Small and medium enterprises are in the midst of enhancing Malaysia's GDP in recent years, despite the uncertain world economic conditions. In 2019, it is expected that 41 per cent of the country's GDP is contributed by SMEs, especially SMEs based on halal products and services. Around 70% from 19 million of the employment in Malaysia have formed in the SME firms, with not less than 5% of them employed by SME's manufacturing companies. On the contrary, statistics on occupational accidents in Malaysia do not record significant alterations in aggregate. Nevertheless, the manufacturing sector remains a major contributor to the highest pace of industrial accidents in Malaysia. Based on reports announced by the authorities' agencies, more than half of occupational accidents in Malaysia are due to employee negligence and unsafe behaviour while working. This study focused on identifying the link between safety rules and procedures; and safety communication in determining the workers' safety compliance behaviour. A study utilizing a questionnaire was carried out involving 382 respondents from 50 small and medium manufacturing companies in Kedah, Malaysia. Then, the data were analysed using SPSS that involved data screening and hypothesis testing. The findings demonstrate that safety communication and safety rules and the procedure substantially correlated with safety compliance behaviour. The result of this study would provide the small and medium manufacturing companies with supplementary information on workplace safety, thus creating a safer and healthier working environment.


Induced mutation in plant improvement has been proven to be one of the alternative ways to generate new sources of genetic variation in black gram. For this aspect, the present study was analyzed using physical (gamma rays) and chemical (EMS) mutagens in M5 generation. The various dose/concentration of gamma rays (20, 40, 60 kR) and EMS (10, 15, 20 mM) were treated to black gram seed materials. High values of heritability and genetic advance indicate the possibility of inducing desirable mutation for polygenic traits accompanied by effective selection. Results indicated that genotypic coefficient of variation and phenotypic coefficient of variation, heritability were significantly high for different characters studied i.e. plant height, number of branches per plant, days taken for first flowering, clusters per plant, pods per plant, seeds per pod, seed yield per plant, 100-seed weight, protein and amino acid content. All the mutagenic treatments were effective in inducing genetic variability in black gram. © 2011 Universal Research Publications. All rights reserved


Recently there has been a great deal of interest among consumer and behavioral judgment researchers on how immediate affective reactions influence overall evaluations. The current study seeks to determine whether immediate affective reactions to organizational attributes warrant the attention of recruitment researchers as well. Using a customized web-based computer program that elicits immediate affective reactions to organizational previews, the study finds that overall evaluations of the organization are influenced more by the average intensity of immediate affective reactions experienced during the message than by the relative balance of positive and negative information contained in the message. Results suggest that practitioners using realistic information need to be more concerned about the average intensity of recipients' reactions than about the relative balance of positive or negative information.


Vascular endothelial growth factor 165 (VEGF165) is one of the most prominent vascular growth factors that has the potential to accelerate wound healing by promoting the regeneration of capillary vasculature. However, the short biological half-live of growth factors may impose severe restraints on their clinical applications. Here, we investigate the feasibility and safety of human bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) transfected with VEGF165 gene so as to provide a new method for clinical skin repair in the future. The MSCs were harvested, isolated and purified by combining density gradient centrifugation with adhering method. The pShuttle-CMV/VEGF165 was introduced into cultured MSCs through liposome-mediated transfection. The VEGF165 gene and protein expression in transfected MSCs and untransfected MSCs were determined by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), Enzyme-linked Immunoadsorbent Assay (ELISA) and western blot analysis respectively. We found that the expression of VEGF165 mRNA and protein in transfected MSCs were much higher than those in the untransfected MSCs. These results suggest that human bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells can be successfully transfected with vascular endothelial growth factor 165 gene mediated by liposome in vitro. The present study has laid a foundation for potential use of VEGF165 gene transfection to accelerate the vascularization of tissue engineered skins grafting.


Background
Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) is a relatively rare thyroid malignancy and its clinical course varies among patients due to its familial association. A number of prognostic factors have been studied, but the significance of these factors remains controversial. We evaluated the progression free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) of MTC and its association with tumour marker rising velocity and serum calcitonin (Ct) doubling time (DT).

Methods
Analysis of 83 (8.7%) consecutive MTC patients registered at a single centre between 1995 and 2015. The impact of tumour respectability, TNM stage, multiple endocrine neoplasia (MEN) syndrome, local recurrence, Ct DT and Ct rising velocity on PFS and OS was analysed. Median follow-up was 4.3 years (range: 1-18 years).

Results
Eighty-three (8.7%) of all thyroid cancers registered at our centre were MTC. Fifty-five males, 28 females. Mean age 39 years [range: 17-72 years]. Twenty-two were unresectable and 61 resectable. Five-year and 10-year OS was 84% and 77% respectively. Of 68 with follow up greater than a year; 20 (29.4%) were cured, 15 (22.1%) had biochemical evidence of disease, three (4.4%) had stable macroscopic disease and 30 (44.1%) had recurrent/progressive disease. Sixteen (23.5%) died. On multivariate analysis, T4 tumour, male gender, nodal and distant metastases, tumour resectibility, Ct DT less than two years and tumour marker rising velocity of greater than 0.05pg/ml/month were poor prognostic factors (pvalue <0.05). Age and association with MEN syndrome had no statistically significant survival impact. Radiotherapy reduced local relapse in patients with nodal disease. Total thyroidectomy with nodal clearance lessened relapses.

Conclusion
Clinical stage and pathological aspects are predictors of disease progression. Persistent biochemical evidence of MTC does not affect OS, however, Ct DT < 2 years and rapid rate of tumour marker rise predict disease progression.


Human wellbeing in architecture is highly influenced by its site and climate; there are methodologies that suggest the correct orientation of open facades, depending on preexisting weather condition, which seek to ensure the user environmental comfort. In tropical cities like Medellin Colombia, the absence of stations generates a relatively homogeneous climate that allows the use of passive design strategies to naturally condition spaces and to adapt the interior space, according to a particular function or activity; however, the rapid growth of cities and the lack of sustainability criteria in urban planning has limited the orientation of buildings to the preexisting urban design, narrowing the design options and the use of resources. This article aims to develop a tool for architects, which provides design premises for building envelopes with under bioclimatic criteria, according to the orientations of open facades, on the basis that any orientation can be imposed by the urban setting. For this a hypothetical model, with preset parameters and the possibility of opening only two facades, was evaluated. Sunlight incursion, natural ventilation and natural lighting simulations were made, which gave inputs for the development of the tool. In order to illustrate its use, the premise obtained in the design of the facades of the hypothetical module were applied on an example located in the city of Medellin, in two different orientations, achieving through different facades, a similar indoor environmental conditions.


Given the popularity of new media platforms such as social network sites and video games and their increasingly central role in the social life of teens and young adults, we seek to examine their impact of social capital, particularly regarding the establishment of new types of social ties. This study examines whether the use of Facebook and playing of video games promote bridging and bonding social capital among Singaporean youths. The aim is to go beyond simple measures of intensity and frequency of use and examine more specific uses of these platforms and their contribution to online social capital. The results largely support the findings from previous studies, showing a positive relationship between intensity of Facebook use and online social capital. The findings also suggest that while general frequency of gaming was not related to online social capital, civic gaming experiences, associated with playing of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), were related to online bridging while MMO playing was directly associated with online bonding social capital.


Resistive plate chamber (RPC) is one of the state-of-the-art particle detection technology for the High Energy Physics (HEP) experiments. The basic operating mechanism of an RPC involves ionization of gas due to the passage of charged particles followed by electron transport , avalanche, and subsequent electromagnetic induction on readout strips due to the movement of the electrons and ions. Especially during streamer mode of operation, the electric field applied to the RPC can get significantly modified due to the presence of large number of electrons and ions. In this study, we have worked on dominant issues related to the estimation of electric field due to the space charge arising out of the presence of electrons, ions within an RPC. For this purpose we have considered two approaches: representation of the space charge cloud as (a) a collection of ring charges, and (b) as a collection of line charges. The results from these different methods have been compared with results available in the literature.


In the present study, we screened suitable yeasts for wine fermentation and evaluated the fermentative characteristics of Saccharomyces sp. BCNU 6006 and its anti-oxidant activities. Firstly, various yeasts were isolated from Makgeolli, fruits, and fermented foods. Then, the preliminary selections of suitable yeasts were made using an enzymatic activity assay of glucosidase, glycosidase, protease and tolerance to ethanol and SO2. In addition, the production of biogenic amines and hydrogen sulfide was also monitored. The 9 yeast strains initially selected were determined to belong to the genera Saccharomyces and Kazachtania phylogenetically. We investigated the optimal conditions for wine fermented with black garlic juice (BGJ). The optimal conditions of alcohol fermentation using BGJ were 26 brix, 28°C, and 10 days. Finally, the fermentation products of black garlic wine (BGW) fermented with Saccharomyces sp. BCNU 6006 exhibited 15.03% ethanol, 12 brix of sugar, and pH 4.01. The contents of total polyphenol, total flavonoid, tannin, and 5-HMF compound of BGW were 3.85 mg/ml, 0.51mg/ml, 5.90 mg/ml, and 0.07 mg/ml respectively, lower than that of BGJ. DPPH radical scavenging activity, ABTS radical scavenging activity, and reducing power of BGW were 90.77%, 95.20% and 1.261 respectively, lower than that of BGJ. Superoxide anion (O 2 -) radical scavenging activity was 94.42%, higher than that of BGJ. Based on the above results, the industrial potential of Saccharomyces sp. BCNU 6006 as a wine-making yeast was confirmed in the present study.


