The in situ formation of dielectric silica (SiO2) particles was carried out in the presence of temperature-responsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) particles. Unlike the typical sol-gel method used to prepare various SiO2 particles, the highly uniform growth of SiO2 particles was achieved within the cross-linked polymer particles (i.e., the polymer particles were filled with the SiO2 particles) simply by utilizing interfacial interactions, including the van der Waals attractive force and hydrogen bonding in nanoscale environments. The structural and morphological features as well as the thermal behaviors of these composites were thoroughly examined by electron microscopes, dynamic light scattering, and thermal analyzers. In particular, the thermal properties of these composites were completely different from the bare polymer, SiO2 particles, and their mixtures, which clearly suggested the successful incorporation of multiple SiO2 particles within the cross-linked polymer particles. Similarly, titanium oxide (TiO2) particles were easily embedded within the polymer particle template which exhibited improved overall properties. As a whole, understanding in situ formation of nanoscale inorganic particles within polymer particle templates can allow for designing novel composite materials possessing enhanced chemical and physical properties.


The InCl3-catalyzed reaction of alcohols with chlorodimethylsilane (HSiMe2Cl) in the presence of benzil gave the corresponding organic chlorides under mild conditions. Benzil significantly changes the reaction course because the reducing product through dehydroxyhydration was obtained in the absence of benzil. The secondary or tertiary alcohols were effectively chlorinated. The substrates bearing acid-sensitive functional groups were also applied to this system. The highly selective chlorination of the tertiary site was observed in the competitive reaction between tertiary and primary alcohols. The highly coordinated hydrosilane generated from benzil and HSiMe2Cl is an important intermediate.


For the simulation of relief-type diffractive surfaces, an efficient method has been developed and described. Based on zone decomposition, our approach maps the transmitted wavefront by ray tracing, while point spread function/modulation transfer function (PSF/MTF) plots are calculated by scalar diffraction, taking light diffracted into multiple orders into account inherently. Using a parametric user-defined surface, our solution makes the analysis and optimization of diffractive lenses possible directly inside optical design software. Implementation was carried out in ZEMAX in the form of a swift Windows Dynamic Link Library extension using an approximative, non-iterative algorithm. The average computation time increments relative to standard built-in surfaces are 38% and 21% for PSF and MTF calculations, respectively. Application of our method is illustrated by the analysis of diffractive intraocular lenses. For validation, numerical results were compared with analytical formulae and industry-standard measurements. The ray-tracing error caused by our approximation proved to be less than ${7} \cdot {{10}^{ - 6}}$7⋅10-6 wavelength, and the difference from the theoretical MTF calculations is 1%-2%. The RMS difference of the simulated-measured through-focus MTF values at 50 lp/mm is 0.031, equaling ${2}\sigma $2σ measuring accuracy.


Geometric properties of polymixtures after a sudden quench in temperature are studied through the q-states Potts model on a square lattice, and their evolution with Monte Carlo simulations with non-conserved order parameter. We analyse the distribution of hull enclosed areas for different initial conditions and compare with exact and numerical findings for the q = 2 (Ising) case.


The widespread presence of SIMD devices in today's microprocessors has made compiler techniques for these devices tremendously important. One of the most important and difficult issues that must be addressed by these techniques is the generation of the data permutation instructions needed for non-contiguous and misaligned memory references. These instructions are expensive and, therefore, it is of crucial importance to minimize their number to improve performance and, in many cases, enable speedups over scalar code.Although it is often difficult to optimize an isolated data reorganization operation, a collection of related data permutations can often be manipulated to reduce the number of operations. This paper presents a strategy to optimize all forms of data permutations. The strategy is organized into three steps. First, all data permutations in the source program are converted into a generic representation. These permutations can originate from vector accesses to non-contiguous and misaligned memory locations or result from compiler transformations. Second, an optimization algorithm is applied to reduce the number of data permutations in a basic block. By propagating permutations across statements and merging consecutive permutations whenever possible, the algorithm can significantly reduce the number of data permutations. Finally, a code generation algorithm translates generic permutation operations into native permutation instructions for the target platform. Experiments were conducted on various kinds of applications. The results show that up to 77% of the permutation instructions are eliminated and, as a result, the average performance improvement is 48% on VMX and 68% on SSE2. For several applications, near perfect speedups have been achieved on both platforms.


Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is a progressive chronic respiratory disease that in final stages carries high mortality. Several treatment options have been proposed, including N-acetylcysteine, but its role is not clearly established. Searching in Epistemonikos database, which is maintained by screening 30 databases, we identified eight systematic reviews including 16 trials addressing the question of this article. We combined the evidence using meta-analysis and generated a summary of findings following the GRADE approach. We concluded N-acetylcysteine might increase the risk of hospitalizations and exacerbations. While it is unclear whether this leads to increased mortality because the certainty of the evidence is very low, in general there is consensus that it should not be used except in the context of a new clinical trial.


Assistive technology and evaluation system are expected to effectively solve the challenges of using robots in construction activities and improve the efficiency and building performance. Still, challenges are still need to be addressed before using robots for construction on a large scale. This Studies were corresponded to the identified areas for further critical review, and the development of research and application in each area was systematically analyzed to identify future directions for both the academia and the industry. More speci?cally, this review focus on determining the requirement of technology and application profile for robots, and based on the above analysis, a complete set of construction framework for robot was proposed, which integrates robots and activities with the various modular systems and digital technology to get global optimum solution.


Presently China mainly relies on the low cost of production factors and introducing advanced foreign technology to create an international competitive edge.Thepresent foreign trade growth mode,which is charaterized of quantitative expansion,labor-intensive and low prices,low e ciency,unsustained,is facing lots ofdifficulties.The problems such as the worsening terms of trade,the huge trade surplus,too much dependence on foreign trade,the rising prices of production factors,difficulties in the introduction of high technology,excessive consumption of resources,environmental pressures exacerbated the situations.Therefore,China mustadopt effective measures into a sustained and high efficiency foreign trade growth mode,which is supposed to be described as optimization of export commoditystructure,market diversification,mainly relying on independent innovation and independent brands,promoting trade with science and technology,rationaliztion ofindustrial structure,focusing on high added value.


The reactions of the hydrated electron (eaq-), produced during pulse radiolysis, have been used to study the binding of phosphatidyl choline (PC), phosphatidyl serine (PS), phosphatidyl ethanolamine (PE), and phosphatidyl inositol (PI) vesicles with horse-heart cytochrome C. An interaction could only be detected between cytochrome C and either PS or PI. An apparent equivalence point in the binding was reached for both phospholipids at a molar ratio of phospholipid : protein of 6 : 1. At this point, the reactivity of (eaq-) towards the cytochrome C was very markedly reduced. Indeed, the rate of disappearance of (eaq-) under such conditions was the same as the rate of eaq- disappearance in triply-distilled water. The inclusion of cholesterol at a molar ratio of 1 : 1 within the phospholipid vesicles changed the stoichiometry of the interaction. Evidence that protonated epsilon-amino groups of lysine residues are involved in the interaction is presented. Possible models for the complexes formed are discussed.


Resistance to antimicrobials was measured in 73 isolates of Campylobacter jejuni (C. jejuni) and 121 isolates of Campylobacter coli (C. coli) from chicken and swine feces and carcasses in Korea. Both bacterial species showed the highest resistance to (fluoro) quinolones (ciprofloxacin and nalidixic acid) out of the nine antimicrobials tested. Erythromycin resistance was much higher in C. coli (19.0%, 23/121) than in C. jejuni (6.8%, 5/73). The mutation in the 23S rRNA gene was primarily responsible for macrolide resistance in Campylobacter isolates. Several amino acid substitutions in the L4 and L22 ribosomal proteins may play a role in the mechanism of resistance, but the role requires further evaluation. A total of eight virulence genes were detected in 28 erythromycin-resistant Campylobacter isolates. All C. jejuni isolates carried more than four such genes, while C. coli isolates carried fewer than three such genes. The high rate of resistance highlights the need to employ more prudent use of critically important antimicrobials, such as fluoroquinolones and macrolides, in swine and poultry production, and to more carefully monitor antimicrobial resistance in Campylobacter isolates in food animals.


Molecular clouds around a run-away O star ζ Oph have been surveyed with NANTEN telescope and their streaming motion caused by ζ Oph has been detected. ζ Oph is the earliest (O9.5V) member of the Sco OB2 association and is a runaway star rapidly moving accompanied by an H II region S27. We detected 2 major filamentary cloud complexes; one complex including L156 (L156 complex) is lying across nearly the center of S27 and the other one (L204 complex) is located near the eastern edge of S27. Total masses of them traced by the CO emission in the two complexes are 520 M and 1110 M , respectively. Denser molecular cloud cores detected in CO are locally distributed on the near side of the L204 complex to ζ Oph, and lower density gas traced by CO spreads toward the opposite side. Both complexes have radial velocity shifts that are correlated with the gas density. These spatial and velocity structures can be interpreted as follows; (1) the L156 complex is stuck on the expanding Strömgrem sphere and has been accelerated, (2) the molecular gas in L204 complex was compressed and has also been accelerated outward from the H II region by ζ Oph, resulting the radial velocity shifts of diffuse low-density gas relative to the dense cores embedded in the cloud. These density and velocity structures indicate dynamical interaction between the H II region and the molecular clouds. The cloud complexes are divided into seven clouds by intensity distributions. In order to investigate the acceleration mechanism, we calculated momentum and kinetic energy for each cloud. They range from 60 to 800 M km s−1 and from 0.9 to 21 ×1045 erg, respectively. We examined the effects of the stellar wind and photo evaporation by UV field of ζ Oph and found that the stellar wind can hardly input the momentum during the crossing time of the rapid movement of ζ Oph. UV radiation seems to be a more likely origin of the streaming gas motion.


