This thesis examines the role of quest in the poetry of Byron, Shelley, and Keats. It argues that as proponents of a self-conscious quest poetry, each poet presents quest as a mode that gives shape to desire, but also one that demands scrutiny in its pursuit of potentialities. Utilising a new-formalist approach to poetry, the thesis presents these poets' interrogations of quest as inseparable from the formal and generic qualities of their work, showing each poet locating artistic achievement in a performative approach to difficulty and struggle.

Developing Harold Bloom's argument that the Romantics create an 'internalized' quest-romance, I show each poet formulating their own unique sense of quest. While Byron tends towards disruption only to stop short of dismantling quest, Shelley's quest revels in a purposeful precariousness. For Keats, quest represents a means of enacting his voyage towards capable poethood.

The first chapter, on Childe Harold's Pilgrimage III, shows Byron disrupting his quest for self-transcendence through his use of the doubling trope. Chapter two compares Manfred and The Deformed Transformed, arguing that Byron's dramas disrupt quest by foregrounding tensions between rhetoric and achievement. Chapter three views Shelley's quests in Epipsychidion and Adonais as galvanised by the uncertain relationship between self and other. Chapter four traces the ambiguous role of movement in Shelley's quest, focusing on the Scrope Davies Notebook and The Triumph of Life. Chapter five, on Sleep and Poetry and Endymion, presents rhyme as central to Keats's quest to master a longer work of poetry. The final chapter examines the Hyperion poems, arguing that Keats refigures the epic to perform his progression towards poetic authority.

By placing quest centre stage in their poetics, Byron, Shelley, and Keats produce poetry that is attuned to the aspiration underpinning human experience. Though tested, scrutinised, and interrogated throughout their works, quest also affords each poet an opportunity to glimpse the loftiest heights of possibility and achievement.


This article is aimed at discussing the relevance of the education system face to learning theories. It will check in what ways our approaches are both relevant and logical. Then show that three steps methodology used here must at the same time combine quantiative accuracy, group survey and the interview. And also show that the results are congruent with the problematic. In general the Ivorian Education System partly meet operalization and complex cognitive proceedings developed by individuals. A lot has to be done to bring about change, for this to happen pedagogical renewal taking into account current learning theories is needed


Multi-period multi-product regulatory schemes for electricity distributors are presented, based on cost information from a productivity analysis model and an agency theoretical decision model. The proposed schemes are operational and demonstrate considerable advantages compared to the popular CPI-X revenue cap regulation. The schemes avoid arbitrariness, too high or negative informational rents as well as ratchet effects and they promote rapid productivity catch-up by making full use of available data. More generally, the paper contributes to the theoretical unification between firm-based Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) productivity models and micro-economic reimbursement theories.


The linking and modification of low molecular weight cationic polymers (oligomers) has become an attracted strategy to construct non-viral gene carriers with good transfection efficiency and much reduced cytotoxicity. In this study, PEI 600 Da was linked by biodegradable bridges containing rigid aromatic rings. The introduction of aromatic rings enhanced the DNA-binding ability of the target polymers and also improved the stability of the formed polymer/DNA complexes. The biodegradable property and resulted DNA release were verified by enzyme stimulated gel electrophoresis experiment. These materials have lower molecular weights compared to PEI 25 kDa, but exhibited higher transfection efficiency, especially in the presence of serum. Flow cytometry and confocal laser scanning microscopy results indicate that the polymers with aromatic rings could induce higher cellular uptake. This strategy for the construction of non-viral gene vectors may be applied as an efficient and promising method for gene delivery.


This thesis develops three data-driven models of a commercially operating gas turbine, and applies inference techniques for reliability prognostics. The models focus on capturing feature signals (continuous state) and operating modes (discrete state) that are representative of the remaining useful life of the solid welded rotor. The first model derives its structure from a non-Bayesian parametric hidden Markov model. The second and third models are based on Bayesian nonparametric methods, namely the hierarchical Dirchlet process, and can be viewed as extensions of the first model. For all three approaches, the model structure is first prescribed, parameter estimation procedures are then discussed, and lastly validation and prediction results are presented, using proposed degradation metrics. All three models are trained using five years of data, and prediction algorithms are tested on a sixth year of data. Results indicate that model 3 is superior, since it is able to detect new operating modes, which the other models fail to do. The turbine is based on a sequential combustion design and operates in the 50Hz wholesale electricity market. The rotor is the most critical asset of the machine and is subject to nonlinear loadings induced from three sources: i) day-to-day variations in total power generated by the turbine; ii) machine trips in high and low loading conditions; iii) downtimes due to scheduled maintenance and inspection events. These sources naturally lead to dynamics, where random (resp. forced) transitions occur due to switching in the operating mode (resp. trip and/or maintenance events). The degradation of the rotor is modeled by measuring the abnormality witnessed by the cooling air temperature within different modes. Generation companies can utilize these indicators for making strategic decisions such as maintenance scheduling and generation planning. Thesis Supervisor: Saurabh Amin Title: Assistant Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering


This study was carried out to investigate the effects of virgin coconut and sesame oils on the lipid profile and glucose level of diabetic male rats. Fifty-six adult male albino rats of the Sprague Dawley strain were divided into 8 groups. The administration, of alloxan (150 mg/kg BW) was done only once intraperitoneally for the groups from 2 8 to induce diabetes. After the hyperglycemia appeared, groups 3 – 8 were treated with 5 and 10 % virgin coconut oil, 5 and 10 % sesame oil, 5+5% and 2.5+2.5% of oils mixture for six weeks. The mean values of feed intake, body weight gain and feed efficiency ratio were improved in all tested groups except group 8 which was fed 2.5% virgin coconut+2.5% sesame oils mixture when compared with the + ve control group. While biochemical parameters such as insulin level, glucose level, aspartate aminotransferase Al Shalakany Amr Hesaham, May kamel Mattar, Alaa Osama Aboraya and Haggag Mohammed Hamdy 118 (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), total protein (TP), and albumin, creatinine, urea, total cholesterol, triglycerides (TG), high density lipoprotein (HDL), very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL), low density lipoprotein (LDL), catalase and malondialdehyde (MDA) were improved compare with the + ve control group. According to the above findings this research recommended that usage of virgin coconut oil, sesame oil and 5% virgin coconut 5% sesame oils mixture had beneficial effects on diabetes. So more scientific researches must be done on this oils treatment effects on human beings.


Communication is and has always been important for the human as we aredesigned by evolution to communicate as a way to survive and reproduce. Whatmany people do not think about is that music and communication are very closelyrelated due to the fact that music is a type of communication. In this thesis wehave focused on the field of music and communication to discuss the possibilityof combining these to areas to provide better information technology services.More specifically we have focused on discussing the advantages of combining thecommunication technology of instant messaging with music playback. Our goalsare that it will increase the user experience as well as indirectly help the musicindustry to promote artists and their music as the communicating peers will beable to share information about their music in a more efficient way.


Analysis of data from a broad national survey of postsecondary occupational education institutions was used to determine: (1) the demographic and educational characteristics of two at-risk groups--individuals with limited educational achievement and individuals with physical handicaps; (2) the educational programs in which these two groups are currently engaged; and (3) the support mechanisms that institutions offer the groups. Self-reported data were used to identify the two groups. The analysis found that members of the low educational achievement and handicapped populations differ from the average postsecondary student in a number of ways, but in terms of their current educational pursuits, the differences are minimal. Students in the disadvantaged groups are older, disproportionately male, and from lower income families. Similarly, major differences in high school background exist; the disadvantaged groups had lower grades, were more likely to have pursued the general curriculum, and put in less effort into extracurricular activities and homework. Nevertheless, these persons' current grades are only slightly lower than average; they are not any more likely than the average student to have taken developmental education classes; and they have similar attitudes and effort toward their current programs. Finally, the study found that on average, postsecondary institutions are serving disadvantaged populations fairly well, but they need to provide more training for their teachers in working with disadvantaged populations. (KC) * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. *


The 30-s all-out Wingate test has been used in athletes of all sport specialties to measure the capacity for short duration, high power output while cycling. The aim of this study was to establish differences in measuring anaerobic capacity between the classic Wingate test on a cycling ergometer and the modified Wingate test on a rowing ergometer in rowers. A group of20 rowers was tested by both the cycle and rowing ergometers during 30s of maximum power to test anaerobic capacity and to make correlation between these tests. The parameters measured were the peak power and mean power. The peak power on the cycling ergometer was 475 +/- 75.1W and 522.4 +/- 81W (p < 0.05) on the rowing ergometer. The mean power on the cycling ergometer and the rowing ergometer was 344.4 +/- 51.1W and 473.7W +/- 67.2, (p < 0.05) respectively. The maximum values were achieved at the same time on both ergometers, but remained on the higher level till the end of the test on the rowing ergometer. By correlating the anaerobic parameters of the classic Wingate test and a modified Wingate test on the rowing ergometer a significant positive correlation was detected in the peak power (r = 0.63, p < 0.05) as well as in the mean power (r = 0.65, p < 0.05). The results show that the rowers achieved better results of the anaerobic parameters on the rowing ergometer compared to the cycling ergometer due to a better mechanical efficiency. It is concluded that the modified Wingate test on the rowing ergometer can be used in rowers for testing their anaerobic capacity as a sport specific test ergometer since it provides more precise results.