Gradual solar energetic particle (SEP) events at 1 AU are produced by coronal/interplanetary shocks driven by coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Fast (vCME ≳ 900 km s-1) CMEs might produce stronger shocks in solar slow-wind regions, where the flow and fast-mode MHD wave speeds are low, than in fast-wind regions, where those speeds are much higher. At 1 AU the O+7/O+6 ratios distinguish between those two kinds of wind streams. We use the 20 MeV proton event intensities from the EPACT instrument on Wind, the associated CMEs observed with the LASCO coronagraph on SOHO, and the ACE SWICS solar wind values of O+7/O+6 to look for variations of peak SEP intensities as a function of O+7/O+6. No significant dependence of the SEP intensities on O+7/O+6 is found for either poorly connected or well-connected CME source regions or for different CME speed ranges. However, in the 3 yr study period we find only five cases of SEP events in fast wind, defined by regions of O+7/O+6 < 0.15. We suggest that in coronal holes SEP acceleration may take place only in the plume regions, where the flow and Alfvén speeds are low. A broad range of angular widths are associated with fast (vCME ≥ 900 km s-1) CMEs, but we find that no fast CMEs with widths less than 60° are associated with SEP events. On the other hand, nearly all fast halo CMEs are associated with SEP events. Thus, the CME widths are more important in SEP production than previously thought, but the speed of the solar wind source regions in which SEPs are produced may not be a factor.


We analyze physical-layer security based on the premise that the coding mechanism for secrecy over noisy channels is tied to the notion of resolvability. Instead of considering capacity-based constructions, which associate to each message a sub-code that operates just below the capacity of the eavesdropper's channel, we consider resolvability-based constructions, which associate to each message a sub-code that operates just above the resolvability of the eavesdropper's channel. Building upon the work of Csisz´ ar and Hayashi, we provide further evidence that resolvability is a powerful and versatile coding mechanism for secrecy by developing results that hold for strong secrecy metrics and arbitrary channels. Specifically, we show that, at least for symmetric wiretap channels, random capacity-based constructions fail to achieve the strong secrecy capacity while resolvability-based constructions achieve it. We then leverage resolvability to establish the secrecy-capacity region of arbitrary broadcast channels with confidential messages and a cost constraint for strong secrecy metrics. Finally, we specialize our results to study the secrecy capacity of wireless channels with perfect channel state information, compound and mixed channels, as well as the secret-key capacity of source models for secret-key agreement. By tying secrecy to resolvability, we obtain achievable rates for strong secrecy metrics with simple proofs.


Abstract Geographic patterns of within-species genomic diversity are shaped by evolutionary processes, life history and historical and contemporary factors. New genomic approaches can be used to infer the influence of such factors on the current distribution of infraspecific lineages. In this study, we evaluated the genomic and morphological diversity as well as the genetic structure of the C4 grass Panicum hallii across its complex natural distribution in North America. We sampled extensively across the natural range of P. hallii in Mexico and the USA to generate double-digestion restriction-associated DNA (ddRAD) sequence data for 423 individuals from 118 localities. We used these individuals to study the divergence between the two varieties of P. hallii, P. hallii var. filipes and P. hallii var. hallii as well as the genetic diversity and structure within these groups. We also examined the possibility of admixture in the geographically sympatric zone shared by both varieties, and assessed distribution shifts related with past climatic fluctuations. There is strong genetic and morphological divergence between the varieties and consistent genetic structure defining seven genetic clusters that follow major ecoregions across the range. South Texas constitutes a hotspot of genetic diversity with the co-occurrence of all genetic clusters and admixture between the two varieties. It is likely a recolonization and convergence point of populations that previously diverged in isolation during fragmentation events following glaciation periods.


This study determined the optimum extraction conditions based on five response variables (yield, total phenolics, 2,2'-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS) free radical scavanging activity, oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC), and β-1,3-glucan content) in chaga mushroom (Inonotus obliquus) using the response surface methodology, where three independent variables (ethanol concentration, extraction temperature, and extraction time) were optimized using a central composite design. The optimum ethanol concentration, extraction temperature, and extraction time were 50% (w/w), 88.7oC, and 14.5 h; 9.2%, 92.7oC, and 14.5 h; 50.8%, 92.7oC, and 14.5 h; 9.2%, 92.7oC, and 1.5 h; and 90.8%, 92.7oC, and 1.5 h for yield, total phenolics, ABTS, ORAC, and β-1,3-glucan content, respectively. The predicted values of the response variables were compared with those of the extracts under the optimal extraction conditions to verify the models. The optimum extraction condition for the five response variables was predicted to be 81.4% ethanol at 92.7oC for 14.5 h.


Aim. To assess the healthcare system costs for the management of patients with heart failure (HF) based on a retrospective analysis of primary medical documentation.Material and methods. We performed the analysis of outpatient records of 1000 patients, followed up for 1 year by a general practitioner or cardiologist in ambulatory clinic in 7 Russian regions. The study included men and women over 18 years of age with an established class II-IV HF and at least one hospitalization due to acute decompensated HF within 12-month follow-up.Results. The final analysis included 888 patients (men, 52,9%; women, 47,1%; mean age, 69 [61; 78] years). The preserved ejection fraction (EF) was detected in 47,86% of patients, mid-range — in 40,54%, reduced — in 11,6%. Only in 16% of patients, there was improved by 1 or more HF. Hypertension and coronary artery disease were predominant in etiology pattern of HF. Preserved EF was more often detected in women over 60 years of age, with HTN and obesity, as well as with HF with mid-range and reduced EF in men in the same age group. There was sufficient follow-up rate, but the extent examinations do not correspond to the recommended one. The prescription rate of renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) inhibitors corresponds to the recommended one, but there is a high frequency of prescribing angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs). The prescription rate of β-blockers and loop diuretics (mainly torasemide) increased in comparison with previous studies, while thiazide diuretics — decreased. In patients with reduced EF, the prescription rate of sacubitril/valsartan was only 14,7%, β-blockers — 83,3%, mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists (MCRA) — 72,5%. In patients with midrange EF, there was a sharp decrease in prescription rate of RAAS inhibitors, β-blockers, MCRA.Conclusion. The practical follow-up of patients with HF differs significantly from clinical guidelines. Due to inadequate pharmacotherapy, as well as insufficient noncompliance with the recommended extent of investigations, 1-year HF therapy does not lead to a pronounced improvement in the patients' class.


Under Delaware law,2 the board of directors' role in a hostile tender offer has changed dramatically in recent years. A hostile tender offer3 is a takeover mechanism by which the tender offeror seeks to acquire a controlling interest in the target corporation.4 Since a tender offer is addressed directly to individual shareholders without securing the approval of the target corporation's board,5 the directors were traditionally almost powerless against this type of takeover attempt. Under the Delaware General Corporation Law' and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934,' the only function of the


The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act includes several provisions that focus on improving the delivery of health care in the United States. Reducing overall healthcare costs and improving the quality of care delivered are two overarching themes of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. An evaluation of quality in total joint arthroplasty focuses on three main areas: complications, readmissions, and, more recently, patient-reported outcomes. Patient-reported outcomes allow surgeons and patients to objectively document pain relief and functional gain after total joint arthroplasty. Surgeons, groups, or hospitals that commit to the collection of patient-reported outcomes must consider which patient-reported outcomes to capture, the workflow and timing of postoperative patient-reported outcome collection, and how to minimize the burden of patient-reported outcome collection on both patients and surgeons.


In southern Andes back-arc region, behind the South Volcanic Zone (SVZ, 33°S-46°S) and Austral Volcanic Zone (AVZ, 49°S-52°S), hundreds of monogenic basaltic volcanoes take place (Fig.1), forming numerous cinder cones and lava flows (e. g. Ramos et al, 1982; Ramos and Kay, 1992). The eruption age ranges from the Oligocene to the Recent. The lava flows cover top of the sedimentary plateaux, forming table mountains, so-called "meseta" (Fig.2). In many cases, the plateau top lava is composed of only one cooling unit, less than 10 m total thick. Accumulated lava flows are also observed, and they are generally made up of less than four flow units of as much as of 30 m total thick. Some young lava flows fill glacial valleys, showing lava cascade (Fig.3). Certain lava flows and scoria falls layers are very fresh (Fig.4).Weathering, wind erosion, and glacial denudation expose cross section of the cinder cones and their underground structure, which makes possible the elaboration of their general structure (Fig.5). Young cones show fresh volcanic morphology almost without degradation (Fig.5A). Old cones loose surface non-welded scoria blanket, and remain their ba-cal core part made up of welded scoria and spatter (Fig.5B). Glacial erosion sometimes shows vertical section of the cinder cones (Fig.5C). Advanced denudation exposes silllike subvolcanic intrusive rock bodies (Fig.5C, 5D) and feeder dykes (Fig.5E).


Nowadays, mobile cellular communications concern multi-millions of people, many enterprises and national interests. Because of the few illegal interceptions, by habit or by belief, the majority of users have an angelic confidence in the privacy of their conversations. Nevertheless, a doubt subsists when the news unveils the existence of unfair, excessive or uncontrolled interceptions. Meanwhile, legislation is evolving and the technology is capable of protecting personal and sensitive information. What are the judicial and investigative tools for legal surveillance, that are apt to guarantee the ordinary citizen or an enterprise against assault? What is behind the mobile GSM telephone on this subject?


The investigation described here has provided wave functions for the lowest S1, P1 and P3 states of the beryllium atom which are more accurate according to the energy test than any wave functions reported previously for these states. The first is an improvement on a previous result by the author, and the other two on results by Hartree & Hartree. The calculations were performed by the poly-detor variational method using exponential functions, and they provided an opportunity to test particular procedures for the choice of elementary functions and detors. The wave functions will be valuable for the calculation of atomic properties, but a simple examination is sufficient to show interesting characteristics such as the occurrence of various types of electronic positional correlation. In the calculation various theorems and formulas were established, and these will be useful for further calculations on the same states and also for calculations on many more complicated atomic states.


