genres and their characteristic structures.


The aim of this study was to estimate neovascularisation in hyperplasia and carcinoma of the endometrium using a "power" angio-Doppler technique. One hundred and eighty-two postmenopausal patients with irregular bleeding from the sexual organs were investigated. Age of the patients ranged between 46 and 78 years. No neovascularisation in a control group of women with normal histopathological results of the endometrium was observed. The sensitivity of this method with reference to the diagnosis of hyperplasia and cancer of the endometrium was 12.2% and 81.2%, respectively. The specificity and positive prediction values were equal to 100% each in both pathologies. The values of the analysed flow indices in the neovascular arteries in endometrial cancer were significantly lower (p<0.05) (properly PI-0.92+/-0.12; RI-0.46+/-0.08) in comparison to the corresponding values in hyperplasia of the endometrium (PI-1.38+/-0.28 and RI-0.66+/-0.18). In conclusion, using a "power" angio-Doppler technique irregular vascularity of the endometrium in a group of patients with hyperplasia was observed in 12.2% of all patients and in 81.2% of those with cancer of the endometrium. The analysis of the values of the blood flow qualitative parameters in the neovascularisation areas in the endometrium at the significance level of PI < or = 1.0; RI < or = 0.5 and TAMV > 18.0 cm can help determine the essential element in the differential diagnosis of benign and malicious lesions. Transvaginal ultrasonography with a "power" angio-Doppler technique can be a valuable diagnostic method in hyperplasia and cancer of the endometrium, especially useful in the early stages of these pathologies.


I calculate probabilities of quasi-extinction of natural populations from time series of census data or estimated abundance. The results depend sensitively upon estimated parameters. Short time series or poor fits of the model to data lead to wide confidence intervals for the probability of quasi-extinction. In many cases there are substantial errors in estimated abundance. These errors further increase the size of the confidence interval, to the point where the estimates may become meaningless. A further complication is that natural populations are subject to occasional catastrophes, and these increase the probability of extinction. Unfortunately, evidence concerning the frequency of occurrence of catastrophes and the distribution of their sizes is generally lacking. Assessments that fail to compute confidence intervals or that disregard observation errors or possible catastrophes may be unduly optimistic about the viability of natural populations.


A59 Treatment of colon cancer patients would benefit from the development of an accurate prognostic test that could also serve to guide therapeutic decisions. In an effort to meet this goal, we sought to i) develop a prognostic quantitative real-time RT-PCR assay using formalin fixed paraffin-embedded primary tumors, and ii), develop an assay that could be used for high throughput screening of drugs that would either abolish or restore functional activity of a viable target identified in the prognostic assay. To achieve these two objectives, we first measured the expression levels of 14 cancer-associated genes in Stage II colon cancer patients who developed disease recurrence within two years (n=9), or those who did not develop disease recurrence (n=12, mean follow-up time = 6.3 yrs). We observed that the expression ratio of (EpCAM1+Map7)/E-cadherin accurately predicted clinical outcome (Hazard ratio = 12; P=0.001 log-ranked test), such that good patient survival was associated with high expression of E-cadherin, a gene that has been shown to be downregulated by Zeb1 during colon cancer progression. Interestingly, we discovered that whereas the expression of E-cadherin was inversely correlated with Zeb1 (p=1.4E-7) in the CGAP NCI60 database, the expression of EpCAM1 was inversely correlated with Zeb2 (p=1.9E-10). We further discovered that the promoter region of EpCAM1 contained a 16 nucleotide match to the region including and surrounding the Zeb1 response element of the p73 gene (p=8.7E-7). Based on these findings, we concluded that E-cadherin represented the most viable therapeutic target of the three genes identified in the prognostic assay. To enable screening for drugs that might restore E-cadherin function, we developed a 20 microliter adhesion assay using an uncoated polystyrene surface in which it was observed that following 7 hours after cell trypsinization, the level of adhesion of highly metastatic SW620 colon cancer cell line was 15-fold (+/-4) lower compared to poorly metastatic HCT116, a cell line which we determined contains 100- and 8-fold higher levels of E-cadherin mRNA and protein, respectively, compared to SW620. This adhesion assay may allow for the identification of novel compounds that inhibit the epithelial-mesenchymal transition required for spread of metastatic disease.


Wound healing in diabetic patients is a difficult problem to be solved at present. In addition, patients with diabetes have an increased risk of postoperative wound complications. "She-Xiang-Yu-Hong" (SXYH) ointment is a type of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) compound used to treat wounds. Over the past few years, SXYH has been applied in the Affiliated Hospital of Chengdu University of TCM (Chengdu, China) for the treatment of diabetic foot infections and bedsores, whereas there has been rare research on the effect of SXYH ointment on wound healing. In this study, SXYH ointment was first applied to streptozotocin (STZ)-triggered diabetic ICR mice (4–6 weeks, 20 ± 2 g) to observe the accelerated wound healing and the shortened wound healing period. As indicated by the histology and biochemistry analyses of skin biopsies, the wounds treated using SXYH ointment showed an increase in the granulation tissue. Moreover, SXYH also modulated the inflammation response by regulating affinity proinflammatory cytokines release (e.g., IL-6 and TNF-α). Furthermore, SXYH ointment obviously improved collagen fiber deposition and tissue on the wound surface. On the whole, this study indicated that SXYH ointment could accelerate wound healing, promote blood vessel formation, and suppress inflammations. Thus, the clinical potential of SXYH ointment was demonstrated in the treatment of diabetes and refractory wounds.


The objective of this study was to reveal nurses' perception in view of the nociceptive pain in child burn patients. This qualitative descriptive study was conducted at the Federal District Pediatric Hospital in Mexico City. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews with ten nurses working in the burn unit; they were analyzed by content analysis, which yielded three categories. The theoretical framework was based on phenomenology. The results showed the nurses' experiences, their expression, and their self-defense mechanisms, as revealed in the perception of their interventions. This highlighted the humanistic load regarding emotions, as the exposure to these feelings implies spending additional strength and energy, because the emotional work becomes more intense as their workloadincreases. Thus, the study concluded that subjects learn about their own experience through experience itself.


