Abstract Introduction: Studies on the relationship between ideology, hegemony and textbooks in applied linguistics have been incremental in recent decades because emergence of critical theory, critical pedagogy, and critical thinking skills from the 1920s on has led scholars to develop a critical perspective towards EFL (English as a Foreign Language) textbooks taking the elements of ideology and hegemony into consideration. These two terms encompass an innumerable number of elements or compounds ranging from nationalism to religion. The importance of meta-narratives originating from the tenets of modernism or modernization has been downgraded from 1960s on because it has been postulated that the world has entered a new age called postmodernism and post-structuralism that have emphasized the role of individuals and criticized the efforts to reinforce post-colonialism, the effects of which can be seen in EFL textbooks. Therefore, it remains crucial to analyze EFL textbooks taking the main elements of ideology and hegemony into account. The aim of this study is to investigate the ideological and hegemonic practices included in globally and locally written EFL textbooks. Methods: Using a mixed method research design, ideological and hegemonic representations included in EFL textbooks were examined qualitatively through descriptive content analysis technique employed to make valid assumptions by interpreting and coding content of textual materials. For the qualitative data, based on a descriptive research design, textbook analyses, documentary analysis, were conducted. As for the inductive content analysis, both globally and locally EFL textbooks were examined. The themes were extracted with the help of the experts since this study entailed inductive content analysis. Each theme was analyzed and perused by the experts. After a rigorous analysis, each theme was compared, and in the last stage common themes were formed. Results: The findings of the present study show that ideology and hegemony of inner and expanding circle cultures are dominant in EFL textbooks. While the expanding circle culture is dominant in the locally written EFL textbooks, the inner circle culture is extensively included in the globally written ones. However, outer circle countries are excluded and marginalized. Besides, while specific ideologies such as economy and history were highly included in both globally and locally written textbooks, some of them such as law and gender were weakly detected. Discussion: This present study showed that locally written textbooks dwell more on expanding circles, whereas globally written textbooks except for national geographic textbooks, to a large extent, mention only inner circle. Correspondingly, Abdullah (2009) scrutinized the textbooks in Malaysia and concluded that their textbooks covered local cultures from expanding circles. A similar finding was detected in various textbooks in Chile also including the local culture instead of the target one (McKay, 2003). In our study, the most dominant ideological component was culture (75.87% in global textbooks and 77.80% in local textbooks) whose components contain social norms, traditions, beliefs, social values (Williamson, 2000). Surprisingly, in both locally and globally written textbooks, the ideology of culture was prevalent (75.87% in global textbooks and 77.80% in local textbooks). This component was both implicitly and explicitly presented in the textbooks analyzed in this study. Limitations: Taking the extent of the study into consideration, specific limitations already subsist in hand. Initially, choosing textbooks for the analysis of the existing ideological and hegemonic practices in the materials is a difficult task; hence, a particular and convenience selection criterion was selected. Additionally, as the scope of the study is constructed on English as a foreign or second language - a lingua franca, the selection was built on textbooks written globally and locally. Conclusion: In locally written textbooks, multiculturalism and law-related issues were barely mentioned, while few religion, politics and gender-related issues were directly mentioned. Some topics, although they were very pivotal across the globe, were never mentioned. The topics of poverty, slavery, and racism were by no means focused on in the textbooks. Thus, it can be said that some topics are underrepresented or never represented owing to the fact that these topics might be too risky. As for the ideology of language, this element was emphasized in both global and local textbooks. The element of education was moderately stressed. Another important element is sport that is prevalent in both global and local EFL textbooks.


A method is described for the preparation from hemolytic streptococci of extracts containing a soluble precipitating substance. By the use of such extracts, it is shown that nearly all members of this family yield a common precipitable substance. So far, therefore, as concerns the precipitin reaction, the hemolytic streptococci form a practically homogeneous group.


A hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation test system of digital virtual motor is proposed in this paper. The virtual motor simulated to the physical conditions is established based on FPGA, including an IPMSM module considering iron loss and an inverter module. The simulation speed is 1µs. Using dSPACE as controller, a HIL simulation platform of virtual motor system was set up. The experiments under the conditions of no-load and load had been done in the four quadrant operation physical platform of IPMSM for electric vehicles. By comparing HIL results with physical platform results, the validity and accuracy of the virtual motor considering iron loss had been verified.


In recent decades, foreign assets and liabilities in advanced countries have grown rapidly relative to GDP, with the increase in gross cross-holdings far exceeding the size of net positions. Moreover, the portfolio equity and foreign direct investment (FDI) categories have grown in importance relative to international debt stocks. In this paper, we describe the broad trends in international financial integration for a sample of industrial countries and seek to explain the cross-country and time-series variation in the size of international balance sheets. We also examine the behavior of the rates of return on foreign assets and liabilities, relating them to "market" returns.


Quantum-chemical theories of atomic and molecular structure are now part of the upper secondary curriculum in many countries, despite the fact that many educators are against their use in basic chemistry courses. In this paper, we first summarise the main findings of previous work on chemistry students' knowledge and understanding of atomic orbitals, molecular orbitals and related concepts. We then report results of a study with twelfth-grade Greek students. A test was used that required critical thinking, and aimed to find whether students had acquired a deep understanding of the relevant concepts. The findings indicate that such understanding was missing from most students. Students did not have a clear understanding of orbitals, and especially their probabilistic rather than deterministic nature; for many, the orbitals represent a definite, well-bounded space; they did not realise the approximate nature of atomic orbitals for many-electron atoms; the inadequacy of the carbon-atom, ground-state, electron configuration to account for its valency of four was not evident. Implications for instruction and the curricula are discussed. [Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. Eur.: 2002, 3, 129-144]


Upward-going stopping muons initiated by atmospheric �µ and �µ interactions in the rock below the Soudan 2 detector have been isolated, together with a companion sample of neutrinoinduced single muons, created within the detector, which travel downwards and exit. The downward-going sample is consistent with the atmospheric-neutrino flux prediction, but the upward-going sample exhibits a sizeable depletion. Both are consistent with previously reported Soudan-2 neutrino-oscillation results. Inclusion of the two samples in an all-event likelihood analysis, using recent 3D-atmospheric-neutrino-flux calculations, reduces both the allowed oscillation parameter region and the probability of the no-oscillation hypothesis.


An Amerindian language spoken in the north of Colombia, Damana has a partic ularly rich series of locative cases. Its synchronic analysis also shows the links that exist between locative cases and grammatical cases. This state of affairs has a certain compar ative interest. That does not mean that the etymological connection that joins locative and grammatical cases is the same in Basque as in Damana. The comparison with other languages would certainly provide other connections. Here, what may be interesting from the comparative point of view is to see how a linguistic possibility is instantiated in a natural language, and to draw some parallels.


The essay narrates the biography of a single art object—acclaimed in recent history as a "masterpiece" of ancient Indian sculpture—to invoke the larger spectrum of practices and discourses that came to constitute the field of art history in modern India. It explores the shifting locations and aesthetic trajectories that marked the transformation of this artifact from a curious archaeological "antiquity" into a national "art-treasure" and icon of Indian femininity, and later even into "a travelling emissary of ancient Indian art and culture." On the one hand, the spectrum of travels of this object provides an ideal instance for mapping over the twentieth century the changing colonial, national and international stature of Indian art. On the other hand, its career also pointedly reveals the clash of contending claims and the politics of "return" and "restitution" that have attended the nationalization and artistic consecration of many such objects.


List of illustrations Notes on contributors Foreword Leo Marx Acknowledgements 1. Introduction Mick Gidley and Robert Lawson-Peebles Part I. Prospects: 2. 'Gilded backgrounds': reflections on the perception of space and landscape in America Clive Bush 3. The impermanent sublime: nature, photography and the Petrarchan tradition Olaf Hansen 4. American landscape and the figure of anticipation: paradox and recourse Stephen Fender 5. Trails of topographic notions: expeditionary photography in the American West Philip Stokes Part II. Anglo-American Perspectives: 6. The absent landscape of America's eighteenth century Robert Clark 7. Ecriture and landscape: British writing on post-revolutionary America Christopher Mulvey 8. Dickens goes west Robert Lawson-Peebles Part III. American Illustrations: 9. The old world and the new in the national landscapes of John Neal Francesca Orestano 10. Landscape painting and the domestic typology of post-revolutionary America Graham Clarke 11. Winter landscape in the early Republic: survival and sentimentality Bernard Mergen 12. The dark view of things: the isolated figure in the American landscapes of Cole and Bryant Allen J. Koppenhaver 13. The figure of the Indian in photographic landscapes Mick Gidley Index.


46 Retrieval Number: F10100386S20/2020©BEIESP DOI:10.35940/ijrte.F1010.0386S20 Published By: Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering & Sciences Publication Abstract: Real time simulators play a major role in R&D of Offshore wind farm connected modular multilevel converter (MMC)-HVDC system. These simulators are used for testing the actual prototype of controllers or protection equipment required for the system under study. Modular multilevel converter comprises of number of sub modules (SMs) like Half/ full bridge cells. While computing time domain Electromagnetic transients (EMTs) with the system having large number of SMs pose a great challenge. This computational burden will be more when simulated in real time. To overcome this, several authors proposed equivalent mathematical model of MMC. This paper proposes the real time simulation start-up of offshore wind farm connected modular multilevel converter (MMC)-HVDC system. This paper also describes about how the above said systems is simulated in OPAL-RT based Hypersim software.


