Volunteer tourists, often foreigners, collect essential data in wildlife conservation projects worldwide. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, international tourism activities reduced drastically, forcing many conservation projects to shut down. Using a nine-year (2013–2021) case study in Indonesia, we examine how local and foreign tourists construct the meaning of their volunteer experiences in the light of COVID-19. We aim to highlight the potential benefits of local volunteer tourism to face the travel limitations posed by COVID-19, and to show an example of how conservation projects can overcome the challenges of the current and potential future pandemics. We recruited 117 volunteers (49 Indonesians, 68 foreign; 73 females, 44 males; mean age: 24.2 ± SD 4.7) that collected 50.8% of the total amount of data collected by the project over the same period. Of the 117 volunteers, 81 of them (38 Indonesians, 43 foreigners) filled in a feedback form at the end of their stay. Via logistic regressions, we found that Indonesian volunteers declared more positive feedback on the logistics at the research station (p = 0.047). Via Bayesian structural equation models, we found that Indonesian volunteers reported significantly more frequently than foreign volunteers that they learned new skills (89% Credible Interval = 0.017–0.351) and that they gained personal wisdom, growth and maturity (89% Credible Interval = 0.891–1.003) from the volunteer experience. The volunteer program evolved from being 100% foreign volunteers in 2013 to 100% Indonesian volunteers by 2020 at the peak of the pandemic, which helped maintain the continuity of the research and conservation activities. We presented the positive implications of shifting towards local volunteer tourists in a long-term conservation project. We suggest that promoting local volunteer tourism through training new generations of nationals in conservation projects is key to guarantee the persistence of such initiatives in the post-COVID-19 Era.


A theoretical model of the process of respiratory gas exchange between capillary and tissue is described, with special reference to the importance of variations in blood properties. The volume of tissue supplied with oxygen from a single vessel, as a function of the blood flowrate (u), hematocrit (h), and 2,3 diphosphoglycerate concentration (DPG), is calculated from a solution to the set of equations governing species distributions in the blood and tissue. The results, which are presented in the form of crossplots of the three blood parameters (u, h, and DPG) at a constant oxygen supply rate, show the possible significance of in vivo variations in the oxygen affinity of hemoglobin as a compensatory mechanism. Of further physiological interest is the sharp increase in venous erythrocyte pH in response to decreases in hematocrit, once the hematocrit is below a certain level. These results, and those relating DPG to hematocrit at constant O2 supply, are consistent with experimental observations of elevated DPG and pH levels in anemic individualts, and the dependence of erythrocyte DPG concentration upon pH.


Abstract Although uranium series (U-series) ages of growth-position fossil corals are important to Quaternary sea-level history, coral clast reworking from storms can yield ages on a terrace dating to more than one high-sea stand, confounding interpretations of sea-level history. On northern Barbados, U-series ages corals from a thick storm deposit are not always younger with successively higher stratigraphic positions, but all date to the last interglacial period (~127 ka to ~112 ka), Marine Isotope Substage (MIS) 5.5. The storm deposit ages are consistent with the ages of growth-position corals found at the base of the section and at landward localities on this terrace. Thus, in this case, analysis of only a few corals would not have led to an error in interpreting sea-level history. In contrast, a notch cut into older Pleistocene limestone below the MIS 5.5 terrace contains corals that date to both MIS 5.5 (~125 ka) and MIS 5.3 (~108 ka). We infer that the notch formed during MIS 5.3 and the MIS 5.5 corals are reworked. Similar multiple ages of corals on terraces have been reported elsewhere on Barbados. Thus, care must be taken in interpreting U-series ages of corals that are reported without consideration of taphonomy.


The quest for renewable sources of energy has opened new opportunities in the forest industry. What was considered non-merchantable trees for traditional use can now be marketed as feedstock for energy production. This study was set to evaluate protocols for producing woody biomass as an added-value production for renewable cleaner energy. Two forest types (hardwood and pine) were considered as treatments with three replications. Different aspects of woody biomass production were evaluated including cost of production, yield per acre, and efficiency to produce electricity. Data were collected from six in-wood chipping operations in four different counties in Alabama. The chipping operations were integrated within traditional logging operations. The specifics of woody biomass production were collecting, loading and chipping logging residues. A significant difference in cost was found between producing hardwood-chips ($9.68/ton) and producing pine-chips ($7.26/ton). The difference is explained by temporal factors in chipping hardwood. However, hardwood forests were equally productive to pine forests in terms of biomass yield/year/acre.


In recent years, big data systems have become an active area of research and development. Stream processing is one of the potential application scenarios of big data systems where the goal is to process a continuous, high velocity flow of information items. High frequency trading (HFT) in stock markets or trending topic detection in Twitter are some examples of stream processing applications. In some cases (like, for instance, in HFT), these applications have end-to-end quality-of-service requirements and may benefit from the usage of real-time techniques. Taking this into account, the present article analyzes, from the point of view of real-time systems, a set of patterns that can be used when implementing a stream processing application. For each pattern, we discuss its advantages and disadvantages, as well as its impact in application performance, measured as response time, maximum input frequency and changes in utilization demands due to the pattern.


The concept of conductive argument weight was developed by Carl Wellman and later by Trudy Govier. This concept has received renewed attention recently from another informal logician, Robert C. Pinto. Argument weight has also been addressed in recent years by theorists in AI & Law. I argue from a non-technical perspective that some aspects of AI & Law's approach to argument weight can be usefully applied to the issues addressed by Pinto. I also relate some of these issues to the work of argument theorist Harald Wohlrapp.


The ultrastructure and morphogenesis of Mason-Pfizer monkey virus, isolated from a mammary carcinoma in a Rhesus monkey, was compared with those of murine mammary tumor virus, murine leukemia virus, L1210 leukemia-associated virus, and avian myeloblastosis virus. The simian virus resembled murine mammary tumor virus and the L1210 virus in that it produced intracytoplasmic particles that were enveloped during budding. It resembled L1210 virus and murine leukemia virus in budding with smooth envelopes. It differed from all the others in being more fragile. These similarities, combined with biochemical characteristics reported elsewhere in this issue, suggest that the monkey virus is an oncogenic RNA virus.


Abstract A single large specimen of carcineretid crab from the Cretaceous Puerto Romero unit of Colombia constitutes the basis for a new species, Ophthalmoplax triambonatus. A re-diagnosis of the Carcineretidae results in the assignment of five genera to the family: Carcineretes Withers, 1922; Branchiocarcinus Vega, Feldmann, and Sour-Tovar, 1995; Mascaranada Vega and Feldmann, 1991; Ophthalmoplax Rathbun, 1935; and Woodbinax Stenzel, 1952. The cross-sectional profile of O. triambonatus suggests that it was a back-burrower, rather than an active swimmer.


(1) Background: the present study examined the isokinetic peak torque exerted by both knee extensors and flexors, anterior–posterior imbalance and the magnitude and direction of inter-limb asymmetry in professional and academy soccer players. (2) Methods: one hundred soccer players (professional = 50, elite academy = 50) volunteered to take part in this investigation. An isokinetic dynamometer was used to measure the knee extensor (quadriceps) and flexors muscle (hamstrings) torques of the limbs as well as inter-limb asymmetries—using a standard percentage difference equation. (3) Results: professional players exhibited significantly greater (effect size [ES] = large) strength levels in the quadriceps and hamstrings under both testing conditions, significantly higher (small to moderate) intra-limb ratio values for 60°·s−1 but not for the 300°·s−1 test condition, significantly (small to moderate) lower inter-limb asymmetry values for all test conditions, with the exception of the hamstrings at 60°·s−1 and the direction of asymmetry was poor to slight, indicating that limb dominance was rarely the same between groups. (4) Conclusions: this study shows that isokinetic assessments, i.e., peak torque exerted by both knee extensors and flexors and intra-limb ratio, and the subsequent inter-limb asymmetry, i.e., magnitude and direction, can differentiate between professional and academy soccer players.


The article presents the concept of organizational capacity for change. For this purpose the resource-based view of firm was mainly used. In addition, the review of research in the area of the organizational capacity for change and its influence on the process of change management was presented. Based on the empirical model proposed by Klarner, Probst and Soparnot, the contextual and the process factors that should be taken into account in the analysis of the organizational capacity for change were described.


The effects of a commercially available porous glass substrate (Corning Porous Glass No.7930) on the heterogeneous nucleation of proteins [hen egg-white lysozyme (HEWL), thaumatin and apoferritin] have been investigated in order to develop an improved method to facilitate the nucleation of protein crystals. It was found that the porous glass substrate could promote the nucleation at lower supersaturations. The induction time for nucleation decreased, and the crystals obtained from porous glass substrates were larger than those from normal glass substrates. Many pores and channels of 10-100 nm in diameter were observed on the porous glass surface by atomic force microscopy (AFM). It is believed that these pores and channels are crucial for facilitating the nucleation process in this work.


In this paper, the thermal design and optimization of a high-power wireless charging system (WCS) is proposed. An integrated electromagnetic and thermal co-optimization is essential to design a high power-density WCS pad. This study presents the thermal analysis and the potential optimization scopes for a polyphase WCS pad. The coil and core causes most of the power losses of a WCS pad and causes thermal hotspot in the pad. In this paper, the thermally conductive epoxy is introduced to balance the effective volumetric loss density in the pad and mitigate the thermal hotspots in the coil and core. The proposed design is simulated through finite element analysis (FEA) and tested experimentally for a 50 kW three-phase WCS. Simulation and experimental results show that the conventional design has localized hotspots in the coil and core. The proposed thermal design mitigates the thermal hotspots without increasing the coil or core volume.


