Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) remains the gold standard antibiotic carrier in the management of osteomyelitis. However, biodegradable ceramic carriers may exhibit more efficient antibiotic elution properties. Through zone of inhibition (ZOI) testing and biofilm killing assays, we assessed the in vitro elution efficacy of vancomycin released from calcium sulfate (PG-CSH) and PMMA beads as carriers on clinical strains of Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis, which were isolated from sonication fluid of orthopedic implant-associated infections. Overall, vancomycin-loaded PMMA and PG-CSH beads showed potency (ZOI above 4 cm2 ) for up to 14 days against ATCC and clinical strains. Vancomycin-loaded PG-CSH beads displayed higher rates, exhibited a more stable antibiotic elution, had greater impacts on bacterial colony-forming unit counts and produced higher ZOIs; additionally, statistically significant differences (Student's t test) were observed in different time sets during the experiment. In the biofilm killing assay, PG-CSH loaded with vancomycin resulted in more bacterial deaths. In conclusion, in the present study, both PG-CSH and PMMA beads acted as good carriers, but greater antimicrobial elution and biofilm bacterial killing were observed with PG-CSH than PMMA. Future in vitro research should focus on testing other difficult-to-treat clinical strains, including multidrug resistant coagulase-negative staphylococci and Gram-negative bacilli.


The sustainable water supply project discussed in this article is the first in Danish history to use protection zones to safeguard groundwater from the effects of agricultural production. As experience with groundwater protection zones was very limited 10 years ago, the project involved comprehensive and systematic monitoring to determine the effects of the protection zones on groundwater quality.

The establishment of protection zones around waterworks is a simple and inexpensive way to safeguard the drinking water resource. As more than 99% of Denmark's drinking water supply derives from the nation's naturally pure groundwater, protection of the groundwater resource from agricultural and industrial contamination is accorded high priority Agricultural use of nitrate fertilizers can considerably deteriorate the quality of the groundwater. In Aarhus County alone, more than 100 out of 600 waterworks have been closed due to nitrate contamination.


TEMPORAL arteritis confronts the clinician with many problems, the most important of which is to make an early diagnosis. In a society whose average age is increasing, temporal arteritis probably will become increasingly frequent. It behooves us also to remember that the occult form of temporal arteritis might be more common than the classic variety. 1 The purpose of this report is to emphasize once again the importance of early recognition and prompt treatment 2 and to caution the clinician that patients younger than 50 years can have this entity. Report of a Case A 48-year-old man had recurrent amaurosis fugax of the right eye develop over a two-week period. Ten weeks before examination, central retinal artery occlusion (CRAO) of the left eye developed without evidence of retinal embolism. Massage to the globe and acetazolamide (Diamox) failed to achieve any degree of visual recovery, and he remained with visual acuity limited to


Aim To investigate the variations in sociodemographic characteristics of mothers in relation to the types of milk and supplementary drinks consumed by their infants at 4 and 8 months of age.

Study design The carers of a randomly chosen population sample of over 1000 infants from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood (ALSPAC) were asked to record all foods and drinks consumed by the child in a 24-h period at both 4 and 8 months of age. Self-completion postal questionnaires were used to ascertain sociodemographic characteristics of the mothers and their infants.

Methods Significant differences in the types of milks and supplementary drinks consumed within sociodemographic groups were identified. Infants were also grouped according to the types of milks they were receiving at each age and further differences in sociodemographic characteristics were investigated.

Results Highly significant differences existed among various sociodemographic characteristics with regard to the types of drinks used at both ages. Maternal educational level was the most influential of the sociodemographic variables in explaining the differences in consumption of all types of drinks given at 4 months, in particular for breast milk use. Maternal age was also significantly associated with breast feeding. The use of fruit drinks was significantly associated with the presence of older siblings in the family and the use of herbal drinks with the duration of breast feeding. At 8 months of age maternal educational level was again the most highly associated of the sociodemographic variables, being significantly associated with the use of most of the drinks. The presence of older siblings also had a significant independent effect as did duration of breast feeding. The feeding of cows' (or animal) milk as a main drink at 8 months, contrary to recommendation, was most likely in the group of mothers with vocational education, those in council accommodation, those with two or more children and those with difficulty affording food.

Conclusion We have identified certain characteristics of mothers who were more likely than others not to follow current recommendations on infant feeding. The educational level of mothers appears to be of major significance in the choices made about the types of drinks given to infants. It may be possible to target information about infant feeding to certain groups of mothers thus improving weaning patterns.


The need to examine alternative explanations for findings in psychoanalytic theory is often suggested but rarely practised. The aim of the present study was to examine Lewis' (1993) prediction that oral pessimism is important to the aetiology of depression within the context of social psychological, cognitive and personality explanations of depression. One hundred and sixty Northern Irish university students completed measures of depressive symptoms, oral pessimism and oral optimism, optimism, neuroticism, coping style, attribution style and self-esteem. Results show that oral pessimism, neuroticism and the use of stable attributions are dominant in accounting for variance in a measure of depression and support Lewis' (1993) finding that oral pessimism is important in depressive symptoms.


Recurrent meningitis is an uncommon life-threatening condition. Here, the case of a 6-year-old boy is reported who had two episodes of meningitis with an IgG3 subclass deficiency. The boy had aseptic meningitis at the age of 3 years, followed by bacterial meningitis at the age of 4 years. Primary immunoglobulin deficiencies are a group of disorders associated with an increased incidence and/or severity of infection. Recurrent infections, sinusitis, bronchitis, and pneumonia are the most frequently observed illnesses in patients with IgG subclass deficiencies, of which an IgG3 subclass deficiency is the most common, especially in adults. Although cases of recurrent viral or bacterial meningitis have been reported, herein a patient is presented with recurrence of aseptic and bacterial meningitis 1 year after the initial episode. Some researchers recommend that all children with episodes of recurrent meningitis should be screened for primary immunoglobulin or complement deficiencies.


Gallium lanthanum sulphide (Ga:La:S) glass and fibre have potential use in both active and passive infrared applications. Here we present just some of the steps involved in realising a new compound glass and devices. Importance of raw material synthesis and preparation of preforms through rod-in-tube and extrusion methods is highlighted. With losses close to 1 dB/m and the possibility of devices based on our glass, Ga:La:S will enhance prospects for future generation of sulphide fibre-based devices.


Leukemia is a blood cancer caused by a rise in the number of white blood cells in your body. Those white blood cells crowd out the red blood cells and platelets that your body needs to be healthy. The extra white blood cells don't work right. However, the macroscopic examination of human blood necessitates various microscopic techniques, including color imaging, segmentation, and clustering, to distinguish patients with the disease. The white blood cell count can be higher than normal and prevent the immune system from functioning properly. The most reliable method to detect leukemia is with the assistance of a microscope. Automation of this form of Leukemia diagnosis is required because fewer and more expensive precise tests are required than the above. Blood slides don't reveal the findings because of hematologists' combined experience and tiredness, and those results can vary significantly from one PSO to another. As it is reasonably inexpensive and effective, blood-stained histopathology imaging to test for leukemia is a low-cost and innovative choice. The fuzzy-c segmentation coefficients of this paper are compared to those for image segmentation k. Using the GLCM to separate color characteristics from photographs performs better precision than using Fuzzy-classifications. Fuzzy's consistency level is 96%, while sharpness is 83% CNN is mainly a television outlet. The whole project has been done using the MATLAB toolkit.


Hair follicles represent reservoirs for localized drug therapy and transport pathways for systemic drug delivery. This study describes an approach towards developing a novel procedure for quantifying topically applied substances located in the hair follicles of porcine ear skin, a model for human in vivo skin, using a fluorescent dye. Approximately 5% of the topically applied dye was recovered from the hair follicles, which is in accordance with a previous study.


In this study, aluminium hydro(oxide), AO was prepared from locally available aluminium sulfate, and used for fluoride removal from water by combining with Nalgonda Technique. The fluoride removal performance of the combined process was investigated as a function of contact time, proportion of alum-lime/AO dose, initial fluoride concentration and solution pH in series of batch experiments. The rate of fluoride removal was investigated using conventional kinetic models. The fluoride removal efficiency of the combined process was also tested for real water sample from selected community water supply system in the Rift Valley Region of Ethiopia. The removal of fluoride was rapid in the first 15 min. The combined process efficiency was about 93% with an optimum combined alum/AO dose (80 mg alum/mg F, 5 mg AO/mg F and lime = 35% of alum) using initial fluoride concentration of 15 mg/L. The optimum solution pH for fluoride removal was in the range of 5-9, which is suitable for practical application in the Ethiopia Rift Valley Region. Kinetic studies showed that the rate of fluoride removal by alum/AO can be well described by a pseudo-second-order rate equation with an average rate constant of 0.096 g/min . mg. The optimum dose required to attain 85-93% fluoride removal efficiency from real water sample was 90 mg alum/mg F, 5 mg AO/mg F, and 15% lime. Hence, the combined defluoridation process has higher fluoride removal efficiency than the Nalgonda Technique with an additional advantage of minimizing chemical dose. The reported removal efficiency of Nalgonda Technique is 70% at alum dose of 150-170 mg alum/mg F. Besides, sludge production is also minimized. Therefore, this process is highly efficient and could be applied in areas where the fluoride concentration is higher than 10 mg/L, both at household and community level. KEY WORDS : Nalgonda Technique, Aluminium sulfate, Aluminium hydroxide, Fluoride, Drinking water Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2016 , 30(3), 391-401 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/bcse.v30i3.7


Estimation of the mobile speed, or equivalently, the maximum Doppler frequency, is of importance in a variety of applications in wireless mobile communications. In this paper, a unified framework for the performance analysis of several major speed estimation techniques is presented, which allows a fair comparison between all the methods, analytically. Interestingly, it is proved that all these methods are equivalent, asymptotically, i.e., for large observation intervals. In addition, we have derived closed-from expressions for the bias and variance of a recently proposed covariance-based method. We have also introduced a new estimator which relies on the average number of maxima of the inphase component, and have calculated its variance, analytically. Our extensive performance analysis, supported by Monte Carlo simulations, have revealed that depending on the channel conditions, one needs to use a crossing- or a covariance-based technique, to achieve the desired estimation accuracy over a large range of mobile speeds.