Thermal oxidation process of silicon carbide in ultra-thin oxide regime has been studied by performing in-situ and real time spectroscopic ellipsometry. We found the thermal oxidation at 700°C forms no or extremely thin interface layers between SiC and oxide layers. In contrast, the oxidation at 850°C forms an interface layer of around 1 nm in thickness, having similar thickness and optical constants of the interface layers formed by the oxidation at higher temperature than 1000°C. To make clear the conditions no interface layer is formed, i.e., whether low temperature growth or thin oxide thickness is crucial, we have performed the oxidation at 850°C in the reduced oxygen pressure. Based on the results of these experiments, we discussed the origin of the formation of interface layers as well as the oxidation mechanism of SiC.


Historians have resorted to different forms of causal relations in order to explain historical events or processes. This article intends to discuss the issue of causality in history and to indicate possible ways some historians may handle the plurality of causes. In these terms, the "relative frequency" model outlined by Ernest Nagel provides a tool that enables a reflection on the level of importance ascribed by historians to the different causal conditions that they find. Bearing these assumptions in mind, I will analyze, by way of illustration, the explanatory models formulated by Perry Anderson and Moses Finley regarding a specific issue, namely the "decline" of the ancient slavery system, and I will point out to possibilities of applying common referentials to the philosophy of science, which may further our understanding of historical writing.


In this paper we investigate the potential advantages of using a roaming Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) as base station of a mobile radio network deployed in a city. The design of the UAV dynamic trajectory and Radio Resource Management (RRM) strategies are combined, with the goal to improve the sum throughput of the network. The comparison between joint and separate aerial-terrestrial RRM is discussed. With respect to previous papers, we identified a cost function, used to define the UAV path, improving significantly the performance.


The growing complexity of Multiprocessor Systems on Chips (MPSoCs) is requiring communication resources that can only be provided by a highly-scalable communication infrastructure. The effectiveness of this approach largely depends on the availability of a design methodology. With technology scaling, as the geometries of the transistors reach the physical limits of operation, another important design challenge of SoCs will be to provide dynamic (run-time) support against permanent and intermittent faults that can occur in the system. The interconnect will be susceptible to various noise sources such as cross-talk, coupling noise, process variations, etc.. Designing systems under such uncertain conditions becomes a challenge. Therefore, the goal is to solve some of the most important and time-intensive problems encountered during NOC design that can be solved with a Fault-tolerant Router.. While preserving the throughput, the network load, and the data packet latency of the NOC router.


In this paper, we consider a binary asynchronous hybrid SFH/DS-CDMA system with error-control coding on AWGN channels. We assume the case of transmitters of unequal powers and random time-varying signature sequences. Two systems are studied, one with the classical Single User receiver, and one with a multiuser Projection Receiver . For both, we analytically investigate the trade-o between channel coding and signature sequence spreading to optimise the use of the available processing gain.


A new type of porous organic polymer (POP) based heterogeneous catalyst Cu-POP was prepared by immobilizing Cu(II)Cl2 into bpy containing POP prepared via alkyne–azide cycloaddition. This new catalyst showed efficient catalytic activities and outstanding reusability. Remarkably, one batch of Cu-POP was continuously used for all olefins without losing its activity by simply washing.


Haze and smog are among the most common environmental factors impacting image quality and, therefore, image analysis. This paper proposes an end-to-end generative method for image dehazing. It is based on designing a fully convolutional neural network to recognize haze structures in input images and restore clear, haze-free images. The proposed method is agnostic in the sense that it does not explore the atmosphere scattering model. Somewhat surprisingly, it achieves superior performance relative to all existing state-of-the-art methods for image dehazing even on SOTS outdoor images, which are synthesized using the atmosphere scattering model.
Project detail and code can be found here: this https URL


We study a recently-proposed nonlinear model for human heart rate response that describes the central and peripheral local responses during and after treadmill exercise. The treadmill speed is the control input, and the control objective is to make the heart rate track a prescribed reference trajectory. Using a strict Lyapunov function analysis, we design new state and output feedback tracking controllers that render the error dynamics globally exponentially stable to the origin. This allows us to show that the feedback stabilized error dynamics enjoys input-to-state stable performance under actuator errors. This robustness condition quantifies the effects of deviations of the treadmill speed from the controller values. We illustrate our control design through simulations.


ABSTRACT In this article, we consider the ranked set sampling (RSS) and investigate seven tests for normality under RSS. Each test is described and then power of each test is obtained by Monte Carlo simulations under various alternatives. Finally, the powers of the tests based on RSS are compared with the powers of the tests based on the simple random sampling and the results are discussed.


High proliferative potential macrophage progenitor cells (HPP-CFC) in 5-fluorouracil (FU) treated and normal mouse bone marrow (BM) have been shown to be less sensitive to inhibition of proliferation by prostaglandins of the E series (PGE) than low proliferative potential macrophage progenitor cells (LPP-CFC) in normal BM in agar cultures. The growth of large colonies (diameter greater than 0.5 mm) derived from HPP-CFC in FU BM, which require a combination of macrophage colony-stimulating factor (CSF-1) plus a new growth factor called synergistic activity (SA), are inhibited by 50% in the presence of 5.5 X 10(-6) M PGE1. On the other hand, LPP-CFC in normal BM, which form smaller colonies (diameter less than or equal to 0.5 mm) in the presence of CSF-1 alone, require only 5 X 10(-8) M PGE1 for the same level of inhibition. Addition of appropriate concentrations of PGE1 to the agar culture assay should improve detection of HPP-CFC by inhibiting the proliferation of LPP-CFC. These observations suggest that the apparent negative feedback control of macrophage production by PGE operates largely on the LPP-CFC, which respond to CSF-1 alone, and is probably not involved in the regulation of the more primitive HPP-CFC.


This paper investigates the long-term consequences of delegation of governmental authority through the study of a pivotal local political institution in historical Europe: the lordship. I collect data on seigneurial jurisdictions for ancien-regime Spain and document a negative relationship between having been a seigneurial town in the 18th century and current economic development. To shed light on the causal effect, I focus on the distribution of lordships in the former Kingdom of Granada after its conquest by the Catholic Monarchs, which can be considered as conditionally random. The results confirm the negative effect of lordship found for the whole country: towns that shortly after the conquest were granted to nobles are relatively poorer today. In addition, I explore the mechanisms of persistence, with the results pointing to lower state capacity as a main explanatory factor. This finding is consistent with an interpretation of seigneurial jurisdictions as a privatization of the local government, which has historically hindered the application of central government policies and lowered the state's infrastructural capacity in former manorial towns.


Historians generally accept that the practice of sustaining armies by exacting forced "contributions" from occupied lands became endemic during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). Historians have hotly debated, however, the question of how the contribution system affected the progress of the war. This article approaches the problem through a case study of a plan by Cardinal Mazarin to raise troops from the neutral bishopric of Liege in 1643-44. In addition to highlighting the surprising difficulty of recruitment by this stage of the war, this study also demonstrates that contemporaries modified their military strategies to fit their belief that the contribution system could sustain only a limited number of troops (though how many troops that might be was an open question). Yet the contribution system influenced not just the progress but also the length of the war, since rulers dependent on contributions could maintain their war effort at a certain level almost indefinitely, but could never support an army large enough to overwhelm their enemies.


According to the no-free-lunch theorem, there is no single meta-heuristic algorithm that can optimally solve all optimization problems. This motivates many researchers to continuously develop new optimization algorithms. In this paper, a novel nature-inspired meta-heuristic optimization algorithm called virus spread optimization (VSO) is proposed. VSO loosely mimics the spread of viruses among hosts, and can be effectively applied to solving many challenging and continuous optimization problems. We devise a new representation scheme and viral operations that are radically different from previously proposed virus-based optimization algorithms. First, the viral RNA of each host in VSO denotes a potential solution for which different viral operations will help to diversify the searching strategies in order to largely enhance the solution quality. In addition, an imported infection mechanism, inheriting the searched optima from another colony, is introduced to possibly avoid the prematuration of any potential solution in solving complex problems. VSO has an excellent capability to conduct adaptive neighborhood searches around the discovered optima for achieving better solutions. Furthermore, with a flexible infection mechanism, VSO can quickly escape from local optima. To clearly demonstrate both its effectiveness and efficiency, VSO is critically evaluated on a series of well-known benchmark functions. Moreover, VSO is validated on its applicability through two real-world examples including the financial portfolio optimization and optimization of hyper-parameters of support vector machines for classification problems. The results show that VSO has attained superior performance in terms of solution fitness, convergence rate, scalability, reliability, and flexibility when compared to those results of the conventional as well as state-of-the-art meta-heuristic optimization algorithms.


