The "acoustic black hole" (ABH) phenomenon can be exploited for flexural vibration suppressions in beam and plate structures. Conventional ABH structures, however, are tied with the inherent structural weakness due to the low local stiffness required and possibly high stress concentration caused by the small residual cross-section thickness of the ABH taper, thus hampering their practical applications. In this study, the dynamic and static properties of a compound ABH beam are investigated through numerical simulations. It is shown that, whilst ensuring an effective ABH effect, the compound ABH structure allows a significant improvement in the static properties of the structure. For the former, the compound design is shown to outperform its counterpart in the conventional ABH configuration in terms of the damping enhancement and the vibration suppression. For the latter, the compound ABH structure is also shown to provide much better static properties in terms of structural stiffness and strength. Meanwhile, the structural damping can be further improved by using an extended platform at the tip of tailored profile, which improves the structural strength but reduces the structural stiffness at the same time. Therefore, when choosing the platform length, a balance needs to be struck among the desired ABH effect and the mechanical properties of the structure.


Concurrent occurrence of chromium (Cr), copper (Cu) and arsenic (As) from chromated copper arsenate (CCA) wood preservative in aquatic ecosystems demands that their joint-actions in eliciting toxic effects be assessed for adequate understanding of the health risk they may pose to biota. Clarias gariepinus was exposed to As2O3 , CrO3 and CuO and their composite mixtures (1:1 and 1:1:1) at various concentrations (0 – 600 mg/L) for 96-h to determine the acute toxicity using OECD (1992) protocol. C. gariepinus was then exposed to sub-lethal concentrations corresponding to 6.25, 12.5, 25.0, 50.0 and 100% of the 96-h LC50 for 7 days to assess the cytogenotoxic effects using piscine micronucleus (MN) test. The 96-h LC50 showed that the metals/metalloid demonstrated differential interactions in a concentration dependent pattern. The 96-h LC50 showed that Cr was the most toxic while Cu and As:Cu were indeterminate (Cr > Cr:Cu > As:Cr > As > As:Cr:Cu > Cu = As:Cu indeterminate). Isobologram and synergistic ratio (SR) models predicted antagonistic interaction between Cu:Cr and As:Cr and synergism between As:Cu in the causation of morbidity and mortality of C. gariepinus. Interaction factor model predicted antagonism as common interactive mechanism among the metal/metalloid mixtures in the induction of MN and abnormal nuclear erythrocytes in C. gariepinus. Predicted interactions among the three metals/ metalloid were largely antagonism and synergism towards the induction of acute toxicity and cytogenotoxicity. The models employed herein may be useful in establishing environmental safe limits for mixtures of metals/metalloids against the induction of acute toxicity and DNA damage in lower aquatic vertebrates.


Bamboo is a potential major bio-energy resource. Tests were carried out to compare and evaluate the property of bamboo and rice straw pellets, rice straw being the other main source of biomass solid fuel in China. All physical properties of untreated bamboo pellets (UBP), untreated rice straw pellets (URP), carbonized bamboo pellets (CBP), and carbonized rice straw pellets (CRP) met the requirements of Pellet Fuels Institute Standard Specification for Residential/Commercial Densified including dimension, density, and strength. The inorganic ash (15.94 %) and gross heat value (15375 J/g) of rice straw pellets could not meet the requirement of Pellet Fuels Institute Standard Specification for Residential/Commercial Densified (≤6.0% for PFI Utility) and the minimum requirement for making commercial pellets of DIN 51731 (>17500 J/g), respectively. Rice straw pellets have been a main type of biomass solid fuel and widely used. Bamboo pellets have better combustion properties compared with rice straw pellets. It is confirmed that bamboo pellets have great potential as biomass solid fuel, especially with respect to development of commercial pellets on an industrial scale in China. The information provided by this research is useful for development and utilization of bamboo resource and pellets.


To the Editor.— Vitamin E has recently been shown to influence porphyrin metabolism. 1,2 Nair and his co-workers 3 have treated four patients with symptoms of porphyria with vitamin E. They found improvement in the clinical condition of the patients and decrease of urinary porphyrins and porphyrin precursors. This matter has also recently been treated in an EDITORIAL inThe Journal. 4 This led us to study the effect of vitamin E on the porphyrin excretion in five porphyric patients. They were all women, aged 24 to 32 years, and from different families. During the experiment, one had mild symptoms pointing at porphyria. In four patients, the biochemical findings were typical for acute, intermittent porphyria, and in one patient for variegate porphyria. Four patients were given dl-alfa-tocopherol (Evitol forte, Orion Pharmaceutical Co, Finland) 100 to 200 mg/day, and one was given d-alfa-tocopherol (IDO-E, Pharmacia, Sweden) 400 mg/day. During a four-week


Content-based video information retrieval (CBVIR) has becoming one of the best solutions for retrieving useful information from today's video information explosion. And with the rapid development of modern technologies, CBVIR is emerging as a mass market desktop application. There is evidence that visual feature extraction is the most time-consuming part in a CBVIR system. In this paper, we implement three video visual feature extractions in parallel by exploring different kinds of thread-level parallelism. We also conduct detailed scalability and memory performance analysis on two multi-core based systems, in order to gain more insights into video-analysis related applications on future multi-core systems. From our analysis we identify the likely causes of bottlenecks in these kinds of applications and suggest ways to improve scalability.


A still difficult, yet pressing task for blade manufacturers and turbine producers is the correct prediction of the effects of turbulent winds on the blade. Reynolds Averaged Numerical Simulations (RANS) are a limited tool for calculating the effects. For large eddy simulations (LES) boundary layer calculation are still difficult therefore the spectral element method seems to be an approach to improve numerical calculations of flow separation. The flow field around an fx79-w151a airfoil has been calculated by the spectral element code 𝒩ϵκ𝒯αrusing a direct numerical simulation (DNS) solver. In a first step a laminar inflow on the airfoil at angle of attack of α = 12° and a Reynolds number of Re= 33000 was simulated using the 2D Version of the code. The flow pattern was compared to measurements using holographic particle induced velocimetry (HPIV) in a wind tunnel.


The aim of this thesis is to investigate Generalised Empirical Likelihood (GEL) and related informational theoretical methods for estimation and inference of parameters of models that satisfy unconditional and conditional moment restrictions. Three topics in this field are studied. Firstly, the first order asymptotic theory of the GEL class of estimators for the parameters of non-smooth moment restrictions is analysed and test statistics in this framework are introduced. It is shown that, in random samples, all the estimators in the GEL class have the same asymptotic distribution of the Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) estimator in this set-up under the same assumptions. The test statistics proposed are particularly useful to perform inference in quantile regression models as they to not require the estimation of the asymptotic covariance matrix of the estimator. Secondly, definitions of exogeneity in models defined by conditional moment restrictions are introduced and test statistics for this hypothesis are proposed based on the GMM and GEL estimators. These tests are based on the equivalence between a finite number of conditional moment restrictions and a countably infinite number of unconditional restrictions. These definitions are important when the researcher is interested in estimating the parameters of functions that satisfy conditional moment restrictions as in the case of mean regression. Lastly, encompassing tests are introduced to compare a model defined by conditional moment restrictions with a parametric model. Researchers usually use parametric models as they are easier to apply, even though the assumptions of the semiparametric model may be more reasonable. Test statistics that check if models defined by conditional moment restrictions can be explained by parametric models are introduced. Tests statistics that examine if the former explain the latter are also proposed. A by-product of this analysis is the formal derivation of the asymptotic distribution of the conditional empirical likelihood estimator under misspecification.


Myelolipoma is a benign tumor containing mature adipose cells and a combination of myeloid and erythroid elements. This tumor is typically found in the adrenal glands; however, it has been detected outside the adrenal glands in rare cases. We report an extremely rare case of myelolipoma in the lumbar spine causing significant neural compression due to the involvement of the posterior spinal elements. Given the significant neurological deficit, the patient was surgically managed as soon as possible. Extra-adrenal myelolipomas are rare lesions, and only one case has been reported in the spine so far. However, this diagnosis should be considered in cases with its characteristic imaging features.


The enlargement of the EU from 15 to 25 states, on 1 May 2004, has been a spectacular success, pointing to the enormous transformative power of the prospect of European integration. Now that the Central and East European Countries (CEECs) have been accepted as new member states, only seven South East European countries remain outside the Union. In this process of ongoing unification the Western Balkans represent 'a major piece of unfinished business'.


Twenty-five patients with high-risk resected stages IIB, III, and IV melanoma were immunized with a vaccine consisting of the minimal epitope, immunodominant 9-amino acid peptide derived from the MART-1 tumor antigen (AAGIGILTV) complexed with incomplete Freund's adjuvant. The last three patients received the MART-1(27-35) peptide with incomplete Freund's adjuvant mixed with CRL 1005, a block copolymer adjuvant. Patients were immunized with increasing doses of the MART-1(27-35) peptide in a Phase I trial to evaluate the toxicity, tolerability, and immune responses to the vaccine. Immunizations were administered every 3 weeks for a total of four injections, preceded by leukapheresis to obtain peripheral blood mononuclear cells for immune analyses, followed by a post-vaccine leukapheresis 3 weeks after the fourth vaccination. Skin testing with peptide and standard delayed-type hypersensitivity skin test reagents was also performed before and after vaccinations. Local pain and granuloma formation were observed in the majority of patients, as were fevers or lethargy of grade 1 or 2. No vaccine-related grade III/IV toxicity was observed. The vaccine was felt to be well tolerated. Twelve of 25 patients were anergic to skin testing at the initiation of the trial, and 13 of 25 developed a positive skin test response to the MART-1(27-35) peptide. Immune responses were measured by release of IFN-gamma in an ELISA assay by effector cells after multiple restimulations of peripheral blood mononuclear cells in the presence of MART-1(27-35) peptide-pulsed antigen-presenting cells. An ELISPOT assay was also developed to measure more quantitatively the change in numbers of peptide-specific effector cells after vaccination. Ten of 22 patients demonstrated an immune response to peptide-pulsed targets or tumor cells by ELISA assay after vaccination, as did 12 of 20 patients by ELISPOT. Nine of 25 patients have relapsed with a median of 16 months of follow-up, and 3 patients in this high-risk group have died. Immune response by ELISA correlated with prolonged relapse-free survival. These data suggest a significant proportion of patients with resected melanoma mount an antigen-specific immune response against a peptide vaccine and support further development of peptide vaccines for melanoma.