Valuation issues permeate all tax laws and regulations. In Chinese value added tax (VAT) and business tax, legal valuation is mandatory under non-monetary consideration transaction, anti-avoidance, and transfer-pricing circumstances. In recent years, tax valuation is becoming more and more complicated in intangible property transactions and financial instrument transactions; these types of transactions constitute big challenges to traditional legal valuation. In China, legal valuation exists in tax laws, accounting standards, and valuation standards; there are some divergences among these regulations. How to coordinate these standards is becoming a critical problem. This article focuses on an analysis of legal valuation in Chinese VAT and business tax, sorts out the concepts evolution from average sale price to market price and to fair value, and points out that the average sale price approach has brought some problems.


Abnormalities of p53 gene are common in lung cancers and are associated with immunologically detectable p53 protein. p53 immunoreactivity is uncommon in normal cells but is frequently seen in neoplasia. Therefore, assessment of p53 expression may assist in the cytological diagnosis of malignancy. The usefulness of p53 immunostaining as a marker of malignancy in the cytological analysis of bronchial brush specimens from the patients with lung cancers was investigated in this study. A total of 71 bronchial brush samples submitted for cytologic diagnosis were immunostained with D07, a monoclonal antibody to recombinant p53 protein. Resultant p53 data were correlated with cytologic diagnosis and clinical information. Of the 17 smears with a benign cytodiagnosis, all were p53 negative. Of the 40 cases with a malignant cytodiagnosis (histologically confirmed), 35 were p53 positive and 5 were negative. Of the 14 cases that were cytologically suspicious but nondiagnostic for malignancy, 11 were p53 positive, 9 of which were subsequently proved to be malignant by histologic examination, and the remaining 2 cases were tuberculosis clinically. Forty four of 51 histologically confirmed lung carcinomas were p53 positive, including 25 of 28 squamous cell carcinomas, 13 of 17 small cell carcinomas, 3 of 3 adenocarcinomas, and 3 of 3 large cell undifferentiated carcinomas. These results suggest that p53 immunostaining could be of value as a marker of malignancy in the cytologic examination of bronchial brush specimens. Furthermore, we have shown the possible clinical utility of p53 immunostaining in cytopathological diagnosis, that is, as a valuable adjunct to morphological assessment in the analysis of cytopathologically suspicious cases.


In the mixed state of a d-wave superconductor, Bogoliubov quasiparticles are scattered from magnetic vortices via a combination of two effects: Aharonov-Bohm scattering due to the Berry phase acquired by a quasiparticle upon circling a vortex, and effective potential scattering due to the superflow swirling about the vortices. In this paper, we consider the Berry phase contribution in the absence of superflow, which results in branch cuts between neighboring vortices across which the quasiparticle wave function changes sign. Here, the simplest problem that captures the physics is that of scattering from a single finite branch cut that stretches between two vortices. Elliptical coordinates are natural for this two-center problem, and we proceed by separating the massless Dirac equation in elliptical coordinates. The separated equations take the form of the Whittaker-Hill equations, which we solve to obtain radial and angular eigenfunctions. With these eigenfunctions in hand, we construct the scattering cross section via partial wave analysis. We discuss the scattering effect of Berry phase in the absence of superflow, having considered the superflow effect in the absence of Berry phase in a separate paper. We also provide qualitative comparison of transport cross sections for the Berry phase and the Superflow effects. The important issue of interference between the two effects is left to future work.


This thesis addresses the problem of reassembling a broken surface. Three dimensional curve matching is used to determine shared edges of broken pieces. In practice, these pieces may have different orientation and position in space, so edges cannot be directly compared. Instead, a differential invariant signature is used to make the comparison. A similarity score between edge signatures determines if two pieces share an edge. The Procrustes algorithm is applied to find the translations and rotations that best fit shared edges. The method is implemented in Matlab, and tested on a broken spherical surface.


In this paper, the textbook of junior high school entitled Scaffolding: English for Junior High School Students is analyzed. To this end, types of syllabus containing in the book are firstly explored.  Then, it is argued what types of syllabus is dominantly governed the textbook by examining the content, activities and tasks in the textbook. It is revealed that the textbook predominantly instructed by structural syllabus with an approach of genre-based syllabus. However, the book is lacked of communicative approach even though the activities designed are aimed at increasing communicative competence of the students.  Finally, the suggestion is made for the perfection of the textbook. It is recommended that to be more communicative in teaching and learning language, teacher can manipulate some activities in the textbook to be more expressive and real. In addition, the translation in every instruction of the task is not a good point of this textbook. It is supposed to be the learners acquire it as they are emergent in the process of learning. It will be meaningful for the learners when they understand by themselves without any translation provided. Key words: communicative curriculum, syllabus, textbook analysis


Tropical cyclones (TCs) propagating into baroclinic midlatitude environments can transform into extratropical cyclones, in some cases resulting in high-impact weather conditions far from the tropics. This study extends analysis of extratropical transition (ET) changes in multi-seasonal global simulations using the Model for Prediction Across Scales-Atmosphere (MPAS-A) under present-day and projected future conditions. High-resolution (15 km) covers the Northern Hemisphere; TCs and ET events are tracked based on sea-level pressure minima accompanied by a warm core and use of a cyclone phase space method. Previous analysis of these simulations showed large changes in ET over the North Atlantic (NATL) basin, with ET events exhibiting a 4–5° northward latitudinal shift and a ~6 hPa strengthening of the post-transition extratropical cyclone. Storm-relative composites, primarily representing post-transformation cold-core events, indicate that this increase in post-transition storm intensity is associated with an intensification of the neighboring upper-level trough and downstream ridge, and a poleward shift in the storm center, conducive to enhanced trough-TC interactions after ET completion. Additionally, the future composite ET event is located in the right-jet entrance of an outflow jet that is strengthened relative to its present-day counterpart. Localized impacts associated with ET events, such as heavy precipitation and strong near-surface winds, are significantly enhanced in the future-climate simulations; 6-hourly precipitation for NATL events increases at a super-Clausius-Clapeyron rate with area-average precipitation increasing over 30%. Furthermore, intensified precipitation contributes to enhanced lower-tropospheric potential vorticity and stronger upper-tropospheric outflow, implying the potential for more extreme downstream impacts under the future climate scenario.


This paper discusses the UK's National Programme for IT (NPfIT), which was an ambitious programme launched in 2002 with an initial budget of some £6.2 billion. It attempted to implement a top-down digitization of healthcare in England's National Health Service (NHS). The core aim of the NPfIT was to bring the NHS' use of information technology into the 21st century, through the introduction of an integrated electronic patient record systems, and reforming the way that the NHS uses information, and hence to improve services and the quality of patient care. The initiative was not trusted by doctors and appeared to have no impact on patient safety. The project was marred by resistance due to the inappropriateness of a centralized authority making top-down decisions on behalf of local organizations. The NPfIT was officially dismantled in September 2011. Deemed the world's largest civil IT programme, its failure and ultimate demise sparked a lot of interest as to the reasons why. This paper summarises the underlying causes that lead to dismantling the NPfIT. At the forefront of those circumstances were the lack of adequate end user engagement, the absence of a phased change management approach, and underestimating the scale of the project.


Purpose: The purpose of this review was to summarize the recent in vitro and in vivo research findings in areas where rhBMP-2 was used as a grafting material for sinus augmentation. Materials and Methods: An electronic literature search for relevant articles published in English was conducted in the PubMed database from February 1996 to August 2012. Randomized clinical trials or prospective human clinical and animal trials were included with the primary objective to compare and evaluate the effectiveness of rhBMP-2 for sinus augmentation. Results: A total of 3 human studies and 4 animal trials qualified the selection criteria that were included in this review. In humans, the selected studies indicated that rhBMP-2 induces new bone formation with comparable bone quality or amount of newly formed bone to that induced by autogenous bone graft. Furthermore, no differences have been reported between new bone induced by rhBMP-2 and native bone. Animal model studies also demonstrated regular bone formation induced by rhBMP-2, followed by normal maturation of new bone. Conclusion: All these studies demonstrate the osteoinductive and osteogenic capacity of rhBMP-2 and support it as an alternative for autogenous bone in sinus floor augmentation.


In this paper, the tension-compression asymmetry of shape memory alloys (SMA), subjected to the thermal and the mechanical loads, is sufficiently explored. Taking a basis of stress-strain relationship and a concern for critical phase transformation, a new simple model of mechanics is established. Through the deflection lines under different load conditions and the maximum deflection-bending moment curve, the effects of material nonlinearity and geometric nonlinearity on bending deformation of SMA beam are investigated. The results show that the neutral layer offset is related to the tension compression asymmetry coefficient and temperature. The phase transformation of SMA beam becomes more and more difficult as the increase of tension compression asymmetry coefficient and temperature. For the earlier phase transformation, material nonlinearity and geometric nonlinearity have little influence on beam deflection, but great in the late phase transformation. Keywords: Shape memory alloy, nonlinear, tension-compression asymmetry, temperature


Among the congenital abnormalities of the urinary tract, the term hypoplastic kidney is one of the least well defined and also one of the most widely used. Certain abnormal structures are sometimes called hypoplastic kidneys and certain abnormal kidneys which we term hypoplastic are called by some aplastic (even agenetic) kidneys, dysplastic, congenital atrophic, miniature, or infantile kidneys, doll's kidneys, dwarf or dwarfed kidneys. If the term hypoplastic is to be retained it should be reserved only for those kidneys which are underdeveloped due to some deficiency, both quantitative and qualitative, in their fundamental components. Among hundreds of bizarrely-shaped or oddlooking kidneys, all diminutive in size, some seem to answer this definition and present a set ofcommon anatomical features suggesting that they may result from similar embryonic defects. They all present themselves as more or less functional kidneys, diminutive in size and weight, because of a quantitative and a qualitative deficiency in their ureteric and metanephric primordia. Their minor calices are both less numerous and less developed than normal, so that in consequence the pyramids, lobes and successive generations of nephrons that have grown from them are scarce and underdeveloped. When the defect is unilateral such a kidney is unable to sustain life without the help of a mate; when bilateral they prove sooner or later to be fatal. Histologically, such structures necessarily contain more or less differentiated nephrons; otherwise they would not be kidneys. Whether or not the term hypoplastic is to be kept and reserved for this family is one question. There is a second more important question, however: 'Should some small kidneys of bizarre shape be ranged under one unique family name?'-whether this name be hypoplastic, meroplastic, ateleplastic, elleipoplastic, or any better term from Greek, until the right word springs from aetiopathogenesis through histology or embryology?


