Purpose: The purpose of the study was to compare the effects of the Tai Chi self-help program with a self-help program on pain, stiffness, physical functioning, and fear of falling in women with osteoarthritis. Method: Total of 82 women with Osteoarthritis recruited from outpatient clinics or community health centers were randomly assigned either to a Tai Chi self-help group or a self-help group. Thirty subjects in the Tai Chi self-help group and 39 in the self-help group completed posttest measures(pain, stiffness, physical functioning, and fear of falling) at 6 months. Results: After the 6 month study period, the subjects in the Tai Chi self-help group reported significantly less difficulties in performing daily activities(mean difference=-0.16 vs. 6.19 for the self-help), and less fear of falling(mean difference=-3.20 vs. 0.27 for the self-help) than those in the self-help group. There were no significantly differences in pain and stiffness between the groups. Conclusion: The Tai Chi combined with self-help program was more effective than the self-help only program in reducing difficulties in performing daily activities and fear of falling in women with Osteoarthritis. Whether these changes prevent fall episodes requires further study.


Upon first glance, nineteenth-century German Catholic and Protestant missionary periodicals seem to come from different milieus. Compare two mastheads: an October 1895 issue of the monthly periodical of the Catholic Society of the Divine Word (SVD) and the Protestant Berlin Missionary Society's monthly periodical of November 1895. An ornate woodcut print inhabits the masthead of the SVD periodical, the Kleiner-Herz Jesu-Bote. Jesus, with his sacred heart exposed, stands on clouds and is flanked by two angels, Raphael and Gabriel. In the top left-hand corner, the reader sees the Archangel Michael militantly guarding over the frontispiece with sword and shield, while in the top right-hand corner, the one mortal, St. Francis, smiles benevolently, offering the reader absolution. The periodical's title is presented in lettering akin to an illuminated manuscript. Pictures of saints, relics, and martyrs adorn the rest of the issue.


The author discusses some of the barriers encountered in attempting to transform New York City's fragmented mental health services into a comprehensive, nondiscriminatory, and accessible system. Among the barriers he identifies are the belief that more money alone will solve the problem; the uneven distribution of funds among the boroughs of the city and the resistance of existing agencies to redistribution; and the way in which reimbursement patterns shape the kinds of services provided. He believes the single most effective stimulus to the development of an integrated system of care would be a requirement that eligibility for reimbursement under Medicaid be based on a facility's participation in a comprehensive system of care. He emphasizes the need to remove social, rehabilitation, and other services from under the mental health umbrella and to obtain other sources of funding for them; the need for local governance of services; and the need to provide work opportunities for the more seriously disabled.


Most AI approaches for fault isolation handle only the behavioral modes OK and NOT OK. To be able to isolate faults in components with generalized behavioral modes, a new framework is needed. By introducing domain logic and assigning the behavior of a component to a behavioral mode domain, efficient representation and calculation of diagnostic information is made possible. Diagnosing components with generalized behavioral modes also requires extending familiar characterizations. The characterizations candidate, generalized kernel candidate and generalized minimal candidate are introduced and it is indicated how these are deduced. It is concluded that neither the full candidate representation nor the generalized kernel candidate representation are conclusive enough. The generalized minimal candidate representation focuses on the interesting diagnostic statements to a large extent. If further focusing is needed, it is satisfactory to present the minimal candidates which have a probability close to the most probable minimal candidate. The performance of the fault isolation algorithm is very good, faults are isolated as far as it is possible with the provided diagnostic information.


Almost all automatic semantic role labeling (SRL) systems rely on a preliminary parsing step that derives a syntactic structure from the sentence being analyzed. This makes the choice of syntactic representation an essential design decision. In this paper, we study the influence of syntactic representation on the performance of SRL systems. Specifically, we compare constituent-based and dependency-based representations for SRL of English in the FrameNet paradigm.

Contrary to previous claims, our results demonstrate that the systems based on dependencies perform roughly as well as those based on constituents: For the argument classification task, dependency-based systems perform slightly higher on average, while the opposite holds for the argument identification task. This is remarkable because dependency parsers are still in their infancy while constituent parsing is more mature. Furthermore, the results show that dependency-based semantic role classifiers rely less on lexicalized features, which makes them more robust to domain changes and makes them learn more efficiently with respect to the amount of training data.


A method for analyzing a magnetic damper (eddy current brake) consisting of a cylindrical magnet and a plate conductor of arbitrary shape is considered. Since the magnetic flux is a function of the position, the analytical solution to obtain the eddy current, braking force, and damping coefficient is obtained by dividing the magnetic flux into the narrow circular bands, and the unit step function is applied to solve the differential equation of the electromagnetic fields. The boundary condition of the plate conductor of arbitrary shape is satisfied directly by making use of the Fourier expansion collocation method. Numerical calculations have been carried out for the conductor of rectangular plates, circular plates with eccentric fluxes. The theoretical results are in very good agreement with the experimental ones.


Abstract This article argues that technological innovation is transforming the flow of information, the fluidity of social action, and is giving birth to new forms of bottom up innovation that are capable of expanding and exploding old theories of reproduction and resistance because 'smart mobs', 'street knowledge', and 'social movements' cannot be neutralized by powerful structural forces in the same old ways. The purpose of this article is to develop the concept of YPAR 2.0 in which new technologies enable young people to visualize, validate, and transform social inequalities by using local knowledge in innovative ways that deepen civic engagement, democratize data, expand educational opportunity, inform policy, and mobilize community assets. Specifically this article documents how digital technology (including a mobile, mapping and SMS platform called Streetwyze and paper-mapping tool Local Ground) – coupled with 'ground-truthing' – an approach in which community members work with researchers to collect and verify 'public' data – sparked a food revolution in East Oakland that led to an increase in young people's self-esteem, environmental stewardship, academic engagement, and positioned urban youth to become community leaders and community builders who are connected and committed to health and well-being of their neighborhoods. This article provides an overview of how the YPAR 2.0 Model was developed along with recommendations and implications for future research and collaborations between youth, teachers, neighborhood leaders, and youth serving organizations.


Traumatic brain injuries are common,leading to disability in patients and decline in quality of life.The most common complication of brain injury is: asthenic, autonomic-dystonic, cerebrospinal fluid, Parkinsons, oculostatic, vestibular, epileptiform and others


This paper describes a bandpass Sigma-Delta A/D converter for use in digital radio receivers for conversion of the IF signal. The architecture used is efficient in terms of silicon area usage and has improved performance over previous bandpass converters, allowing the IF to be at a higher frequency than the modulator clock rate. A chopping scheme is used to shift signals from the passband to DC and a lowpass modulator running at a decimated clockrate performs the A/D conversion. Simulation results, along with test results from an IC implementation of the converter, are presented to show the operation of the circuit and its use in radio receivers.


† Hormonal factors that control the course of pregnancy as well as the pressure of the gravid uterus on the ureters cause physiological changes in the kidneys and ureters of at least 90% of pregnant women. Mechanical pressure occurs only at the pelvic brim, but the hormonal influences producing dilatation, atony, and reduced irritability of smooth muscle involve the entire upper urinary tract. Previous diagnosis of urinary disease or congenital anomalies is important in anticipating these changes. Pyelonephritis is still frequent, but its management in pregnant women is no longer different from that in the non-pregnant. Preexisting surgical renal disease must be carefully evaluated before pregnancy is permitted; disease discovered during pregnancy may or may not necessitate therapeutic abortion. The decision in either case depends on the nature and extent of the renal disease, the general health of the patient, and, in borderline cases, the risks that the parents are prepared to take in order to obtain a child.


This article aims to communicate results and raise the researchers´ interest about the gender and birth order influence in the individuals´ self-description. Specifically, 322 adolescents ages 13 and 17 answered a questionnaire in which they were requested to mention three negative and three positive words best selected to describe themselves. Assessing personality itself was not the main objective, but aggregate common characteristics from the participants to draw patterns of responses. Through the correspondence factor analysis (CA), factors opposed the groups in pairs. Gender was the main variable to produce differentiation between characteristics, but birth order effects were also relevant to distinguish the patterns developed. It is suggested that personality traits should be researched in Brazil considering the combination of these two variables.


Has growing demand for licit goods caused an increase in violence among Mexican criminal organizations? We theorize that cartels enter licit markets to supplement and diversify revenues from the drug trade, and that the incentive to do so changes with revenues in licit markets. Given their comparative advantages in agricultural production and violence, we expect cartels to react to increasing demand in agricultural markets by fighting to maximize territorial control and monopolize production. Using a difference-in-differences design, we test the hypothesis that a positive shock in demand for avocados from municipalities in the states of Michoacán and Jalisco led to an increase in cartel violence. We ultimately find the opposite of what we expect. The enactment of a U.S. phytosanitary policy in June of 2016, which extended U.S. demand for avocados to municipalities formerly unable to export to the United States, led to a significant decrease in cartel homicides compared to municipalities that were unaffected by this policy. Given that cartels were present in most areas of Michoacán and Jalisco before the policy, we interpret this result as coming from cartels anticipating increased territorial contestation. Since cartels expect others to challenge their territory, they bolster their defenses, reducing incentives for territorial contestation.