Non-circular chainrings have been reported to alter the crank angular velocity profile over a pedal revolution so that more time is spent in the effective power phase. The purpose of this study was to determine whether sprint cycling performance could be improved using a non-circular chainring (Osymetric: ellipticity 1.25 and crank lever mounted nearly perpendicular to the major axis), in comparison with a circular chainring. Twenty sprint cyclists performed an 8 s sprint on a cycle ergometer against a 0.5 N/kg(-1) friction force in four crossing conditions (non-circular or circular chainring with or without clipless pedal). Instantaneous force, velocity and power were continuously measured during each sprint. Three main characteristic pedal downstrokes were selected: maximal force (in the beginning of the sprint), maximal power (towards the middle), and maximal velocity (at the end of the sprint). Both average and instantaneous force, velocity and power were calculated during the three selected pedal downstrokes. The important finding of this study was that the maximal power output was significantly higher (+ 4.3%, p < 0.05) when using the non-circular chainring independent from the shoe-pedal linkage condition. This improvement is mainly explained by a significantly higher instantaneous external force that occurs during the downstroke. Non-circular chainring can have potential benefits on sprint cycling performance. Key pointsThe Osymetric non-circular chainring significantly maximized crank power by 4.3% during sprint cycling, in comparison with a circular chainring.This maximal power output improvement was due to significant higher force developed when the crank was in the effective power phase.This maximal power output improvement was independent from the shoe-pedal linkage condition.Present benefits provided by the non-circular chainring on pedalling kinetics occurred only at high cadences.


Given a part of a document image taken with any camera at an arbitrary orientation and sometimes far-from-perfect illumination, an important problem is to match this query image to the corresponding full image from a document database. We propose a novel multi-resolution robust methodology for the same. The method combines information from independent sources of measurement in a probabilistic framework. The proposed method is invariant to a large range of distortions, illumination changes, and is relatively resilient to noise and unmodelled objects present as clutter. To the best of our knowledge, no related work address all these issues.


We present a new organic photosensitive material for volume holographic recording. Advanced material composition and sample preparation eliminates the need for a protective layer and allows layer fabrication with variable thickness and a free surface. Optimized chemical formulation results in a high energetic sensitivity, high angular selectivity and high inducible refractive index contrast. We investigate the photoresponse and nonsinusoidal refractive index profiles. We demonstrate highly resolved optical structuring with up to 8000 lines per mm. Imaging of the holographic phase gratings is accomplished by optical microscopy.


This paper examines the effects of expansionary technology shocks (shocks that increase labor productivity and factor inputs) as opposed to contractionary technology shocks (shocks that increase labor productivity, but decrease factor inputs). We estimate these two shocks jointly based on a minimum set of identifying restrictions in a structural VAR. We show that most of the business cycle variation of key macroeconomic variables such as output and consumption is driven by expansionary technology shocks. However, contractionary technology shocks are important to understand the variation in labor productivity and production inputs. In addition, these shocks trigger different reactions of certain variables, which can help explain why existing evidence on technology shocks does not deliver clear results. In a simple DSGE model with managerial technology, which is consistent with our identifying restrictions, we interpret contractionary technology shocks as process innovations and motivate the difference to expansionary technology shocks.


The purpose of this paper is to present some common xed point theorems in G-Metric spaces, by employing the notion of Common limit in the range property and to demonstrate suitable examples. These results extend and generalizes several well known results in the literature.


The phenomenon of Hijrah is familiar in big cities and involves many young people. The Shift Pemuda Hijrah is one of the Islamic movements that formed the phenomenon of hijrah in the city of Bandung. To support its da'wah operational activities, Shift Pemuda Hijrah formed a business unit called Shift Merchandise. Shift Merch is engaged in the apparel sales industry. Shift Merch, which was initiated in 2015 in Bandung and launched into the clothing industry in March 2016. This study aims to determine the marketing communication strategy of Shift Merch in building brand awareness. This study uses an interpretive paradigm with a descriptive qualitative approach. The data in this study were obtained through observation, documentation, literature study and the results of interviews with the Shift Merch branding officer as a key informant, a marketing expert as an expert informant and Shift Merch admin as a supporting informant. The results of this study reveal that there are message strategies and media strategies used by Shift Merch in carrying out marketing communications that are always integrated with Shift Media, because Shift Merch is a measuring tool for indicators of the success of their preaching Shift Pemuda Hijrah. Through its marketing communication medium, namely Instagram, Shift Merch has succeeded in building brand awareness through Shift Media. Suggestions that researchers can give are to add new media channels and build stories on creative messages so that they can build their own brand awareness.
Keywords: Marketing Communication, Brand Awareness, Shift Merch


The causes of the large-scale and intense magmatism in South China and its coeval metallogenic processes in the Mesozoic have been debated, due partly to the lack of a high-resolution crustal model. In this study, we deploy ∼500 nodal seismometers around the Nanling metallogenic belt in South China, including one linear array across the metallogenic belt and one 2D array around the Fankou ore deposit: a deposit that hosts large amounts of lead and zinc in China. The derivation of the Moho and the intracrustal structures with receiver function imaging using the linear array was conducted in a separate study. Here, we focus mainly on the shallow shear wavespeed structure in the upper crust (from the surface to about 8 km depth) using ambient noise tomography with the 2D array data. We find low-shear wavespeed anomalies (VS<2.8  km/s) associated with a basin down to about 3.0 km and several high-shear wavespeed anomalies (VS>3.6  km/s) below 6.0 km adjacent to the Fankou ore deposit, which we interpret as the crystallized igneous intrusions in the Mesozoic. Gravity modeling shows that the high density anomaly derived using the wavespeed model is required to improve the data fitting. Considering the temperature derived from a typical geothermal gradient is insufficient for mineralization, we propose that the fluid and heat brought by the igneous intrusion might contribute to the mineral concentration of the Fankou ore deposit. This observation is consistent with geochemical and petrological evidence of diabase and quartz diorite veins in the study region. The experiment shows that ambient noise tomography using dense nodal arrays has the potential in resolving the favorable conditions for ore formation and may play a role in future ore exploration.


Avian brood parasites impose large fitness costs on their hosts and, thus, brood parasitism has selected for an array of host defensive mechanisms to avoid them. So far most studies have focused on antiparasite defenses operating at the egg and chick stages and neglected defenses that may work prior to parasite egg deposition. Here, we experimentally explore the possibility that hosts, as part of a front-line defense, might minimize parasitism costs through informed nest site choice based on perceived risk of cuckoo parasitism. We conducted a large-scale manipulation of visual and auditory cues potentially informing on the risk of great spotted cuckoo Clamator glandarius parasitism during the nest site choice period of the magpie Pica pica host to investigate its effect on host's nest settlement and individual year to year site fidelity. Early breeding magpies preferentially placed their nests in safe areas (i.e., in sites of low perceived risk of parasitism), and, this effect diluted with time elapsed since risk of parasitism was manipulated. Site fidelity of individual magpies decreased with risk of cuckoo parasitism, for those that were not parasitized in the previous year. Our results constitute the first strong evidence showing that hosts can minimize the costs of cuckoo parasitism through informed nest-site choice, calling for future consideration of defenses potentially operating prior to parasite egg deposition to achieve a better understanding of cuckoo-host coevolution.


In scenes lit with sharp point-like light sources, light can bounce several times on specular materials before getting into our eyes, forming purely specular light paths. However, to our knowledge, rendering such multi-bounce pure specular paths has not been handled in previous work: while many light transport methods have been devised to sample various kinds of light paths, none of them are able to find multi-bounce pure specular light paths from a point light to a pinhole camera. In this paper, we present path cuts to efficiently render such light paths. We use a path space hierarchy combined with interval arithmetic bounds to prune non-contributing regions of path space, and to slice the path space into regions small enough to empirically contain at most one solution. Next, we use an automatic differentiation tool and a Newton-based solver to find an admissible specular path within a given path space region. We demonstrate results on several complex specular configurations, including RR, TT, TRT and TTTT paths.


We discuss the time evolution of local changes in the alloy composition {ital X}({ital r},{ital t}) and in the degree of long-range order {ital S}({ital r},{ital t}) under irradiation with energetic particles. Coupled kinetic equations for {ital X} and {ital S} are derived in the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau forms, taking into account the irradiation-induced atomic mixing and disordering as well as the irradiation-enhanced diffusion and ordering. At first, we obtain the model phase diagrams of stationary states under appropriate conditions of irradiation. It is shown how the ordering phase field and the miscibility gap between ordered and disordered phases depend on the irradiation conditions. Next, we demonstrate some examples of the simulation of the dissolution process from the two-phase mixture of (order+disorder) into a single-phase state. At a relatively low temperature, the ordered phase is first disordered and then the composition modulation disappears by dissolution. In contrast, the disordering and the dissolution proceed simultaneously at higher temperatures. {copyright} {ital 1996 The American Physical Society.}


Eleven consecutive patients with tarsal tunnel syndrome were reviewed. All had pes planus, 8 had calcaneal valgus hindfoot, and generalized benign joint hypermobility syndrome was evident in 9. Detailed enquiry was necessary to identify apparently trivial precipitating events. In 6 patients there was superimposed secondary reflex sympathetic dystrophy which tended to obscure symptoms of the causative tarsal tunnel syndrome. Wider recognition of this cause-effect mechanism and early management with orthotic footwear and intrinsic foot muscle exercises may obviate the need for surgical intervention in many cases.


Altered excerpt from William Griffith's painting "Portrait of the late Thomas Moore Esq. of Liverpool". The painting features a framed portrait of Mrs Rachel Moore in the background. It has been enlarged and the fourth side of the frame added digitally to create a complete image.