Heat Exchanger Is an equipment to exchange heat between two kinds of fluid or more. As a device to exchange heat from hot fluid to colder fluid, a heat exchanger is supposed to have a great Nusselt and Reynold number. Theoretically, the increase of fluid flow would increase the Nusselt and Reynold number. Based on this phenomenon, a research is carried on to find out how the fluid flow affects the Nusselt and Reynold number of a Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger. The experimental results demonstrated by the increasing speed of the flow direction of hot fluid on the hot fluid inlet temperature is constant, then Nusselt and Reynold number would increase .


Abstract. Let R be an arbitrary Euclidean domain and A be an n×n matrix of determinant 1 whose entries are elements of R. Gaussian elimination process based on Euclidean division algorithm (on R) allows one to write A as a product of elementary matrices over R. Suslin's Stability Theorem states that any n×n multivariate polynomial matrix of determinant 1 with n ≥ 3 can be written as a product of elementary matrices. This result fails when n = 2, and a counter-example was constructed by P.M. Cohn [1]. In this paper, an algorithm is developed that determines precisely when a given matrix in SL2(R[x1, . . . , xm]) allows a factorization into elementary matrices, and if it does, expresses it as a product of elementary matrices. This algorithm has potential applications to signal processing, in which case the coefficient ring R is usually taken as a field or the ring Z of integers. Extending the idea used in this algorithm, we disprove a conjecture of Tolhuizen-Holmann-Kalker regarding the realizability of a certain FIR filter.


The parasitofauna in the giant Amazon basin, pirarucu (Arapaima gigas Schinz, 1822) cultured in fish farms from the state of Amapa, in eastern Amazonia (Brazil) was investigated. Of the 100 examined fish, 90.0% were parasitized by Ichthyophthirius multifiliis (Ciliophora), Dawestrema cycloancistrium, Dawestrema cycloancistrioides (Monogenoidea) and Polyacanthorhynchus macrorhynchus (Acanthocephala), which had an aggregated distribution pattern. The highest infection rates were caused by I. multifiliis and the lowest by P. macrorhynchus. Infection rates were different for each fish farm, due to different water quality and management characteristics. A negative correlation was found between the intensity of monogenoideans D. cycloancistrium and D. cycloancistrioides and the relative condition factor (Kn), but the welfare of fish was not affected by parasitism. The number of I. multifiliis was positively correlated with the weight and total length of hosts, while the intensity of monogenoideans was negatively correlated with body weight and total length. This study is the first to record the occurrence of P. macrorhynchus in A. gigas farmed in Amazon.


Linguistic query systems are special purpose IR applications. We present a novel state-of-the-art approach for the efficient exploitation of very large linguistic corpora, combining the advantages of relational database management systems (RDBMS) with the functional MapReduce programming model. Our implementation uses the German DEREKO reference corpus with multi-layer linguistic annotations and several types of text-specific metadata, but the proposed strategy is language-independent and adaptable to large-scale multilingual corpora.


Brief review on the history of translating Russian and foreign classics into the Altai language is given. Altai Republican National Library named after M. V. Chevalkov activity in popularizing literature in the Altai language and increasing reader's interest to the literature in translation is considered.


We propose a unified framework for the analysis of estimators of geometrical vector quantities and vector systems through a collection of performance measures. Unlike standard performance indicators, these measures have intuitive geometrical and physical interpretations, are independent of the coordinate reference frame, and are applicable to arbitrary parameterizations of the unknown vector or system of vectors. For each measure, we derive both finite-sample and asymptotic lower bounds that hold for large classes of estimators and serve as benchmarks for the assessment of estimation algorithms. Like the performance measures themselves, these bounds are independent of the reference coordinate frame, and we discuss their use as system design criteria.


Asymptotics of solutions to Schroedinger equations with singular magnetic and electric potentials is investigated. By using a Almgren type monotonicity formula, separation of variables, and an iterative Brezis-Kato type procedure, we describe the exact behavior near the singularity of solutions to linear and semilinear (critical and subcritical) elliptic equations with an inverse square electric potential and a singular magnetic potential with a homogeneity of order -1.


With the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing popularity of video-conferencing software such as Zoom, the move to online and /or hybrid teaching has never been more rapid. With this change, however, maintaining presence in the classroom has become a great challenge simply because of the nature of online teaching. Presence is a teaching quality that enables the teacher to 'own the room' and create an atmosphere of focus and inspiration. With the loss of face-to-face contact and the diminution of body language that online teaching entails, the teacher has to rely more and more on their own voice to hold presence in the class. While voice has always been an important tool in the teacher's expressive armoury, it takes on a more central role in online teaching and can be the only element that connects teachers to students. Yet many teachers still front classes where voice audio quality is severely restricted due in part to poor choice of microphone and setups on their behalf. In this article I will discuss the notion of presence in online classrooms with regard to voice, and show how teachers can maintain and manipulate this feature in order to retain appeal for students.


The present study is a comparative investigation of the luminescence properties of (Lu,Y)2SiO5: Ce (LYSO: Ce), YAlO3: Ce (YAP: Ce), Gd2SiO5: Ce (GSO: Ce) and (Bi4Ge3O12) BGO single crystal scintillators under x-ray excitation. Results will be of value in designing dual modality tomographic systems (PET/CT, SPECT/CT) based on a common scintillator crystal. All scintillating crystals have dimensions of 10 × 10 × 10 cm3 are non-hygroscopic exhibiting high radiation absorption efficiency in the energy range used in medical imaging applications. The comparative investigation was performed by determining the x-ray luminescence efficiency (emitted light flux over incident x-ray energy flux) in the range of x-ray energies employed in: (i) general x-ray imaging (40–140 kV, using a W/Al x-ray spectrum) and (ii) x-ray mammography imaging (22–49 kV, using a Mo/Mo x-ray spectrum). Additionally, light emission spectra of crystals at various x-ray energies were measured, in order to determine the intrinsic conversion efficiency and the spectral compatibility to optical photon detectors incorporated in medical imaging systems. The light emission performance of LYSO:Ce scintillator studied was found very high for x-ray imaging.


Ovid's Metamorphoses contains a world full of supernatural beings, violent confrontations, and scandalous relationships. Many myths contain stories of sexual pursuits, which often involve a god lusting after a young virgin. Those tales establish the fragility of virginity within the poem, especially when a female is a beautiful huntress. According to those factors, Diana, the virgin goddess of the hunt, should be unable to maintain her virginity. However, she defies convention and keeps her virginity, despite the many factors within her life that align her with the sexual pursued females. Because of that, Diana stands out among gods and mortals alike as a superior being whose life does not follow the standard rules of her world. In a similar manner, the Cullen family from Stephenie Meyer's Twilight maintains their own brand of virginity by choosing to drink animal blood instead of human blood. They defy the conventions of their species and live as a part of human society. Although the Cullens possess a different type of virginity than Diana, there are striking similarities between the vampires and the goddess. Through their virgin connection, the two texts demonstrate the universality of the conception of virginity and the complexity that can come with it.


The on-going need for feature miniaturization and the growing complexity of structures for use in nanotechnology demand the precise and controlled formation of covalent bonds at the molecular level. Such control requires the use of external stimuli that offer outstanding spatial, temporal, as well as energetic resolution. Thus, photoaddressable switches are excellent candidates for creating a system that allows reversible photocontrol over covalent chemical connection and disconnection. Here we show that the formation of covalent bonds between two reagents and their scission in the resulting product can be controlled exclusively by illumination with differently colored light. A furyl-substituted photoswitchable diarylethene was shown to undergo a reversible Diels-Alder reaction with maleimide to afford the corresponding Diels-Alder adduct. Our system is potentially applicable in any field already relying on the benefits of reversible Diels-Alder reactions.


This paper addresses the potential use of the (La0.67, Sr0.33)MnO3 (LSMO) ferromagnetic thin-film materials as microwave tunable enabling technology. LSMO thin-film materials have a strong interaction between their electrical and magnetic properties that could be translated into innovative tunable microwave components. The knowledge of the electroactive and magnetoactive properties of these materials is essential for modeling and design of novel microwave devices. The activity of these materials can be described by their electro/magnetoresistance and magnetocapacitance. The 400-nm-thick LSMO thin film is formed by the chemical solution deposition. Interdigital capacitor is chosen due to its high sensitivity for tunability and the fact that the metallization and patterning by photolithography are key issues in the fabrication of such structures which are formed by the deposition of metal on a single side of the LSMO thin film. The I-V relation, measured by tuning the bias voltage, is nonlinear and symmetric with respect to the polarity of the applied field. The switching to high resistive state is definite and sharp. Under electrostatic bias field, it is assumed that electric current flowing through narrow low-resistance path induces intense local magnetic field, resulting in the decrease of film resistance. This paper takes a close look in modeling the change of the LSMO resistance in terms of both working frequency and applied bias.


Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is an important tool for characterizing pore size distributions of reservoir rocks. Pore-scale simulations from digital rocks (micro-CT images) provide deep insights into the correlation between pore structures and NMR relaxation processes. Conventional NMR simulations using the random walk method could be computationally expensive at high image resolution and particle numbers. This work introduces a novel machine-learning-based approach as an alternative to conventional random walk simulation for rapid estimation of NMR magnetization signals.
 This work aims to establish a "value-to-value" model using artificial neural networks to create a nonlinear mapping between the input of Minkowski functionals and surface relaxivity, and NMR magnetization signals as the output. The proposed workflow includes three main steps. The first step is to extract subvolumes from digital rock duplicates and characterize their pore geometry using Minkowski functionals. Then random walk simulations are performed to generate the output of the training dataset. An optimized artificial neural network is created using the Bayesian optimization algorithm.
 Numerical results show that the proposed model, with fewer inputs and simpler network architecture than the referenced model, achieves an excellent prediction accuracy of 99.9% even for the testing dataset. Proper data preprocessing significantly improves training efficiency and accuracy. Moreover, the inputs of the proposed model are more pertinent to NMR relaxation than the referenced model that used twenty-one textural features as input. This works offers an accurate and efficient approach for the rapid estimation of NMR magnetization signals.