High power conversion efficiency (PCE) and mechanical robustness are key requirements for wearable applications of organic solar cells (OSCs). However, almost all highly efficient photoactive films comprising polymer donors (PD ) and small molecule acceptors (SMAs) are mechanically brittle. In this study, highly efficient (PCE = 17.91%) and mechanically robust (crack-onset strain [COS] = 11.7%) flexible OSCs were fabricated by incorporating a ductile oligomeric acceptor (DOA) into the PD :SMA system, representing the most flexible OSCs to date. The photophysical, mechanical, and photovoltaic properties of D18:N3 with different DOAs were characterized. By introducing DOA DOY-C4 with a longer flexible alkyl linker and lower polymerization, the D18:N3:DOY-C4-based flexible OSCs exhibited a significantly higher PCE (17.91%) and 50% higher COS (11.7%) than the D18:N3-based device (PCE = 17.06%, COS = 7.8%). The flexible OSCs based on D18:N3:DOY-C4 retained 98% of the initial PCE after 2000 consecutive bending cycles, showing greater mechanical stability than the reference device (maintaining 89% of initial PCE). After careful investigation, we hypothesized that the enhancement in mechanical properties was mainly due to the formation of tie chains or entanglement in the ternary blend films. These results demonstrate that DOAs have great potential for achieving high-performance flexible OSCs. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


THE U.S. NAVAL CIVIL ENGINEERING LABORATORY'S RESEARCH EFFORT IN THE AREA OF AIRFIELD PAVEMENTS IS DESCRIBED. SPECIFICALLY, THE CONCERN IS WITH THE FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THE MODULUS OF DEFORMATION (ELASTICITY) OF PAVING MATERIALS. IT IS SHOWN THAT THIS PARAMETER IS INFLUENCED BY THE WEIGHT OF THE OVERLYING BASES IN A PAVEMENT SYSTEM. IT IS ALSO DEMONSTRATED THAT THIS PARAMETER INCREASES WITH INCREASING DEPTH OF BASE AND THAT BASES INCORPORATED IN A MULTILAYERED SYSTEM DEVELOP HIGHER MODULI THAN THOSE THAT ARE PART OF A TWO-LAYERED SYSTEM. /AUTHOR/


We tested the hypothesis that atrial distension (stimulation of cardiopulmonary baroreceptors) is not the single pivotal stimulus for the acute suppression of renin release during water immersion in humans and that immersion-induced haemodilution constitutes an important additional stimulus. In nine healthy male subjects, identical increases in atrial distension were induced by two immersion procedures (of 30 min each); one without (WI) and one with attenuation (WI + cuff) of the concomitant haemodilution (estimated from changes in plasma protein concentration) by inflating thigh cuffs during immersion. During WI, central venous pressure (CVP) and left atrial diameter (LAD) increased (P < 0.05) by 5.5 +/- 0.4 mmHg and 4.6 +/- 0.5 mm, respectively, and plasma protein concentration and plasma renin activity (PRA) progressively decreased (P < 0.05) by 4.8 +/- 0.5 g L(-1) and 1.6 +/- 0.2 ng mL(-1) h(-1) (to 49 +/- 4% of baseline values), respectively. The WI + cuff caused similar atrial distension as WI (CVP and LAD increased by 6.9 +/- 0.5 mmHg and 5.5 +/- 0.5 mm, respectively), attenuated haemodilution (plasma protein concentration decreased by 1.9 +/- 0.4 g L(-1), P < 0.05 vs. WI), and markedly inhibited suppression of PRA, which decreased by 0.4 +/- 0.1 ng mL(-1) h(-1) (to 87 +/- 4% of baseline values, P < 0.05 vs. WI). Differences in renin release could not be accounted for by differences in mean arterial pressure. In conclusion, baroreceptor stimulation induced by atrial distension is not the single pivotal stimulus for the acute suppression of renin release in response to intravascular volume expansion by water immersion in humans. Haemodilution constitutes a significant and conceivably the principal stimulus for the acute immersion-induced suppression of renin-angiotensin system activity.


Field experiments were conducted with rice cvs. C043, DT36 and ADT 38 during Kuruvai (June-September); Samba (August- January), and Navarai (January-April) seasons, respectively, to evaluate the efficacy of plant growth promoting rhizobacterium,  Pseudomonas fluorescens Migula strain Pf-1 available with Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, as commercial formulation in the control of the rice root nematode Hirschmanniella gracilis (de Man) Luc & Goodey. The biocontrol agent was evaluated as seed treatment and nursery soil application separately and either with or without soil application of carbofuran 3G and compared with soil application of carbofuran 3G @ 1.3 g a. i./m 2 and an untreated control for the management of the nematode. Application of the biocontrol agent as seed treatment at a dosage of 10 g/kg of seed was superior to all the treatments. Maximum bacterial colonization and nematode suppression was observed in plants treated with P. fluorescens as seed treatment and it increased yield by 13 per cent.


Background Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) internalization following ligand binding controls EGFR downstream pathway signaling activity. Internalized EGFR is poly-ubiquitinated by Cbl to promote lysosome-mediated degradation and signal downregulation. ACK1 is a non-receptor tyrosine kinase that interacts with ubiquitinated EGFR to facilitate EGFR degradation. Dynamic reorganization of the cortical actin cytoskeleton controlled by the actin related protein (Arp)2/3 complex is important in regulating EGFR endocytosis and vesicle trafficking. How ACK1-mediated EGFR internalization cooperates with Arp2/3-based actin dynamics during EGFR downregulation is unclear. Methodology/Principal Findings Here we show that ACK1 directly binds and phosphorylates the Arp2/3 regulatory protein cortactin, potentially providing a direct link to Arp2/3-based actin dynamics during EGFR degradation. Co-immunoprecipitation analysis indicates that the cortactin SH3 domain is responsible for binding to ACK1. In vitro kinase assays demonstrate that ACK1 phosphorylates cortactin on key tyrosine residues that create docking sites for adaptor proteins responsible for enhancing Arp2/3 nucleation. Analysis with phosphorylation-specific antibodies determined that EGFR-induced cortactin tyrosine phosphorylation is diminished coincident with EGFR degradation, whereas ERK1/2 cortactin phosphorylation utilized in promoting activation of the Arp2/3 regulator N-WASp is sustained during EGFR downregulation. Cortactin and ACK1 localize to internalized vesicles containing EGF bound to EGFR visualized by confocal microscopy. RNA interference and rescue studies indicate that ACK1 and the cortactin SH3 domain are essential for ligand-mediated EGFR internalization. Conclusions/Significance Cortactin is a direct binding partner and novel substrate of ACK1. Tyrosine phosphorylation of cortactin by ACK1 creates an additional means to amplify Arp2/3 dynamics through N-WASp activation, potentially contributing to the overall necessary tensile and/or propulsive forces utilized during EGFR endocytic internalization and trafficking involved in receptor degradation.


The use of etomidate and fentanyl infusions to sedate four asthmatics who required artificial ventilation and were receiving high dose steroids is described. The non-asthmatic patients who had not received steroids were also given etomidate combined with either fentanyl or alfentanil by infusion. Use of this sedative technique was suspended in June 1983, following reports of excess mortality associated with the long-term administration of etomidate. Retrospective measurements of plasma cortisols were subnormal in 5 of the 10 patients who did not receive steroids and remained low 12 hours after discontinuation of the infusion in two cases. All the asthmatics survived, but two of the non-asthmatic patients died. Despite its adverse effects, we still feel there may be a place for etomidate infusion in selected asthmatic patients, provided that steroid replacement is given.


Effective models for fusion of loop nests continue to remain a challenge in both general-purpose and domain-specific language (DSL) compilers. The difficulty often arises from the combinatorial exp...


Battery charge rate calculation device 100, and SOCV output section 5 for outputting a first charge rate calculated on the basis of the voltage data, SOCI calculating section 6 for outputting a second charge rate the by calculation based on the current data and the , the effective filling ratio and, with the estimated impedance voltage calculating unit 12 for calculating an impedance voltage value on the basis of the current data, the impedance voltage value determines that one or more predetermined time correction in a range that is distinct from a predetermined threshold, and the determination and a correction determining section (7) for outputting the result, in the case where in accordance with the determination result, the impedance voltage value is corrected, in the case of the other output, and the first charging rate, as the effective charge rate, said second charge rate and a SOC determination unit 20 that outputs it as the effective charge rate.


In this contribution we report on the improvement of pinning and critical current density in High Temperature Superconductor (HTSC) films that can be used for Coated Conductors, the 2nd generation of HTSC tapes. Pure and mixed REBa2Cu3Ox (RE : Gd, Eu, Nd) films and heterostructures were prepared by Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) and investigated regarding their current carrying capabilities. A strong improvement in the critical current density and an increased irreversibility field was observed for the mixed RE123 films. This improvement is due to stress fields introduced into the lattice by statistical arrangement of the differently sized RE-ions. In multilayer heterostructures, these effects have also significant implications on the anisotropy of Jc in the presence of magnetic fields.


Clothing construction knowledge, a foundational skill taught in Family and Consumer Sciences secondary and post-secondary classes, is being threatened at the middle and secondary levels as programs are dropped from curricula and classes are not offered. The decline in programs appears to be the result of a perceived negative value for clothing construction classes coupled with a misconception of career opportunities available to students in the fashion industry. This article discusses the career opportunities for students with clothing construction knowledge and skills in the robust and growing fashion industry, and suggests that a renewed focus on clothing construction skills and knowledge is vital to student success and career preparation for both family and consumer science education, and fashion merchandising and design students at the post-secondary level. An online survey conducted with secondary and middle school Family and Consumer Sciences teachers; fashion industry professionals and college students majoring in Family and Consumer Sciences Education and Fashion Merchandising and Design determined the lived experiences and the importance of clothing construction in careers of Family and Consumer Sciences Education as well as Fashion Merchandising and Design students. A discussion of the benefits is included as well as the need for more research to support the continuance of clothing construction curricula in secondary and post-secondary Family and Consumer Sciences programs [1].