Bis(n-butylammonium) pentachloroantimonate(III) was obtained in a reaction of n-butylammonium chloride and antimony trichloride (molar ratio 2 : 1; cation : Sb) in acidic aqueous solution. To obtain further information about the mechanism of the earlier reported phase transitions at 229 and 315 K the structure was determined at 100, 260 and 340 K. The orthorhombic system was found in all phases, space groups Ibam at 340 K and Pccn at 260 and 100 K. In all phases the anionic sublattice consists of [SbCl6]3− octahedra, connected via cis chlorine atoms, forming onedimensional zig-zag {[SbCl5]2−}n chains extended along the c direction. The n-butylammonium cations are located between the inorganic chains, with –NH3 groups facing the oppositely charged polyanions. The phase transitions are of the order-disorder type. They are related to changes in molecular dynamics of the n-butylammonium cations. At high temperature the cations reorient, on decreasing temperature the reorientations are successfully frozen. This leads to the formation on N-H. . .Cl hydrogen bonds, which significantly deform the octahedral coordination of the Sb atoms.


The invention concerns a method for obtaining a mixture of starch branching enzymes extracted from unicellular algae characterised in that it consists in modifying a unicellular algae such that it no longer expresses a starch debranching activity; in treating said modified unicellular algae so as to obtain a concentrated acellular extract; and in subjecting said concentrated acellular extract to molecular sieving so as to obtain a mixture of starch branching enzymes extracted from algae.


Systems for inducing classification rules from databases are valuable tools for assisting in the task of knowledge acquisition for expert systems. In this paper, we introduce an approach for extracting knowledge from databases in the form of inductive rules. We develop an information theoretic measure which is used as a criteria for selecting the rules generated from databases. To reduce the complexity of rule generation, the boundary of the information measure is analyzed and used to prune the search space of hypothesis. The system is implemented and tested on some well known machine learning databases.


This paper analyze multiple experiences about the functioning of the first Open-Door in Argentina's inside, the "Asilo Colonia Regional Mixto de Alienados Oliva", created in the province of Cordoba in 1914. We approach a set of clinical histories and specialized publications of the institutional bulletin, deepening in theoretical and therapeutic processes articulated during the first decade of hospitalization of a patient who lived in Oliva most of her adult life. This study case questions the relevance given to this madhouse as a space of reclusion and social control. We show that, in a context of crisis about institutional resources and transformation into psychiatric models, the configuration of know-what and know-how of these alienists did not constitute a monolithic authority, accounting for how the behaviors of patients and their relatives, values and social uses defined types of income, diagnoses and treatment possibilities.


The millennium has ushered in a new era of oversight for pediatric research, with renewed moral and legal attention to the upper thresholds of potential harms to which children may be exposed in studies. Watershed events discussed include: First, the deaths of two research subjects, allegedly due to insufficient oversight by the investigators and their institutional review boards. Second, the courts expressed concerns about research policies for incompetent persons or children in two cases, T.D. v. N.Y. and Grimes v. Kennedy Krieger Institute, and reinforcement of the principle that the best interest standard must be used for incompetent persons even in research. Third, the Best Pharmaceutical for Children Act and the Pediatric Rule created incentives as well as uncertainty among Institutional Review Boards and researchers about conducting pediatric studies. Fourth, the Office of Human Research Protection signaled the start of more rigorous oversight with its public rebuke and suspension of a National Institute of Child Health and Human Development pediatric obesity study. Failure to clarify the meaning of the pediatric regulations has sometimes misled generally risk-averse institutions and dedicated investigators about what is permissible.


ABSTRACT Resumption of meiosis in mammalian oocytes, defined as oocyte maturation, is stimulated by luteinizing hormone (LH). Fully grown oocytes can also mature spontaneously, upon their release from the ovarian follicle. However, growing oocytes fail to resume meiosis in vitro and the mechanism underlying their meiotic incompetence is unknown. It is commonly accepted that a drop in intraoocyte cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) resulting in the elevated activity of the oocyte-specific PDE3A leads to a decrease in cAMP content, essential for reinitiation of meiosis. We explored the regulation of these cyclic nucleotides and their degrading PDE3A in growing oocytes. Our research addressed the LH-induced rather than spontaneous oocyte maturation. We examined 16–21 as compared to 25-day-old, PMSG-primed rats, treated with the LH analog, hCG. The effect of LH was also examined ex vivo, in isolated ovarian follicles. We found that hCG failed to induce oocyte maturation and ovulation in the younger animals and that ovulation-associated genes were not upregulated in response to this gonadotropin. Furthemore, the drop of intraoocyte cGMP and cAMP observed in fully grown oocytes upon exposure of the ovary to LH, was not detected in growing oocytes. Interestingly, whereas the global expression of PDE3A in growing and fully grown oocytes is similar, a significantly lower activity of this enzyme was determined in growing oocytes. Our findings show that meiotic incompetence is associated with a relatively high oocyte cGMP concentration and a low activity of PDE3A, which in follicle-enclosed oocytes may represent the failure of the somatic follicle cells to respond to LH.


The conventional inferior alveolar nerve block (conventional technique) has potential risks of neural and vascular injuries. We studied a method of inferior alveolar nerve block by injecting a local anesthetic solution into the pterygomandibular space anterior to the mandibular foramen (anterior technique) with the purpose of avoiding such complications. The insertion angle of the anterior technique and the estimation of anesthesia in the anterior technique were examined. The predicted insertion angle measured on computed tomographic images was 60.1 +/- 7.1 degrees from the median, with the syringe end lying on the contralateral mandibular first molar, and the insertion depth was approximately 10 mm. We applied the anterior technique to 100 patients for mandibular molar extraction and assessed the anesthetic effects. A success rate of 74% was obtained. This is similar to that reported for the conventional technique but without the accompanying risks for inferior alveolar neural and vascular complications.


By the Final Coalgebra Theorem of Aczel and Mendler, every endofunctor of the category of sets has a final coalgebra, which, however, may be a proper class. We generalise this to all 'well-behaved' categories ${\frak K}$. The role of the category of classes is played by a free cocompletion ${\frak K}^\infty$ of ${\frak K}$ under transfinite colimits, that is, colimits of ordinal-indexed chains. Every endofunctor $F$ of ${\frak K}$ has a canonical extension to an endofunctor $F^\infty$ of ${\frak K}^\infty$, which is proved to have a final coalgebra (and an initial algebra). Based on this, we prove a general solution theorem: for every endofunctor of a locally presentable category ${\frak K}$ all guarded equation-morphisms have unique solutions. The last result does not need the extension ${\frak K}^\infty$: the solutions are always found within the category ${\frak K}$.


Postdischarge risks of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) infection among carriers are unknown. We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 199 patients newly detected as VRE carriers. Fifteen patients (8%) developed 27 VRE infections in the 18 months after detection. Among 10 postdischarge infections, 2 involved bacteremia and 3 resulted in readmission.


The main objectives of this study are the evaluation of overtopping risk in conjunction with uncertainty for two embankment dams in the south of Iran (Fars province) and north of Iran (Mazandaran province). Dams are one of the most significant structures that contribute to the survival of the human race. The main benefits of this structure for human society are; flood controlling, generation of hydro-electric power, and supply water for different purpose such as agriculture, irrigation, recreation, and tourism attraction. Annually, natural disasters like earthquake, flood, drought, and thunders happen in different parts of the world. Malfunctioning of a dam can result in serious economic damage to the owners, and environmental problems such as pollution, sedimentation in the downstream areas and can also result in the loss of human lives. Iran is one of the ten foremost countries sensitive to the unexpected phenomena and natural disasters. Flooding is one of the most important disasters in Iran and losses during 1951-2000 exceeded more than 11,500 people. So, constructing new flood control structures and assessment safety of existing dams are essential.
There is main gap with regards to apply new statistical tools and techniques for overtopping risk analysis and assessment the safety of dams. Furthermore, considering various events such as wind in conjunction with flood which increase the probability of failure is a crucial task of hydrosystem engineers. Hence, this research presents the application of risk and uncertainty analysis to dam overtopping. A flood frequency analysis of annual maximum discharge was done for the Doroudzan and Meijaran dams applying the General Extreme Value (GEV) probability distribution. Risk of overtopping were calculated for six extreme floods taking into consideration inflow hydrograph, initial water level, discharge coefficient of spillway, and the reservoir geometry as uncertain variables. The reservoir routing technique was used to compute the highest water levels and the Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) and Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) were applied for uncertainty analysis. To consider the effect of wind speed on the overtopping risk, frequency analyses were performed on the wind data and consequently extreme wind speeds, highest wind set-up and wave run-up were calculated. The maximum risk considering the effects of wind speeds in the study was 1.5 to 3.5 times larger than the risk of overflowing due to only floods using Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) and Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) approaches, respectively. The results of this study show that, initial water level, and inflows to reservoir have significant effects on the overtopping probability of the Doroudzan and Meijaran dams. Overtopping risk increases with increase in magnitude of stated parameters. Trends of computed risks for the Doroudzan dam indicate that calculated probabilities with Latin hypercube sampling were slightly higher than the Monte Carlo simulation, while in the Meijaran dam, there was no any specific trend between the MCS and LHS results.
The major findings and main contributions of this study are; solving the flood model (reservoir routing) in uncertain conditions, estimating wind set-up and wave run up to solve the wind model with considering uncertainties, estimating the probability of failure due to overtopping under different hydrologic conditions, and compare the results based on two applied uncertainty models (MCS and LHS) for two mentioned dams.


As part of our project which aims at the realization of a system named ASTEMOI In this article, we display a new and productive facial image representation based on the Local Sensitive Hash (LSH). This technique makes it possible to recognize the learners who follow their training in our learning platform. Once recognized, the student must be oriented towards an appropriate profile that takes into account his strengths and weaknesses. We also use a light processing module on the client device with a compact code so that we don't need a lot of bandwidth, a lot of network transmission capacity to send the feature over the network, and to be able to index many pictures in a huge database in the cloud.