Tuning of the speed controller in the linear servo applications needs the accurate information of a mover mass including a load mass. Therefore this paper proposes the mass estimation method of a permanent magnet linear synchronous motor(PMLSM) applied at the vertical axis by using the recursive Least-Squares estimation algorithm. First, this paper derives the deterministic autoregressive moving average(DARMA) model of the mechanical dynamic system used at the vertical axis. Results obtained by the Matlab/Simulink simulation show that the mass of a PMLSM applied at the vertical axis can be accurately estimated both at no-load and at load.


Existing Artificial Embryogeny (AE) models are insufficient to generate a network structure because the possible links are limited to those connecting nodes with their predefined neighbors. We propose a novel network generating AE model capable of generating links connected to predefined neighbors as well those to non-neighbors. This mechanism provides additional flexibility in phenotypes than existing AE models. Our AE model also incorporates a heterogeneous mutation mechanism to accelerate the convergence to a high fitness value or enhance the evolvability. We conduct experiments to generate a typical 2D grid pattern as well as a robot with a network structure consisting of masses, springs and muscles. In both tasks, results show that our AE model has higher evolvability, sufficient to search a larger space than that of conventional AE models bounded by local neighborhood relationships.


At Argonne National Laboratory, criticality alarms are required at widely separated locations to evacuate personnel in case of accident while emergency teams or maintenance personnel respond from a central location. The system functions have been divided in a similar manner. The alarm site hardware can independently detect a criticality and sound the evacuation signal while general monitoring and routine tests are handled by a communication link to a central monitoring station. The radiation detectors and evacuation sounders at each site are interconnected by a common two conductor cable in a unique telemonitoring format. This format allows both control and data information to be received or transmitted at any point on the cable which can be up to 3000 meters total length. The site microprocessor maintains a current data table, detects several faults, drives a printer, and communicates with the central telemonitoring station. The radiation detectors are made with plastic scintillators and photomultiplier tubes operated in a constant current mode with a 4 decade measurement range. The detectors also respond within microseconds to the criticality radiation burst. These characteristics can be tested with an internal light emitting diode either completely with a manual procedure or routinely with a system test initiated by the central monitoring station. Although the system was developed for a criticality alarm which requires reliable and redundant features, the basic techniques are useable for other monitoring and instrumentation applications.


Yates field unit in Pecos County, Texas, has recently drilled its 100th short-radius horizontal drainhole. The program has been a technical and economic success for the field, providing efficient completions in this highly fractured reservoir. In the early stages of the program (1986--1990), short-radius drilling in Yates field unit was performed using strictly rotary drilling systems. In 1992, Odorisio and Curtis reported on the introduction of articulated downhole mud motors to the program and the impact of the initial modifications to the system. Since that time over 75 additional drainholes have been drilled. Two other drilling systems have been tested and many improvements have been made to the original system. This paper documents the optimization that has occurred in the drilling systems and the results obtained from this work.


Human error has become the major cause of aviation accidents around the world for decades. Airlines regard one of the main sources of human failures as the technical personnel of their maintenance department. In order to explore the causal relationship between maintenance error and flight safety, a reliable human error taxonomy and validated safety prediction methodology is much needed. This study integrated the human error concepts in aviation industry and developed a classification framework for aviation maintenance audit systems (HFACS-MA). The reliability of the HFACS-MA was examined through measuring the inter-rater agreement between independent participants. Audit records from an aviation authority were classified via the HFACS-MA to quantify the human error rates of aviation maintenance systems. A safety prediction model was developed based on the analysis of human error using both multiple regression and neural network method. The prediction results reached a considerable level with correlation coefficients around 0.6, and showed that the neural network method had better prediction performance than the regression method. This study proved the causality between human error and flight safety, and showed that the safety prediction model could be used to facilitate the application of human factors concepts in proactive accident prevention.
Key words: Human Error, Maintenance, Audit, HFACS-MA, Regression, Neural Network


Pressure sores are a costly, painful problem for wheelchair users, caused by prolonged periods of mechanical loading. A common location of pressure sores in wheelchair users is the tissue between the ischial tuberosities and the seating surface. The pressure exerted on the tissue, or interface pressure, can be measured using piezoresistive fabric. This work demonstrates the use of the Goertzel algorithm for efficiently acquiring interface pressure data from a fabric assembly consisting of a layer of piezoresistive fabric between two layers of fabric with conducting and non-conducting stripes. The Goertzel algorithm was used to sample sums of sine waves from the conductive columns of the fabric assembly and calculate the amplitudes of each component sine wave corresponding to the local interface pressure. The Goertzel algorithm is more efficient for this application than a fast Fourier transform due to the limited number of calculated frequency bins needed for this application and more freedom in choice of sample size. The algorithm was successfully used to generate two-dimensional, 32 × 32 sensel interface pressure maps once per second. The Goertzel algorithm can be used in tandem with generated sine waves to measure interface pressure from piezoresistive fabric. Low-cost, accurate interface pressure measurements will help lessen the risk of pressure sores in wheelchair users.


The Author shows a system to dystalize the second upper molars and, if necessary, the third upper molars. This system, easy to be adapted, is made up by a palatal bar inserted between the first upper molars, by a sectional and a 100 grams precalibrated open Sentalloy coil spring used as an active force.


In the central nervous system, microvessel–neuron interactions appear highly coordinated. The rapid simultaneous responses of the microvasculature, neurons, and glia to focal ischemia in experimental ischemic stroke suggest that these responses could be viewed in a unitary fashion, rather than as individual components. The "neurovascular unit" consists of microvessels (endothelial cells–basal lamina matrix–astrocyte end‐feet [and pericytes]), astrocytes, neurons and their axons, and other supporting cells that are likely to modulate the function of the "unit." Each cell component generates an inflammatory response to ischemia. Matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)‐9 was first associated with hemorrhagic transformation following focal ischemia in an experimental model. A series of studies of ischemic stroke patients also suggests a relationship between MMP‐9 levels and several consequences of ischemic injury, including hemorrhagic transformation. Recent experimental work suggests specific cell sources for MMP‐9 generation and for matrix proteases from four distinct families that could impact neurovascular unit integrity.


The Anteryon WaferOptics® Technology platform contains imaging optics designs, materials, metrologies and combined with wafer level based Semicon & MEMS production methods. WaferOptics® first required complete new system engineering. This system closes the loop between application requirement specifications, Anteryon product specification, Monte Carlo Analysis, process windows, process controls and supply reject criteria. Regarding the Anteryon product Integrated Lens Stack (ILS), new design rules, test methods and control systems were assessed, implemented, validated and customer released for mass production. This includes novel reflowable materials, mastering process, replication, bonding, dicing, assembly, metrology, reliability programs and quality assurance systems. Many of Design of Experiments were performed to assess correlations between optical performance parameters and machine settings of all process steps. Lens metrologies such as FFL, BFL, and MTF were adapted for wafer level production and wafer mapping was introduced for yield management. Test methods for screening and validating suitable optical materials were designed. Critical failure modes such as delamination and popcoming were assessed and modeled with FEM. Anteryon successfully managed to integrate the different technologies starting from single prototypes to high yield mass volume production These parallel efforts resulted in a steep yield increase from 30% to over 90% in a 8 months period.


INTRODUCTIONInterfirm economic exchanges, transactions and alliances are found to be critical to SME growth (Barringer & Greening 1998). Research on these exchanges has increasingly focused on social networks and governance mechanisms. Researchers have suggested that various exchange relations-from short-term, routine transactions to long-term, complex alliances-require different types of controls to curb opportunistic behavior (Williamson, 1985, 1991). These mechanisms are typically identified as either formal contracts that are legally enforced, or informal relations that involve shared social norms, trust, and reciprocity (Poppo & Zenger, 2002; Zhou, Poppo, & Yang, 2008). Within the context of governance mechanism selection, it is believed that the stronger the ties two individuals or firms have to each other, the greater the chance SMEs have to develop interfirm alliances (BarNir & Smith, 2002) and the more likely that firms will not pursue opportunistic behaviors (Hoetker & Mellewigt, 2009).Rather than viewing economic exchanges according to network ties, trust and ways in which opportunistic behavior may be held in check, a cultural approach to economic exchanges that emphasizes relational work can identify how shared meanings of interpersonal relationships shape inter organizational transactions (Zelizer, 2012). A relational work perspective provides us a framework by which we can understand how interfirm relationships develop, why different types of interfirm exchanges take place between different kinds of firms, and how certain exchange media are appropriately selected to facilitate those exchanges.In order to contribute to the literature on SMEs and interfirm exchanges, this study reports on interviews with executives from SMEs and large corporations in the chemical industry who regularly engage in a variety of interorganizational exchanges. These relationships and transactions are analyzed using the concept "good matches," developed by economic sociologist Viviana Zelizer. In this model, individuals negotiate different kinds of relationships with appropriate types and forms of economic exchanges to define and reinforce affiliations. Originally developed to explain a variety of interpersonal relationships, this study extends Zelizer's model to account for the different patterns of communication within and between executives at transacting partner firms. The data suggests that intra- and inter-firm patterns of communication are critical components to understanding relationship formation and exchange decisions. This study puts forth an interfirm model of exchange that accounts for the complexity of relational work in interfirm transactions and provides a framework for assessing the appropriate economic transactions that may improve the likelihood of successful exchange outcomes.The research reported here identifies how the close relationships SME owners and managers form with executives of large business (hereafter referred to as "corporate" businesses) uniquely influence economic exchanges. Three implications are developed from the findings. First, interfirm relationships between SME business executives and corporate executives are enabled by industry events and encouraged by SMEs themselves. More specifically, the exposure and regular contact between SME executives' and corporate executives' families fosters sentiment and relational trust. Second, corporate executives look to SME business executives to develop time-sensitive, nonroutine, short-term transactions and long-term strategic alliances. These complex transactions are enabled by: 1. corporate executives' access to SME executives, and 2. informal and rapid SME organizational decision-making. The third implication is that SMEs can take advantage of the desire corporate executives have to form relationships between executives' families, resulting in relations with high levels of sentiment. SME executives' commitment of time and resources to fostering strong emotionally laden relationship with corporate executives can provide SMEs with a competitive advantage when pursuing interfirm business deals with corporate executives. …