We present 12CO J = 1-0 and 2-1 observations of 14 S-stars, and report 6 new detections. Two stars were observed in the13CO J = 1-0 and 2-1 lines, and one tentative 2-1 detection is reported. A compilation is presented of all CO observations of S-stars. The stars in this sample are separated into "intrinsic" and "extrinsic" S-stars, based on direct observation of the Technetium line, or infrared properties. The dust mass loss rate per unit distance is derived from IRAS 60μm data taking into the fact that for small mass loss rates the observed flux is an overestimate of the excess emission due to dust. The gas mass loss rate per unit distance is derived from CO data. Distances and luminosities are estimated, partly from hipparcos parallax data. The largest mass loss rate derived is that for W Aql with (0.8-2.0) ×10−5 M yr−1, and the lowest is that foro Ori with < 1.2×10−9 M yr−1. The S-stars without Tc have smaller mass loss rates, than those with Tc. Diagrams showing mass loss rate, dust-to-gas ratio and expansion velocity versus pulsation period are presented, and compared to similar data for carbonand oxygen-rich Miras. The S-Miras stand not out in any way from the Cor O-Miras in these diagrams. In the diagram with expansion velocity versus pulsation period, the S-SRs span the same range in velocity as the S-Miras, but they have periods which are about a factor of 2.5 shorter. This was previously noted for O-rich SRs. As in that case, the most straightforward explanantion is that the SRs among the S-stars pulsate in a higher order pulsation mode.


ABSTRACT
 This empirical research documented voices of women and girls in female shelters and prisons in Samangan, Laghman and Wardak provinces who experienced systematic sexual and gender based violence before and after they escaped forced marriages, forced virginity tests, physical and sexual violence. Women who challenged the status quo, fundamentalism and extremism faced imprisonment for up to five years. The research interviewed primary, secondary and territory health care professionals, who carried out or witnessed invasive virginity tests. The evidence suggests that women are being deprived of basic human rights of exercising autonomy and freedom. It shows difficulties some health professionals' encounter in documenting, reporting and treating cases of violence against women and girls. The research concludes that a survivor-centered approach, and secular framework is required against tyranny, misogyny and oppression. Instead of imposing moral arguments and harmful laws that undermine women's rights, brave leadership at many levels is required to tackle health inequities, dismantle patriarchy, counter fundamentalism and other entrenched systems of inequality. A new kind of feminist citizenship is needed not based on identity but political values.


Based on the relativistic chiral effective field theory, we study the effective mass of the Δ-resonance in medium by investigating the self-energy of the Δ-resonance related to the πN decay channel in symmetric nuclear matter. We find that the effective mass of Δ-resonance decreases evidently with increasing nuclear density ρ. In our calculation, we also consider the influence of the shifts of the nucleon mass, pion mass and its decay constant due to the restoration of chiral symmetry in medium. The results are roughly consistent with the data given by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.


Abstract : An integrated sensor system that continuously monitors the structural integrity of an aircraft s critical composite components can have a high payoff by reducing risks, costs, inspections, and unscheduled maintenance, while increasing safety. Hybrid sensor networks combine or fuse different types of sensors. Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors can be inserted in layers of composite structures to provide local damage detection, while surface mounted Piezoelectric (PZT) sensors can provide global damage detection for the host structure under consideration. This paper describes an example of optimal sensor fusion, which combines FBG sensors and PZT sensors. Optimal sensor fusion tries to find the optimal number and location of different types of sensors such that their combined probability of detection (POD) is maximized. Optimal hybrid sensor networks can be more robust, more accurate, and/or cheaper than networks consisting only of homogenous sensors.


Freedom of information (FOI) requests are increasingly used in sociology, criminology and other social science disciplines to examine government practices and processes. University ethical review boards (ERBs) in Canada have not typically subjected researchers' FOI requests to independent review, although this may be changing in the United Kingdom and Australia, reflective of what Haggerty calls 'ethics creep'. Here we present four arguments for why FOI requests in the social sciences should not be subject to formal ethical review by ERBs. These four arguments are: existing, rigorous bureaucratic vetting; double jeopardy; infringement of citizenship rights; and unsuitable ethics paradigm. In the discussion, we reflect on the implications of our analysis for literature on ethical review and qualitative research, and for literature on FOI and government transparency.


The article deals with the sociological assessment of the skills level and identification of its influence on some aspects of labour activity: the realization of labour potential, choice of the scope of activity, position and occupation. It suggests an approach based on the subjective evaluation of the population as an instrument of the skills level assessment. The received results are compared with the indirect estimates allowing to characterize some particular components of labour potential which are similar to the considered skills. A specific feature of the research is not only the determination of the professional sphere, occupation and position on the skills level, but also the accounting of the reverse effect. The methodological tools including the methods for the assessment of skills level, labour potential and extent of its implementation in a labour activity have been approved in the Vologda region. The study revealed that, at the present time, the most developed skills are the teamwork, communication and mutual understanding while the least developed ones are the initiative and creativity as well as ability to be retrained and readiness to increase the professional level. It shows that the employees of socially oriented spheres and also the representatives of state structures have more developed skills. At the same time, the development of innovative skills not only leads to the growth of labour potential, but also creates conditions for the employment in workplaces with higher skills requirements. The paper shows that higher skills level along with higher skills requirements leads to more complete implementation of cumulative potential in the labour activity. The received results can be used by regional authorities for the development of the analytical system of labour market, the development of labour force and the labour potential of the population.


It describes a method for operating a multistage counter in only one counting direction, having the following steps: changing a count value of an auxiliary counter in only one counting direction can be changed at predetermined counter state of the multi-stage counter; obtaining a multistage counter and a respective counter state of the counter; generating a first authentication data by the count value of the auxiliary counter is connected with the additional data.


Scattering amplitudes take surprisingly simple forms in theories such as quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and general relativity. This simplicity indicates deep symmetry. Recently, it has become possible to explain some of this symmetry. I will describe these insights and show how to derive amplitudes efficiently and elegantly. Key new ideas involve using complexified momentum, exploring singular behavior, and seeking clues in so-called twistor geometry. Complete amplitudes can be produced recursively. This streamlined approach is being applied in searches for new physics in high-energy particle colliders. Lecture 1: Color quantum numbers can be set aside. Helicity amplitudes have elegant expressions in terms of spinors. MHV (maximally helicity violating) amplitudes are the simplest.


Demographic changes in society have clear implications for the U. S. Social Security system. Changing familial relationships will affect the scope and value of Social Security protection that will require policy changes as well. In reporting the changes in family structure, this analysis also discusses implications for Social Security benefits and the effects on minorities and women, and calls attention to policy proposals.


Boltzmann's equation has been solved numerically with two imposed limiting equations that act as boundary conditions, for a neon discharge. In the equation, the diffusion of electrons and the partition of the energy difference, in the ratio of 1: Delta , between the ionizing electron and the one produced by ionization is taken into consideration. In contrast to Thomas's conclusion (1969), the distribution function has been found to be sensitive to the value of Delta . The distribution function, mean energy, mobility, diffusion and ionization coefficient have been computed for different examples.


Gemini surfactants were synthesized and evaluated as wax dispersants (WDs) or wax antisettling additives (WASAs) in crude oil derived diesel. In combination with styrene−C18 methacrylate statistical copolymers as coadditives, aliphatic flexible (class A) and rigid aromatic spacer (class B) geminis with two or three ionic head groups having C18 chain length were investigated. The copolymers were prepared via a controlled radical polymerization technique, atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). Crystallization studies in crude diesel revealed a structure−activity relationship between the gemini surfactants in conjunction with the polymeric additives. The lower molecular weight polymeric additive together with the flexible spacer geminis decreased the cold filter plugging point (CFPP) by about 11 °C with efficiency decreasing with aromatic geminis. The higher molecular weight polymeric additive in combination with the rigid bifunctional aromatic gemini gave a ΔCFPP of 12 °C.


A 30-year-old man developed paresthesia in the feet, unstable gait and blepharoptosis subsequent to pharyngeal pain while working in a warehouse of imported fruit and vegetable fumigated with methyl bromide and cyanate. Neurological examination showed bilateral blepharoptosis, diplopia, ataxic gait and paresthesia below the inguinal region. The serum concentration of thiociane, a metabolite of cyanide, was within normal limits, but that of bromide was elevated (43.7 mg/l, normal: 3.7-8.6). Thus we diagnosed the patient as intoxication of methyl bromide. Magnetic resonance imaging of the brain (MRI) revealed bilateral symmetrical lesions of high signal intensity in the posterior region of the putamen, the subthalamic nuclei, the dorsal medulla oblongata corresponding to inferior cerebellar peduncles and vestibular nuclei, the inferior colliculi and the periaqueductal gray matter surrounding the oculomotor nucleus of the midbrain. As far as we know, this is the first report of MRI detected cerebral lesions in a case with intoxication of methyl bromide.


The linking system between the control system and the field devices in the existing EMS/SCADA, in order to increase the reliability of the data, and access control through the separation of external network. Currently, There is a tendency that the need for connection to an external network that takes into account the economic aspect, systematic management and efficiency of operations is increasing. Such is evolved linkage section, is to have more security vulnerabilities than in the past, Eventually communication EMS/SCADA linkage section requires special management method. In this paper, taking into account the domestic environment, were presented the security Certification and Accreditation technology that was applied to serial DNP3 and TCP/IP based DNP3 that are mainly used in EMS/SCADA linkage section. Presented to security of Certification and Accreditation technology, divided into Resource Robustness Test and Malicious Packet Test for evaluate the safety. Each of the security requirements and evaluation method in proposed technology, is an attempt to present the differentiation of the existing Certification and Accreditation technology.


This paper is to develop the robot vision control schemes based on Newton-Raphson(N-R) and Extended Kalman filtering(EKF) methods for the rigid body placement task. The N-R vision control scheme consists of vision system model, camera parameters estimation model and robot's joint angle estimation model. The EKF vision control scheme consists of vision system model, process model and measurement model. In the EKF, the process and the measurement models include the camera parameters estimation model and the robot's joint angle estimation model, respectively. The vision system model includes six camera internal and external parameters. The N-R scheme is based on iterative technique. Thus, this method requires a lot of processing thime due to large amount of vision data. The EKF scheme is based on recursive technique, but it requires very accurate selection of initial values. Finally, the results of two vision control schemes are compared by performing the rigid body placement task experimentally.