Electric vehicle (EV) has been applied as the main transportation tool recently. However, EVs still require a long charging time and, thus, inevitably cause charging congestion. The traditional plug-in charging mode is limited by fixed location and peak hours. Therefore, a flexible vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) charging mode is considered in this article. Here, parking lots (PLs) widely dispersed in cities are reused as a common place for V2V charging. EVs are divided into EVs as energy consumers and EVs as energy providers to form as vehicle-to-vehicle charging pairs (V2V-Pairs). In this article, we propose a V2V charging management scheme, which includes a distance-based V2V-Pair matching algorithm and a PL-selection scheme. As the occupation status at PLs is difficult to predict, to achieve high PL utilization and evenly PL selection, V2V charging reservation is introduced. Meanwhile, since EV drivers usually park at PLs within a limited duration, our proposed V2V charging scheme introduces the parking duration to optimize V2V charging under a temporal constraint. We simulate this V2V charging scheme under the Helsinki city scenario. The results prove that our proposed V2V charging scheme achieves great charging efficiency (minimized charging waiting time and maximized fully charging times).


Abstract The object of this study is to investigate the effect of different operation conditions on the catalytic oxidation of trace organic compounds [i.e., benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (BTEX); and polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)] in incineration flue gas. A commercial Pd-based honeycomb catalyst, which is applied to treat flue gas with low organic concentrations and high gas velocity, is employed in this study. The investigated parameters include (1) effect of different space velocities, (2) effect of heavy metals, (3) effect of acid gas, and (4) effect of water vapor and ash particles. In this work, an effective catalyst oxidation system is constructed and expected to purify the incineration flue gas. Catalyst oxidation is a potential purification system that will meet the stricter regulations on the emissions of incineration systems. Experimental results showed that the destruction efficiency of PAHs and BTEX in Pd catalyst was generally greater than 80%. Decreasing the space velocity increased the decomposition efficiency of organic compounds. When the feedstock contained the heavy metals Pb and Cr, the oxidation of organic compounds was not inhibited. But the presence of Cd significantly decreased the oxidation efficiency. The acid gases SO2 and HCl in the flue gas could have influenced the crystal structure of PdO and subsequently deactivated/poisoned the Pd catalyst. The effect of water vapor on the catalytic destruction of PAHs and BTEX was not obvious.


his paper studies under what conditions congestion control schemes can be both efficient, so that capacity is not wasted, and incentive compatible, so that each participant can maximize its utility by following the prescribed protocol. We show that both conditions can be achieved if routers run strict priority queueing (SPQ) or weighted fair queueing (WFQ) and end-hosts run any of a family of protocols which we call Probing Increase Educated Decrease (PIED). A natural question is whether incentive compatibility and efficiency are possible while avoiding the per-flow processing of WFQ. We partially address that question in the negative by showing that any policy satisfying a certain "locality" condition cannot guarantee both properties.
 Our results also have implication for convergence to some steady-state throughput for the flows. Even when senders transmit at a fixed rate (as in a UDP flow which does not react to congestion), feedback effects among the routers can result in complex dynamics which do not appear in the simple topologies studied in past work.


Immunoreactive cationic pancreatic elastase (irPE) in serum and peritoneal exudate from 8 patients with severe acute pancreatitis was found mainly in complex with alpha-1-proteinase-inhibitor (alpha 1PI). Only minor amounts of irPE were found in a molecular form corresponding to the free proenzyme. The presence of alpha-2-macroglobulin (alpha 2M)-bound, elastase-like activity in the exudates indicates that active elastase was bound to this inhibitor. The results indicate that pancreatic cationic elastase is released to some extent as active enzyme in acute pancreatitis. However, no free elastolytic activity was present in the exudates.


Summary
In 2004, The UK government advice stated that consumers should increase fish consumption to two portions a week, one of which should be oil-rich fish. However, survey data show that this advice has not been acted upon by most members of the public. In addition, limited data on consumer attitudes highlight barriers to increased fish consumption, such as concerns about buying and cooking fish, perceptions that fish is expensive, and worries that fish meals may not be eaten by all family members. The 'two-a-week' message is underpinned by strong scientific evidence for heart health, while weaker emerging evidence associates certain nutrients found in fish with a lower risk of immune dysfunction, normal brain development in infants, insulin sensitivity and maintenance of cognitive function in later life. Clearly, further refinement of the two-a-week message is needed to ensure that greater numbers of people respond. Ideas include determining appropriate portion sizes for babies and children, increasing awareness of the broad range of fish and shellfish species, highlighting sustainable sources of fish, and reassuring consumers that frozen and prepared fish products count towards the two-a-week target. Further work is also needed to address barriers to consumption, particularly among teenagers and younger adults, who have the lowest intakes.


Recent developments in reinforcement learning for non-Markovian problems witness a surge in history-based methods, among which we are particularly interested in two frameworks, ΦMDP and MC-AIXI-CTW. ΦMDP attempts to reduce the general RL problem, where the environment's states and dynamics are both unknown, to an MDP, while MCAIXI-CTW incrementally learns a mixture of context trees as its environment model. The main idea of ΦMDP is to connect generic reinforcement learning with classical reinforcement learning. The first implementation of ΦMDP relies on a stochastic search procedure for finding a tree that minimizes a certain cost function. This does not guarantee finding the minimizing tree, or even a good one, given limited search time. As a consequence it appears that the approach has difficulties with large domains. MC-AIXI-CTW is attractive in that it can incrementally and analytically compute the internal model through interactions with the environment. Unfortunately, it is computationally demanding due to requiring heavy planning simulations at every single time step. We devise a novel approach called CTMRL, which analytically and efficiently finds the cost-minimizing tree. Instead of the context-tree weighting method that MC-AIXI-CTW is based on, we use the closely related context-tree maximizing algorithm that selects just one single tree. This approach falls under the ΦMDP framework, which allows the replacement of the costly planning component of MC-AIXI-CTW with simple Q-Learning. Our empirical investigation shows that CTMRL finds policies of quality as good as MC-AIXI-CTW's on six domains including a challenging Pacman domain, but in an order of magnitude less time.


Abstract. Induction sensors are used in a wide range of scientific and industrial applications. One way to improve these is rigorous modelling of the sensor combined with a low voltage and current input noise preamplifier aiming to optimize the whole induction magnetometer. In this paper, we explore another way, which consists in the use of original ferromagnetic core shapes of induction sensors, which bring substantial improvements. These new configurations are the cubic, orthogonal and coiled-core induction sensors. For each of them we give modelling elements and discuss their benefits and drawbacks with respect to a given noise-equivalent magnetic induction goal. Our discussion is supported by experimental results for the cubic and orthogonal configurations, while the coiled-core configuration remains open to experimental validation. The transposition of these induction sensor configurations to other magnetic sensors (fluxgate and giant magneto-impedance) is an exciting prospect of this work.


High-resolution crystal structure of Streptococcus pyogenes b-NAD + glycohydrolase in complex with its endogenous inhibitor IFS reveals a highly water-rich interface One of the virulence factors produced by Streptococcus pyogenes is-NAD + glycohydrolase (SPN). S. pyogenes injects SPN into the cytosol of an infected host cell using the cytolysin-mediated translocation pathway. As SPN is toxic to bacterial cells themselves, S. pyogenes possesses the ifs gene that encodes an endogenous inhibitor for SPN (IFS). IFS is localized intracellularly and forms a complex with SPN. This intracellular complex must be dissociated during export through the cell envelope. To provide a structural basis for understanding the interactions between SPN and IFS, the complex was overexpressed between the mature SPN (residues 38–451) and the full-length IFS (residues 1–161), but it could not be crystallized. Therefore, limited proteolysis was used to isolate a crystallizable SPN ct –IFS complex, which consists of the SPN C-terminal domain (SPN ct ; residues 193–451) and the full-length IFS. Its crystal structure has been determined by single anomalous diffraction and the model refined at 1.70 A ˚ resolution. Interestingly, our high-resolution structure of the complex reveals that the interface between SPN ct and IFS is highly rich in water molecules and many of the interactions are water-mediated. The wet interface may facilitate the dissociation of the complex for translocation across the cell envelope.


2-(1-Alkoxycarbonyl)alkylidenetetrahydrofurans were readily synthesized by the codimerization of 2,3- or 2,5-dihydrofurans with alpha,beta-unsaturated esters using a zerovalent Ru catalyst, Ru(cod)(cot), with high regio- and stereoselectivity.


A brief compilation of selected references on the category theory for IT researchers are visited. Using category theory in compliance matching in database structures is given to provide an example how the researcher can employ and benefit from the theory. This work can provide guidance to IT researchers who consider entering category theory field in order to seek further support for their research. Keywords : category theory, compliance matching, IT


The experimental evaluation of the fracture toughness of line pipe steels and girth welds is increasingly performed through single edge notched tensile—SE(T)—testing. The notch constraint in these specimens closely matches that in pipes. This paper focused on the measurement of the crack tip opening displacement (CTOD). The double clip gauge method and the GKSS d5 method were compared based on experimental tests on both welded and nonwelded specimens. A good correspondence between both techniques was observed. The d5 method tended to result in a slightly lower estimation of crack driving force, which was explained by the difference between both CTOD definitions. Both techniques were concluded to be equivalent for the evaluation of CTOD in SE(T) specimens.