Due to the limited availability of anomaly examples, video anomaly detection is often seen as one-class classification (OCC) problem. A popular way to tackle this problem is by utilizing an autoencoder (AE) trained only on normal data. At test time, the AE is then expected to reconstruct the normal input well while reconstructing the anomalies poorly. However, several studies show that, even with normal data only training, AEs can often start reconstructing anomalies as well which depletes their anomaly detection performance. To mitigate this, we propose a temporal pseudo anomaly synthesizer that generates fake-anomalies using only normal data. An AE is then trained to maximize the reconstruction loss on pseudo anomalies while minimizing this loss on normal data. This way, the AE is encouraged to produce distinguishable reconstructions for normal and anomalous frames. Extensive experiments and analysis on three challenging video anomaly datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach to improve the basic AEs in achieving superiority against several existing state-of-the-art models.


A new fluorescent lamp and ballast system has been developed which minimizes system input power while maintaining light output close to values provided by conventional lamps and ballasts. The 28-WT-12 lamp designed for the new system utilizes a redesigned electrode structure which allows the lamp to be started in the rapid start manner but operated in an instant start mode to maximize the discharge efficacy (lumens/watt) while reducing lamp cathode power requirements. A matching two-lamp ballast incorporates a solid-state switching device to turn off the cathode heating circuit automatically once the lamps have started. Both lamps and ballasts are physically interchangeable with conventional equipment so that existing luminaires can be converted without luminaire, lampholder, and wiring modifications. This new lamp/ballast system can achieve efficacy values exceeding 80 Im/W¿more than 25 percent better than the performance of conventional fluorescent systems of the early 1970's¿along with the excellent life and reliability characteristics typical of electromagnetically ballasted systems. Economic analyses indicate that the new system is appropriate for many new commercial general lighting installations, although it is particularly suitable as a retrofit system for installations where power reductions are essential but where conversion costs must be minimized and illumination levels preserved.


Consequences of new quantum spin perspective in quantum gravity are far-reaching. Results of this novel perspective in loop quantum gravity, i.e., the modification of the equation of geometrical operators such as the area and the volume operator are known. Using newly proposed formula from this perspective, the magnitude of fundamental constants such as the reduced Planck constant ℏ, the gravitational constant G, the speed of light c, the Boltzmann constant kβ , the fine structure constant α, can be validated. With the aid of this perspective, we find new formulas for the fundamental Planckian quantities and the derived Planckian quantities. We also propose novel formulas for the Planck star such as the size, the curvature, the surface area and the size of black hole (for the Planck star) without modifying its significance. The relation of the quantum spin with the Planck temperature TP (TP ∝ n2 ), the Planck mass mP (mP ∝ n2 ), the Planck length l P (l P ∝ n) are also proposed using this novel perspective.


Routing packets within a large-scale wireless sensor network (WSN) without storage overhead and routing table updates is a challenging problem. With a large number of sensors the overhead plays a significant role in the scalability of the routing protocol. To avoid this communication overhead, WSN routing demands new and efficient methods for routing packets. Remove or reduce this overhead, the routing protocol needs some way of implicitly, rather than explicitly, defining paths. In this paper, we use the idea of directional routing, which requires only that each sensor know its location within the network relative to the sending node and the destination. Through simulation, we evaluate and compare a number of different metrics for selecting the routing path on a hop-by-hop basis. We also compare the energy usage and path length of these local methods with respect to some routing techniques based on global information. This evaluation shows that changing the routing metric can dramatically effect the performance of the sensor network. These results also show tradeoff between extending the lifetime of the WSN and reducing the average number of hops a message travels to the base station.


OBJECTIVE
To observe the inhibitory effect of Tongxinluo (TXL) on coronary vaso spasm in small swine in vivo, and to investigate its possible acting mechanism.

METHODS
The model of coronary atherosclerosis in 16 male small swines was established by left thoracotomy after anesthesia, isolated the sections of left anterio-descending branch and proximal end of rotator branch with similar outer diameter, and encapsulated them with paper-towel holding 2.5 microg interleukin-1beta. Two weeks later, the condition of coronary vasospasm induced by catheter intra-coronary injection of 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT, 10 microg/kg) was observed through coronary artery contrast examination. The 12 swines with successfully formed coronary vaso spasm were randomly divided into 2 groups, the TXL group and the control group. They were fed with special diet, but TXL 1 g/(kg d) was administered additionally to the TXL group for 4 weeks. The observation on coronary vasospasm was repeated 1 week after discontinuation of TXL treatment, then the animals were sacrificed, their vascular sections enclosed with IL-1beta was taken to conduct the pathologic examination and to detect the expressions of Rho kinase mRNA and its substrate myosin- binding subunit phosphorylation (MBS-P) by RT-PCR and Western blot method.

RESULTS
Coronary artery contrast showed that local coronary stenosis occurred in the 12 model swines to different extents (20% - 30%, and vascular spasm on them could be induced by 5-HT. At the time of repeating examination, 11 vascular sections in the control group still maintain their positive spasm reaction to 5-HT, but only 2 in the TXL group did so, the reaction turned to negative in 1 and 10 in the two groups respectively. Pathological examination showed that different degrees of macrophage aggregation could be found in both groups. The degree of lumen stricture and endometrial hyperplasia in the TXL group was obviously attenuated than those in the control group. The expressions of Rho kinase mRNA and MBS-P in the control group were up-regulated obviously. As compared with those in the control group, they were inhibited significantly in the TXL group, as (71.5 +/- 2.4) vs (98.2 +/- 7.7)% and 16,633 +/- 1,390 vs 25,818 +/- 4,745, respectively (all P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION
TXL could obviously inhibit the coronary intimal hyperplasia mediated by IL-1beta and coronary vasospasm induced by 5-HT, one of its mechanisms is possibly the inhibition on the intracellular Rho kinase mRNA expression in the IL-1beta enclosed vascular section to decrease the level of MBS-P.