SUMMARY Since 1959, auscultation by physicians in screening 49,496 school children has yielded 4.5 cases of heart disease/ 1,000 students screened. Sensitivity by analysis of "inserted" cases averages 64%, but varies with capabilities of examining physicians. X-ray and ECG evaluations on smaller populations have yielded, respectively, 2.7 and 2.8 cases/ 1,000 children screened, and sensitivity results average 30 to 40%. The tape-recorded heart sounds technique has yielded 2.9 cases/ 1,000 in screening 188,925 children. Sensitivity by analysis of "inserted" cases averages 75% and, in the population of "naturally occurring" heart disease, 56%. In 23,148 school children, an analog-digital device (PhonoCardioScan) has yielded 4.8 cases/ 1,000 children screened. Of "inserted" cases, 69% have been detected. Sixty-four to 80% of "naturally occurring" cases have been detected. With each technique, approximately 40% of the heart disease detected had been previously unknown. The specificity of these methods ranges from 95 to 99%. For primary screening the analog-digital device is the most effective currently available alternative to examination by cardiologists.


: Correction of mandibular deviation (facial asymmetry) and temporomandibular joint dysfunction in the adult patient is possible using modified "twin block" appliances. Final occlusal detailing involves fixed appliances. The method incorporates arch development and correlation together with dental decompensation with mandibular repositioning. Facial appearance is markedly enhanced. In mandibular deviation, (facial asymmetry), the condyle on the side to which the mandible deviates, rotates and moves slightly backward. The condyle on the balancing side moves down the eminence opening the vertical dimension on that side and allows excess maxillary posterior tooth eruption. This lengthens the face on the balancing side and gives rise to the typical can't of the occlusal plane. The condition is almost always due to maxillary arch constriction with tapering form (Division I), or upper incisor retro-inclination (Division II). It is hypothesized that negative pressure from joint distraction allows for advantageous fossa and condyle remodelling, disc recapture or pseudo-disc formation.


The bioconversion of sugars present in wood hemicellulose to 2,3-butanediol (hereafter referred to as butanediol) by Klebsiella pneumoniae grown on high initial concentrations (up to 10%) of sugars was investigated. Initial fermentation studies with a chemically defined medium suggested that sugar levels in excess of 2% could not be utlized even when a higher inoculum size (5 to 10%) was used. The addition of nutrient supplements, viz., yeast extract, urea, ammonium sulfate, and trace elements resulted in a 10 to 50% increase in butanediol yields, although sugar utilization remained incomplete. The concentration of end products normally found at the termination of fermentation was shown to be noninhibitory to growth and substrate utilization. Acetic acid was inhibitory at concentrations above 1%, although growth and butanediol yield were stimulated in cultures supplemented with lower levels of acetic acid. The efficient utilization of 4% substrate concentrations of d-glucose and d-xylose was achieved, resulting in butanediol yields of 19.6 and 22.0 g/liter, respectively.


The covalent coupling of (5,10,15,20-tetrabromothien-2-ylporphyrinato)zinc(II) (TBrThP) molecules on the Ag(111) surface has been investigated under ultra-high-vacuum conditions, using scanning tunnelling microscopy and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The findings provide atomic-level insight into surface-confined Ullmann coupling of thiophene substituted porphyrins, analyzing the progression of organometallic intermediate to final coupled state. Adsorption of the TBrThP molecules on the Ag(111) surface at room temperature is found to result in the reductive dehalogenation of the bromothienyl substituents and the subsequent formation of single strand and crosslinked coordination networks. The coordinated substrate atoms bridge the proximal thienyl groups of the organometallic intermediate, while the cleaved bromine atoms are bound on the adjacent Ag(111) surface. The intermediate complex displays a thermal lability at ∼423 K that results in the dissociation of the proximal thienyl groups with the concomitant loss of the surface bound bromine. At the thermally induced dissociation of the intermediate complex the resultant thienylporphyrin derivatives covalently couple, leading to the formation of a polymeric network of thiophene linked and meso–meso fused porphyrins.


BACKGROUND Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory disease and its pathogenesis involves an interaction between genetic, environmental, and immunological factors. Recent studies have suggested that the chronic inflammatory nature of psoriasis may predispose to an association with other inflammatory diseases, especially cardiovascular diseases and metabolic disorders. OBJECTIVES To describe the demographic, clinical, epidemiological, and laboratory characteristics of a sample of psoriasis patients; to assess the prevalence of cardiovascular comorbidities in this group of patients; and to identify the cardiovascular risk profile using the Framingham risk score. METHODS We conducted a cross-sectional study involving the assessment of 190 patients. Participants underwent history and physical examination. They also completed a specific questionnaire about epidemiological data, past medical history, and comorbidities. The cardiovascular risk profile was calculated using the Framingham risk score. RESULTS Patients' mean age was 51.5 ± 14 years, and the predominant clinical presentation was plaque psoriasis (78.4%). We found an increased prevalence of systemic hypertension, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and obesity. Increased waist circumference was also found in addition to a considerable prevalence of depression, smoking, and regular alcohol intake. Patients' cardiovascular risk was high according to the Framingham risk score, and 47.2% of patients had moderate or high risk of fatal and non-fatal coronary events in 10 years. CONCLUSIONS Patients had high prevalence of cardiovascular comorbidities, and high cardiovascular risk according to the Framingham risk score. Further epidemiological studies are needed in Brazil for validation of our results.


This paper takes a close look at the relevance of Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, field and capital in enhancing learning in engineering education andproposes that effective engineering education can be achieved through the adoption of appropriate measures related to Bourdieu's theories.it further shows the link between the concepts of field, capital and habitus and explores how engineering institutions can restructureteaching methods and curriculum content in a way that students can relate and respond to. This paper also highlights environmental and foundational changes that need to be imbibed from the elementary stages of education to help mould a potential teacher to be effective in the field and build capital that further impacts his effectiveness as a teacher. Again, through the review of related literature, this study explores how academia's habitus affects their teaching methods within the field and the effect of institutional systems and environment on the pedagogy of engineering educators. The study further outlines some of the challenges limiting the field of engineering education stemming from deficiencies from an individuals past and current environment, followed by a description of key initiatives and recommendations aimed at better pedagogy and learning techniques for productive ngineering education.


Mondor's disease is a rare, peculiar form of superficial thrombophlebitis which mainly affects the subcutaneous veins of the breast, anterior chest wall, neck, axilla, upper limbs and penis. In most cases, it presents with rapid development of a painful subcutaneous cord-like structure that later becomes less painful, but a fibrous band persists. Unfortunately, aetiology and management are not very clear, but it is a self-limiting condition in most cases. We are presenting a rare case of a patient who developed Mondor's disease in the antecubital fossa of the right arm following chemotherapy for breast cancer.


Thirty-six patients (21 male, 15 female) with ductal pancreatic cancer were treated with the long-acting synthetic luteinizing hormone releasing hormone (LH-RH) analogue buserelin. All patients had advanced tumor stages (stage 11: 7 patients; stage 111: 11 patients; stage IV: 18 patients). A monthly follow-up including clinical status, computed tomography scan, or ultrasonography and the tumor markers carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and H carbohydrate antigen 19–9 (CA19–9) was camed out. There were no severe side effects apart from impotency in men and hot flashes and outbreaks of perspiration in three patients. No partial or complete remission was seen. Twenty-six patients showed tumor progression with a median survival time of 4 months (range 0.5–11 months). In 10 patients a "no change" evaluation with a median survival time of 10 months (range 8–17 months) was registered. In only two of these patients there was no increase in the serum tumor markers CA 19–9 and CEA during this time. In conclusion, LH-RH analogue treatment cannot be recommended in this selected group of patients suffering from advanced tumor stages of pancreatic cancer.


The acquisition time of a terahertz imaging radar system with a single transceiver can be halved by using time-delay multiplexing of its beam. This is achieved by splitting a transmitted beam into two beams pointing towards different positions in the target plane. For near-video imaging frame rates, arrays of transceivers would be needed. Both techniques, time-delay multiplexing and the use of transceiver arrays, can be combined to achieve the fastest possible imaging speeds. In this contribution, the feasibility of using the multiplexing technique applied to linear arrays of transceivers is studied. A completely optical multiplexing system, that can work for relatively large arrays, is presented. The technique is demonstrated with measurements in a two-element array.


During six months of intensive nVidia CUDA C programming many bugs were created. We pass on the software engineering lessons learnt, particularly those relevant to parallel general-purpose computation on graphics hardware GPGPU.


The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of the parents listening guidance program, which allows the parents to understand their hearing impaired children and how to listen at home, on the communication skills of the hearing impaired children. The research subjects were 3 hearing impaired children who did not accompany with the intellectual, emotional and behabioral problems, and the listening guidance has been performed for their parents for 3 months through the listening guidance program. The changes in the communication skills in the hearing impaired children were observed comparing before and after the education. In the results, first, the receptive language skill of the hearing impaired children was improved after than before the parents listening guidance. Second, the expressive language skill of the hearing impaired children was improved after than before the parents listening guidance, too. Third, in the communication behavior of the hearing impaired children, the phonation and the speech production were increased together with the gesture after the parents listening guidance. In conclusion, it is deemed that the parents listening guidance program would have positive influence on the communication behavior of the hearing impaired children.


Herein, two
red luminogens with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) characteristics based on
simple D–A structures with high performance in the film state are explored. Efficient
non-doped solution-processed organic light emitting
diodes (OLEDs) are
fabricated and emit bright red electroluminescence at 652 nm and 711 nm, respectively. Most importantly,
they exhibit CIE coordinates of (0.63, 0.36) and
(0.64, 0.35), respectively, which are close to that of primary red color (0.63,
0.34) according to the digital television standard.


Figure skating is becoming increasingly popular as both a recreational and competitive sport. As the number of figure skating participants increases, so will the number of active patients who present to their primary care physician with sport-related injuries and medical problems. Figure skating is a unique sport that continues to evolve and progress with participants partaking in more difficult moves and more rigorous training programs. Common problems in figure skating include acute musculo-skeletal injuries and chronic overuse injuries, which primarily occur in the foot, ankle, knee, leg, hip, and lower back. Figure skaters are also more likely to endure specific medical problems such as exercise-induced bronchospasm and eating disorders. Primary care physicians are able to contribute to their figure skating patient's health by recognition and appropriate treatment of acute injuries and prevention of chronic injuries and other medical problems.


