This paper presents the results from a study on the synergistic effects of corona, humidity and mechanical stresses on the degradation of non-ceramic insulator (NCI) housing materials. Three different polymer formulations, namely silicone rubber (SIR), ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) and a mixture of both were evaluated in a test cell and the surface changes resulting from degradation were monitored. Under the experimental conditions adopted in this study, varying degrees of polymer degradation were observed for each material group. A strong influence of humidity on the development of degradation processes was identified. By computing cumulative charge magnitudes up to the time when surface cracking was detected, a simplistic correlation with expected field operating conditions seems to indicate that even under severe circumstances (corona continuously impinging at the same site) degradation similar to that observed in this unlikely to occur for field exposure times amounting to many years.


Recently, a vector charmonium-like state was observed in the portal of . This intrigues an active discussion on the structure of the resonance because it has obvious significance for gaining a better understanding on its hadronic structure that contains suitable inner constituents. Therefore, this observation concerns the general theoretical framework about possible structures of exotic states. Since the mass of is slightly above the production threshold of whereas it is below that of with the same quark contents as that of , it is natural to conjecture that is a molecular state of , as suggested in the literature. Confirming or negating this allegation would shed light on the goal we are concerned with. We calculate the mass spectrum of a system composed of a vector meson and an axial vector i.e., within the framework of the Bethe-Salpeter equations. Our numerical results show that the dimensionless parameter in the form factor, which is phenomenologically introduced to every vertex, is far beyond the reasonable range for inducing even a very small binding energy . It implies that the system cannot exist in the nature as a hadronic molecule in this model. Therefore, we may not be able to assume the resonance to be a bound state of and instead, it could be attributed to something else, such as a tetraquark.


Distant metastases in squamous cell carcinoma of the larynx have an incidence of 6.5-7.2% and most commonly involves the lungs, liver, and bone. Metastases to the skin are very rare, but, when present, they are usually considered a poor prognostic sign. This most often affect the supradiaphragmatic area, i.e., the head, neck, thorax, or upper extremities. We have reported 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography computed tomography (FDG PET/CT) scan of a patient with squamous cell carcinoma of the larynx showing multiple subcutaneous nodules all over the body, which was helpful in the assessment as well as staging of the disease.


Clinical complete response (CR) to chemotherapy is not uncommon in small cell carcinoma. To understand its pathologic response, we conducted a phase II trial with neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by hysterectomy in patients with small cell cervical cancer and reviewed all reported cases receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by hysterectomy through a MEDLINE search. From December 1993 to December 1997, the enrolled patients were treated with two to three courses of vincristine, adriamycin and cyclophosphamide alternating with cisplatin and etoposide (VAC/PE) before hysterectomy. Another three courses of chemotherapy were added after surgery. A total of seven patients was enrolled. Clinical CR was observed in six patients, but microscopic residual tumor was present in all. Lymphatic permeation, scattered residual tumor clusters and residual superficial invasive adenocarcinoma over the cervix presented in five cases, and another had a metastatic pelvic node with no residual cervical tumor. Three of these seven patients have been alive with no evidence of disease for 16.2, 45.2 and 56.6 months, respectively. The other four died from disease 10.3-23.6 months after diagnosis. These findings indicate the discrepancy between clinical and pathologic responses in small cell cervical cancer after chemotherapy and emphasize the necessity of local treatment.


The Anshel-Anshel-Goldfeld-Lemieux (abbreviated AAGL) key agreement protocol [Contemp. Math. 418: 1–34, 2006] is proposed to be used on low-cost platforms which constraint the use of computational resources. The core of the protocol is the concept of an Algebraic Eraser TM (abbreviated AE) which is claimed to be a suitable primitive for use within lightweight cryptography. The AE primitive is based on a new and ingenious idea of using an action of a semidirect product on a (semi)group to obscure involved algebraic structures. The underlying motivation for AAGL protocol is the need to secure networks which deploy Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags used for identification, authentication, tracing and point-of-sale applications. In this paper we revisit the computational problem on which AE relies and heuristically analyze its hardness. We show that for proposed parameter values it is impossible to instantiate a secure protocol. To be more precise, in 100% of randomly generated instances of the protocol we were able to find a secret conjugator z generated by the TTP algorithm (part of AAGL protocol).


SUMMARY : Dietary fat has been shown to enhance pancreatic carcinogenesis, but little is known of the effect of individual fatty acids. Administration of diet with altered fatty acid contents appears to effect the composition of rat pancreatic acinar cells. If administration of fatty acids can indeed alter the tissue fatty acid composition of pancreas, and can effect the development of preneoplastic foci, then it is possible that this may reflect in the target cells. In this study, in order to examine the particular effects of unsaturated (oleic) and saturated (stearic) fatty acids in development of pancreatic carcinogenesis, the fatty acid profiles of pancreatic tissues have been analyzed at a single time period (12 months). The findings of this study showed that in azaserine initiated oleic acid fed rats (AzOl Group) oleic acid caused an enrichment of tissue oleic acid content which was accompanied by a decrease in polyunsaturated linoleic, arachidonic and saturated stearic fatty acid levels. The results of this study may suggest that oleic acid can block the desaturation/elongation reactions leading from linoleic to arachidonic acid that polyunsaturated fatty acids may promote pancreatic carcinogenesis in this manner. The possibility remains that oleic acid may enhance tumorigenesis by a mechanism independent of prostaglandin production.


We present our experiences after the filling of cysts and cystoid processes with lyophilized cartilage. The largest diameter of the cyst measured on the x-ray was never smaller than 15 mm. We controlled the calcification and ossification on the x-ray after a period of 6 to 12 months in 14 cases. In all of our cases we noticed a primary wound healing after the implantation of the cartilage under a prophylactic antibiotic treatment. Our good results justify to use chips of lyophilized cartilage as a filling material of large bone defects.


We suggested a decomposition algorithm of multidimensional polynomials evaluation performing according to the generalized Horner scheme. The generalized Horner scheme is described in detail; we also demonstrate that in the vast majority of real situations this scheme can be decomposed easily and naturally. As a use-example, we study the problem of evaluation of classic quasipolynomials.


To the problem of information fusion estimation for large-scale sparse wireless sensor networks (WSNs), a novel algorithm, named the information weighted consensus-based distributed particle filter, is presented. The proposed filter can avoid the divergence of the consensus error introduced by the naive nodes in the large-scale sparse WSNs. This is achieved by embedding an information weighted local particle filter (LPF) and a weighted-average consensus filter as the underlying filter and the top filter, respectively in each sensor node. The information weighted LPF will enable the weighted-average consensus filter to be used in the information space to communicate the information matrix and information state in a distributed fashion. And the weighted-average consensus filter will guarantee that a weighted average consensus for all initial states can be reached with some consensus error, which will not be divergent. Moreover, at the same time, the cross correlation between each pair of networked nodes can be approximately computed, which will further inhibit the divergence among the local estimated states of the filters embedded in each node. Finally, some examples are presented to illustrate the reasonability of the theoretical derivation.