Objective It was previously suggested that the malic enzyme 2 (ME2) as the candidate gene for psychosis in fine mapping of chromosome 18q21. Chromosome 18q21 is also one of the possible regions that can contribute to addiction. Methods We performed a pilot study for discovering candidate gene of chromosome 18q21 in the methamphetamine abusers for elucidating the candidate gene for methamphetamine addiction leading to psychosis. We have selected 30 unrelated controls (16 males, 14 females; age=59.8±10.4) and 37 male methamphetamine abusers (age=43.3±7.8). We analyzed 20 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of 7 neuronal genes in chromosome 18q21 for DNA samples that was checked for the data quality and genotype error. The association between the case-control status and each individual SNP was measured using multiple logistic regression models (adjusting for age and sex as covariates). And we controlled false discovery rate (FDR) to deal with multiple testing problem. Results We found 3 significant SNPs of 2 genes in chromosome 18q21 (p-value<0.05; adjusting for age as covariate) in methamphetamine abusers compared to controls. We also found 2 significant SNPs of 1 gene (p-value<0.05; adjusting for age and sex as covariates) (rs3794899, rs3794901:MAPK4). Two SNPs in MAPK4 gene were significant in both statistical groups. Conclusion MAPK4, the gene for mitogen-activated protein kinase 4, is one of the final 6 candidate genes including ME2 in 18q12-21 in our previous finemapping for psychosis. Our results suggest that MAPK4 can be a candidate gene that contribute to the methamphetamine addiction leading to psychosis.


This paper considers the impact of community participation on outcomes of development projects. It first offers a theoretical framework for participation by using the property rights literature to model how participation in an activity, in addition to involving information exchange, also results in greater influence in the activity. The model predicts that community participation may not always be desirable. The paper then uses primary data on development projects in Northern Pakistan to provide empirical support for this prediction. It shows that while community participation improves project outcomes in nontechnical decisions, increasing community participation in technical decisions actually leads to worse project outcomes. (JEL: D23, D78, H40, O12, O20) Copyright (c) 2004 The European Economic Association.


Youth affiliation to physical activity and their active implication in sport throughout life, are two of the main objectives in Physical Education. In this research we examine the relationship between the achievement goals and the perceived competence in Physical Education since the recent theoretical framework of 3x2 achievement goals. The sample comprised 205 (113 boys and 92 girls), aged 12 and 18 years ( M =14,02; SD = 1,70), all of them belonging to two Secondary School in the North of Spain. These students completed the 3x2 Achievement Goal Questionnaire (CML3x2-EF) and the perceived competence subscale factor included in the Basic Psychological Needs in Exercise Scale (BPNES), also adapted to Physical Education. We performed descriptive analysis ( M and DT ), Cronbach alphas and linear regression analysis by stepwise. The results showed a positive correlation between the six goals of achievement and the perceived competence, being particularly high value of approach-task and approach-self. The three approach goals (approach-task, approach-self, approach-other) significantly predicted the perceived competence (s = 0,43; 0,18; 0,20, respectively).


SUMMARY Passive walking robots can walk on a slight downward slope powered only by gravity. We propose a novel control strategy based on forced entrainment to stabilize a three-dimensional quasi-passive walking robot in uphill and level walking by using torso control in the frontal plane and synchronization of lateral motion with swing leg motion. We investigated the robot's walking energy efficiency, energy transformation, and transfer in simulation. The results showed that the proposed method is effective and energy-efficient for uphill and level walking. The relationship between energy utilization rate of actuation and energy efficiency of the robot was revealed, and mechanical energy transformation and transfer were characterized.


Used was the immunofluorescence method employing fluorescinisothiocyanate-labeled antibodies against Bovid herpesvirus 2. The localisation and the dynamics of the virus antigen were followed up in cell cultures of calf kidney epithelium. Results showed that there was a specific cytoplastic-nuclear fluorescence in the infected cells. The dynamics of the virus multiplication revealed the presence of a specific antigen by about the 6th hour following the infection of the cells. Discussed is the problem of using the immunofluorescence technique in the differentiation of herpes mammillitis from the rest vesicular diseases of the cow's udder that are similar to one another by clinical picture.


The means to obtain the rate constants of a chemical reaction is a fundamental open problem in both science and the industry. Traditional techniques for finding rate constants require either chemical modifications of the reactants or indirect measurements. The rate constant map method is a modern technique to study binding equilibrium and kinetics in chemical reactions. Finding a rate constant map from biosensor data is an ill-posed inverse problem that is usually solved by regularization. In this work, rather than finding a deterministic regularized rate constant map that does not provide uncertainty quantification of the solution, we develop an adaptive variational Bayesian approach to estimate the distribution of the rate constant map, from which some intrinsic properties of a chemical reaction can be explored, including information about rate constants. Our new approach is more realistic than the existing approaches used for biosensors and allows us to estimate the dynamics of the interactions, which are usually hidden in a deterministic approximate solution. We verify the performance of the new proposed method by numerical simulations, and compare it with the Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm. The results illustrate that the variational method can reliably capture the posterior distribution in a computationally efficient way. Finally, the developed method is also tested on the real biosensor data (parathyroid hormone), where we provide two novel analysis tools~-- the thresholding contour map and the high order moment map -- to estimate the number of interactions as well as their rate constants.


Background: Retrieving and mining practitioners' self--reports of their professional experience of software practice could provide valuable evidence for research. We are, however, unaware of any existing reviews of research conducted in this area. Objective: To review and classify previous research, and to identify insights into the challenges research confronts when retrieving and mining practitioners' self-reports of their experience of software practice. Method: We conduct an exploratory review to identify and classify 42 articles. We analyse a selection of those articles for insights on challenges to mining professional experience. Results: We identify only one directly relevant article. Even then this article concerns the software professional's emotional experiences rather than the professional's reporting of behaviour and events occurring during software practice. We discuss challenges concerning: the prevalence of professional experience; definitions, models and theories; the sparseness of data; units of discourse analysis; annotator agreement; evaluation of the performance of algorithms; and the lack of replications. Conclusion: No directly relevant prior research appears to have been conducted in this area. We discuss the value of reporting negative results in secondary studies. There are a range of research opportunities but also considerable challenges. We formulate a set of guiding questions for further research in this area.


We present a novel cell deformability monitoring chip based on the digitally measured cell lysis rate which is dependent on the areal strain of the cell membrane. This method offers simple cell deformability monitoring by automated high-throughput testing system. We suggest the filter design considering the areal strain imposed on the cell membrane passing through the filter array having gradually increased orifice length. In the experiment using erythrocytes, we characterized the cell deformability in terms of average fracture areal strain which was 0.24±0.014 and 0.21±0.002 for normal and chemically treated erythrocytes, respectively. We also verified that the areal strain of 0.15 effectively discriminates the deformability difference of normal and chemically treated erythrocytes, which can be applied to the clinical situation. We compared the lysis rates and their difference for the samples from different donors and found that the present chips can be commonly used without any calibration process. The experimental results demonstrate the simple structure and high performance of the present cell deformability monitoring chips, applicable to simple and cost-effective cell aging process monitoring.


Background Human Adenoviruses (HAdVs) cause a wide array of illnesses in all age groups. They particularly cause frequent morbidity among children. In China, human adenovirus types 3, 4, 7, 11, 14, 21, and 55 have caused at least seven outbreaks since 2000. However, limited studies are available regarding the epidemiological patterns and diversity of HAdVs types among hospitalized patients with respiratory tract infections (RTIs). Methods To understand the epidemiology and type distribution of HAdV infections associated with RTIs in China, nasal swab (NS) clinical samples were collected from 4129 patients in a Guangzhou hospital between August 2017 and October 2019. PCR, sequencing, and phylogenetic analysis were performed on these specimens to identify HAdV virus types. Results HAdV was detected in 99 (2.4%) of the 4,129 NS specimens, with the highest HAdV prevalence (6.3%) found in children between the ages of 5 and 10 years. Among HAdV-positive specimens, the most prevalent genotypes identified were HAdV-B3 (55.6%) and HAdV-B7 (25.3%). The most common symptoms in the HAdV-infected patients were fever (100%), cough (80.8%) and rhinorrhea (71.8%). HAdV infections were detected throughout the year with a relatively higher prevalence in summer. Conclusion All ages suffer adenovirus infections, but young children are at greatest risk. These study data demonstrate that at least three species of HAdVs (species B, C, and E) are circulating in Guangzhou City, China. As antiviral therapies and type-specific vaccines become available, such epidemiological data will be useful in guiding therapy and public health interventions.


Dielectric response measurement techniques in both time and frequency domains are studied in order to measure the dielectric loss of XLPE cables, which have very low losses. A high sensitivity transformer ratio bridge system, which can measure loss tangents as low as 10-5, has been developed with the ability to measure these cables. A tuned amplifier was designed to help to extend the frequency range from 200Hz to 20kHz. Different model cables from Borealis AB with different semiconducting materials have been measured in the temperature range 15°C to 120° C. It is found that the semiconducting layers dominate the dielectric loss in the insulation system of the XLPE cables, when the outer semicon is treated as measuring electrode. In this case, steadily increasing dielectric loss has been measured at higher frequencies. The resistivity of the semiconducting materials was measured, which confirmed that the increasing slope is due to the semiconducting layers. After using conductive tapes to wrap the cable samples, monotonically decreasing losses were measured, corresponding to the actual dielectric frequency response of the XLPE cables. It is concluded that the axial resistance of semiconducting shields have a substantial influence on the dielectric loss of XLPE cables, especially for dielectric response in high frequency range. A device on measuring the loss of such cables is presented.


This reformation era, bureucracy in Indonesia are not many change, both in central government or local government. Burecracy behavior at reformation era is resemble with New Orde era. Although central government are many policy about burecracy reform, but burecracy behavior are not many change. Bureucracy in Indonesia still is patrimonialism. For bureucracy reform, both sentral goverment or local goverment, necessary bring into reality good governance. Key words: burecracy, reform, good governance.


Recently, there has been increased interest for PBG/EBG structures in microwave and antenna community. In this paper, we investigate various periodically loaded defective ground plane structures for the design and the optimization of lowpass and bandpass filters in uniplanar CPW configurations. Simulated results for different filter geometries are presented.