Plant hardiness zones are widely used for selection of perennial plants and for phytosanitary risk analysis. The most widely used definition of plant hardiness zones (United States Department of Agriculture National Arboretum) is based on average annual extreme minimum temperature. There is a need for a global plant hardiness map to standardize the comparison of zones for phytosanitary risk analysis. Two data sets were used to create global hardiness zones: i) Climate Research Unit (CRU) 1973-2002 monthly data set; and ii) the Daily Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN). The CRU monthly data set was downscaled to five-minute resolution and a cubic spline was used to convert the monthly values into daily values. The GHCN data were subjected to a number of quality control measures prior to analysis. Least squares regression relationships were developed using GHCN and derived lowest average daily minimum temperature data and average annual extreme minimum temperatures. Error estimate statistics were calculated from the numerical difference between the estimated value for the grid and the station. The mean absolute error for annual extreme minimum temperature was 1.9oC (3.5oF) and 2/3 of the stations were classified into the correct zone.


Coupling the periodic time-invariance of the wavelet transform, with a view to thresholding as a projection, yields a simple, recursive, wavelet-based technique for denoising signals. Estimating a signal from a noise-corrupted observation is a fundamental problem of signal processing which has been addressed via many techniques. Previously, R.R. Coifman and D.L. Donoho (see Wavelets and Statistics, Lecture Notes in Statistics, vol.103, p.125-50, 1995) introduced cycle spinning, a technique of estimating the true signal as the linear average of individual estimates derived from wavelet-thresholded translated versions of the noisy signal. We demonstrate that such an average can be improved upon dramatically. The proposed algorithm recursively "cycle spins" by repeatedly translating and denoising the input via basic wavelet denoising and then translating back; at each iteration, the output of the previous iteration is used as input. Exploiting the convergence properties of projections, our algorithm can be regarded as a sequence of denoising projections that converge to the projection of the original noisy signal to a small subspace containing the true signal. It is proven that the algorithm is guaranteed to converge globally, and simulations on piecewise polynomial signals show marked improvement over both basic wavelet thresholding and standard cycle spinning.


Previous studies of Electronic Health Records (EHR) have not clearly contemplated the perspective of mental health care professionals, particularly Latino Psychologists. A research was performed in order to study the use of an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) in a Mental Health Clinic Facility in Puerto Rico. This exploratory case study addressed the following objectives: (a) identify possible benefits and barriers during and after the implementation of an EMR in a Mental Health Clinic, and (b) offer recommendations to ensure more benefits and higher expansion of the system. A semi-structured questionnaire was administrated to the clinical personnel (n=18). Some of the benefits identified are that the system: facilitates, speeds and simplifies the registration of general information, improves the quality of data entry, and keeps records organized. Some barriers identified included: limited permission to modify records and equipment capabilities and performance. In conclusion, there were more benefits than barriers identified.


An oil recovery process employing a well pattern having a horizontal well located along each of the four sides of a substantially rectangular well pattern, a vertical injection well located at the center of the well pattern, and four vertical infill wells located midway between the central injection well and the four corners of the rectangular well pattern. Steam is initially injected through the central injection well and production taken at the four infill walls. After the injection of about 0.5 to about 1.0 pore volumes of steam through the central injection well, central injection is converted to water, the infill production wells are converted to steam injection, and production is taken from the horizontal wells.


ABSTRACT Rotor of rotating machinery is the highly damaged part. Fault of 7 different types was confirmed as the main causes of rotor damage from the pump failure history data in domestic and U.S. nuclear. For each fault types, simulation testing was performed and fault signals were collected form the sensors. To calculate the statistical parameters of time-domain & frequency-domain, measured signals were analyzed by using the discrete wavelet transform, fast fourier transform, statistical analysis. Total 84 parameters were obtained. And Effectiveness factor were used to evaluate the discrimination capacity of each parameter. From the effectiveness factor, RAW-P4/ RAW-P7/ WT2-NNL/ WT2-EE/ WT1-P1 showed high ranking. Finally, these parameters were selected as the feature parameters of intelligent fault diagnostics for rotor. † 1. 서 론 회전기기는 산업 발전과 더불어 수요가 급격히 증가하였고, 대형화, 고속화, 정밀화 등의 기술적 발전에 따라 사용 영역이 크게 확대되었다 (1) . 그러나 사용자 미숙, 노화, 유지보수 불량, 설치 불량 등의 각종 원인들로 인해 사고 발생 비중이 매우 높고, 인적 피해와 경제적 손실이 크게 증가하였다. 국내 00원전을 대상으로 2002년 ∼2006년까지 주요 계통 유체 기기들의 고장 이력을 분석한 결과, Fig. 1과 같이 전체 기기들 중 원심펌프와 AC모터 및 팬 등의 회전기기 고장이 54.2%로 매우 큰 비중을 차지하고 있는 것으로 나타났다


Immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS) after starting antiretroviral treatment for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection has a wide variety of causes. Delayed diagnosis and treatment of IRIS is fatal. We report a case of a 21-year-old man with HIV infection and Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia. The patient presented with fever and dyspnea with deterioration of pulmonary infiltrations 5 days after starting antiretroviral treatment. We reached the diagnosis of IRIS based on radial endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS)-guided lung biopsy. In conclusion, radial EBUS-guided lung biopsy via bronchoscopy is a valuable and minimally invasive technique for the rapid diagnosis of IRIS-associated Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia.


Technical writing Conventions to help students with the main features or technical writing used by scientists and engineers. Lab reports Guide for undergraduate science, technology and engineering students examines a simple and an extended report. Honours thesis Structure, writing tools and answers to frequently asked questions. Report writing Questions you might need answered before getting started on your report and an outline of basic report sections. Case study report in (engineering) This is a case study report in risk management but may be useful for students writing a case study in engineering.


Experiments on a 14-vane, double-strapped magnetron oscillator were performed to demonstrate high-power, high-efficiency coherent radiation at 5.8 GHz. The double-strapped magnetron was designed by using the Buneman-Hatree resonance condition, electromagnetic simulations and non-linear three-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. Experiments showed an oscillation output power of 5.3 kW at 5.79 GHz, corresponding to a DC-RF conversion efficiency of 57%. The cathode voltage was 9.2 kV, the collected anode current was 1 A, and the external magnetic field is 7.5 kG. Experimental results for the RF power, oscillation frequency, and efficiency were in good agreement with the corresponding values from non-linear three-dimensional PIC simulations.


Abstract: Rare earth elements (REEs) that are key to new technologies and green innovations are critical to life in modern societies. China continues to dominate the global REEs market despite several international trade disputes and market fluctuations. Pressured by an increasingly difficult situation, the Chinese government has been carrying out industry restructuring and has introduced regulatory reforms in recent years to promote the healthy development of the rare earth industry. This paper reviews the literature on the development of the rare earth industry and analyzes the reform policies, combining this with an analysis of relevant macroeconomic data. It discusses the current status of China's rare earth industry, the progress of industrial restructuring and the main problems the rare earth industry faces. The paper discusses the evolution of rare earth policies from that of "open production and open supply" to that of "limiting low quality development but encouraging export of high quality rare earths" and then to "integrating rare earth resources trade". Six key policies, including those for export quotas, export duties, environmental laws, resource utilization technology, industry consolidation and stockpiling, are discussed in detail. Policy suggestions based on this discussion are put forward concerning the treatment of small rare earth mines in China: firstly, robust efforts to prevent illegal mining must always be maintained; secondly, it is certain that the formation of large-scale conglomerates should be accelerated in the near future; thirdly, the management of key sections should be reinforced; fourthly, support for technological innovation and the development of the applications industry should continue; fifthly, specific rare earths laws and regulations should be greatly improved. The paper also puts forward some suggestions on revisions to improve mineral resources law: firstly, China must increase the market access threshold and suppress low-end excess production capacity; secondly, the new environmental protection verification must be developed for all rare earth enterprises; thirdly, minimum required indicators for the development and utilization of rare earths resources must be implemented in China. These recommendations can serve as a reference for efforts to promote the sustainable development of China's rare earth industry.


Background: Typhoid fever is a significant health problem in many countries. Globally, it is estimated that 21 million toddlers suffer from this disease each year.
Purpose: This research aimed to analyze the relationship between handling body temperature and diet on the length of stay for typhoid fever among toddlers.
Methods: This research was a cross-sectional study design. The population in this study were 87 toddlers with typhoid fever Lepo-Lepo Health Care Center. The sampling technique was purposive sampling and obtained a total sample of 46 children under five.
Results: We found that Treatment of body temperature on length of stay (X2 = 5.642; p = 0.003) and diet management on length of stay (X2 = 4.920; p = 0.001) at the level of confidence 95% (α = 0.05). It means that there is a relationship between handling body temperature and diet with the length of stay in toddlers with typhoid fever.
Conclusions: This study provides information about the body temperature and diet contributing to toddlers with typhoid fever. Clinical and community nursing can provide intervention by considering temperature and diet.


Desentering is named displacement of elements of the optical system of transverse optical axis. At the decentering of elements of the optical system its axial symmetry is violated. The structure of spots of dispersion in the image of points of object is thus violated. It is comfortably to execute the analysis of structure of representing points in area of primary aberrations (aberrations of Zeydelya).It is shown that at the decentering of elements of the optical system in the diffraction image of points, which do not lie on an optical axis, new aberration with the meridional and sagyttal constituents appears along with the known primary aberrations (coma, astigmatism, dystorsia).The aberration spot described by the got expression has the appearance of circle, the radius of which is determined by not only the coordinate on the pupil of the optical system but also by the value of the decentering.