Background Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic inflammatory disease and is commonly associated with osteoporosis. To prevent osteoporotic fractures in patients with RA, it is important to identify the high risk groups with a low bone mineral density (BMD) as well as other clinical risk factors and to apply an early pharmacological intervention for osteoporosis. The standard of pharmacological intervention for osteoporosis in patients with RA is based on the T-score measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) similar to the general population. However, it may not be the proper standard to measure the high-risk group of patients with RA. To overcome the limitations of T-score, the fracture risk assessment tool (FRAX) was developed by the World Health Organization (WHO). Objectives To identify patients without osteoporosis who met the criteria of the FRAX criteria of the National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF) only and to compare patients who met only the FRAX criteria of the NOF and patients who presented osteoporosis in the incidence of fractures. Methods Five hundred and forty five patients with rheumatoid arthritis who visited a single center were recruited in South Korea. The candidates for a pharmacological osteoporosis intervention were identified using the World Health Organization (WHO) criteria and the Korean FRAX model. In the follow-up period during median 30 months were investigated the new onset of fractures. Results Of 223 patients who have no osteoporosis, 39 (17.4%) satisfied the FRAX criteria for pharmacological intervention. The discordance between the BMD and FRAX criteria for pharmacological intervention was remarkable in men, 11/29 (37.9%) vs. 19/29 (65.5%). During the follow up period occurred 2 new onset fractures in patients who met only the FRAX criteria and 22 new onset fractures in patients with osteoporosis by BMD. The incidence rate for new onset fractures of patients who met only the FRAX criteria was with 295.93 per 10,000 person-years higher than in the general population with 114.99 per 10,000 person-years. Conclusions Patients who met the FRAX criteria of the NOF only need pharmacological intervention because their numbers of incidences for new onset fractures are similar to those of patients with osteoporosis by BMD. References Sinigaglia L, Nervetti A, Mela Q, Bianchi G, Del Puente A, Di Munno O et al. A multicenter cross sectional study on bone mineral density in rheumatoid arthritis. Italian Study Group on Bone Mass in Rheumatoid Arthritis. J Rheumatol 2000;27:2582-9. van Staa TP, Geusens P, Bijlsma JW, Leufkens HG, Cooper C. Clinical assessment of long-term risk of fracture in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Arthritis Rheum 2006;54:3104-12. Kim SY, Schneeweiss S, Liu J, Daniel GW, Chang CL, Garneau K et al. Risk of osteoporotic fracture in a large population-based cohort of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Arthritis Res Ther 2010;12:R154. Baskan BM, Sivas F, Alemdaroglu E, Duran S, Ozoran K. Association of bone mineral density and vertebral deformity patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatol Int 2007;27:579-84. Silverman SL. The clinical consequences of vertebral compression fracture. Bone 1992;13:S27–31. Disclosure of Interest None declared DOI 10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-eular.2501


ABSTRACT Purpose Certain peripheral retinal degenerations pose a significant risk to vision and require prompt detection and management. Other historically "benign" peripheral lesions are being recognised as clinically significant due to their associations with ocular and systemic disorders. Assessment and documentation of these entities however can be difficult due to challenges in visualisation of the peripheral retina. This review addresses this by providing a series of clinical examples of these entities visualised with a variety of ocular imaging technologies. Methods A literature search was performed in Embase, Medline, and Google Scholar. We identified and analysed all papers referring to peripheral retinal degenerations and the peripheral retina, as well as reference lists of retrieved articles until August 2019. Results Using ocular imaging technologies including ultra-widefield imaging and peripheral optical coherence tomography, we comprehensively describe current evidence and knowledge of a number of peripheral retinal degenerations and anomalies including microcystoid, pavingstone, lattice, snail track, snowflake and reticular pigmentary degenerations, peripheral drusen, white without pressure, retinal holes and vitreoretinal tufts. A summary of these entities is also provided as a short and easily interpretable chairside guide to facilitate the translation of this evidence base into clinical practice. Conclusion While ocular technologies are useful in visualising peripheral retinal degenerations, the current evidence is fragmented throughout the literature and there is a paucity of information on imaging of "benign" peripheral lesions. This review facilitates a multimodal imaging approach to evaluating peripheral lesions.


Abstract. There is an increased demand for quantitative
high-resolution soil maps that enable within-field management. Commonly
available soil maps are generally not suited for this purpose, but digital
soil mapping and geophysical methods in particular allow soil
information to be obtained with an unprecedented level of detail. However, it is often
difficult to quantify the added value of such high-resolution soil
information for agricultural management and agro-ecosystem modelling. In
this study, a detailed geophysics-based soil map was compared to two
commonly available general-purpose soil maps. In particular, the three maps
were used as input for crop growth models to simulate leaf area index (LAI)
of five crops for an area of ∼ 1 km2. The simulated
development of LAI for the five crops was evaluated using LAI obtained from
multispectral satellite images. Overall, it was found that the
geophysics-based soil map provided better LAI predictions than the two
general-purpose soil maps in terms of correlation coefficient R2, model
efficiency (ME), and root mean square error (RMSE). Improved performance was
most apparent in the case of prolonged periods of drought and was strongly
related to the combination of soil characteristics and crop type.


Abstract Box turtles ( Terrapene spp.) maintained as pet animals are commonly presented to the veterinary clinic for health care. A complete blood count (CBC) is recommended for box turtle patients as part of the annual physical examination, when they are ill, and before owner-induced brumation. Box turtles from the wild also are commonly presented for injuries and illness, including vehicular trauma, bot fly infestation, and predator attack. The initial health assessment of a wild turtle patient may be enhanced by evaluating the results of a CBC. This article will review venipuncture sites and hematologic techniques for obtaining blood samples to submit for a CBC, as well as give comments on interpreting CBC results in box turtles based on author experience and literature review. Hopefully, this article will promote further exploration and publication relevant to the evaluation of box turtle hematology.


One of the most destabilizing factors of crop production is weed infestation of crops. Despite annual herbicide treatment, weed infestation of crops of winter wheat remains high, with a predominance of annual dicotyledonous weed with a higher proportion of drug resistant on the basis of 2,4-D. We also notice increased range and density of perennial dicotyledonous weeds. New combinational herbicide called Cayenne, manufactured by LLC "Agro Expert group", which in its composition contains two active substances: thifensulfuron-methyl (500 g/l) and florasulam (170 g/l), highly inhibits both annual and perennial dicotyledonous weeds. According to the working program of the registrant's company we have tested Cayenne on crops of winter wheat in spring in the tillering phase and the formation of the second internode. It is shown that its use in doses of 0.025 and 0.035 kg/ha in mixture with 200 ml/ha of surfactant-Bit 90, W provides effective suppression of annual and perennial dicotyledonous weeds (90 100 %). The negative effect on the culture was not observed. At the same time, within 2-3 days after herbicide application we observed cessation of growth, chlorosis, dieback of growing points of weeds. Complete death was observed after 15 20 days


We determined the temporal changes in effectiveness of inspiratory-shortening expiratory-prolonging stimulus trains delivered in the region of the nucleus parabrachialis medialis and compared the responses to those observed during trains delivered to the vagus in the same animals (pentobarbital, sodium-anesthetized paralyzed cats). The inspiratory inhibitory effect of the pontine stimulus was assessed from the effect the stimulus has on threshold for terminating inspiration. Stimulus effect increased gradually, reached a peak at 0.2-0.4 s, and declined thereafter. The time of occurrence of peak effect was different from that observed in the course of vagal stimulus trains. With long stimulus trains (19-40 s), the initial effect on inspiratory duration (TI) (i.e., shortening) rapidly subsided and, in six of eight animals, was replaced by TI prolongation. The initial effect on expiratory duration (TE) (i.e., prolongation) also gradually declined with time but TE remained above control throughout. The time constant of adaptation was very similar with vagal and pontine stimulus trains (12.2 and 11.0 s, respectively), but the gain of the adapting response was much more pronounced with pontine stimuli, resulting in a paradoxical effect while stimulation continued. We conclude that the response to pontine stimuli, as with vagal stimuli, displays both integrative and adaptive characteristics. The similarity of the time constants for vagal and pontine adaptation responses suggests that these two inputs share common processing pathways.


Based on the magic substance dopamine (DA), a simple and effective one-step solution deposition strategy has been developed for constructing high-performance amorphous zirconium oxide (ZrO2) nanocomposite thin film. DA can be auto-polymerized to form a polydopamine (PDA) coating, which adheres strongly to the silicon substrate and serves as an active platform to induce the subsequent deposition of ZrO2. The obtained ZrO2 nanocomposite thin films with the thickness of about one hundred nanometers presents outstanding mechanical and tribological performances even without a subsequent high-temperature annealing process. More importantly, the preparation process is definitely low-consumption and environmentally friendly. This work overcomes the claim that ZrO2 films obtained by aqueous solution deposition process generally possess low mechanical properties and thus avoid the defects of focusing mainly on nature and performances of heat-treated and crystalline ZrO2. Based on this work, it is believed that the as-deposited ZrO2 nanocomposite film can be widely used as a protecting coating and lubricating material for micro- and nano-electromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS) and many other systems working in similar conditions.


This study examined how state expenditure on home- and community-based services (HCBS) and individual factors are associated with caregiver stress. A total of 1,849 cases from the 2004 National Long-Term Care Survey were included. Gender, education, perceived physical strain, and economic hardship, as well as the number of limitations in instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) for the care recipient, were associated with caregiver stress. The cross-level interaction between service utilization and state expenditure on HCBS was significant, suggesting that living in states with a higher expenditure on HCBS is associated with reduced stress regardless of service utilization.


Optimum design of real world steel space frames under design code provisions is a complicated optimization problem due to the presence of large numbers of highly nonlinear constraints and discrete design variables. The use of gradient based optimization techniques in finding the optimum solution of such large design problems is cumbersome due to the selection of initial design points and convergence difficulties while metaheuristic algorithms do not suffer such problems. Artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm is one of the recent additions to the swarm intelligence based meta-heuristic search techniques that mimic natural foraging behavior of honey bees. In this study optimum design problem of steel space frames is formulated according to the provisions of LRFD-AISC and its solution is obtained by using enhanced artificial bee colony algorithm. The performance of artificial bee colony algorithm is improved by adding Levy flight distribution in the search of scout bees. Real world steel space frames are designed with the new algorithm developed in this study to demonstrate its robustness and efficiency. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.