This paper theoretically investigates the orbital magnetization of electron-doped (n-type) semiconductor heterostructures and of hole-doped (p-type) bulk semiconductors, which are respectively described by a two-dimensional electron/hole Hamiltonian with both the included Rashba spin–orbit coupling and Zeeman splitting terms. It is the Zeeman splitting, rather than the Rashba spin–orbit coupling, that destroys the time-reversal symmetry of the semiconductor systems and results in nontrivial orbital magnetization. The results show that the magnitude of the orbital magnetization per hole and the Hall conductance in the p-type bulk semiconductors are about 10−2–10−1 effective Bohr magneton and 10−1–1 e2/h, respectively. However, the orbital magnetization per electron and the Hall conductance in the n-type semiconductor heterostructures are too small to be easily observed in experiment.


Recent research has shown that citizens living in decentralized countries struggle to identify which level of government is designing and implementing public policies, thus hindering the due accountability process of democracy. This paper contributes to the literature on the determinants of citizens ́ responsibility attribution by analyzing the Spanish case. A novel methodological approach is used by separately analyzing those citizens who fail to identify the competent level of government and those who did not even give an answer. Besides, two novel hypotheses are tested regarding the process by which information is transmitted to and absorbed by citizens: the impact of regional media and the territorial group bias. After confirming that the methodological strategy is correct, we find strong evidence that the existence of regional media helps responsibility attribution, thus fostering accountability; while co-official languages, used as a proxy of a group bias, hamper the process by which citizens identify the competent level of government.


Abstract At the Ashanti concession, Ghana, gold-bearing quartz veins and disseminated sulphide lodes occur in narrow (1-3 m) shear zones with altered argillites and metatholeiite host rocks. The mineralisation is concealed by up to 10 m of kaolinite-mica forest ochrosol soils, beneath which is a saprolitic zone of leached rock extending down 60-70 m to the hypogene ore zone. In the unweathered hypogene orebody, gold occurs as free grains in quartz, as sub-microscopic inclusions in the disseminated arsenopyrite, as gold tellurides and as aurostibite. The gold is released from the hypogene orebody by physical dissaggregation and chemical dissolution, the latter involving hydroxyl, thiosulphate, cyanide, and fulvate complexing. Dissolution and reprecipitation of the gold appears to have taken place largely in situ with little evidence of supergene enrichment. Consequently, the gold mineralogy of the soils is complex with residual and secondary gold grains exhibiting widely different textural and compositional characteristics. Residually enriched grains display pitted, rounded surfaces and have silver-depleted rims, while supergene gold grains are compositionally homogenous and have unpitted surfaces. The supergene grains display platelet, dendritic, irregular and octahedral habit. A fine grained spongy form of gold has also been observed from weathered telluride-bearing quartz veins. Much of the secondary gold is intergrown with iron oxides and hydroxides. The gold mineralogy of the Ashanti soils appears to be controlled by physico-chemical processes active during the lateritic pedogenesis producing residual and supergene enrichment of gold.


This study endeavours to explore the major hazards and the response capacity to disaster of Dadeldhura district. It used checklist to collect information on hazard ranking and capacity assessment. Similarly, key informant interview conducted with the key portfolios and members of district disaster management committee and Nepal Red Cross Society. Likewise, one focus group discussion was conducted with the purpose to draw insights of major disaster and capacity. Moreover, a district disaster preparedness plan was reviewed to understand the context of hazard and response. The major hazards of Dadeldhura district are landslide, flood, hailstone, fire, endemic, drought, thunderbolt and earthquake. Among all hazards landslide is in the first and flood is in the second rank based on damage and loss of physical property and livelihood. According to the district disaster preparedness and response plan, 2075, nine clusters have formed and updated emergency response plan for effective action in Dadeldhura. Among the nine clusters, this study only includes the search and rescue cluster to assess disaster response capacity. It has been found that out of nine clusters, search and rescue cluster seems progressive. However, the number of search and rescue trained people need to be increased. Likewise, the facility of ambulance and fire brigades need to extend in each rural municipality. Existing ambulance also need to be repaired and maintained regularly. The existing capacity is not enough to disaster response so, new efforts need to have been updated by DPRP with new activities to enhance the capacity. Key-words: Hazard, disaster, disaster response, emergency, search and rescue, capacity.


Successive droughts in Kenya compounded with other socio-economic constraints have led to persistently unstable and declining agricultural productivity in semi-arid eastern Kenya. This has given rise to the need to find coping strategies that would include growing alternative crops that are drought tolerant and thus suitable for the areas. Research in Kenya and elsewhere has shown that sorghum ( Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) has the potential to end severe food insecurity in ASALs due to its tolerance to drought and ability to thrive under a wide range of soils. However, research and government policy in Kenya have shown a continual inclination to maize production in these areas though the crop is regarded a high risk option due to poor adaptation especially to the low rainfall. This paper reviews the potential of sorghum for improving food security in ASALs of Kenya with specific focus on semi-arid eastern Kenya. This will contribute to the ongoing debate to inform private and public sector policy and investments for increasing production of sorghum and other drought tolerant crops in the ASALs as a way of alleviating food insecurity and poverty. Key words : ASALs, drought, sorghum, food security, poverty


This paper presents a methodology to structure the asset management problem of electrical energy utilities, based on multi-criteria decision analysis theory and the fuzzy causal maps technique. This approach aims basically to generate strategies to manage the life cycle of the electrical equipment, and to pinpoint the relevant aspects to assess these strategies, searching for the Paretto optimal solution. In this sense, fuzzy causal maps provide an appropriate way to elicit the knowledge obtained from experts. On the other hand, multi-criteria theory is important to compare all alternatives and to form a ranking of the best options. An illustrative example is presented to demonstrate the application of the proposed methodology and its benefits.