In a unique analysis of Cuban literature inside and outside the country's borders, Eduardo Gonzalez looks closely at the work of three important contemporary Cuban authors: Guillermo Cabrera Infante (1929-2005), who left Cuba for good in 1965 and established himself in London; Antonio Benitez-Rojo (1931-2005), who settled in the United States; and Leonardo Padura Fuentes (b. 1955), who still lives and writes in Cuba. Through the positive experiences of exile and wandering that appear in their work, these three writers exhibit what Gonzalez calls "Romantic authorship," a deep connection to the Romantic spirit of irony and complex sublimity crafted in literature by Lord Byron, Thomas De Quincey, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In Gonzalez's view, a writer becomes a belated Romantic by dint of exile adopted creatively with comic or tragic irony. Gonzalez weaves into his analysis related cinematic elements of myth, folktale, and the grotesque that appear in the work of filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock and Pedro Almodovar. Placing the three Cuban writers in conversation with artists and thinkers from British and American literature, anthropology, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and cinema, Gonzalez ultimately provides a space in which Cuba and its literature, inside and outside its borders, are deprovincialized.


Attackers take advantage of every second that the antivendor delays identifying the attacking malware signature and to provide notifications. In addition, the longer the detection period delayed, the greater the damage to the host device. To put it another way, the lack of ability to detect attacks early complicates the problem and rises serious harm. Consequently, this research intends to develop a knowledgeable anti-malware system capable of immediately detecting and terminating malware actions, rather than waiting for anti-malware updates. The research concentrates in its scope on the detection of malware on the Internet of Things (IoT), based on Machine Learning (ML) techniques. A latest open source ML algorithm called the Light Gradient Boosting Algorithm (LightGBM) has been used to develop our instant host and network layer antimalware approach without any human intervention. For examination reasons, the suggested approach serves the LightGBM machine learning algorithm to adopt datasets obtained from real IoT devices using the LightGBM machine learning algorithm. The results indicate a successful method to detecting and classifying high accuracy malware at both network and host levels based on the Holdout method of cross-validation. Additionally, this result is better than many prior related studies which used different algorithms of Machine Learning and Deep Learning. Though, an old study which used the same dataset was the best among the literature. However, it still slightly less than what this study achieved, besides the complexity which deep learning adds. Lastly, the results show the ability of the proposed approach to detect IoT botnet attacks fast, which is a vital feature to end botnet activity before spreading to any new network device.


Acroangiodermatitis (synonym pseudo-Kaposi sarcoma) is an unusual, benign condition which clinically presents as purple-colored patches, plaques or nodules, mostly on the extensor surfaces of lower extremities in patients with chronic venous insufficiency and arteriovenous malformations. It resembles aggressive conditions like Kaposi's sarcoma and requires histopathological examination for its diagnosis. We report two such cases of acroangiodermatitis. Histopathology of both the cases showed dilated capillaries in the dermis with extravasated red blood corpuscles (RBCs), hemosiderin deposits, and hyperplastic granulation tissue. Both were treated with oral antibiotics and topical steroids. The ulcers showed a good response within 2 months of treatment.


Background Of available self-rated social phobia scales, none assesses the spectrum of fear, avoidance, and physiological symptoms, all of which are clinically important. Because of this limitation, we developed the Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN). Aims To establish psychometric validation of the SPIN. Method Subjects from three clinical trials and two control groups were given the 17-item, self-rated SPIN. Validity was assessed against several established measures of social anxiety, global assessments of severity and improvement, and scales assessing physical health and disability. Results Good test – retest reliability, internal consistency, convergent and divergent validity were obtained. A SPIN score of 19 distinguished between social phobia subjects and controls. The SPIN was responsive to change in symptoms over time and reflected different responses to active drugs v. placebo. Factorial analysis identified five factors. Conclusions The SPIN demonstrates solid psychometric properties and shows promise as a measurement for the screening of, and treatment response to, social phobia.


Background: The aim of this study was to compare Dynamic Susceptibility Contrast Enhanced MRI (DSC-MRI) and PET with flurodeoxyglucose (FDG-PET) in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI).Methods: Age and sex matched 27 patients with AD, 39 with aMCI and 16 controls underwent brain DSC-MRI followed by FDG-PET. Values of relative Cerebral Blood Volume (rCBV) and rCBV z-scores from frontal, temporal, parietal and PCG cortices were correlated with the rate of glucose metabolism from PET. Sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of DSC-MRI and FDG-PET in the diagnosis of AD and aMCI were assessed and compared.Results: In AD hypoperfusion was found within all examined locations, while in aMCI in both parietal and temporal cortices and left PCG. FDG-PET showed the greatest hypometabolism in parietal, temporal and left PCG regions in both AD and aMCI. FDG-PET was more accurate in distinguishing aMCI from controls than DSC-MRI. In AD and combined group (AD + aMCI ) there were numerous correlations between DSC-MRI and FDG-PET results. Conclusions: In AD the patterns of hypoperfusion and glucose hypometabolism are similar thus DSC-MRI may be a competitive method to FDG-PET. FDG-PET is a more accurate method in the diagnosis of aMCI.


The most frequent way of virus dissemination is through the canonical receptor-mediated pathway. However, when unfavorable conditions, such as presence of antibodies appear, the viruses use more peculiar routes of transmission to protect themselves. Here we describe most of the routes, from syncytia formation, tunneling nanotubes and filopodia, through immunological and virological synapses to actin comets formation. We describe the cell-to-cell transport in different viral families to show that this way of virus distribution is present in almost all the mammalian virus families and is not as uncommon as it was thought. The knowledge of the ways of viral transport might lead us to exploit more successful therapeutic approaches and fight the most threatening diseases. Keywords: cell-to-cell transmission; tunneling nanotubes; viral synapses; filopodia; actin comets.


The field of geotechnics is moving fast towards benefiting from new methods and tools to improve the understanding of couplings among complex transport, chemical and biological phenomena. Calcite bio-mineralization, result of bio-grouting, stands out as such a problem where solute and solid transport phenomena, cell attachment, and cell/crystal growth mechanisms hold the key towards the formation of new, improved geo-materials. In the present study, focus is put on the real-time monitoring of the critical evolution of calcite precipitation within long trajectories in microfluidic chips. The total transport path, across which these phenomena are captured and interpreted, ranges between 1 and 1.5 meters to evaluate at which extend calcite crystal growth and deposition varies along the infiltrated porous chips. Results reveal varying number and sizes of crystals which precipitate across the flow path while qualitative characteristics are also discussed. Overall, the study aims to shed light into the previously underexplored, activation of the bio-cementation reaction, which governs nucleation, transport, and growth of calcite mineral binders and, therefore, influences the mechanical response of geo-materials subjected to bio-grouting applications.


Summary. During the study elements of technology of cultivation of coriander in the open ground of the southern areas of the Amur region were explored. Field experiments included testing of 7 varieties of coriander. In this case, optimal planting dates and layout of culture, forms the surface of the soil and the dose of fertilizer were determined. Field experiments were conducted from 1991 to 2011 on meadow-chernozem soil, which had a slightly acid reaction of the soil medium pH aq. from 5.9 to 6.3 with a humus content in the soil from 4.18 to 4.41 %, total nitrogen from 0.20 to 0.22 %, and total phosphorus from 0.2 to 0.31%. Content in the soil exchangeab le potas-sium was 12 ... 25 mg/100 g, and available phosphorus 2.5 ... 4.0 mg/100 g. It was found that the optimum period of sowing cori ander is from April 25 to May 5. The most appropriate scheme sowing coriander is 20 +20 +20 +80 cm. Belt sowing (5 +27 +5 +27 +5 +71 cm) increases the yield of greenery on average 0.53 t / ha , but it leads to reduced seed production by 10 ... 15% . Ridges provide the most favorable conditions for commodity products and seeds. The optimal dose of nitrogen , phosphorus and potassium in the preparati on of the green was 30 kg active substance/hectare of active substance , and in the preparation of seeds of 60 kg active substance/he ctare. The proposed technology allows the green coriander yield to 11.5 t/ha, reduces production costs and energy costs of its production.


Objective To measure the plasma concentrations of three endogenous opioid peptides and the levels of preproenkephalin (PPE) and preprodynorphin (PPD) mRNA in peripheral blood lymphocytes of patients during scheduled surgery performed under intravenous general anaesthesia combined with an epidural block. Methods Patients were anaesthetized and arterial blood was collected at 0 (baseline), 20, 40, 60, and 80 min during surgery. The plasma concentrations of β-endorphin, leucine-enkephalin and dynorphin A were measured using radioimmunoassay. Reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction was used to measure the levels of PPD and PPE mRNA in peripheral blood lymphocytes collected during surgery. Results Fifteen patients participated in this prospective study. The plasma concentrations of β-endorphin were significantly lower at all time-points compared with the baseline value. The plasma concentrations of leucine-enkephalin and dynorphin A were significantly lower at 40, 60, and 80 min compared with baseline. The PPD/β-actin ratio was significantly lower at 80 min compared with baseline, while the PPE/β-actin ratio showed no significant change. Conclusion The level of mRNA from two pre-endogenous opioid peptide genes either decreased or remained unchanged during surgery under intravenous general anaesthesia with epidural block, suggesting that patients remained pain free during surgery.


Cities,'the magnet of hope' are pulling people into themselves without preparing for them, this influx leads to overconcentration of people in the already blighted cities centers, this creates new problems or aggravates the existing ones which makes the residents vulnerable to various dangers. This work reviews a few urban planning theories, triangulated them and introduces a modified version. It also analysis vulnerability in the slums of core city centers and suggested strategies that can reduce it. The work will be of tremendous use to policy makers, urban planners, academic community and the general public.