The purpose of the article is to study the issues of development and rational use of local budgets of agro-industrial territories. The authors have analyzed specific indicators of the local budget typical for the Ryazan region for 2014– 2016 — the Kaninsky rural settlement of the Sapozhkovsky District. Due to the economic-statistical and SWOT-analysis, some problem aspects have been revealed. In particular, local authorities do not have an opportunity to independently draw up their own full budgets. As a rule, they are pumped up at the expense of financial sources not controlled by the rural administrations. This has a number of negative consequences: it does not contribute to revitalizing and rationalizing actions of the local authorities to replenish the tax potential of the territory; it reduces the administration's responsibility for the budget execution and meeting commitments to the public; it causes dependency of local rural administrations while developing the revenue part of the budget; it does not contribute to the development of economic initiatives. The authors conclude that to improve the development and rational use of local budgets of rural settlements, it makes sense: to consolidate the results-oriented principles of medium-term planning and budgeting; to accept the requirement for further decentralization of the budget system and to provide real budget independence; to provide effective control over budgets of all levels and their real transparency.


The rapid diversification of workforces and client stakeholder groups has prompted a growing emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion as a critical component of professional development across industry sectors. While the proliferation of intercultural competence training models has increased awareness among employers and workforces, the competencies advocated in these models may not always be relevant to an organization or institution's operational context. This study addresses the need for contextually grounded intercultural competency models targeted to extension education contexts. Using a three-phased Delphi approach, data were gathered from a panel of 36 intercultural competency experts. The panel identified nine personal traits thought to be critical for the recruitment and development of culturally competent extension educators. The authors explain how these results may be used to recruit extension educators with traits conducive to engagement with a broad audience of stakeholders using culturally sensitive and responsive techniques. Given the distinct processes by which different components of intercultural competence are developed, we recommend specific measures and techniques administrators can utilize to recruit and develop extension educators who possess the agreed-upon intercultural personality traits.


To determine the clinical usefulness of routine urinalysis, the records of 400 patients were examined for results of the first urinalysis following admission to hospital, and the attending physician's response to abnormal findings was evaluated. Results were abnormal for 116 patients (29.0%); there were 22 (5.5% of total urinalyses) abnormalities of chemical constituents (protein, glucose or bilirubin was present) only, 56 (14.0%) of sediment only and 38 (9.5%) of both chemical constituents and sediment. The attending physician did not respond to abnormal results in 50.9% of the 116 instances.


The inhibition of protein–protein interactions is a growing strategy in drug development. In addition to structured regions, many protein loop regions are involved in protein–protein interactions and thus have been identified as potential drug targets. To effectively target such regions, protein structure is critical. Loop structure prediction is a challenging subgroup in the field of protein structure prediction because of the reduced level of conservation in protein sequences compared to the secondary structure elements. AlphaFold 2 has been suggested to be one of the greatest achievements in the field of protein structure prediction. The AlphaFold 2 predicted protein structures near the X-ray resolution in the Critical Assessment of protein Structure Prediction (CASP 14) competition in 2020. The purpose of this work is to survey the performance of AlphaFold 2 in specifically predicting protein loop regions. We have constructed an independent dataset of 31,650 loop regions from 2613 proteins (deposited after the AlphaFold 2 was trained) with both experimentally determined structures and AlphaFold 2 predicted structures. With extensive evaluation using our dataset, the results indicate that AlphaFold 2 is a good predictor of the structure of loop regions, especially for short loop regions. Loops less than 10 residues in length have an average Root Mean Square Deviation (RMSD) of 0.33 Å and an average the Template Modeling score (TM-score) of 0.82. However, we see that as the number of residues in a given loop increases, the accuracy of AlphaFold 2's prediction decreases. Loops more than 20 residues in length have an average RMSD of 2.04 Å and an average TM-score of 0.55. Such a correlation between accuracy and length of the loop is directly linked to the increase in flexibility. Moreover, AlphaFold 2 does slightly over-predict α-helices and β-strands in proteins.


Abstract Infrared (IR) absorption spectra of antigorite were measured up to 27 GPa and 320 °C using synchrotron IR radiation to elucidate OH group behavior under high-pressure (HP) and high-temperature (HT) conditions. The absorption bands attributable to the OH stretching modes of outer OH groups (OHouter) and inner OH groups (OHinner) show positive pressure dependencies. The shift rate of the OHinner band is almost constant at all pressure ranges. In contrast, that of the OHouter band increases slightly at about 6 GPa. This discontinuous change of the shift rate is consistent with the anomalous behavior of the OHouter upon compression, which was predicted in the previous first-principle calculation study. Specifically, the pressure dependence of the OHouter band shows that the hydrogen ion of an OHouter interacts not only with the nearest basal oxygen ion of the SiO4 tetrahedron but also with the second nearest two basal oxygen ions upon compression. The latter interaction becomes dominant over the former interaction at about 6 GPa. Pressure-induced amorphization was indicated from IR spectra measured at 300 °C and 25.6 GPa. This P-T condition is out of the thermodynamic stability field of antigorite. A broad absorption band, which is close to the broad band attributable to natural hydrous silicate glass, appeared after amorphization, which suggests that the pressure-induced amorphization of antigorite does not induce dehydration. Hydrogen atoms are retained in amorphized antigorite as OH groups.


We derive some basic results on the geometry of semidefinite programming (SDP) and eigenvalue-optimization, i.e., the minimization of the sum of the k largest eigenvalues of a smooth matrix-valued function. We provide upper bounds on the rank of extreme matrices in SDPs, and the first theoretically solid explanation of a phenomenon of intrinsic interest in eigenvalue-optimization. In the spectrum of an optimal matrix, the kth and (k + 1)st largest eigenvalues tend to be equal and frequently have multiplicity greater than two. This clustering is intuitively plausible and has been observed as early as 1975. When the matrix-valued function is affine, we prove that clustering must occur at extreme points of the set of optimal solutions, if the number of variables is sufficiently large. We also give a lower bound on the multiplicity of the critical eigenvalue. These results generalize to the case of a general matrix-valued function under appropriate conditions.


The relation between the cosmological evolution of the jet-disk symbiosis model for GRBs and the cosmic rays energy distribution is presented. We used two different Star Formation Rates (SFR) as a function of redshift and a Luminosity Function (LF) distribution to obtain the distribution in fluence of GRBs in our model and compare it with the data. We show a good agreement between the fluence distribution we obtain and the corrected data for the 4B BATSE catalogue. The results we obtain are generally valid for models that use jet physics to explain GRB properties. The fluence in the gamma ray band has been used to calculate the energy in cosmic rays both in our Galaxy and at extragalactic distances as a function of the redshift. This energy input has been compared with the Galactic and extragalactic spectrum of cosmic rays and neutrinos. Using our jet disk symbiosis model, we found that in both cases GRBs cannot give any significant contribution to cosmic rays. We also estimate the neutrino background, obtaining a very low predicted flux. We also show that the fit of our model with the corrected fluence distribution of GRBs gives strong constraints of the star formation rate as a function of the redshift.


I want to take issue with static concepts of origins. Predecessors of what exists at present are not necessarily what came first.

It isn't as if the problem of identifying origins is unique to biology. Western culture is dominated by concepts of origins firmly rooted in the present. Historically, Western religions have assigned priority to what exists by anointing it with attributes of origins and characterizing these attributes as fundamental. God, after all, is said to have created man in his image amounting to a first among firsts. At the expense of God's image, symgiogeny theory flies in the face of the rule that what is must have its origin in something similar that came before.

My object here is to examine how originary prejudices distort questions of origins and the attributes of ancestors. I'm especially eager to strip away notions of original characteristics from present organisms. I want to imagine what was different in the past.


In this study, student teachers developed web sites on art education in their computer course. The project was conducted during the 2003-2004 fall semester and included 200 primary school student teachers from Eregli Education Faculty, Zonguldak Karaelmas University. Web sites were developed for both the learning process and evaluation. Student teachers were asked to evaluate the effectiveness of using the Internet in art education. Their opinions were collected through semi-constructed interviews. In general, they felt that learning Internet should be used in conjunction with making art and working in a studio atmosphere.


The purpose of this article was to investigate the reasons why elementary-aged boys often lack motivation in literacy and to provide teachers with useful approaches to engage reluctant boys in reading and writing. Following a comprehensive search of multiple university data base search engines, the author critically evaluated 21 peer-reviewed sources written within the last ten years, as well as two sources from the last 14 years. Gender-based brain research studies revealed to the author that differences in brain design and development create learning differences between males and females. Evidence from Qualitative and Mixed Method studies also led the author to find lack of confidence, interest level, and topic choice to be significant factors affecting a boy's motivation to read and/or write. Included in the article are strategy suggestions that teachers may implement in their classrooms to better engage boys in literacy.


This article introduces the sequential Kalman filter, a computationally scalable approach for online changepoint detection with temporally correlated data. The temporal correlation was not considered in the Bayesian online changepoint detection approach due to the large computational cost. Motivated by detecting COVID-19 infections for dialysis patients from massive longitudinal health records with a large number of covariates, we develop a scalable approach to detect multiple changepoints from correlated data by sequentially stitching Kalman filters of subsequences to compute the joint distribution of the observations, which has linear computational complexity with respect to the number of observations between the last detected changepoint and the current observation at each time point, without approximating the likelihood function. Compared to other online changepoint detection methods, simulated experiments show that our approach is more precise in detecting single or multiple changes in mean, variance, or correlation for temporally correlated data. Furthermore, we propose a new way to integrate classification and changepoint detection approaches that improve the detection delay and accuracy for detecting COVID-19 infection compared to other alternatives.