Sea turtles are known to perform long-distance, oceanic migrations between disparate feeding areas and breeding sites, some of them located on isolated oceanic islands. These migrations demonstrate impressive navigational abilities, but the sensory mechanisms used are still largely unknown. Green turtles breeding at Ascension Island perform long oceanic migrations (>2200 km) between foraging areas along the Brazilian coast and the isolated island. By performing displacement experiments of female green turtles tracked by satellite telemetry in the waters around Ascension Island we investigated which strategies most probably are used by the turtles in locating the island. In the present paper we analysed the search trajectories in relation to alternative navigation strategies including the use of global geomagnetic cues, ocean currents, celestial cues and wind. The results suggest that the turtles did not use chemical information transported with ocean currents. Neither did the results indicate that the turtles use true bi-coordinate geomagnetic navigation nor did they use indirect navigation with respect to any of the available magnetic gradients (total field intensity, horizontal field intensity, vertical field intensity, inclination and declination) or celestial cues. The female green turtles successfully locating Ascension Island seemed to use a combination of searching followed by beaconing, since they searched for sensory contact with the island until they reached positions NW and N of the Island and from there presumably used cues transported by wind to locate the island during the final stages of the search.


OpenStreetMap (OSM), a widely‐used open‐source geographic information system platform, provides a vast geographic dataset in which users contribute both geometric information (nodes, ways, and relations) and semantic information (tags). This method of voluntary contributions is governed by the collective effort of the users. It is widely acknowledged that the quantity of tag information is substantial, but its quality is often poor. Researchers are therefore trying to assess the quality of the tags and enhance the data through various integration experiments. This article investigates the validity of the tags for geographical objects in metropolitan areas using municipal data and a reverse geocoding technique. The proposed method evaluates the data quality and the matching process carried out by reverse geocoding, using municipal points of interest as a reference. The accuracy of the tag and address information and road network centrality metrics were assessed for the OSM objects that were matched to the locations of interest. The tags were found to match the points of interest with an accuracy of 88%. Furthermore, the tag values were categorized and analyzed based on their similarity. It is concluded that in metropolitan settings where centers of interest are closely located, the accuracy of tags and addresses tends to decrease.


ABSTRACT Although respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a significant human pathogen, no RSV vaccines are available. We have reported that a virus-like particle (VLP) RSV vaccine candidate stimulated, in mice, robust, protective anti-RSV glycoprotein TH1 biased immune responses without enhanced respiratory disease upon RSV challenge. We report here an analysis of long-term responses to these VLPs. BALB/c mice immunized, without adjuvant, with VLPs or with infectious RSV generated anti-F and anti-G protein serum antibody responses that were stable over 14 months. Neutralizing antibody titers stimulated by VLPs were robust and durable for 14 months, whereas those of RSV-immunized animals declined significantly by 3 months. F protein-specific antibody-secreting cells were detected in the bone marrows of VLP-immunized mice but not in the marrows of RSV-immunized mice. Adoptive transfer of enriched splenic B cells from VLP-immunized mice into immunodeficient rag −/− mice resulted in anti-F and anti-G protein serum IgG antibody responses, in recipient mice, that were protective upon RSV challenge. In contrast, transfer of splenic B cells from RSV-immunized mice produced no detectable serum antibody in the recipients, nor could these mice inhibit RSV replication upon virus challenge. Immunization with VLPs stimulated the formation of germinal center GL7+ B cells in normal mice. VLP immunization of TCR βδ−/− T-cell-deficient mice did not induce anti-RSV IgG antibodies, results consistent with T-cell-dependent immune responses. These results demonstrate that VLPs are effective in stimulating long-lived RSV-specific, T-cell-dependent neutralizing antibody-secreting cells and RSV-specific memory responses.


Text clustering is one of the difficult and hot research fields in the Internet search engine research. Combination the advantages of k-means clustering and self-organizing model (SOM) techniques, a new text clustering algorithm is presented. Firstly, texts are preprocessed to satisfy succeed process. Then, the paper analyzes common k-means clustering algorithm and SOM algorithm and combines them to overcome efficiency of low stability of k-means algorithm which is very sensitive to the initial cluster center and the isolated point text. The experimental results indicate that the improved algorithm has a higher accuracy and has a better stability, compared with the original algorithm.


Coronary heart diseases (CHD) are one of the main causes of deaths in the United States. Although it is well known that CHD mainly occurs due to blocked arteries, many of the specifics of this disease are still subject to current research. It is commonly accepted that certain factors, such as a cholesterol high diet, increase the risk of coronary heart disease. As a consequence, people should be educated to adhere to a diet low in low-density lipoprotein (LDL or bad cholesterol). In order for children to become familiar with these facts, educational, explorative computer systems can be employed to raise some awareness. Hence, this presentation describes an educational computer game for children. While practicing their navigation skills, children can learn about the various types of blood cells and particles within the blood stream. A geometric model of the arterial vascular system of the heart was generated based on a CT scan, which considers vessels of different sizes. An interactive flythrough using a standard game controller facilitates the exploration of the interior structure of the vasculature. A blood flow simulation including several different particles within the blood stream allows the young explorer to understand their functionality. Atherosclerotic lesions can be modeled to add calcifications to the geometric model. Since the blood flow visualized by the particles within the blood stream adapts to those lesions, the user learns about the immediate effects of such calcifications on the blood flow. The computer game supports stereoscopic display systems. Through the use of, for example, active shutter glasses and large-screen plasma displays, a fully immersive gaming environment can be achieved. An early version of this computer game has been deployed as an interactive museum exhibit for children. The primary age group addressed by the science museum where it was displayed is 4-9 years.


An ultrathin-film microring laser was fabricated using inkjet printing and a simple lift-off technique. Whispering-gallery-mode lasing was observed under optically pumped conditions in the film. The freestanding laser can be transferred to arbitrary surfaces for multifunctional applications, such as acoustic and relative humidity sensing. Using the first eigenmode of a membrane vibration, an acoustic sensor with a 0.15 Pa limit of detection was demonstrated via laser bandwidth broadening. A relative humidity sensor with a 1.1% limit of detection via wavelength shifts was demonstrated by placing the device on an optical fiber facet. These cost-effective, transferrable, multifunctional laser sensors will have many additional applications.


Background: Lichen planus is an idiopathic inflammatory disease with characteristic clinical and pathologic features affecting the skin, mucous membranes, nails, and hair. It is likely that both endogenous (genetic) and exogenous (environmental) factors such as some drugs or some infection(s) may interact to elicit the disease. Objectives: To determine the prevalence of hepatitis C virus antigen among the patients with lichen planus and comparison with healthy control group. Materials and methods : Twenty patients with lichen planus were included in this study (12 males and 8 females) and (40) healthy control (28 males and 12 females), their ages ranged from (15-60) years, obtained from Alkhalis hospital during the period from 1 st February to 30 th September 2013, using enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique to detect anti HCV antibody in patients serum and control group. Results: Two (10 %) had positive results for hepatitis C virus antigen (2) out of (20) patients suffering from lichen planus, while none of the within healthy control group had positive result. Statistically significant relationship was observed between both of them. Conclusion : The frequent study showed a difference in prevalence of hepatitis C virus in patients with lichen planus and healthy control.


The last two decades of American psychiatry have witnessed increasing efforts (recently with vigor) to develop effective treatment programs for people with mental problems. Schizophrenia, as the most costly psychiatric disease, has of course been a particular object of interest. The geographically isolated State Hospital, as custodian for the disturbed, is gradually disappearing from the scene. In its place, day and night systems of care, rapid treatment units within general hospitals, an emphasis on family therapy, etc, are emerging: all are designed to keep the patient as close to his home setting as geographically practical and within it as much as his clinical condition will allow. These changes are motivated by a growing conviction that, if the patient's usual milieu is disrupted as little as possible, his degree of recovery will be enhanced. At the same time, however, while our efforts have been moving in this direction, our knowledge of


A paper by Beneš, published in 1954, was an attempt to prove the consistency of NF (Quine's set theory "New Foundations") via a partial model of Hailperin's finite axiomatization ofNF. Here, I offer an analysis of Beneš's proof in a De Giorgi-style setting for set theory. This approach leads to an abstract version of Beneš's theorem that emphasizes the monotone and invariant content of the axioms proved to be consistent, in a sense of monotony and invariance that this paper intends to state rigorously and to help clarify. Moreover, some tentative speculation will be made about possible developments of the topic in the following two directions: (1) which set theories can be proved to be consistent via Beneš-like constructions, and (2) how can we elaborate on Beneš's model to get a consistency proof for full NF?


Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of preceptor preparation education on the preceptor's role recognition and job satisfaction. Method: This study was designed as a pre-experimental, one group pre-test and post-test design. The subjects of this study were 44 preceptors who had the preceptor preparation education at a university hospital in Suwon, Korea. Data were collected from May 26th to June 15th, 2003. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS WIN 10.0 with paired t-test and Pearson's correlation. Result: The results were as follows; (a) After the preceptor preparation education, preceptor's role recognition increased significantly compared to before the preceptor preparation education (t=-4.910, p=.000), (b) After the preceptor preparation education, job satisfaction increased significantly compared to before the preceptor preparation education(t=-4.470, p=.000), (c) Preceptor's role recognition was significantly positive correlation with job satisfaction(r=.422, p=.004). Conclusion: The results of this study shows that preceptor preparation education was effective in increasing preceptor's role recognition and job satisfaction.