This article fits into development of an original embedded system. It introduces the design, specification, and realization of a wireless node sensor network in embedded FPGA architecture. This node will allow the construction of autonomous mobile network units which can move in unknowns, inaccessible or hostile areas for human being in order to collect environmental data by various sensors and transmits them by routing to a unit of distant process. For that, we have first developed and implemented IPs acquisitions which permits the measure of some grandeur like temperature, humidity and/or monoxide of carbon CO... Then we have integrated the routing module based on the OLSR proactive protocol in the Co-design platform. Real tests in network sensor of variable topology have been carried out and have permitted working node validation.


Storybook reading experiences have the potential to foster children's cognitive skills in regard to sequencing a story plot, making predictions about the outcome, comprehending the story's message, and understanding cause-and-effect relationships. Deconstruction enables children to think critically about the story's protagonist's perspectives, themes, and messages. Thus, deconstruction can be a useful method for examining a story's elements with children and triggering them to make intertextual connections among stories. This study focuses on preschoolers' intertextual connection competencies and provides them with a novel activity. Therefore, the study focused on a well-known fairytale titled "The Little Red Riding Hood" along with two different, newer versions of the story. The present study's participants included thirty preschool children (fifteen girls and fifteen boys). The following three versions of the "Red Riding Hood" stories were read twice during the small group reading activity: "The Little Red Riding Hood," "Very Little Red Riding Hood" (written by Teresa Heapy, illustrated by Sue Heap), and "Who is Afraid of Red Riding Hood?" (written by Sara Şahinkanat, illustrated by Ayşe İnan Alican). The stories present different perspectives and contradictory messages regarding the same topic. The findings revealed that the children talked about intertextual linkage between story plots wherein they focused on the climaxes as dissimilar and similar points. The study findings show that half of the children retold their stories along the same lines as those in the previous stories. On the other hand, eleven children drew intertextual connections in their stories and combined different characters, plots, and/or settings from the three versions. Deconstruction can be a fruitful teaching method with which early childhood teachers may encourage children to assert perspectives, think critically, and make intertextual connections among stories to foster their story comprehension.


This article describes how third graders' photographs were used to assess the influence of hands-on science instruction within an urban classroom. The photos and individual interviews were used to assess: 1) what the students perceived was included and involved with science; 2) how the students connected their school science experiences to their daily lives; and, 3) how the students used their cameras to capture and represent their ideas. The data showed that students were able to connect many aspects of the science content with events outside of school. However, perhaps as a consequence of the task, the students rarely showed science as a way of knowing but often as technology (e.g., electronic devices). Providing children cameras so they can represent their ideas proved to be an important research and assessment strategy.

About the author...

John Settlage is an associate professor of science education at Cleveland State University. The location of his institution has allowed him to become extensively involved with local urban school systems, affording him the opportunity to conduct research such as that presented here. Prior to working in Cleveland, John was a Senior Research Associate at TERC in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He earned his PhD in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Missouri--Columbia under the guidance of Lloyd Barrow. He teaches science education courses at the graduate and undergraduate level and has recently begun teaching research methodology courses to Master's and Doctoral students. He lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio with his wife, Sue Stephens, and Sonya, their Siberian Husky.


Children with moderate and severe, mild, and trivial asthma were compared with a group of children who did not have asthma on a range of measures including family social background (socioeconomic status, family adversity, family environment), intelligence, reading, spelling, and behaviour. None of the background measures significantly differentiated among the groups. The group of children with moderate and severe asthma was found to have a significantly lower mean score for verbal intelligence, full scale intelligence, and spelling than those with mild asthma, but did not differ significantly from the remainder of the sample. Children with mild asthma were found to have slightly higher reading scores.


Harriet Jacobs was the first female to write and publish a narrative about her earlier life in slavery. It is a story unlike any written by her male counterparts, especially as she details the psychological impact of the harrowing sexual exploitation of nineteenth-century antebellum enslavement. Her Incidents is full of citations of and allusions to the Bible, which she learned to read as a very young girl. She developed a strategy for interpreting the pages of the Bible to challenge commonly held southern interpretations that supported the slaveholding aristocracy surrounding her. Her appropriation of the Bible allowed her to defend her humanity and maintain her dignity.


A green photoinduced method for the modification of a biodegradable and biocompatible polymer, poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBHV), has been successfully carried out using three types of monomers with potential antibacterial effects, i.e., 2-[(methacryloyloxy)-ethyl] trimethylammonium chloride (META), 2-[(methacryloylethyl)]-dimethyl-(3-sulfopropyl) ammonium (MESA) and 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA). The photografting process is conducted through a photoinduced free radical process employing a ketone-based photoinitiator in an aqueous medium. Under appropriate conditions, the photogenerated radicals abstract hydrogen atoms from the PHBHV backbone, thus initiating the UV-mediated photopolymerization of derived-(meth)acrylate monomers from the surface of PHBHV film. The photochemical mechanism of the ketones photolysis is entirely described by a electron spin resonance/spin trapping technique, and the modified-PHBHV films are extensively characterized by ATR-FTIR and water contact angle...


Azadirachtin A, one of the most polar of the many terpenoids occurring in the the seeds of the neem tree (Azadirachta Indica) has long been known to be the most potent in terms of its toxic effects on insects. Although its exact primary mode of action remains unclear, much research has implied that it inhibits protein biosynthesis in various insect tissues. This then leads to many secondary effects, such as sterility, developmental failure and general loss of biological fitness. The aim of the work reported in this thesis was to choose two specific proteins, lysozyme and vitellogenin, which could be easily quantified, and synthesised mainly by the fat body. Previous work had suggested that the proteins synthesised by fat body were reduced by azadirachtin. It was hoped that the synthesis of both could be induced by appropriate chemical stimuli both in vivo and in vitro. The insect studied, the desert locust Schistocerca gregaria, is known to be sensitive to the effects of azadirachtin, and is sufficiently large to allow ease of tissue sampling. Preliminary studies with the uptake of [3H]-leucine into the proteins of fat body confirmed that aza reduced incorporation into the acid-preciptable proteins of the tissue and of the haemolymph by respectively 42% and 25% over a short time course. Injection of bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) was found to double the amount of circulating lysozyme within 24 hours. Further results suggested that this originated in both the fat body and haemocytes. Subsequent studies concentrated on the fat body as it yielded more material. An incidental observation from this work was that lysozyme induction and release may be a general result of any mechanical or chemical insult to the locusts. Azadirachtin A (3mug/g body weight) largely eliminated the increase in lysozyme activity, reducing it to resting levels. Studies with isolated fat body confirmed that the effect of both LPS and azadirachtin could be shown to be direct effects on the fat body itself. In studying the production of vitellogenin, it was found necessary to estimate the protein by immunological means. Vitellin was purified from mature ovarian tissue, and was used to raise a polyclonal antiserum in rabbits. This antiserum was found to cross-react with vitellogenin, and was used as the basis for various immunological assays. An ELISA assay allowed quantitative assays of both vitellogenin in fat body and haemolymph, and of vitellin in ovaries. Over a period of a month after imaginal moult, the proportion of vitellogenin in the female haemolymph rose from undetectable below 8 days to a maximum of 70% of the total protein. Treatment of females at 15 and 19 days with azadirachtin reduced the amount of vitellogenin by 62% and that in ovaries by 73% by 48 hours after treatment. These effects in vivo could be largely reproduced in vitro with isolated fat-body, using methoprene, a Juvenile Hormone analogue, as the stimxilus. In conclusion, the results presented show that azadirachtin prevented at least part of the increased production, induced by appropriate factors, of two identified proteins. This is consistent with previous biological observations of the action of the terpenoid.


The present work deals with the general frame work of the study of the concrete behaviour. It has for objective the development of a new model which permits to predict with F.E approach the behaviour of concrete structures. After the analysis of different existent models, an analysis of the physical mechanisms of the concrete degradation has been achieved and permitted to develop the new damage model MODEV. The model is written within the framework of non standard generalised materials in incremental tangent formulation and implemented in the general finite element code SYMPHONIE. The new deviatoric damage model MODEV considers two damage mechanisms: extension and sliding. The model considers also that the relative tangent displacement between micro cracks lips is responsible of the strain irreversibility. Thus, the rate of inelastic strain becomes function of the damage and the heterogeneity index of the material. The unilateral effect is taken into account as non-linear elastic hardening or softening process according to reclosing or re-opening of cracks. The numerical simulation of elementary and structural test cases with MODEV has shown a reliable consistency with the experimental results in terms of cracking profile and loaddisplacement curve.