A dual mode charge pump to produce an adaptive power supply for a class G audio power amplifier is presented. According to the amplitude of the input signals, the charge pump has two level output voltage rails available to save power. It operates both in current mode at high output load and in pulse frequency modulation (PFM) at light load to reduce the power dissipation. Also, dynamic adjustment of the power stage transistor size based on load current at the PFM mode is introduced to reduce the output voltage ripple and prevent the switching frequency from audio range. The prototype is implemented in 0.18 μm 3.3 V CMOS technology. Experimental results show that the maximum power efficiency of the charge pump is 79.5% @ 0.5x mode and 83.6% @ 1x mode. The output voltage ripple is less than 15 mV while providing 120 mA of the load current at PFM control and less than 18 mV while providing 300 mA of the load current at current mode control. An analytical model for ripple voltage and efficiency calculation of the proposed PFM control demonstrates reasonable agreement with measured results.


In the paper [11] we have introduced new solvability methods for strongly elliptic second order systems in divergence form on a domains above a Lipschitz graph, satisfying L-boundary data for p near 2. The main novel aspect of our result is that it applies to operators with coefficients of limited regularity and applies to operators satisfying a natural Carleson condition that has been first considered in the scalar case. In this paper we extend this result in several directions. We improve the range of solvability of the L Dirichlet problem to the interval 2 − ε < p < 2(n−1) (n−3) + ε, for systems in dimension n = 2, 3 in the range 2− ε < p < ∞. We do this by considering solvability of the Regularity problem (with boundary data having one derivative in L) in the range 2− ε < p < 2 + ε. Secondly, we look at perturbation type-results where we can deduce solvability of the L Dirichlet problem for one operator from known L Dirichlet solvability of a "close" operator (in the sense of Carleson measure). This leads to improvement of the main result of the paper [11]; we establish solvability of the L Dirichlet problem in the interval 2− ε < p < 2(n−1) (n−2) + ε under a much weaker (oscillation-type) Carleson condition. A particular example of the system where all these results apply is the Lamé operator for isotropic inhomogeneous materials with Poisson ratio ν < 0.396. In this specific case further improvements of the solvability range are possible, see [12].


Efficient algorithms for the calculation of minimum energy paths of magnetic transitions are implemented within the geodesic nudged elastic band (GNEB) approach. While an objective function is not available for GNEB and a traditional line search can, therefore, not be performed, the use of limited memory Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno (LBFGS) and conjugate gradient algorithms in conjunction with orthogonal spin optimization (OSO) approach is shown to greatly outperform the previously used velocity projection and dissipative Landau–Lifschitz dynamics optimization methods. The implementation makes use of energy weighted springs for the distribution of the discretization points along the path and this is found to improve performance significantly. The various methods are applied to several test problems using a Heisenberg-type Hamiltonian, extended in some cases to include Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya and exchange interactions beyond nearest neighbours. Minimum energy paths are found for magnetization reversals in a nano-island, collapse of skyrmions in two-dimensional layers and annihilation of a chiral bobber near the surface of a three-dimensional magnet. The LBFGS-OSO method is found to outperform the dynamics based approaches by up to a factor of 8 in some cases.


Abstract This essay examines the complex relationship between international law and the balance of power which Hedley Bull claims is paradoxical. Bull argues that the balance of power is an 'essential condition' of international law and that the actions required to preserve the balance 'often involve' violation of international law. It is shown that what seems to be a paradox is not a paradox but essentially a normative problem related to the difficulties in regulating power within international society, and that the perceived paradox does more to obscure than to clarify the fundamental normative problem to be dealt with.


Acquired thermotolerance, measured either as increased cell viability following a lethal heat shock or by translational thermotolerance, appears rapidly following a 'priming' heat treatment, but also decays rapidly. 4 hours after priming heating thermotolerance is reduced by > 50% and by 9 hours it is virtually undetectable. Heat-shock protein 70 (Hsp70) turns over with a half-life of approximately 2 hours, and the decline in its intracellular abundance parallels the loss of acquired thermotolerance. Continuous heat shock extends the half-life of Hsp70 to approximately 7 hours. When Hsp70 is expressed at normal temperature using a metallothionein promoter, only partial acquired translational thermotolerance results. The results suggest that acquired thermotolerance is tightly regulated in Drosophila and partly, but not wholly, determined by post-translational regulation of Hsp70 levels.


We present detailed C, O, Na, Mg, Si, Ca, Ti, V, Fe, Zr, Ba, and Eu abundance measurements for 20 red giant branch (RGB) stars in the LMC star cluster NGC 1846 ([Fe/H] = -0.59). This cluster is 1.95 Gyr old and lies just below the supposed lower age limit (2 Gyr) for the presence of multiple populations in massive star clusters. Our measurements are based on high and low-resolution VLT/FLAMES spectra combined with photometric data from HST. Corrections for non-local thermodynamic equilibrium effects are also included for O, Na, Mg, Si, Ca, Fe and Ba. Our results show that there is no evidence for multiple populations in this cluster based on the lack of any intrinsic star-to-star spread in the abundances of Na and O: we place 95 per cent confidence limits on the intrinsic dispersion for these elements of ≤0.07 and ≤0.09 dex, respectively. However, we do detect a significant spread in the carbon abundances, indicating varying evolutionary mixing occurring on the RGB that increases with luminosity. Overall, the general abundance patterns for NGC 1846 are similar to those seen in previous studies of intermediate-age LMC star clusters and field stars.


Ions are ubiquitous in astrophysical environments. Knowledge of the cross sections and rates for the atomic and molecular processes which create ions and which destroy them is an important part of any detailed model of an astronomical object. Ions and ionic collisions in two very different environments, the early Universe and planetary nebulae, are explored in this paper. Electron-ion recombination leading to the eventual formation of primordial molecules is described. Collisions of ions with electrons and atoms, central to the interpretation of emission lines in astrophysical plasmas, are discussed. Recent work in predicting element abundances in planetary nebulae is highlighted.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the clinical value of glycosylated G-CSF combined with middle-high dose cyclophosphamide (Cy) or conventional chemotherapy with increased dose of Cy for mobilizing peripheral blood progenitor cells in patients with tumor.

METHODS
Thirty patients from four hospitals in Beijing region were enrolled in this clinical study. Diagnoses of the patients were non-Hodgkin' lymphoma (n = 21), Hodgkin disease (n = 1), breast cancer (n = 7) and ovary cancer (n = 1). Autologous peripheral blood progenitor cells (APBPC) were mobilized by middle-high dose Cy or conventional chemotherapy with increased dose of Cy combined with G-CSF. G-CSF was given subcutaneously from the nadir of the white blood cell (WBC) count to the end of PBPC collection. The dosage of G-CSF was 250 microg/d in 29 patients and 500 microg/d in 1 patient. When WBC count was > 5 x 10(9)/L, APBPC were harvested with CS 3000 plus/COBE Spectra.

RESULTS
The average dosage of Cy was 3.95 g (2.3 g/m(2)). The doses of G-CSF were 3.1 approximately 6.4 microg x kg(-1) x d(-1). Thirteen patients (43%) were collected twice, 14 patients (47%) three times and 3 patients (10%) four times. All of the patients could tolerate the treatment regimens. Seven patients had bone pain after G-CSF injection and one was severe, one patient had headache and one had nausea and vomiting.

CONCLUSION
250 microg glycosylated G-CSF combined with middle-high Cy or conventional chemotherapy with increased dose of Cy combined G-CSF is an optimal method for APBPC mobilization in tumor patients.


This paper investigates the consequences of fiscal policies for the exchange rate. After developing a simple theory of how government financing policies should effect the exchange rate, we test it using data on the dollar/pound exchange rate. Previous analyses have concentrated mainly on the post-Bretton Woods flexible exchange rate system, thus ignoring potentially useful information contained in fixed exchange rate periods or in previous flexible exchange rate periods. This paper shows that it is theoretically proper and econometrically feasible to merge evidence from different nominal exchange rate systems. The gain of this procedure is that we can extend the sample period back to the 1870's. Our results suggest that permanent government expenditures are the only fiscal variables that significantly affected the dollar/pound nominal exchange rate. Budget deficits appear to be irrelevant in this respect.


An algorithm for the detection of dominant points and for building a hierarchical approximation of a digital curve is proposed. The algorithm does not require any parameter tuning and is shown to perform well for a wide variety of shapes, including scaled and rotated ones. Dominant points are first located by a coarse-to-fine detector scheme. They constitute the vertices of a polygon closely approximating the curve. Then, a criterion of perceptual significance is used to repeatedly remove suitable vertices until a stable polygonal configuration, the contour sketch, is reached. A highly compressed hierarchical description of the shape also becomes available. >


Large language models (LLMs) have substantially improved natural language processing (NLP) performance, but training these models from scratch is resource-intensive and challenging for smaller languages.With this paper, we want to initiate a discussion on the necessity of language-specific pre-training of LLMs.We propose how the "one model-many models" conceptual framework for task transfer can be applied to language transfer and explore this approach by evaluating the performance of non-Swedish monolingual and multilingual models' performance on tasks in Swedish.Our findings demonstrate that LLMs exposed to limited Swedish during training can be highly capable and transfer competencies from English off-the-shelf, including emergent abilities such as mathematical reasoning, while at the same time showing distinct culturally adapted behaviour.Our results suggest that there are resourceful alternatives to language-specific pre-training when creating useful LLMs for small languages.


Background: Blood banks split an adult packed red cell bag (usually 250 ml) into 30 ml bags, making a total of eight neonatal "satellite" packs per donor. These packs are then "allocated"/"committed" to be used to serially transfuse a newborn. Aim: To study transfusion requirements of premature infants in relation to their birth weight and thereby attempt to rationalise the method of dispensing satellite blood packs. Method: Data on the distribution of neonatal transfusions with respect to weight were obtained retrospectively from unit A (51 infants, 168 transfusions) and unit B (46 infants, 151 transfusions). These data were used to model the effect of different policies on donor exposure and number of unused packs. Results: Infants weighing less than 1000 g at birth have significantly higher transfusion requirements than those weighing1000 g or more (p = 0.001 (unit A), p = 0.004 (unit B)). Our model predicted a significant reduction in donor exposure if eight packs/infant were allocated to those weighing < 1000 g, and a significant cut in the number of unused packs if four satellite packs/infant were allocated to those weighing ⩾ 1000 g. Conclusions: It would be safer and cost effective to allocate eight packs/infant to those with birth weights < 1000 g and four packs/infant to those with birth weights ⩾ 1000 g.