Orange peel powder was activated using different methods and was used to remove tartrazine (E102) from an aqueous solution. The following three adsorbents were synthethized: orange peel powder activated thermally (POAT), orange peel powder activated with sulfuric acid (POAA), orange peel powder activated with soda (POAS). These adsorbents were then characterized by Fourier Transform Infra-Red Spectrometry (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy, powder X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), and point-of-zero charge. The experimental parameters such as contact time, dose of adsorbent, initial concentration of tartrazine, pH, and temperature were studied. The adsorption capacities of tartrazine for the optimal POAT, POAA, and POAS were found to be 121.74, 122.25, and 116.35 mg/g, respectively. The experimental data were analyzed by Freundlich and Temkin isotherm models, as well as the pseudo-second-order kinetic model.


This thesis describes the potential of optical coherence tomography (OCT) to differentiate between normal tissue and (pre)malignant tissue in epithelial cancers. It can be divided in research performed in the genital area and the field of melanoma.

Chapter 2 describes the principles of the OCT-technique and provides an overview of the diagnostic value of OCT in different epithelial (pre)malignant lesions.
Both qualitative and quantitative analyses of OCT-images of suspicious vulvar lesions are described in Chapter 3. We concluded that epidermal layer thickness and attenuation coefficient subtracted from OCT-images can differentiate between normal vulvar tissue and tissue containing vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia (VIN).
VIN can proceed to vulvar squamous cell carcinoma (VSCC). During excision of VSCC it is important to keep excisional margins around the tumour wide enough to prevent recurrence, but simultaneously, preserve vulvar tissue to diminish genital mutilation. In Chapter 4 we assessed the value of OCT in determining appropriate surgical margins in patients operated for VSCC. The results suggest that OCT imaging is able to distinguish between benign and (pre)malignant vulvar tissue, enabling appropriate surgical margin detection.
In men, epithelial skin changes that can proceed into penile cancer are covered by the term 'penile intraepithelial neoplasia' (PIN). OCT imaging could reduce the (painful) biopsies that are needed before treatment starts. In Chapter 5 patients with a suspicious lesion of the penis were imaged with OCT. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of OCT-images of suspicious penile lesions showed differences between benign lesions and (pre)malignant lesions.
In Chapter 6 we studied pigmented skin lesions that are suspicious for melanoma. We studied 200 OCT-images of pigmented lesions and the results were correlated to the histopathology reports of the excised lesions. The µoct was different between benign and malignant lesions.
The learning curve and inter-observer variance in quantification of the OCT attenuation coefficient were studied in Chapter 7. Three students were taught how to interpret OCT-images and calculate the µoct. We concluded that routine µoct determination for tissue classification does not require extensive training. For smaller scale clinical studies a consensus evaluation of OCT attenuation data is recommendable.


Because of better diagnostic methods and an increasing public awareness, more pelvic cancer is being found in younger women. This particular group of women are at the acme of their family responsibility. It is the obligation of the physician treating these women, be it for an attempted cure or for palliation, to return them to their family situations with a minimum of emotional and physical disturbance. General Considerations The majority of patients with cancer of the cervix are treated by irradiation. Preservation of the vagina is just as important in these women but not within the scope of this presentation. The patients who are selected for surgery fall into two groups. The first group includes patients with carcinoma in situ and selected younger women with Stage I and Stage II-A cancer of the cervix. The second group includes those patients who have not responded to irradiation or have had a


This is the first numerical study of two-dimensional quantum turbulence by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. We start from a uniform state and obtain quasi-steady quantum turbulence. Then the energy spectrum of the incompressible kinetic energy shows an indication of inverse cascade which is a remarkable phenomenon of two-dimensional classical turbulence. It is possible to make experiments of two-dimensional quantum turbulence in the film of superfluid helium and atomic Bose-Einstein condensates.


The linear deterministic model has been used recently to get a first order understanding of many wireless communication network problems [1][3][4][8]. In many of these cases, it has been pointed out that the capacity regions of the network and its reciprocal (where the communication links are reversed and the roles of the sources and the destinations are swapped) are the same. In this paper, we consider a linear deterministic communication network with multiple unicast information flows. For this model and under the restriction to the class of linear coding, we show that the rate regions for a network and its reciprocal are the same. This can be viewed as a generalization of the linear reversibility of wireline networks, already known in the network coding literature [10].


Purpose

This paper aims to highlight on the unique aspects of Islamic microfinance based on the experience of Baitul Maal Wa Tamwil (BMT) in Indonesia.

Design/methodology/approach

It adopts the content analysis approach and focuses on three phases of financing, namely, pre-financing, financing and post-financing using coding and model buildings. Data are collected through in-depth interview with a sample of representatives of BMTs that offer product based on Islamic principle for the poor located in Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tanggerang and Bekasi (JABODETABEK), Sulawesi Selatan, Yogyakarta and Nusa Tenggara Barat (sample chosen based on the most concentrated areas of Islamic microfinance that offered product based on Islamic principles). Ultimately, a model based on the unique features of Islamic microfinance will be developed based on the findings of the content analysis.

Findings

The proposed model incorporates the peculiarities of the poor people in pre-financing, financing and post-financing activities of micro-financing products to serve as a reference for policy makers. The paper also found that each region has unique product preferences depending on the poor's characteristics.

Research limitations/implications

This study is only conducted in four areas with BMT representation, namely, Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, Bekasi (often abbreviated as JABODETABEK), Sulawesi Selatan, Yogyakarta and Nusa Tenggara Barat) in Indonesia. Despite the limited scope, the findings have wide applications to the Islamic microfinancing in general.

Originality/value

The paper adds value to the literature on Islamic microfinance by enabling researchers and practitioners to understand the model of three step financing (pre-financing, financing and post-financing) in Islamic microfinance in Indonesia. Although not a new issue, the paper provides the practice of pre-financing, financing and post-financing processes which may differ from the practices of Islamic microfinance in other settings because of different cultural influences unique to every region.


I take humans to basically strive toward a condition of peace enabling human flourishing. Yet human groups and individuals alike have an extraordinary wide range of understandings of such a condition. If hope for lasting peace and joint cooperation is to emerge from rule of law or otherwise underpin global harmony, first these very concepts need to be unpacked in proper detail. Given the remarkable diversity of legal practices across societies, simply looking at our own will prove insufficient. I suggest building on both Eastern and Western traditions of thought, as well as looking at contemporary practices across the globe in an attempt to enquire into the nature and historical background of the two key notions: rule of law (section 1) and harmony (section 2). Some concluding remarks are then drawn (section 3).First, we focus on "rule of law" (ROL): Is it a likely candidate to set the foundations of global harmony? Looking at the meaning that "rule of law" has acquired within a broad range of fields (legal theory, law and jurisprudence, political philosophy, political science, international relations, sociology and social theory), the first striking aspect is that it does not seem to be the monopoly of technical definitions (principles of legality and impartiality). Historically, the appeal of ROL derived from the distinction between "empire of laws" (rule by law) and "empire of men" (rule under men). Today, both practitioners and scholars refer to ROL as an aggregate of legal rules and institutions, but also as a variety of informal discursive practices aimed at legitimising those rules and institutions.One-size-fits-all definitions can obviously be found, but they suffer from tremendously high levels of generality. Once we acknowledge the need for distinctions, however, we find too many. The long-standing distinction between thin (or procedural) and thick (or substantive) conceptions of ROL has been debated at great length, as has the difference between rule of law, rule by law etc. At this point there is little to be gained by further restatements of these basic distinctions. However, abandoning this debate will not reduce the number of competing conceptions: Rechtsstaat, Etat de droit, Estado de derecho. Moreover, the continental civil law tradition also developed other concepts that are smeared into the Anglo-Saxon formula, including certezza del diritto, securite juridique, etc. We should also ask whether Chinese fazhi is or might be a Far Eastern equivalent to rule of law.A promising start is then to go beyond the consensus omnia of international declarations and shed light on the arguments of those who do not estimate that rule of law enhances concord. ROL appears to be equivocal and often (covertly) value-laden both in ordinary language and scholarly literature. Three criticisms of rule of law are taken into consideration. One criticism holds it to be a case of law-fare: Not a mere technical device, ROL is rather an instrument for hegemony. Another criticism holds ROL to be a Western invention (legal Occidentalism): What is being questioned is not a specific set of institutions that may, rightly or wrongly, be identified as "Western (rule of) law." The challenge goes deeper and concerns the epistemological status of law itself. A third criticism comes from "global constitutionalism." The ideal of ROL is not questioned as much as the way it is currently practiced: Since it lacks effectiveness, it is unsatisfactory. Given that constitutionalism, at state level, implied that constitutions made legislative power respect the constitution, advocates of international constitutionalism calls for such a paradigmatic change in the international arena.These arguments show that ROL is no "magic bullet" : Its banner was used as a synonym for an independent judiciary, but came to include democracy, rights, civil society and many more. This conceptual overstretch explains why rule of law is not likely to promote global concord.In section two, it seems prima facie that "harmony" has much higher odds for being a stepping stone for lasting peace: The concept has figured prominently in both Eastern and Western philosophical traditions where it indicates concord, equilibrium between forces resulting in peace, in opposition to disorder (chaos in the Greek tradition and luan in the Chinese tradition). The order emerging from harmony is a composition of differences and not merely a sum of unities. On a social level, harmony is a relational concept and hints to concert or absence of contradiction in relationships between individuals and/or groups. Contrarily to rule of law, we do not deal with an essentially contested concept: its structure is not seriously questioned. Moreover, contrarily to ROL, we have a clear referent: The CCP's commitment to "building a harmonious society" was officially announced in 2002 and has since been added to the basic line in its constitution.Here, the arguments of those who disbelieve the emancipating strength of harmony have to be addressed. First, there is the legal positivist's objection: Harmony amounts to natural law-talk that suffers, ultimately, from abusing Hume's principle. Secondly, there is the criticism of the liberal democrat: Let aside the epistemological and theoretical nature of the concept, in the realm of practical reason harmony implies an essential (and fix) hierarchy of people that will inevitably lead to autocratic political regimes. The overall idea is that the harmonious order does not take controversy seriously: contradictions have to be eradicated or hidden in order to promote (apparent) stability. Harmony would then only amount to a cover-up status quo, based on manufactured consensus.In conclusion, I suggest that there are two lessons to be learnt if we want to overcome the cultural divides of the West-ostlicher Diwan: From the rule of law, we must hence learn again the fundamental lesson of impartiality as an indispensable element in applying the principle of justice. From harmony, we must refine our understanding of the complex ways in which social cohesion is enhanced and without which no order is sustainable.