The second-generation Hoveyda–Grubbs (HG2) catalyst, which has a small initiation to propagation rate ratio (ki/kp) in ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP), was successfully used in a recently developed catalytic living ROMP. This proved that slow-initiating catalysts can enable ROMP in a living fashion to produce polymers with narrow dispersity and controlled molecular weight. The molecular weight control experiments show a linear relationship between polymer molecular weight and monomer to chain-transfer agent (CTA) ratio. Different norbornene-derivatives can be utilized as monomers. Di-block copolymers and tri-block copolymers can be synthesized either using the first polymer block as macro-CTA or continuously adding different monomers sequentially. Mono-telechelic polymers, with functional end groups such as protected carboxylic acid, alcohol and amine can also be achieved. All polymers were fully characterized using NMR, GPC and MALDI-ToF analytical techniques. This procedure provides access to well-defined end-functional polymers at lower cost and with reduced rare metal residues that might be of interest for biomedical, materials, industrial and academic use.


Paraneoplastic peripheral neuropathies are not common. They are out-numbered by the far more common peripheral neuropathies that occur either as a direct result of the cancer (metastases) or its treatment (usually chemotherapy). Nevertheless, paraneoplastic peripheral neuropathies are important because they may be the first sign of an otherwise occult cancer and/or because they may substantially disable the patient even when the cancer itself is asymptomatic. Paraneoplastic disorders are sometimes marked by the presence of autoantibodies that react with proteins both in the underlying cancer and in the nervous system. Their discovery may lead to an early diagnosis and potential cure of the underlying cancer.


This thesis covers the development of two new methods for the asymmetric reduction of ketones and ketone intermediates. The protocols developed are based on the use of a ruthenium pseudo-dipeptide catalyst that previously has been shown to be efficient and selective in the asymmetric reduction of carbonyl compounds.The first part of this thesis describes the development of an efficient protocol for sequential isomerization and asymmetric reduction of allylic alcohols into saturated chiral alcohols in a one-pot procedure. This transformation has previously been reported at high temperature and with long reaction times, yielding the products in poor enantioselectivity. In the current project, the same transformation was investigated, however, with a significally more active catalyst. As a result we were able to use milder reaction conditions which yielded higher enantioselectivity in comparison to previously published protocols. The scope was investigated and the mechanism was briefly studied.The second part of this thesis describes the asymmetric reduction of sterically demanding ketones with the same metal complex as in the first part. It was found that longer reaction times in combination with the use of potassium tert-butoxide facilitate the reduction of sterically hindered ketones, to yield secondary alcohols with high enantioselectivity. The scope and the role of potassium were investigated, and a plausible new transition state was postulated.


Background Patients with advanced solid tumours commonly develop bone metastases. Development of skeletal related events (SREs) is associated with higher mortality and increased treatment costs. Incidence and time to onset of SREs are widely used as composite endpoints in clinical trials. Intravenous bisphosphonates, predominantly zoledronic acid (ZA), and denosumab, are effective in preventing SREs. ZA is associated with renal failure, and dose reductions are requested based on creatinine clearance. Purpose The aim of the study was to define the most cost effective treatment between ZA and denosumab by a budget impact analysis with a 3 year horizon. Material and methods A database was created using data extracted from electronic medical records and all prescriptions filed during the period January 2015 to September 2016 (2638 prescriptions). Variations in drug prices were analysed. A pharmaceutical and budget impact analysis were conducted. Potential budget impact was assessed based on drug purchase prices, drug administration costs, and SREs incidence (Lipton 2012) and management (Cavallo 2014). Previous clinical trials showed that denosumab was superior to ZA in preventing SREs in patients with bones metastases (−17%). Results ZA was more frequently prescribed than denosumab (21.5%). Denosumab related costs were superior to the savings associated with a lower incidence of SREs. The analysis estimated a target price for denosumab to be economically competitive with ZA (−47.7%). In several cases, ZA was not indicated. Limiting the use of denosumab to patients who are not eligible for ZA (ie, those with serious renal failure (6%)) would result in a saving of €51 632,55 over 3 years. Considering also those patients with moderate renal failure (12.5%) who are eligible for denosumab, the saving would be €186 7136 over 3 years. This is negligible compared with the costs related to possible renal complications and a greater incidence of SREs. A sensitivity analysis was also performed that confirmed these results. Conclusion Based on our hospital purchase prices, ZA offers superior cost effectiveness compared with denosumab, even considering SRE related savings. Treatment with Denosumab has to be limited to patients with serious and moderate renal failure. References and/or acknowledgements Special thanks to Sarah J Liptrott. No conflict of interest


Abstract : The United States Air Force is positioned to take full advantage of Internet2 technologies and apply them to Command and Control (C2) research. This paper summarizes and updates progress on the Air Force's Distributed Mission Training Research Network (DMT- Rnet), an Internet2 based network for collaborative research and training via distributed PC- based systems. This network hosts complex environments for multi-operator simulation-based training and performance research.


Structural changes of Au clusters respectively containing 603 and 675 atoms with their (100) facts supported on MgO(010) surfaces at 5 K have been investigated by molecular-dynamics simulations on the atomic interchange potentials of the metal/MgO interface, which parameters are from the Ab initio energies using Chen-Möbius inversion method. As the interaction time evolves, the structural changes accompanying with atom movements are determined by decomposing peaks of pair distribution functions (PDFs) according to the pair analysis (PA) technique, and local structure patterns are identified for the supported clusters. It is shown that there exist deformation processes of the two Au clusters to adjust their atom distances owing to atom misfits among the clusters and the MgO support. Concerning these supported clusters, the obtained results reveal how the cluster size and the interaction affect the structural changes in the interaction between the supported cluster and the MgO support.


Proceedings: AACR 107th Annual Meeting 2016; April 16-20, 2016; New Orleans, LA

Background: Activating mutations in the epidermal growth factor receptor gene (EGFR) confer sensitivity to tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) in patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Starting in June 2012, a nationwide platform (the Identify Blood Platform) was implemented in Spain for large-scale screening of EGFR mutations at presentation in the peripheral blood of unselected, advanced NSCLC patients. The Platform was restricted to patients with no tumor biopsy available or those with insufficient tumor tissue for genetic analyses. In May 2015, the Platform was extended to analyze blood of EGFR-mutated patients progressing to TKIs.

Methods: Analysis of EGFR mutations was performed by a central laboratory using a sensitive multiplex TaqMan assay in the presence of a PNA clamp. Circulating free DNA (cfDNA) was isolated from both serum and plasma using an automatic extractor, and mutational analyses were performed in quadruplicates. Patients harbouring EGFR mutations were informed as eligible for TKI treatment.

Results: From June 2012 to November 2015, 765 NSCLC patients from 102 institutions in Spain were prospectively screened at presentation for EGFR mutations in peripheral blood. In five cases (0.7%), blood collected was insufficient for molecular analysis. Clinical characteristics of the remaining 760 evaluable patients were as follows: prevalence of male (58.55%), former smokers (48.16%) and adenocarcinoma (79.34%). Sensitizing mutations were found in 76 of 760 patients (10%) and were prevalent in females (61.84%), never smokers (59.21%) and adenocarcinomas (80.26%). Of the 76 EGFR-mutated patients at presentation, 48 (63.16%) were positive in both serum and plasma, 19 (25%) only in plasma, and nine (11.84%) in serum alone. Regarding the type of mutation, 50 (65.8%) had exon 19 deletions, the most common being 15 bp deletions; 25 (32.9%) had L858R substitution, while L861Q mutation was detected in one patient (1.3%). Additionally, the T790M resistance mutation in exon 20 was analyzed in 223 pretreatment samples and not detected in any (0%). Finally, blood of 84 patients progressing to TKI treatment with no biopsy available was screened and T790M detected in 28 patients (33.33%).

Conclusions: Our results demonstrate the feasibility of large-scale, nationwide screening of EGFR mutations in peripheral blood of NSCLC patients at presentation and after TKI progression. Mutational analysis in blood is useful to inform treatment decisions, particularly in patients with no biopsy available or after TKI progression

Citation Format: Clara de la Caridad Mayo de las Casas, Nuria Jordana Ariza, Monica Garzon Ibanez, Ariadna Balada Bel, Jordi Bertran-Alamillo, Ana Perez Rosado, Santiago Viteri Ramirez, Daniela Morales Espinosa, Juan Carlos Monasterio, Niki Karachaliou, Miguel Angel Molina-Vila, Rafael Rosell. Large scale noninvasive screening of EGFR mutations in advanced NSCLC patients: the Identify platform experience. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 3964.


Theoretical predictions for the 3D shape of a Newtonian drop immersed in a Newtonian fluid under slow flow have been available for a long time (C.E. Chaffey and H. Brenner, J. Colloid Interface Sci. 24, 258 (1967); J.M. Rallison, J. Fluid Mech. 98, 625 (1980)). The predictions contain four scalar coefficients, given in terms of the viscosity ratio of the component fluids. In this work, experimental values of such coefficients were measured for the case of two Newtonian fluids in simple shear flow. The experiments were carried out in a parallel plate apparatus, equipped with video-enhanced microscopy, and the measurements were performed by image analysis techniques. The results were also compared to theoretical calculations and provide the first complete assessment of shape predictions for the case of Newtonian fluids. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.


Increasing demands for the quality and longer service life of machine parts require methods of strengthening treatment with plastic deformation of the surface (PDS). The PDS processes become significantly more efficient when technological inheritance is taken into consideration. The mechanics of technological inheritance was developed by the author and exemplified by the life cycle of a part, including processes of cutting and PDS as well as fatiguing, which occurs during the operation stage. Theoretical and experimental findings include key patterns of technological inheritance and can be applied to engineering of efficient strengthening processes.