The states of milling tool are closely related to the quality of the workpieces under machining. A high quality product often implies high quality surface finish and dimensional accuracy. Therefore, tool wear has to be controlled. However, the tool wear cannot be measured continuously while the machine is still in operation. Thus an alterative condition monitoring approach should be adopted. The condition parameters, e.g. electric current, vibrations, acoustic emissions, are considered as indirect data in data-driven health management technology as they are not directly related with the machine health states. The sensory signals acquired during the operational process are generally time varying (TV) and non-stationary. The features will be lost if the signals are analyzed from just the time domain or frequency domain. The combination of time and frequency analysis (TFA) of the signals is very useful to extract the features hidden in the signals. Keywords-Tool wear, STFT, CWT, T-F Spectrum


Some termite and ant species are capable of removing soil particles and producing organicmineral structures called biogenic structures. The chemical characteristics, abundance, size, and especially the dynamic production and degradation of biogenic structures, are parameters used to evaluate the influence of these macroinvertebrates in the soil. The spatial distribution of C, NO3 y NH4 + on biogenic structures produced by Nasutitermes corniger Motschulsky (Isoptera:Termitidae) and Atta cephalotes L. (Hymenoptera:Formicidae) were determined in a secondary forest in the Humid Tropics of Costa Rica. The C and NH4 + content was higher on the arboreal termite nests produced by N. corniger, than in the surrounding soil (CS). Also, the NH4 + was the predominant N mineral form on the arboreal termite nests. The C, NO3 - and NH4 + content stored at biogenic structures produced by A. cephalotes and in the surrounding soil (CS) were similar. The vertical distribution of C, NO3 - and NH4 + stored at the first 30 cm of the soil was also measured. The total C stored at this soil depth was 96.98 Mg ha -1 , with 41.5 % concentrated on the top soil layer (10 cm). The total N, NO3 - and NH4 + as well as C decreased


Introduction Secondary sex ratio (SSR) is the proportion of males to females at birth. It has been shown in many different mammalian species, many factors are associated with SSR. Changes in secondary sex ratio in dairy cows is considered economically important and the ability to change it could affect the revenues and profitability of a dairy farm. Thus, sperm or embryo sexing techniques in recent years has attracted more attention. Most breed of dairy cattle are more likely to have female calf is born to use them as replacement heifers and in order to maintain their productive herd number. On the contrary, when the goal is the production of meat, bull calves due to higher growth rates and production efficiency, are more convenient and more economically efficient. The aim of present study was to investigate some key factors affecting SSR in Iranian Holstein cows.
According to Fisher, the sex ratio in the population under the control of natural selection is not always the same. There is overwhelming evidence to support the theory that shows Fisher Primary and secondary sex ratio sex ratio can deviate from this balance and natural selection caused a change in this ratio can be in certain circumstances. For example, the secondary sex ratio of 52:48 has been reported in dairy cows. Studies on mammalian species suggest that several factors, including latitude of the location, the dominant regional climate model, time and frequency of mating to ovulation, diet, age of parents, physical score, breed and produced eggs from ovarian left or right can have a significant effect on the secondary sex ratio. Weather conditions may modify the internal environment and the effect on physiological mechanisms or through the impact on the frequency and type of foods available to parents, the secondary sex ratio is impressive. The impact on the quantity and quality of parent's access to food sources in many species of mammals, the sex ratio has been fixed. Previous reports have shown that high environmental temperature and higher rates of evaporation from a week to a month before conception secondary sex ratio was increased.
Materials and method The demographic, production and reproduction data of six large dairy farms between years 1375 and 1389 were used. The rolling average of 305 d fat corrected milk yield was 8145 kg with a range of 7578 to 8670 Kg. Breeding Center of Iran and the herds covered by the registration and recording them on a regular basis carried out by experts dairy cooperatives. The flocks were in the area northeast of the country. Production data (date corrected milk production and the cumulative production by 60 and 305 days of lactation), reproductive data (such as calving year, calving season, type of birth, sex of calf, the latest information on AI, days open) , and details the possible removal of the flock or death were recorded. Data were collected from flocks before the analysis was re-verification. Used by sperm, sperm into four groups: Iranian, Canadian, American and other countries (including sperm taken from European countries) groups. The data were analyzed using multivariate logistic regression model.
Statistics 0/05 was used to ensure meaningful results.
Results and discussion Results showed that the ratio of males to females was 53 to 47. Origin of the sires (including Iranian, American, or Canadian) had no impact on secondary sex ratio. Type of calving (eutocia vs. non-eutocia calving including dystocia and still birth) had significant impact on SSR (P<0.05). SSR was not effected by calving year. Season of calving, days open, parity, and the corrected 305 d milk yield also had no impact on SSR while the interaction of parity and type of calving was significant (P<0.05).
Conclusion In conclusion, the results of this study shows that type of calving only had a significant effect of SSR.


ABSTRACT Budget or manpower constraints may force a reduction in data collection activities. However, information may be transferred from continued gauge sites to discontinued gauge sites provided there is 'sufficient' correlation between flow sequences. Information defined as the reciprocal of variance (of the parameter estimator for which the gauge has been established) is provided at ungauged sites by regression techniques. A set of gauge sites is chosen to satisfy the budget constraint and to maximize the information content. The information content based on regression is a function of the correlations between flow sequences and is subject to the errors in their estimators. Post optimal analysis gives estimates of correlation error effects on the decision process as to which gauges to continue and which to discontinue.


This paper combines fuzzy clustering with a virtual reality based technique for visual data mining. The purpose is to construct virtual reality spaces preserving as much structural information from the original data as possible, where the results of fuzzy clustering procedures can be displayed and analyzed. The construction of such spaces involves non-linear transformations of the original feature space, which can be either the space of the original attributes or the space of the fuzzy memberships with respect to the constructed fuzzy classes. In particular, the representation involves the centroids of the different classes, the individual memberships of all of the studied objects with respect to all of the fuzzy classes, and eventually their comparison with additional crisp partitions or partitions induced by a decision attribute. This approach is applied to different data sets from the fields of biology and medicine, including microarray gene expression data related to Alzheimer's disease and Leukemia. The visual inspection and the navigation in the virtual reality spaces, provided useful insights about (i) the quality of the obtained classifications, (ii) the overlapping of different classes, and (iii) their relationships.