This paper continue our previous work on combining dynamic time warping and Gaussian mixture modelling for automatic signature verification. MCyT signature database which contains data for 100 users, with 25 genuine and 25 forged signatures per users, has been used to test the proposed methods.


We designed, fabricated, and characterized broadband, efficient, all-dielectric metamaterial-waveguide bends (MWBs) that redirect light by 180 deg. The footprint of each MWB is 3  μm×3  μm and redirection is achieved for single-mode waveguides spaced by 1.3 μm, which corresponds to an effective bend radius of 0.65 μm (<λ₀/2 for λ₀=1.55  μm). The designed and measured transmission efficiencies are >80% and ∼70%, respectively. Furthermore, the MWBs have an operating bandwidth >66 nm (design) and >56  nm (experiments). Our design methodology that incorporates fabrication constraints enables highly robust devices. The methodology can be extended to the general routing of light in tight spaces for large-scale photonic integration.


Schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorders are often found in patients affected by DiGeorge/velo-cardio-facial syndrome (DGS/VCFS) as a result of hemizygosity of chromosome 22q11.2. We evaluated the UFD1L, gene mapped within the DGS/VCFS region, as a potential candidate for schizophrenia susceptibility. UFD1L encodes the Ubiquitin Fusion Degradation 1 Protein, which is expressed in the medical telencephalon during mouse development. UFD1L mRNA and protein were investigated by RT-PCR and Western blot analysis. The UFD1L promoter-277A/G polymorphism was determined using a polymerase chain reaction-based method in DNA samples from 61 patients with DSM-IV schizophrenia and 67 healthy control subjects. Results were confirmed in 22 nuclear families using a TDT analysis. We demonstrated the presence of UFD1L mRNA and protein in different areas of the human brain, and found a positive association between a novel intragenic SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) and schizophrenia. We demonstrated that the -277A variant of this SNP is associated with schizophrenia susceptibility. In addition, we also provided evidence that this allele variant causes a 55% increase in the transcriptional activity of UFD1L gene. This result suggests the involvement of the UFD1L gene in susceptibility to schizophrenia. This research was supported by a grant from the Italian Ministry of Health and grants E723 and 264/bi from Telethon Foundation.


The efficacy of tympanometry in the diagnosis of ossicular abnormalities and the differentiation of such from eardrum scarring is controversial. This paper presents a study of the tympanometric effects of specific eardrum scars and ossicular abnormalities in cats. For both normal eardrums and healed myringotomies, a normal middle ear could be differentiated from stapes fixation or incudostapedial discontinuity using static immittance parameters and tympanogram morphology. Twenty percent myringectomy scars caused abnormal 660 Hz tympanograms but this effect could be distinguished from changes caused by a concomitant ossicular abnormality. The very low impedance of a 50% myringectomy scar resulted in tympanograms which could not be differentiated from an ossicular discontinuity alone. With this neomembrane, stapes fixation could not even be differentiated from an ossicular discontinuity. This study supports the view that tympanometry should be interpreted as part of a battery of tests which includes otoscopy, audiometry, and acoustic reflex measurements.


To the Editor.— We recently reported a multivariate analysis of the risk factors associated with a poor immunogenic response to the hepatitis B plasma vaccine among 194 employees of a community hospital. 1 The vaccine had been stored and administered according to manufacturer's recommendations. Employees received all three doses of the vaccine in the buttock with a 2.5-cm, 23-gauge needle. Overall, only 56% (108/194) of the employees developed antibody to hepatitis B surface antigen (anti-HBs) as measured by the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (Abbott). A high body weight-height index (a measure of obesity) was found to be predictive of a lack of antibody response. To date, 41 of the 86 employees who initially failed to develop anti-HBs have received two additional doses of the vaccine in the deltoid using a 2.5-cm, 23-gauge needle. The initial repeated immunization was conducted 425 ± 15 days after the completion of the primary series, and


A study of first year science students in a large Canadian commuter university shows that integration/involvement variables are important in explaining a number of desired outcomes. Most evident is the fact that students who were satisfied with the quality of instruction, and students who felt that topics cov- ered in classes were important to future career success, were more likely than others to score high on a number of desired outcomes. By way of comparison, variables falling in the social integration/involvement category, by and large, were not important in explaining desired outcomes. For example, in contrast to previous findings on factors affecting student development, the number of out- of-class contacts with faculty had no impact on any of the outcomes under con- sideration Overall, the findings, and possible avenues of improvement that they sug- gest, reflect the fact that in a large commuter university classroom contact rep- resents the main link between the institution and the individual. As a result, it is likely that improvements in curriculum and teaching would have large payoffs for both students and the institution. The university under study is a commuter university in a large city with large first year science classes. Where similar conditions can be found in other Canadian universities, it is likely that various outcomes can be explained by ref- erence to similar factors. By extension, it is equally probable that changes likely to enhance outcomes would also lead to improvements elsewhere.


In essential hypertension, the defect in renal dopamine (DA) D(1) receptor function is intrinsic to proximal tubules as this phenomenon is also seen in primary proximal tubule cultures from spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and essential hypertensive patients. Previously, a defect was reported in renal D(1) receptor function in obese Zucker rats. In the present study, we sought to determine whether this D(1) receptor dysfunction is intrinsic in these animals. In primary proximal tubular epithelial cells (PTECs) from lean and obese rats, DA inhibited Na-K-ATPase (NKA) activity in PTECs from both groups of rats. Basal NKA activity, D(1) receptor protein expression, and their coupling to G proteins were similar in cells from both groups. However, when PTECs from lean and obese rats were cultured in 20% serum from obese rats, DA failed to inhibit NKA activity, which was accompanied by a reduction in D(1) receptor expression and a defect in D(1) receptor-G protein coupling. No such defects in the inhibitory effect of DA on NKA activity, D(1) receptor numbers, or coupling were seen when PTECs from both lean and obese rats were grown in 20% serum from lean or rosiglitazone-treated obese (RTO) rats. RTO rat serum had normal blood glucose and reduced plasma levels of insulin compared with serum from obese rats. Furthermore, chronic insulin treatment of PTECs from lean and obese rats caused an attenuation in DA-induced NKA inhibition, a decrease in D(1) receptor expression, and D(1) receptor-G protein uncoupling. These results suggest that defective D(1) receptor function in obese Zucker rats is not inherited but contributed to by hyperinsulinemia and/or other circulating factors associated with obesity.


1. A group of eight patients with mild hypertension, sensitive to sodium intake, were studied. 2. Sodium chloride (70 mmol daily) caused their blood pressure to rise by 19/14 mmHg. 3. Sodium bicarbonate (70 mmol daily) caused their blood pressure to rise by 12/5 mmHg. 4. Sodium chloride given together with potassium chloride (70 mmol of each daily) caused their blood pressure to rise by 9.6 mmHg. 5. These results suggest that sodium bicarbonate causes a smaller rise in blood pressure than sodium chloride does and that potassium chloride reduces the blood pressure raising effect of sodium chloride. 6. A low sodium, high potassium and an alkaline diet may therefore be a more effective dietary method to reduce blood pressure than a diet low in sodium alone.


Monitoring the stress of teachers continues to be important – particularly stress levels of beginning agriculture teachers. The study sought to describe the relationship between beginning teachers' perceived ability to manage their time and their level of stress. The Time Management Practices Inventory and the Job Stress Survey were used to measure and collect the data. The study was comprised of 36 beginning secondary agriculture teachers in Missouri. A highlight of the findings suggests that beginning teachers tend to perceive themselves as good managers of time when compared to norm data. Additionally, on average, these teachers are not in a state of stress. Low to negligible relationships exist between the seven time management practices and teachers' scores on the job stress, job pressure, and lack of support indices.


We investigated the usefulness of decompression surgery in the treatment of the facial nerve in 23 patients with severe complete facial paralysis regardless of etiology. All patients were followed up for at least one year after onset. Nine patients underwent decompression surgery within a month of onset (Group A), 10 underwent surgery at a later time (Group B), and 4 did not receive surgery (Group C). In Group A, 2 patients showed satisfactory recovery and 2 fair recovery. In Group B, 4 patients showed satisfactory outcome, and one patient who underwent surgery 131 days after onset showed fair outcome. No patient in Group C showed satisfactory or fair recovery. There were no significant differences among the three groups in the percentage showing sequelae after treatment. We conclude that decompression surgery is indicated even for patients with severe facial paralysis who have a history of palsy of 2 months' or more duration.


Rat parotid, submaxillary and sublingual salivas, collected directly from the respective gland ducts following a single stimulatory dose of pilocarpine, show widely divergent Na and K concentrations at high flow rates. Parotid secretion shows high Na and low K levels; submaxillary, low Na and high K; sublingual has intermediate levels of both electrolytes. Changes in flow rate and duration of secretion modify Na-K balance. With decreasing flow rate and increasing duration of flow, Na level of parotid secretion decreases, whereas Na of submaxillary increases before decreasing. Concurrently, K in these secretions first shows a transient elevation followed by a decrease and subsequent increase. Parotid saliva is usually isotonic or slightly hypertonic to serum at high flow rates; submaxillary and sublingual secretions are generally hypotonic at all flow rates. Some correlation between electrolyte levels of gland and secretion seems apparent.


Visual reinforcement audiometry (VRA) was studied on a group of low-functioning children in an ongoing clinical program. After establishing the specific reinforcing value of the visual stimulus, threshold assessments were made. VRA was an effective test procedure for most of the children tested, providing their developmental ages reached approximately the 10-month level or higher. On the basis of VRA thresholds and tympanometry, 52% of the children seen were referred for medical evaluation. A variation of VRA was used to assess syllable-discrimination performance on a pilot basis. Results are discussed in terms of the potential use of VRA to assess infant spedch-sound discrimination in addition to its current use as an indicator of hearing sensitivity.