M. kansasii is an environmental Mycobacterium that causes disease mainly in patients with local or systemic immunodeficiency. We present a case with disseminated M. kansasii infection which led to a severe febrile illness lasting for 9 months. The patient had a combined acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) which included CD4+ and CD8+ T-lymphocytopenia, monocytopenia and a deficiency in the IgG subclasses 2 and 4. HIV testing was repeatedly negative. In the published literature only 4 of 10 similar patients (this patient included) survived a disseminated M. kansasii infection. Eleven years after the disseminated infection with M. kansasii a second opportunistic infection, disseminated mollusca contagiosa and hyperparathyroidism, developed, and 14 years later the immunologic abnormalities persist.


The local structure investigation by Reverse Monte Carlo modeling and comparison to average crystallographic structure of Bi-based perovskite materials are presented in this thesis. This novel technique using neutron total scattering is applied in search of possible short-range correlations between atoms to understand complex structure of these materials.
Chapter One gives an introduction into perovskite structure and its properties. Chapter Two describes the difference between periodic and aperiodic crystals, which average crystallographic structure has been adopted by materials presented in this thesis. It also describes the total scattering and Pair Distribution Functions used in Reverse Monte Carlo modeling.
The next chapters describe the local and average structure investigated during this thesis. Chapter Three describes the local and average perovskite structure of BiTi3/8Fe1/4Mg3/8O3 at various temperatures, where local structure analysis revealed particular displacements and correlations of A site and B site cations not captured by average crystallographic structure. Chapter Four compares local structure derived from RMC modeling and average incommensurate and commensurate crystallographic structures of Bi2Mn4/3Ni2/3O6 at room and high temperatures respectively, demonstrating importance of recognizing the length-scale of the probe used for structural characterization. Chapter Five describes the work on BiFe0.6Mn0.4O3 perovskite which was investigated by traditional crystallography to determine the modulated behavior and distorted structure of this material. The last Chapter 6 contains main conclusions from all experimental chapters.


The Moab uranium mill tailings pile, located at the former Atlas Minerals Corporation site approximately three miles north of Moab, Utah, is now under the control of the US Department of Energy (''DOE''). The location of the tailings pile adjacent to the Colorado River, and the ongoing contamination of groundwater and seepage of pollutants into the river, have lead to the investigation, as part of the final site remediation program, of alternatives to relocate the tailings to a qualified permanent disposal site. This paper will describe the approach being taken by the team formed between International Uranium (USA) Corporation (''IUC'') and Washington Group International (''WGINT'') to develop an innovative technical proposal to relocate the Moab tailings to IUC's White Mesa Mill south of Blanding, Utah. The proposed approach for relocating the tailings involves using a slurry pipeline to transport the tailings to the White Mesa Mill. The White Mesa Mill is a fully licensed, active uranium mill site that is uniquely suited for permanent disposal of the Moab tailings. The tailings slurry would be dewatered at the White Mesa Mill, the slurry water would be recycled to the Moab site for reuse in slurry makeup, and the ''dry'' tailings wouldmore » be permanently disposed of in an approved below grade cell at the mill site.« less


The Japanese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine (JARM) is developing a Rehabilitation Patient Database (DB). The accumulated number of registered patients exceeded 10000 by March, 2011. The purposes of this article are to describe the process and procedures of secondary analysis and to consider potentials and limitations of the DB to promote the research activities of JARM members. JARM Members who submitted patient data or cooperate with JARM in the secondary analysis are regarded as eligible to use the combined data submitted by many hospitals. A suitable patient dataset should be derived from the DB including stroke, hip fracture, and spinal cord injury, and also patient data from the acute to recovery phase of rehabilitation. Additionally, before paper drafts can be submitted, a reviewing process is needed. The DB holds much potential, because the sample size is large and data were submitted from many hospitals. Since there are inherent limitations in all observational research, many issues such as endogeneities and confounders should be considered carefully to ensure high quality evidence is obtained with validity and reliability using the DB.


We compile a list of $14$ independent measurements of large-scale structure growth rate between redshifts $0.067 \leq z \leq 0.8$ and use this to place constraints on model parameters of constant and time-evolving general-relativistic dark energy cosmologies. With the assumption that gravity is well-modeled by general relativity, we discover that growth-rate data provide restrictive cosmological parameter constraints. In combination with type Ia supernova apparent magnitude versus redshift data and Hubble parameter measurements, the growth rate data are consistent with the standard spatially-flat $\Lambda$CDM model, as well as with mildly evolving dark energy density cosmological models.


The pharmacokinetics of [14C]imipramine (10 mg kg−1) were tested in male Wistar rats for interaction with thioridazine (16 mg kg−1) or diazepam (10 mg kg−1). All drugs were administered orally with the test substances being given 40 min before [14C]imipramine dosing. Bile and urine were collected for 90 min after the radioactive drug was given. The animals were then killed and the tissues removed. Thioridazine reduced the excretion of radioactivity into the bile and urine, and increased the weight of the contents within the gastrointestinal tract. These effects were interpreted as being mainly due to a reduction in gastrointestinal motility resulting in a slower stomach emptying of [14C]imipramine. No effect on metabolism was detected. Diazepam pretreatment reduced the concentration ratio of radioactivity in the small intestinal contents to that of plasma, but did not alter the tissue distribution, metabolism or excretion of [14C]imipramine.


BACKGROUND AND AIM: Small‐cell lung cancer (SCLC) is fast‐growing disease with high mortality and prognosis is worse when hyponatremia develops. In our study, we aimed to determine the frequency of hyponatremia in SCLC and the relationship with the prognosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Patients diagnosed with SCLC between 2012 and 2017 were retrospectively screened. Stages, hyponatremia levels, and survival times were recorded. RESULTS: A total of 466 patients diagnosed with SCLC, 423 (90.8%) of whom were male were included in the study. The average age was 67 ± 10 years. About 126 (27%) of the patients were hyponatremic and 340 (73%) were normonatremic. Hypertonic saline treatment was performed in 52 (41.3%) patients. In total, hyponatremia improved in 49.2% (n = 62). While the expected survival means were 12.6 months in those with improved hyponatremia, 5.0 months in those with not improved, and 12.3 months in the normonatremic group. Survival in the group of whom hyponatremia could not be corrected was found to be statistically different (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: The improvement of hyponatremia was found to be a positive independent factor on the survival of SCLC.


A dynamical network model of insulin-glucose interactions in subjects with Type I Diabetes was developed and applied to data sets for 40 subjects. Each data set contained the amount of dextrose + insulin infused and blood glucose (BG) determinations, sampled every 5 minutes during a one-hour standardized euglycemic hyperinsulinemic clamp and a subsequent one-hour BG reduction to moderate hypoglycemic levels. The model approximated the temporal pattern of BG and on that basis predicted the counterregulatory response of each subject. The nonlinear fits explained more than 95% of the variance of subjects' BG fluctuations, with a median coefficient of determination 97.7%. For all subjects the model-predicted counterregulatory responses correlated with measured plasma epinephrine concentrations. The observed nadirs of BG during the tests correlated negatively with the model-predicted insulin utilization coefficient (r = -0.51, p < 0.001) and counterregulation rates (r = -0.63, p < 0.001). Subjects with a history of multiple severe hypoglycemic episodes demonstrated slower onset of counterregulation compared to subjects with no such history (p < 0.03).


Background: Combined PD-1/PD-L1 and CTLA-4 immune checkpoint inhibition for the has been shown to produce superior results in the treatment of malignant melanoma when compared to monotherapy. However, patients with intracranial disease were excluded from these studies given their poor prognosis. Objective: The objective of this study was to critically assess current evidence supporting the co-administration of PD-1/PD-L1 and CTLA-4 inhibitors in the treatment of melanoma brain metastases. Methods: The objective was addressed through the development of a critically appraised topic that included a clinical scenario, structured question, literature search strategy, critical appraisal, assessment of results, evidence summary, commentary, and bottom-line conclusions. Participants included consultant and resident neurologists, a medical librarian, clinical epidemiologists, and a content expert in the field of neuro-oncology. Results: A recent, open-label, non-comparative randomized phase II trial was selected for critical appraisal. This trial evaluated the efficacy and safety of nivolumab alone or in combination with ipilimumab in 79 adult patients with untreated, asymptomatic melanoma brain metastases. The rates of the primary outcome (intracranial response at ≥12 wk) in the primary endpoint cohort were 46% for cohort A (combination therapy) and 20% for cohort B (nivolumab monotherapy). No treatment related deaths were observed in the study. Grade 4 adverse events occurred in 9% of patients in cohort A and none in cohort B. Conclusions: Co-administration of ipilimumab and nivolumab as first-line therapy is effective in the treatment of asymptomatic melanoma brain metastases, with an acceptable safety profile.


not in a position to sav, but one cannot help feeling that there is some connexion between the lesion in the bowel and the condition of the kidneys. With a powerful heart and diseased arteries we expect cerebral and retinal haemorrhages and epistaxis as a matter of course. Why, then, should the vessels of the stomach and intestine remain intact? I beg to thank Dr. Douglas Stanley and Dr. Foxwell, of Queen's Hospital, for permission to publish this note concerninL their cases.