Transcription factor (TF) has a significant influence on the state of a cell by regulating multiple down-stream genes. Thus, experimental and computational biologists have made great efforts to construct TF gene networks for regulatory interactions between TFs and their target genes. Now, an important research question is how to utilize TF networks to investigate the response of a plant to stress at the transcription control level using time-series transcriptome data. In this article, we present a new computational network, PropaNet, to investigate dynamics of TF networks from time-series transcriptome data using two state-of-the-art network analysis techniques, influence maximization and network propagation. PropaNet uses the influence maximization technique to produce a ranked list of TFs, in the order of TF that explains differentially expressed genes (DEGs) better at each time point. Then, a network propagation technique is used to select a group of TFs that explains DEGs best as a whole. For the analysis of Arabidopsis time series datasets from AtGenExpress, we used PlantRegMap as a template TF network and performed PropaNet analysis to investigate transcriptional dynamics of Arabidopsis under cold and heat stress. The time varying TF networks showed that Arabidopsis responded to cold and heat stress quite differently. For cold stress, bHLH and bZIP type TFs were the first responding TFs and the cold signal influenced histone variants, various genes involved in cell architecture, osmosis and restructuring of cells. However, the consequences of plants under heat stress were up-regulation of genes related to accelerating differentiation and starting re-differentiation. In terms of energy metabolism, plants under heat stress show elevated metabolic process and resulting in an exhausted status. We believe that PropaNet will be useful for the construction of condition-specific time-varying TF network for time-series data analysis in response to stress. PropaNet is available at http://biohealth.snu.ac.kr/software/PropaNet.


The proposed research is in the area of attribute-based authorization systems. We address two specific research problems in this area. First, evaluating authorization policies in multi-authority systems where there are multiple stakeholders in the disclosure of sensitive data. The research proposes to consider all the relevant policies related to authorization in real time upon the receipt of an access request and to resolve any differences that these individual policies may have in authorization. Second, to enable a lot of entities to participate in the authorization process by asserting attributes on behalf of the principal accessing resources. Since it is required that these asserted attributes be trusted by the authorization system, it is necessary that these entities are themselves trusted by the authorization system. Two frameworks are proposed to address these issues. In the first contribution a dynamic authorization system is proposed which provides conflict detection and resolution among applicable policies in a multi-authority system. The authorization system is dynamic in nature and considers the context of an access request to adapt its policy selection, execution and conflict handling based on the access environment. Efficient indexing techniques are used to increase the speed of authorization policy loading and evaluation. In the second contribution, we propose a framework for service providers to evaluate trust in entities asserting on behalf of service users in real time upon receipt of an access request. This trust evaluation is done based on a reputation system model, which is designed to protect itself against known attacks on reputation systems.


Ad hoc networks have characteristics such as flexibility, fast and easy deployment, and robustness. They do not rely on any fixed infrastructure, such as access points or base station, they can be deployed rapidly and inexpensively even in situations with geographical or time constraints, and they have the properties of self-organizing and selfmanaging. Depending on the network environment, we can choose a different routing protocol, such as a vehicular ad hoc network (VANET), a wireless mesh network, or a mobile ad hoc network (MANET). Through the work presented in this paper we have designed a new routing algorithm applying game theory to routing within the highly independent wireless ad hoc networks. Each node in the network, depending on the actual situation, selects its own reasonable cost next node. However, the development of each network node's routing cost must be in line with Nash equilibrium and the network nodes pricing mechanism. Our simulation results show that the new algorithm is efficient and scales well to large networks.


Purpose
Business incubators are advantageous to new venture legitimacy because they provide rich access to entrepreneurial resources, and their incubation networks can offer endorsement to incubatees. However, empirical evidence on this topic is limited, and the existing literature relies predominantly on the Western context. Given that not all developing country incubators have resourceful and reputable external entrepreneurial networks as in the industrialized countries, and that new ventures need to build legitimacy along cognitive and socio-political dimensions that require different actions to influence different stakeholders, this study investigates empirically how business incubators facilitate their incubatees to build legitimacy in a context where resource and reputation conditions are weak. The purpose of this paper is to clarify how business incubators perform legitimacy-building roles effectively.

Design/methodology/approach
A multiple case study of business incubators in Chongqing, a second-tier Chinese city, is presented. Using grounded theory, this paper draws its findings from a synthesis of interviews and secondary data of seven incubators and their ten incubatees.

Findings
The legitimacy-building role of business incubators is performed well in this research context. Evidence is presented that incubators play different roles in building different dimensions of incubatees' legitimacy. Government-associated incubators play a salient role in building incubatees' socio-political legitimacy whilst non-government related incubators shape their incubatees' cognitive legitimacy.

Originality/value
This study contributes to the business incubators literature by revealing how incubators perform the legitimacy-building role when their resource endorsement is weak. The results suggest that incubators need to strengthen their ties with external stakeholders and that new ventures need to take key stakeholders into consideration when they select incubators to enter.


Between 1951 and 1954, the Southwest Research Institute of San Antonio evaluated over a hundred little known exploration methods and found only geochemical, radiometric, and electrical methods to be worthy of careful scientific study. Critical examination of the now extensive literature of all three generic methods seems to indicate a mechanism which may relate each method to the other: the physical-chemical phenomenon of vertical migration. A selective review of the theoretical and empirical literature of these methods, together with a similar review of applicable geologic and hydrogeologic studies, was undertaken. Indications that vertical migration is not an implausible common mechanism reinforces the potential validity of each of the methods and suggests the need for dditional research directed toward a conclusive condemnation or validation of these methods. Considering the total of pre-drilling exploration efforts, the current limited use of surface geochemical, radiometric, and electrical methods seems only to preserve them in limbo. Ambiguities will undoubtedly continue to exist, as in all other exploration methods, even if subsequent research should demonstrate increased operational validity of the three methods. The opportunity-cost of not properly using these methods would be tremendous should they be determined to be more reliable than is generally conceded. This consideration, together with the indications of plausibility which this paper describes, justifies serious and concentrated research and demonstration efforts of an order not hitherto performed. End_of_Article - Last_Page 916------------