Stem cells provide a continuous supply of committed progenitor cells for the process of spermatogenesis. In rodents, stem cells have been identified as single, undifferentiated type A spermatogonia. The rate of stem cell division has not been definitively determined because of difficulty in locating stem cells among a normal compliment of germ cells. The testicular toxicant 2,5-hexanedione (2,5-HD) induces irreversible testicular atrophy with only Sertoli cells and spermatogonia remaining after injury. Stem cell kinetics could be assessed in this toxicant model because of the absence of most mature germ cells. It is also not known if 2,5-HD-exposed rats possess an active stem spermatogonia population. Charles River CD rats were exposed to 1% 2,5-HD in drinking water for 5 wk. At 7 or 35 wk following toxicant exposure, rats were exposed to bromodeoxycytidine continuously via Alzet mini-pumps for 1-28 days. Serial cross sections of testis were used to identify single stem spermatogonia and to determine whether the cells were positive or negative for bromodeoxyuridine incorporation. We obtained a continuous labeling index for stem cells from rats 7 and 35 wk after 2,5-HD exposure and found that stem cells had a cell cycle time of approximately 8-14 days at both time points after toxicant exposure. In conclusion, we have developed a method for the assessment of stem cell kinetics and verified the presence of an actively dividing stem cell population in irreversibly injured testes.


An electron beam exposure system is built around a field emission scanning electron microscope. To the basic microscope a set of post-lens deflection coils has been added. These coils are optimized for low deflection astigmatism. The coils and the high brightness field emission gun allow a beam with a diameter of less than 50nm to be deflected over an area of 4 × 4 mm2. The beam current is 3-4 nA. Dose variations due to current instabilities in a beam emitted from a field emission cathode is reduced by measuring the beam current continuously and adjusting the scan speed accordingly. Dose variations are thus reduced to a few percent. The system is controlled from a minicomputer with a magnetic disc for pattern and program storage. The deflection system consists of two parallel digital to analogue converters for each deflection coordinate. One converter has a high accuracy and is used for placing pattern elements in the deflection field. The other has a high speed and is used for the fill-in scan for each element. The converter outputs are added together at the input of the main deflection amplifier. This deflection system allows both a high scanspeed and a high positioning stability (300 ns per 125 nm step/± 32 nm in a 2 × 2 mm2 scanfield).


A star-shaped poly(D-lactide)-block-poly(L-lactide) (PDLA-PLLA) stereoblock copolymer was introduced into a poly(L-lactide) (PLLA) matrix. The impacts of the PDLA-PLLA copolymer on PLLA melt crystallization, mechanical properties and rheological properties were investigated. The research results indicated that the PDLA-PLLA copolymer could significantly accelerate the crystallization rate of PLLA. The non-isothermal crystallization results showed that the crystallization temperature shifted to a higher temperature with the increase in the addition of the PDLA-PLLA copolymer. The crystallization temperature increased to about 25 °C with the addition of 10 wt% PDLA-PLLA copolymer. The isothermal crystallization results showed that the half-time of crystallization (t0.5) decreased from 10 min to 2.5 min at 120 °C as the PDLA-PLLA copolymer fraction increased from 0 to 10 wt%. Nucleation efficiency (NE) was used to describe the nucleation efficiency of the PDLA-PLLA copolymer. The highest NE of 65% was obtained for PLLA samples with a PDLA-PLLA copolymer content of 10 wt%. As polarized optical microscopy revealed, this accelerating effect resulted from the good nucleation ability of the PDLA-PLLA copolymer. Moreover, dynamic mechanical analysis results indicated that the addition of the PDLA-PLLA copolymer enhanced the storage modulus of PLLA in the glass state. Rheological properties of nucleated PLLA showed the existence of a network structure of a stereocomplex crystallite (sc-crystallite) above 5 wt% addition of the PDLA-PLLA copolymer.


An electric bus system has been operating in the downtown area of Chattanooga, Tennessee for more than four years. The buses use traditional hard-switched IGBT inverters driving special induction motors with a speed sensor (tachometer) and two embedded fluxsensing windings to provide rotor speed and flux information to the motor controller for implementation of high performance field oriented control (vector control). The induction motor is oil-cooled and equipped with an internal planar gear reduction. The current system has experienced failures in both speed sensors and flux sensors because they are unreliable, susceptible to EMI and must operate in a hostile environment created by oil leaks. A speedand flux-sensorless induction motor drive system with a new 100 kW soft-switching inverter has been implemented to replace the existing system. The new soft-switching inverter is able to provide 300 A (rms) and 230 V (rms) continuous power to the motor with no voltage surges and reduced dv/dt (<300V/us) at switching. The new inverter also draws ripple-less DC current from the battery. As a result, the new inverter is friendly to the motor and battery. Extended lifetime is expected for both the motor and battery. The new inverter with the speedand flux-sensorless control has been road-tested and has achieved satisfactory performance. The project was supported under the Department of Energy (DOE) funding and local industry partnership. INTRODUCTION


This programmatic article investigates a single aspect of culture that regulates religious expression and the construction of identity. A brief overviem of four types of religio found in South Africa serves to illustrate the significant role of the media of communication in religious expression. Indigenous traditional religions operate within a pure oral culture, the Ibandla Amanazeretha of Isaiah Shembe operates within a 're-discovered' oral culture and Islam has its roots in an oral-manuscript culture, while conventional Protestantism has the heritage of a religion that operates within the culture of the printed media. The article finally considers the question of how a better understanding of religious culture can help to prevent religion from developing into a hegerreonic ideology. The article contributes to interdisciplinary debate.


In a business environment characterized by a high level of competitiveness, the impact of innovation and new products on an organization's revenue becomes an important factor. On the other hand, knowledge and knowledge management are new elements that are atracting opportunities and challenges to managers and firms. Researchers such as Li e Calatone (1998), Narver e Slater (1990), Shapiro (2006) and Voss, Montoya-Weiss e Voss (2006) point out the importance of learning and managing market knowledge for organizations in general. This research was developed with the aim to empirically examine the relationships between innovation, market knowledge management and the performance of new products within the market. By means of a survey based on 434 respondents and the use of structural equation modeling (Hattie, 1997), it is possible to verify the supremacy of the competitor knowledge management process over other constructs. We also identify elements which are important for explain the innovation.


Purpose – Mobile phones are radically transforming micro-finance in Sub-Saharan Africa, and Kenya, in particular. The introduction of the micro-financial transaction mobile phone application, "MPesa," created a means to facilitate micro-transactions without the need for an intermediary, such as a banking system. The purpose of this paper is to posit an econophysics model to predict the value of Mpesa for Kenyan and South African consumers. The econophysics framework posits several fitness matrices and a distance measure that can account for the concepts of mass, distance, momentum, velocity, action, and force. The authors begin with a table of the match between the physics concepts and the economic concepts followed by the vector model that utilizes these concepts for the MPesa application case. In this paper, the authors will argue that MPesa succeeded in Sub-Saharan African countries, such as Kenya, because the fit between what this group of customers needed and the solutions Safaricom's MPesa offered was a better fit with a smaller distance to adoption than in the South African case. Design/methodology/approach – The research develops an econophysics approach to the assessment of micro-finance development in Sub-Saharan countries. Findings – The research shows clearly the reasons of the success of MPesa in Kenya in comparison of its relative failure in South Africa: the distance between customers' expectations and the system supply. Research limitations/implications – The research is limited to two case studies and needs to be extended to other contexts, in order to demonstrate its robustness, especially with regard to the intangible dimension, e.g., the distance between a system potential and what it really offers. Practical implications – The research shows the importance of system's characteristics in its success. Social implications – The social implications are very high, especially in this case, where micro-finance is a high stake for developing societies. Originality/value – This is one of the first works to develop an econophysics approach for the evaluation of the key characteristics of a system.


Using a unique proprietary dataset of primary insurers and reinsurers, we analyze the structure of the reinsurance market. The dataset, which spans six years, contains the quotes for different reinsurance layers, for different clients, for different treaties, and for different lines of business. This is the first study that documents the actual structure of the global reinsurance market using actual quotes, and not only the wining quote, for a large number of layers of a large number of reinsurance treaties.


The Markov chain model of linear feedback shift-registers (LFSRs) for signature analysis testing is analytically solved to obtain the exact expression of the aliasing error probability as a function of test length, error probability, and the structure of the feedback network. The dependence on feedback configuration is explored in depth, and it is proven that maximum-length LFSRs have the best performances with respect to aliasing, regardless of the particular structure of their feedback network. Simplified expressions of aliasing probability are also derived for use as practical tools to design LFSRs for IC signature analysis testing, and a heuristic criterion is given for the identification of peaks in aliasing probability. >


The infrared spectrum of the rare isotopologue has been investigated in the range 2190–2250 cm−1 with a frequency-comb-referenced cavity ring-down spectrometer. Thirty-three ro-vibrational transitions of the ν3 fundamental band have been detected. Their absolute frequency was measured with a relative uncertainty ranging from to . The experimental frequencies were fitted to the conventional Hamiltonian of a linear molecule and a new set of spectroscopic parameters for the fundamental vibrational state has been improved for this species.