This paper presents a speed control of Direct Current (DC) motor with a Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller optimized by a new metaheuristic algorithm. A novel metaheuristic optimization method is proposed in this paper based on an earthquake as geology phenomenon. The Earthquake Algorithm (EA) is used to optimize both plant model and PID controller. Experimental results show a feasibility of the proposed method improving both the plant model and speed controller by PID. Besides, the implemented experimental control system proves that EA works in all different continuous nonlinear functions or engineering applications.


Overcoming the sluggish electrode kinetics of both oxygen reduction and evolution reactions (ORR/OER) with non-precious metal electrocatalysts will accelerate the development of rechargeable metal-air batteries and regenerative fuel cells. The authors investigated the electrochemical behavior and ORR/OER catalytic activity of core-porous shell Mn/Mn3 O4 nanoparticles in comparison with other manganese dioxides (β- and γ-MnO2 ), and benchmarked against Pt/C and Pt/C-IrO2 . Under reversible operation in O2 -saturated 5 M KOH at 22 °C, the early stage activity of core-shell Mn/Mn3 O4 shows two times higher ORR and OER current density compared to the other MnO2 structures at 0.32 and 1.62 V versus RHE, respectively. It is revealed that Mn(III) oxidation to Mn(IV) is the primary cause of Mn/Mn3 O4 activity loss during ORR/OER potential cycling. To address it, an electrochemical activation method using Co(II) is proposed. By incorporating Co(II) into MnOx , new active sites are introduced and the content of Mn(II) is increased, which can stabilize the Mn(III) sites through comproportionation with Mn(IV). The Co-incorporated Mn/Mn3 O4 has superior activity and durability. Furthermore, it also surpassed the activity of Pt/C-IrO2 with similar durability. This study demonstrates that cost-effective ORR/OER catalysis is possible.


The effect of acute burn trauma on phagocytic activity of the reticuloendothelial system measured in vivo with technetium 99m sulfur colloid was examined in rats subjected to acute burn trauma. After the scald injuries (10-second, full-thickness burns) were induced, a reduction in phagocytic activity by the spleen took place with an accompanying increase in the uptake of colloid material by the lungs. Uptake of colloid material by the liver was essentially unchanged. These uptake changes, observed within hours after the inducement of acute burn trauma and apparently continuing for 7 days after burn injury, may explain, in part, the development of septicemia in patients with burns because altered phagocytic activity of the reticuloendothelial system can result in subsequent overabundance of microorganisms and bacteria in the blood.


An access rule for token ring local-area networks called the helical-window token-ring protocol is introduced. It features the use of a window that limits the allowable messages a token-holding station can send. With the window, the operation of the protocol approaches that of a central single-server queuing system in the sense that messages are delivered in near first-come-first-served order on a network-wide basis. The introduction of the window also makes analysis of the networks tractable. Exact analytical formulas for the capacity and for the mean, variance, and moment-generating function of the message waiting time are derived. Numerical simulation is used to verify the results. Comparisons with continuous polling systems show that the imposition of the windowed access rule can lead to significant reductions in the delay variance (at the cost of increasing the mean system time) when the traffic is heavy and/or the message transmission time is large with respect to the walk time of the ring. >


Nowadays, industry has successfully used Network Control Systems (NCS) therefore several lines of research have arisen. A NCS is a current application of a Real-Time Distributed Systems (RTDS), composed of a number of nodes capable of developing a complete control process. In these systems several nodes exchange information through a communication network to achieve specific control goals, nevertheless network traffic increases. This affects the overall system performance. Several approaches have been developed to satisfy requirements of both control and communication performance. Particularly, some methodologies focus on saving bandwidth, one of such methodologies is network scheduling. The objective of this methodology is the accurately use of the computing resources. NCS research is categorized into two main parts [5]: 1. Control of network: Study and research on communications and networks to make them suitable for real-time NCS, e.g. routing control, congestion reduction, efficient data communication, networking protocol. 2. Control over network: This area deals with control strategies and control systems design over the network trying to minimize the effect of adverse network parameters on NCS performance such as network delay. These systems have many challenges to maintain the the Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Control (QoC). In the networks, QoS is the idea that transmission rates, error rates, and other characteristics can be measured and improved. The QoS can be degraded due to congestion and interference.


&NA; Resistance training (RT) has been proposed as a potential management technique for persons with congestive heart failure (CHF) with the possibility of improving the vicious CHF cycle of pump failure, neuroendocrine abnormalities, skeletal muscle myopathies, dyspnea, fatigue, increased ventilation, and increased sympathetic nervous system activity (the Muscle Hypothesis of CHF). However, very little research has examined the effects of RT in persons with CHF or the effects of RT on the Muscle Hypothesis. The purposes of this paper are to describe the long‐term effects of RT in persons with CHF and attempt to describe how these effects will impact the Muscle Hypothesis of CHF. A Medline search of English articles on RT in CHF was performed with the following keywords: resistance training, strength training, weight training, resistance exercise, heart failure, and muscle hypothesis. The references of published articles were further reviewed for additional articles pertaining to RT in CHF and the potential effects on the Muscle Hypothesis. Inclusion criteria for this review were studies of RT alone or RT with aerobic exercise (AE) in persons with CHF. Three review articles and 24 studies of RT were found of which 6 studies examined RT alone, 7 studies examined RT with short bouts of AE (< 5 minutes of continuous AE), and 11 studies examined the effects of RT combined with long bouts of AE. The results of these studies revealed significant improvements in muscle strength and endurance, peak oxygen consumption, forearm blood flow, left ventricular function, and quality of life with very few complications from RT. Differences in the methods of RT were found which likely affected the observed results. Chronic RT alone or with AE appears to favorably influence many aspects of the muscle hypothesis of chronic CHF. The improvements in skeletal muscle strength and endurance, peak oxygen consumption, forearm blood flow, left ventricular function, and quality of life in persons with CHF suggest that RT prescribed alone or with AE can be done safely and has favorable effects on the CHF Muscle Hypothesis. Further examination of isolated RT and RT with short versus long bouts of AE is needed.


Serum immunoglobulins (Ig) of mrigal Cirrhinus mrigala (Hamilton 1822) immunised with bovine serum albumin (BSA), were purified by affinity chromatography using BSA-CL agarose column. The purified mrigal Ig (m-Ig) was characterised under reducing condition by Sodium Dodecyl Sulphate Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) which revealed two bands of 85 and 26 kDa corresponding to heavy and light chain, respectively. Following fusion of splenocytes from Balb/c mice immunised with purified m-Ig with myeloma cells, three hybridomas showing reactivity with m-Ig were cloned by limiting dilution. The monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) generated by these clones were designated as 3B2-E12, 3B2-F9 and 4C3-B2 and characterised by western blotting and isotyping. Western blot analysis of the supernatant from the three clones with purified m-Ig indicated that, all the three MAbs were specific to heavy chain. Isotyping revealed that 3B2-E12 MAb was of IgG1 isotype whereas the other two MAbs were of IgG2a isotype. Cross reactivity of anti-mrigal Ig MAb (3B2-E12) was observed with serum Ig of Catla catla and Labeo rohita indicating semi-conserved nature of Ig in Indian major carps.


With Black France, Dominic Thomas offers a lucid exegesis of literature in French on African-French migration and its aftermaths. The reader visits Paris and its provinces in the company of gifted young writers like Fatou Diome (Le ventre de l'Atlantique) and Henriette Akofa (Une esclave moderne), mid-career authors like Alain Mabanckou (Bleu-Blanc-Rouge) and the creators of some of the classic works of Francophone African literature, such as Camara Laye (L'enfant noir), Bernard Dadié (Un nègre à Paris) and Ousmane Sembene (Le docker noir, and the film ' la Noire de ... '), who comes in for particular criticism. Broadly comparative across time and space, but within the frame of la francophonie, Black France focuses on 'transnational constituencies that have emerged from colonialism and immigration ... and offer[s] new ways of thinking about the symbiotic dimension of relations and population flows between France and the francophone world' (p. 3). It does so in seven crisply paced chapters on Francocentrism, rhetorical reflections on slavery, African feminisms, 'textual ownership' and the Congolese sartorial sociability known as la sape. Thomas is acutely aware of the phenomenon labeled 'globalization', and he underscores the influence of African-American fiction on African writing – notably of Richard Wright's Native Son on Sembene's Le docker noir. The methodological core of Thomas's technique is what he terms 'mediation', or reading alongside each other works from the colonial and postcolonial eras, or works written in France and others written in Africa. This means considering writers like Laye, Sembene and Dadié as immigrant writers – as Black writers before the term had entered French – and as the precursors to Mabanckou and to Diome's generation. This is the kind of mild historicism that readers of this journal may welcome. Those same readers might be less comfortable with the concept of transcolonialism, a term that does not appear in the title but is central to the book. What does it mean? For Thomas, it means to assimilate distinct historical moments by positing that they are much the same, so that the postcolonial 'now' mirrors a colonial 'then'. Methodologically, one might consider this tactic the logical counterpart of an investment in intertextuality. For the historian, caveat lector. Nonetheless, disciplinary differences aside, this is a keen and compelling work of contemporary scholarship.