In the article, the authors highlight the peculiarities of schizophrenia speech manifestations and presents an algorithm for its identification. The algorithm consists of four stages, which include the respondents' oral and written speech analysis which considers the specifics of systemic speech indicators, associative reactions and grapheme features. The first stage features oral communication with patients, during which they are asked to answer questions about their past, general orientation in space and time, etc., which is generally consistent with the tactics of questioning, but in the projection not only on psychomental peculiarities, but on the linguistic indicators as well. This way we get an idea of the level of the patient's general communicative competence. The results of the study are recorded in the according table. During the second stage, the authors utilize an associative experiment, the results of which are compared with the results of mentally healthy respondents and are also recorded in the table. Such comparative analysis reveals the conceptual differences between the respondents' associative background and makes it possible to identify informative semantic segments. During the third stage, patients are asked to write a short essay about their daily routine, the most memorable day in life, which helps to determine their personal view of events, perceptions of such events, and illustrates the grapheme features of speech realizations. The results are also recorded in the table. The fourth stage involves the analysis and generalization of the results. The scientific novelty of article is that it is the first one to present a comprehensive algorithm for examining the speech of patients with schizophrenia, in particular at the level of their oral and written speech. The theoretical significance of the study is determined by the possibility of utilizing the findings in an in-depth study of speech features of patients with schizophrenia at different stages, considering the most informative language indicators, as well as in further development of pathopsycholinguistics general theory, altered consciousness states studies and other related studies. The practical value of the obtained results is determined by the possibility of utilizing them in developing methods for speech correction of mentally ill people and in the recognition of such diseases at the initial stage.


Libraries of extremely localized molecular orbitals (ELMOs) have been recently assembled to reconstruct approximate wavefunctions of very large biological systems, such as polypeptides and proteins. In this paper, we investigate for the first time the possibility of using ELMO transferability to also quickly obtain wavefunctions, electron densities, and electrostatic potentials of three-dimensional coordination polymers such as metal organic frameworks (MOFs). To accomplish this task, we propose a protocol that, in addition to exploiting the usual exportability of extremely localized molecular orbitals, also takes advantage of the novel QM/ELMO (quantum mechanics/extremely localized molecular orbital) approach to properly describe the secondary building units of MOFs. As a benchmark test, our technique has been applied to the well-known metal organic framework HKUST-1 ({Cu3(BTC)2}n, with BTC=1,3,5-benzenetricarboxylate) to quickly calculate electrostatic potential maps in the small and large cavities inside the network. On the basis of the obtained results, we envisage further improvements and applications of this strategy, which can be also seen as a starting point to perform less computationally expensive quantum mechanical calculations on metal organic frameworks with the goal of investigating transformation phenomena such as chemisorption.


Transformers are widely used for solving tasks in natural language processing, computer vision, speech, and music domains. In this paper, we talk about the efficiency of transformers in terms of memory (the number of parameters), computation cost (number of floating points operations), and performance of models, including accuracy, the robustness of the model, and fair \&bias-free features. We mainly discuss the vision transformer for the image classification task. Our contribution is to introduce an efficient 360 framework, which includes various aspects of the vision transformer, to make it more efficient for industrial applications. By considering those applications, we categorize them into multiple dimensions such as privacy, robustness, transparency, fairness, inclusiveness, continual learning, probabilistic models, approximation, computational complexity, and spectral complexity. We compare various vision transformer models based on their performance, the number of parameters, and the number of floating point operations (FLOPs) on multiple datasets.


Much has been written about the potential for online learning (Fryer, 1997; www. ngfl.gov.uk/ngfl/index.html). However this literature typically emphasizes not online learning but online education. In this paper I focus on the potential for online learning, specifically learning about issues surrounding femininity in the presence of online peers, originally brought together through the medium of the Mindscape game 'Babyz'. Members of 'The Babyz Community', as participants describe themselves, (www.angelfire.com; www.mnBabyz.cjbnet; www.Babyzrus.cjb.net) gain experience in web site surfing and design, email, as well as opportunities to communicate worldwide. This paper, through an analysis of 'Babyz' software, affiliated web sites and forum interactions, provides an account of girls' links with each other and their presentations of multiple identities through the Internet.


File Sharing has become the most popular form of online community building in the music industry. Though, chat, instant messaging and other communication tools are offered for virtual communities like Napster, users spend by far more time browsing and sharing content. Nevertheless, this essential and widely adopted system has to be compliant with current copyright legislation. In 1999 and 2000, the concept of digital rights management was developed and implemented by major labels but so far lacked broad consumer acceptance. This paper examines digital rights management technologies in the context of file sharing systems for music. Music labels protect their rights by using digital rights management technology that allows to control the access to music files using encryption or watermarking. In conjunction with peer-to-peer technology consumers also can use a mechanism called Super-Distribution with which they can share and recommend songs among end devices. Looking at the possibilities for a successful implementation of digital rights management technology, a differentiation is made between the PC environment and other entertainment end devices. The paper concludes with a recommendation to music labels and related industries to participate in the effort of broad adoption of file sharing technology combined with digital rights management with a special focus on end devices.


Background: Homeopathic potencies 12 cH and above cross the Avogadro number and, for this, do not contain any original drug molecules. Two major problems involved in the scientific study of potencies are (1) understanding the physical basis of potencies and (2) demonstrating the biological effects of potencies. The present study aims to address these questions.
Methods and Results: In course of our experimental studies spanned over more than 30 years we have demonstrated significant effects of homeopathic potencies on man, animals and plants. We have also showed that potencies could be differentiated through their electronic spectra, and this difference in spectra can be attributed to the electron transfer interaction. In a molecular complex, electron of one molecule absorbs a quantum of visible radiation and is excited, not to a higher energy level of this molecule, but to one of the vacant high energy levels of the neighboring molecules. This process is known as electron or charge transfer interaction. This has been demonstrated in Iodine Ó© in two different solvents of CCl4 and aqueous ethanol (Sukul N C, Environ Ecol 17,866-872, 1999). We have further demonstrated that the effect of a homeopathic potency can be transmitted from one part of a plant to another, and also from one plant to another through water. I am presenting here a few selected cases of our experimental studies. Potentized Nux vomica significantly reduced ethanol consumption in rats by 73.7%and ethanol-induced sleep time in albino mice by 44.4%. Causticum 30 C and Rhus tox 30 C produced anti-inflamatory and anti-nocicptive effect on adjuvant arthritis in albino rats. Potentized homeopathic drugs reduced microfilaraemia by 28 to 100% and filariasis in two villages of West Bengal endemic for Bancroftian filaiasis. Potentized Cina and Thuja ameliorated trichinellosis in mice reducing larval population in muscles by 84% and 68%, respectively.
Potencies of Agaricus and Nux vomica, produced excitatory effect on the isolated rat ileum. Potentized drugs altered firing rate of hypothalamic neurons in rats and cats. Nux vom 30 c and Merc cor 30c facilitated water permeability in erythrocytes of catfish in a test tube. Potencies of Merc cor and Merc iod enhanced α-amylase activity in vitro ,by 44 and 21%,respectively.
Drugs ,that inhibit photosynthesis and plant growth in high doses, promote the same phenomena when applied on plants at ultra low doses. Potentized Cantharis, a homeopathic drug used for burn injuries, counter the effect of heat shock in Adhatoda vasica plants in terms of modulating the expression of heat-shock proteins in the plants. The effect of heat shock and of Cantharis treatment could be transmitted from one plant to another through water. The global network of surface water in a closed system is thought to be responsible for producing this effect. Several potentized homeopathic drugs show distinct variation from each other in their absorption spectra in ultra violet region of light. These drugs when mixed with sucrose solution, also show marked differences from each other at temperatures as low as 4 0 C and as high as 70 0 C. Electron transfer interaction may contribute to the characteristic spectral properties of a homeopathic potency.
Conclusions: Homeopathic potencies could be detected and differentiated by their electronic spectra. Potencies show marked effect on animals, plants, ex vivo effect on isolated organs and in vitro effect on enzymes.
Keywords: Homeopathic potencies, electronic spectra, ethanol intake, adjuvant arthritis, filariasis, Cantharis, Nux vomica