The challenge of providing interactive educational resources via the Internet is growing. A great number of Web servers provide access to static products (images and text), providing very little interactivity for students. In an effort to address this need, the CoVis-Horizon group at UIUC has developed the Weather Visualizer, a web-based visualization tool that allows users to generate customized images real-time and archived weather data. Hypermedia instructional pages provide valuable content materials, introducing the meteorological features available in the Weather Visualizer while equipping the student with the knowledge necessary for correct interpretation the images themselves. The authors hope that the Weather Visualizer will become a valuable tool in the creation of an interactive learning environment, both inside and out of the classroom. Java development of the Weather Visualizer will allow students to actively work with the weather data, instantly adding or removing data fields with a click of a button, promoting an effective and efficient use of the Web in a classroom setting. Much of this can be accomplished without having to repeatedly go over the network and thus reduces the load on the server itself, allowing it to provide weather data to a much larger audience.


Background Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is prevalent in the UK. Reported survival is lower than in countries with comparable healthcare systems; a better understanding of outcome determinants may identify areas for improvement. Methods An analysis of 9109 OHCA attended in East of England between 1 January 2015 and 31 July 2017. Univariate descriptives and multivariable analysis were used to understand the determinants of survival for non-traumatic cardiac arrest (NTCA) and traumatic cardiac arrest (TCA). Two Utstein outcome variables were used: survival to hospital admission and hospital discharge. Results The incidence of OHCA was 55.1 per 100 000 population/year. The overall survival to hospital admission was 27.6% (95% CI 26.7% to 28.6%) and the overall survival to discharge was 7.9% (95% CI 7.3% to 8.5%). Survival to hospital admission and survival to hospital discharge were both greater in the NTCA group compared with the TCA group: 27.9% vs 19.3% p=0.001, and 8.0% vs 3.8% p=0.012 respectively. Determinants of NTCA and TCA survival were different, and varied according to the outcome examined. In NTCA, bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) was associated with survival at discharge but not at admission, and the likelihood of bystander CPR was dependent on geographical socioeconomic status. An air ambulance was associated with increased survival to both hospital admission and discharge in NTCA, but only with survival to admission in TCA. Conclusion NTCA and TCA are clinically distinct entities with different predictors for outcome—future OHCA reports should aim to separate arrest aetiologies. Determinants of survival to hospital admission and discharge differ in a way that likely reflects the determinants of neurological injury. Bystander CPR public engagement may be best focused in more deprived areas.


5185 The potent induction of apoptosis in various types of tumor cells, contrasted to largely reversible non-apoptotic effects in normal cells is one of the hallmarks of a novel dual-action DNA- and protein-alkylating drug, irofulven (hydroxymethylacylfulvene). Previous studies suggested the contribution of both nuclear and cytoplasmic signaling to apoptosis by irofulven. To better understand the nature of the differential responses of tumor and normal cells, we used a cell-free apoptosis mimicking system consisting of isolated nuclei and cytosolic extracts. We examined homologous and heterologous mixes of nuclei and cytosols from cancer cells (CEM and LNCaP-Pro5), which initiate apoptosis in response to irofulven, and from normal cells (NCM 460), which display a non-apoptotic cytostatic response. Cytosols were obtained either from untreated or drug-treated cells. In the latter case, irofulven concentrations were adjusted to provide equal levels of intracellular drug-macromolecule adducts in each cell line. Nuclei from all three cell types incubated in the presence of cytosols from untreated cells retained their morphologic integrity for several hours as evaluated by fluorescence microscopy following Hoechst 333421 staining. However, incubation of nuclei with cytosols from irofulven-treated CEM and LNCaP-Pro5 cancer cells resulted in characteristic apoptotic changes: partial chromatin condensation, nuclei breakage, and the release of small chromatin fragments. These changes were observed with nuclei from both apoptosis-prone cancer cells and apoptosis-resistant normal cells. In striking contrast, cytosols from irofulven-treated normal NCM 460 cells did not change the morphology of nuclei from any of the three cell lines. In addition, exposure of cytosols from untreated cancer cells to irofulven (prior to incubation with nuclei) resulted in apoptosis in both cancer and normal nuclei. However, the preincubation of cytosols from normal cells with the drug had marginal effects on the nuclear morphology. A similar pattern of responses, although weaker than those of irofulven, was observed for helenalin, an anticancer sesquiterpenoid drug, which reacts only with proteins. These findings demonstrate that irofulven-induced pro-apoptotic changes in cancer cells involve cytosolic factors. Nuclei in normal NCM 460 cells are not inherently resistant to irofulven-induced apoptosis. However, apoptotic signals in these cells are attenuated at the cytoplasmic level. The possibility that cytoplasmic factors influence cell sensitivity to apoptosis is consistent with our hypothesis that apoptotic effects of irofulven originate not only from DNA damage but also from protein damage. (Supported by CA78706, CA80936, and MGI Pharma, Inc).


Improving wireless transmission capacity and security is substantial in today's tactical networks due to the explosion of the data-intensive applications. In this paper, we investigate a framework that can successfully convey the messages from the transmitter to the receivers with the supports of intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) to achieve high data rate. In particular, we manage the actual transmitted data instead of sending all source data in IRSs-aided multicast multigroup systems. A key challenging issue of this problem consists in obtaining a closed-form expression for the complicated distribution of the signal-to-noise-plus-interference (SINR) in IRSs-aided wireless systems. Therefore, we propose a deep neural network (DNN)-based framework to obtain a high-accuracy prediction of the long-term network capacity. Based on predicted results, we solve the joint power control and data reduction ratio selection problem to maximize the total received quality of service (QoS). Furthermore, we also consider the physical layer security design where data leakage among users' groups is prevented. We adapt well-known zero-forcing (BD) and block diagonalization (BD) techniques in achieving high-efficient secure solutions in IRSs-aided multicast multi-group systems. Numerical results confirm the efficiency of the proposed design. The information leakage can decrease down to 0 thanks to our proposed framework.


Benthic foraminifera of box core and piston core samples were collected from the Amazon middle to outer shelf. The assemblages and their taphonomic features confirmed a record of oceanographic changes from the early Holocene to the present. Foraminiferal data in conjunction with sedimentological, stratigraphic, seismic, and isotopic results point to three contrasting depositional environments. The first environment is that of a fluid mud with silt and organic laminations. A seismic discontinuity was observed and interpreted as an erosional surface between the fluid mud, and an underlying much denser mud. This fluid mud, deposited during the last 100 years, shows a very high sedimentation rate, with the erosional phase lasting for 700 years. The characteristic species of the dominant Ammonia beccarii Pseudononion atlanticum assemblage are opportunistic at the sediment-water interface. At deeper substrate intervals, the assemblage can be matched with that at the sediment-water interface, but they also show taphonomic effects of reworking and erosion. The second environment is characterized by relict sediment, which includes an older suite of foraminifera mixed with modern tests. This assemblage differs from the recent one by including large relict species dominated by Quinqueloculina bicostata, Q. lamarckiana, Amphistegina lessonii and Eponides repanda. Two hypotheses account for the relict assemblage: periods of low sea-level and mixing with younger sediments in deeper water. The third environment is in front of the Amazon River mouth. The cores taken here contain abnormal, large tests of Flintina bradyana. The strong currents and tides of the Amazon shelf could cause large tests to move along the seabed by bed-load transport processes. In living foraminifera, such tests may break and later regenerate abnormally. Such occurrences vary stratigraphically and geographically, demonstrating hydrodynamic variations in time and space.


Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum) of Fabacecae family is widely distributed throughout the world and used as an old medicinal plant and traditional food. The present study deals with the investigation of the anti-genotoxic potential of methanol (MTG) and ethanol (ETG) extracted leaf sap of fenugreek on Allium cepa root tip cells, which were treated with cadmium sulfate (CdSO_4). Three types of treatments were applied. First, roots were treated with different concentrations of methanolic and ethanolic extracts (0.1%, 0.5% and 1%) separately for 3 h each, followed by CdSO_4 treatment (at 250 ppm, for 3 h). Second, roots were first treated with CdSO_4 followed by extracts treatment. Third, root tips were treated with CdSO_4 with extracts treatments at the same time. For controls, roots with CdSO_4 (250 ppm) and distilled water served as positive and negative control, respectively. The results showed that the methanol and ethanol extracts of fenugreek modulated the genotoxic and clastogenic aberrations, which were induced by CdSO_4. The protection activity of MTG (1%) was 50% in the first treatment, 70% in the second treatment and 82% in the third treatment and 61%, 68% and 88% of ETG (1%), respectively. DNA rearrangements were also observed by revealing new RAPD bands in the total DNS samples isolated from Allium roots after treatmenst.


Background Patient and public involvement (PPI) in the research process is a key feature of NHS Research and Development policy but reporting of the extent and value of PPI in relation to physiotherapy research is lacking. Aims To determine whether the proposed methodology within the randomized controlled trial aspect of the SELF study was acceptable to patients and to ascertain whether enhancements could be made in relation to elements that matter most to patients. Methods A focus group discussion was undertaken with four lay people who were currently attending physiotherapy. The data was transcribed verbatim and analysed using the framework method. Findings The lay members found the proposals to be generally acceptable but were able to suggest enhancements to the SELF study's design relating to recruitment, retention, blinding, and acceptability of the intervention. Additionally, we were able to recruit lay members to the trial steering committee. Conclusion The unique perspective offered by PPI has res...