Nemacheilus is one of the genera of freshwater fish. The existence of Uceng fish ( Nemacheilus fasciatus ) in public waters is increasingly rare. Changes in water temperature in the maintenance medium will affect the physiological processes of fish. The purpose of this study was to analyze physiological responses (blood glucose levels, cortisol, and glycogen hormones) of Ucen g Fish ( N. fasciatus ) which were incubated at different temperatures and find out the initial time of Uceng fish adaptation to its new environment. Total of 200 fish were collected from wild catches in the Lekso River, Blitar. Fish tissue collection was carried out to test the profile of glucose, cortisol, and glycogen. The research activities at this stage were carried out by raising the Uceng fish from nature to a cultivation container in an aquarium of size 50 x 30 x 30 cm that given the different temperatures (20°C, 24°C, 28°C and 32°C), and each aquarium is filled with 10 Uceng fish and will be kept for 14 days. ELISA method was used to quantify the parameter. The result of this study showed highest peak of cortisol levels and blood glucose levels was achieved in the treatment of 24°C on the 10 th day and the lowest in the treatment temperature of 28°C on the 6 th day. The highest glycogen peak was reached at 32°C on day 10 and the lowest peak was reached at 28°C on day 2. We conclude that temperature affects the physiological response (cortisol, blood glucose, and glycogen) of Uceng fish ( N. fasciatus ). High levels of cortisol and blood glucose indicate stressful fish. Keywords: Fish, Nemacheilus fasciatus, Physiological, Temperature, Uceng.


Today, simulation is needed as one of the tools for optimum utilization of a press line. Utilization includes: high throughput, minimum ware of the line and high quality. High quality includes quality of the produced parts, quality of the stamping dies and quality of the tooling manufactured. In order to perform efficient geometrical simulation and virtual commissioning in stamping, two main fields are investigated namely simulation time and optimization time. Thus, reducing computation time is the main theme of this thesis. An efficient press line simulation model is built and verified, resulting in reduced simulation building time due to the modularization of the model. To reduce simulation time, collision detection time is reduced by a method based on 3D to 2D geometrical collision detection. The method is based on pre-calculation of all collision points in the environment of interest, and then using a simplified collision detection model in a simulation based optimization. This is less resource consuming than collision checking the original 3D objects for all optimization evaluations. The suggested approach reduces the collision detection from a 3D to a 2D problem, where collision between simplified but moving curves is used in the repeated simulation for optimization. This collision detection approach, together with a simplified implementation of the control code, results in ~200 times reduction of the computation time, compared to the original simulation based on standard 3D collision detection. The variable parameters in a press line exceed 100, resulting in time/computationally demanding computations. There is also a need of fast optimizations for die design, line tryout and ramp-up. Since the number of evaluations grows exponentially with the number of dimensions in an optimization problem, optimization time is reduced by a decomposition strategy aiming at dimension reduction. Two simulation/optimization strategies were chosen and tested to decrease calculations. The presented results mean that simulation and virtual commissioning can be performed not only for press stations but also for complete press lines, where the complexity increases linearly with the number of stations in the line. KEYWORDS: Press Line Simulation, Simulation based optimization, Virtual manufacturing, Virtual commissioning, Parameter tuning, Optimization strategies.


Tonometric mass screening for industrial nations is not recommended. Amongst the reasons against mass screening is to be emphasized the sufficient prevention of glaucoma blindness, if the reading glasses are prescribed by the ophthalmologist and if he measures the intraocular pressure in each patient over 40 years of age. In developing countries the programmes are completely different since here no medical treatment is possible. The cost benefit calculation is presented for such mass screening, which should be directed to the early recognition of simple glaucoma and which should combine tonometry and Friedman Analyzer field study. Pilot studies should show, whether it is useful or not to include the inspection of the optic disc. Glaucoma teams could be associated with the cataract eye camps. Their work must be coordinated by a center, which evaluades the results of the examination teams and changes directives accordingly.


We investigate the flow-induced linear and ring polymer translocation through nanopores using a hybrid simulation method that combines a lattice-Boltzmann approach for the fluid with a molecular dynamics model for the polymer chain. Our results illustrate that the critical velocity flux for the linear and ring chain exhibits characteristic differences: for the linear chain, the critical velocity flux is independent of the chain length, which is in agreement with previous work; whereas, for the ring chain, the critical velocity flux decreases slowly with the increase of the chain length and gets closer to the critical velocity flux of the linear chain. In addition, we find that the ring chain shows much faster translocation compared to the linear chain with the same chain length. Moreover, the ring chain and the folded linear chain display the similar configurational deformation during the translocation. These results above indicate that with the increase of the chain length, the separation between the linear and ring polymers in the flow-induced translocation through nanopores becomes increasingly difficult.


A study of reductive denitrification of nitrate was conducted. Microscale zero‐valent iron (ZVI) and palladium‐coated iron (Pd/Fe) were used in the reduction of nitrate with variable pH. The solution pH was controlled by an auto controlling system instead of chemical buffers. Higher reduction rates were achieved with lower pH and lower pH gave the pseudo‐first‐order kinetics while it was close to the zero‐order reaction when the pH of the solution was becoming high and nitrate concentration was higher. As it took several hours to convert intermediates to ammonia completely, the assumption, under which mass loss calculated from the measured ammonia concentration right after the reaction was the mass of nitrogen evolved, could lead to overestimation of the nitrogen selectivity. The current study confirmed that the palladium coating on the iron could increase the nitrogen selectivity, and the Pd/Fe system could also achieve the advantages of coupling of electron source and catalyst with regard to the engineering aspects.


These selected abstracts and titles from the world literature are arranged in the following sections: Syphilis and other treponematoses (Clinical and therapy; serology and biological falsepositive phenomenon; pathology and experimental) Gonorrhoea (Clinical; microbiology; therapy) Non-specific genital infection Reiter's disease Trichomoniasis Candidosis Genital herpes Other sexually transmitted diseases Public health and social aspects Miscellaneous Syphilis and other treponematoses (clinical and therapy) Syphilis and homosexuality in adolescents LR JAFFE AND JE MORGENTHAU (Adolescent Health Centre, New York, USA). J Pediatr 1979; 95:1062-4. Although venereologists are aware of the insidiousness of the onset of syphilis, other physicians nowadays see few cases of syphilis and often forget its manifestations. In the British Isles, paediatricians would still not be dealing with the cases mentioned in this study. Case reports are given of a 17-year-old boy, misdiagnosed at first as having pityriasis rosea and later found to have secondary syphilis, and a 16-year-old boy found to have positive treponemal serological tests; both presented to paediatricians. They had contracted the disease through homosexual contact. Contact tracing was initiated after diagnosis. MA Waugh Pachymeningitis cervicalis hypertrophica syphilitica N AGDAL, HK HAGDRUP, AND GL WANTZIN (University of Copenhagen, Denmark). A cta Derm Venereol (Stockh) 1980; 60: 184-6. Syphilis (serology and biological false-positive phenomenon) West Germany). Dtsch Med Wochenschr 1980; 105:155-60. Samples of serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of 45 patients with confirmed syphilis were tested by the TPHA titre, specific IgG, and albumin to determine the ratio in the two specimens and evaluate the possibility of local production of specific antibodies in the central nervous system (CNS). In 10 of 11 patients with active neurosyphilis local production of antibodies in the CNS was demonstrated. In 16 patients with possible active neurosyphilis, seven specimens of CSF showed local antibody production and in none of 18 patients without evidence of neurosyphilis were local CNS antibodies found. It is concluded that the presence of immunoglobulins and positive TPHA test results at appropriate titres suggesting local production of CNS antibodies are a valuable diagnostic approach in the diagnosis of active neurosyphilis.


Purpose: Previous studies identified the study cohort or outcome of carbon monoxide poisoning (COP) by using the relevant disease diagnosis codes in secondary databases, but the validity of diagnosis codes of COP is unclear in such secondary databases. This study aimed to evaluate the accuracy of case definitions for COP using the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) and Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) diagnosis codes in Taiwan's health insurance claims data. Methods: We selected a 10% simple random sample from an original cohort of patients newly undergoing carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) testing under any clinical diagnosis at four Chang Gung Memorial Hospitals in Taiwan during 2011–2020. Two clinical doctors independently ascertained the COP diagnosis by reviewing the medical records as the reference standard. We estimated the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) of various case definitions (e.g., ICD-9-CM code, ICD-10-CM code and the uses of hyperbaric oxygen therapy) in the claims data. Results: We randomly selected 557 cases from the original cohort of 5,571 cases newly receiving COHb test in the study hospitals. We found 90, 35, and 9 cases were true-positive, false-positive, and false-negative episodes of COP, respectively, among 278 cases with an ICD-9-CM code of 986. A further 111, 34, and 6 cases were true-positive, false-positive, and false-negative episodes of COP, respectively, among 279 cases with an ICD-10-CM code of T58. Using ICD-9-CM codes, the sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV for COP were 90.9, 80.4, 72, and 94.1%, respectively. Using ICD-10-CM codes they were 94.9, 79, 76.6, and 95.5%, respectively. PPV typically increased when COP was the primary diagnosis and could reach 100% if patients with ICD-CM code 986 or T58 also received hyperbaric oxygen therapy during hospitalization. Conclusion: The COP-related ICD-CM codes alone did not accurately identify COP patients, but accuracy improved after including oxygen therapy data with the ICD-CM codes in Taiwan's claims data.


The NHS is on course to spend almost £1 billion on agency nursing staff during the 2014/15 financial year in England alone, according to figures released by the RCN last week. At the same time, many trusts have despatched teams around the world to recruit from overseas in a desperate bid to maintain safe staffing levels.