Despite great improvements over the past several years the quality of demographic data in Africa is still a problem and Africa remains the least well known continent. Population growth is extremely rapid with all countries growing at annual rates of over 3%. The natural increase rate even shows some signs of increasing slightly in the next decade or so. Africas population was estimated at 220 million in 1950 650 million at present and is projected at 1.5 billion by 2025. Africans represented 9% of the world population in 1960 but will increase to 19% around 2025. The rapid population growth is the result of declining mortality since the 1950s unmatched by changes in fertility. There are significant socioeconomic and rural-urban mortality differentials in Africa but as yet only highly educated urbanites have measurably reduced their family size. 2 consequences of this rapid growth are the youth of the population with almost 50% under 20 years and its high density in some areas. By 2025 18 countries will have densities of over 100 persons per sq km. Almost everywhere in Africa family sizes are at least 6 children/woman. 3 factors explaining this high level of fertility are the earliness and universality of marriage rates of contraceptive usage of only 4-10% in most countries and declining durations of breast feeding and sexual abstinence which traditionally served as brakes on fertility. As a rule women marry young and remain married until the end of their reproductive years. Divorce and widowhood are common but remarriage is usually rapid if the woman is still of reproductive age. Life expectancy at birth in sub-Saharan Africa has increased from some 36 years around 1950 to 50 years at present. Progress in control of mortality and especially infant mortality has been slower than expected and Africa still has by far the lowest life expectancy of any major region. Regional rural-urban and socioeconomic mortality differentials are considerable and sometimes increasing. In some countries the gaps in life expectancy between rural and urban residents or between social classes are as high as 15 or 20 years. The major causes of death have scarcely changed in 2 or 3 decades: diarrhea measles acute respiratory infections tetanus malaria all aggravated by malnutrition and the new scourge of AIDS. Migration and urbanization remain major components of family survival strategies. The increasing pace of urbanization has brought a decline in urban living standards. About half of the worlds refugees and displaced persons are in Africa. It was not its demography that brought Africa to its current position of underdevelopment but population will exercise enormous pressure on available resources. Already for the continents as a whole food production is increasing less rapidly than population. The challenges are immense: from now until 2000 the working age population will increase by 49% and the school age population (6-11 years) by 58%.


NTRU ~[1,2] is a new public key encryption scheme based on hard problems in lattice. Due to the linear operations, both encryption and decryption of NTRU are very fast ~[2]. However, decryption of this scheme may be failed even for recommended parameters. In this paper, NTRU decryption failures are analyzed. As a result, the theoretical bound of parameters is presented, which guaranteed NTRU decryption free From failure. In order to correct NTRU decryption failures, we designed a compensating algorithm. To our knowledge, this algorithm is better than any other ones for NTRU decryption failure correction. An example is given at the end of this paper.


Sixty-four patients were evaluated for urinary tract infection (UTI) during the first six months after renal transplantation. Eighty per cent received the allograft from a living, related donor and 37% were female. The median age was 33.8 years. All the patients received cefazolin as perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis. No prophylaxis was given during the bladder catheterization period, which had a median duration of 5.9 days. Nineteen per cent developed predisposing urological factors (PUF). The incidence of UTI was 41% and 15% of all these patients developed bacteremia from this source. UTI was observed in 50% of the patients without PUF between the 5th and 12th days post-transplantation, and these cases had been detected by the control urine culture performed when the bladder catheter was withdrawn. This group of patients accounted for 14% of all the patients. Recurrence was present in 42% of the patients with UTI (19% had reinfection, 4% relapse and 19% both). They were more frequent in patients with PUF than in the patients without; 78% vs. 24%, respectively (p < 0.05). The overall UTI incidence was also higher; 75% vs. 33%, respectively (p < 0.05). The same was observed for the median number of episodes (3 vs. 1). The organisms most frequently isolated were E. faecalis (21%). E. cloacae (17%), and E. coli (17%). Species prevalence differs from that of other reports, probably due to the different institutional antibiotic management. Since half of the UTI episodes suffered by patients without PUF were associated to bladder catheterization, there is a need to institute antibiotic prophylaxis in our center.


The synthesis of a series of dodecadehydrotribenzo[18]annulene ([18]DBA) derivatives is reported, together with their steady-state absorption and fluorescence properties. The main focus, though, is on the self-assembly of these compounds at the liquid-solid interface as investigated with scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), highlighting the effect of alkyl chain orientation and alkyl chain length on the molecular ordering. Owing to the large triangular pi-electron system of the [18]DBAs, two different types of alkyl chain orientation are observed. The observed changes in the monolayer networks upon elongation of the alkyl chains are attributed to the increased van der Waals interactions between molecules and substrate. The effect of the core size on the alkyl chain orientation and, as a result, the monolayer structure is discussed in relation to the results obtained previously for triangularly-shaped dehydrobenzo [12]annulene ([12]DBA) derivatives and triphenylene derivatives. A guideline for substituent spacing allowing control of molecular alignment for large planar pi-electron systems utilizing directional alkyl chain interdigitation is also discussed.