A thin film possessing excitonic states within the range of energies of a plasmon surface polariton of a metallic substrate can strongly influence this surface electromagnetic wave either by a resonance interaction or a quenching interaction. We have analyzed this coupling and present our results showing the effects of an anisotropic orientation in the molecular film compared to an isotropic orientation and the effects of damping of the molecular electronic transition in the film. In a typical attenuated total reflection (ATR) experiment either an angular scan or a wavelength scan is usually used. A comparison of these two situations is given and sample calculations are displayed with perspective figures of reflectivity versus both angle and wavelength. The results show that a combination of both types of scans, i.e., angular scans at a series of wavelengths or wavelength scans at a series of angles or some combination to follow along the dispersion curve, are necessary to map the dispersion. Further isot...


Background Procalcitonin is a biomarker that supports clinical decision-making on when to initiate and discontinue antibiotic therapy. Several cost (-effectiveness) analyses have been conducted on Procalcitonin-guided antibiotic stewardship, but none mainly based on US originated data. Objective To compare effectiveness and costs of a Procalcitonin-algorithm versus standard care to guide antibiotic prescription for patients hospitalized with a diagnosis of suspected sepsis or lower respiratory tract infection in the US. Methods A previously published health economic decision model was used to compare the costs and effects of Procalcitonin-guided care. The analysis considered the societal and hospital perspective with a time horizon covering the length of hospital stay. The main outcomes were total costs per patient, including treatment costs and productivity losses, the number of patients with antibiotic resistance or C.difficile infections, and costs per antibiotic day avoided. Results Procalcitonin -guided care for hospitalized patients with suspected sepsis and lower respiratory tract infection is associated with a reduction in antibiotic days, a shorter length of stay on the regular ward and the intensive care unit, shorter duration of mechanical ventilation, and fewer patients at risk for antibiotic resistant or C.difficile infection. Total costs in the Procalcitonin-group compared to standard care were reduced by 26.0% in sepsis and 17.7% in lower respiratory tract infection (total incremental costs of −$11,311 per patient and −$2,867 per patient respectively). Conclusions Using a Procalcitonin-algorithm to guide antibiotic use in sepsis and hospitalised lower respiratory tract infection patients is expected to generate cost-savings to the hospital and lower rates of antibiotic resistance and C.difficile infections.


A new approach to enhance the sensitivity of existing SAW UV-visible photo-detectors based on the monitoring of the multiple reflections of the acoustic waves in the Fourier transform of the frequency response (S21) is demonstrated. By using this concept, it is possible to monitor the UV-visible light in a wide intensity range from very high to ultralow. We present a strategy to obtain an ultrafast SAW UV photo-detector with millisecond response by tuning the deposition conditions of the ZnO film and using the multiple-reflections concept.


A recently developed live, attenuated vaccine against avian pneumovirus (APV) was found to be safe and protective in experimental birds. Duration of immunity following a single dose of this experimental vaccine in 1-week-old turkey poults is described. Two groups each of 60 poults were housed in separate isolation rooms. Birds in group one were inoculated oculonasally at 1 week of age with the vaccine. The second group served as a non-vaccinated group and was inoculated with mock-infected cell culture fluid. At 3, 7, 10, and 14 weeks post vaccination, 15 birds from each of the groups were removed to separate isolation rooms and challenged with virulent APV. Taken together, data on clinical signs and virus detection in choanal swabs following each challenge indicated that the vaccine was able to protect birds for up to 14 weeks post vaccination. Peak antibody levels were attained 7 weeks post vaccination and declined thereafter. These results indicated that this experimental vaccine induced protection against APV even in the absence of high antibody titres.


Objective. Herein, we seek to know the necessities of humanized care of patients subjected to chemotherapy.
 Methodology. The study was carried out with patients, of both sexes, diagnosed with different types of cancer who received chemotherapy treatment in an oncology unit of the city of Medellín, Colombia during 2011. A qualitative approach was used with tools from grounded theory; 23 interviews were conducted and a field diary was kept. During the analysis, codes were extracted that were subsequently grouped into categories that best represented the phenomenon studied.
Results. Cancer patients subjected to chemotherapy have needs for humanized care. The emotional, spiritual, social, and affective necessities were highlighted as a consequence of the impact of the news of the diagnosis and the notorious physical changes confronted by these patients. The category of dehumanization of care emerged related to the information of the diagnosis and in the communication the personnel maintained with these patients.
Conclusion. The cancer patient receiving chemotherapy is a seriously ill person, with necessities, who requires humanized care by the healthcare provider personnel.


The majority of hypotensive antiglaucoma drugs, designed for intraocular pressure (IOP) decrease, contain a preservative. A lifelong use of eyedrops provides the conditions for its accu- mulation with realization of its side effects. One of the most common preservatives is benzalkonium chloride — a quaternary ammonium compound with detergent properties. Its constant exposition on the eye surface can lead to functional and organic alterations of eye tissues, affecting both the quality of life and glaucoma progression with concomitant disease development. As it is impossible to create an "ideal preservative", active against the pathogen microorganisms, but that leaves the eye tissues intact — and taking into account a low prevalence and amount of studies of other, more harmless preserva- tives, an issue of non-preservative hypotensive glaucoma treatment is relevant. Complete absence of a preservative in the eyedrops can dramatically improve the treatment adherence and quality of life. By now, there is a lot of data confirming better tolerance of non-preservative drugs, compared to the ones that contain preservative. Meanwhile, preservative-free therapy has also its drawbacks, with the most important of the bigger drug cost and absence of long-term tolerance studies.


The impact of Social Networking Sites (SNS), especially, Facebook in marital relationships is increasing in Pakistan. A model based on negative-effect hypothesis about SNS use was designed to test the effect of Facebook use intensity on marital satisfaction among married Facebook users. Sample comprised of 302 married Facebook users from capital city of Pakistan. Data were conveniently collected through using Urdu versions of Interpersonal Electronic Surveillance Scale (Tokunaga, 2011), Trust in Close Relationships Scale (Rempel, Holmes, & Zanna, 1985), Facebook Jealousy Scale (Muise, Christofides, & Desmarais, 2009), Comprehensive Marital Satisfaction Scale (Blum & Mehrabian, 1999), and six items for Facebook Use Intensity. Marital satisfaction as assumed was found to have significant positive relationship with trust in relationship and significant negative relationship with Facebook related jealousy and online surveillance. Findings revealed a process whereby Facebook related jealousy and online surveillance were the mediators for the trust and Facebook use intensity as predictors in predicting marital satisfaction. Men were found to be more satisfied and have more trust on their wives as compared to women. Women possessed more jealous feelings and indulged in more surveillance of their spouses on Facebook as compared to male counterparts. This conceptualization showed the causal relationship between intensity of Facebook usage and marital satisfaction that can help in studying the impact of growing technology upon marital relationships in Pakistani context.


Edward W. Younkins's book, Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society, is a welcome contribution to individualist thought. Focusing on Aristotle, Ayn Rand, Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, and Murray Rothbard, Younkins demonstrates the compatibility of Aristotelian liberalism, Objectivism, and Austrian Economics. Younkins suggests that synthesÍ2Íng these philosophies will lead to human flourishing and happiness. These philosophies share certain general principles that can serve as moral bases for political action.


Dynamic and static performance data are presented for a 117 mm diameter flexure-pivot tilting pad bearing in a load-between-pad configuration for speeds between 6000 and 12000 rpm and unit loads between 1–2.2 MPa. The present work is a continuation of 2005 tests on the same bearing by Al-Ghasem and Childs with unit loads at 0–1 Mpa. The rotordynamic coefficients are measured via a test rig that uses hydraulic shakers to excite the bearing stator. A psuedo-random excitation method is used to measure the complex direct and cross-coupled dynamic stiffness coefficients over a frequency range. The real and imaginary parts of coefficients are curve fitted to produce a constant-coefficient [K][C][M] bearing model. For the static load direction y, the direct added-mass coefficient Myy was needed to model the bearing' "frequency dependence". The direct unloaded mass coefficients Mxx was generally near zero. The analytical model generally predicted the correct trends for the change in rotordynamic coefficients with increasing loads but did not predict the measured orthotropy between results in the loaded and unloaded directions.Copyright © 2008 by ASME


Video transcoding is an efficient way for rate adaptation and format conversion in various networked video applications. Many transcoder architectures have been proposed to achieve fast processing. Recently, thanks to its relatively low complexity and acceptable quality, the DCT-domain transcoder (DDT) was proposed to overcome the drift in the open-loop transcoders and the high-complexity in the cascaded transcoders. We show that there is still some improvement space for computation reduction in the DDT. We propose a method to fast extract partial low-frequency coefficients in the DCT-domain motion compensation (DCT-MC) operation. We investigate fast algorithms of the DDT based on the proposed fast coefficients extraction scheme. The simulation results show that the proposed methods can achieve significant computation reduction while maintaining close PSNR performance compared to the DDT.


This review describes the role of HPV-infection in the development of cervical cancer and the prevalence of HPV types by stage and histological types of cervical cancer. Differences in oncogenic potential of HPV types and changes in antiviral immunity response define stable disease or disease progression. Problems related to HPV-negative cervical cancer and the role of viral load in the prognosis of cervical cancer are considered.


Salvia halophila Hedge (Lamiacae) is an endemic plant species of the Irano–Turanian phytogeographic region. It grows in salt steppes of central Anatolia. Morphological and anatomical features of the plant is examined in this study. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is used to describe the morphology of pollen and trichomes. Salvia halophila pollen is shown to be hexacolpate and mostly prolate. The exine is perforated and distictly bireticulate with prominent muri. Morphological characters such as±fleshy leaves, shapes of leaves and calyx, bracts, corolla and type of stamens (B type) are helpful to distinguish species of Salvia. In addition, anatomical characters such as trichome features, crystals, mesophyll structure and vascular bundles in leaves and petioles provide information of taxonomic significance.