Aim: Our aim is to compare the socio-demographic characteristics of mothers with mentally disabled children with those without, and to evaluate anxiety levels and ability of these mothers to cope with stress. Materials and Method: Our study is designed as a cross-sectional descriptive study. We included the mothers of 110 children with mental disabilities as the study group, and mothers of 117 children in a primary school without any mental disabilities as the control group. Sociodemographic data of all the mothers participating in the study were recorded and Beck Anxiety Inventory and The Ways of Coping Scale were applied. Results: The mean age of the study group was 31.2±3.45 years in the study group and 28.62±2.25 years in the control group; there was no statistical difference between the groups (p=0.215). Monthly household income was statistically significantly lower in the study group (p=0.005). The average Beck Anxiety Inventory score of the mothers with mentally disabled children was 29.88±12.68, and that of the control group was 28.76±16.86; there was no statistically significant difference between the groups (p=0.578). The average Ways of Coping Scale score of the mothers of mentally disabled children was 70.83±13.49 and average score of the control group was 73.64±16.20; there was no statistically significant difference (p=0.158). However, the average scores of mothers with mentally handicapped children of the three subscales of Ways of Coping Scale, including Submissive Approach, Seeking for Social Support and Optimistic Approach, were significantly higher than the control group (p: 0.001, 0.001, 0.005, respectively). Conclusion: We suggest that mothers of mentally disables children should be followed up closely and supplied with psychosocial support, and rehabilitation services; even, measures to improve their economic situation should be taken.


In this paper, we derive tracking control laws for nonminimum phase nonlinear systems with both fast and slow, possibly unstable, zero dynamics. The fast zero dynamics arise from a perturbation of a nominal system. These fast zeros can be problematic in that they may be in the right half plane and may cause large magnitude tracking control inputs. In this paper, we combine the ideas from some recent work of Hunt, Meyer, and Su with that of Devasia, Paden, and Chen on an asymptotic tracking procedure for nonminimum phase nonlinear systems. We give (somewhat subtle) conditions under which the tracking control input is bounded as the magnitude of the perturbation of the nominal system becomes zero. Explicit bounds on the control inputs are calculated for both SISO and MIMO systems using some interesting non-standard singular perturbation techniques. The method is applied to a suite of examples, including the simplified planar dynamics of VTOL and CTOL aircraft.


1. The addition of 50 000g cytosol preparations of isolated human platelets, cultured rat osteogenic sarcoma or cultured bone cells to particulate preparations of adenylate cyclase, from the same or unrelated tissues, caused marked enhancement of the hormone-stimulated enzyme activities. 2. The degree of enhancement obtained by addition of the cytosol preparations was similar to that observed on addition of GTP. 3. The enhancing activity of the three cytosol types was found to be sensitive to digestion by trypsin and alkaline phosphatase, partially heat-labile and partially inactivated by exposure to charcoal. 4. Gel filtration studies indicated an apparent molecular weight of 20 000--30 000. Further, the 20000-30000-mol.wt. fractions obtained by gel filtration could enhance the adenylate cyclase activity of particulate preparations derived from unrelated cell types. 5. The results suggest a common or similar adenylate-cyclase-enhancing factor or factors, protein in nature, present in the three cytosol types.


Approximate message authentication codes (AMACs) for binary alphabets have been introduced recently as noise-tolerant authenticators. Different from conventional "hard" message authentications that are designed to detect even the slightest changes in messages, AMACs are designed to tolerate a small amount of noise in messages for applications where slight noise is acceptable, such as in multimedia communications. Binary AMACs, however, have several limitations. First, they do not naturally deal with messages having$N$-ary alphabets$(N≫2)$. AMACs are distance-preserving codes; i.e., the distance between two authentication tags reflects the distance between two messages. Binary representation of$N$-ary alphabets, however, may destroy the original distance information between$N$-ary messages. Second, binary AMACs lack a means to adjust authentication sensitivity. Different applications may require different sensitivities against noise. AMACs for$N$-ary alphabets are designed as a cryptographic primitive to overcome the limitations of binary AMACs.$N$-ary AMACs not only directly process messages having$N$-ary alphabets but also provide sensitivity control on the authentication of binary and of$N$-ary messages. The generalized$N$-ary AMAC algorithm and its probabilistic model are developed. A statistical analysis characterizing the behavior of$N$-ary AMACs is provided along with the simulations illustrating their properties. Security analysis under chosen message attack is also developed.


would have been much more helpful to use graphical methods to display the data sets, perhaps along the lines of the elegant Trellis/Lattice graphics implemented by the nlme package in R and S, and described by Pinheiro and Bates (2004). Much material is devoted to explaining basic statistical inference topics like ML estimation, basic distributions, confidence intervals, and the like. Anyone contemplating working with mixed modeling should already have a good understanding of these concepts. There is no need to clutter an otherwise wonderful book with this material, especially when the zeal for simplicity stretches technical accuracy, as with the confidence intervals (Chap. 4), where the general approach given is β̂ ± SE β̂ , where β̂ is the point estimate and SE β̂ is its standard error. The author does not use a multiple (e.g., 2) of the standard error, so the confidence intervals have approximately 68% coverage, not the usual 95% coverage. There is no discussion of this fundamental issue, even though (unnecessary) detail is given on the background of interval estimation. Overall, this book would be useful for anyone who uses GenStat and/or R desiring an introduction to applied mixed modeling, and they should certainly have a look. But it should not be the sole resource.


We demonstrate the effect of rapid thermal annealing on heavily Si-doped AlN/GaN quantum wells. After 1000 °C annealing during 5, 10, and 20 min, the dominant effect was interdiffusion of Si rather than intermixing between the Al and Ga atoms. Both their original value and the magnitude of the changes after annealing reveal that intersubband absorption and photovoltage are related to two different optical transitions as follows: absorption occurs in the 1 to 2 intersubband transition, whereas photovoltage is due to a subsequent process from the 1 to 2 and the manifold of 2 to higher order transitions.


The history of the breach of treaties can be traced back to the ancient Near East. The relative abundance and diversity of contemporary sources attest that the breaking of treaty obligations must have been a rather persistent problem, and that such occurrences were regarded as events of utmost importance throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages. The present study strives to demonstrate how peoples of old may have perceived and reacted to the breach of treaties on the basis of selected writings—the Legend of Etana, the Indictment of Madduwatta, the Indictment of Mita, the plague prayers of Mursili and the Old Testament—that provide, beyond the exposition of actual or alleged facts, a deeper insight into the psychological and procedural aspects of the subject.


Carbon fiber/phenolic resin composites have long been used as ablative materials in rocketry. Ablation is a complex multiscale problem where radiative and convective heating leads to the pyrolysis of phenolic resin matrix, resulting in the formation of a porous insulation char as thermal protection. This study investigates the shear properties evolution during the heat treatment of a carbon fiber/phenolic resin nozzle extension entrance (exit cone) which is part of an integrated nozzle of launching and sounding vehicles, developed at the Instituto de Aeronautica e Espaco (SP), Brazil. Specimens of the material (carbon fiber/phenolic resin composite) were subjected to heat treatment at 500, 1,000, 1,500 and 2,000°C, and measurements of shear strength and shear modulus were performed using the Iosipescu mode. Experimental data were compared with the results obtained theoretically. Also, morphological analysis was accomplished by optical microscopy and the observation of fractured surfaces, by scanning electron microscopy. Significant morphological changes in the microstructure after heat treatments were observed. The lowest value for shear strength obtained experimentally was 4.05 MPa, which is greater than the ultimate value obtained analytically (2.35 MPa), fulfilling its structural function during the propulsion time.


We have all had glimpses from the far shore, where with openness we experience and are fully in touch with ourselves. From the far shore we see with honesty, clarity and true acceptance. 'The Far Shore' offers reflections on this experience and is addressed to all who are drawn to the path of awareness and compassion.


Abstract Terminology, that helps to organise research issues, is a significant component of each scientific discipline. In socio-economic geography, such expressions include concepts of a region, a city, or a social space. They are not disjunctive ideas – for example, we find a concept of an urban region where a social space can refer to a city, or a region, and at the same time regional, urban and social research can investigate these same areas. Concepts may also illustrate a specific model of an explanation in science, a particular stage of methodological development of the discipline, or a vision of the world. Bearing in mind the complexity of methodological issues, which is only briefly mentioned here, as well as a multiplicity of definitions of terminological concepts (region, city, social space), the author's intention was to compare the premises of occurrence of the concepts and their consequences for the development of socio-economic geography. The increases in complexity of socio-economic changes as an effect of the overlapping processes of social modernization, restructuring of economic space, and suburbanization were itemised. The main research tool in this case is the deductive reasoning procedure leading to the generalization of the output of regional and urban research, as well as existing analyses of social space. The rationale for investigating the problem arose from the significance of the above-mentioned research, both the ones carried out during the previous stages of development of socio-economic geography as well as contemporary research trends. The crucial aspect here is the increase in complexity of these processes, and the spatial and functional structures leading to the transition from simple post-modernity to a risk society. Therefore, application of regional, urban and social research is also important, especially in the context of the process of depopulation, and "shrinkage" of cities and regions. It affects the possibilities of creating urban or regional policy. The rationale for investigating the problem also results from periodic necessity to synthesize the research on basic terminological issues, especially in the periods when changes of socio-economic and spatial conditions occur, and affect transformation of the existing set of the basic concepts.