This is the most authoritative, complete source of test and measurement information for engineers who design and maintain fiber optic networks.This book presents measurement principles for characterizing all three basic components of a fiber optic communication system: the optical transmitter, fiber medium and optical receiver. It also covers system level measurements, and discusses the principles and limitations of current fiber optic testing equipment. It discusses testing to SONET/SDH international standards, and helps engineers choose the best approach to testing today's new erbium doped fiber amplifiers. The book provides detailed recommendations for understanding polarization states, and presents new methods for accurately characterizing the behavior of Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) fiber systems. It includes detailed coverage of testing fiber in the local loop, using optical power meters and optical time domain reflectometers. It also reviews the latest state-of-the-art 10 Gb/s systems, and even faster systems on the horizon. The coverage is practical, helping professionals accurately measure and test fiber optic systems without becoming experts in theory.


ABSTRACT Hepatitis C virus (HCV) core protein (core) plays a significant role in the development of chronic liver diseases caused by HCV infection. We have discovered that the core sensitized all-trans-retinoic acid (ATRA)-induced cell death in MCF-7 cells. Activation of retinoic acid receptor alpha (RARα)-mediated transcription by the core was also seen in all the cell lines tested. By use of a yeast two-hybrid system, we identified Sp110b as a candidate for a core-interacting cellular factor. Although the function of Sp110b has remained unknown, we observed that Sp110b interacts with RARα and suppresses RARα-mediated transcription. These data suggest that Sp110b is a transcriptional cofactor negatively regulating RARα-mediated transcription. RNA interference-mediated reduction of endogenous Sp110b levels depressed the ability of the core to activate RARα-mediated transcription, suggesting an essential role for Sp110b in this pathway. The normal nuclear subcellular localization of Sp110b was altered by molecular interaction with the core to the cytoplasmic surface of the endoplasmic reticulum. This evidence suggests a model in which the core sequesters Sp110b from the nucleus and inactivates its corepressor function to activate RARα-mediated transcription. These findings likely describe a novel system in which a cytoplasmic viral protein regulates host cell transcription.


Palms are woody monocotyledons in the family Arecaceae which is placed in the order Arecales. Slow and tall growing, hardy and non branching, dioecious and perennial in nature, palmyrah palm has no distinguishing features to identify sex, stature and high neera yielding types until flowering age of about 12 to 15 years. Under these circumstances molecular markers can be effectively utilized to diagnose and select a genotype. Twenty palmyrah accessions were analysed using RAPD and ISSR markers. In RAPD analysis, a total of 57 bands were obtained, among them 43 were polymorphic and rest of them were monomorphic. Amplification size ranged between 250 and 3200 bp. UPGMA based cluster diagram showed that all 20 different genotypes were grouped into four different clusters based on the stature, sex and high neera yielding types. The distance matrix between genotypes showed an average distance range from 0.54 to 0.91 with a mean of 0.70. A total of 130 ISSR markers were scored, of which 65 were polymorphic, equivalent to 47.94% polymorphism. These markers were used to estimate the genetic similarity among accessions using Jaccard's similarity coefficient, with similarity values ranging from 71.6 to 95.7%. The average number of markers produced per primer was 6.11. For each of the 21 ISSR primers PIC value ranged between 0 and 0.46. Cluster analysis based on ISSR data grouped the 20 palmyrah accessions into two major clusters. PCA based on ISSR data clearly distinguished genotypes similar to the results of cluster analysis.


This study aims to find the pattern of dependable approach in the border dispute settlement between Indonesia and Timor Leste in Oecusse. Historically, the community lived in the border area came from one ancestor. Because of social-political problems, however, the community subsequently followed the trajectory for which the partition between Indonesia and Timor Leste was undeniable. As a result of the partition, in the context, adat land should become the collective right of the community, which is situated under one adat law system but in the different national jurisdictions. This study questions on what causes collective land conflicts at the border of these countries. Using socio-legal and local wisdom approaches, as it is subsequently analyzed according to adat law, the study finds the cause that emerged as the result of the legal conflict between adat law and state law. If the state hands over the problem to adat communities or traditional leaders, based on their adat law dispute resolution, the conflict will resolve quickly. This study recommends the two states, Indonesia and Timor Leste, to provide the dispute resolution to adat or traditional leaders based on their adat law.


Excessive energy intake is the main cause of obesity, and stimulation of brown adipose tissue (BAT) and white adipose tissue (WAT) thermogenesis has emerged as an attractive tool for anti-obesity. Although miR-143 has been reported to be associated with BAT thermogenesis, its role remains unclear. Here, we found that miR-143 was highest expression in adipose tissue, especially in BAT. During short-term cold exposure or CL316,243 injected, miR-143 was markedly down-regulated in BAT and subcutaneous WAT (scWAT). Moreover, knockout of miR-143 (KO) increases the body temperature of mice upon cold exposure, which may be due to the increased thermogenesis of BAT and scWAT. More importantly, supplement of miR-143 in BAT of KO mice can inhibit the increase of body temperature in KO mice. Mechanistically, spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK) was revealed for the first time as a new target of miR-143, and deletion of miR-143 facilitates fatty acid uptake in BAT. In addition, we found that brown adipocytes can promote fat mobilization of white adipocytes, and miR-143 may participate in this process. Meanwhile, we demonstrate that inactivation of AC9 in BAT inhibits thermogenesis through AC9-PKA-AMPK-CREB-UCP1 signaling pathway. Overall, our results reveal a novel function of miR-143 on thermogenesis, and a new functional link of the BAT and WAT.