Changes in renal vascular resistance (RVR) and their mechanisms were investigated following infusion of 7.5% hypertonic saline (4 ml/kg) in anesthetized dogs. In all animals the left kidney was perfused at a constant perfusion flow (59 +/- 6 ml/min) with heparinized blood using a pulsatile roller pump. Renal perfusion pressure (RPP), systemic blood pressure (SBP), central venous pressure (CVP), and heart rate (HR) were measured simultaneously. Electrical stimulation of renal sympathetic nerves was also performed to evaluate the neurally mediated change in renal vasculature before and after infusion of hypertonic saline. In animals with intact vagi, intravenous administration of hypertonic saline resulted in significant increases in both mean blood pressure (MBP) and CVP, and caused significant decreases in HR and RVR. These effects were not affected by bilateral cervical vagotomy. In both intact and vagotomized animals, changes in RVR in response to renal nerve stimulation were attenuated after infusion of hypertonic saline. These results suggest that reduction in RVR after intravenous infusion of hypertonic saline is not a reflex effect mediated by vagal afferents. Instead, vascular response of the renal artery to hypertonic saline may result from a suppression of neurotransmission from renal sympathetic nerve endings to renal vascular smooth muscle.


Introduction: Sorafenib is a strong multikinase inhibitor targeting 2 different pathways of endometriosis pathogenesis: RAF kinase and vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR). We investigate whether Sorafenib could control the growth of endometriotic lesions both in vitro and in vivo. Methods: Stromal primary cells were extracted from endometrial and endometriotic biopsies from patients with (n = 10) and without (n = 10) endometriosis. Proliferation, apoptosis, mitogen-activated protein kinases, and VEGFR-2 autophosphorylation were explored with and without Sorafenib treatment. Human endometriotic lesions were implanted in 30 nude mice randomized according to Sorafenib or placebo treatment. Results: Treating endometriotic cells with Sorafenib abrogated the phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase in stromal cells of women with endometriosis compared to controls. In addition, this study highlights the antiangiogenic role of Sorafenib which translates as a decreased phosphorylated VEGFR-2–VEGFR-2 ratio in endometriosis. Using a xenogenic mouse model of endometriosis, we confirmed that Sorafenib regulates the endometriosis activity in vivo by targeting endometriosis-related proliferation and inflammation. Conclusion: Our data suggest that Sorafenib controls the growth of endometriotic lesions in vitro and in vivo.


In this chapter the authors discuss two different online interview methods (IM and email). The chapter is based on the authors' experiences in conducting a qualitative research project online, with a particular focus on online dating and sexual health. They also provide discussions on the benefits and challenges of each interview method and how the methods compare to each other. They provide examples from their interview transcripts and from the field notes they took during the project. The authors argue that there continues to be an expansion of Internet usage and increasing uptake of high speed broadband in various places. This may mean new populations become accessible for online interviewing and also increases the possibility of researchers moving beyond text-based interviewing to online video interviewing. Yet regardless of these changes, it will continue to be important for researchers to make an effort to determine which method is most appropriate to the environment, users' preferences, and research questions. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-3918-8.ch015


There is a feeling among many design educators today that the discipline has reached a crisis in its development, and that change is needed immediately in the way that design educators articulate their epistemology and their methodology. The architectural studio can be seen as the model for design education, and its culture is exemplary. Donald Schon has often argued that the professional education of architectural students – and other design students – should be aimed at making them into 'reflective practitioners'. At the core of his argument is the idea that design education must sacrifice intellectual rigour in order to achieve social relevance, yet critics have argued that this trade-off has caused design education to be marginalised in relation to the university model of education. Design is focused on subjective creativity, but the positivist university paradigm is focused on objective rationality. In order for design education to become more rigorous – and more academically respectable – it must either become more rational or it must embrace a new paradigm that values creative experience. This article argues that the emerging paradigm of complexity offers design education the rigour it has been lacking, for this paradigm constructs studio projects not as problems with rational solutions but as systems that need to be explored in order to discover their relational meanings and values – precisely what creativity, balanced with rationality, can accomplish in both Western nations and rapidly developing East Asian nations such as China.


Rhythmic inhibition entrains the firing of excitatory neurons during oscillations throughout the brain. Previous work has suggested that the strength and duration of inhibitory input determines the synchrony and period, respectively, of these oscillations. In particular, sleep spindles result from a cycle of events including rhythmic inhibition and rebound bursts in thalamocortical (TC) neurons, and slowing and strengthening this inhibitory input may transform spindles into spike-wave discharges characteristic of absence epilepsy. Here, we used dynamic clamp to inject TC neurons with spindle-like trains of IPSCs and studied how modest changes in the amplitude and/or duration of these IPSCs affected the responses of the TC neurons. Contrary to our expectations, we found that prolonging IPSCs accelerates postinhibitory rebound (PIR) in TC neurons, and that increasing either the amplitude or duration of IPSCs desynchronizes PIR activity in a population of TC cells. Tonic injection of hyperpolarizing or depolarizing current dramatically alters the timing and synchrony of PIR. These results demonstrate that rhythmic PIR activity is an emergent property of interactions between intrinsic and synaptic currents, not just a passive reflection of incoming synaptic inhibition.


The National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Climate Forecast System (CFS) is initialized four times per day (0000, 0600, 1200, and 1800 UTC). NCEP upgraded CFS to version 2 on March 30, 2011. This is the same model that was used to create the NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR).\n\nSelected CFS time series products are those that are expected to be most useful to users of the dataset, but the products here are by no means an exhaustive compilation of all of the possible products that could be created from the full 6-hourly CFS dataset.\n\nThe products here are available at 0.2, 0.5, 1.0, and 2.5 degree horizontal resolutions at hourly intervals by combining either 1) the analysis and one- through five-hour forecasts, or 2) the one- through six-hour forecasts, for each initialization time. Beginning with January 1, 2011, these data are archived as an extension of CFSR.\n\nThe files in this dataset are grouped by month, so data for a particular month are not available until a few days into the subsequent month. If you need data for the current month, please consult the CFSv2 dataset that contains the complete suite of 6-hourly products.\n\nFor more information about CFS, please see http://cfs.ncep.noaa.gov/ [http://cfs.ncep.noaa.gov/].


Automated essay scoring (AES) involves the prediction of a score relating to the writing quality of an essay. Most existing works in AES utilize regression objectives or ranking objectives respectively. However, the two types of methods are highly complementary. To this end, in this paper we take inspiration from contrastive learning and propose a novel unified Neural Pairwise Contrastive Regression (NPCR) model in which both objectives are optimized simultaneously as a single loss. Specifically, we first design a neural pairwise ranking model to guarantee the global ranking order in a large list of essays, and then we further extend this pairwise ranking model to predict the relative scores between an input essay and several reference essays. Additionally, a multi-sample voting strategy is employed for inference. We use Quadratic Weighted Kappa to evaluate our model on the public Automated Student Assessment Prize (ASAP) dataset, and the experimental results demonstrate that NPCR outperforms previous methods by a large margin, achieving the state-of-the-art average performance for the AES task.


Objectives To investigate the perceptions and experiences of people with specific immune-mediated inflammatory diseases during the process of switching from Humira to biosimilar adalimumab. Design Cross-sectional survey. Setting An anonymised, self-administered, web-based survey. Participants The participants were drawn from members and non-members of either the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society, the National Axial Spondyloarthritis Society, Crohn's and Colitis UK, or Psoriasis Association. Birdshot Uveitis Society and Olivia's Vision also signposted to the survey links. Results A total of 899 people living with various immune mediated inflammatory diseases participated in this survey. Thirty-four per cent of respondents reported poor overall satisfaction with their biosimilar adalimumab after the switch, associated with complaints related to the switching process including lack of shared decision making, scarcity of information provided by or signposted to by the department instigating the switch as well as lack of training with the new injection device. Where training with the new device had been provided, there were significantly reduced reports of pain when injecting the new biosimilar (OR 0.20, 95% CI 0.07 to 0.55), side effects (OR 0.17, 95% CI 0.06 to 0.47) and difficulty in using the new injection device (OR 0.25, 95% CI 0.15 to 0.41). Self-reported side effects were reduced by (OR 0.13, 95% CI 0.05 to 0.38) when written information was provided by healthcare professionals and by (OR 0.15, 95% CI 0.05 to 0.42) with provision of verbal information. Difficulty in using the new injection device was also reduced by provision of satisfactory information such as written documents (OR 0.38, 95% CI 0.23 to 0.63) or by verbal communication with healthcare professionals (OR 0.45, 95% CI 0.27 to 0.73). Finally, provision of satisfactory written or verbal information was associated with a reduction in any negative perception regarding symptom control with the new biosimilar by (OR 0.05, 95% CI 0.004 to 0.57) and by (OR 0.15, 95% CI 0.03 to 0.84), respectively. Conclusions Patient reported experiences of the process of switching from originator to biosimilar emphasise the importance of clear communication, training and information in order to optimise perception and maximise achievable outcomes with the new treatment.