Abstract In the HT-7 tokamak, heat transport analysis is carried out for the lower hybrid current drive (LHCD) experiments. Electrons and ions are coupled and good confinement can be obtained by properly optimizating LHCD and plasma parameters. Under the conditions that the plasma current is about 220 kA, the lower hybrid wave (LHW) power is about 300 kW and the central line-averaged density is about 1.5×1013 cm−3, lower hybrid wave power deposition is off-axis. Local transport analysis illustrated that both electron and ion thermal diffusivities are decreased during the LHW phase, and the electron internal transport barriers (eITBs) are formed while been accompanied by the ion internal transport barriers (iITBs) during LHW phase. Ions are heated by electron-ion collision in the region of the barriers although the ohmic power and the LHW power were absorbed by the electrons. Both electron temperature and ion temperature are increased during the LHW phase, and in the confinement region, the electron-to-ion temperature ratio, Te/Ti varies from 2.0 ~ 2.5 during OH phase to 1.3 ~ 1.6 during LHW injected into the plasma, which shows that electron confinement is not degraded by the electron–ion collisions meanwhile ions are also confined. The energy confinement is increased from 13 ms to 25 ms due to the formation of electron and ion internal transport barries after the LHW is injected into the plasma. LHW driven current and bootstrap current contribute to 60% of the total current.


We investigate theoretically the low-energy physics of semiconductor Majorana wires in the vicinity of a magnetic field-driven topological quantum phase transition (TQPT). The local density of states at the end of the wire, which is directly related to the differential conductance in the limit of point-contact tunneling, is calculated numerically. We find that the dependence of the end-of-wire local density of states on the magnetic field is nonuniversal and that the signatures associated with the closing of the superconducting gap at the Majorana TQPT are essentially invisible within a significant range of experimentally relevant parameters. Our results provide a possible explanation for the recent observation of the apparent nonclosure of the gap at the Majorana TQPT in semiconductor nanowires.


Non-thermal electron cyclotron emission (ECE) spectra are measured by comparison of low-field side and high-field side observed ECE. The asymmetry in the respective spectra can be ascribed to the existence of non-thermal populations. Optical-depth effects are directly determined from electron cyclotron absorption measurements. Measurements are compared with theoretical ECE spectra, obtained on the basis of calculations with a quasi-linear bounce-averaged Fokker-Planck simulation code, including a simple model for radial diffusion. This yields information on the non-thermal population responsible for the measured non-thermal spectra. The good agreement between experiment and simulation corroborates the quasi-linear bounce-averaged Fokker-Planck model.


Whilst security threats to the general public continue to evolve, elderly computer users with limited skill and knowledge are left playing catch-up in an ever-widening gap in fundamental cyber-related comprehension. As a definable cohort, the elderly generally lack awareness of current security threats, and remain under-educated in terms of applying appropriate controls and safeguards to their computers and networking devices. This paper identifies that web-based computer security information sources do not adequately provide helpful information to senior citizen end-users in terms of both design and content. It subsequently demonstrates a solution designed with the elderly, yet novice, end-user in mind. This paper examines the need for practical computer-based instructions that have wide-ranging applications to a wide selection of under-informed internet consumers. As computer usage rapidly spreads towards total ubiquity across all generations and social levels, the need for web-based education resources to protect generationally differing internet users is urgently required.


Background Hepatitis B vaccination is the most important tool available for preventing hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and reducing the prevalence of infection. However, epidemiological studies have demonstrated that morethan 5% of patients exhibit a non- or hypo-response to the HBV vaccine. Genetic variations associated with T cell immunity contribute to the immune response to HBV vaccination. The deltex 1 (DTX1) gene is involved in T cell anergy, which may also be associated with the immune response to the HBV vaccination. Methods We detected 10 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in or around the DTX1 gene in 601 infants out of a population from Southwest China, including 299 high responders(HRs; HBsAb > 100 mIU/mL) and 302 non-responders (NRs; HBsAb < 10 mIU/mL). An additional validation study was performed, comprising 230 adult patients(135 HRs and 95 NRs) from Southwest China. Results This study found that the minor allele 'G' of rs2384077 (adjusted p = 2.63E-04,) and the minor allele 'C' of rs10744794 (adjusted p = 3.69E-04) in the first intron of the DTX1 gene were remarkably associated with the immune response to HBV vaccination in both infant and adult populations. Moreover, a subsequent analysis indicated that haplotypes (A-T, G-C) of the two SNPs were significantly associated with the immune response to HBV vaccination. Conclusions Two SNPs (rs2384077 and rs10744794) in an intron of DTX1 and the linkage disequilibrium (LD) block are significantly associated with the immune response to HBV vaccination. The functional element annotation of the LD block between the two SNPs contains four transcriptional regulatory elements. The results suggest that these two SNPs may be involved in the immune response to HBV vaccination.


Regulatory T cells (Tregs) are essential in maintaining peripheral immunological tolerance by modulating several subsets of the immune system including monocytes. Under inflammatory conditions, monocytes migrate into the tissues, where they differentiate into dendritic cells or tissue-resident macrophages. As a result of their context-dependent plasticity, monocytes have been implicated in the development/progression of graft-vs-host disease (GvHD), autoimmune diseases and allograft rejection. In the last decade, Tregs have been exploited for their use in cell therapy with the aim to induce tolerance after solid organ transplantation and for the treatment of autoimmune diseases and GvHD. To date, safety and feasibility of Treg infusion has been demonstrated; however, many questions of how these cells induce tolerance have been raised and need to be answered. As monocytes constitute the major cellular component in inflamed tissues, we have developed an in vitro model to test how Tregs modulate their phenotype and function. We demonstrated that expanded Tregs can drive monocytes toward an alternatively activated state more efficiently than freshly isolated Tregs. The effect of expanded Tregs on monocytes led to a reduced production of pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6 and tumor necrosis factor-α) and NF-κB activation. Furthermore, monocytes co-cultured with expanded Tregs downregulated the expression of co-stimulatory and MHC-class II molecules with a concomitant upregulation of M2 macrophage specific markers, CD206, heme oxygenase-1, and increased interleukin-10 production. Importantly, monocytes co-cultured with expanded Tregs showed a reduced capacity to expand IL-17-producing T cells compared with monocyte cultured with freshly isolated Tregs and conventional T cells. The capacity to decrease the expansion of pro-inflammatory Th-17 was not cytokine mediated but the consequence of their lower expression of the co-stimulatory molecule CD86. Our data suggest that expanded Tregs have the capacity to induce phenotypical and functional changes in monocytes that might be crucial for tolerance induction in transplantation and the prevention/treatment of GvHD and autoimmune diseases.


The use of temporal logics has long been recognised as a fundamental approach to the formal specification and verification of reactive systems. In this paper, we take on the problem of automatically verifying a temporal property, given by a CTL formula, for a given (possibly infinite-state) program. We propose a method based on encoding the problem as a set of Horn constraints. The method takes a program, modeled as a transition system, and a property given by a CTL formula as input. It first generates a set of forall-exists quantified Horn constraints and well-foundedness constraints by exploiting the syntactic structure of the CTL formula. Then, the generated set of constraints are solved by applying an off-the-shelf Horn constraints solving engine. The program is said to satisfy the property if and only if the generated set of constraints has a solution. We demonstrate the practical promises of the method by applying it on a set of challenging examples. Although our method is based on a generic Horn constraint solving engine, it is able to outperform state-of-art methods specialised for CTL verification.


We present RustSmith, the first Rust randomised program generator for end-to-end testing of Rust compilers. RustSmith generates programs that conform to the advanced type system of Rust, respecting rules related to borrowing and lifetimes, and that are guaranteed to yield a well-defined result. This makes RustSmith suitable for differential testing between compilers or across optimisation levels. By applying RustSmith to a series of versions of the official Rust compiler, rustc, we show that it can detect insidious historical bugs that evaded detection for some time. We have also used RustSmith to find previously-unknown bugs in an alternative Rust compiler implementation, mrustc. In a controlled experiment, we assess statement and mutation coverage achieved by RustSmith vs. the rustc optimisation test suite.


A shift of pH of pepsin solutions from 4.6 to 1.0 gives rise to spectral displacements in the ultraviolet. If represented as difference spectra three peaks with maxima at 2770, 2850, and 2930 Ångströms are present which can be attributed to the tyrosine and tryptophan residues in the protein. On mild autolysis of pepsin at pH 2.0 the absorbancy in the ultraviolet further decreases. Although some of these effects can be ascribed to the occurrence of hydrogen bonding between the aromatic residues and a carboxylate ion, those observed on autolysis are caused by charge effects of newly formed polar groups in the vicinity of a chromophore. No direct relation between the optical properties described here and enzymic activity of pepsin has been observed.


The channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter can significantly improve the performance of multiple-antenna systems. However, providing full knowledge of CSI at the transmitter may not be affordable in many practical cases. Thus, exploiting the partial channel knowledge to improve system performance seems to be attractive. An interpolation based limited feedback precoding scheme (ILFP) for MIMO-OFDM systems is proposed. In this scheme, both the transmitter and the receiver store the codebook of precoding matrices constructed offline using two-variable joint vector quantisation. Considering the correlation between OFDM subcarriers, they are divided into subcarrier clusters. At the receiver, precoding is carried out on the clusters, and then the precoding information is conveyed to the transmitter by limited bits of feedback. At the transmitter, the precoding matrices for each subcarrier are obtained by interpolation according to the feedback. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme outperforms the existing schemes.


OBJECTIVE
To obtain the spiroplasma resources and investigate the characteristics of the spiroplasmas on the surface of flowers in China.

METHODS
The spiroplasma morphology was examined by dark-field microscope and transmission electron microscopy. The biological characteristics of the spiroplasmas were investigated by using conventional culture-dependent method and phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene and ITS (16-23S rDNA intergenic space) sequence comparisons. Phylogenetic analysss was performed using the software package MEGA4.0 after multiple alignment of sequence data by CLUSTAL X.