In this paper, we present a new method to learn statistical part-based structure models for object category recognition in a supervised manner. The method learns both a model of local part appearance and a model of the spatial relations between those parts. By using Histograms of Oriented Gradient (HOG) features to describe local part appearance within an image, we investigate whether richer appearance model is helpful in improving recognition performance. We learn the model parameters from training examples using maximum likelihood estimation. In detection, these models are used in a probabilistic way to classify and localize the objects in the images. The experimental results on a variety of categories demonstrate that our method provides both successful classification and localization of the object within the image.


Reflective practice is an important lifelong skill for business professionals. In the work integrated learning (WIL) curriculum, supporting interns' development of reflective practice is critical to their experience in WIL as well as their transition into professional practice. The purpose of this paper is to explore students' perceptions on the use of online assessments for engagement in reflective practice as they undertake internships as part of WIL. The findings demonstrate online assessment as commensurate with facilitating reflection-on-action. Students report on the benefits of the online environment for enabling accessible and flexible engagement with assessments. The online assessments are endorsed as critical learning opportunities for students to iteratively look back on their actions to consider or record improvements as well as to 'practise reflective practice'. Although few students found online reflective assessments constrained social learning, we argue that a balance between face-to-face and online learning is essential to supporting learners in dispersed contexts in WIL. (Asia-Pacific Journal of Cooperative Education, 2014, 15(4), 335-345)


The feline inductive odontogenic tumor (FIOT) is a rare entity among oral tumors in cats, the cytologic features of which are not well characterized but may prove useful. A fine-needle aspiration biopsy was performed on the right mandible between the permanent canine (404) and permanent fourth premolar (408) of an 8-month-old female mongrel cat. Cytologic smears showed epithelial cells and occasional spindle cells with extracellular homogenous acidophilic material in a hematic background. The initial diagnosis of benign tumor was confirmed by histopathologic examination of the biopsy specimen. This report describes the cytologic findings in a case of FIOT.


Based on the departments and processes system management of PE education, I choose the J2EE development platform and the Struts-MVC hierarchical structure design patterns is used. Generally the powerful exercise framework and good design patterns are used to develop the J2EE application, this can shorten the time of design as soon as possible. Struts is a MVC-based J2EE platform design framework, which reduces the workload on building the multilayer Web applications and also provides a recycled software framework. But the MVC design pattern has obvious advantage in multilayer Web applications on data processing, it is helpful for large-scale application software development. The studies in this thesis are based on the Struts framework system development technology. After discussing on J2EE study, further studies on MVC model are presented. Large amount of references are referred to. The demand of PE education is analyzed based on the characteristics of high school teaching management. According to a detailed analysis of requirements, design exercises have been done aiming at the common PE quality evaluation management system, PE education operating management system and the PE teaching resources management system. Software system is obtained based on the Struts framework model development, which is reliable on practical PE education management.


We have performed the de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) and ac-susceptibility experiments on a ferromagnet UGe2 under pressure for the field along the easy a-axis. The p-H phase diagram was determined, indicating three kinds of phase: paramagnetic and weakly and strongly polarized phases. The detected dHvA frequencies as well as the cyclotron masses are found to be very different between the weakly and strongly polarized states. A change of the Fermi surface occurs when the weakly polarized phase is changed into the strongly polarized phase with increasing magnetic field.


Capillary Leak Syndrome (CLS) in patients with severe course of disease is more and more common, and the clinical manifestations of CLS include systemic edema, hypoproteinemia, effective circulating blood volume reduction and hemoconcentration. The common pathogenies are sepsis, severe trauma, cardiopulmonary bypass and so on. Clinically, CLS is usually divided into leakage period and recovery period, with different pathophysiologic process, clinical manifestation and treatment in different period respectively. Although there are more treatments, they are not effective treatment measures. There have been so many studies about improvement of endothelial function, macromolecular colloid liquid applications, and continuous blood purification treatment. Systematic understanding of the pathological mechanism, clinical manifestations and staging, diagnosis and treatment of the CLS has a guiding value.


Several techniques in computer security, including generic protocols for secure computation and symbolic execution, depend on implementing algorithms in static circuits. Despite substantial improvements in recent years, tools built using these techniques remain too slow for most practical uses. They require transforming arbitrary programs into either Boolean logic circuits, constraint sets on Boolean variables, or other equivalent representations, and the costs of using these tools scale directly with the size of the input circuit. Hence, techniques for more efficient circuit constructions have benefits across these tools. We show efficient circuit constructions for various simple but commonly used data structures including stacks, queues, and associative maps. While current practice requires effectively copying the entire structure for each operation, our techniques take advantage of locality and batching to provide amortized costs that scale polylogarithmically in the size of the structure. We demonstrate how many common array usage patterns can be significantly improved with the help of these circuit structures. We report on experiments using our circuit structures for both generic secure computation using garbled circuits and automated test input generation using symbolic execution, and demonstrate order of magnitude improvements for both applications.


The antitumor activity and enzymology of 2'-deoxy-3', 5'-bis-O-(4-methoxyphenoxycarbonyl)-5-fluoro-3-(4-n-Propoxybenz oyl uridine (FF-707) were examined. It was found that stability in small intestine homogenate of FF-707 was higher than that of FF-705 [2'-deoxy-3', 5'-O-diacetyl-5-fluoro-3-(3 methylbenzoyl) uridine]. Reduction of the tumor weight was greater in mice bearing sarcoma-180 and rats bearing Yoshida sarcoma treated with the oral administration of FF-707 than that FF-705. The relationship between the antitumor activity and the inhibition of thymidylate synthase after the oral administration of FF-707 was examined. The extent of the inhibition of thymidylate synthase seemed to be parallel to that of the inhibition of the tumor growth.


This report provides an assessment of structural adjustment policies undertaken by seven African countries in the mid-1980s. This report is distinct from other studies on this subject. First, it emphasizes the specific economic and social circumstances of each country that led to the adoption of an adjustment program. Second, it measures and analyzes the extent to which the adjustment policies were, in fact, implemented in each case. Finally, the report attempts to assess economic performance in relation to the strength of the implementation of policy reforms.