Presented on Wednesday 18 May: Session 17 In late 2018, Esso Australia embarked on the drilling of Sculpin-1. Drilled in 2278 m of water, this is Australia's deepest water exploration well and the first ultra-deep water well in the Gippsland Basin. Drilling of this well was the culmination of a bold exploration campaign in the VIC/P70 permit at the southeastern margin of the prolific hydrocarbon producing Gippsland Basin, which also saw the drilling of Baldfish-1 and Hairtail-1 in 2018. An east coast gas market with a high demand for additional gas resources combined with Esso Australia's renewed technical focus on the deep and ultra-deep water sectors of the VIC/P70 exploration permit led to the identification of the Sculpin prospect, a stratigraphic lead premised on a late Cretaceous deep water reservoir system flowing into the south east Gippsland Basin depocentre from southern hinterlands. Technical analysis including integrated seismic toolkits, spectral decomposition and colour-blend imaging, rock properties and amplitude versus offset/direct hydrocarbon indicator modelling were key to Esso's decision to test the new play with the Sculpin-1 well. Although the well did not encounter hydrocarbons, it did provide insights into reservoir quality, source and migration in the previously untested southeastern margin of the basin. To access the presentation click the link on the right. To read the full paper click here


Surgical treatment of fronto-maxillary tumors requires interdisciplinary cooperation of maxillofacial surgeons and neurosurgeons. Depending on the site and extension of the tumor, it may be necessary to resort to generous excision of the frontal, temporal, sphenoid, zygomatic bones, orbita and nasal bone, including their soft-tissue covers; possibly even exenteration of the orbita and excision of dura are required. Closure of open subarachnoid space is mandatory. Dural defects are supplied with periosteum or free fascial grafts. Calvarial defect are usually repaired with large rotation flaps of the scalp. In exceptional cases pedicled flaps from more remote areas or microsurgically vascularized grafts are used. The facial area is supplied either with flaps or split skin grafts, depending on the situation. Open paranasal sinuses must be drained via the nasal sinus. Remaining facial defects are treated prosthetically.


A study of Baltimore narcotic addicts who have come to the attention of authorities during a 25-year period provides the basis for an analysis of changes across time in the personal characteristics and life-style attributes of the addict population. Trends are presented wih respect to (1) racial composition, (2) social status, (3) residential stability, (4) educational attainment, (5) occupational stability, (6) juvenile delinquency, (7) criminality, (8) age at onset of addiction, and (9) drug of choice. Also examined are changes in the distributional composition of a typology of addict careers based on concepts of opportunity and motivation to use narcotics.


Research subject . The geological structure and evolution of the Earth's continents. Methods . This article is based on a long-term study and review of geological, geophysical and bathymetric published data, as well as on an analysis of the major geological discoveries of the 20th century. Results and conclusions . It is established that all the continents on the Earth, except for Antarctica, constitute a single Northen megamaterik, which was being formed during a prolonged period of time (4.4 billion years) in a deep three-beam cavity on the surface of the peridotite mantle. The ancient Hadean– Archean basement of the megacontinent was being formed during the period of 3 billion years, which comprises about 70% of the Earth's geological history. In the Late Proterozoic and Phanerozoic, periodically formed local depressions were flooded with sedimentary material leading to the formation of sedimentary basins and folded rock structures. As a result, the thickness of the megacontinent's crust steadily increased reaching a large size of 15–40 or 60–70 km. During this period, the primary oceanic (peridotite) crust with a thickness of 3–5 km remained unchanged until the Mesozoic–Cenozoic, when it was covered with a layer of younger basalts and loose rock sediments with a thickness of 1–2 km.


This paper presents the results of tests performed on post-tensioned, precast concrete moment-resisting, beam-column connections containing different mild steel reinforcement contents. In the experimental program, five hybrid connections were tested under displacement-controlled reversed cyclic loading. The main variable was the mild steel's percentage of contribution to the flexural capacity of the connection, ranging from 0% to 65% of the connection's moment capacity. Each hybrid connection was compared with the test result of the reference monolithic subassembly in terms of connection strength, stiffness degradation, energy dissipation, and permanent displacement. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of mild steel reinforcement content on the behavior and performance of post-tensioned, precast concrete hybrid connections. The response of post-tensioned, precast concrete hybrid connections approached that of the monolithic subassembly as the mild steel reinforcement content increased. Connection capacities were well predicted by the joint gap-opening approach. The design assumptions of hybrid connections are best satisfied with a 30% mild steel reinforcement contribution to the connection's flexural capacity.


Current efforts in surgical simulation very often focus on creating realistic graphical feedback, but neglect some or all tactile and force (haptic) feedback that a surgeon would normally receive. Simulations that do include haptic feedback do not typically use real tissue compliance properties, favoring estimates and user feedback to determine realism. When tissue compliance data are used, there are virtually no in vivo property measurements to draw upon. Together with the Center for Innovative Minimally Invasive Therapy at the Massachusetts General Hospital, the Haptics Group is developing tools to introduce more comprehensive haptic feedback in laparoscopy simulators and to provide biological tissue material property data for our software simulation. The platform for providing haptic feedback is a PHANToM Haptic Interface, produced by SensAble Technologies, Inc. Our devices supplement the PHANToM to provide for grasping and optionally, for the roll axis of the tool. Together with feedback from the PHANToM, which provides the pitch, yaw and thrust axes of a typical laparoscopy tool, we can recreate all of the haptic sensations experienced during laparoscopy. The devices integrate real laparoscopy toolhandles and a compliant torso model to complete the set of visual and tactile sensations. Biological tissues are known to exhibit non-linear mechanical properties, and change their properties dramatically when removed from a living organism. To measure the properties in vivo, two devices are being developed. The first is a small displacement, 1-D indenter. It will measure the linear tissue compliance (stiffness and damping) over a wide range of frequencies. These data will be used as inputs to a finite element or other model. The second device will be able to deflect tissues in 3-D over a larger range, so that the non-linearities due to changes in the tissue geometry will be measured. This will allow us to validate the performance of the model on large tissue deformations. Both devices are designed to pass through standard 12 mm laparoscopy trocars, and will be suitable for use during open or minimally invasive procedures. We plan to acquire data from pigs used by surgeons for training purposes, but conceivably, the tools could be refined for use on humans undergoing surgery. Our work will provide the necessary data input for surgical simulations to accurately model the force interactions that a surgeon would have with tissue, and will provide the force output to create a truly realistic simulation of minimally invasive surgery.


The main objective was to investigate whether the cumulative load of the lower limbs, defined as the product of external load and step rate, could be predicted using spatiotemporal variables gathered with a commercially available wearable device in running. Therefore, thirty‐nine runners performed two running tests at 10 and 12 km/h, respectively. Spatiotemporal variables (step rate, ground contact time, and vertical oscillation) were collected using a commercially available wearable device. Kinetic variables, measured with gold standard equipment (motion capture system and instrumented treadmill) and used for the calculation of a set of variables representing cumulative load, were peak vertical ground reaction force (peak vGRF), vertical instantaneous loading rate (VILR), vertical impulse, braking impulse, as well as peak extension moments and angular impulses of the ankle, knee and hip joints. Separate linear mixed‐effects models were built to investigate the prediction performance of the spatiotemporal variables for each measure of cumulative load. BMI, speed, and sex were included as covariates. Predictive precision of the models ranged from .11 to .66 (R2m) and .22 to .98 (R2c), respectively. Greatest predictive performance was obtained for the cumulative peak vGRF (R2m = .66, R2c = .97), VILR (R2m = .43, R2c = .97), braking impulse (R2m = .52, R2c = .98), and peak hip extension moment (R2m = .54, R2c = .90). In conclusion, certain variables representing cumulative load of the lower limbs in running can be predicted using spatiotemporal variables gathered with a commercially available wearable device.


© ASCE. The average vertical pressure on a buried structure can be calculated using the silo theory, which assumes the translation of a vertical prism of soil above the structure that is resisted by friction on the sides of the prism. One of the key assumptions made is the value of the coefficient of lateral stress, K. In this study, an assumption regarding the rotation of principal stresses in the yielding soil has been used to calculate the average coefficient of lateral stress acting at the side of a prism of yielding soil above the horizontal buried structure. The calculated value using the proposed method agrees well with experimental observation made in literature for the value of K, and is suggested for use in the estimation of loads on buried structures, where it is expected that the structure will yield relative to a stiff body of soil.


The issue of double-competence in the teaching/learning of ESP has been an issue of serious concern since the early eighties (Strevens 1980, Dudley-Evans 1993, Perrin 1995, Combes-Joncheray 1999, Narcy-Combes 2005, Fanou 2009 & 2010, etc.). Doublecompetence was first considered as non important, then as useful, and then as a very important tool for a successful teaching/learning of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), in a French speaking environment in particular. Through this paper, I have tried to weigh the importance of double-competence in my teaching of ESP after more than two decades' experiences, and have found out that a minimum of command of the specialist subject is indispensable for an easy and successful teaching/learning of ESP, and also that the help of a specialist is still indispensable, especially if the teacher of ESP has not been trained in the specialist subject, given that he/she cannot have been trained in several specialist subjects and yet he/she may still have to teach English applied to more than one specialist subject. Such a specialist is still required for the assessment of learners' needs and for the preparation of ESP teaching materials. Keywords: double-competence, specialist subject, English for specific purposes (ESP), teaching/learning, learners' needs, teachability/learnablity


Fluorotic stains present a variety of clinical surface alteration with the modification of the enamel colour, we have a structural modification of hard tissues resulting in their hypo-mineralisation. A knowledge of the kind of surface, nature, and deepness of the discoloration is necessary in order to make the right diagnosis and so, to adapt the specific treatment which can varies from a simple general treatment based on VIT C drugs, to aesthetic veneers and includes micro-abrasion technique, and chemical bleaching methods.