Cancer stem cells (CSCs) have gained an increasing attention recently in cancer research. CSCs have ability to generate new tumor through their stem cell properties, essentially self-renewal potential and differentiation into multiple cell lineages. Extensive evidences report that CSCs are resistant to many conventional therapies and mediate tumor recurrence. CSCs of lung cancer are well recognized by their specific markers such as CD133, CD44, ABCG2 and ALDH1A1 together with the CSC characteristics including spheroid and colony formation. Targeting these surface proteins with blocking antibodies and inhibition of ABC transporters and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) enzymes with small molecules may prove useful in inhibiting tumor progression. The Hh, Notch and Wnt pathways are key signaling cascades that govern cell fate during development and have been shown to be involved in CSCs in various solid tumors. Therapeutic approaches also target these signaling pathways in repressing the tumor progression. This review will focus on stem cell origins, role of signaling pathways, stem cell markers and therapeutic approaches specific to lung cancer.


As the principal agency regulating food, drugs, medical devices, and biological products used by Americans, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) serves one of the most critical consumer protection functions of the federal government. The FDA's reach is enormous, regulating products that represent roughly 25 percent of all consumer spending in the United States. Since 1992, however, federal funding for the agency has diminished, and the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) currently relies on the fees it receives from the industry it regulates to fund the majority of its drug regulation functions. Prescription drug safety is receiving heightened press coverage and congressional scrutiny as a result of recent, highly publicized events, such as the recall of Vioxx because of its link to heart attacks, and the link between certain antidepressants (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs) and an increased risk of suicidal ideation in children. To address these concerns, the FDA in 2005 commissioned the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to conduct an independent assessment of the current U.S. drug safety system. In September 2006, the IOM committee released its report-The Future of Drug Safety: Promoting and Protecting the Health of the Public-which included 25 recommendations for improving the system for drug safety review. The committee identified four major vulnerabilities in the U.S. drug safety system: (1) chronic underfunding; (2) organization problems, particularly inadequate integration of pre-and postmarket data review; (3) a range of technical problems related to the insufficient quantity and quality of postmarket data and inadequate capability to systematically monitor the risks and benefits of drugs after marketing; and (4) unclear regulatory authority and insufficiently flexible regulatory tools. Since the IOM report was issued, the FDA has taken a number of steps toward implementing the recommended improvements. Like many government agencies, however, the FDA is financially strained by its existing responsibilities, and fully implementing the recommended improvements to the drug safety system would require significant financial commitments.The IOM report addressed some of the costs associated with its recommendations, but left many unanswered questions about the resources required to fully achieve the envisioned improvements. To better understand the types and magnitude of resources required to achieve the goals of the IOM report, the IOM's Forum on Drug Discovery, Development, and Translation convened a 1-day symposium in March 2007. Challenges for the FDA: The Future of Drug Safety, Workshop Summary explains the presentations and discussions in seven key areas: addressing the FDA's resource challenges; strengthening the scientific base of the agency; integrating pre- and postmarket review; enhancing postmarket safety monitoring; conducting confirmatory drug safety and efficacy studies; enhancing the value of clinical trial registration; and enhancing the FDA's postmarket regulation and enforcement.


The current study aims to evaluate the efficacy and efficiency of desktop 360 display designs, specifically navigation and direction judgment in an unknown environment. Based on previous studies, which showed an advantage of gaming experience on spatial abilities, we further tested the gaming experience and its relationship with speed of understanding space by varying the visibility of timer on screen. We conducted an eye-tracking experiment with three factors: interface type, gaming and timer visibility as mixed-group design. Participants were divided based on their gaming experience(gamers vs. non gamers) as well as timer visible condition(timer vs. no-timer). This resulted in four different groups of participants. The results show a significant effect of timer on the angle estimation across the three interfaces. Further, we found that gamers did outperformed non-gamers in angle estimation and total time taken to complete the task. Eye tracker data with twelve selected participants showed, comparatively lesser 'fixation counts' in left AOIs across all 360 display designs indicating the preferences in visual field. Further, the panoramic (360x1) interface showed longer time to first fixation suggesting either more exploration is required before making decision or too big FOV to scan to make the decision. The current results favors the 360 displays "with visual boundaries" compared to the display "without visual boundaries" independent of the previous experience (gaming) or speed of processing (timer visibility).


OBJECTIVES
Many patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) develop progressive difficulty swallowing secretions, leading to drooling. Although external beam radiation is considered to be an effective and well-tolerated treatment, the optimum schedule in terms of dose, target, radiation type, and number of fractions is unknown. The aim of this observational study was to define the most effective schedule for salivary gland irradiation and to compare electron and photon radiotherapy.

METHODS
Sixteen patients with ALS (12 females and 4 males) with drooling, enrolled for external radiation of salivary glands between 2002 and 2007, were included. Patients received different treatment protocols according to the decision of their radiotherapist. Efficacy and safety were assessed at 1 and 6 months after treatment by a neurologist and a radiotherapist using a 4-point Likert patient improvement scale, as follows: 0 (no change), 1 (slight improvement), 2 (good improvement), and 3 (very good improvement).

RESULTS
Radiotherapy for drooling was shown to be safe and effective in ALS patients with duration of effect expected up to 6 months. Eighty percent of patients felt improved at 1 month and 43% at 6 months after external radiation. Patients with sustained improvement at 6 months were treated with electron therapy (>8 MeV; p = 0.02).

CONCLUSIONS
Electron-based radiotherapy, delivered as five 4Gy fractions to a total dose of 20 Gy, encompassing the whole of the submandibular gland and sparing the upper part of the parotid gland, can be proposed as a safe and effective schedule for the treatment of sialorrhea in patients with ALS.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the clinical efficacy of Qiantongding Decoction in the treatment of type III B prostatitis or chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CPPS).

METHODS
Seventy patients with type III B prostatitis / CPPS were randomly divided into an experimental group (n = 36) and a control group (n = 34), the former treated with Qiantongding Decoction, and the latter with oral Indometacin, both for a month. Then their scores on Pelvic Pain Symptom Survey and NIH-CPSI were documented and compared.

RESULTS
An obvious improvement was observed in both groups after the treatment, with significant differences from pre-treatment (P < 0.05), and the experimental group showed a significantly better alleviation of pain than the control (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION
Qiantongding Decoction has an obvious therapeutic effect on type III B prostatitis / CPPS.