Surfons are acoustic phonons in a body with surfaces, having both bulk and surface modes. To account for the electron mobility µ in Si inversion layers in the range of surface electron density Ns=(0.5∼5)×1012 cm-2 and temperature T=200∼300 K, scattering due to the surfon deformation potential is calculated. Qualitative features of the calculated mobility µcalc such as its dependence upon Ns and T, its variation with the surface orientation and its anisotropy agree with experiments. Quantitatively, however, µcalc is about three times as large as the values measured so far, when the estimated scattering by optical phonons is taken into account. The effect of the phonon reflection on the surface is about 15%. The theory uses the deformation potential constants and all the other parameters from bulk measurements. Some of these values could perhaps be different in the surface region, or the value of the mobility may become bigger as sample preparation techniques improve further so that the discrepancy may be less pronounced.


The Economics program explores the problems of a modern economy and introduces the methodological tools that economists use. It emphasizes the development of analytical models and their application to important economic, social and political issues, such as inflation, unemployment, taxation, poverty, pollution, government decision-making and regulation. Our faculty, which is made up of leading teacher-scholars, includes specialists in game theory, microeconomics, industrial organization, macroeconomics, monetary economics, political economy and public finance.


This paper studies the problem of distributed spectrum/channel access for cognitive radio-enabled unmanned aerial vehicles (CUAVs) that overlay upon primary channels. Under the framework of cooperative spectrum sensing and opportunistic transmission, a one-shot optimization problem for channel allocation, aiming to maximize the expected cumulative weighted reward of multiple CUAVs, is formulated. To handle the uncertainty due to the lack of prior knowledge about the primary user activities as well as the lack of the channel-access coordinator, the original problem is cast into a competition and cooperation hybrid multi-agent reinforcement learning (CCH-MARL) problem in the framework of Markov game (MG). Then, a value-iteration-based RL algorithm, which features upper confidence bound-Hoeffding (UCB-H) strategy searching, is proposed by treating each CUAV as an independent learner (IL). To address the curse of dimensionality, the UCB-H strategy is further extended with a double deep Q-network (DDQN). Numerical simulations show that the proposed algorithms are able to efficiently converge to stable strategies, and significantly improve the network performance when compared with the benchmark algorithms such as the vanilla Q-learning and DDQN algorithms.


the Association was also represented on the Central Committee for Hospital Medical Services. The Joint Paediatric Committee of the Royal Colleges of Physicians in the UK and the BPA had served a useful purpose, but it was hoped that the Association would eventually be consulted automatically in its own right by the DHSS on child health matters. Representation on the General Medical Council was still to be achieved. Mrs Carolyn Ellis who joined the BPA in 1974 and became Executive Secretary in 1977 had left the Association. The President thanked Mrs Ellison for her work and support and sent her best wishes for the future. Mrs Jean Gaffin was appointed Executive Secretary in September 1982.


Accurately predicting and detecting interstitial lung disease (ILD) patterns given any computed tomography (CT) slice without any pre-processing prerequisites, such as manually delineated regions of interest (ROIs), is a clinically desirable, yet challenging goal. The majority of existing work relies on manually-provided ILD ROIs to extract sampled 2D image patches from CT slices and, from there, performs patch-based ILD categorization. Acquiring manual ROIs is labor intensive and serves as a bottleneck towards fully-automated CT imaging ILD screening over large-scale populations. Furthermore, despite the considerable high frequency of more than one ILD pattern on a single CT slice, previous works are only designed to detect one ILD pattern per slice or patch.
To tackle these two critical challenges, we present multi-label deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for detecting ILDs from holistic CT slices (instead of ROIs or sub-images). Conventional single-labeled CNN models can be augmented to cope with the possible presence of multiple ILD pattern labels, via 1) continuous-valued deep regression based robust norm loss functions or 2) a categorical objective as the sum of element-wise binary logistic losses. Our methods are evaluated and validated using a publicly available database of 658 patient CT scans under five-fold cross-validation, achieving promising performance on detecting four major ILD patterns: Ground Glass, Reticular, Honeycomb, and Emphysema. We also investigate the effectiveness of a CNN activation-based deep-feature encoding scheme using Fisher vector encoding, which treats ILD detection as spatially-unordered deep texture classification.


Background Despite abortion being one of the most common gynaecological procedures performed in the UK, significant regional variation exists in access to services. Objective This study explores women's experience of referral for abortion in three inner London boroughs to determine if services met their expectations. Method In-depth interviews conducted with 21 women of varying ages, gestations and ethnicity, 3-9 weeks after termination of their pregnancy. The data were subjected to qualitative analysis. Results Most women had made a decision to proceed with abortion before approaching the health service, and expected non-judgemental support, information and prompt referral. We found variations in the extent to which these expectations were met. Delays in referral occurred when health professionals either required women to have more thinking time, referred them elsewhere for pregnancy testing or avoided discussing abortion. This was further compounded by difficulties in making appointments via the centralised telephone booking service. The brief counselling session offered to most women by the abortion providers, although helpful to some women, was viewed as unnecessary and intrusive by others. Conclusions Most women seeking an abortion prefer not to discuss their decision but expect information and prompt referral. Delays in referral cause distress and later abortions and should be avoided. High-quality counselling should be targeted at those in need.


Collaborative filtering (CF) is a pivotal technique in modern recommender systems. The learning process of CF models typically consists of three components: interaction encoder, loss function, and negative sampling. Although many existing studies have proposed various CF models to design sophisticated interaction encoders, recent work shows that simply reformulating the loss functions can achieve significant performance gains. This paper delves into analyzing the relationship among existing loss functions. Our mathematical analysis reveals that the previous loss functions can be interpreted as alignment and uniformity functions: (i) the alignment matches user and item representations, and (ii) the uniformity disperses user and item distributions. Inspired by this analysis, we propose a novel loss function that improves the design of alignment and uniformity considering the unique patterns of datasets called Margin-aware Alignment and Weighted Uniformity (MAWU). The key novelty of MAWU is two-fold: (i) margin-aware alignment (MA) mitigates user/item-specific popularity biases, and (ii) weighted uniformity (WU) adjusts the significance between user and item uniformities to reflect the inherent characteristics of datasets. Extensive experimental results show that MF and LightGCN equipped with MAWU are comparable or superior to state-of-the-art CF models with various loss functions on three public datasets.