Background: Pancytopenia is a common occurrence in paediatric patients. Aetiology of bicytopenia/ pancytopenia varies widely children, ranging from transient marrow suppression to marrow infiltration by life threatening malignancies. In time recognition of the underlying pathology will not only have an impact on mortality and morbidity but also help in treating simple and easily treatable conditions causing pancytopenia. Aim: To evaluate the etiological and clinicohaematological profile in children with cytopenias. Objectives: To study the clinical presentations in patients with pancytopenia/bicytopenia and evaluate hematological parameters and the bone marrow aspirates. Materials and Method: The present work was carried out in the hematology section of Department of Pathology, of a central Indian medical college and rural hospital from December 2017 to December 2018. 100 patients in paediatric age group having pancytopenia/bicytopenia on peripheral smear were included in the study. All relevant investigations were carried out including Bone marrow aspiration. A correlation between bicytopenia/ pancytopenia with symptoms and etiology was made. Result: The main presenting features of children with both pancytopenia and bicytopenia was fever and the commonest non-malignant conditions causing bicytopenia was megaloblastic anaemia and aplastic anaemia in pancytopenia and the commonest malignant condition which was associated with bicytopenia and pancytopenia was acute leukaemia. Conclusion: Primary haematological investigations along with bone marrow aspiration in cytopenic patients which will be helpful for understanding the disease process; diagnosis, or will help to rule out the causes of, cytopenia; and in planning further investigations and management of cytopenic patients.


Introduction: Brachial plexus blockade at the supraclavicular level delivers an excellent regional anaesthetic technique with unmatched effectiveness for upper limb surgeries. Levobupivacaine, a safer alternative to the commonly used bupivacaine for regional anaesthesia and addition of α2-agonists like dexmedetomidine further improves the quality of regional anaesthesia. Aim: To evaluate the efficacy of levobupivacaine in combination with dexmedetomidine for supraclavicular brachial plexus block. Materials and Methods: This randomised controlled study enrolled 50 American Society of Anaesthesiologist (ASA) grade I and II patients aged between 18-60 years posted for elective upper limb surgeries. Randomisation was done and the patients were divided into two groups with 25 each, to receive either 39 mL of 0.5% levobupivacaine and 100 μgs (1 mL) of dexmedetomidine in group LD (Levobupivacaine with Dexmedetomidine) and 39 mL of 0.5% levobupivacaine and 1 mL of normal saline in group LS (Levobupivacaine with Saline). The onset and duration of sensory and motor blockade along with duration of analgesia were observed. All Quantitative data were compared and analysed using student's unpaired t test while qualitative data were analysed using Chi-square test. A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Results: The onset of sensory and motor blockade in group LD was significantly faster when compared to group LS (p<0.001). group LD had a longer mean duration of sensory and motor blockade along with duration of analgesia when compared to group LS (p<0.001). There was a better hemodynamic stability in group LD when compared to group LS. Conclusion: Dexmedetomidine added to levobupivacaine provides significantly shorter onset times, greatly prolongs the duration of sensory and motor blockade along with duration of analgesia without any systemic side effects.


The use of a venous occlusion plethysmograph to measure blood flow changes may introduce a systematic error due to the heat transfer from the gas in the plethysmograph to the surroundings. A consideration of this prohlem shows that if blood flow is measured from the slope of the volume-time curve at time t = 0, this slope must be computed from the slope of the pressure-time curve at t = 0 as if the process were adiabatic.


OBJECTIVE
To describe the Israeli complementary and alternative medicine users and examine whether they are the same or different from non-users.

DESIGN
This analysis was conducted on data collected from the use of health services module (n=2,365) of the Israeli National Health Interview Survey conducted 2003-2004. The questionnaire was based on the European Health Interview Survey and was administered over the telephone by trained interviewers.

SUBJECTS
This survey was conducted on a random sample of the Israel general population age 21 years or more.

OUTCOME MEASURES
Chi-square tests and logistic regression analyses were conducted. Complementary and alternative medicine was defined as self-reported use of homeopath, acupuncturist, chiropractor/osteopath, naturopath, or other complementary and alternative provider services for the subjects' own health needs in the last 12 months.

RESULTS
Almost 6 percent of Israelis reported using complementary and alternative medicine. Use increased with income. Users were more likely to visit any doctor or a specialist in the prior 4 weeks to the survey compared to nonusers. Users self-reported similar use of pain medications compared to nonusers.

CONCLUSIONS
These findings inform the international debate regarding if and how complementary and alternative medicine services should be covered by national health insurance.


One cannot have a conversation about social justice without first understanding injustice and its impact. In the case of youth development, it has been repeatedly noted that Black youth living in the United States face additional race-related challenges that can impede their social, educational, and mental health (Erikson, 1994). Oftentimes, institutions such as public schools, recreation agencies, and the justice system contribute to these challenges: first, by implementing policies that further distance Black youth from the outcomes achieved by white youth. Second, by failing to provide culturally relevant practices that meet the specific needs of Black youth. Recognizing these disparities, grassroots movements in Black communities adopted Rites of Passage (ROP) programs as a means of preparing Black youth for adulthood in the United States of America. The primary goal of ROP programs is to neutralize the negative patterns induced by the social forces that continue to marginalize African Americans (Warfield-Coppock, 1992). Theoretical support for the ROP model can be found in the social justice youth development framework which emphasizes the importance of helping youth recognizing the traumatic histories associated with factors such as racism, helping youth heal through engagement in culturally appropriate programs and services, and assisting them in developing a critical consciousness for moving forward (Ginwright, 2010). Using an Afrocentric lens, this ROP model has been found to provide protective factors for African American youth while promoting their positive development (Pinckney, Outley, Blake, & Kelly, 2011). Furthermore, in recent years, faith-based organizations, parks and recreation districts, and schools have begun implementing ROP programs for Black youth. Still, this is an understudied concept generally and has gone virtually unnoticed in leisure studies (Pinckney et al., 2011). Reflecting on data collected during a national scan of ROP programs, the authors 1) provide an overview of the current state of Black youth living in the United States, 2) highlight the potential of ROP programs to contribute to positive youth development, 3) introduce seven characteristics of ROP programs that contribute to improved outcomes for Black youth, and 4) provide managerial and research implications that can assist in expanding our understanding of ROP programs. Altogether the findings from this scan provide a path for assisting Black youth in overcoming systemic barriers to their development. Subscribe to JPRA


Objective: To investigate the effects of different hemodialysis treatments on abnormal mineral and bone metabolism in patients with chronic renal failure. Methods: A random number table was used to divide 80 patients with chronic renal failure admitted to our hospital from January 2018 to January 2019 into 2 groups, with 40 cases in each group. Group A was treated with low-flux hemodialysis, and group B was treated with high-flux hemodialysis. The related indicators of mineral and bone metabolism of the two groups were compared. Results: Before treatment, the blood calcium, blood phosphorus, intact parathyroid hormone (iPTH), type I procollagen amino terminal peptide (PINP), fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF23), serum creatinine (Scr) indicators of the two groups were compared. The difference was not statistically significant (P>0.05); After treatment, the blood calcium levels of the two groups were higher than before treatment, the blood phosphorus, iPTH, PINP, FGF23, and Scr levels were lower than before treatment, and the blood calcium level of group B was higher than that of group A, while blood phosphorus, iPTH, PINP, FGF23, and Scr levels were lower than group A, the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05). Conclusion: Compared with low-flux hemodialysis, patients with chronic renal failure treated with highflux hemodialysis have better results, which can correct abnormal bone metabolism and improve Scr levels.


A variety of adaptive learning systems which adapt themselves to complicated environments has been studied and developed in the broad field of AI researches. For example, many reinforcement learning (RL) methods have been proposed to adapt agents to the environments. At the same time, Bayesian network (BN), one of the stochastic models, has attracted increasing attention due to its noise robustness, reasoning power, etc. We have proposed a system improving RL agents' policies with a mixture model of RNs, and have evaluated the adapting performance of our system. Each structure of BN can be regarded as a stochastic knowledge representation in the policy acquired through RL. It has been confirmed that the agent with our system could improve their policies by the information derived from the mixture, and then could adequately adapt to dynamically-switched environments. In this research, we propose a method to appropriately normalize mixing parameters of the mixture for the use in common adaptive learning systems, and evaluate the fundamental performance of our system in continuously-changing environment


Blood samples, which were obtained from patients who lived in a rural area with approximately 500 acute-care hospital beds, were cultured from 1990 through 1997. We retrospectively reviewed the blood cultures that yielded Clostridium species (74 [0.12%] of 63,296 cultures). These were obtained from 46 different hospitalized patients (incidents per hospital, 0.03%). The source of the Clostridium species was a gastrointestinal site in 24 patients (52.2%). The most frequently identified Clostridium species was Clostridium perfringens (in 10 [21.7%] of patients), followed by Clostridium septicum (in 9 [19.6%]). Thirty-one patients (67.4%) were aged > or =65 years, 13 patients (28.3%) had diabetes mellitus, and underlying malignancy was present in 22 patients (47.8%). The mortality rate of patients whose condition had been managed surgically was 33%; for those patients whose conditions required medical management, the mortality rate was 58%. Clostridium bacteremia in these patients usually had a gastrointestinal source, it often occurred in patients with serious underlying medical conditions, and it rarely was the result of traumatic farm accidents.


In order to ensure the effective functioning of the EU internal market, in particular the exercise of its freedoms, it is necessary to harmonize indirect taxes at the level of European Union law. This harmonization also covers excise duty. At the same time, when analyzing the harmonization of excise duty in the EU Member States, certain gradually emerging differences can be noticed at the level of national legislation. As a consequence, it should be considered whether they are the beginning of deharmonization processes and strengthening the tax sovereignty of EU Member States, which may become a major challenge for the tax law of the European Union overtime. The article discusses the idea of indirect tax harmonization at the European Union level, indicates the specificity of the harmonization of excise duty, presents contemporary deharmonization tendencies of excise duty in European Union law, as well as presents contemporary challenges related to the issue of excise duty in European Union law. The analysis of this issue was based on the following research methods characteristic for legal sciences: theoretical-legal, formal-dogmatic, literature criticism and comparative-legal method. Using these methods, it was concluded that there are contemporary deharmonization tendencies in the field of excise tax which are connected with legal, political, economic, financial, social, cultural and ecological conditions. Moreover, it has been noted that although the de-harmonization tendency is not yet universal, it is slowly affecting the functioning of the common internal market in the European Union. The problem of excise duty de-harmonization noticed by the authors of this article is a challenge for common economic and legal turnover in the European Union. The aim of the article is to analyze the harmonization and deharmonization trends in excise duty from the perspective of the European Union law, as well as to identify challenges for the EU legislation in this area.