This article discusses how psychiatric nurses or nursing students can use motivational theory to work with the long-term client. It is primarily nurses who work most continually with all phases of the long-term client's responses to his or her illness and deal most directly with his or her frustration and despair. This article describes the practical application of motivational theory with a group of clients who demonstrate typical variability in their illness responses. A combination of paper-and-pencil exercises, the Goal Attainment Scaling form (Garwick & Brintelli, 1977) and Checklist for In-Session Achievement, can be used with role play to assist clients to achieve their goals. Nurses and clients are both more likely to experience success when reasonable goals are set, and the focus for treatment is on ability rather than disability.


This paper evaluates developments in the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) discourse with particular reference to Nigeria, with a view to identifying  challenges to its proper conservation and management on the one hand, and projecting its potential for optimised cultural tourism on the other. Along with an overview of the ICH industry in Nigeria, the Zangbeto masked tradition of the Ogu of south-western Nigeria was proposed as an  example of the nation's many intangible cultural heritage models and expressions that could be engineered through nationalisation for enhanced cultural tourism, national development and unity, and international collaboration. Through a triangulation of the phenomenological and case study approaches, complemented by a hermeneutical investigation of some significant themes on the subject, this paper explored the background to the UNESCO Convention on ICH and the attendant conceptual developments and critical junctures in the ICH discourse. It also examined the issue of ICH's under representation in micro and macro strategies for social and economic development, reconceptualise nationalisation to accommodate specific anthropological concerns, and went on to propose a nationalisation-based analysis and management framework for the celebration, evaluation, effective conservation, preservation and management of Nigeria's ICH with the Zangbeto tradition as a cultural model.
Key Words: Nationalisation; Zangbeto; Intangible Cultural Heritage; Cultural Tourism;Analysis and Management Frameworks.


The paper proposes a new method for generating fuzzy classification rules from numerical data. The main idea of the method consists in separating the input feature space into a number of non-overlapping hyperboxes, which contain input data from one classification class only, and a consequent generation of fuzzy rules and membership functions for each hyperbox. An appropriate fuzzy inference mechanism is proposed for classifying new input data into the output classification space. The proposed method formalizes the synthesis of fuzzy rule-based systems and could also be used for function approximation and design of fuzzy control systems. The method is numerically compared to some existing fuzzy classification methods using the Fisher iris data. The comparison results show that it outperforms most of them and can successfully be used for the development of fuzzy classifiers


Many of the topological features of the isosurfaces of a scalar volume field can be compactly represented by its contour tree. Unfortunately, the contour trees of most realworld volume data sets are too complex to be visualized by dot-and-line diagrams. Therefore, we propose a new visualization that is suitable for large contour trees and efficiently conveys the topological structure of the most important isosurface components. This visualization is integrated into a histogram of the volume data; thus, it offers strictly more information than a traditional histogram. We present algorithms to automatically compute the graph layout and to calculate appropriate approximations of the contour tree and the surface area of the relevant isosurface components. The benefits of this new visualization are demonstrated with the help of several publicly available volume data sets.


The efficacy of adjuvant parenteral nutrition (PN) in cancer patients is not well defined. Twenty-one of 42 patients with advanced diffuse lymphoma were randomly selected to receive PN during an aggressive program of multiple-drug chemotherapy. These patients received 56 courses of central venous PN support during the first 14 days of the 28-day cycles of early and late phases of chemotherapy. PN patients received an average of 2,216 kcal/day, and their oral intake was 836 kcal/day during therapy. PN patients had marked weight gains, and standard nutrition (SN) patients had stable weights both during cycles of therapy and over the entire course of therapy. Lean body mass, as indicated by total body potassium, anthropomorphic measurements, serum albumin, creatinine-to-height ratio, total iron-binding capacity, and total lymphocyte count, was not improved in PN patients as compared to SN patients. PN therapy was complicated by symptomatic subclavian vein thromboses, septic catheters, and pneumothoraxes. The actuarial survival rate at 2 years was 68.8% +/- 10.9% (estimate +/- SD) for PN patients and 65.8% +/- 12.2% (estimate +/- SD) for SN patients. These results suggest that the weight gained by PN patients was composed of fat, water, or both. A lack of improvement in nutritional status and survival rates and a significant complication rate were associated with adjuvant PN during chemotherapy.


miRNAs are crucial regulators in a variety of physiological and pathological processes, while their regulation mechanisms were usually described as negatively regulating gene expression by targeting the 3'-untranlated region(3'-UTR) of target gene miRNAs through seed sequence in tremendous studies. However, recent evidence indicated the existence of non-canonical mechanisms mediated by binding other molecules besides mRNAs. Additionally, accumulating evidence showed that functions of intracellular and intercellular miRNAs exhibited spatiotemporal patterns. Considering that detailed knowledge of the miRNA regulating mechanism is essential for understanding the roles and further clinical applications associated with their dysfunction and dysregulation, which is complicated and not fully clarified. Based on that, we summarized the recently reported regulation mechanisms of miRNAs, including recognitions, patterns of actions, and chemical modifications. And we also highlight the novel findings of miRNAs in atherosclerosis progression researches to provide new insights for non-coding RNA-based therapy in intractable diseases.


Transient response and limit cycle characteristics associated with a wide range of nonlinear sampled-data systems can be rigorously computed by implementing a straightforward numerical approach. Based upon the piecewise-linear analytical technique, a set of continuous open-loop equations are formulated to describe all analog system components. Digital and/or purely numerical processes are defined in terms of standard recursion formulae. The final analytical-routine consists of a combination of both analog and digital equations, written in a difference equation format; as such, the ultimate computational requirements are ideally suited for high speed electronic digital computer simulation. Physical system nonlinearities are reflected in corresponding nonlinear difference equation coefficients, while all time varying relationships and time delay parameters (transport lags, etc.) are easily incorporated within the framework of a digital computer program mechanization. The technique is demonstrated by means of an illustrative example. In particular, both the transient response profile and steady state limit cycle characteristics of a nonlinear sampled-data controller are computed by invoking a formalistic step-by-step procedure. A brief review of the sampled-data theory is presented through a qualitative description of the z-transform, sampler, zero order hold and digital compensator. A linear sampled-data follower is next analyzed, and the results compared to those obtained through conventional z-transform techniques. The extension to systems containing non-linearities at various positions within the loop is demonstrated.


Myopathies secondary to mitochondrial electron transport chain (ETC) dysfunction can result in devastating disease. While the consequences of ETC defects have been extensively studied in culture, little in vivo data are available. Using a mouse model of severe, early-onset mitochondrial myopathy, we characterized the proteomic, transcriptomic, and metabolic characteristics of disease progression. Unexpectedly, ETC dysfunction in muscle results in reduced expression of glycolytic enzymes in our animal model and patient muscle biopsies. The decrease in glycolysis was mediated by loss of constitutive Hif1α signaling, down-regulation of the purine nucleotide cycle enzyme AMPD1, and activation of AMPK. In vivo isotope tracing experiments indicated that myopathic muscle relies on lactate import to supply central carbon metabolites. Inhibition of lactate import reduced steady-state levels of tricarboxylic acid cycle intermediates and compromised the life span of myopathic mice. These data indicate an unexpected mode of metabolic reprogramming in severe mitochondrial myopathy that regulates disease progression.


In this paper, we consider a trajectory planning problem where an autonomous vehicle aims to rendezvous with another cooperating vehicle in minimum time. The first vehicle has kinematic constraints, consequently feasible trajectories must have a maximum curvature less than a specified limit. Rendezvous is said to occur at the instant that the two vehicles are collocated with the same heading. We propose a technique to construct a trajectory, composed of piecewise quadratic Bézier curves, that satisfies the vehicle motion constraints and achieves rendezvous in minimum time. The methodology begins by finding safe flight corridors, which are constructed from sequences of triangles using constrained Delaunay triangulation of the feasible space; the triangles define the bounds of Bézier curves. We formulate the necessary constraints for continuity and feasibility as functions of the control points that define the Bézier curves, and the resulting optimization problem is solved using a nonlinear programming solver. The techniques developed were tested using simulated scenarios, and we present the results which highlight the efficacy of the proposed solution approach. Furthermore, the algorithm was implemented and tested in a field test and those results are presented.


This paper presents an experimental investigation of the film cooling performance of a New Hybrid Film Cooling Scheme using Thermochromic Liquid Crystal technique. The new scheme has been designed to improve the film cooling performance of gas turbine airfoils. The scheme includes two consecutive film hole configurations with interior bending. The cooling performance of the new scheme was analyzed across blowing ratios of 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5, at a density ratio of 0.94. The results showed that the new scheme enhanced the local and the laterally averaged film cooling performance in terms of effectiveness, and net heat flux reduction in compared to other film hole configurations. The bending effect of the new scheme throttled the secondary flow causing it to spread widely over the downstream surfaces, hence enhancing the film cooling performance at low and high blowing ratios. The hybrid scheme provided an average heat transfer ratio near unity over the downstream surfaces at low and high blowing ratios.Copyright © 2010 by ASME


The influence of the ionosphere on the aurora can be evaluated by examining the asymmetry of conjugate aurora at various time-space scales. We conducted a high-speed imaging observation of aurora at Tjornes/Iceland and Syowa/Antarctica for the time interval from 2 September 2016 to 7 September 2016 when high aurora activity continued for several days, which was driven by high-speed solar wind from a large coronal hole. It is found that an overall conjugacy is not good as we originally expected, even considering the modeled conjugate points. For example, vortex evolution from small scale (so called folds, a few ten km) to large scale (spirals, a few hundred km) occurred over whole field of view at Syowa, while such vortex structures themselves are hard to recognize at Tjornes at the same time. In this talk we discuss the conjugate morphology in more detail. Further we present the current situation and future development of the high-speed conjugate imaging observations.