Proposed article analyses dependence of MOS as a voice call quality (QoS) measure estimated through ITU-T E-model under real network conditions with jitter. In this paper, a method of jitter effect is proposed. Jitter as voice packet time uncertainty appears as increased packet loss caused by jitter memory buffer under- or overflow. Jitter buffer behaviour at receiver's side is modelled as Pareto/D/1/K system with Pareto-distributed packet interarrival times and its performance is experimentally evaluated by using statistic tools. Jitter buffer stochastic model is then incorporated into E-model in an additive manner accounting for network jitter effects via excess packet loss complementing measured network packet loss. Proposed modification of E-model input parameter adds two degrees of freedom in modelling: network jitter and jitter buffer size.


The initial part of the paper describes the history of Slovak language and culture teaching in Italy, namely, Slovak lectorates at University of Naples L´Orientale, University of Rome Sapienza, and University of Bologna in Forlì. The central part of the paper discusses the foundation, development and activities of the most recent lectorate, founded in 2006, and currently affiliated with the Department of Interpreting and Translating at University of Bologna in Forlì. The paper mentions the circumstances related to the foundation of the lectorate, especially the message of Alexander Dubček (1921 – 1992) upon whom University of Bologna conferred the honorary doctorate in 1988. The paper discusses various activities of the lectorate (language teaching, research and publishing, promoting Slovakia and Slovak culture). It mentions the collaboration with Slovak and Italian institutions, including the Embassy of Slovak Republic in Rome, Slovak Institute in Rome and Honorary Consulate of Slovak Republic in Forlì. The final part of the paper mentions the current situation and perspectives of Slovak studies in Italy.


Prison officials often rely on restrictive housing to promote institutional safety and security. However, a growing body of research indicates this type of confinement has little impact on inmate behavior or institutional order. An alternative approach involves providing the most dangerous and disruptive inmates with increased case management services and other proactive programmatic opportunities. The success of this strategy requires an ability to prospectively and accurately identify the most problematic inmates. The results of this study indicate that Risk Assessment for Segregation Placement (RASP) and its revised Oregon version (RASP-OR) are valid predictors of segregation placement and institutional misconduct. The policy implications of these findings are discussed.


As a technical and commercial revolution, e-commerce has an impact on the development of social economy more and more profoundly, and changes men's business model and lifestyle fundamentally. Shortages of talents on e-commerce have become a "bottleneck" restricting China's e-commerce development. However, undergraduate teachings in e-commerce have some shortcomings. Out of line with social demands, trainings for talents are of low quality. Therefore, reflecting problems of current undergraduate teachings in e-commerce, thus to explore solutions to these problem is undoubtedly of great theoretical and practical significance.


Background: Bilateral metacarpal hand injuries are extremely rare, but probably represent the most difficult reconstructive challenge in hand surgery. Methods: We discuss the various options for metacarpal hand reconstruction, including the Krukenberg procedure, bionic prostheses, multiple toe-to-hand transfers, and possibly hand transplantation, and present the long-term functional outcomes, gait analysis, and psychological evaluation after a 4-stage reconstruction of bilateral metacarpal hands in a child using 6 toe-to-hand transfers—bilateral great toe transfers to reconstruct both thumbs and bilateral combined second-third monobloc transfers to reconstruct 2 fingers in each hand. Results: Reconstruction of bilateral metacarpal hands with 6 toe transfers yielded excellent functional results and patient satisfaction. Conclusions: Bilateral metacarpal hand injuries result in a devastating functional deficit and a major psychological impact. Multiple toe transfers (4, 5, or 6) provide an excellent reconstructive outcome with acceptable donor site morbidity.


In order to contribute to the Apparent Polar Wander Path (APWP) of the North China Block (NCB) , we collected paleomagnetic samples of Late Paleozoic rocks from the northern and southern margins of the Alashan (Alxa) terrane (the western part of Inner Mongolia and northern parts of Gansu and Ningxia Provinces) and adjacent regions. Laboratory work revealed different types of demagnetization behavior and isolated a higher temperature characteristic component in most of the samples. Results of IRM experiments show high thermal stability and high coercivities for the magnetic carriers in these rocks. The characteristic component passed the fold and/or reversal tests, suggesting that the characteristic components were probably primary. On the basis of comparing the paleomagnetic results with the geologic evidence, we discuss the tectonic implications. In the Late Paleozoic, the Alashan region had been part of the NCB and was not connected with the northern and southern blocks. During the Carboniferous Alashan wandered around the equator, and then moved northerly during the Permian. During the Jurassic the Alashan region rotated anticlockwise about 25° relative to the NCB when the Helanshan geosyncline closed.


Amphiphilic polymeric co-networks (APCNs) incorporate disparate properties into one network, forming novel materials for a variety of applications. A platform that can form APCNs with a variety of compositions was developed using thiol–norbornene chemistry to crosslink telechelic macromonomers with multifunctional thiols. Using thiol–norbornene end-linking chemistry ensured control over the molecular weight between crosslinks, forming more homogeneous networks than those formed by free radical crosslinking reactions. Networks made using the end-linking method were swollen in water and evaluated with a focus on their mechanical properties, measured under tension and compression, and structure, as characterised using small-angle neutron scattering. Dried networks were swollen with organic lithium salt and characterised as solid polymer electrolytes to determine their mechanical properties, conductivity and morphology. Additionally, the thiol–norbornene end-linking was easily adapted to make linear polymers, both amphiphilic multi-block copolymers and linear thioethers that incorporated a variety of precisely placed functional groups in and along the backbone. Overall, the flexibility of the thiol–norbornene end-linking platform allowed for the synthesis of a multitude of APCNs and will likely continue to be exploited in future studies to expand the APCN's composition and material properties.


Endometriosis-associated infertility is characterized by a number of specific features that must be considered when choosing treatment methods. In each case, treatment should be individual, taking into account all clinical factors, as well as the impact of the disease and the effect of treatment on the quality of woman's life. Objective to analyze the concentration of the reproductive system hormones in women with endometriosisassociated infertility before and after sclerotherapy using pregravidary preparation with a complex vitamin medication with inositol and vitamin D3. The study included 70 women aged 21-40 years with endometriosis-associated infertility. The comparison group included 30 women with tuboperitoneal infertility factor. Determination of the concentration of the reproductive system hormones was performed in an accredited laboratory of the "Professor S. Khmil Clinic Medical Center" with the help of "Diagnostic Systems Laboratories, Inc." test system (USA) using the analyzer "StatFax". The medicament FT 500 plus was prescribed in a dosage of 1 sachet once a day from the 2nd or 3rd day of the cycle during 2 menstrual cycles (cycle in which sclerotherapy was performed and subsequent cycle) for 1 group. Vitamin D3 was prescribed in prophylactic doses of 2.000 IU to women who were not diagnosed with a deficiency of this vitamin and in medium therapeutic doses for hypovitaminosis during 2 menstrual cycles. The sclerotherapy procedure was performed in a sterile operating room on the 6th 8th day of the menstrual cycle by transvaginal puncture of the cyst and aspiration of its contents under the control of transvaginal ultrasound, introduction into the cyst capsule 95 % ethanol solution. Women with endometriosis-associated infertility, who were prescribed pregravidary preparation with a complex vitamin medication with inositol and vitamin D3 and sclerotherapy had probably lower levels of AMH (by 12.90 %), progesterone (by 9.84 %) and probably higher levels of FSH (by 14.47 %), LH (by 21.14 %) estradiol (by 35.55 %) relative to the comparison group. At the same time, significantly lower indicators of FSH (by 21.98 %), LH (by 32.89 %) and estradiol (by 32.23 %) were found against their values before sclerotherapy. Performing of sclerotherapy with pregravidary preparation with a complex vitamin medication with inositol and vitamin D3 to women with endometriosis-associated infertility has a positive effect on the hormonal background.


Airport surface congestion control has the potential to mitigate the increase in taxi times and fuel burn at major airports. One possible class of congestion control strategies predicts the departure throughput, and recommends a rate at which to release aircraft pushbacks from the gate. This paper describes the field-testing of these types of strategies at Boston Logan International Airport, focusing on the communication of the suggested rate to the air traffic controller, and additional support for its implementation. Two Android tablet computers were used for the field-tests; one to input the data and the other to display the recommended rate to the air traffic controllers. Two potential decision-support displays were tested: a rate control display that only presented a color-coded suggested pushback rate and a volume control display that provided additional support to the controllers on the number of aircraft that had called-ready and had been released. A survey of controllers showed that they had found the decision-support tool easy to use, especially the additional functionality that is provided by the aircraft volume control display. The field tests were also found to yield significant operational benefits showing that such a congestion control strategy could be effective in practice.


The effect of a series of repeated electric shocks (ES) on retention of the conditioned reflexes and the content of free amino acids (AA) was investigated in the rat brain. Following repeated electric shocks, the first of which was applied 24 hours after learning, the rats developed amnesia. The content of brain excitatory AA did not change, whereas that of inhibitory AA, phenylalanine and tyrosine sharply decreased. The content of AA in the blood plasma increased. It is suggested that amnesia was caused by a change in the balance between excitatory and inhibitory AA in favour of the former ones. The changes in the functional state of the hematoencephalic barrier may play a certain part in the origin of the shifts mentioned.