Background Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are multifactorial and heterogeneous, chronically relapsing inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) that are thought to result from a dysregulated mucosal immune response to gut lumen bacterial antigens in a genetically susceptible host (1). Additional clinical and epidemiological evidence supported MEFV as a potential IBD candidate gene. Familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) and IBD share common clinical and biologic features; they are both inflammatory disorders characterized by the same chronic relapsing behavior, infiltration by neutrophils at the site of injury, and abnormal regulation of apoptosis (2,3). Objectives Incidense of these two disease in Turkish children, relation with the existing MEFV gene mutation, prognosis of the disease and response to the treatement and accompanying laboratory findings were evaluated. Methods Patients who have two or more of these symptoms which are fever, abdominal pain, chest pain, arthritis and family history of FMF are diagnosed as FMF according to criterias defined in 2009 (4).We evaluated complaints, physical examinations, MEFV gene mutations,erythrocyte sedimantation rate,C reactive protein,complete blood counts of the FMF patients during the first admission to our clinic.In order to evaluate IBD colonoscopy was applied to the patients if they had any of these findings which are bloody stool, chronic diarrhea, abdominal pain inappropriate for FMF, positive ASCA IgA, IgG and pANCA.Diagnosis of IBD was made according to the colonoscopy findings and histopathological study of the biopsy samples. Results 46% of patients was male, FMF diagnostic age was 7.5±3.4 year,application age was 9.75±4.8 year.M694V, M680I, E148Q, R202Q, K695R mutations of MEFV gene were studied in all patients.One of these mutations was positive in 84% of the patients.Colonozcopy applied to 15 patients who have complaints of abdominal pain inappropriate to FMF,chronic diarrhea, bloody diarrhea and/or positive pANCA, ASCA and biopsy samples were taken.6 patients had moderate and 3 patients had mild colitis findings on histopathologic samples.All of the 9 patients have MEFV gene mutation.M694V homozygote mutation was found in 3 of these 9 patients.M694V heterozygote mutation in 1 patient,K695R homozygote mutation in 1,K695R heterozygote mutation in 1,M680I heterozygote in 1 and E148Q heterozygote mutation in 1 patient were detected. Conclusions The incidence of IBD during childhood increases if patients have FMF disease. This result suggests that either of these diseases accompany frequently or they are parts of the whole which is consisting of the same genetic mutations. References Podolsky DK (2002) Inflammatory bowel disease. N Engl J Med 347: 417–29. Lichtenberger GS, Flavell RA, Alexopoulou L. Innate immunity and apoptosis in IBD. Inflamm Bowel Dis 2004; 10: 58–62. McDermott MF (2004) A common pathway in periodic fever syndromes. Trends Immunol 2004; 25: 457–60. Yalçınkaya F, Özen S, Özçakar ZB et al. A new set of criteria for the diagnosis of familial Mediterranean fever in childhood. Rheumatology 2009; 48: 395-98. Disclosure of Interest None Declared


This study investigated the effect of menstruation on prothrombin time, activated partial thromboplastin time and platelet counts of some female students from a tertiary educational institution in Nigeria. A total of 50 women between 18-27 years of age participated in this study. Blood samples were collected from the participants prior to menstruation and after menstruation. The blood samples were analyzed using standard procedures i.e. Hemostatic Indicators Procedure. Results showed before and after menstruation were in the range of 11-19 sec (mean 14.84 ± 1.63 sec) and 12-17 sec (14.94 ± 1.12 sec) respectively for prothrombin time, 30-49 sec (mean 36.90 ± 4.27 sec) and 32.00-47.00 (mean 36.45 ± 3.64 sec), respectively for activated partial thromboplastin time, and 116-326×109/L (mean 243.36 ± 38.72×109/L) and 249-419×109/L (mean 331.73 ± 36.82×109/L) for platelets. Statistically, there was no significant variations (P>0.05) in pre and post menstruation for prothrombin time and activated partial thromboplastic time, and significant difference (P>0.001) exits for platelets counts during pre and post menstruation. No significant variation suggests no risk of hypercoagulability or coagulopathy; while platelets values before and after menstruation suggest no risk of thrombocytosis among the age grade under study.


Author(s): Giraudy, Maria Eugenia | Advisor(s): Berins Collier, Ruth | Abstract: How do elite conservative parties win mass support? Over time, political scientists have been puzzled by this question. In my dissertation, I analyze this question by investigating the strategies conservative parties use to attract these voters. In particular, my research shows that parties can choose from four possible strategies to build mass support: economic moderation, orthogonal appeals, grassroots activities, and neoliberalism.I use machine learning to analyze four right-wing parties in Argentina and Chile and demonstrate that parties have varied in the strategies they chose to attract new voters. To this end, I classify the text of 4800 press releases using topic models with Latent Dirichlet Allocation. This method classifies the topics parties choose to focus on. For instance, it can show if a party has focused on moral values (e.g., abortion, gay marriage) or on economic issues (role of the market, exports promotion). By understanding the topics parties focus on in their press releases, I can analyze which strategies they use to attract poor voters.The results of the classification show that for example, in Chile, one conservative party, Union Democratica Independiente (UDI), chose to create grassroots activities in poor areas in order to attract the urban poor, while the other conservative party, Renovacion Nacional (RN), chose to use orthogonal appeals on the value of democracy and human rights, as well as presenting a moderate economic platform. In Argentina, UCeDe opted to focus on neoliberal appeals to attract both rich and poor voters, while Propuesta Republicana (PRO) decided to moderate its economic appeals.To explain this variation I argue that the ties of conservative parties to conservative institutions constrain the strategies of conservative parties to expand their electoral coalitions. In particular, I analyze how the ties to the three most relevant conservative institutions of Latin America's recent history, the Catholic Church, the Military, and business groups, affect the possible strategies of conservative party leaders. This analysis is based on qualitative evidence collected during 18 months of fieldwork in Argentina and Chile. I use an original database of the careers of party officials, as well as in-depth interviews with top conservative party leaders, to trace the ties of conservative institutions to the parties.I show that these institutions can influence party strategies through two different paths. First, conservative institutions may have external influence to the party and threaten to cut valuable resources in case the party chooses not to defend their policy interests. Second, conservative institutions might choose to affect party strategies through the path of internal influence. In this path, representatives of the conservative institution occupy key party positions and block policies that may affect the interests of the institution.My dissertation demonstrates that each party's strategic choices depend on the ties that party leaders have to these three conservative institutions. In the case of RN, the decision of party leaders to use orthogonal appeals as well as limited economic moderation is a consequence of the fact that RN leaders have moderate ties to export-oriented business groups, moderate ties to the Catholic Church, and weak ties to the military. In the case of UDI, its party leaders were able to build strong grassroots activities due to their strong ties to the military and business groups. These ties made it difficult for the party to use strategies of economic moderation or orthogonal appeals. Additionally, the strong ties of UDI to the Catholic Church made it difficult for the party to introduce progressive moral topics to attract new voters.In Argentina, UCeDe leaders in the 1980s chose a neoliberal strategy due to the strong ties of UCeDe to liberal economic groups. In addition, party leaders had medium ties to the military which made it difficult to use a strategy of orthogonal appeals on Human Rights issues, and the party did not use moral progressive topics in order to avoid an adverse reaction from the Catholic Church. Last, PRO leaders chose a strategy of economic moderation to attract new voters. Different to other parties, PRO was able to implement such a strategy because it had moderate ties to ISI business groups. In addition, the party's moderate ties to the Catholic Church was translated in mixed positions on moral values. PROs weak ties to the military makes it possible for them to utilize pro-democratic appeals. However, as the party was formed more than 30 years after the transition to democracy, its appeals are less about the role of the military, and more about the defense of republican institutions.


A new definition that can be used to evaluate the unbalance in electrical power systems in the presence of harmonic and interharmonic distortion is presented. A new unique transformation matrix that is capable of suitably extracting the balanced, first unbalanced, and second unbalanced components suitable for all of the harmonic and interharmonic orders is introduced. This new decomposition method overcomes the limitation of a similar method previously presented in the literature, a method that is not in agreement with Fortescue transformation and does not to take into account the presence of interharmonic components. The decomposition presented makes it possible to evaluate the quantities defined in the IEEE Standard 1459-2010, taking into account the unbalances produced by harmonics and interharmonics and extending some important definitions to signals characterized by interharmonic distortion. Numerous numerical case studies and experimental results show the applicability of the proposed method and its usefulness.


PURPOSE
The aim of this study was to evaluate the significance of cytogenetic findings for the clinical outcome of patients with Angioimmunoblastic Lymphadenopathy (AILD)-Type T-cell lymphoma.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
In a retrospective analysis, the cytogenetic findings of 50 patients with AILD-type T-cell lymphoma were correlated with the frequency of spontaneous and therapy-induced remissions and with survival using the statistical methods of Kaplan and Meier and the model of Cox for multivariate analysis. Treatment was not uniform because the patients were treated in different hospitals during a period of 8 years and because a standard therapy has not yet been established.

RESULTS
The following cytogenetic findings were associated with a significantly lower incidence of therapy-induced remissions and a significantly shorter survival duration: presence of aberrant metaphases in unstimulated cultures (P = .04 for both parameters); clones with an additional X chromosome (P = .0001 and P = .03, respectively); structural aberrations of the short arm of chromosome 1, preferentially involving 1p31-32 (P < .001 and P = .04, respectively); and complex aberrant clones with more than four aberrations (P = .0003 and P = .005, respectively). Multivariate analysis showed that these cytogenetic findings had a significant influence on survival, but therapy modalities did not. Only the presence of complex aberrant clones was an independent prognostic factor. Trisomy 3 had no effect on survival, but patients without trisomy 5 (P = .08) tended to live longer.