RESULTS
Four spiroplasma isolates were obtained from three kinds of flower surface. Isolates CNR-1 and CNR-2 were from Brassica napus; CNA-land CRW-1 from Rhododendron simsii and Oxalis corymbosa respectively. All isolates grew well in R-2 liquid medium and exhibited contractive movements. The colonies of all isolates were circinal and grain-like in solid medium. Through electron microscopy, all isolates exhibited helicity during their growth phase. All isolates could pass through a 0.22 microm filtrate membrane and resist to penicillin (2000 U/mL). They must grow in medium with serum. Glucose could be used as their carbon source instead of sucrose. The ability to hydrolyze arginine varied from different spiroplasmas but urea could not be hydrolyzed. The phylogenetic relationships based on 16S rDNA supported CRW-1 was close to S. clarkii, and others were close to S. melliferum. The phylogenetic relationship based on ITS sequence supported CRW-1 formed a separate clade, and others were also close to Spiroplasma melliferum.

CONCLUSION
The result indicated that spiroplasma isolate CRW-1 might be a new species and other three isolates were S. melliferum, but this need further support of serological test.


The capacity of broadband wireless communication is severely limited by intersymbol interference (ISI) and co-channel interference (CCI). Although the maximum likelihood sequence estimator (MLSE) can be used to combat ISI efficiently when implemented with the Viterbi algorithm, CCI is still the bottleneck of the radio link performance. We herein propose an adaptive detection (AD) that can suppress the ISI and CCI simultaneously. By carefully choosing the length of a beamformer, our AD can actually be much simpler than the conventional MLSE. In the case of imperfect channel estimation, a robust AD (RAD) is proposed to maintain the good performance. We also show that both AD and RAD can be further improved by using an iterative scheme, referred to as iterative AD (IAD) and iterative RAD (IRAD), respectively. Numerical examples show that all the proposed methods outperform the conventional MLSE significantly in the presence of CCI, and that they are also computationally more efficient.


In this paper we describe a novel neural network technique for video compression, using a "point-process" type neural network model we have developed which is closer to biophysical reality and is mathematically much more tractable than standard models. Our algorithm uses an adaptive approach based upon the users' desired video quality Q, and achieves compression ratios of up to 500:1 for moving gray-scale images, based on a combination of motion detection, compression, and temporal subsampling of frames. This leads to a compression ratio of over 1000:1 for full-color video sequences with the addition of the standard 4:1:1 spatial subsampling ratios in the chrominance images. The signal-to-noise ratio ranges from 29 dB to over 34 dB. Compression is performed using a combination of motion detection, neural networks, and temporal subsampling of frames. A set of neural networks is used to adaptively select the desired compression of each picture block as a function of the reconstruction quality. The motion detection process separates out regions of the frame which need to be retransmitted. Temporal subsampling of frames, along with reconstruction techniques, lead to the high compression ratios.


Despite the National Institutes of Health (NIH) mandate to include women and diverse ethnic groups in all NIH-funded research projects, these groups are still excluded as participants in health intervention research. This exclusion has denied them access to state-of-the-art treatments and prevention strategies, making them vulnerable to increased morbidity and mortality and decreased longevity. This article compares two conceptual approaches to inclusion: cultural responsiveness and resource provision. Several issues are raised as to why women and ethnic people of color are not involved in health intervention research. For each of these issues, an appraisal is made as to whether cultural responsiveness or resource provision would more successfully address the problem. It is concluded that cultural responsiveness facilitates participation in research but is not sufficient. An equally important, if not more important, approach may be the provision of resources to empower participants to address problems of access and burden.


The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between maternal self-esteem and maternal attachment in mothers of hospitalized premature infants. The research instruments administered included: a demographic sheet, the Maternal Self-Report Inventory (MSRI), Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and Leifer's How I Feel About My Baby Now Scale. Thirty-two mothers whose premature infants were medically stable and hospitalized in the NICU were studied. Two hypotheses on the positive relationships between maternal self-esteem and maternal attachment, and global self-esteem and maternal attachment could not be tested by correlational analyses due to the inadequate internal consistency of the How I Feel About My Baby Now Scale. A significant correlation was found between maternal self-esteem and global self-esteem. Thus, maternal role influenced general self-concept in mothers. In addition, it was found that there were no significant correlations between the MSRI and demographic variables, such as: maternal age, marital status, income, and educational level. Another result indicated that increased global self-esteem was correlated (p < .05) with maternal age, income, and educational level. The results of this study provide clinical nurses to pay attention not only to caregiving skills but also to the mother's appraisal of herself as a mother and attachment behaviors.


The article considers the concept of responsible investment, the practice of applying ESG factors (ESG – Environmental, Social and Governance) in the process of making strategic decisions. The paper presents the trend of ESG investment market development at the international level. The author analyses the practice of applying responsible investment in Russia, in particular, the issuance of reports on the company's sustainable development, sustainable development indices "responsibility and openness" and "vector of sustainable development", ESG rating of Russian companies. The paper determines the requirements for the formation of a system of responsible investment in Russia, which will include relevant state departments, financial and credit organizations, corporations, rating agencies. The study proposes the requirements of responsible investment for investment and construction companies at various stages of the construction project implementation.


The periodical or permanent abstinence from sexual activity is a cultural and religious practice that can be found across historical and cultural contexts. Contemporary religious and non-religious discourses in the western context promote celibacy in consciously secular terms as a hip and even sexy lifestyle choice of the career-conscious and selfdetermined modern woman and man and idealize it as a possibility – especially for women – to find freedom, energy and subjecthood. At first sight, this seems far removed from the traditional Christian understanding of celibacy as an exercise of discipline over an unruly body that brings the believer closer to God, or the more secular view of celibacy as a rather sad sign that something is wrong with the celibate person. While I consider the oft-stated intention to develop a positive understanding of celibacy and to broaden the notion of sexuality to include celibacy as a form of sexuality in its own right a positive and important contribution of celibacy discourses at this moment, my analysis of popular and scholarly discourses about celibacy also highlights problematic aspects that counteract these attempts. As I will argue in this contribution from the perspective of Christian feminist theology, the apparently fundamental transformation in the understanding of celibacy from a repressive to an emancipatory practice has changed little in how discourses construct worldviews, social realities and identities, in particular with regard to sex, body and gender.


ABSTRACT Diphtheria surveillance depends on the rapid and reliable recognition of the toxin gene in Corynebacterium diphtheriae. Real-time PCR is a rapid tool to confirm the presence of the diphtheria toxin gene (tox) in an isolate or specimen. We report that some toxigenic Corynebacterium ulcerans strains show atypical results in a real-time PCR for tox.


In this study, a new iodide (I−) ion selective chromogenic receptor (3) was developed by reacting 9,10-anthraquinone with 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine. The sensing ability of the receptor 3 was studied with different anions such as F−, Cl−, Br−, I−, HSO4− and H2PO4− through naked-eye detection and UV-Vis spectroscopy in pure THF and mixed THF : H2O (1 : 1, v/v) media. In semi-aqueous medium, the receptor 3 showed a strong absorption band at 420 nm due to the presence of donor and acceptor units that resulted in an intense ligand-to-ligand charge-transfer (LLCT). Upon the interaction with I−, the receptor 3 showed a selective colour change from yellow to dark blue along with the formation of a new UV-Vis band at 615 nm. The absorption spectral studies indicate the formation of a complex between the receptor 3 and the I− ion with an estimated association constant of 1.37 × 104 M−1. The binding interaction of the receptor 3 with I− was examined by using 1H NMR, FTIR and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The receptor 3 can detect I− at the concentration as low as 2.7 μM without any interference from other tested anions. Additionally, the pharmacological significance of the receptor 3 was explored. The receptor exhibited COX-2 inhibition of 70.18%, antioxidant activity of 73.42% and HRBC membrane protection ability of 67%.


Soft X-ray microscopy has been developed for high resolution imaging of hydrated biological specimens due to the availability of water window region. In particular, a projection type microscopy has advantages in wide viewing area, easy zooming function and easy extensibility to computed tomography (CT). The blur of projection image due to the Fresnel diffraction of X-rays, which eventually reduces spatial resolution, could be corrected by an iteration procedure, i.e., repetition of Fresnel and inverse Fresnel transformations. However, it was found that the correction is not enough to be effective for all images, especially for images with low contrast. In order to improve the effectiveness of image correction by computer processing, we in this study evaluated the influence of background noise in the iteration procedure through a simulation study. In the study, images of model specimen with known morphology were used as a substitute for the chromosome images, one of the targets of our microscope. Under the condition that artificial noise was distributed on the images randomly, we introduced two different parameters to evaluate noise effects according to each situation where the iteration procedure was not successful, and proposed an upper limit of the noise within which the effective iteration procedure for the chromosome images was possible. The study indicated that applying the new simulation and noise evaluation method was useful for image processing where background noises cannot be ignored compared with specimen images.


Observations made in Adelaide of the ionospheric demodulation of radio waves near gyro frequency at vertical incidence are discussed. The effect occurs in the region of about 90 km, and does not appear to decrease through dawn. An F-Iayer reflected wave is demodulated by unequal amounts during its two passages through the region. The large magnitude of the effect and its lack of dependence on modulation frequency seem to be inconsistent with the theory of wave interaction.


Conventional artificial intelligence systems have been criticized for their brittleness under dynamically changing environments. Therefore, in recent years, much attention has been focused on reactive planning systems (e.g. behavior-based AI, emergent computation, and so on). In this paper, we propose a new inference/consensus-making system inspired by immune systems in living organisms, and we apply our proposed method to the behavior arbitration of an autonomous mobile robot as a practical example. Furthermore, we try to evolve affinities among antibodies using genetic operators. To confirm the validity of our method, we carry out some simulations.