This chapter examines intersections of gender, race and sovereignty in official responses to the death of Iranian asylum seeker, Reza Barati, in the Australian-funded, offshore detention centre on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. The securitisation of migration has become the dominant theme in refugee and asylum seeker policy, not just in Australia, but around many parts of the globe. Such policies have made travel more dangerous for asylum seekers and have expanded the use of prisons, particularly in offshore locations, to manage those perceived as a security risk. This chapter critically analyses gendered and racialised dimensions of the lethal violence that took place within one of Australia's offshore detention centres. It contemplates how the legal ambiguities, which are pervasive in offshore detention, impact accountability and constructions of responsibility. We argue that asylum seekers are further criminalised in narratives that serve to depict them as unruly and responsible for the consequences of having arrived in Australia outside of accepted legal channels. We trace how notions of territorial sovereignty are invoked to outsource legal responsibility, with the emphasis on individual criminal responsibility and the actions of an isolated few. As a result, the systemic issues that are responsible for deaths in custody remain unaddressed.


Sequences that are present in a given species or strain while absent from or different in any other organisms can be used to distinguish the target organism from other related or un-related species. Such DNA signatures are particularly important for the identification of genetic source of drug resistance of a strain or for the detection of organisms that can be used as biological agents in warfare or terrorism. Most approaches used to find DNA signatures are laboratory based, require a great deal of effort and can only distinguish between two organisms at a time. We propose a more efficient and cost-effective bioinformatics approach that allows identification of genomic fingerprints for a target organism. We validated our approach using a custom microarray, using sequences identified as DNA fingerprints of Bacillus anthracis. Hybridization results showed that the sequences found using our algorithm were truly unique to B. anthracis and were able to distinguish B. anthracis from its close relatives B. cereus and B. thuringiensis.


Monte Carlo simulation is used to assess the statistical properties of some Bayes procedures in situations where only a few data on a system governed by a NHPP (nonhomogeneous Poisson process) can be collected and where there is little or imprecise prior information available. In particular, in the case of failure truncated data, two Bayes procedures are analyzed. The first uses a uniform prior PDF (probability distribution function) for the power law and a noninformative prior PDF for alpha , while the other uses a uniform PDF for the power law while assuming an informative PDF for the scale parameter obtained by using a gamma distribution for the prior knowledge of the mean number of failures in a given time interval. For both cases, point and interval estimation of the power law and point estimation of the scale parameter are discussed. Comparisons are given with the corresponding point and interval maximum-likelihood estimates for sample sizes of 5 and 10. The Bayes procedures are computationally much more onerous than the corresponding maximum-likelihood ones, since they in general require a numerical integration. In the case of small sample sizes, however, their use may be justified by the exceptionally favorable statistical properties shown when compared with the classical ones. In particular, their robustness with respect to a wrong assumption on the prior beta mean is interesting. >


A comprehensive strategy for potato health management
requires that all essential plant nutrients be available in
amounts needed for optimal potato growth and development.
Essential nutrients are those required for a normal life cycle
and for which no other nutrient can be substituted. Sixteen
nutrients are known to be essential for higher plants. These
function as major constituents of plant cells or are used in
metabolic processes within the plant. Carbon, hydrogen, and
oxygen are supplied in water and in the atmosphere. The
remaining essential nutrients must be taken up by the roots
of the plant from the soil solution or absorbed by the leaves
from foliar sprays.


Summary form only given. At Texas Tech University, C S 3461 (Concepts of Programming Languages) is a study of programming language theory and design, with Ada 95 as the primary language used. This course is also part of an eight-course software engineering-related sequence in the Texas Tech undergraduate curriculum. A class in programming language theory and design is of course not primarily concerned with software engineering; however, as the need for languages which support the software engineering methodology has increased, therefore, there has become a need to discuss related issues in the programming languages course, such as object-oriented design, program validation, and proofs of correctness. In addition, as the software engineering content of the introductory programming sequence (which is a prerequisite to this course) has increased, the degree of design and testing required for the programming assignments in this course has also occurred. In 1995, the Department of Computer Science received a grant from the Defense Information Systems Agency' to revise this course so that it primarily revolved around Ada 95 as the language by which design issues are discussed. Besides the class lectures, this four-semester hour course contains a laboratory component which covers Ada 95, Smalltalk, and Prolog. The students learn the languages through the use of laboratory tutorials, and are required to implement programming languages using this knowledge. In this manner, a mixture of theory and practice is provided to the student.


In this paper we analyse, from a mathematical point of wiew an active noise control problem for a dissipative acoustic cavity. This problem consists of determining the amplitudes, phases and positions of several monopole sources (speakers) to minimize de noise level at some points due to a primary harmonic source, for example, the vibration of an elastic structure in contact with the fluid. The model of the system is the Helmholtz equation and the Active Control problem is set in the framework of mathematical optimal control theory of distributed systems. We propose a finite element method to obtain approximated solutions.


The process of translating academic biomedical advances into clinical care improvements is difficult, risky, expensive, and poorly understood. Notably, many clinicians who identify health care problems do not have the time or expertise to solve the problems, and many academic researchers are unaware of important gaps in clinical care to which their expertise may apply.Recognizing an opportunity to connect people who can identify health care problems with those who can solve them, the Yale Center for Biomedical Innovation and Technology (CBIT) was established in 2014 to educate and enhance the impact of health care innovators. The authors review other health care innovation centers and describe best practices borrowed by Yale CBIT, which tailored its activities and approach to its unique ecosystem.In four years, Yale CBIT has affected over 3,000 people and established a health care innovation cycle as an efficient strategy to guide translational research. Yale CBIT has created or supported graduate and undergraduate courses, clinical immersion programs for industry partners, and large health care hackathon events. Over 200 projects have been submitted to CBIT for mentorship, and some of those projects have been commercialized and raised millions of dollars of follow-on funding.The authors present Yale CBIT as one model of accelerating the impact of academic medicine on clinical practice and outcomes. The project advising strategy is intended to be a template to maximize the efficiency of biomedical innovation and ultimately improve the outcomes and experiences of future patients.


Answer set programming (ASP) is a successful declarative formalism for knowledge representation and reasoning. The evaluation of ASP programs is nowadays based on the conflict-driven clause learning (CDCL) backtracking search algorithm. Recent work suggested that the performance of CDCL-based implementations can be considerably improved on specific benchmarks by extending their solving capabilities with custom heuristics and propagators. However, embedding such algorithms into existing systems requires expert knowledge of the internals of ASP implementations. The development of effective solver extensions can be made easier by providing suitable programming interfaces. In this paper, we present the interface for extending the CDCL-based ASP solver wasp. The interface is both general, that is, it can be used for providing either new branching heuristics or propagators, and external, that is, the implementation of new algorithms requires no internal modifications of wasp. Moreover, we review the applications of the interface witnessing it can be successfully used to extend wasp for solving effectively hard instances of both real-world and synthetic problems.


Nowadays, English for young learners had become a new trend for elementary school. Teaching English to young learners is different from teaching English to adult learners. English for young learners must be treated in funny and interesting way. For example, teaching by using game can
stimulate their willingness to learn. Therefore, one of the solutions in teaching young learner is by using various techniques. The purposes of this study were (1) to know the techniques used by the EYL student's practice teacher; (2) to describe the techniques used by the EYL student's
practice teacher; and (3) to describe the young learners' responses toward the techniques used by the EYL student's practice teacher in teaching English for young learners at English Department University of Muhammadiyah Malang academic year 20082009.
The design of this study was descriptive qualitative study. The population was the students of EYL III teaching practice program and the learners from many elementary schools in Malang. Through the purposive sampling, the writer chose grade V and VI class which involved 12
practice teaching students and 16 young learners. To collect the data, the writer used participant observation because the writer participated actively as the teacher in this class. Moreover, the data gathered from the result of nine observations was analyzed by interpreting and confirming it with the literary study. Then, the writer described the data in form of descriptive narrative essay.
Based on the research findings, in teaching English to young learners grade V and VI the teacher used eleven techniques, they were song, question and answer, dialogue, reading aloud, demonstration, mime story, role play, game, writing a diary, pairwork, and writing poster.
Besides, in implementing those teaching techniques, the teachers applied them based on the teaching objectives. The teaching objectives were used in some activities: to open the class, close the class, be the main activity, present the material, give the reflection, give reinforcement, and
be the evaluation. As a result, the students gave responses toward those teaching techniques. The responses involved seven responses namely, specific response, choral response, openended or students initiated, silence, confusion (workoriented) response, laughter, and uses English.
Therefore, to gain the various students' responses, the teacher should make the class more alive. In addition, variation in teaching techniques is a must to reduce the students' boredom.


The nondimensional groups which characterize dynamically equivalent single flexible link (SFL) manipulators are determined using the Buckingham Pi method of dimensional analysis. Scaling laws for continuous-time and discrete-time linear rational controllers are developed for dynamically equivalent SFL systems. These theoretical scaling laws are verified experimentally for a discrete PD control law.


One thousand two hundred 1-day-old Lohmann LSL white and Lohmann Brown layer chickens were fed diets supplemented with either an antibiotic growth promoter (AGP) or an herbal essential oil mixture (EOM) till 58 wk of age to reveal the long-term effects of those additives on growth, performance and wholesome egg quality parameters. The study was arranged in a 2×3 factorial design with two layer strains and three feed additive regimens. Thus, the layer birds of both strains were randomly assigned to the three dietary treatments, i.e., standard basal diet (control), control with AGP (specifically, avilamycin, 10 mg/kg diet) and control with EOM (24 mg/kg diet). The data regarding egg production were recorded between 22 to 58 weeks of age. Neither the dietary treatments nor the bird strain influenced the body weight and mortality of the birds in both the growing and laying period. AGP or EOM supplementation to the laying hen diet significantly increased the egg production rate and egg weight as compared to the control diet alone, but egg mass output, feed consumption, and feed conversion ratio were not affected by the dietary treatments. Neither dietary treatment created any statistically significantly differences in egg quality parameters. The research findings have confirmed the beneficial effects of supplementation with feed-grade EOM on the laying rate and egg weight of both white and brown layers. Indeed, EOM, being a novel feed additive natural origin, proved to be as efficacious as AGP in promoting egg yield.