ObjectiveTo assess the effectiveness of bioresorbable Seprafilm membrane in preventing abdominal adhesions in a prospective clinical randomized multicenter trial. Summary Background DataAdhesions occur frequently after abdominal operations and are a common cause of bowel obstruction, chronic abdominal pain, and infertility. To reduce the formation of adhesions, a mechanical barrier composed of hyaluronic acid and carboxymethylcellulose was developed, preventing adherence of tissues after abdominal surgery. MethodsBetween April 1996 and September 1998, all patients requiring a Hartmann procedure for sigmoid diverticulitis or obstructed rectosigmoid were randomized to either intraperitoneal placement of the antiadhesions membrane under the midline during laparotomy and in the pelvis, or as a control. Direct visual evaluation of the incidence and severity of adhesions was performed laparoscopically at second-stage surgery for restoration of the continuity of the colon. ResultsA total of 71 patients were randomized; of these, 42 could be evaluated. The incidence of adhesions did not differ significantly between the two groups, but the severity of adhesions was significantly reduced in the Seprafilm group both for the midline incision and for the pelvic area. Complications occurred in similar numbers in both groups. ConclusionsSeprafilm antiadhesions membrane appears effective in reducing the severity of postoperative adhesions after major abdominal surgery, although the incidence of adhesions was not diminished. The authors recommend using Seprafilm when relaparotomy or second-look intervention is planned. Long-term studies are needed to assess the cost-effectiveness and value of Seprafilm in preventing bowel obstruction, chronic abdominal pain, and infertility.


This special issue of Studies in Communication Sciences (SComS) is dedicated to DACH 21, the first three-country conference on communication science, held on April 7–9, 2021, and hosted by the Department of Communication and Media Research (IKMZ) at the University of Zurich. Titled "#Communication #(R)Evolution. Changing Communication in a Digital Society," the conference addressed, for instance, structural transformations of the public sphere and how changing media and communication technologies impact politics, culture, news production, media usage, and everyday life (Bachmann, 2021). Accordingly, the 16 research articles in this special issue, written by scholars from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Spain, and Norway, deal with such changes. They also shed a light on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the production, dissemi-nation, and usage of news and science-related information. The guest editors, Thomas Zerback, Mark Eisenegger, Thomas N. Friemel, and Mike S. Schäfer organized the review process for this special issue and, in a separate editorial, introduce the contents of the articles chosen. We thank the guest editors and all of the authors for their outstanding work in making this special issue a reality.


A new wearable input device named SCURRY, developed by the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, is introduced in this paper. Based on inertial sensors, this device allows a human operator to select a specified character, an event, or an operation as the input he/she wants spatially through both hand motion and finger clicking. It is a glovelike device, which can be worn on the human hand, composed of a base module, including one controller and two angular-velocity sensors (gyroscopes) on the back of the hand, and four ring-type modules (rings), including two-axis acceleration sensors (accelerometers) on four fingers. The base and the ring modules are integrated modules containing sensors, a transceiver or receiver for communication, and a microcontroller, which makes the device compact and light. The two gyroscopes embedded in the base module have a role in detecting the direction (up, down, right, and left) of the hand motion, and the accelerometers have a role in detecting finger motion generated by finger clicking. An algorithm for the exact finger-click recognition composed of three parts (feature extraction, valid-click discrimination, and crosstalk avoidance) is proposed to improve the recognition performance of finger clicking on SCURRY. The experimental results and discussions are presented. SCURRY can be used as a wearable mouse spatially, by allowing any three fingers to be operated as the left, middle, and right mouse buttons, and in a similar manner, as a wearable keyboard, as it allows a human operator to point and select any character, event, or operation by his hand motion and finger clicking.


The semiconductor industry is challenged to sustain the historical rate of exponential growth in product innovation and productivity for as long into the future as possible. If this challenge is to be met, substantial investments in chip-design automation are required to improve design capabilities and to narrow the widening gap between projected increases in device complexity and design productivity. Design for manufacture (DFM) is one potential means to leverage the required investment in design automation. DFM focuses on understanding how the design of a product interacts with the various processes and facilities available to make that product, in order to conceive and refine design alternatives that tend to optimize the product in the context of existing or projected manufacturing capabilities. In this paper, we review the current literature on DFM as applied in other industries and consider the relevance of state-of-the-art DFM principles and tools to improved efficiency and productivity within the semiconductor industry. We observe that, overall, many of the organizational structures for implementing DFM already exist within semiconductor firms and the industry more broadly. Moreover, much of the existing spectrum of layout, modeling, simulation, and analysis tools used for semiconductor device, process, equipment, and factory design can be thought of as components of a de facto system of design for semiconductor manufacturing (DFSM). While recent work aimed specifically at DFSM shows great promise, advances in the development of component design tools are lagging and integration of these tools into a coherent system for DFSM is only emerging. Systems integration of tools which characterize future processes and technologies will be needed in order to posit design rules which are sufficiently robust to allow their incorporation in industry-standard automated design and layout tools. The implications are that there is a need for accelerated improvements in DFSM tools and integration if historical semiconductor productivity growth is to be sustained.


We show that the Wiedemann-Franz law is violated in the vortex state of a d-wave superconductor at zero temperature. We use a semiclassical approach, which includes the Doppler shift on the quasiparticles as well as the Andreev scattering from a random distribution of vortices. We also show that the vertex corrections to the electrical conductivity due to the anisotropy of impurity scattering become unimportant in the presence of a sufficiently large magnetic field.


The APA Awards for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology recognize psychologists who have demonstrated excellence early in their careers and have held a doctoral degree for no more than 9 years. The 2019 award winner is lore m. dickey. dickey "is a champion of social justice advocacy and a distinguished scholar for gender diversity issues. He has been an activist and leader in the American Psychological Association of Graduate Students; the American Psychological Association Division 17, Society of Counseling Psychology; and Division 44, Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, as well as local communities. He has served on numerous committees and task forces that address transgender issues in psychology, such as cochairing APA's task force on practice guidelines with transgender persons." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).


We present a method for synthesizing regular expressions for introductory automata assignments. Given a set of positive and negative examples, the method automatically synthesizes the simplest possible regular expression that accepts all the positive examples while rejecting all the negative examples. The key novelty is the search-based synthesis algorithm that leverages ideas from over- and under-approximations to effectively prune out a large search space. We have implemented our technique in a tool and evaluated it with non-trivial benchmark problems that students often struggle with. The results show that our system can synthesize desired regular expressions in 6.7 seconds on the average, so that it can be interactively used by students to enhance their understanding of regular expressions.


This thesis presents the results of research into the use of Recycled Organic Wastes (ROWs) as soil amendments to aid the growth of energy crops on brownfield sites in the UK. In order to divert biodegradable waste from landfills, food waste is source segregated by households or is mechanically separated from mixed Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) before being biologically decomposed to form stable ROWs. The source of waste stream influences the future market and use of ROWs. Three different ROWs were characterised to assess the effect of the initial waste stream and the influence of aerobic or anaerobic biodegradation processes on the final organic products.
Growth trials were conducted to assess the use of ROWs as nutrient sources for three fast growing tree species, S.viminalis, E. nitens and P. tomentosa. Preliminary growth trials found that high total dissolved solids were associated with some ROWs were detrimental to plant health and survival rates.
Further growth trials identified the optimum total nitrogen application rate of ROWs when mixed with Kettering Loam, a clay loam. Analysis of leachate collected from the pot trials identified changes in quantities of heavy metal and nitrogen leaching during the growth trials and allowed comparison to water quality limits for aquatic life to assess the risk to the wider environment.
Column growth trials assessed the effect of saturated and unsaturated conditions on a specific ROW known as Compost- Like Output derived from MSW, the impact on plant growth and the effect on leachate composition. Saturated conditions were detrimental to E. nitens, whereas S. viminalis adapted to saturated conditions with greater biomass production compared to the unsaturated columns. A reducing environment resulted in differences in heavy metal leaching and nitrogen forms compared to the unsaturated columns.
The use of ROWs on brownfield sites can improve the overall soil quality while providing sufficient nutrients to improve biomass yields of energy crops. However the source of ROWs and biological treatment methods can influence the characteristics and future use of the ROWs. CLO derived from MSW had significantly higher heavy metal concentrations than source segregated material.
Higher concentrations of heavy metal, particularly of copper, zinc and lead were identified within the fines (< 1 mm) of MSW derived CLO. Leachate analysis from the optimum and column growth trials identified changes within the pore water chemistry, which also influenced the mobility of heavy metals. The application of ROWs to brownfield sites has the potential to release soluble nitrogen forms and heavy metals into the wider environment; however application to contained sites or lower applications will reduce the risk.