CONCLUSION
This is the first study that seems to indicate that cytogenetic findings have prognostic significance in AILD-type T-cell lymphoma. These results must be proven in prospective studies of homogeneously treated patients.


BirdLife International has so far developed Action Plans for 37 bird species. The plans, although not legally binding, have been approved by the Ornis Committee (EU DG Environment) and most of them have also been endorsed by the Standing Committee of the Bern Convention. Three of the species covered by the SAPs are Mediterranean seabirds: Audouin´s gull (Larus audouinii) , Balearic shearwater (Puffinus mauretanicus) and Mediterranean shag (Phalacrocorax aristotelis desmarestii) . The documents, which have been produced through a participatory process involving tens of experts across the range of the taxa, provide information on the biology, ecology and threats, but the most important feature is the list of specific objectives and actions which are ranked according to their priority and urgency. Alongside actions addressing species-specific conservation needs, such as site protection and management, a number of activities aimed at the conservation of these species are common and refer to wide policies such as land-use planning, fishery, tourist development and pollution control. The documents represent the most up-to-date and scientifically-based source of information for planning and implementing conservation activities across the Mediterranean, to be implemented by both governmental and non governmental organisations.


Dr D. V. Ager asked for clarification of the 'Keuper Sandstone' sub-divisions used in this paper, since Professor Wills had previously (Wills 1910) included the 'Building Stone Group' within the 'Keuper Waterstones'. For the purposes of correlation with the marine transgressions on the continent, it was important to know the exact horizons of the various fossils, especially the supposed Mytilus. Were they found in the Waterstones as now understood? Mr C. V. Jeans questioned the paleogeographical reconstruction of the south-west cuvette during Keuper Marl deposition suggested by Professor Wills who apparently considered that normal or near-normal marine conditions were absent. The Keuper Marl sequence exposed between Sidmouth and Branscombe on the south Devon coast did not support this. Two horizons of sandstones and alternating sandstones and clays occurred approximately 500 and 600 ft above the top of the Keuper Marl main sandstone series (seen immediately east of the River Sid in Salcombe Hill Cliff). These two horizons contain (i) an abundance of various types of burrows, and (ii) streaks and blebs of a bright green clay tentatively identified as glauconite sensu lato (Burst 1958). Both features were strongly suggestive of normal or near-normal marine conditions. At one horizon there was an abundance of horny-shelled fossils. These two marine series were not intercalated in the typical reddish brown silts of the Keuper Marl but occurred in a dominantly grey series containing clays (often finely laminated), marls and thin limestones. Considerable similarity existed between these two horizons and the base of


The authors use the method of Mobius transformation introduced by Chen (1990) to obtain pair potentials for FCC metals from first-principles total energy calculations. The derivation is exact for radial potentials and it converges much faster than the earlier reported method of Carlsson-Gelatt-Ehrenreich (1980). They have tested this formulation for Cu using the tight binding representation of the linear muffin-tin orbital method. Their results agree with those obtained by Carlsson and co-workers and qualitatively with the other Morse-type pair potentials derived from effective medium theories.


Competitive strategies of platforms often involve contractual arrangements that might be considered as anticompetitive. Since recent decisions of European Commission after investigations against Google in 2017 and 2018, and Bundeskartellamt against Facebook in 2019, the standards of liability for abuses applied by competition authorities will influence business models of digital platforms. This paper summarizes theories of harm applied by BRICS competition authorities applied towards multi-sided platforms under investigations. One may expect that BRICS approach to be harsher compared to mature competition jurisdictions. However, a comparison shows that discrimination and tying with exclusionary effects have been the focus of investigations and decisions in BRICS. Remedies in the infringement decisions are intended to protect rivalry through "no restriction of multihoming" conditions. There is no evidence that BRICS authorities apply a specific economic theory of multi-sided platforms. At the same time, BRICS competition enforcement could be applied as one of the legal instruments when one platform tries to crowd out another from global markets.


Because most of the methods that have been proposed for estimating statues drought generate point estimate, so researchers were always looking for ways to achieve regional estimates for better manage this gradually creeping phenomenon. Recently, remote sensing and techniques proposed base on it could estimate drought in regional scale well. In this paper, it's tried to estimate drought and evaluation performance of the Temperature Vegetation Dryness Index (TVDI) and the Modified Temperature Vegetation Dryness Index (MTVDI) using the vegetation and temperature MODIS products in Northern Khorasan during two years 2004 and 2008 (as normal and dry years respectively). The results showed that MTVDI index has performed better than TVDI index. The result of linear correlation analyzed between indices and the cumulative precipitation of the currently 16 days, early 16 days and early 1 month, 2 month, 3 month, 5 month and 7 month showed the indices, specially MTVDI, had a close relationship with early 1 month precipitation than the others. This is due to the delayed response of vegetation to precipitation.


The paper dwells on the role of integrating audio-visual media to teaching and learning. The rationale is based on the view that properly designed media add value to a teaching environment. Integrating audio-visual media can bring exciting curricula based on real-problems into classroom; provide scaffolds and tools to enhance learning in teacher training colleges in Kenya. This is because Teaching is becoming one of the most challenging professions in the society where knowledge is expanding rapidly. As new concepts of learning evolve, teachers are expected to facilitate learning and make it meaningful to learners rather than just provide knowledge and skills. These challenges require teachers to continuously retrain and acquire new knowledge and skills in media. The researchers in this paper envision a future in which public primary teacher training colleges have complete transformation from "old age" to the information age, a future in which media is integrated throughout society in general.


In this study, the syntheses of a BaCuO3 perovskite-structured oxide and rGO were conducted using a sol–gel method and ultrasonication process, respectively. Their physico-chemical characteristics were studied by powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), Raman spectroscopy, and ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) spectroscopy analyses. The perovskite type particles were found to present as a cubic crystal system with a crystal size in the range of 10–60 nm. Their catalytic performance was investigated using differential thermal analysis (DTA) measurements at varying heating rates via the thermal decomposition of ammonium perchlorate (AP) and 3-nitro-1,2,4-triazol-5-one (NTO). The kinetics and thermodynamics parameters, such as the average activation energy, pre-exponential factor, entropy, and Gibbs free energy, were also investigated, which showed a decrease in the decomposition peak temperature of AP and NTO in the presence of the catalysts rGO, BaCuO3, and rGO + BaCuO3 compared to pure AP and NTO.


We reconsider standard uniaxial fatigue test data obtained from handbooks. Many S-N curve fits to such data represent the median life and exclude load-dependent variance in life. Presently available approaches for incorporating probabilistic aspects explicitly within the S-N curves have some shortcomings, which we discuss. We propose a new linear S-N fit with a prespecified failure probability, load-dependent variance, and reasonable behavior at extreme loads. We fit our parameters using maximum likelihood, show the reasonableness of the fit using Q-Q plots, and obtain standard error estimates via Monte Carlo simulations. The proposed fitting method may be used for obtaining S-N curves from the same data as already available, with the same mathematical form, but in cases in which the failure probability is smaller, say, 10 % instead of 50 %, and in which the fitted line is not parallel to the 50 % (median) line.


Whether bottom hypoxia has long-lasting consequences for pelagic fish populations remains speculative for most ecosystems. We explored hypoxia's influence on two pelagic zooplanktivores in Lake Erie that have different thermal preferences: cold-water rainbow smelt (Osmerus mordax) and warm-water emerald shiners (Notropis atherinoides). To assess acute effects, we combined predictive bioenergetics-based modeling with field collections made across the hypoxic season in central Lake Erie during 2005 and 2007. To assess chronic effects, we related fishery-independent and fishery-dependent catches with hypoxia severity and top predator (walleye, Sander vitreus) abundance during 1986–2014. As our modeling predicted, hypoxia altered rainbow smelt movement and distributions, leading to avoidance of cold, hypoxic bottom waters. In response, diets shifted from benthic to pelagic organisms, and consumption and energetic condition declined. These changes were lacking in emerald shiners. Our long-term analyses showed rainbow smelt abundance and hypoxia to be negatively related and suggested that hypoxia avoidance increases susceptibility to commercial fishing and walleye predation. Collectively, our findings indicate that hypoxia can negatively affect pelagic fish populations over the long term, especially those requiring cold water.


First finds of generally Middle Triassic (Ladinian) conodonts from Jordan are reported. Biometric analysis of the genus Pseudofurnishius shows that the conodonts hitherto assigned to the species P . huddlei van den BOOGAARD & SIMON fall within the limits of intrapopulation variability of the species P. murcianus van den BOOGAARD. The record of Gondolella transita KOZUR & MOSTLER, Metapoiygnathus mungoensis (DIEBEL), and Pseudofornishius murcianus van den BOOGAARD, made possible time correlation of the Iraq-al-Amir Formation from Jordan and the Saharonim Formation from Israel.


This study aimed at the evaluation of the effects from cryopreservation of bovine oocytes in vitro matured, by using ethylene glycol (EG) associated to trehalose and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), of ovary oocytes of slaughtered cows, randomly assigned to three treatments. Treatment 0 (T0 - control): oocytes that were desnuded and not vitrified. Treatment 1 (T1): cryopreservation of in vitro matured oocytes with cumulus oophorus. Tratamento 2 (T2): cryopreservation of in vitro matured desnuded oocytes. The percentage of recovered oocytes after cryopreservation and with normal morphology was different for vitrified oocytes (94.7 and 76.8%; 69.5 and 48.85% for T1 and T2, respectively). The main changes ultrastructural in vitrificated oocytes were prematurely released of cortical granules. Later, all normal oocytes were fecundated and cultivated at 38.5oC in atmosphere with 5% CO2 for seven days. The fecundation and cleavage rates for treatments were different (56.2, 41.7 and 12.5%; 36.3, 0.0 and 0.0%, for T0, T1 and T2, respectively). Morulas and blastocysts were obtained only in T0 (34.5%). These results indicate that, the used protocols, for vitrification procedure is not indicated for cryopreservation of matured bovine oocytes.