Hydatid disease is a parasitic disease, which is caused by echinococcus and often located in the liver and lung but occasionally found in other organs. Only one previous study reported localization in the mesorectum. In this case report, we present a 27-year-old male, as a second case in the literature, with a hydatid cyst located in the mesorectum. Abdominopelvic computed tomography revealed cystic masses localized in the mesorectum with no pulmonary or hepatic involvement. Pre-operative cyst hydatid IgG (1/1000) was positive, and the preliminary diagnosis was hydatid disease. The patient underwent partial cystectomy. Macroscopic and microscopic examination of the specimens confirmed the hydatid cyst. This case report demonstrates that hydatid disease should be taken into consideration in the differential diagnosis of a cystic mass in any anatomic localization, especially in endemic areas. J Clin Exp Invest 2015; 6 (1): 75-77


Project Based Learning (PBL) carries out the teaching by the project so that students greatly enhance the enthusiasm and initiative. The thesis builds a new teaching target system, emphasizing training professional knowledge, project management knowledge, and social adaptability ability. The thesis based on the target system requirements discusses the process model of Project Based Learning, designs a web-based project management platform and gives their needs analysis and structural design.


The pulp and paper industry in Europe produces over 11 million tons of waste per year. Given high landfill operational costs, thermal co-processing with biomass may be a viable management and valorisation option for such wastes. In this work, the analysis of biomass (wood sawdust), mixture of primary and secondary pulp mill sludge and their respective blends (50 wt.%, 60 wt.%, 70 wt.% of sludge) was assessed by thermogravimetric analysis. One of the possibilities to ensure valorisation of paper pulp mill sludge is its combustion in the form of pellets containing a different amount of sludge. Production of pellets samples was realised on laboratory experimental device. The measurements showed that increasing the content of paper sludge in the produced pellets reduced the calorific value and increased the ash content. This research deals also with the effect of paper sludge on the ash melting temperatures. The results indicated that a higher content of paper sludge in the pellets increased the ash melting temperatures. This advantage of paper sludge can be utilized in co-combustion of biomass with a low ash melting temperature.


Ionic liquids are designer molecules which can efficiently replace the conventional organic solvents used in chemical processes and operations. Although a number of such applications have been reported in the literature for almost a decade, very few have actually been commercialized. This paper details the different applications claimed and examines the issues and barriers which obstruct the rapid commercialization of ionic liquids. It identifies further courses of action required for the assessment and realization of the advantages of ionic liquids.


An adult male with mild mental retardation, whose laboratory history included training in a match-to-sample task on 16 arbitrary relations among 16 visual stimuli and 2 auditory stimuli, had performances that showed the development of 112 additional arbitrary relations that had never been reinforced. In the presented study on 2-year and 3-year follow-up tests for these derived relations, his performances remained stable despite the absence of opportunities to practice these relations between the tests and the absence of explicit feedback during the tests. The similarity to the long-term stability of language was discussed.


The study was carried out in randomly selected Patna district to understand the effect of prediction potentialities of socio-personal variables of dairy farmers. Data were solicited from 100 milk producers following random sampling method. The findings of study reveal a wide variation in prediction potentialities of the selected variables. Variables such as cosmopoliteness followed by education emerged as potential predictors towards the dependent variable. Therefore, study recommends for enhancing the level of education of milk producers along with providing the better opportunities of information sources other than they have in order to enhance the adoption level of Improved Animal Husbandry Practices.


To investigate the nonthermal emission mechanism and their interaction during cluster mergers, we analyze multiple low-frequency radio data for the X-ray luminous massive galaxy cluster MACS J0717.5 + 3745, located at z = 0.5548. Large-scale structure-formation models in the Universe suggest that galaxy clusters grow via constant accretion of gas and the merger of galaxy groups and smaller clusters. Low-frequency radio observations trace these mergers in the form of relics and halos. The dual frequency observations were performed on MACS J0717.5 + 3745 to investigate the spectral index pattern of the nonthermal emission and its interaction within the intracluster medium (ICM), during merger process. Methods: Continuum observations were carried out using GMRT at 0.235 and 0.61 GHz on MACS J0717.5 + 3745 and archival data from the VLA (0.074 and 1.42 GHz) and WSRT (0.325 GHz) was used to complement the results. Furthermore, to explore the thermal and nonthermal interactions within the ICM and the morphological distribution, Chandra X-ray and HST data were used. Results: A highly complex nonthermal radio emission distribution is seen in the cluster at very low frequencies, with a global spectral index α0.2350.61˜-1.17±0.37. We have detected a giant radio halo within the cluster system with a linear size of 1.58 Mpc and a "Chair-shaped" filament structure between the merging subclusters of linear size 853 kpc at 0.235 GHz. This is the most powerful halo ever observed with P1.4 = 9.88 × 1025 WHz-1 and an equipartition magnetic field estimate of ~6.49 μG. The bright filament structure is well located in the central merging region of subclusters with enhanced temperature, as shown by Chandra and HST data analysis, further indicating the formation of this structure due to shock waves encountered within the ICM during the merger events.


BACKGROUND
Bangladesh is one of the only nine Countdown countries that are on track to achieve the primary target of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5 by 2015. It is also the only low-income or middle-income country with two large, nationally-representative, high-quality household surveys focused on the measurement of maternal mortality and service use.

METHODS
We use data from the 2001 and 2010 Bangladesh Maternal Mortality Surveys to measure change in the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) and from these and six Bangladesh Demographic and Health Surveys to measure changes in factors potentially related to such change. We estimate the changes in risk of maternal death between the two surveys using Poisson regression.

FINDINGS
The MMR fell from 322 deaths per 100,000 livebirths (95% CI 253-391) in 1998-2001 to 194 deaths per 100,000 livebirths (149-238) in 2007-10, an annual rate of decrease of 5·6%. This decrease rate is slightly higher than that required (5·5%) to achieve the MDG target between 1990 and 2015. The key contribution to this decrease was a drop in mortality risk mainly due to improved access to and use of health facilities. Additionally, a number of favourable changes occurred during this period: fertility decreased and the proportion of births associated with high risk to the mother fell; income per head increased sharply and the poverty rate fell; and the education levels of women of reproductive age improved substantially. We estimate that 52% of maternal deaths that would have occurred in 2010 in view of 2001 rates were averted because of decreases in fertility and risk of maternal death.

INTERPRETATION
The decrease in MMR in Bangladesh seems to have been the result of factors both within and outside the health sector. This finding holds important lessons for other countries as the world discusses and decides on the post-MDG goals and strategies. For Bangladesh, this case study provides a strong rationale for the pursuit of a broader developmental agenda alongside increased and accelerated investments in improving access to and quality of public and private health-care facilities providing maternal health in Bangladesh.

FUNDING
United States Agency for International Development, UK Department for International Development, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.


This paper presents the design of a dual controlled (manual as well as autopilot) Deployable Low Cost Outdoor Surveillance system. This model provides situational awareness by obtaining real-time information in outdoor applications. The aircraft is designed to have wingspan of less than 6 feet capable of carrying autopilot system and useful payload. This highly autonomous flight control system has high resolution camera and an onboard video transmitting device, which transmits high quality video with specified GPS points and altitudes. Sensors are able to detect man-sized objects. Innovative robust construction coupled with light weight and inexpensive hardware is used in the design of the airframe and avionics. These features allow the airplane to be operated even by unskilled users or via autopilot.