Summary
Inocula of either tobacco rattle (TRV) or raspberry ringspot (RRV) viruses prepared in tris chloride, pH 8.0, were as infective for tobacco mesophyll protoplasts as those prepared in potassium phosphate, pH 6.0. Both types were more infective than inocula prepared in potassium citrate, pH 6.0. However, at sub-optimal concentrations of poly-l-ornithine (< 0.8 µg/ml), tris-chloride buffered inocula of TRV were much more infective than phosphate buffered inocula.
Electron microscopy showed that all inocula contained aggregated virus particles. Aggregates of TRV formed in phosphate or citrate buffers contained 2 to 30 particles whereas those formed in tris chloride were much larger, containing hundreds of virus particles. Such a difference was not evident in TMV inocula, in which virus particles were aggregated into strands of up to 25 µm in length. In contrast aggregates of RRV were approx. spherical, about 150 to 300 nm in diam., with those formed in tris-HCl being more irregular than those formed in citrate or phosphate. These results indicate that the infectivity of an inoculum is not related simply to the type or size of aggregate formed.


We consider the defocusing nonlinear wave equation of power-type on $\mathbb{R}^3$. We establish an almost sure global existence result with respect to a suitable randomization of the initial data. In particular, this provides examples of initial data of super-critical regularity which lead to global solutions. The proof is based upon Bourgain's high-low frequency decomposition and improved averaging effects for the free evolution of the randomized initial data.


The invention relates to a method for producing a heat exchanger system comprising at least one module (1) traversed by a row of fluid circulation channels, the embodiment of said module being implemented as follows: formation of an assembly (4) comprising, in parallel, a plurality of metal conduits (10) each forming, with the inner space thereof, one of the fluid circulation channels, the conduits being arranged between two metal plates (6, 6), the spaces defined by the directly consecutive conduits and said metal plates being filled by a metal filling substance (8), and the assembly also comprising connection elements (20) of the conduits; and treatment of the assembly (4) so as to obtain diffusion welding of the conduits (10) with the substance (8), the plates and the elements (20).


Bone mass and quality declines with age, and can culminate in osteoporosis and increased fracture risk. This investigation modelled associations between bone and physical, dietary, and metabolic factors in a group of 200 pre-frail/frail older adults using factor analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM). Exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were conducted to compose factors and to assess their robustness. SEM was used to quantify associations between bone and the other factors. Factors arising from EFA and CFA were: Bone (whole body, lumbar and femur bone mineral density and trabecular bone score; good fit), Body composition-lean (lean mass, body mass, vastus lateralis and femoral cross-sectional area; good fit), Body composition-fat (total fat mass, gynoid, android and visceral fat; acceptable fit), Strength (bench and leg press, handgrip and knee extension peak torque; good fit), Dietary intake (kilocalories, carbohydrate, protein and fat; acceptable fit), and metabolic status (cortisol, IGF1, GH and free testosterone; poor fit). SEM using isolated factors showed that body composition (lean) (β=0.66, p<0.001), body composition (fat) (β=0.36, p<0.001) and strength (β=0.74, p<0.001) positively associated with bone. Dietary intake relative to body mass negatively associated with bone (β=-0.28, p=0.001), whereas in absolute terms it showed no association (β=0.01, p=0.911). In a multivariable model, only strength (β=0.38, p=0.023) and body composition (lean) (β=0.34, p=0.045) associated with bone. Resistance training programs that focus on improving lean mass and strength in older individuals may benefit bone in this population.


A new aqueous developable positive tone photodefmable polyimide was prepared from poly(hydroxy amic acid) and naphthoquinonediazide for semiconductor stress buffer coat, which exhibits excellent photolithographic properties in high resolution, wide focus latitude and good stability for process holding time, with equivalent film properties to conventional non-photodefinable polyimide. Through dry etching evaluation of the SiN passivation layer, it was confirmed that the cured polyimide pattern works as an etching mask.


We introduce a new semantics for a multi-agent epistemic operator of knowing how, based on an indistinguishability relation between plans. Our proposal is, arguably, closer to the standard presentation of knowing that modalities in classical epistemic logic. We study the relationship between this semantics and previous approaches, showing that our setting is general enough to capture them. We also define a sound and complete axiomatization, and investigate the computational complexity of its model checking and satisfiability problems.


This prospective study was carried out on 160 patients with acute intestinal obstruction admitted to the surgical unit at Al-Diwaniyah Teaching Hospital from January 2012 to June 2013 .The patients were divided, according to the results of treatment , into two groups : (1) patients who received early operation (76 patients ) , and (2) patients who received initial conservative treatment with nasogastric decompression and observation (84 patients). The conservative treatment was successful in 52 patients but in 32 patients, delayed operation was required .There were 54 cases of strangulated intestinal obstruction (33.75%) and 106 cases of simple obstruction (66.25%) .The causes of obstruction were adhesions in 52.5%, obstructed external hernia in 20%, tumor in 10% ,intussusception in 5% and miscellaneous group of causes which accounts for 12.5% of patients. There was positive correlation between bowel strangulation and the following factors: constant abdominal pain, feculent vomiting ,generalized tenderness ,rebound tenderness , rigidity ,absent bowel sounds, tachycardia (PR >110\ min.) , fever (temperature >38˚C), signs of shock (systolic BP <90 mmHg) and WBC count above 18000\mm3.The mean period of conservative treatment was 48 hours and the period of hospitalization was shorter in the conservative group as compared with the operative group . The morbidity was less in the conservative group than in the operative group. There was no death in the conservative group, while in the operative group the mortality rate was 7.4%. The mortality was closely related to the age, and the state of bowel involved by obstruction , since most deaths occurred in old aged patients and in patients with gangrenous bowel.


Rheological properties of the blood are determined by several factors and if they change it may be diagnostic for many diseases. It is well-known that during ischemia and reperfusion different free-radical liberating pathways are inducted besides the local physical and metabolical changes. These processes may harm red blood cells by increasing their rigidity and impairing their deformability. In ischemia-reperfusion models measurements of erythrocyte deformability is important. Characteristic alterations were observed in both rat and dog hind limb ischemia-reperfusion with vascular clamping on femoral vessels for 1 or 3 hours. Erythrocyte deformability was significantly impaired on the postoperative 1st-3rd days. The acute limb ischemia-reperfusion experimental models seem suitable for further in vivo rheological studies.


The effects of the cognitive-behavioral approach to therapy on stuttering were examined. An experimental method was used as the research method and was carried out in 2 stages. In the first stage, the researcher investigated thinking, emotion, and the behavior of an individual towards stuttering. In the second stage, a description of stuttering and its frequency was formulated. The description was then applied as an educational program to treat stuttering. At the end of the cognitive-behavioral therapy, there was a significant reduction in stuttering behavior. Results showed that the cognitive-behavioral approach is effective for treating stuttering.


The equilibrium geometries of 1,3,4-thiadiazole derivatives have been determined and analyzed at DFT level employing B3LYP/6-31G(d) basis set. The molecular electrostatic potential surface (MESP) that reveals centers of reactivity of the molecule and substitution effects of the molecular system have been studied using the HSAB principle (Hard Soft Acid and Base).Results such us, fundamental vibrational modes, H NMR isotropic chemical shifts, frontier orbital energies (HOMO, LUMO), band gap energy, dipole moments, net charges are reported and discussed in terms of reactivity of 1,3,4-thiadiazole derivatives. The HOMO and LUMO analysis were used to elucidate information regarding charge transfer within the molecule. Isotropic chemical shifts were calculated using the Gauge-Independent Atomic Orbital (GIOAO) method. Finally, a comparison between the experimental data and the calculated results appeared a good agreement and show exceptional reactivity.


The surface of a gram-negative bacterium is made up of the lipopolysaccharide (l. p. s.) and protein components of the outer leaflet of its outer membrane, and of capsular polysaccharide, flagella and fimbriae if present. In Salmonella all the special genes needed for synthesis of the O-specific oligosaccharide repeat unit (different in each O group) of the l. p. s. sidechains are found in the rfb cluster, near his. Nearly all so-far identified rfa genes, for synthesis of l. p. s. core, are clustered between cysE and pyrE. Genes for polymerization and modification of O units are scattered: some are part of prophage genomes and some show 'form variation' – spontaneous alternation between expression and non-expression, mechanism unknown. Escherichia coli differs by frequent presence of capsular polysaccharides (K antigens), some determined by kps genes, unlinked to l. p. s. genes, others by his-linked genes perhaps homologous with rfb. Expression of some non-l. p. s. polysaccharide genes, but not of l. p. s. genes, is greatly influenced by the environment. Major outer membrane proteins (more than 105 molec. /bacterium) include: a lipoprotein, in part covalently joined to the cell wall, perhaps anchoring the outer membrane; and several proteins of molec. mass 30000–40000 (one of them phage-determined), some of which serve to make the outer membrane permeable to small hydrophilic molecules. Genes affecting sensitivity (adsorbing capacity) to various phages and colicins (e. g. tonA, bfe) specify various 'minor' outer membrane proteins concerned with uptake of nutrients (e. g. iron ferrichrome, vitamin B12) when present at very low concentrations. Neither the 'major' nor the 'minor' protein genes are clustered: their expression is subject to conspicuous regulation by environmental conditions. In E. coli the flagellin and hook protein structural genes are located in different clusters of motility-related genes. Missense mutations in the flagellin gene may cause alteration in flagellar shape or in serological character, which in Salmonella is also affected by gene nml, for methylation of the free amino groups of some lysines of flagellin. Electron microscopy of re-annealed DNA from the relevant region indicates that change of flagellar antigenic phase in Salmonella results from a reversible inversion of a 750 base-pair segment, probably constituting the phase-determinant gene. Production of fimbriae (pili) requires function of several linked pil genes, and is subject to a kind of 'form variation' of unknown mechanism. Genes in conjugative plasmids when derepressed cause production of sex pili. E. coli protein antigens K88 and K99, apparently fimbrial, concerned with adhesion to intestinal mucosa and so with enteropathogenicity, are plasmid-determined.