Objective: To evaluate the diagnostic value of capsular endoscopy in patients with obscure gastrointestinal bleeding (OGIB) in different age groups, and assess its effectiveness and safety. Methods: A total of 216 patients who were diagnosed with OGIB between March 2005 and March 2016 at Department of Gastroenterology of Peking Union Medical College Hospital were retrospectively reviewed. They were assigned into three groups: young adults, middle-aged and elderly. The demographic characteristics, clinical manifestations, working performance as well as endoscopic features in each group were collected and analyzed. Results: The detection rate and diagnosis rate of the young adults and middle-aged group were 98.53% vs 98.51% (P=0.992), 92.65% vs 91.04% (P=0.734), while those between the young adults and the elderly group were 98.53% vs 91.14% (P=0.109), 92.65% vs 87.34% (P=0.289), and 98.51% vs 91.14% (P=0.113) and 91.04% vs 87.34 (P=0.475) between the middle-aged and elderly group. No significant difference existed in either detection rates nor diagnostic rates between the different age groups. The distribution of the small intestinal lesions varied between the different age groups. The top three common lesions in young adults were vascular malformation, small intestine ulcer and Crohn's disease, while in the middle-aged group vascular malformation, non-specific enteritis and small intestine ulcer were the most common. Patients in elderly group were most likely to have vascular malformation, small intestine ulcer and erosion. Conclusions: For patients of any age with OGIB, capsule endoscopy is a safe, effective and comfortable examination which can be widely used in clinical practice.


The aim of this work was to study the effects of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and metformin (M) on nitric oxide (NO) system and oxidative stress in embryo implantation sites of early pregnant mice. The biguanide M is used for treating polycystic ovary syndrome but its complete mechanism of action remains unknown. Nitric oxide (NO) has impor- tant protective roles during pregnancy, keeping uterine relaxation and vascular function. However, its overproduction leads to nitrative stress by producing reactive nitrogen species. Here we measured NO content by Griess method and the localization of inducible and endothelial nitric oxide synthase (iNOS and eNOS) by immunohistochemistry in implanta- tion sites. Also we measured lipid peroxidation by TBA-RS, glutathion by Ellman's reaction and antioxidant enzymes by enzymatic kinetics in uterine homogenates. We found that the expression of both iNOS and eNOS and the NO content were increased with DHEA (p<0.001 for all) and restored to control levels with DHEA+M. Oxidative stress: DHEA in- creased lipid peroxidation (p<0.01) and glutathione (GSH, p<0.01). With DHEA+M lipid peroxidation was restored to control levels. The activities of the antioxidant enzymes superoxide dismutase and catalase were not modified. We con- clude that hyperandrogenization with DHEA enhances the NO system and lipid peroxidation in implantation sites of early pregnant mice and that M treatment prevents these effects.


Nonuniform fast Fourier transforms dominate the computational cost in many applications including image reconstruction and signal processing. We thus present a general-purpose GPU-based CUDA library for type 1 (nonuniform to uniform) and type 2 (uniform to nonuniform) transforms in dimensions 2 and 3, in single or double precision. It achieves high performance for a given user-requested accuracy, regardless of the distribution of nonuniform points, via cache-aware point reordering, and load-balanced blocked spreading in shared memory. At low accuracies, this gives on-GPU throughputs around 109 nonuniform points per second, and (even including host-device transfer) is typically 4–10× faster than the latest parallel CPU code FINUFFT (at 28 threads). It is competitive with two established GPU codes, being up to 90× faster at high accuracy and/or type 1 clustered point distributions. Finally we demonstrate a 5–12× speedup versus CPU in an X-ray diffraction 3D iterative reconstruction task at 10−12 accuracy, observing excellent multi-GPU weak scaling up to one rank per GPU.


This paper deals with the problem of determining the shape of unknown perfectly conducting infinitely long cylinders, starting from the knowledge of the scattered electric far field under the incidence of plane waves with a fixed angle of incidence and varying frequency. The problem is formulated as a nonlinear inverse one by searching for a compact support distribution accounting for the objects contour. The nonlinear unknown to data mapping is then linearized by means of the Kirchhoff approximation, which reduces it into a Fourier transform relationship. Then, the Fourier transform inversion from incomplete data is dealt with by means of the singular value decomposition (SVD) approach and the features of the reconstructable unknowns are investigated. Finally, numerical results confirm the performed analysis.


"It were to be wished," says Humboldt, "that the Tour of the West Indies, from the coast of Paria to Cape Florida, were made by a good mineralogist, who would examine this ancient chain of mountains, broken by the action of currents, earthquakes, and volcanoes."† A good description of this extensive Archipelago would doubtless be extremely interesting, not so much from any variety of simple minerals which the islands may be supposed to contain, as from the curious geological features which they present. A minute investigation, however, from the extensive field of enquiry, and from the nature of the climate and physical obstacles, can hardly be expected from one individual, and must probably be effected by the joint exertions of persons in different islands. No island of this cluster will perhaps be found more worthy of notice than Antigua; which, though it possesses none of the sublime features which frequently characterize primitive countries, and is entirely free from the modern vestiges of volcanic fire, does yet exhibit, in a singular degree, both in its outline and in its component rocks, the awful havock which has attended former revolutions of the earth's surface. Antigua, situated in 17° of north lat. and in 62° of west long. contains 108 square miles, and about 69,000 acres. The most superficial beds occupy the northern and eastern parts of the island, and belong to a peculiar calcareous formation, more recent than those to which the attention of naturalists has been principally directed, and probably contemporaneous


Objective: To investigate the intrinsic organization of cortical circuitry in individuals with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) via resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) connectome analysis and its correlation with cognitive level. Methods: From June 2017 to November 2019, thirty-six middle-aged and elderly individuals with complaints of memory decline and 32 normal controls (NC) were enrolled from communities in Nanjing. We collected cognitive scale performance,T1-weighted imaging (T1WI) and rs-fMRI data of all subjects. There were 5 males and 31 females in the SCD group, with an average age of (64±5) years. In the NC group, there were 8 males and 24 females, with an average age of (65±5) years. Preprocessing of rs-fMRI data was conducted, then the cerebral cortex was divided into 333 cortical parcels (nodes) and 10 predefined communities according to the prior template. Further, we established full connection matrices between cortical parcels and calculated the within-module degree (WMD) and participation coefficient (PC) of each node based on the matrices. The WMD and PC values were compared between the SCD and NC groups,and their correlations with cognitive scale performance were analyzed. Results: Compared to the NC group,the SCD group showed increased WMD in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)(P<0.05,FDR corrected) and the middle frontal gyrus (P<0.005,uncorrected) of the right frontoparietal network (FPN). The SCD group also showed decreased WMD(P<0.05,FDR corrected) in the superior occipital gyrus of the left visual network (VN) and decreased PC (P<0.005,uncorrected) in the supramarginal gyrus of the left dorsal attention network (DAN). The WMD values in the DLPFC showed significant positive correlations with the auditory verbal learning test (AVLT)short-delayed memory (r=0.364,P=0.029),recognition memory (r=0.364, P=0.029) and the Boston naming test scores (BNT, r=0.356, P=0.033)in the SCD group. The PC values in the supramarginal gyrus were significantly positively correlated with the BNT scores (r=0.413, P=0.012) in the SCD group. Conclusion: Cortical network imbalance and reconstruction characterized by decreased intra-module connectivity of VN and inter-module connectivity of DAN exist in SCD subjects,while increased intra-module connectivity of FPN may serve in a compensatory way for the early cognitive decline.


Different design/analysis tools are combined in an automatic procedure for the design of radial turbomachinery. The algorithms developed have different complexity levels ranging from the meanline one-dimensional design tool to the fully three-dimensional Navier-Stokes based analysis. Each code gives complementary information to the designer. The codes have been written and developed by the author at DIMSET. The design procedure is developed for both radial compressors and turbines and it is proposed for the dimensioning of rotating machinery for microgasturbine power plants.Copyright © 2002 by ASME


Handwriting Verifier is considered as important research field in the filled of forensic and biometric applications. It finds significance in fields like graphically which exploit the physiological performance of the human based on the handwriting. At this time too many technique are available for Handwriting verifier. Although no one of the techniques is yet proved to be clarify for large number of object. That's also fact that all the pattern of writing will be differ of any human with the time. HMM is the best technique for the verifier the writing for large number of object but its vector feature give differ patter verifier like retina verifier, used their training and test sample may vary. Hence Verifier of same tough. Therefore in this work we propose a technique for Handwriting Verifier with help of combined SVM and HMM. In this work curvelet transform are used predominantly for alphabet and numeric verifier problem and hence are more suitable for this work. SVM is also given good efficiency but not in the large object. Hence we develop a new classifier and show that the method performs better than self-sufficient HMM and SVM classifier.


Genipin (Gn) initiated crosslinked hydrogel composed of sericin and chitosan was developed and evaluated for its wound healing potential in animal model. The prepared hydrogels were characterized for crosslinking degree, swelling studies, bulk and true density, pore volume, porosity, SEM, FTIR, MS/MS analysis, texture properties and rheological measurements. The hydrogels containing different concentration of Gn showed differences in morphology, swelling ability and physical properties. Crosslinking degree, FTIR studies and MS/MS analysis noticeably indicated the crosslinking of sericin and chitosan in the presence of Gn. The results of in-vivo studies indicated that 0.8G-S/C-H groups endorsed faster wound healing, enhanced reepithelialization and wound closure in albino rats when compared to the control and positive control groups. These results prove that Sericin/Chitosan hydrogels to be promising materials for wound healing.


Diatomaceous earths, are soft whitish powders formed from the fossils of tiny organisms (planktons) which live in oceans, rivers and lakes. When diatomaceous earths come into contact with insects they absorb the wax from the skin of the insect, the insect then looses water, dehydrates and dies. By mixing diatomaceous earths with grain, we can kill the insects that try and attack the grain. Diatomaceous earths have extremely low toxicity to mammals and are therefore very safe to mix with food.