Information and resources about copyright law and fair use. PLEASE NOTE: this guide contains legal information but does not constitute legal advice. Fair Use


Elderly traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients have higher rates of mortality and worse functional outcome than non-elderly TBI patients. The mechanisms involved in poor outcomes in the elderly are not well understood. Hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF-1alpha) is a basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor that modulates expression of key genes involved in neuroprotection. In this study, we studied the expression of HIF-1alpha and its target survival genes, heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and erythropoietin (EPO) in the brains of adult versus aged mice following controlled cortical impact (CCI) injury. Adult (5-6 months) and aged (23-24 months) C57Bl/6 mice were injured using a CCI device. At 72 h post-injury, mice were sacrificed and the injured cortex was used for mRNA and protein analysis using real-time reverse transcription--polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and Western blotting protocols. Following injury, HIF-1alpha, HO-1, and VEGF showed upregulation in both the young and aged mice, but in the aged animals the increase in HIF-1alpha and VEGF in response to injury was much lower than in the adult injured animals. EPO was upregulated in the adult injured brain, but not in the aged injured brain. These results support the hypothesis that reduced expression of genes in the HIF-1alpha neuroprotective pathway in aging may contribute to poor prognosis in the elderly following TBI.


Background: Laboratory animal workers face the risk of developing an IgE-associated respiratory allergy to airborne proteins such as Mus m 1. Approximately 15% of exposed employees will develop IgE sensitisation and 10% clinically apparent disease. We have recently embarked on a large study to gain a greater understanding of contemporary laboratory animal allergy (LAA) and determine whether we can devise a code of safe practice to prevent as far as possible the future occurrence of LAA. Aim: To determine Mus m 1 personal exposure within an animal facility where mice are housed exclusively in individually ventilated cages (IVC). Methods: Selected employees wore Casella Apex pumps (2L/min) to collect inhalable particulate onto fluoropore membrane (1µm), 25mm filters using IOM sampling heads. Eighty two filters were analysed for Mus m 1 using a commercial sandwich enzyme linked immunoassay (Indoor Biotechnology). Results: The range of Mus m 1 levels within our samples varied from 0.00 – 66.33 ng/m 3 , with eleven (13%) samples having a Mus m 1 exposure level greater than 5 ng/m 3 . The variability represented different tasks carried out by the laboratory animal workers, but we also observed variability between samples from the same individual carrying out the same task on different days. Conclusions: Despite the use of IVCs, which have been shown to reduce exposure to Mus m 1, a substantial proportion of exposures were higher than 5 ng/m 3 , a figure previously suggested to limit or reduce incidence of LAA. We will examine whether variation in working practices are responsible for high allergen levels.


Sir, I read the article 'Efficacy and safety of Mitoxantrone, as an initial therapy, in multiple sclerosis: Experience in an Indian tertiary care setting'[1] with interest. I applaud the authors for conducting such a study in Indian setup. The beneficence of low cost involved in the treatment of multiple sclerosis with mitroxantrone need to be evaluated against the cost involved in dealing with the significant morbidity caused due to potential side effects of the drug therapy. The ethical justification of initiating such therapy in relatively milder form of disease is a matter of serious discussion and will be debated upon for a long time to come. Nonetheless, the authors have done a commendable job in view of patients seriously impaired by multiple sclerosis who cannot afford first line treatment, though large scale study will be needed to complement the results of this study.


An ultrasonic Doppler was used to monitor embolic activity in the arterial line of an extracorporeal circuit. No differences in embolic activity were observed when either 100% N2 or 95% Oz-5% C02 gases were swept through a bubble oxygenator. Information is presented suggesting that nitrogen or air micro emboli are more deleterious than oxygen or carbogen microemboli. Consequently, this article recommends that the use of compressed air or nitrogen should be contraindicated in bubble oxygenators. Since the cardiotomy suction is a major source of nitrogen microemboli, this article also emphasizes that the cardiotomy suction be minimized and that a pressurized cardiotomy return be prevented from directly entering the oxygenator.


Abstract A novel apio analogue of neplanocin A was efficiently synthesized from D-ribose via stereoselective aldol-retroaldol reaction for introducing hydroxymethyl group and RCM reaction for synthesizing carbocycle, and its inhibitory activity against SAH hydrolase was assayed.


Leaf and whole plant responses of honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa Torr.) to intraspecific competition were compared under low (LD) or high (HD) stand density in a semi-arid region of north Texas. The HD trees occurred within a stand of 300 trees ha-1. The LD trees occurred in areas of the dense stand that were thinned to 80 trees ha-1 with no neighbors within 10 m of study trees. Tree size was similar in each treatment at study initiation. Five years after thinning, tree height, canopy volume, basal stem diameter, leaf area, and leaf area index were significantly greater in LD than HD trees. No differences in leaf predawn water potential, stomatal conductance, and photosynthesis were found between LD and HD trees during growing seasons 4 or 6 years after study initiation. Results indicate resources necessary for growth of individual mesquite plants were limiting under increased stand density and suggest the occurrence of intraspecific competition. Limitations were manifest at the whole plant level via modification of tree size and leaf area per tree, and not through adjustment of leaf physiological processes. The limiting factor appeared to be soil water. Daily water loss tree-1 was 2.5 to 4 times greater in LD than HD trees, and ranged from 119 to 205 kg and 46 to 59 kg in LD and HD trees, respectively. Projected daily water loss by mesquite at the stand level was similar between treatments, however, and ranged from 9,500 to 17,700 kg ha-1.


This article sets out to synthesize and question several passages dealing with educational issues in the writings of Antonio Gramsci, in particular the project of building a "common school" (scuola unitaria) and, more generally, what is called the "pedagogical relationship". These occasional and apparently random remarks we find scattered throughout the Prison Notebooks are used by Gramsci to refine the concepts of power and hegemony, which they help to formalize. For Gramsci, hegemony is in fact an "educational relation". These remarks enable us to identify certain ambiguities prefiguring those involved in the theories of symbolic domination, and which the critical sociology of education will make great use of. However the remarks also open up other potential paths leading into the heart of the philosophy of praxis, with its focus on the necessary and possible development of a "collective name", intimately associated with the development of a "singular noun". If we avoid the temptation to distort it by granting it a mythical status, the project of the "scuola unitaria" retains its relevance today, insofar as it makes the case for certain potentialities which, till now, have scarcely been actualised through the historical deployment of schooling.


The dynamics and anisotropy of ferroelectric domain growth was studied in situ for a tilted hexatic liquid crystal phase (SmI*) as a function of electric field amplitude, frequency and temperature. Domain growth proceeds parallel and perpendicular to the smectic layer plane (not the direction of uniform rubbing), with domain wall mobilities being several times larger in the direction parallel to the layers as compared to the perpendicular direction. Domain wall velocities were determined directly by digital image analysis of the wall displacement, as well as indirectly by determination of the fraction of switched sample area and analysis by a modified Avrami equation. Using a special smectic layer configuration known as horizontal chevrons, we additionally studied the effect of elastic anchoring interactions on the ferroelectric domain growth process, i.e. switching into the direction of preferred anchoring (rubbing direction) and out of it. The former process, which is elastically favoured, is one order of magnitude faster than the latter process, which is elastically hindered. This behaviour is confirmed by the estimation of an effective activation energy for the domain wall displacement for both switching processes.


The electro optic Kerr constant of many new organic solutions comprising of the substituted aromatic carbonyl and nitrile compounds as solutes in nitrobenzene, for various molar concentrations of the solutes has been measured. We found several solutions having Kerr constants greater than that of nitrobenzene. The interactions between the components in these solutions have been established to be dipole-dipole in nature for the first time by conducting experiments and measuring the dipolemoments for solutions of various molar concentrations. The variations of the dipole moment with concentration in many solutions have been found to follow the same trend of variations of Kerr constant with molar concentration.


An integrated gradiometer system is presented, consisting of a single-layer high-temperature superconductor dc superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) and two coils, realized on printed circuit boards. The coils compensate the homogeneous background field, thus allowing the gradiometer to be freely moved in the Earth's magnetic field. The gradiometer signal is not harmed by any additional noise introduced by the homogeneous field compensation. Therefore, a noise-limited magnetic field gradient resolution of 15 pT m−1 Hz−1/2 with a 1/f corner frequency of 2 Hz was achieved. This is preserved even after motion in the Earth's magnetic field. Because of the small dimensions of the compensation coils, the gradiometer system can also be used for non-destructive evaluation. Preliminary measurements were performed by moving the SQUID across a workpiece, without any shielding.


Early life factors may influence pulmonary function. We measured forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV(1)) in 1985-1986 and 2, 5, and 10 years later in approximately 4,000 black and white men and women initially aged 18-30 years. We estimated the age pattern of FEV(1) according to family smoking status, early diagnosis of asthma, early smoking initiation, adult asthma, and cigarette smoking. FEV(1) followed a quadratic pattern from age of peak through age 40. The pattern varied by race and sex. Early smoking initiation was associated with a faster decrease in FEV(1). Smoking by family members was related to early life asthma and may have contributed to faster FEV(1) decrease by encouraging behaviors such as heavier smoking or earlier smoking initiation. Prevalence of smoking was 28% when no family member smoked, compared with 59% when four or more members smoked. The FEV(1) decline was 8.5% in never-smokers without asthma; 10.1% in nonsmoking individuals diagnosed with asthma; and 11.1% in baseline smokers who smoked 15 or more cigarettes per day. The combination of asthma and heavier smoking was synergistic (17.8% decline). This study delineates an increased rate of decline in those with asthma or in those who smoke cigarettes and implicates early life exposures as contributing to the faster rate of FEV(1) decline.