Crystals of armalcolite, Mg0.5Fe0.5Ti2O5, up to several millimeters in length have been grown from a glass initially having the composition of lunar rock 10017. A single-crystal x-ray study has confirmed that the crystals are isomorphous with pseudobrookite and has shown that the cations are strongly ordered, with the Ti4+ ions occupying the 8f sites and the Fe2+ and Mg2+ ions randomly distributed over the 4c sites. An examination of karrooite, MgTi2O5, has revealed a similar distribution of Mg2+ and Ti4+ ions. A reexamination of earlier x-ray and M�ssbauer data for pseudobrookite, Fe2TiO5, has shown that it is more consistent with this type of ordering than with the inverse structure that has been generally assumed.


Objective – To study the requirement of nursing care of the equine patient during eye treatment with a lavage system together with a constant rate infusion pump.

Procedures – Three veterinary nurses at ATG: s Hastsjukhus in Skara were asked nine questions at individual interviews. Inclusion criteria for participation in the interview were that the nurse should have treated equines with and without the infusion pump to the lavage system, but also traditionally with eye drops.

Results – The equine had a higher well-being since it experienced less stress during eye treatment with the infusion pump compared to treatment given by hand through the lavage system. The treatment would be more effective with constant rate infusion and save costs for the owner. The disadvantage with the infusion pump is that it can stop working and air pockets can accumulate in the SPL system and the pump. For optimal function the infusion pump should be attached to the halter instead of the mane and the air hole on the backside should not be taped over. When filling up the infusion pump with medicine it is important that no air is administrated. The veterinary nurse has to assess the function of the SPL system and the infusion pump frequently over the day to establish an adequate treatment. When a halter with a protective eye cup is used the horse does not need specific stable conditions with reduced light intensity.

Conclusions – Eye treatment with the constant rate infusion pump ought to be a benefit for the horse both physically and psychologically. However further research is required to better establish the nursing care of the horse during the treatment.


The present work describes an experimental study of damage to n-type silicon caused by a normal Nd:glass laser of 1.06 mu m wavelength, running in free-generation mode. Samples of different surface quality were prepared by mechanical lapping, chemical etching and polishing by fine diamond paste. This was done to study the effect of mechanical damage at the sample surface introduced during sample preparation. Damage morphology observed at different power densities shows that in the case of lapped samples the laser damage threshold is considerably lower than that of mirror-polished samples. Damage threshold results are analysed in terms of a thermal model taking into account the differences in the physical parameters of different samples and the temperature dependence of those parameters. The mechanical damage caused at the sample surface during its preparation results in an increase of surface absorptance of Si and consequently lowers its damage threshold. The evolution of damage morphology is governed by the depth of the mechanical damage.


Various changes appear in hair by aging, and graying is the most remarkable one. Changes in melanocytes have been well studied as the cause; however, little is known about the change in melanosomes which have a role of carrying melanin pigments into hair shafts. Using pigmented hairs of Japanese females from their age of 4–75, I isolated melanosomes and observed them. As a result, I found a significant change in the morphology of hair melanosomes with age. They were ellipsoidal on the whole and there was no age dependence in the major axis, while the minor axis significantly increased and its frequency distribution broadened with age. The anticipated volume of the melanosome of the oldest person hairs was about twice larger than that of child hairs. This enlargement of melanosome seems to be a cause of the age‐related color change in pigmented hairs from brown to black.


North Carolina is experiencing a revitalization of the strawberry industry due to the adoption of plasticulture technologies and the California cultivar Chandler, which produces excellent yields and fruit quality on black plastic mulch. With this system, berries can be harvested in just 7 to 8 months after planting. The spring harvest season can last up to 6 weeks in most years. Strawberry plasticulture growers in North Carolina typically experience yields of 17,000 to 18,000 lb/acre (19,054 to 20,174 kg·ha). Cash expenses for the system are about $4345/acre ($l0,736/ha). The system requires both an overhead sprinkler system for blossom and bud frost/freeze protection, and drip irrigation for supplying water and fertilizer in the prebloom, bloom, and fruiting periods. Sandy loam and clay loam soils are ideal for forming the lo-inch-high (25.4-cm) beds with bedding machines. Usually, 33% of the N, 50% of the K, and all of the P is applied preplant, with the remaining N and K applied through the drip-irrigation system. Problems associated with the plasticulture system include higher initial investment relative to matted-row production, and only one fruiting season is possible with the anthracnose-susceptible 'Chandler' in the southeastern United States.


Background:Tailored, realistic dietary advice plays a vital role in Preventive Dentistry. Appropriate diet analysis forms the bases for precise dietary advice. Analysis of diet for its cariogenicity is a complex process. Performing meaningful diet analysis is a challenge in routine clinical practice. Currently, a very few tools are available for researchers or clinicians to assess children's diet, as it relates to caries risk. To best of our knowledge an index that helps clinician to reduce composite diet dairy information to a simple quantifiable interpretation is lacking. The current scientific paper presents a novel index that assesses the cariogenicity and health-fullness of child's diet objectively and guides the professional to achieve pragmatic diet modification in prevention of Dental caries.Methods:A team comprised of specialist from Division of Pediatric dentistry, Community medicine and Diet and Nutrition along with a pilot parent-child population of number 50 were involved in initial structuring of Diet-Cariogenicity and Health-fullness Index. To obtain cut off values for cariogenicity of diet score a study was carried out with sample of 774 children correlating diet dairy with caries status. The receiver operating characteristic curve closest to the ideal of 100% sensitivity and 100% specificity was applied for statestical analysis.Results:Receiver Operating Characteristic curves plotted was 22.5 for diet scores for its cariogenicity. The sensitivity, specificity, and area under the curve of these cut-off values were 70 and 95.Conclusions:The current scientific paper presents a novel Diet-Cariogenicity and Health-fullness Index that assesses the cariogenicity and health-fullness of child's diet objectively so as to guide the professional to achieve pragmatic diet modification.


Flexible organic light‐emitting diodes are gaining increasing importance as a leading technology for high‐quality displays and lighting in wearable electronics due to their low power consumption, excellent color gamut, and the desirable mechanical flexibility with soft materials and curvilinear surfaces. However, further enhancements in efficiency are still challenging because of the optical confinement and limited light out‐coupling efficiency. Here, a simple and wavelength‐independent light extraction scheme is demonstrated using the biomimetic quasirandom nanostructures that can simultaneously enhance the out‐coupling of the waveguided light and allow the minimized ohmic losses without spectral distortion. Compared to periodic grating structures, the nanoimprinted quasirandom nanostructures can broaden the periodicity and randomize the emission directionality, leading to the superiority of color stability over the visible wavelength range for a large variation of viewing angles. The resulting external quantum efficiency and current efficiency are 1.51 and 1.43 times that of a conventional flexible organic light‐emitting diode used as a comparison, respectively.


Ki-67 is a nuclear protein that is a useful marker of proliferation. Ki-67 antibodies are used to generate a Ki-67 labeling index, which is the percentage of cells with nuclear immunostaining in immunohistochemistry. The Ki-67 labeling index may be useful as a prognostic and predictive marker in cancer. The Ki-67 labeling index relies on the use of antibodies with a suitable level of sensitivity and specificity, and many Ki-67 antibodies have been developed over the last two decades. One of the most widely used Ki-67 antibodies is the mouse monoclonal MIB1. However, there have been many reports showing that in some cases MIB1 detects an unexpected membranous and cytoplasmic staining pattern in immunohistochemistry. Since Ki-67 is exclusively expressed in the nucleus this raises questions about the specificity of MIB1. We have created a nearly comprehensive microarray of about 17,000 human proteins to investigate the specificity of MIB1 and identify cross reacting proteins. The protein microarray was also used to screen new panels of mouse monoclonals against Ki-67. We have identified the antibody UMAB107 that in immunohistochemistry performs with similar sensitivity as MIB1, but unlike MIB1, UMAB107 is highly specific. Citation Format: Caiwei Chen, Kehu Yuan, Boyang Chu, Youmin Shu, Jian Chen, Joe Stafford, Wei Fu, Wei-Wu He, Ross Chambers, Donghui Ma. The development of a highly specific monoclonal antibody against Ki67 useful for immunohistochemistry. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 3386. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-3386


Many neural models have been suggested for the development of feature maps in cortical areas. Undoubtedly the most popular model is the Kohonen self-organizing map (SOM). Once the map has been learned, this network uses a competitive winner-take-all (WTA) approach to choose a singlèbest' output neuron on a (typically) 2D grid for each presented input pattern. Cortical maps in biological organisms are known to have an expanded representation in some areas. For example, the fovea has an expanded representation in the visual cortex, and the auditory cortex of the bat has an expanded representation around its range-nding frequency. It is well known that an apparently similar eeect can be observed in the Kohonen SOM. If certain input patterns occur with high probability, the tend to have a correspondingly larger number of neurons representing them: the expansion of their representation on the map is often referred to as thèMagniication Factor'. In this paper, we suggest an alternative approach where information is represented in a distributed manner over the network, but which has the same magniication factor eeect. In this approach, the map attempts to make the information density uniform, rather than the probability density.


This article analyses the role of interactions with local leaders in amplifying poor households' investment response to a social programme. The causal effect of social interactions is identified through the randomised assignment of leaders and other beneficiaries to three different interventions aimed at increasing human capital and productive investments. Social interactions are found to augment programme impacts on households' investments in education, nutrition and income-generating activities and to affect households' attitudes towards the future.