The coastal erosion is defined as the loss or displacement of land along the coastline due to the action of rain, ice and atmospheric and marine forcing. In Europe, about 25% of the European coastline for which data is available is currently retreating and erosion up to 20-30 m when severe storm occurs are frequent. In the context of climate change and sea level rise, the coastal erosion issue will be even more relevant in the future, as both the frequency and strength of storm events are likely to increase causing billions of Euros of damages.
Dealing with coastal erosion implies to provide highly precise (sub-metric) geo-located information about shorelines on a yearly to decadal timescale. For this reason, the classical approach for coastal erosion assessment has been based on the analysis of historical aerial orthophotos (enabling the extraction of longterm trends), along with GPS field observations (short-term beach and shoreline changes at the timescale of storm events).
These past 20 years, the use of new technologies for coastal change and shoreline monitoring has significantly increased (airborne lidar topographic surveys, photogrammetry, in situ laser scanning) but their definitive adoption still depends on their cost to effectiveness ratio. In the meanwhile, satellite remote sensing has shown to be adequate and relatively cost-effective for the extraction and monitoring of shoreline change over sandy coasts, and other relevant indicators of coastal erosion (beach and cliff morphological patterns, nearshore bathymetry, tidal flat change in semi-enclosed bays,…).
In the framework of the ESA Coastal Erosion Project, the future "Space for Shore" service intends to unravel the remaining technical issues and to provide a large European end user community spread over 5 countries with prototyped products, that are based on the Copernicus Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 missions and, to a certain extent, on Third Party Missions. The challenge definitely resides in the adequation between EO-data ground resolution, satellite product accuracy and the rate of coastal erosion and shoreline change, collectively targeting the retrieval of major coastal indicators designed to support decision-making.
This communication proposes an overview of the first results obtained from the Proof-of-Concept activities run this year, accordingly to the set of products required by European coastal managers in charge of shoreline management.
A soundful validation of these prototyped products is also performed assessing satellite real capability to meet end user requirements in terms mainly of measurement accuracy and temporal revisit. Finally, in conclusion, benefits for the coastal community are addressed along with some perspectives for wide service deployment over Europe.


Boroxine-based thermosets with remarkable mechanical tunability, self-healing ability, recyclability, and adhesive strength are of significant importance in various applications. However, complex multistep reactions are often required to prepare such thermosets. Herein, a facile one-pot approach to synthesize boroxine-based malleable thermosets is proposed. Random copolymers with pendant boronic acid groups were synthesized from alkenyl monomers containing boronic acids [4-vinylphenylboronic acid (4-VPBA), 3-vinylphenylboronic acid, or 3-acrylamidophenylboronic acid] and octadecanoxy polyethylene glycol methacrylate. Then, the as-prepared copolymers were cured to form thermosets with boroxine bonds. The tensile strengths of the thermosets were tailored to range from 9.3 to 27.5 MPa by increasing the concentration of 4-VPBA. Moreover, because of the reversible nature of dynamic boroxine bonds (transformation between boroxines and boronic acids) induced by water, the thermosets exhibit remarkable self-healing efficiency (up to 99%), tunable mechanical properties, and excellent recyclability. Additionally, the thermosets also demonstrate superior adhesive strength (as high as 73.9 MPa) on different substrates.


Objectives Neuroendocrine tumors of the pancreas are rare specifically in pediatric age group. We report a 3.5-year-old girl with four weeks of icterus and primary misdiagnosis of hepatitis A and final diagnosis of well differentiated low grade neuroendocrine carcinoma of the pancreas. With our best knowledge this is the first report of this tumor in under –5-year-group. We highlight the patient's presentation, examination, and management as well as review the characteristics of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. Methods A retrospective case study of a 3.5-years-old girl with history of 4 weeks Jaundice, weight loss, hepatomegaly and positive total anti HAV antibody without fever, abdominal pain, vomiting, or palpable mass in abdominal examination. Results IgM anti HAV, HBs Ag, and HCV Ab were all negative except for IgG anti HAV. Abdominal CT scan with oral and IV contrast revealed an intermediate enhancing mass in pancreatic head suggesting hypervascular pancreatic mass lesion. Examination and immunohistochemical staining of the tumor revealed well differentiated neuroendocrine carcinoma with extension to duodenal wall and lymph node metastasis. Conclusion Despite of low incidence, the pediatricians should be aware and consider tumors in differential diagnosis of jaundice in children specifically if prolonged. In addition total anti HAV Ab test for diagnosis of hepatitis A should be discouraged.


SIR, IgG4-related disease (RD) is a rare and often misdiagnosed systemic disease characterized by diffuse/focal organ enlargement, mass-forming or nodular/ thickened lesions in various organs and a prominent infiltration of lymphocytes and IgG4-positive plasmacytes with fibrosis [1]. Substantial overlap between IgG4-RD and ANCA-associated vasculitides (AAVs) exists in terms of organ involvement and histopathological features. Recent reports have raised the possibility that some patients with IgG4-RD are ANCA positive, thus suggesting that the role of ANCA in the diagnostic work-up should be reconsidered. There are also a few cases of concomitant biopsy-proven IgG4-RD and systemic involvement of AAV with a positive ANCA assay [2]. Hypertrophic pachymeningitis is a very rare manifestation of IgG4-RD. Only four cases of hypertrophic pachymeningitis IgG4-RD with a positive ANCA assay have been described in the literature, and one with pachymeningitis of the spine [2]. Here, we report a case of IgG4-RD involving the dura mater with a hypertrophic pachymeningitis and a positive ANCA assay with aortitis of the aortic arch. We also review the literature in order to provide clinicians with tools for interpreting ANCA positivity in IgG4-RD patients. A 59-year-old woman was referred for an ingravescent headache and neck pain. A gadolinium-enhanced MRI of the brain disclosed a diffuse neoformed meningeal tissue at the level of the foramen magnum, with compression on the bulbo-medullary junction. Therefore, a suboccipital craniectomy and C1 laminectomy was performed, removing part of the tissue. The patient's serum tested positively for ANCA by both immunofluorescence (cytoplasmic ANCA pattern) and enzyme immunoassay, with specificity for PR3 (>860 a.u.; normal value <20 a.u.), with negative microbiological examinations for recent or past infections. Assays for ANA, RF, antibodies to ds DNA, thyroperoxidase and thyroglobulin were negative. The CRP was elevated (21 mg/l; normal <5 mg/l); ESR and tests of renal, thyroid and liver function were within the normal ranges. The histopathological specimens consisted of dense fibrous dura mater tissue, with hypertrophic and chronic inflammatory features. The tissue was characterized by dense inflammatory infiltrates composed of CD3þ and CD8þ lymphocytes, CD138þ plasma cells and CD68þ macrophages/histiocytes. Focally, discrete follicular and microfollicular aggregates of CD20þ lymphocytes and scanty infiltrates of neutrophils were present. The immunohistochemical analysis revealed several IgG4þ plasma cells. No granulomatous or vasculitic features or fibrinoid necrosis of vessel walls could be detected. These histopatological findings were consistent with the suspicion of IgG4-related hypertrophic pachymeningitis (Fig. 1). Thoracic and abdominal CT with iodinate contrast media excluded the presence of nodules and granulomatous lesions characteristic of parenchymal involvement in AAV, in addition to the presence of pancreatic involvement, retroperitoneal fibrosis or other organspecific alterations typical of IgG4-RD. However, CT revealed a diffuse enhancement of the posterior wall of the aortic arch as a mural inflammation, with an intense F-fluorodeoxyglucose (F-FDG) uptake on PET/CT study (Fig. 2). Treatment with prednisone (1 mg/kg) and rituximab induced swift remission of both IgG4-RD and AAV manifestations. We identified 11 other reports of patients with IgG4RD and positive ANCA in the literature; three with hypertrophic pachymeningitis IgG4-RD biopsy proved and positive ANCA, and one with IgG4-RD diagnosed presumptively. The association between ANCA positivity with aortitis and IgG4-RD could suggest pathophysiological similarities between the two rare diseases. François-Xavier Danlos et al. [3] assume that the association between AAV and IgG4-RD is possible and represents a peculiar entity, with a particular phenotype and a good sensitivity to rituximab treatment. Several case reports have described chronic periaortitis in ANCA-positive patients [4], but histological samples were usually not available. Therefore, it was unclear whether such manifestations were attributable to vasculitis, granulomatous inflammation or predominant IgG4-RD-like pathology [5, 6]. A common pathophysiological pathway could involve T follicular helper (Tfh) cells, which were shown to have increased in both diseases and polarized towards the Tfh-2 subtype, enhancing IgG4-plasma cell polarization [7, 8]. However, the pathophysiology of AAV is complex and not clearly understood, as are the mechanisms of IgG4-RD, and further evidence is needed. Our clinical case, in view of the coexistence of periaortitis and hypertrophic pachymeningitis with bioptic IgG4 infiltrates and serum ANCA positivity, seems to confirm this correlation between IgG4-RD and AAV, Key message . ANCAs in IgG4-related disease might sustain an underlying vasculitic process.


ABSTRACT The widespread use of oxyimino-cephalosporin antibiotics drives the evolution of the CTX-M family of β-lactamases that hydrolyze these drugs and confer antibiotic resistance. Clinically isolated CTX-M enzymes carrying the P167S or D240G active site-associated adaptive mutation have a broadened substrate profile that includes the oxyimino-cephalosporin antibiotic ceftazidime. The D240G substitution is known to reduce the stability of CTX-M-14 β-lactamase, and the P167S substitution is shown here to also destabilize the enzyme. Proteins are marginally stable entities, and second-site mutations that stabilize the enzyme can offset a loss in stability caused by mutations that enhance enzyme activity. Therefore, the evolution of antibiotic resistance enzymes can be dependent on the acquisition of stabilizing mutations. The A77V substitution is present in CTX-M extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBLs) from a number of clinical isolates, suggesting that it may be important in the evolution of antibiotic resistance in this family of β-lactamases. In this study, the effects of the A77V substitution in the CTX-M-14 model enzyme were characterized with regard to the kinetic parameters for antibiotic hydrolysis as well as enzyme expression levels in vivo and protein stability in vitro. The A77V substitution has little effect on the kinetics of oxyimino-cephalosporin hydrolysis, but it stabilizes the CTX-M enzyme and compensates for the loss of stability resulting from the P167S and D240G mutations. The acquisition of global stabilizing mutations, such as A77V, is an important feature in β-lactamase evolution and a common mechanism in protein evolution.