Objective: Designing a blood pressure self-monitoring chart for patients and evaluating the effectiveness of blood pressure monitoring and hypertension treatment adherence Design and Method: The study was conducted in two phases. In phase one, we created a chart- "Patient's blood pressure self-monitoring chart"- with friendly use interpretations using the Delphi method with three rounds. In phase two, we evaluated the acceptability and effectiveness of the chart among 197 hypertensive patients aged 50 years old or older in Tien Hai district, Thai Binh province, Vietnam in 2014. Results: About acceptability, 80.3% of patients agreed that the chart could be applied in practice and 77% enjoyed using it. After 2 months of trial, the blood pressure self-monitoring rate increased from 38.1% to 80.3%, the rate of good treatment adherence (Morisky scale) rised from 0% to 7.1 %. Conclusions: The results showed our chart is acceptable and the use of it potentially improve self-monitoring BP and treatment adherence among middle-age and older hypertension patients in rural settings of Vietnam.


This article explores the diplomatic implications of a central pillar in EU external relations: the development of interregional relations. In particular, the article investigates the emergence of a specific pattern of interregional relations — 'complex interregionalism' — and develops an initial framework for the analysis of this phenomenon. This framework allows for a detailed investigation of how the EU has simultaneously engaged in bilateral, multilateral and interregional relations across the globe. The EU — notably the Commission — is found to have a consistent and coherent complex interregional strategy that it employs across three world regions: Asia; Africa; and Latin America. This strategy embodies multi-level interregional relations, but aspires to the creation of 'pure interregionalism' between the EU and other customs unions. Such a strategy presents two key tensions that lie at the heart of 'complex interregionalism': the first tension is between the reality of multi-level diplomacy and the desire for 'pure interregionalism'; and the second is between the Commission's strategic vision and the realities of Council-shaped diplomacy. Analysis of the internal and external dynamics of the strategic pursuit of interregionalism, and the failure to implement it fully, can thus offer important insights for the study of both the EU's external relations and EU diplomacy.


The influence of recently discovered topological transition between type I and type II Weyl semi-metals on superconductivity is considered. A set of Gorkov equations for weak superconductivity in Weyl semi-metal under topological phase transition is derived and solved. The critical temperature has spike in the point the transition point as function of the tilt parameter of the Dirac cone determined in turn by the material parameters like pressure. The second critical magnetic field is calculated for phase I. It shows narrow domains of reentrant superconductivity associated with Landau quantization relativistic 2D electron gas.


The temperature dependence of the 1H• 1'8, and '3 C- NMR spectra of Td U(BH 3 CH 3 )4 in solution is reported. The paramagnetic shifts are interpreted as originating from purely spin delocalization mechanisms with no contribution from the metal-orbital dipolar interaction. It is shown that the temperature dependence of both 'H shifts (bridging and terminal protons) is identical with that calculated from a polarizataion theory which assumes the shift is proportional to the average value of electron spin in the inner 5f orbitals. The proportionality constant is -5.64 MHz for the bridging protons and -0.59 MHz for the terminal protons. The temperature dependences of 118 and 13C shifts are found to depart significantly from that predicted by the polarization theory with 11 the largest deviations shown by the 8 shi'fts. It is shown how those deviations can be accounted for by postulating a second spin delocalization through direct covalency involving molecular orbitals formed from the uranium5f orbitals and ligand sand p orbitals.


A time-varying (TV) optimization problem arises in many real-time applications, where the objective function or constraints change continuously with time. Consequently, the optimal points of the problem at each time instant form an optimal trajectory and hence tracking the optimal trajectory calls for the need to solve the TV optimization problem. A second-order continuous-time gradient-flow approach is proposed in this paper to track the optimal trajectory of TV convex optimization problems in fixed-time irrespective of the initial conditions. Later on we present a second-order nonsmooth dynamical system to solve the TV convex optimization problem in fixed time that does not require the exact information about the time rate of change of the cost function gradient. It makes the non-smooth dynamical system robust to the temporal variation in the gradient of the cost function. Two numerical examples are considered here for the simulation-based validation of the proposed approaches.


Of the multiple conservative treatment modalities available for plastic induration of the corpora cavernosa, we chose to combine physical (laser therapy) and drug therapy (potaba) in an attempt to achieve a synergistic effect. We report on 32 cases submitted to this combined treatment modality. Patients were evaluated for pain, curvature, impotence and plaque before and after treatment.


Mel Gurtov takes issue with the widespread view that China is on the way to rivalling or even displacing the United States as the dominant world power. Gurtov identifies serious constraints that will keep the country's leadership focused for the foreseeable future on challenges at home. Arguing that China's economic rise has exacerbated problems of social inequality, environmental degradation, official corruption, and more-and that its military capabilities and ambitions are far more limited than many observers have suggested-he makes a strong case that the most productive US policy will be one of engagement on issues of common concern, rather than confrontation or containment.


A methodology is presented for automatically determining an assignment of instruction op-codes that guarantees the minimisation of bit transitions occurring inside the registers of the pipeline stages involved in instruction fetching and decoding. The assignment of the binary patterns to the op-codes is driven by the statistics concerning instruction adjacency collected through instruction-level simulation of typical software applications. Therefore the technique is best exploited when applied to encode the instruction set of core processors and microcontrollers, since components of these types are commonly used to execute fixed portions of machine code within embedded systems. The effectiveness of the methodology is illustrated through experimental data obtained on a realistic case study, namely, the MIPS R4000 RISC microprocessor.