Building Information Modelling (BIM) involves management efforts, tools and applications for enhancing information flow and, therefore, productivity of projects; adoption of BIM and the increasing use of digital technologies (e.g. data centers) in construction and operation of buildings, as well as in maintenance can transform the way how the industry works. Telecommunication cabinets equipped with large number of components of different types are inevitable parts of data centers having a significant influence on the efficiency and the reliability of data centers. Since the layout of equipment inside telecommunication cabinets is crucial in data centers and the ideal location of equipment inside each cabinet can be unique, an algorithmic and automated process is necessary for the cabinet façade scheme design; manually created diagrams can lead to errors. Furthermore, precise and up-to-date pieces of information about the special layout of equipment in each cabinet are also important for the further operation and maintenance. As an answer to this challenge, a BIM-based approach and method are presented in this article that can result in significant cost savings. When designing data centers, special attention must be paid to the location of telecommunication cabinets, the design of cable routes, and the layout of equipment inside. The novel cabinet family for BIM technology-based method has been developed for the improvement of data center design. Cable trays plug-in can lead to higher quality and efficiency of construction and the facility management as well.
 The main goal of the case study: optimization of the design process of structured cabling systems (SCS) in data centers (DC) using new additional BIM capabilities.
 The novel dynamic cabinet family have several distinctive features:

 the ability to select in the properties which equipment will be inside the cabinet and which unit will occupy;

 possibility to change and add equipment inside the cabinet;

 creation of cabinet façade scheme based on equipment inside the cabinet;

 automatically created specification;

 Cable tray plug-in can improve and automate the design process in the following areas:

 place trays depending on the installation method (wall, floor, ceiling);

 place elements of the trays (hangers, consoles, racks) in a user-defined interval;

 place tray connectors based on selected connector type and tray type at user-selectable spacing;

 adding a tray cover and a partition in the tray properties;

 automatically created specification of all cable trays elements.

 The model created in BIM can be used for further operation and maintenance. To reach it, each of the elements or groups of elements contains a unique number that allows to bind its parameters and geometry for further export and use in the production model.


Objective: In this study we examined the effect of rapamycin (RAPA), a key component of the immunosuppressive regimen in clinical islet transplantation, on islet engraftment and function in vivo. Methods and results: Diabetic C57BL/6 or BALB/C recipient mice were transplanted with 350 syngeneic islets through the portal vein (PV-Tx; C57BL/6 n = 60; BALB/C n = 22) and treated with once-daily oral RAPA (1 mg/kg) or vehicle. No differences in post-transplant blood glucose concentrations and glucose tolerance were observed between RAPA- and vehicle-treated mice. The impact of RAPA on human islet engraftment was assessed in 10 patients with type 1 diabetes treated with 0.1 mg/kg/day rapamycin before islet transplantation. Compared to non pre-treated islet transplant recipents (n = 12), RAPA pre-treated patients had increased blood RAPA concentrations (p = 0.006) and fasting C-peptide concentrations (p = 0.005) in the two weeks post-transplant. RAPA pre-treatment was associated with a reduction in chemokines CCL2 and CCL3 concentrations pre-transplant (p < 0.01), and a dampened chemokine response (p = 0.005) post-transplant. Concordantly, in vitro RAPA inhibited the secretion of CCL2 and CCL3 by monocytes. Conclusion: Rapamycin does not adversely affect intrahepatic islet engraftment in the mouse, and potentially improves islet engraftment in humans by an anti-inflammatory mechanism.


Crop residue burning produces a lot of polluting gases and fine particles, endangering human health, damaging soil structure, and causing fire accidents. In addition to the impact of residue burning on the local environment, pollutants can spread with the wind to more distant areas and impact their air quality. Nevertheless, a comparative analysis of the impact of two common residue burning parameters, the number of residue fire points, and residue burned area on urban air quality indicators has not been reported. In this study, the correlation between these two different residue burning parameters on air quality in Daqing City (Western Heilongjiang Province, China) was investigated comparatively using the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) fire point product, the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) burned area product, and buffer zone analysis. The association between MODIS burned area products and air quality index (AQI) was found to be around 0.8. Meanwhile, it was found that the correlation between the number of residue fire points extracted from the VIIRS active fire products and air quality was above 0.6, again with a maximum of 0.75 at a buffer radius of 50 km. Within other levels of buffer zones, the correlation between residue burned area and AQI was consistently higher than that between residue fire points and AQI. By comparing the correlation between VIIRS fire points, MODIS burned area, and the concentration of each AQI pollutant, it can be found that the correlation between the concentration of each AQI pollutant and the residue burned area was higher than that and the fire points number. MODIS burned area monitoring, on the other hand, detects changes in the time series of images taken by satellite at two transit moments to obtain a new burned area and cumulative burned area during this period, allowing the monitoring of fire traces caused by fire points at non-transit moments. From analyzing the correlation between residue fire points, residue burned area, and the concentration of each pollutant (PM2.5, PM10, CO, NO2, SO2, and O3), we found significant correlations between residue burning and PM2.5, PM10, CO, and NO2 concentrations, with the highest correlation (R2) of 0.81 for PM2.5. Moreover, the correlation between residue burned area and PM2.5, PM10, CO, and NO2 concentrations was significantly higher than that between the number of residue fire points and their concentrations.


Spiking neural networks (SNN) represent the state-of-the-art approach to the biologically realistic modeling of nervous system function. The systematic calibration for multiple free model parameters is necessary to achieve robust network function and demands high computing power and large memory resources. Special requirements arise from closed-loop model simulation in virtual environments, and from real-time simulation in robotic application. Here, we compare two complementary approaches to efficient large scale and realtime SNN simulation. The widely used NEural Simulation Tool (NEST) parallelizes simulation across multiple CPU cores. The GPU-enhanced Neural Network (GeNN) simulator uses the highly parallel GPU-based architecture to gain simulation speed. We quantify fixed and variable simulation costs on single machines with different hardware configurations. As benchmark model we use a spiking cortical attractor network with a topology of densely connected excitatory and inhibitory neuron clusters with homogeneous or distributed synaptic time constants and in comparison to the random balanced network. We show that simulation time scales linearly with the simulated biological model time and, for large networks, approximately linearly with the model size as dominated by the number of synaptic connections. Additional fixed costs with GeNN are almost independent of model size, while fixed costs with NEST increase linearly with model size. We demonstrate how GeNN can be used for simulating networks with up to 3.5 · 106 neurons (> 3 · 1012 synapses) on a high-end GPU, and up to 250, 000 neurons (25 ·109 synapses) on a low-cost GPU. Real-time simulation was achieved for networks with 100, 000 neurons. Network calibration and parameter grid search can be efficiently achieved using batch processing. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches for different use cases.


Reducing the suicide rate is one of chief targets of Health of the nation, although consideration scepticism has been expressed about whether or not this can be achieved. We have reported that nearly a third of those supervised by the West Yorkshire Probation Service had a history of deliberate self harm (DSH). Comparing the known risk factors for DSH and suicide with the composition of those supervised by the Probation Service suggests this is a high-risk group that has not traditionally been well served by mental health services.


Abstract: Nanoparticles with high reactivity can be applied as amendments to remediate soil metal contaminations by immobilizing toxic elements. Nano-oxides of Fe have been studied but Al and Ti nano-oxides have not been tested for their remediation capacity of toxic metals. The potential of synthesized iron (Fe-O), aluminum (Al-O), and titanium (Ti-O) nano-oxides for stabilizing Cd, Pb, and Zn in mine spoil (Chat) and contaminated soil was compared using adsorption studies and a greenhouse experiment. Chat and soil were amended with nano-oxides at two rates (25 and 50 g·kg−1) and a pot experiment was conducted with sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench). Leachates were collected twice per week from plant emergence to harvest at maturity and metals were compared against an unamended control. Chat was contaminated with Cd, Pb, and Zn at 84, 1583, and 6154 mg·kg−1, and soil at 15, 1260, and 3082 mg·kg−1, respectively. Adsorption conformed to the Langmuir linear isotherm and adsorption maxima of metals were in the order of Al-O > Ti-O ≥ Fe-O. Nano-oxides reduced Cd concentration by 28% (Fe-O) to 87% (Ti-O) and Zn concentration by 14% (Fe-O) to 85% (Al-O) in plant tissues compared with unamended Chat. Nano-oxides significantly reduced Cd, Pb, and Zn in leachates and available Cd and Zn in Chat/soil relative to the respective unamended controls. Nano-oxides can be used to remediate heavy metal contaminated Chat and soil and facilitate plant growth under proper nutrient supplements. Nano-oxides of Al-O and Ti-O remediated metals more effectively than Fe-O.


A novel gene Nbar(Nicotiana benthamiana ankyrin repeat-rich) was cloned from cDNA of tobacco(Nicotiana benthamiana) leaves infested by Phytophthora infestans,with a pair of specific primers designed based on the reported sequence of a potato ankyrin repeat-rich gene Star.The new gene contains a maximum open reading frame of 1 539 bp,whose base consistency was 90% with that of Star,and encoded a peptide with 513 amino acids,including six ankyrin repeat-rich domains and a RING finger.So far as we know,it is the first ankyrin repeat-rich gene isolated from tobacco,and has been submitted to the GenBank database with accession number 1231763.


The importance of electricity demand forecasting, factors influencing the various ranges of demand forecasting, and their correlation and contribution to demand are discussed. Various models which can be used to identify the demand pattern and underlying growth to predict future demand are presented. A step-by-step method of building a forecasting model is also provided.