Recent literature recognises the importance of situating social networks in spatial contexts to better understand how space, place, and social networks interact and are co‐constituted. Despite this call, the mainstream literature in social network analysis pays relatively little attention to spatial dimensions of social networks and remains largely disconnected from the vast body of research on spatial networks in geography and cognate fields. This thematic issue is one step towards advancing this research agenda by examining how such an approach relates to issues of social inclusion and social participation. It includes a selection of studies that focus on the relation between space and social networks across a wide variety of research fields and contexts. Contributions use original, often mixed‐method approaches and multiple perspectives for capturing the role of space and people's experience of place in network formation through physical, cultural, and geographical dimensions. We conclude this editorial by briefly suggesting areas for future research.


Abstract: the Importance of Direct Presidential and Vice Presidential Election in Reformation Era. Direct president and vice president election has begun in 2004 based on Act Number 23 Year 2003and renewed by Act Number 42 Year 2008. The importance of this provision is that elected president and vice president reflect the choice of majority of people. Beside of preventing problems in Parliament, this provision is also aimed to keep the sustainability of President both as head of government and head of State So,  it would not be easy for him to be removed or impeached. DOI: 10.15408/jch.v1i2.2990


Introduction. Alcohol consumption is a major cause of traffic accidents, so that stricter laws have been enacted to avoid it. Despite this, there are still persons who break the law and go to prison because of driving under the effects of alcohol. We have investigated if these persons are occasionally alcohol drinkers or if they are alcoholics with difficult to modify alcohol patterns. Material and methods. A cross-sectional study including 50 inmates from two prisons who had committed traffic crimes were interviewed about their alcohol consumption habits and their criminal and psychopathological backgrounds. Results. 88% had indicators of alcoholism and most consumed other drugs. Previous psychopathology signs were only detected in 10% of the sample. A total of 72% had previous criminal records, half because of violent offences. They were socially adapted, with mean age 39 years, Spanish (86%), had a stable job and family (76%). Conclusions. Most of the inmates due to traffic crimes are alcoholic, but very few are detected. Their alcohol consumption generates other criminal conduct, treatment being necessary in order to avoid relapse and social exclusion. Key Words: Alcoholism, automobile driving, prisons, traffi c accidents, substance-related disorders. Language: en


We carry out Monte Carlo simulations of physical Lennard-Jones and water clusters and show that the number of physical clusters in vapor is directly related to the virial equation of state. This relation holds at temperatures clearly below the critical temperatures, in other words, as long as the cluster-cluster interactions can be neglected--a typical assumption used in theories of nucleation. Above a certain threshold cluster size depending on temperature and interaction potential, the change in cluster work of formation can be calculated analytically with the recently proposed scaling law. The breakdown of the scaling law below the threshold sizes is accurately modeled with the low order virial coefficients. Our results indicate that high order virial coefficients can be analytically calculated from the lower order coefficients when the scaling law for cluster work of formation is valid. The scaling law also allows the calculation of the surface tension and equilibrium vapor density with computationally efficient simulations of physical clusters. Our calculated values are in good agreement with those obtained with other methods. We also present our results for the curvature dependent surface tension of water clusters.


Astaxanthin (Asx) would be expected to prevent ultraviolet (UV)-induced skin damage, as it is regarded as a potent antioxidative carotenoid in biological membranes. However, it is difficult to administer Asx topically to skin because of its poor water solubility. In this study, we attempted to solve this problem by preparing liposomes containing Asx (Asx-lipo), which were dispersible in the water phase, and therefore, suitable for topical application to the skin. Asx-lipo was shown to have potent scavenging ability against chemiluminescence-dependent singlet oxygen production in the water phase. When Asx-lipo was applied to skin before UV exposure, UV-induced skin thickening was prevented. Interestingly, collagen reduction induced by UV exposure was also prevented by preadministration of Asx-lipo. In addition, topical administration of Asx-lipo containing cationic lipid inhibited melanin production in skin exposed to UV. Consequently, we succeeded in preventing UV-induced skin damage using a topical application of a liposomal formulation containing Asx.


Measurements of the mixing ratios of light hydrocarbons (≥C6) were made aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Lockheed Orion WP-3 aircraft during June and July of 1994 and 1995 during a series of flights over the region around Nashville, Tennessee. The measurements were carried out as part of the Nashville/Middle Tennessee Study of the Southern Oxidant Study (SOS) whose purpose was to describe the sources, variation, and distribution of ozone and its precursors in the southeastern United States during the summer season. The spatial (altitude and latitude) distribution of isoprene and anthropogenic nonmethane hydrocarbons (NMHCs) is described. The isoprene distribution measured within the planetary boundary layer over the region is compared to the recent inventories. The correlations between the various anthropogenic hydrocarbons are used to demonstrate the combined influence of OH photochemistry and dilution on their concentrations. Finally, the distributions of those NMHCs that were measured are compared to those of CO and methane and discussed in terms their implications for odd hydrogen photochemistry and our understanding of regional ozone production. In the boundary layer, OH reactions are dominated by isoprene in the southern part of the region explored and by CO and methane in the northern part. The other measured NMHCs are seen to play only a minor role in ozone production in the nonurban atmosphere.


Previous studies that have focused on Asian American intergenerational relationships used the cultural concept of filial obligation to explain an adult child's commitment to his/her elderly parents. Using data gathered from 628 Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Americans and their elderly parents, this study found that such financial and structural factors as an adult child's income and his/her parent's need for assistance significantly influenced the frequency of an adult child's support for his/her parents. The effects of filial obligation on an adult child's provision of support for his/her parents change depending on several of these financial and structural factors. The magnitude of these relationships varies, however, among three groups of Asian Americans. It is therefore necessary to examine interaction effects of cultural, financial, and structural factors on Asian American intergenerational relationships as well as the diversity of these relationships within the Asian American population. The Asian American population grew by 141% between the censuses of 1970 and 1980 while the total U.S. population increased by only 11%. The corresponding growth for the 1980-90 decade was 10% for the general population and 99% for Asian Americans. Demographers project that the Asian American population will rise to almost 10 million in the next decade and to almost 20 million by the year 2030 (Barringer, Gardner, & Levin, 1993). Despite this dramatic population growth, we know little about Asian American families and their intergenerational relationships, in particular. Studies that examined Asian American families focused primarily on how these families contributed to the educational and occupational success of their children (e.g., Nee & Wong, 1985; Yao, 1985). Researchers often attribute Asian Americans' relative success to emphasis on education, a strong parent-child bond, and Asian cultural values. Other studies found that Asian Americans seldom take advantage of counseling and mental health services (e.g., Gim, Atkinson, & Kim, 1991) which may be interpreted as Asian Americans are capable of caring for their family members without any outside assistance. These findings not only support the model minority myth placed on Asian Americans (see Suzuki, 1977 for the critique) but also gives rise to another myth: Asian Americans have ideal families. Included in the ideal family myth is that Asian Americans have great respect for their elderly family members. It has long been assumed that Asian American adult children feel more obligated to their parents, provide more financial aid to their parents, and interact more frequently with their parents than White adult children do (e.g., Osako, 1976). Research has also found a prevalence of intergenerational coresidence among Asian Americans. Using 1980 Census data, Kamo and Zhou (1994) found that coresidence between Chinese American and Japanese American elderly parents and their married adult children is higher than that of their White counterparts. They concluded that Asian American intergenerational coresidence is strongly influenced by the traditional value of filial responsibility. Therefore, elderly Asian Americans are often considered integrated into their supportive kin network. This "rosy" picture, however, may not always hold. Osako and Liu (1986), for example, found that Japanese American elderly parents who resided with their children were not necessarily less lonely than those who maintained an independent residence. Moreover, there is tremendous diversity in intergenerational relationships among Asian Americans due to generational differences and immigration experiences. Therefore, it may be too simplistic to characterize Asian American intergenerational relationships by the concept of filial obligation. It may also be premature to conclude that Asian American elderly need little outside support because of their children's strong sense of filial obligation. …


The concept of human rights that naturally appear on abd-17th as a defense force of absolute power. The results of the movement influenced by Rousseau and others this is an amalgamation of various human rights tercanangkan on some of Constitution of the various countries and finally embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) by the United Nations on January 10, 1948. Human rights (human rights) is not a new term in contemporary society. Today the community is getting familiar with those terms. Good community top level or lower level began to familiar problems to discuss human rights. The media to be one of the factors the more familiar term. The human rights recognized in the various Abrahamic religion although with different terms, is no exception. Islam strongly upholds the rights of every human being, though in practice there are sufficient differences between the striking HUMAN RIGHTS according to Islam and human rights according to the West. The differences are sometimes be polemic and become material for attacking Muslims. Although in reality the difference is not a great problem, since it Islam in Holy Book with clear respect for human rights.


Planning for manufacturing workpieces is a complex task that requires the interaction of a domain-specific reasoner and a generic planning mechanism. In this paper we present an architecture for organizing the case base that is based on the information provided by a generic problem solver. A retrieval procedure is then presented that uses the information provided by the domain-specific reasoner in order to improve the accuracy of the cases retrieved. However, it is not realistic to suppose that the case retrieved will entirely fit into the new problem. We present a replay procedure to obtain a partial solution that replays not only the valid decisions taken for solving the case, but also justifications of rejected decisions made during the problem solving process. As a result, those completion alternatives of the partial solution are discarded that are already known to be invalid from the case.