The present study was carried out to evaluate the effects of ensiled mixed apple pomace and broiler litter (EAPBL)
on milk yield (MY) and composition, dry matter intake (DMI) and blood parameters at early lactation cow. Four
multiparous early-lactating Holstein dairy cows were used in a 4 × 4 Latin square design including 4 periods and 4
experimental diets. The cows were fed diets containing 0 (control), 15, 30 and 45% of EAPBL, respectively. The highest
DMI (p < 0.05) was observed in cows fed diets containing 15 and 30% of EAPBL. Milk production was lower (p < 0.05)
in cows fed 0% EAPBL than in the other experimental groups. Diet including 45% of EAPBL increased (p < 0.05)
blood glucose and blood urea nitrogen concentration. Inclusion of EAPBL on dairy cows rations might efficiently
cause an improvement on MY, milk composition and DMI


Base of thumb arthritis is a common pathology, with late-stage disease often treated by trapeziectomy and a form of ligament reconstruction or suspension. No therapeutic option for suspension or ligament reconstruction has proven to be superior to others, with risks inherent to all. Here, the authors describe a novel technique utilizing an accessory slip of abductor pollicis longus looped around the second metacarpal base to suspend the metacarpal and prevent subsidence after trapeziectomy. This technique aims to mitigate some of the risks seen in other methods, while providing similar biomechanical strength. Early clinical results are also presented.


The authors compare two ELISA methods for the assessment of antiphospholipid antibodies, classes IgG and IgM, in serum: ELISA Pin Plate System ALPHA DIALAB Co. and the ELISA method developed in the Research Institute of Rheumatic Diseases. Both methods use cardiolipin as antigen. In the Pin Plate test the immunochemical reaction antigen/antibody does not take place at the surface of the pits of the microtitration plates but on the tip of the next plate. The results of examinations of antiphospholipid antibodies obtained by the tested methods are comparable, the Pin Plate test is quicker and more sensitive, but its price limits routine use.


This study explores whether the context-based approach with 5E model (CBA-5E) can lead to better understanding of chemical reactions and energy concepts when compared to conventional instruction (CI). Additionally, the study delves into the effect of treatment with regards to gender. Eleventh grade science-major classes with 175 students from two public high schools were enrolled. The experimental groups were treated with CBA-5E, the control groups as CI, the treatments were randomly assigned to the groups. The chemical reactions and energy concepts test, including the common alternative conceptions, was administered as pre- and post-test. The chemical reactions and energy achievement test, including conceptual and algorithmic problems, was administered as a post-test to the groups. Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) was used for the analysis of the data, and the results revealed that CBA-5E was superior to CI on the students' conceptual understanding regarding these concepts regardless of gender difference.
Key words: chemical reactions and energy, conceptual understanding, context-based lessons, gender, 5E model.


The photoionization of NO molecules is studied using angle- and spin-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy with circularly polarized synchrotron radiation. The spin-orbit splitting is resolved by preparing only the X 21/2 component of the ground state in a helium-seeded supersonic expansion. A pronounced spin polarization in the angular distribution is found for the cold beam when the strong autoionization resonance at 13.82 eV photon energy is excited. The polarization parameters A, and are determined for the v = 2 and 3 vibrational levels of the NO+ X 1+ final ionic state. The results lead to the conclusion that resonances with 2+ and 2 symmetry contribute with similar intensity. The dominant contributions to the dipole transition matrix elements of the emitted electron waves can be derived approximately.


Autonomic response indexes of experimental amnesia have recently been found to have higher electroconvulsive shock (ECS) intensity thresholds and steeper retrograde gradients than have traditional somatic indexes. The present studies examined the hypothesis that recovery from somatically indexed experimental amnesia depends upon the existence of autonomically available residual memory. In a between-subjects design, a 200-mA ECS was used to produce amnesia for a tone-footshock pairing as indicated by lick suppression, defection, and bradycardia. The next day, these amnesic animals received a reminder footshock outside of the training apparatus, which was found to restore memory on a test trial 24 hr later. The behavior of control groups indicated that this reminder effect was due to the restoration of specific memory rather than systemic consequences of treatment. With a within-subjects design, a second experiment obtained a reminder effect in animals individually shown to be "fully" amnesic by all three response indexes monitored. A third experiment varied the intensity of the reminder footshock and revealed that the different memory indexes examined do not have reminder-footshock thresholds inversely related to their initial resistance to amnesia. The results support a retrieval-failure view of experimental amnesia and suggest that the same fundamental physiological processes underlie both autonomically indexed memory and somatically indexed memory.


Many cities worldwide are established adjacent to estuaries and their catchments resulting in estuarine contamination due to intense anthropogenic activities. The aim of this study was to evaluate if fish living in an estuarine urban waterway were affected by contamination, via the measurement of a suite of biomarkers of fish health. Black bream (Acanthopagrus butcheri) were sampled in a small urban embayment and a suite of biomarkers of fish health measured. These were condition factor (CF), liver somatic index (LSI), gonadosomatic index (GSI), hepatic EROD activity, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) biliary metabolites, serum sorbitol dehydrogenase (s‐SDH) and branchial enzymes cytochrome C oxidase (CCO), and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activities. The biomarkers of exposure EROD activity, and pyrene‐ and B(a)P‐type biliary metabolites confirmed current or recent exposure of the fish and that fish were metabolizing contaminants. Relative to a reference site, LSI was higher in fish collected in the urban inlet as was the metabolic enzyme LDH activity. CF, GSI, s‐SDH, CCO, and naphthalene‐type metabolites were at similar levels in the urban inlet relative to the reference site. PAH biliary metabolite ratios of high‐molecular‐weight to low‐molecular‐weight suggest that fish from the urban inlet were exposed to pyrogenic PAHs, likely from legacy contamination and road runoff entering the embayment. Similarly, the sediment PAH ratios and the freshness indices suggested legacy contamination of a pyrogenic source, likely originating from the adjacent historic gasworks site and a degree of contamination of petrogenic nature entering the inlet via storm water discharge. Biomarkers of exposure and effect confirmed that black bream collected in the Claisebrook Cove inlet, Western Australia, are currently exposed to contamination and are experiencing metabolic perturbations not observed in fish collected at a nearby reference site.


There is no question that advanced medicine and improved public health have made living into old age a reality for many people. Currently the average life expectancy for women is 79 years; for men the age is 73. Many of us can reasonably assume that we will live longer lives than did our parents and grandparents. Unfortunately, many also assume that modern medical care has improved care for people in the last phase of life. However, this may not be the case.


Quantum cosmology is investigated in a de Sitter minisuperspace model with a quantized scalar field non-minimally coupled to curvature. Quantum states of the scalar field must satisfy the regularity condition, which requires that the probability of field fluctuations should not increase with their amplitude. We show that this condition imposes constraints on the allowed values of the curvature coupling parameter ξ. This is a surprising result, since the field dynamics depends only on the combination m2+ξ R, where m is the field mass and R = const is the curvature, and does not depend on ξ separately.


The operating conditions of the assembly welding fixture for the front sidewall have been analyzed in this paper, and all the typical conditions have been applied with the nonlinear finite element analysis of the contact, aiming to ensure the safe utilization of the assembly welding fixture for the front sidewall of tooling equipment for the production of rail vehicles. The potentially risky component locations are predicted and the weak spots are discovered on the basis of the analysis results of the static strength. The anticipation of the component failure trends shows a guiding role in the failure prediction in actual production and facilitates accident prevention.


Nutritive factor is one of the most important elements of human health in the Far North. Today historical lipid-protein nutrition character of the North aborigines is changed to the "European" type. This negatively influences the local population's health. The aim of the study was to estimate the alimentary status and features of life (alcohol intake, smoking) of the Nenets autonomous area native population and its possible connection with cardiovascular disease risk. We have obtained data on the Nenets' diet which is still based on proteins. We have estimated lack of fruits and green. Fast-food impacts life of the local population. Among the cardiovascular diseases, such risk factors as smoking (25 %) and alcohol intake (51 %) were presented. This category of population needs development of measures for prevention of cardiovascular and intestine pathology by nutrition correction and educational work on harm of alcohol and smoking.


Automatic categorization is the only viable method to deal with the scaling problem of the World Wide Web (WWW). In this paper, we propose a news web page classification method (WPCM). The WPCM uses a neural network with inputs obtained by both the principal components and class profile-based features (CPBF). Each news web page is represented by the term-weighting scheme. As the number of unique words in the collection set is big, the principal component analysis (PCA) has been used to select the most relevant features for the classification. Then the final output of the PCA is augmented with the feature vectors from the class-profile which contains the most regular words in each class before feeding them to the neural networks. We have manually selected the most regular words that exist in each class and weighted them using an entropy weighting scheme. The fixed number of regular words from each class will be used as a feature vectors together with the reduced principal components from the PCA. These feature vectors are then used as the input to the neural networks for classification. The experimental evaluation demonstrates that the WPCM method provides acceptable classification accuracy with the sports news datasets.


Depression has become a big problem in our society today. It is also a major reason for suicide, especially among teenagers. In the current outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the affected countries have recommended social distancing and lockdown measures. Resulting in interpersonal isolation, these measures have raised serious concerns for mental health and depression. Generally, clinical psychologists diagnose depressed people via face-to-face interviews following the clinical depression criteria. However, often patients tend to not consult doctors in their early stages of depression. Nowadays, people are increasingly using social media to express their moods. In this article, we aim to predict depressed users as well as estimate their depression intensity via leveraging social media (Twitter) data, in order to aid in raising an alarm. We model this problem as a supervised learning task. We start with weakly labeling the Twitter data in a self-supervised manner. A rich set of features, including emotional, topical, behavioral, user level, and depression-related $n$ -gram features, are extracted to represent each user. Using these features, we train a small long short-term memory (LSTM) network using Swish as an activation function, to predict the depression intensities. We perform extensive experiments to demonstrate the efficacy of our method. We outperform the baseline models for depression intensity estimation by achieving the lowest mean squared error of 1.42 and also outperform the existing state-of-the-art binary classification method by more than 2% of accuracy. We found that the depressed users frequently use negative words such as stress and sad, mostly post during late nights, highly use personal pronouns and sometimes also share personal events.