There are various treatment modalities for acne vulgaris including topical and oral therapy as well as microdermabrasion and chemical peels. Recently, there has been an emergence of novel laser and light sources as a means for treating acne vulgaris. This article will review the advances of laser and light sources in the treatment of acne vulgaris.


The cluster computing is becoming increasingly popular. The latest technological developments and research innovations are pushing clusters into mainstream computing. The high performance cluster provides an approach to parallel processing that yields super computer level performance. This trend makes it very promising to build high performance computing environments by clusters, with various performance measures from which high availability, load balancing and fault tolerance needs to be addressed The clusters present a set of challenges and have their own advantages and limitations. The clusters with their performance parameters are analyzed and are reported.


This study explores intersections between performance, race and masculinity within a variety of expressive cultural contexts during and after the African American Civil Rights Movement. I maintain that the work of James Baldwin is best situated to help us navigate this cross section, as his fiction and cultural criticism focus heavily on the stage in all its incarnations as a space for negotiating the possibilities and limits of expressive culture in combating harmful racial narratives imposed upon black men in America. My thesis begins with a close reading of the performers populating his story collection Going to Meet the Man (1965) before broadening my scope in the following chapters to include analyses of the diametric masculinities in the world of professional boxing and the black roots of the American punk movement. Engaging with theorists like Judith Butler, bell hooks and Paul Gilroy, Underground Men attempts to put these seemingly disparate corners of American life into a dynamic conversation that broadens our understanding through a novel application of critical race, gender and performance theories. Baldwin and his orbiting criticism remain the hub of my investigation throughout, and I use his template of black genius performance outlined in works like Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone (1967) and Just Above My Head (1977) to aid our understanding of how performance prescribes and scrambles dominant narratives about black men after the sexual revolution.


The 1981 elections in France represented a victory not only of the left and the forces of labor over the right and capital, but one also of the gradualists over the radicals in the labor movement. Step by step Francois M itterrand had achieved his grand design — uniting and revitalising a socialist party out of the ruins of the SFIO , engaging a political alliance that strengthened the socialists at the expense of the communists, defying and defeating his allies in electoral com petition and forcing their capitulation before a program bearing the m arks of class compromise. For the victory of the left, essentially electoralist in nature, came as a setback for the PCF, the CGT and working class movements, which r e m a in e d d iv id e d a n d g e n e r a l l y immobilised by the delegation of power. Bowing to popular aspirations for change, the PC F conceded defeat, fell into line behind M itterrand and undertook a review of past errors that had led to the loss of one quarter of its electorate.


In THP-1 monocytoid cells infected with HIV, viral expression can be regulated in several ways: (a) latency (no viral expression); (b) restricted expression (chronic low-level viral expression with little or no detectable virus released); and (c) continuous production. In cells with restricted HIV expression, nuclear factor(s) were found that blocked tat-associated DNA binding complex formation, suggesting that initiation of transcription was negatively regulated. Also, viral particles were seen budding into and accumulating within intracytoplasmic vacuoles with little virus released, suggesting multiple levels of regulation. These cells with restricted expression had no detectable viral antigens on the cell surface and were not lysed by IL-2-activated large granular lymphocytes. However, they could cause viral-mediated T cell cytolysis in cell-cell assays, suggesting viral transmission through cell contact. In addition, cells with latent HIV were identified and could still produce infectious virus after 5- azacytidine exposure 10 mo later. LPS and other treatments could increase viral production in cells with restricted but not latent expression, suggesting they occur by distinct mechanisms. These infected cells provide a reservoir for viral transmission to uninfected T cells that itself is not detected by immune surveillance mechanisms.


This paper is devoted to the performance analysis of downlink MIMO-CDMA receivers based on a chip rate MIMO equalizer followed by despreading. The various transmit antennas send independent streams and the spreading codes are scrambled Walsh-Hadamard sequences, the various transmit antennas being allocated different scrambling codes. The behaviour of the SINR provided by the receiver is first studied when the spreading factor and the number of users per antenna converge to +infin at the same rate. It is shown that the SINR converges towards a simple expression depending on the particular realization of the frequency selective channel between the base station and the mobile of interest. In order to get more insights on the long term performance, the ergodic sum-capacity delivered by the system is evaluated in the large number of antennas regime in the case the impulse response taps of the channel are Gaussian random matrices. A simple expression is obtained. It appears to be quite reliable for a realistic number of antennas, and is discussed in order to get some insights on the overall performance.


Shigemori Mirei (1896-1975), who was the famous scholar and gardener in Showa era based his theory about Japanese traditional gardens upon a great many on-the-spot investigation of gardens. He described four existing gardens at Jhouei-ji, Manpuku-ji, Iko-ji, and Kyu-kameishibou, as designed by Sesshu. The aim of this paper is to clarify Shigemori's understanding about "Picturesque Stone arranging by Sesshu". Through detailed investigation into his description in An Illustration Book on the History of Japanese Garden, vol.3, 4, and Japanese Garden History Survey, vol.5, 6, 7, we made it clear that Shigemori pointed out following three characteristics which show the influence of landscape painting of North Song (1) - (3), and two characteristics, which show the same style and touch peculiar to drawings of Sesshu (4) - (5) : (1) the right-handed movement of stone arrangement ; (2) the emphasis on lines of stone ridge ; (3) the form of stone arranging brought from a landscape painting ; (4) the slanted line to lower right from the stone in the center ; (5) the movement of stone arranging unique to Sesshu. Finally, the picturesque characteristics in these gardens are divided into three aesthetic category of plastic art : composition, form, and movement.


In spontaneously fasting birds such as penguins, below a body mass threshold corresponding to the phase II-phase III transition, a metabolic and hormonal shift occurs and feeding behaviour is stimulated ('refeeding signal'). The major aim of this study was to determine whether a decrease in non-esterified fatty acid (NEFA) release from adipose tissue could be a component of this signal. Lipolytic fluxes and primary triacylglycerol:fatty acid (TAG:FA) cycling were determined in vivo in breeding, fasting king penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) using continuous infusions of 2-[3H]glycerol and 1-[14C]palmitate under field conditions. In phase II (after approximately 8 days of fasting, large fat stores, body protein spared, N=8), the rate of appearance (R(a)) of glycerol and of NEFA were 5.7+/-0.8 and 10.5+/-0.4 micromol kg(-1) min(-1), respectively, and the percentage of primary TAG:FA cycling was 41+/-7%. In phase III (after approximately 25 days of fasting, fat stores reduced by fourfold, increased body protein catabolism, N=9), R(a) glycerol kg(-1) body mass remained unchanged, whereas R(a) glycerol kg(-1) fat mass and R(a) NEFA kg(-1) body mass were increased by 2.8-fold and 1.5-fold, respectively. Increased R(a) glycerol kg(-1) fat mass was possibly the result of a 3.5-fold increase in circulating glucagon, the increased R(a) NEFA kg(-1) body mass being attributable to decreased primary TAG:FA cycling. Thus, triggering of the refeeding signal that redirects the behavior of fasting, incubating penguins from incubation towards the search for food after entrance into phase III cannot be ascribed to a reduction in lipolytic fluxes and NEFA availability.


While the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the large costs of infectious diseases, less attention has been paid to the impacts of more common, endemic respiratory viruses that frequently circulate in the population, especially when it comes to their potential long-term consequences for population health, human capital, and economic outcomes. This paper uses Danish population-level administrative data on 35 birth cohorts of children to provide a comprehensive analysis of both the mechanisms through which infants become infected by respiratory illnesses, as well as the consequences of early-life respiratory disease exposure for their later outcomes. First, we document a striking difference in the likelihood of severe respiratory illness by birth order: younger siblings have two to three times higher rates of hospitalization for respiratory conditions before age one than older siblings at the same age. We argue that the family unit is central in virus transmission, with older children "bringing home" the virus to their younger siblings. We then combine the birth order variation with within-municipality variation in respiratory disease prevalence among preschool-aged children to identify differential long-term impacts of early-life respiratory illness between younger and older siblings. We find that moving from the 25th to the 75th percentile in the local disease prevalence distribution ("disease index") is associated with a 30.9 percent differential increase in the number of respiratory illness hospitalizations in the first year of life for younger compared to older siblings. In the long term, for younger relative to older siblings, we find a 0.5 percent differential reduction in the likelihood of high school graduation, and a 1.3 percent additional reduction in age-30 earnings.


The general solution for the important design parameters of an automatic frequency and phase-control system is presented. These parameters include the transient response, frequency response and noise bandwidth of the system, as well as the hold-in range and pull-in range of synchronization.