The objective was to compare the pregnancy outcome of teenage girls and mature women. The design was a retrospective study of births from January to December 1990, based on the antenatal clinic and the labour ward, University Hospital of the West Indies, Jamaica. Teenage mothers, 13 to 19 years old, and a control group of mothers, 22 to 23 years old, were selected from the records of 2,394 live, singleton births between 200 and 305 days' gestation. The main outcome measures were birth weight, crown heel length, head circumference, head circumference:length ratio, ponderal index and placental weight. The results showed that in the teenage group, weight, body mass index at booking, haemoglobin concentration in each trimester, and minimum haemoglobin level during pregnancy were lower than in the control group. Systolic blood pressure in the first and the second trimesters was lower than in controls, but there was no significant difference in the third trimester nor in the delivery systolic blood pressure. Babies of teenage mothers had lower birth weights and smaller head circumferences than the babies of the control group, but there was no significant difference between the groups in crown heel length, ponderal index, head circumference:length ratio, and placental weight. These data support the hypothesis that teenaged girls are not physically mature and, as a consequence, their offspring have lower birth weights and smaller head circumferences.


Abstract Background Recently, ACOG released updated definitions for intraamniotic infection (IAI): maternal fever (≥38.0 °C) and ≥1 symptom (fetal tachycardia, maternal white blood cell count >15,000/mm3 or purulent discharge). Treatment was no longer recommended for women with fever <39.0 °C plus maternal tachycardia or fundal tenderness (previous criteria). The objective of this study was to compare postpartum infectious morbidity among women meeting previous criteria (but not the new IAI criteria) to women meeting new IAI criteria. Methods Retrospective cohort of women delivering vaginally at a single academic center. Demographics, antepartum and intrapartum characteristics of women who met diagnostic criteria for chorioamnionitis (previous criteria) compared to those who met IAI criteria using bivariate statistics. The primary outcome was a composite of postpartum infection, including: endometritis, perineal infection, sepsis, urinary tract infection, pyelonephritis. Backward-stepwise elimination used to estimate odds of primary outcome. Results Of 229 women who met previous IAI criteria, 51 (22.3%) did not meet new IAI criteria. Women no longer meeting IAI criteria were younger (25 versus 27 years, p = .02), more likely to have gestational hypertension (16.0 versus 3.4%, p < .01), and less likely to have third or fourth degree lacerations (2.0 versus 13.4%, p = .02). No difference in antibiotic receipt was observed. Postpartum infection occurred in 16/229 (7.0%) women overall; five (9.8%) in those not meeting new IAI criteria, and 11 (6.2%) meeting new IAI criteria. After adjusting for confounders, there was no difference in odds of postpartum infection (aOR 1.65, 95% CI 0.55–4.99). Conclusions/implications Among women who met old ACOG criteria for IAI, but not the new criteria, postpartum infection occurred in nearly 10%. This number could be higher if these women were not treated with antibiotics.


The guiding principle of the integrated project is its human centered approach, which considers reproductive health (RH) and family planning (FP) from the wider context of community needs. Central to this approach is the idea that RH/FP can best be promoted through priority community needs, emphasizing the empowerment of individuals to make informed choices through information, education and counseling. It is within this context that JOICFP worked to address the reproductive health and family planning challenges in sub-Saharan Africa. The article presents the issues identified in the program evaluation and the recommendations made for future program development at both country and regional levels.


Recent research has explored the determinants of economic freedom, an important measure of institutional quality. Concurrently, some scholars have posited a negative relationship between the quality of economic institutions and democracy, specifically at very high levels of democracy.
 This paper disaggregates the Polity IV index into a vector of 20 dummy variables to explore how differing degrees of democracy and autocracy may impact economic freedom, thereby leaving open the possibility for levels of democracy modestly less than perfect democracy to have better
 effects on economic freedom. This paper will also consider the Vreeland re-estimate of the Polity IV index, the Grundler-Kreiger measure of democracy, the use of a quadratic term, and quantile regression. The weak evidence that is found points to a modest positive relationship between
 democracy and economic freedom, with little evidence that marginally less democracy will subsequently lead to more economic freedom.


The evolving field of forensic science continues to incorporate new technologies and new procedures with the passing of time. As our scientific knowledge expands, we seek to apply this knowledge for the general improvement of society, in whatever ways that we can. The criminal justice system greatly benefits from scientific progress, primarily because science can assist in the justice system's search for truth in the courts. However, merely developing the method is not enough; new forensic methods must be carefully tested and evaluated before they can be introduced into the courts. Law enforcement and attorneys must become familiar with the theory and limitations of the new practice, and the technology to perform the analyses must be distributed and operated in forensic laboratories. This paper attempts to review and examine one potential aid to forensic science, the ability to use mass spectrometry methods to obtain a chemical fingerprint of collected evidence. Following an overview of the aims of chemical fingerprinting and trace evidence, the MS methods in question are explained in detail. Afterwards, their capacity to analyze forensic evidence will be reviewed briefly, and some potential shortcomings of the science are explored. Third, the technique's ability to be applied to forensic issues will be examined from the perspective of law enforcement and forensic laboratories. Finally, some concerns about the courtroom presentation and reception of the results will be discussed.


This thesis is concerned with a study of rural landscape change within a small area of Cumberland – the manor of Cumwhitton between 1603-1810. The work was based on the extensive Howard of Tamworth collection lodged in Durham – the earliest documents within which form the starting point for study. A seventeenth century map and associated field book provide the means of making an examination of the pattern of settlement fields and field boundaries in about 1603, and this study forms a datum line from which to undertake a more detailed analysis of various aspects of the human geography of Cumwhitton. This involves an analysis of settlement change within the manor and a summary appraisal of population dynamics. The picture of settlement so provided creates a bridge to research more pioneering in character which attempts to examine the morphology of cluster settlements, both within Cumwhitton and more generally within the Barony of Gilsland. Cumwhitton manor forms the focus of a consideration of that vital but non-visible framework of human activity – landownership. The more complex problems of northern land tenure particularly as seen in its state of flux at the beginning of the seventeenth century are examined. Enclosure is seen as an important input within a complex process – response system opening up as it did avenues for agrarian change, and leading toward developments in tenurial, economic and social sectors. Finally, many of the themes which have been woven into the thesis, problems of settlement, field patterns and landownership arrangements are brought together in a chapter which considers farms and the functional components of the agrarian system. An attempt is made in conclusion to gain an overview of both change and stability in the rural landscape of Cumwhitton in the period 1603-1840.