The aim of this study was to estimate genetic parameters to support the selection of bacuri progenies for a first cycle of recurrent selection, using the REML/BLUP (restricted maximum likelihood/best linear unbiased prediction) procedure to estimate the variance components and genotypic values. Were evaluated twelve variables in a total of 210 fruits from 39 different seed trees, from a field trial with an experimental design of incomplete blocks with clonal replies among subplots. The three variables related with the fruit development (weight, diameter, length) showed strong correlation, and where fruit length showed higher heritability and potential to be used for indirect selection. Among the 39 progenies evaluated in this study, five present potential to compose the next cycle of recurrent selection, due they hold good selection differential either to agrotechnological variables as to development of bacuri fruit.


Designs of proposed fusion reactors, such as the ITER project, typically involve the use of liquid metals as coolants in components such as heat exchangers, which are generally subjected to strong magnetic fields. These fields induce electric currents in the fluids, resulting in magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) forces which have important effects on the flow. The objective of this SBIR project was to develop computational techniques based on recently developed lattice Boltzmann techniques for the simulation of these MHD flows and implement them in a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code for the study of fluid flow systems encountered in fusion engineering. The code developed during this project, solves the lattice Boltzmann equation, which is a kinetic equation whose behaviour represents fluid motion. This is in contrast to most CFD codes which are based on finite difference/finite volume based solvers. The lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is a relatively new approach which has a number of advantages compared with more conventional methods such as the SIMPLE or projection method algorithms that involve direct solution of the Navier-Stokes equations. These are that the LBM is very well suited to parallel processing, with almost linear scaling even for very large numbers of processors. Unlike other methods,more » the LBM does not require solution of a Poisson pressure equation leading to a relatively fast execution time. A particularly attractive property of the LBM is that it can handle flows in complex geometries very easily. It can use simple rectangular grids throughout the computational domain -- generation of a body-fitted grid is not required. A recent advance in the LBM is the introduction of the multiple relaxation time (MRT) model; the implementation of this model greatly enhanced the numerical stability when used in lieu of the single relaxation time model, with only a small increase in computer time. Parallel processing was implemented using MPI and demonstrated the ability of the LBM to scale almost linearly. The equation for magnetic induction was also solved using a lattice Boltzmann method. This approach has the advantage that it fits in well to the framework used for the hydrodynamic equations, but more importantly that it preserves the ability of the code to run efficiently on parallel architectures. Since the LBM is a relatively recent model, a number of new developments were needed to solve the magnetic induction equation for practical problems. Existing methods were only suitable for cases where the fluid viscosity and the magnetic resistivity are of the same order, and a preconditioning method was used to allow the simulation of liquid metals, where these properties differ by several orders of magnitude. An extension of this method to the hydrodynamic equations allowed faster convergence to steady state. A new method of imposing boundary conditions using an extrapolation technique was derived, enabling the magnetic field at a boundary to be specified. Also, a technique by which the grid can be stretched was formulated to resolve thin layers at high imposed magnetic fields, allowing flows with Hartmann numbers of several thousand to be quickly and efficiently simulated. In addition, a module has been developed to calculate the temperature field and heat transfer. This uses a total variation diminishing scheme to solve the equations and is again very amenable to parallelisation. Although, the module was developed with thermal modelling in mind, it can also be applied to passive scalar transport. The code is fully three dimensional and has been applied to a wide variety of cases, including both laminar and turbulent flows. Validations against a series of canonical problems involving both MHD effects and turbulence have clearly demonstrated the ability of the LBM to properly model these types of flow. As well as applications to fusion engineering, the resulting code is flexible enough to be applied to a wide range of other flows, in particular those requiring parallel computations with many processors. For example, at present it is being used for studies in aerodynamics and acoustics involving flows at high Reynolds numbers. It is anticipated that it will be used for multiphase flow applications in the near future.« less


The design of artificial intelligent (AI) enhanced adaptive assistive technologies (AATs) presents exciting promise for those with motor or audio/vision impairment. However, these technologies also introduce tremendous privacy risks, particularly for those with compounding identity vulnerabilities. In this paper, we reflect on why and how AATs need to be designed in collaboration with intersectional AAT users to ensure that the benefits of AI do not sacrifice privacy for the most vulnerable. We discuss methods and tools we have developed to meet these challenges, lessons we have learned from studies with them, and future opportunities.


Equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) is one of the effective methods to produce bulk-nano materials by accumulating plastic strain into the workpiece without changing its cross-sectional shape in the multi-pass processing. However, the forming load becomes higher for manufacturing large specimens using conventional solid or split dies because of friction, flash formation, and usage of dummy specimen. In the present investigation, better split die was designed to reduce the forming loads and improve the geometrical accuracy of the specimen in the multi-pass ECAP. The new die exit channel was also designed to reduce the friction effect. Experiments with AA1050 specimens with a square cross-section were carried out to examine the design goal using the proposed split dies for routes A and C up to four passes. The numerical forming simulations were used to determine the effective geometry of various die models in the present work.


The aim of this research was to know the influence of concentration and interval of Liquid organic manure (LOM) Unitas Super  (US) form Chromolaena odorata on growth and yield of black rice ( Oryza sativa L.). The experiment was conducted from October 2016 to March 2017 in Lubuk Minturun Urban Village, Koto Tangah Sub-district, Padang. The experiments were arranged in Completely Randomized Design, with 6 doses of POC Unitas Super (US) (v/v) with water, ie; 0 ml L -1 (F1); 50 ml L -1 , 1 time a week (F2), 50 ml L -1 , 1 time 2 weeks (F3), 100 ml L -1, a weekly (F4), 100 ml L -1 , 1 time every 2 weeks (F5); 150 ml L-1 POC US, 1 time every 3 weeks (F6), and 3 replications. The data obtained were analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA) 5% real level. If the treatment had a significant effect, it was continued with LSD test of 5% real level. Parameters observed include; Plant height, the maximum number of tillers and productive, flowering age, harvest, panicle length, the number of grains per panicle, weight of 1000 seeds, the weight of dry grain per hectare, percentage of empty grain and harvest index. The experimental results proved that there was an influence of LOM Unitas Super treatments on maximum tillers, empty grain, panicle length and dry grain harvest, and some other parameters were not significance. The conclusion was the giving of 50 ml L -1 POC Unitas Super given every week is the best treatment. The highest rice yield reached 6.79 tons ha -1 dry milled grain, with harvest index reached 0.49.


Microfluidics has progressed tremendously as a field over the last two decades. Various areas of microfluidics developed in fully-fledged domains of their own such as organ-on-a-chip, digital and paper microfluidics. Nevertheless, the technological advancement of microfluidics as a field has not yet reached end-users for independent use. This is the key objective that is kept as a lens throughout this review. The ultimate goal is for microfluidics to be simply considered as a tool for application-focused research. A modular automated platform is envisioned to provide the stacking and modularity required to lower the knowledge barrier for end-users. The literature considered in this review is limited to active microfluidics and the analysis focuses on the potential for end-users to independently leverage the platforms for research in various fields such as cell assays, biochemistry, materials, and environmental factors monitoring.


Objective: Evaluation of tyrosinase inhibitory activity of spices. Materials and methods: Ten different spices considered as usual commodity in Indian food habits was screened for their inhibitory activity against tyrosinase. The mushroom tyrosinase inhibitory activity was determined by dopachrome method using L-DOPA as the substrate. Results: Amongst the spices tested four spices viz. Turmeric ( Curcuma longa ), cumin ( Cuminum cyminum ), black pepper ( Piper nigrum ), pipal ( Ficus religiosa ) showed the specific inhibitory activity against tryrosinase above 50% and out of them turmeric showed maximum inhibition which can be further explored for the characterization of the phytoconstituents. Other spices showed potential inhibition of tyrosinase activity. Conclusion: This finding could lead to the design and discovery of new tyrosinase inhibitors from Indian spices.


ABSTRACT
 Because of their importance and abundance as predators of pest insects in agroecosystems around the world, eight species of lacewings from four genera (Apertochrysa, Chrysopa, Chrysoperla, and Dichochrysa) were investigated to evaluate their performance when reared on eggs of Ephestia kuehniella Zeller, a factitious prey commonly used in mass rearing systems. In particular, a comparative assessment of trash-carrying versus naked species (ones not carrying trash on their backs) was performed. We measured the developmental times and survival rates of the eight green lacewings and compared these characteristics between trash-carrying and naked lacewing species. Survival during immature development was higher (77–87%) for the two naked species (Chrysopa pallens (Rambur) and Chrysoperla suzukii (Okamoto)) than for the trash-carrying species D. alcestes (33%). Immature and larval developmental times were significantly longer among the trash-carrying species than the naked species. The rapid development of naked green lacewings may be a strategy to decrease predation risk by aphid guarding ants and intra-guild predators.


This paper deals with the problem of identifying the mathematical model of a dry-clutch transmission system, from input-output data experimentally collected on a real vehicle. The proposed identification procedure is based on a set-membership identification approach, where a-priori information on the structure of the physical model are taken into account in the selection of the model class. Parameter uncertainty intervals and the Chebyshev center of the feasible parameter set are computed by applying suitable convex relaxation schemes. The quality of the obtained model is tested on several validation data sets.