An algorithm for motion planning of the robotic hand to generate finite displacements and changes in orientation of objects by considering sliding contacts as well as rolling contacts between the fingertips and the object at the contact point is proposed. An optimization problem is formulated and solved to find minimum contact forces and minimum joint velocities to impart a desired motion to the object at each time step. The relative velocity at the contact point is found by calculating the velocities of the fingertip and the object at the contact point. Time derivatives of the surface variables and the contact angle of the fingertip and the object at the current time step are computed using Montana's contact equation (1988) to find the contact parameters of the fingertip and the object at the next time step. To show the validity of the proposed algorithm, a numerical example is illustrated by employing the robotic hand to manipulate a sphere with three fingers, each of which has four joints.<<ETX>>


This article describes a cohort of freshmen planning to become teachers at Montclair State University (MSU) in New Jersey. The goals of the cohort are to identify freshmen, especially students of color, with an interest in becoming teachers, to provide them with a supportive community as they make the transition from high school to college, and to increase their retention at the university and in teacher education as a result of this early support. A study of the cohort highlights six salient elements—identifying prospective teachers in their first year in college, creating a sense of community that supports them in the transition into higher education, supporting their adjustment to the university environment, building confidence in their academic skills, socializing them into the teaching profession, and mentoring students who feel competing pressures from home, peers, and school.


In this article, an action-research project has been outlined, aimed at exploring ways for developing an assessment tool, underpinned by phenomenology, which would enhance a person-centered approach to the participation of patients in nursing assessment and care planning in rehabilitation. Participants were nurses in physical rehabilitation and a consultant. Data were collected by interviews and observation of the documentation on the tool. The tool, Hermes, was adopted in practice. Through its use, important person-centered assessment practices were enhanced and several aspects of its phenomenological grounding were supported. Hermes has potential for facilitating the transfusion of phenomenology into nursing practice.


Pesantren (Islamic boarding school) tradition can not be separated from the influence of Abu> Ha>mid al-Gaza>li>. This thought became the foundation to see the traces left by this hujjatul Isla>m in pesantren's scientific tradition; what have became tradition, and what have changed and developed  in the tradition itself. This study shows that the thought of al-Gaza>li> influence several aspects (1) ontology about the nature and origin of science, it's quality and position, which is linked to the learning process, (2) classification of science that is read sub-ordinatively, classificatively, even dichotomous, (3) the orientation and development of science in the education process that oriented to the hereafter life and worldly benefit. But in education process, every pesantren has their own interpretation. It is caused by differences in readings and adjustments to local circumstances. Therefore the thought of al-Gaza>li> is not always intact in education process. Most actually showed irregularities. It is caused by the dynamics of the social history, cultural and political of Indonesian. Readings and interpretation of al-Gaza>li> thought in pesantren tradition is also dynamic, in the sense of showing the progress from period to period.


To describe the pattern of menstrual and nonmenstrual symptomatology and to clarify the number, kind, and severity of symptoms that women report in relation to the menstrual cycle, a study of university-employed women was conducted. A cross-sectional correlational approach to survey data was used. The sample consisted of 633 generally healthy women aged 21 to 44 years. Results indicated that a wide range of variability in terms of the number of symptoms reported and the mean severity level was experienced. Additionally, a variety of different types of symptoms (somatic, affective, concentration, and behavioral) were reported.


The present paper proposes and studies an algorithm to estimate chan- nels with a sparse common support (SCS). It is a generalization of the classical sampling of signals with Finite Rate of Innovation (FRI) and thus called SCS-FRI. It is applicable to OFDM and Walsh- Hadamard coded (CDMA downlink) communications since SCS-FRI is shown to work not only on contiguous DFT pilots but also uniformly scattered ones. The support estimation performances compare favorably to theoretical lower-bounds, and importantly this translates into a sub- stantial equalization gain at the receiver compared to the widely used spectrum lowpass interpolation method.


Honeycomb selection in the F2 generation of maize (Zea mays L.) hybrid PR 3183, based on line performance per se in the absence of competition, led to recycled hybrids with improved potential yield per plant (mean yield per plant in the absence of competition). In the present study six S6×S6 recycled hybrids and two commercial single-cross hybrids (PR 3183 and B73×Mo17) were tested at three plant densities (25000, 41667 and 83333 plants/ha), in two locations (Technological Education Institute farm of Florina, Greece and University farm of Thessaloniki, Greece), for 2 years (1998, 1999). The study was undertaken to assess indirectly the potential yield per plant (p), the crop yield potential (Ymax), and the optimum plant density (Dopt) of the hybrids. Estimate of p and Ymax were obtained through linear regression analysis of yield per plant (Yp) on plant density (D), expressed by the equation Yp = p−qD, with Ymax being equal to (1/4)p2q−1. Optimum plant density was assessed through linear regression analysis of natural logarithm of yield per plant on plant density, expressed by the equation ln(Yp) = α−bD, with Dopt being equal to 1/b. The recycled hybrids had higher estimated potential yield per plant (p), than the two check hybrids, with p values being positively correlated with yield per plant of hybrids obtained experimentally in the absence of competition. Results indicated that the higher potential yield per plant decreases the optimum plant density, and renders the hybrids less density-dependent.


This paper studies the two-user Gaussian interference channel with half-duplex causal cognition. This channel model consists of two source-destination pairs sharing a common wireless channel. One of the sources, referred to as the cognitive, overhears the other source, referred to as the primary, through a noisy link and can therefore assist in sending the primary's data. Due to practical constraints, the cognitive source is assumed to work in half-duplex mode, that is, it cannot simultaneously transmit and receive. This model is more relevant for practical cognitive radio systems than the classical information theoretic cognitive channel model, where the cognitive source is assumed to have a non-causal knowledge of the primary's message. Different network topologies are considered, corresponding to different interference scenarios: (i) the interference-symmetric scenario, where both destinations are in the coverage area of the two sources and hence experience interference, and (ii) the interference-asymmetric scenario, where one destination does not suffer from interference. For each topology the sum-rate performance is studied by first deriving the generalized Degrees of Freedom (gDoF), or "sum-capacity pre-log" in the high-SNR regime, and then showing relatively simple coding schemes that achieve a sum-rate upper bound to within a constant number of bits for any SNR. Finally, the gDoF of the channel is compared to that of the non-cooperative interference channel and to that of the non-causal cognitive channel to identify the parameter regimes where half-duplex causal cognition is useless in practice or attains its ideal ultimate limit, respectively.


We consider the complexity of infinite games played on finite graphs. We establish a framework in which the expressiveness and succinctness of different types of winning conditions can be compared. We show that the problem of deciding the winner in Muller games is PSPACE-complete. This is then used to establish PSPACE-completeness for Emerson-Lei games and for games described by Zielonka DAGs. Adaptations of the proof show PSPACE-completeness for the emptiness problem for Muller automata as well as the model-checking problem for such automata on regular trees. We also show co-NP-completeness for two classes of union-closed games: games specified by a basis and superset


Modernizing school services with the use of technology greatly influences its success. Schools are now required to give the most efficient services not only to the students but also to the students' guardian or parents and to its employees. School services that concerns with attendance, grades, fees, security, tracking of students, files and report generation. Students, parents, teachers, staff, and the school administration all want a good quality service. Building a quality system need a good quality framework. Thus this study aims to build a framework for the integration of School Management System. This study is a qualitative research as well as descriptive research. Literature review, interviewing of school personnel and analysis of existing school management systems successfully implementing such system were conducted to formulate the framework of the study. Integration of Technologies like the use of biometrics for attendance and security, using mobile phones as a tool for teaching, computerization of library system, computerization of student grading system, computerization of faculty evaluation system, computerization of enrollment system, computerization of daily time record system, and providing online services making information queries availability anytime anywhere. The online integration widens School Management System services and extends school operations. Furthermore, it also provides availability of real-time up to date information. Thus, building a framework for the integration of school management systems can give way for improving and providing an efficient school management system. Schools services mainly focuses on student services: enrollment, grades, assessment, providing student reports, library management, student entry monitoring and graduate tracking. Secondary school services include assessment for employees, daily time records, and inventory management and decision support system.


Detailed studies of patients with so called cyclic neutropenia has revealed involvement of monocytes, lymphocytes, reticulocytes and platelets as well(2). Hence the term cyclic hematopoiesis is more appropriate. These parameters have not been mentioned in the. reported case. There is also no mention of whether the child had organomegaly. This is relevant because patients with cyclic neutropenia and splenomegaly have been reported to benefit from splenectomy. Incidentally, splenomegaly is also seen in 45% CVID cases(3).


A Tremendous increase in the use of videobased applications has revealed the need for extracting the content in videos. Video semantic event detection is essential for its video summarization and retrieval. Input video data and low-level features alone are not sufficient to fulfill being used to bridge the gap between low-level representative features and high-level semantic content. Here, an Intelligent Video semantic content extraction system is proposed that allows the user to query and retrieve cluster objects, events, and concepts that are extracted automatically and provides a textual representation for the extracted frames. Domain ontology based fuzzy video semantic content model that uses spatial/temporal relations is used in event and concept definitions. This meta-ontology definition provides a wide-domain applicable rule construction standard that allows the user to construct ontology for wide domain. The proposed framework provides crisp video output eliminating unnecessary the user's needs that is, a deeper understanding of the content at the semantic level is required. The present manual techniques, which are inefficient, subjective and costly in time and limit the querying capabilities, are contents and explanation of video frames for physically challenged users which reduces the time consumption for semantic extraction in lengthy videos.


In this paper, the three dimensional model of a box wing configuration is derived by a semi-analytical approach and the aeroelastic behavior is studied. So far, the flutter characteristics have been studied on the typical wing sections or via a whole lot more time and cost in the professional software. The winglet is modeled by two longitudinal and torsional springs and in order to simulate the effect of the winglet on the dynamic behavior, two ends of the springs are placed on the elastic axis of the sections. The governing equations are extracted via Hamilton's principle and in order to apply the aerodynamic forces, Wagner unsteady model is considered. To transform the linear partial integro-differential equations into a set of ordinary differential equations, the mathematical techniques are employed. For the purpose of validation, the flutter values of the box wing are obtained by MSC NASTRAN and the proposed numerical procedure. The effects of the sweep angles and the winglet rigidity on the flutter are investigated. The results reveal that increasing the sweep angles and the chord ratio, enhances the flutter speed, remarkably. Furthermore, increasing the torsional rigidity of the winglet is more significant than the longitudinal rigidity on the flutter.