It is known that the electricity generator uses massive quantities of energy per year. Studies on the unit commitment problems have now been a very critical activity in a power plant. However, the current optimal solution of unit commitment problem obtained from the existing methods is very easy to collapse into a local minimum, resulting in bad results. To solve the unit commitment problem, a new evolutionary algorithm, the Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO) algorithm is presented. This integer coding algorithm has been developed to minimize the total energy scheduling cost over the entire scheduling range while satisfying all constraints. In addition, the shortest up / downtimes are directly encoded without using a penalty function method. Considering the one-day and seven-day scheduling cycles, the algorithm has been applied to 10 generators, up to 100 generators. The most important advantage of this approach is its fast convergence rate. The simulation results of this technique are compared to the results of bacterial foraging algorithm, particle swarm optimization, and genetic algorithm and Lagrangian relaxation. The comparison outcomes prove the effectiveness of the proposed technique.


This paper reports the quantitative method of vapor concentration in unsteady evaporating gasoline type spray with Laser Induced Exciplex Fluorescence ( LIEF ) . The LIEF is an exciplex fluorescence method developed by Melton to visualize the liquid and vapor phases separately. In this study, iso-octane ( 92 vol% ) , benzene ( 4 vol% ) , and triethylamine ( 4 vol% ) were used as a fluorescent agent that emit excited complex fluorescence that can optically separate fluorescence from the liquid phase and the vapor phase respectively. We tested the dependence of the fluorescence characteristics on the vapor concentration, ambient pressure, and ambient temperature when quantifying the vapor concentration. The relationship between the vapor concentration and the fluorescence intensity ratio was similar to the theoretical relationship. Furthermore, the relationship between the fluorescence intensity ratio and each parameter could be considered as a function of only its parameter. Since the fluorescence intensity is proportional to the laser incident light intensity and the emitted laser light has a Gaussian intensity distribution, the intensity distribution of the laser sheet light could be predicted, and the captured image could be corrected. For quantitative measurement, we used the image analysis method of vapor concentration quantification measurement of direct injection diesel spray developed by Senda et al. The quantitative distribution of vapor concentration was measured by applying the method to the results of simultaneous measurement of Mie scattering, exciplex fluorescence, and monomer fluorescence.


BACKGROUND To study the differences among the methods used for estimating daytime and nighttime ambulatory blood pressure values, and to analyze their determinant factors. SUBJECTS AND METHODS In 402 individuals mean values of systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP and DBP) during 24 h, daytime and nighttime, were calculated by three different methods: a) real-time, following a minidiary; b) long-time, having a nighttime period from 23:00 to 07:00 h, and a daytime one from 08:00 to 22:00 h, and c) short-time, having a nighttime period from midnight to 6:00 h, and a daytime one from 08:00 to 22:00 h. RESULTS Daytime mean values of SBP and DBP were similar for the three methods. Nighttime mean values of SBP and DBP calculated using the long-time were significantly higher than those calculated with the real-time ((SBP -2.25 [5.3] mmHg, p < 0.05; DBP -1.17 [3.4] mmHg, p < 0.05). No differences were observed for both SBP and DBP with the real-time. The number of sleeping hours was the main determinant of the differences observed between the long-time and the real-time methods. The percentage of subjects with a non-dipping pattern were 17, 26 and 18% for real, long and short time methods, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Daytime mean BP values are reproducible whatever the method used, but for estimating nighttime mean BP values short-time is the best of the fixed-time methods. Minidiary should be used if more accurate values are necessary or if the subjects sleep habits do not fit into the standard patterns.


Tetrahymena pyriformis were grown to early-stationary phase and resuspended in a defined mixture containing glucose, fructose, ribose, glycerol, acetate, pyruvate, bicarbonate, glutamate, and hexanoate, with only one substrate labeled with 14C in any flask. Incorporation of label into CO2, glycogen, RNA, alanine, glutamate, glycine, lipid glycerol, and lipid fatty acids was measured 20, 40, and 60 min after the start of the incubation. To develop a model suitable for quantitative analysis of the data, it was necessary to join two preceding models, one for carbohydrate-metabolizing cells and one for acetate-metabolizing cells, eliminating the over-simplified sections of each. Equations were written and programmed for a digital computer to allow computation of the amount of label expected to be incorporated into any of the products measured for any given set of steady state flux values in the metabolic network. The model formed by simply joining the two preceding models did not yield satisfactory agreement with the complete data obtained in the present study, although each partial set of data could be fit well by the appropriate partial model. Analysis of the ways in which the model failed to yield good fits to the data indicated that another pool of P-enolpyruvate, of pyruvate, and of acetyl-CoA had to be added at the junction of the two models. The presence of such poolte into fatty acids as compared to the incorporation of label from glucose into fatty acids. A new model was therefore constructed which differed from the preceding model only in its structural organization at the level of P-enolpyruvate, pyruvate, and acetyl-CoA. The model is consistent with all known information on the compartmental structure of metabolism in Tetrahymena, on enzyme localization, and on the enzyme complement of this cell. Over 70 measurements of label incorporation into products were made at each time. These, plus a large number of "limit" measurements which constrain any possible solutions, were in sufficient excess of the 39 independent flux values to permit a stringent assessment of the model. A set of flux values was found which yielded a good fit to the data. These flux values therefore provide a quantitative description of metabolite flux in the intact cell during the slow adaptation to the nine-substrate mixture. The rates of utilization of glucose, fructose, glycerol, and ribose were in the ratio of about 10:1:0.33:0.16, i.e. fairly similar to the ratio observed with carbohydrate-metabolizing cells. Initial flux through phosphofructokinase is about 160 nmol/10(6) cells.h, increasing over 3-fold during tje jpir incubation. Initial flux through fructose-1,6-diphosphatase is about 110 nmol/10(6) cells.h and also increases almost 3-fold during the incubation. Thus net flux is glycolytic and increases 4-fold during the hour with a large amount of futile cycling at this step...


Jacobsen is the one of the high-quality turf-equipment providers with powerful brand such as walking greens, riding greens and fairway mowers, as well as utility vehicles, sprayers and aerators. In the competitive market, existing rotary multi deck mower productivity is lower because of lesser cutting width. Competitors tend to lead this market segment because of their large cutting width mowers. It is required to evaluate the possibility of redesigning the blade diameter to increase width of cut. A new layout is generated for the deck assembly locations. Static structural analysis is done for the existing chassis by using ANSYS 12.0 and HYPERMESH 9.0 in which failure locations were identified. Redesign the chassis by using NX-6. Decision to migrate to hydraulic gear pump was made due to additional deck assembly design requirements. Wing arm assembly is designed for the new rear deck assembly. 7 decks with blade diameter of 68 mm (26.62"); the width of cut achieved is 3.9m (153"), and productivity increased by70%. 7 decks with blade diameter of 59 mm (22.38"); In this configuration the width of cut achieved is 3.1 m (123.7") and productivity increased by 36.7%.


The region of Aquitaine, located in south-west of France, has implemented a climate plan for the period 2007-2013 in order to avoid 2 883 ktCO2eq per year for 2013. But this region is an important place of transit's flow between northern Europe and southern Europe. The share of goods transport represents about 30% of road traffic of the Aquitaine region. Moreover, traffic from road transport will not be stabilized according to Becker's report (2001). As a result, the region council of Aquitaine has planned some road projects in order to increase traffic capacities to avoid too much congestion costs. But, investments decision concerning construction of road infrastructure is performed by cost-benefit analysis. A project leading to an increase of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions could have also a positive net social benefit. If regional council of Aquitaine wants to realize their road projects, it has to implement some GHG offsetting projects. The computation of opportunity cost of projects of road infrastructure construction must be a useful indicator to determine the maximum budget for GHG offsetting projects. This analysis, far away from substituting to cost-benefit analysis, is however complementary to it. We calculated, for Aquitaine region, the budget of opportunity cost of road projects: it was estimated by €2001 1 920 M and €2001 3 592M respectively for a moderate and high increase of traffic for 2007-2013.


The aim of this study was to compare the sediment characteristics of two small forest catchments, artificial coniferous (AC) and natural broadleaf (NB), utilizing sediment rating curves (SRCs) through the suspended load and hysteresis loops. The SRC equation was derived from the relationship between the water discharge value (Q) with the suspended sediment concentration (SS) or the suspended load (L) data from the recorded rainfall events. The erosivity index of AC was found to be higher than that of NB (a-values of 7.30 and 1.20 for AC and NB, respectively), showing that the erosion in the coniferous forest was greater than that in the broadleaf forest. AC also had a positive erosivity power (b-value) of 0.57, while NB had a negative value of 0.186. However, even though the b-value for NB is negative, it is close to 0. This means that even if the discharge increases, the suspended sediment concentration does not change enough to make the relationship between Q and SS for NB very low. Both catchments generated a weak coefficient of determination (R2). Nevertheless, it seems that there is a correlation between the R2 values and the hysteresis loops, where the weaker the R2, the wider the hysteresis loop can be captured. The suspended sediment of NB was finer and darker than that of AC, representing richer organic matter. The richer nutrients of NB catchment may have been brought about by the greater amount of leaf litter that flowed down due to heavy rainfall events, leading to sediment of a darker color. It was concluded that coniferous forest catchment tended to be more erosive than broadleaf forest catchments.