This paper studies a class of enhanced diffusion processes in which random walkers perform L\'evy flights and apply it for global optimization. L\'evy flights offer controlled balance between exploitation and exploration. We develop four optimization algorithms based on such properties. We compare new algorithms with the well-known Simulated Annealing on hard test functions and the results are very promising.


We consider homotopy actions of a Lie algebroid on a graded manifold, defined as suitable [Formula: see text]-algebra morphisms. On the "semi-direct product" we construct a homological vector field that projects to the Lie algebroid. Our main theorem states that this construction is a bijection. Since several classical geometric structures can be described by homological vector fields as above, we can display many explicit examples, involving Lie algebroids (including extensions, representations up to homotopy and their cocycles) as well as transitive Courant algebroids.


Acridine orange (AO) staining enables flow cytometric measurement of cellular DNA and RNA. With the conventional procedure, red and green fluorescence intensities alter considerably in time, affecting the reliability and reproducibility of the results. A standardized simple technique of AO staining is described that keeps the time between addition of detergent and AO and the subsequent measurement constant. Measurements by means of this on-line method appear to be much more reproducible in comparison to those obtained using the conventional procedure.


Processors with multiple cores and complex cache coherence protocols are widely employed to improve the overall performance. It is a major challenge to verify the correctness of a cache coherence protocol since the number of reachable states grows exponentially with the number of cores. In this paper, we propose an efficient test generation technique, which can be used to achieve full state and transition coverage in simulation based verification for a wide variety of cache coherence protocols. Based on effective analysis of the state space structure, our method can generate more efficient test sequences (50% shorter) compared with tests generated by breadth first search. Moreover, our proposed approach can generate tests on-the-fly due to its space efficient design.


The purpose of this study was to estimate the proportion of HIV-seropositive newborns hospitalized for an AIDS-related diagnosis within 12 months of birth and to characterize these hospitalizations. The number of HIV-seropositive infants born December 1987 through June 1988 was derived from the blinded New York State Newborn HIV Seroprevalence Study. The number of infants who were born in these same months and hospitalized with an ARD within 12 months of birth was obtained from a data base containing information on all hospital discharges in New York State. Comparisons were made on the basis of month of birth. Of infants born during the study period, 995 tested positive for HIV antibody, and 151 infants (15 percent) were hospitalized with an ARD within 12 months of birth. The 151 ARD cases had a total of 240 hospitalizations, accounting for 5,772 patient days. Fifty-six percent of the ARD cases were diagnosed within six months of birth.


The construction of fundamental geospatial framework is an important infrastructure project. It provides spatial positioning and play s an indispensable role for city development and informatization construction. This paper discusses about the design and implementa tion of Beijing Fundamental Geospatial Framework platform. It mainly describes the goal and content of the construction , the techni cal architecture,the design of fundamental geospatial database , and main functions of the systems, and also introduces to the key rele vant technologies in detail. At present, the platform has been put into use, and has provided data service for Units or individuals inter nal and external. Construction of Beijing fundamental geospatial framework platform is similar to other cities, so techniques and met hods in this paper can be used as reference for other cities.


OpenID is an open and promising Web single sign-on (SSO) solution. This work investigates the challenges and concerns web users face when using OpenID for authentication, and identifies what changes in the login flow could improve the users' experience and adoption incentives. We found our participants had several behaviors, concerns, and misconceptions that hinder the OpenID adoption process: (1) their existing password management strategies reduce the perceived usefulness of SSO; (2) many (26%) expressed concerns with single-point-of-failure related issues; (3) most (71%) held the incorrect belief that the OpenID credentials are being given to the content providers; (4) half exhibited an inability to distinguish a fake Google login form, even when prompted; (5) many (40%) were hesitant to consent to the release of their personal profile information; and (6) many (36%) expressed concern with the use of SSO on websites that contain valuable personal information or, conversely, are not trustworthy. We also found that with an improved affordance and privacy control, more than 60% of study participants would use Web SSO solutions on the websites they trust.


This study examined the proposition derived from the integrative developmental contextual theory (IDCT) (Bar-Tal & Teichman, 2005; Teichman & Bar-Tal, in press) that contextual circumstances determining collective self esteem (i.e. conflict and social status), and developmental stage in which identity development is a central issue (pre- and early adolescence) would influence intergroup biases. This proposition was previously examined with Israeli Jewish participants and here is re-examined in three samples, aged 8—17, including Israeli Arabs and two groups from the Palestinian Authority. The three samples were based in different intergroup contexts in which their group status was relatively high, medium or low. The findings demonstrate differences in the relationship between contextually defined collective self-esteem and intergroup attitudes. Results confirmed the hypothesis that in conflict, irrespective of age highest intergroup biases would be displayed by the high status group. However, the hypothesis that the lowest status group would express only more negativity toward the out-group was not confirmed. The developmental hypothesis that pre- and early adolescents from the high status group would express most varied and extreme biases was also confirmed. With some exceptions in the middle status group, all older adolescents displayed moderation in biases.


This pa per suggests a simple valuation method based on Chebyshev approximation at Chebyshev nodes to value American put options. It is similar to the approach taken in Sullivan (2000), where the option`s continuation region function is estimated by using a Chebyshev polynomial. However, in contrast to Sullivan (2000), the functional is fitted by using Chebyshev nodes. The suggested method is flexible, easy to program and efficient, and can be extended to price other types of derivative instruments. It is also applicable in other fields, providing efficient solutions to complex systems of partial differential equations. The paper also describes an alternative method based on dynamic programming and backward induction to approximate the option value in each time period.


AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) consists of three subunits: alpha, beta, and gamma. Two isoforms exist for the alpha-subunit (alpha(1) and alpha(2)), two for the beta-subunit (beta(1) and beta(2)), and three for the gamma-subunit (gamma(1), gamma(2), and gamma(3)). Although the specific roles of the beta- and gamma-subunits are not well understood, the alpha-subunit isoforms contain the catalytic site and also the phosphorylation/activation site for the upstream kinase. This study was designed to determine the role of thyroid hormones in controlling expression levels of these AMPK subunits and of one downstream target, acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC), in muscle. AMPK subunit and ACC levels were determined by Western blots in control rats, in rats given 0.01% propylthiouracil (PTU) in drinking water for 3 wk, and in rats given 3 mg of thyroxine and 1 mg of triiodothyronine per kilogram chow for 1 or 3 wk. In gastrocnemius muscle, all isoforms of AMPK subunits were significantly increased in rats given thyroid hormones for 3 wk vs. those treated with PTU. Similar patterns were seen in individual muscle types. Expression of muscle ACC was also significantly increased in response to 3 wk of treatment with excess thyroid hormones. Muscle content of malonyl-CoA was elevated in PTU-treated rats and depressed in thyroid hormone-treated rats. These data provide evidence that skeletal muscle AMPK subunit and ACC expression is partially under the control of thyroid hormones.


In this paper, a configuration with modified single-phase H-bridge AC-DC converter for DC ripple compensation and power decoupling with a DC-DC converter for bidirectional power flow between PHEV (Plug in Hybrid Electric Vehicle) and power grid is proposed. It is well known that single-phase PWM voltage source converter (VSC) suffers from second-order ripple power and subsequent DC-link voltage pulsation. To reduce this low frequency pulsation of DC-link voltage and to obtain the sinusoidal grid current with unity power factor, a modified single-phase H-bridge PWM rectifier consisting of a conventional H-bridge PWM VSC and a pure passive auxiliary circuit is presented with a bidirectional DC-DC converter in order to ensure the bi-directional power flow management between PHEV and power grid at unity power factor and reduced ripple current. The modified H-bridge has the advantage of less number of switches and small DC link capacitor. First 230 V 50 Hz AC supply from source is converted to 400 V DC through single phase VSC and again the battery of EV or PHEV is charge in buck mode and discharge in boost mode with the help of bidirectional DC-DC buck - boost converter. In discharging mode, it delivers energy back to the grid at 230V, 50 Hz. A battery with a charging power of 3.6 kW at 120 V is used in PHEV.


Abstract Robert Putnam's conceptualization of social capital has been commonly associated with, and used to analyse, sport-for-development programmes. This paper bucks this trend and uses James Coleman's rational strain of social capital to examine the use of sport as a component part of a programme to support male adults in addressing connected problems of substance misuse, homelessness and other forms of social exclusion. Using a qualitative research strategy, in-depth and longitudinal data were collected using individual interviews and focus groups with programme participants and key stakeholders over a three-year period. The results suggest the importance of unintentionality for the formation and use value of social capital; indicating that social capital created through this programme was individual, contingent on interactional context and benefited individuals in line with Coleman's six aspects of social capital.


Several computerized procedures for determination of the axis-angle pair characterizing grain misorientation in bicrystals using Laue patterns are described. The procedures are based on the linear least squares fit method; they are rapid and easy to use. One of the procedures can be used for determination of single-crystal orientation. It is necessary to measure the coordinates of spots and the origin in the reference system of the Laue pattern and find the indices hkl of at least two spots. Attention is paid to accuracy of determination of the rotation axis and rotation angle. In favourable cases of orientation, they are determined with a precision of several minutes of arc.