The relationship between a random variable and a random vector is often investigated through the regression modeling. Because of its relative simplicity and ease of interpretation, a particular parametric form is often assumed for the regression function. If the pre-specified function form truly reflects the truth, then the resulting estimators and inference procedures would be reliable and efficient. But if the regression function does not represent the true relationship between the response and the predictors, then the inference results might be very misleading. Therefore, lack-of-fit test should be an indispensable part in regression modeling. This report compares the finite sample performance of several classical lack-of-fit tests in regression models via simulation studies. It has three chapters. The conception of the lack-of-fit test, together with its basic setup, is briefly introduced in Chapter 1; then several classical lack-of-fit test procedures are discussed in Chapter 2; finally, thorough simulation studies are conducted in Chapter 3 to assess the finite sample performance of each procedure introduced in Chapter 2. Some conclusions are also summarized in Chapter 3. A list of MATLAB codes that are used for the simulation studies is given in the appendix.


Cross-domain information exchange is necessary to obtain information superiority in the military domain, and should be based on assigning appropriate security labels to the information objects. Most of the data found in a defense network is unlabeled, and usually new unlabeled information is produced every day. Humans find that doing the security labeling of such information is labor-intensive and time consuming. At the same time there is an information explosion observed where more and more unlabeled information is generated year by year. This calls for tools that can do advanced content inspection, and automatically determine the security label of an information object correspondingly. This paper presents a machine learning approach to this problem. To the best of our knowledge, machine learning has hardly been analyzed for this problem, and the analysis on topical classification presented here provides new knowledge and a basis for further work within this area. Presented results are promising and demonstrates that machine learning can become a useful tool to assist humans in determining the appropriate security label of an information object.


Summary form only given. The accuracy of the load model has great effects on power system stability analysis and control. Based on our practice in China on modeling load from field measurements, this paper systematically develops a measurement-based composite load model. Principles guiding the load modeling practice are discussed based on detailed analysis on stochastic characteristics of modeling procedure. The structure of the measurement-based composite load model is presented. A multi-curve identification technique is described to derive parameters. The generalization capability of thus built load model is also investigated in the paper. Two cases are studied to illustrate the accuracy of the developed load model on describing the load dynamic characteristics in the actual power system


Stock price prediction is a popular topic in financial studies. Stock market is basically nonlinear in nature and predicting share price is very difficult because there are no specific set of rules to estimate the price of the share in share market. Many methods are used to predict the share price like statistical analysis, time series analysis but none of these methods are considered to be consistently acceptable prediction methods and applying traditional methods may not ensure the accuracy of prediction. Various machine learning algorithms have been used to study the highly unpredictable nature of stock market by capturing repetitive patterns. Various companies have their preferred analysis tool for stock market forecasting and the reason for preference is the accuracy with which they predict. This paper gives brief survey of well-known prediction techniques used for prediction of stock in the stock market. General Terms Stock market pattern recognition, Stock market prediction algorithm


We present a review of the developments in the field of biomedical engineering in Mexico that have led to the present state of the profession. Starting with a community of people with diverse backgrounds but a common interest in the 1960's that were dedicated to research on one hand, and to the servicing of biomedical equipment on the other, to the establishment of undergraduate (1974) and graduate (1984) programs, until a more mature community has been established at the present. Employment opportunities are most abundant in the sales and service sector, followed by engineers in hospitals and a few research positions at established universities.


A simple shallow-water model with influence of diabatic heating on a -plane is applied to investigate the nonlinear equatorial Rossby waves in a shear flow. By the asymptotic method of multiple scales, the cubic nonlinear Schrodinger (NLS for short) equation with an external heating source is derived for large amplitude equatorial envelope Rossby wave in a shear flow. And then various periodic structures for these equatorial envelope Rossby waves are obtained with the help of Jacobi elliptic functions and elliptic equation. It is shown that phase-locked diabatic heating plays an important role in periodic structures of rational form.


Summary Observations of seismic anisotropy in field seismic data are often used to infer fracture properties in the subsurface. To understand if anisotropic elastic parameters can be measured following extensive seismic processing and migration we created a field scale elastic finite difference model simulating a 4-component ocean bottom seismic dataset. The model was built with realistic geological sequences in the overburden and HTI reservoir compartments. Each HTI compartment had different fracture properties (e.g. fracture azimuth and density). Following industry standard methods for denoise and migration we ran post-migration azimuthal velocity and AVOA analysis. Our results find that azimuthal velocities are robust to seismic processing and we appear to be able to measure the input elastic model HTI δ parameter along with the fracture azimuth direction with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Measurements of AVOA are less successful in comparison. Phi azimuth angles compare fairly well with the input model, however the azimuthal anisotropic gradient term shows a poor correlation with the input model.


Crowdsourced and remote user studies have recently gained popularity as alternatives to traditional laboratory studies. However, they are subject to unreliability, and it is challenging to ensure that valid results are collected, especially when conducting user studies with experts. Experts are a sparse resource, usually having busy schedules and heavy workloads, and are not necessarily geographically close. They are therefore often unwilling to participate in studies which require physical attendance. In this paper, we compare three alternative methods: crowd sourced user study with non-experts, remote user study with non-experts, and remote user study with domain experts, for a use case involving investigative child interview training. We present the results from three subjective studies about the perception of AI-generated child avatars, which is developed using various technologies such as dialogue models, game engine, text-to-speech and speech-to-text components. The study was conducted with three different user groups, and our results indicate the importance of using best practice measures for ensuring the collection of reliable results in crowdsourced settings as compared to remote studies, and highlight the difference between the perspectives of domain experts and non-experts.


53 In stressed plants, electrophysiological reactions (elRs) are presumed to contribute to 54 long-distance intercellular communication between distant plant parts. Because of the focus on 55 abiotic stress-induced elRs in the last decades, biotic stress-triggered elRs have been widely 56 ignored. It is likely that the challenge to identify the particular elR types – action potential (AP), 57 variation potential (VP) and system potential (SP) – was responsible for this course of action. 58 Thus, the present survey focused on insect larva feeding ( Spodoptera littoralis, Manduca sexta ) 59 that triggers distant APs, VPs and SPs in monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous plant species 60 ( Hordeum vulgare, Vicia faba, Nicotiana tabacum ). APs were detected only after feeding on the 61 stem/culm, whereas SPs were systemically observed following damage to both stem/culm and 62 leaves. This was reasoned by the unequal vascular innervation of the plant and a selective 63 electrophysiological connectivity of the plant tissue. However, striking variations in voltage 64 patterns were detected for each elR type. Further analyses (also in Brassica napus, Cucurbita 65 maxima ) employing complementary electrophysiological approaches in response to different 66 stimuli revealed various reasons for these voltage pattern variations: an intrinsic plasticity of elRs, 67 a plant-specific signature of elRs, a specific influence of the applied (a)biotic trigger, the impact of 68 the technical approach and/or the experimental set-up. As a consequence thereof, voltage pattern 69 variations, which are not irregular but rather common, need to be included in electrophysiological 70 signalling analysis. Due to their widespread occurrence, systemic propagation, and respective 71 triggers, elRs should be considered as candidates for long-distance communication in higher 72 plants. 73 74


Fire safety regulations have undergone their most significant change for over thirty years and owners of companies, employers, builders and landlords in UK face a seismic shift in liabilities and potential penalties. The responsibility for the safety of occupants and premises now lies with owners and employers. This invaluable new book draws on over thirty years of professional fire fighting, rescue and safety enforcement experience to provide a jargon-free practical guide to current liabilities and compliance.


Abstract Multivariate and univariate analyses were used to investigate patterns of floral and foliar morphological diversification among the eight taxonomic varieties of Pedicularis bracteosa (Orobanchaceae). Canonical discriminant analysis supported six varieties but not without considerable morphological overlap. Discrimination was most strongly based upon three floral characters: galea shape, throat length, and calyx tip length; and secondarily on three foliar characters: subtending bract width, longest leaflet width, and longest leaflet length. Analysis of variance on the ratio between calyx length and the length of the connate portion of the calyx did not corroborate a taxonomic difference among all varieties. Because galea shape is associated with specific pollination syndromes that promote reproductive isolation in other Pedicularis species, selection by the different pollinating behaviors of queens versus worker castes of the same species of bumblebees may be driving the diversification of floral morphology. While the taxa are largely allopatric and supported by several strong morphological discriminators, the high degree of morphological overlap among them does not justify their re-ranking above variety. Lack of discrimination between varieties siifolia and canbyi argues for their merger into a single taxon. A revised key to the varieties reflecting the results of this study is presented.


This work presents an analysis of an ocean wave energy harvesting system. This system is composed of a direct current (DC) power generator attached at the middle-top of a floating platform. A pendulum is connected to the generator's shaft. It is considered that the ocean waves motion swings the platform in the vertical direction, which transfers energy to the pendulum, making possible to convert mechanical energy, induced by the ocean wave, into a rotational motion due the pendulum and after in electric energy due the generator. With the objective to optimize the harvested power, several analyses of the pendulum parameters, ocean wave amplitude and frequency were carried out. This work was based on the Brazilian's coast characteristics. Numerical and experimental results were performed which shows the efficiency of the conversion of mechanical energy provided by the pendulum into electric power.