A success (risk) measure of guaranteed availability is proposed. Using a genetic system model, the authors describe the measure and study the effects of the guaranteed level and the observation period on it. Furthermore, they introduce a numerical approach for continuous-time Markov chain models which allows component-level modeling, Coxian failure and repair distributions, time-dependent failure and repair rates and deferred repair and nondeferred repair strategies to be handled. An example of a fault-tolerant database computer system is considered and the measure of guaranteed availability is evaluated for various guaranteed levels and observation periods. >


Studies were initiated to evaluate absorption, translocation, and distribution of 14C-quinclorac in propanil- and quinclorac-resistant (R-BYG) and -susceptible (S-BYG) barnyardgrass. No differential absorption of 14C-quinclorac was observed between R-BYG and S-BYG, but more 14C remained in the treated leaf of S-BYG (57% of total absorbed) compared with the R-BYG leaf (34% of total absorbed) at 72 h after treatment (HAT). After 12 HAT, 20 and 15% of the amount absorbed had been translocated basipetally by R-BYG and S-BYG, respectively. At 72 HAT, 27 and 17% of the total absorbed 14C had been translocated acropetally by R-BYG and S-BYG, respectively. The levels of 14C above the treated leaf continued to increase throughout the duration of the experiment in R-BYG while levels of 14C above the treated leaf in S-BYG remained relatively constant. Seven percent more of the total absorbed 14C was exuded from roots of R-BYG than S-BYG at 72 HAT. Although differential translocation was observed between R-BYG and S-BYG, it is unclear whether this difference is a cause of quinclorac resistance or an effect of some other physiological process. Further research is needed to determine if differential translocation is due to metabolism or other physiological factors. Nomenclature: Quinclorac, barnyardgrass, Echinochloa crus-galli (L.) Beauv. ECHCG


Background Refusal rates for offered pediatric lumbar puncture (LP) are high in many parts of the world, potentially hindering diagnosis and treatment for thousands of children. There is relatively little research about why such rates are so high. Understanding the formation and development of mothers' opinions about LP could help identify barriers to accessing this modality to improve diagnostic and treatment outcomes in children with neurological and systemic diseases. Methods We surveyed mothers of hospitalized children in the Maternity and Children's Hospital in Najran in November and December 2018. We queried their familiarity with LP and their decision to accept or refuse LP when it was offered. The team recorded demographic data on survey respondents, as well as their stated reasons for their LP decisions, and used chi-square tests to evaluate the correlation between patient or parent characteristics and the decision to accept or refuse LP. Results A total of 202 mothers responded to the survey, with a mean age of 30.7 (± 6.9); nearly all women were stay-at-home mothers (93.1%). Most (61.4%) lived in urban settings. Four in 10 respondents (40.6%) were not familiar with LP. A sizable minority of 89 mothers (44.0%) refused LP for their children when offered, most commonly citing fear of paralysis (39.3%) as the reason for refusal. Those who accepted LP were more likely to do so following physician advice than for any other reason (p <0.001). Conclusion Lumbar puncture refusal rates may be even higher than previously reported, and there is a pressing need to educate women on the diagnostic and therapeutic benefits of LP for their children. Maternal education from physicians may help improve acceptance rates for the procedure.


Conventional accounts of protest cycles posit a demonstration effect-successful protests incite other constituencies to activism. The author offers an alternative theory that builds on population ecology models of organizational behavior. He argues that the expansion of social movement organizations, or organizational density, is also an essential component of protest cycles. Multivariate analyses of the effects of civil rights protest and organizational growth on feminist protest and organizational foundings between 1955 and 1985 demonstrate that organizational density promotes the diffusion of protest. Protest also engenders activism by others, but only under favorable political conditions. This implies that an enduring organizational niche and political allies in power are necessary for protest to spread beyond single movements and create protest opportunities for other challengers


This study was undertaken to determine the maternal hemodynamic responses to epinephrine added to local anesthetics during lumbar epidural anesthesia for labor in 30 mildly preeclamptic patients. Group I (n=16) received 1.5% lidocaine with 1:200,000 epinephrine and group II (n=14) received plain 1.5% lidocaine in a double-blind randomized fashion. Parameters recorded included maternal blood pressures and heart rates, fetal heart rates, duration of analgesia, and neonatal outcome. None of the patients in group I developed hypertension after administration of lidocaine with epinephrine, and they had significant decreases in their mean systolic and diastolic blood pressures compared with baseline values ( P <0.05). No significant changes were observed in group II patients. Duration of anesthesia was significantly ( P <0.01) longer in group I (102.5 ± 6.5 minutes) compared with group II patients (55.7 ± 5.4 minutes) (mean ± SEM). All neonates had normal fetal heart rate patterns and had Apgar scores of 9 or more at 5 minutes. Results from this study suggest that mildly pre-eclamptic patients are not likely to experience hypertension when small amounts of epinephrine are injected epidurally.


Our goal was to investigate retrospectively the presence of serum sodium changes and their direction during LT and their possible association with short-term outcomes. To accomplish this, we selected several variables that might potentially affect the intraoperative sodium level. Our original analysis included fresh-frozen plasma (FFP) but not packed red blood cells (PRBCs). We included PRBC after the reviewers' comments during the review process for the article. A shortcoming of any retrospective study is its dependence on the available data. We simply did not have any further detail regarding "Na and variables at different time points during surgery." Even if we did, a retrospective analysis may establish associations but not causality. In that sense, our study should be understood as an incentive to formally study causative relationships in a prospective Alexander Krannich, BSc Department of Biostatistics Coordination Center for Clinical Trials, Charité University Medicine Berlin Berlin, Germany Claudia Spies, MD, PhD Aarne Feldheiser, MD Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine Campus Charité Mitte and Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Charité University Medicine Berlin Berlin, Germany email@example.com


The deliberations at the Bali Ministerial Round seem to have broken the stalemate surrounding the food security provisions under the World Trade Organization (WTO) which in turn resulted in a tremendous impact on the ambitious Agreement on Trade Facilitation under the auspices of the Organization. Trade facilitation is a mandate that certainly requires commitments by countries eager to implement these measures, beyond merely reforms in customs evaluation. This hence necessitates widespread number of measures to complement and supplement customs related reforms, by means of infrastructural and other technological changes. So even when a large number of resources are required, especially on the part of emerging economies for putting this mandate into action, trade facilitation can certainly promote much needed economic development and improve the standards of living in these countries. In addition, because trade facilitation touches upon the lives of a large varieties of sectors, like the government, businesses, Small and Medium enterprises and even consumers, due to its influence on trade growth by curbing red tape and corruption; it only implies that these measures are of utmost significance to emerging economies and can even have a greater impact on the latter. Thus where at one point, these countries believed that trade facilitation was exclusively to serve the needs of the developed world, where the latter could, as a result of these measures gain a better access to the markets of the developing world. However, trade facilitation in emerging economies could witness a substantial change in this scenario as a result of increase in North-South trade. Trade facilitation would then help easing these challenges that emerging economies experience due to lack of capacity to be competitive enough in international trade and also at the same time facilitate reform in the various institutional challenges faced by these countries. This paper delves to analyse the corollaries of this mandate on emerging economies, under the auspices of the WTO.


A voltage reference circuit with 3 V output has been designed and implemented in an SOI FD (fully-depleted) CMOS technology for very wide temperature range applications. The design uses lateral bipolar transistors and thin-film diffusion resistors. The circuit has been fabricated and tested over the full operating temperature range (25/spl deg/C-300/spl deg/C) and provides a temperature coefficient better than 100 ppm//spl deg/C.


Considering the great role those affective variables play in language learning, it seems wise to hypothesize whether teacher and learner emotions are contagious in the language classroom or not. The existing literature on emotion contagion in other fields of study accepts this hypothesis and reveals significant points about the verbal and non-verbal cues for emotion contagion in class. The present paper introduces and defines the topic and goes on with summarizing the procedure of transmitting the emotion. Then, it reviews the existing research on emotion contagion in different areas and creates a link between them and the L2 studies. It draws attention to the dearth of research on emotion contagion in the second language acquisition (SLA) domain and emphasizes the need for innovative dynamic approaches to research to explore emotion contagion in the ecology of the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom. It also reviews the limited body of research in this regard in the SLA domain and shows how the significant findings can be useful for L2 educators. The findings of these studies show that more relevant studies in the future can be hoped to provide insightful remarks about how different emotions are transmitted between the teacher and students or among students in L2 classes. These studies are supposed to adopt a dynamic approach as well as a longitudinal data collection and analysis procedure. These can have implications for teacher education programs in the English language teaching (ELT) domain.


Sheep, and especially goats, tend to have some fairly strange reproductive issues that while not especially common, do occur with a high enough frequency that the small ruminant practitioner will likely be presented with some of these cases. This session will discuss odd reproductive issues of primarily female sheep and goats including ring womb, atypical udder development, and pseudopregnancy, as well as a few other issues.


house. for the house. house is the gate is passed. Abstract Background. This article refers to a line from my field research in Japan from 2012 to 2015, being a stage reference for my PhD in Social Anthropology and aims to relate some ethnographic facts collected with practitioners of Japanese swordsmanship (Kendo) - among them, Japanese and non Japanese – through the relationships made in the dōjō (the training places) . The aim is to make an analogy between the notion of house within anthropological theory that remains an important practical concept for building a kinship and the studied case. By kinship and relatedness we understand the ways to make relatives, or an analytical mode for their mutual relations. 'Relatives' here have a more free sense, as ways of making relationship without implying human reproduction. In short, we use the training hall as the unit of analysis with the notion of House that tells us about building a kinship beyond blood. The plan is to relate some facts about the fieldwork, which operate in the concepts of hierarchy , family and Dōjō in a relationship with the notion of House, trying to build a model of interpretation. Aim. To build a model of interpretation based on the concept of House, since it looks like a suitable proposition. Methods. I used the following materials: bibliographic, structured forms, semi-structured interviews and conversations in Dōjō, and the method was ethnography , or the living experience of data research. The ethnographi c fieldwork was conducted in Brazil (2007-2011) and Japan (2012-2013). In Japan, we conducted ethnography in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Kanagawa Ken and Ibaraki Ken. The data collection was structured in the form of questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and informal conversations, collected in Japan with Kendo practitioners of all possible nationalities. The questionnaires were applied at Kendo events or training sessions or sent by Facebook and email. Results and Conclusions. A new discussion about the anthropology of Kinship using a new analytical framework regarding he concepts of Hierarchy, House and Ie (Japanese House).


Intravascular ultrasound imaging is a rapidly growing addition to intraluminal ultrasound diagnosis. This book is written by two pioneers in this field. It provides a brief up-to-date information about the field for radiologists, cardiologists, and vascular surgeons who contemplate using this new method. After a brief overview of the pathophysiology of vascular disease, an overview of trends and developments in intraluminal/intravascular ultrasound imaging is given. The future importance of the techniques for diagnosis and therapy is also discussed. The basic design and concepts of various types of commercially available catheters are described, including computerized 3D image reconstruction of vessels. Practical advice and guidance for techniques of examination, optimization of the image quality, and image interpretation are given. It is our view that the chapters on the basic principles of ultrasound imaging and puncture techniques take up too much space, since most of the material is probably known by the actual readers. The book is well illustrated and presents a wide range of references. It can be recommended for those who intend to use this new technology, and it is also useful reading for technical assistants.


Summary The aim of the study was to compare the satisfaction with quality of life indicators (QoLI) and quality of life domains (QoLD) scores between people with physical disabilities (PPD) and people who are deaf or hard of hearing (PD/HH) from sport participation point of view. The study included 315 individuals with PPD (n = 150; male = 76) and PD/HH (n = 165; male = 85) divided into two groups of those who are regularly participating in sport and those who are not participating in any sport activity in their leisure. The second part of the Subjective Quality of Life Analysis (S.QUA.L.A.) was used. The Pearson chi-square test was used to determine the differences in 23 QoLI and 5 QoLD between PPD and PD/HH from sport participation point of view and student's two-sample t-test was used to compare overall quality of life (QoL). We found that PD/HH who are participating regularly in sport presented significantly higher satisfaction with 7 evaluated QoLI and with all 5 QoLD. Overall QoL score was significantly higher (p < .01) in PD/HH. In the group of people who are not participating in sport we found significantly higher satisfaction with 13 QoLI in PD/HH and with 8 QoLI in PPD. Satisfaction with 4 QoLD was significantly higher in PD/HH and only with domain (physical health) were significantly higher satisfied PPD (p < .01). Overall QoL score did not show significant differences between groups of people with disabilities who are not participating in any sport. The results of our study confirmed that PD/HH have significantly higher QoL comparing PPD no matter if they participating in sport or not. This evaluation measured by S.QUA.L.A shows that it is a suitable tool to asses QoL in people with different kinds of disabilities.


Nasogastric tube insertion is a common clinical procedure carried out by doctors and nurses in NHS hospitals daily. For the last 30 years, there have been reports in the medical literature of deaths and other harm resulting from misplaced nasogastric tubes, most commonly associated with feed entering the pulmonary system. In 2005 the National Patient Safety Agency in England assembled reports of 11 deaths and one incident of serious harm from wrong insertion of nasogastric tubes over a two-year period. The agency issued a safety alert setting out evidence-based practice for checking tube placement. In the two and a half years following this alert the problem persisted with a further five deaths and six instances of serious harm due to nasogastric tube misplacement. This is a potentially preventable error but safety alerts advocating best practice do not appear to reliably reduce risk. Alternative solutions, such as standardising procedures, may be more effective.


Leaf-color is an effective marker to identify the hybridization of rice. Leaf-color related genes function in chloroplast development and the photosynthetic pigment biosynthesis of higher plants. The ygl7 (yellow-green leaf 7) is a mutant with spontaneous yellow-green leaf phenotype across the whole lifespan but with no change to its yield traits. We cloned gene Ygl7 (Os03g59640) which encodes a magnesium-chelatase ChlD protein. Expression of ygl7 turns green-leaves to yellow, whereas RNAi-mediated silence of Ygl7 causes a lethal phenotype of the transgenic plants. This indicates the importance of the gene for rice plant. On the other hand, it corroborates that ygl7 is a non-null mutants. The content of photosynthetic pigment is lower in Ygl7 than the wild type, but its light efficiency was comparatively high. All these results indicated that the mutational YGL7 protein does not cause a complete loss of original function but instead acts as a new protein performing a new function. This new function partially includes its preceding function and possesses an additional feature to promote photosynthesis. Chl1, Ygl98, and Ygl3 are three alleles of the OsChlD gene that have been documented previously. However, mutational sites of OsChlD mutant gene and their encoded protein products were different in the three mutants. The three mutants have suppressed grain output. In our experiment, plant materials of three mutants (ygl7, chl1, and ygl98) all exhibited mutational leaf-color during the whole growth period. This result was somewhat different from previous studies. We used ygl7 as female crossed with chl1 and ygl98, respectively. Both the F1 and F2 generation display yellow-green leaf phenotype with their chlorophyll and carotenoid content falling between the values of their parents. Moreover, we noted an important phenomenon: ygl7-NIL's leaf-color is yellow, not yellowy-green, and this is also true of all back-crossed offspring with ygl7.


executive summary:This article examines the impact of changes in U.S. leadership on foreign policy decision-making in Southeast Asia since 2008, assessing the influence of systemic pressures and domestic processes in the form of elite perceptions and political constraints on foreign policy implementation.main argument The Trump administration's "free and open Indo-Pacific" foreign policy strategy showed notable points of departure from the Obama administration's Asia "rebalance." This variation is curious, considering that Washington's interests in preserving the U.S.'s status as a Pacific power largely remained the same. This variation in foreign policy can be explained through an examination of both systemic pressures and domestic intervening variables. A permissive strategic environment increased the array of U.S. policy alternatives in Southeast Asia, allowing foreign policy choices to be more greatly influenced by leaders' perceptions and domestic constraints. The resulting policy outcomes have left the Southeast Asian region in a state of uncertainty.policy implications • Washington's attempts to engage Beijing while challenging China's increasing military power have fostered a permissive strategic environment in Asia. This has prevented a robust U.S. foreign policy strategy from being articulated and implemented in Southeast Asia and allowed foreign policy choices to be driven largely by domestic political constraints.• The Biden administration faces an increasingly restrictive strategic environment in Asia, which presents an opportunity for a more robust foreign policy in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific.• To be successful in this, the Biden administration will need to bolster the credibility and consistency of U.S. policies toward Southeast Asia. If it does not do so, the region is at risk of falling further under China's influence.


The formation mechanism of the LPSO structures of MgZnY alloys has been investigated by the energetic assessments with the first principles calculations. For the key players of the LPSO structures, the stacking faults and the solute elements of Zn and Y, two scenarios are proposed; one is the stacking fault control and the other is the solute atom pair control. Both of them were declined through the detailed investigations of the energetic assessments. The enrichment of solute atoms induced by the stacking fault is suggested. [doi:10.2320/matertrans.MI201207]


The enthalpic and entropic components of the redox free energy variation of cytochrome c553 from Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough and its mutant Y64V, flavocytochrome b2 from Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and the different hemes of cytochromes c3 from Desulfovibrio vulgaris Miyazaki and Desulfovibrio desulfuricans Norway have been determined in 0.1 M Tris-HCl pH 7.0 (7.6 for cytochromes c3) at 25 degrees C by using nonisothermal potentiometric titrations. The set of available experimental data demonstrates that the entropic component plays an important role in the control of the redox potential in c-type and b-type cytochromes. The variation of the entropic component within the class of cytochromes characterized by a positive value of E degrees ' is proposed to be mainly determined by the variation of the exposure of the heme propionates to the solvent. In the case of tetraheme cytochromes c3, the thermodynamic characteristics vary largely among the hemes belonging to the same molecule, which reflects the environmental peculiarities of each heme and also the heme-heme redox interactions. This study substantiates the existence of compensatory effects between large and opposite contributions to E degree ' predicted by all the current theoretical models which are based on electrostatic free energy calculations.


The present research was an attempt to provide new evidence for the efficacy of task-based techniques to speaking proficiency development. The primary focus of the study was to investigate the effects of task-based techniques on speaking proficiency development. In the second place, it tried to scrutinize the effect of gender on speaking proficiency development under task-based principles of language teaching. In better words, the study is an attempt to find out which gender group would become more proficient in speaking after the task-based course came to an end. The study also tried to put possible different effects of task-based approach on foreign language learners of different levels of language proficiency under focus. Accordingly, the participants were categorized into two categories of 81, as the control and the experimental groups of the study. In continuation, each category was divided into two groups of males and females and finally, each male and female group of each category was classified into two classes of intermediate and advanced. In this way, each of the control and the experimental group contained some intermediate and some advanced male and female language learners .In order to determine whether task-based techniques to teaching speaking were effective and also to figure out which gender and proficiency level had a higher degree of improvement in speaking under task-based approach, a set of independent sample t-tests were conducted. Furthermore, in order to comment on the possible interaction between gender and different levels of language proficiency, a two-way ANOVA (MANOVA) was also conducted. It was found that the students of the experimental group, who experienced task-based principles of teaching speaking, performed remarkably better than those of the control group on the final speaking post-test. It was also concluded that gender was not a determining factor in speaking development under task-based approach but difference in language proficiency levels was shown to be an influential factor in speaking development since advanced language learners of the experimental group had performed ostensibly better than those of intermediate learners of the same group on the final speaking post-test. Ultimately, it was deduced that there was not a meaningful interaction between gender and different levels of language proficiency for a better development of speaking ability. In other words, it was not possible to determine a specific pattern of interaction between them by their simultaneous presence in the study.