To evaluate the response of jack bean (Canavalia ensiformis (L.) D.C.) to the coinoculation with strains of Rhizobium and arbuscular mycorrhizical fungus (AMF), it was carried out an experiment under microplots conditions that contained Nitisol soil coming from the Department of Agricultural Services of the INCA, in San Jose de las Lajas, Mayabeque, and another soil from the Station of Grasses and Forages of Cascajal, Villa Clara (Ferruginous Nodular Gley). Four strains of Rhizobium were studied (Can 2, Can 3, Can 4 and Can 5) and two strains of AMF (Glomus cubense (INCAM 4) and Rhizophagus intraradices) (INCAM 11) for the Nitisol soil and Glomus cubense and Funneliformis mosseae (INCAM 2) for the Nodular Gley soil more the corresponding controls without inoculation, for a total of 15 treatments for each soil type, which were distributed in a totally randomized design with factorial arrangement (5 x 3) and three  repetitions. The mycorrrhizic symbiosis indicators and the yield of dry mass were evaluated. The results showed that the jack bean responded to the coinoculation Rhizobium-AMF in both types of soil. The best behavior in the strains of Rhizobium was obtained with can 3 for the Nitisol soil and Can 3, Can 4 and Can 5 for Nodular Gley soil, and the best strain of AMF were, in that order, G. cubense and F. mosseae for one and another soil, respectively.


Introduction Female pelvic floor disorders (PFDs) include clinical conditions such as urinary and fecal incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse. Disease-specific questionnaires like the Pelvic Floor Distress Inventory-20 (PFDI-20) have facilitated pelvic floor disorder assessment. We aimed to investigate the prevalence of pelvic floor disorders in Japanese women after different modes of delivery and the association of pelvic floor disorders with epidural anesthesia. Material and methods We included 212 women who gave birth at our institution. The PFDI-20 questionnaire (validated in Japanese) was used to evaluate the symptoms of pelvic floor disorders 6-15 months postpartum. Results Out of the 212 postpartum women who participated in this study, 156 (73.6%) had symptoms of pelvic floor disorder; the most prevalent symptom was urinary distress inventory in 114 (53.8%) women [79 (37.3%) of them experienced urine leakage related to increased abdominal pressure]. A comparison of the epidural and non-epidural groups to determine the association between pelvic floor disorder and delivery mode revealed a higher disease burden score of 8.67 points in the epidural group. Conclusion The prevalence of pelvic floor disorder symptoms is relatively high, affecting 156 (73.6%) of 212 women. Accurate diagnosis of women and appropriate and regular follow-up until improvement of their symptoms are crucial. Furthermore, healthcare workers should advise pregnant women on whether to choose vaginal delivery with or without anesthesia. To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to investigate postpartum pelvic floor disorder in Japan.


The locomotor activity of Nereis virens Sars associated with food prospecting was investigated in response to photoperiod and season using an actograph. Experimental animals which had been reared under natural photoperiods were exposed to two constant photoperiodic treatments, LD 16:8 and LD 8:16, in both the autumn and winter and in the absence of tidal entrainment. Autocorrelation analysis of rhythmicity showed that during the autumn, animals under the LD 16:8 photoperiod displayed a strong nocturnal rhythm of activity, whereas animals under the LD 8:16 photoperiod showed only a weak nocturnal activity rhythm. This is believed to represent an autumn feeding cessation that is triggered when the animals pass through a critical photoperiod LDcrit <12:>12. Later in the winter, however, animals exposed to both photoperiodic treatments showed strong rhythms of foraging activity irrespective of the imposed photoperiod. It is suggested that the autumn cessation may maximize the fitness of N. virens, a spring-breeding semelparous organism, by reducing risk during gamete maturation, while spontaneous resurgence of activity after the winter solstice permits animals that are not physiologically competent to spawn to accrue further metabolic reserves. This response is believed to be initiated by a seasonal (possibly circannual) endogenous oscillator or interval timer.


It is known how noticeable modifications may be induced in the high sulphur content proteins of wool, by enrichment of the diet of sheep with cysteine or sulphur amino acids. It is also well known how the oral ingestion of gelatin significantly increases hair diameter and the degree of hardness of finger and toe nails. To the end of verifying the possible stimulating selective action performed by cystine and gelatin in the keratinization processes of the hairy structures, it was controlled: amino acids content in hair of normal rat after oral ingestion of a controlled quantity of gelatin-cystine added in the diet. The same experiments have been carried out on rats in which the condition of sufference of the hair was induced by means of a biotin-free diet. From the obtained data it seems that gelatin-cystine, added in the diet of normal or suffering rats, helps to modify the cysteine content of the sulphur-rich hair proteins (+ 50% abt.). The diet supplement bring about a considerable increasing of CYS (+ 35%) with a decreasing of GLY (- 15%).


Brown alga Undaria peterseniana has been interested in the commercial scale aquaculture for warm water species development in southern coastal area of Korea. However, this species was classified an endangered species caused by a decrease in habitat and natural population. In this study, inhabit characteristics of U. peterseniana was investigated in their natural habitat of Ulleung Island, Korea. The U. peterseniana population was occurred dense patches at 20∼30m depth. Total length of the alga reached 1.0∼2.0m and the largest width ranged 10.0∼35.0cm during the study. In 2013, habitats of this species increased two sites compared with the previous year and their distribution extended to low depth (10m) of coastal area. In long-term data, seawater temperature revealed a continuous increment by strong going north of East Korea Warm Current or Ulleung Warm Eddy turning around the coast of Ulleung Island. It suggested that habitat extension of U. peterseniana may be caused by suitable settlement condition and increase of warm water around the coastal area. Current studies of this species may be continuously required in the possibility of fisheries resources as aquaculture species and index species of increment of water temperature at the fixed monitoring site in East Sea. This is the first study to research ecological feature U. peterseniana population at the natural habitat of Ulleung Island.


—Space communications, particularly mega satellite networks, re-emerged as an appealing candidate for next generation networks due to major advances in space launching, elec- tronics, processing power, and miniaturization. However, mega satellite networks rely on numerous underlying and intertwined processes that cannot be truly captured using conventionally used models, due to their dynamic and unique features such as orbital speed, inter-satellite links, short time pass, and satellite footprint, among others. Hence, new approaches are needed to enable the network to proactively adjust to the rapidly varying conditions associated within the link. Artificial intelligence (AI) provides a pathway to capture these processes, analyze their behavior, and model their effect on the network. This article introduces the application of AI techniques for integrated terrestrial satellite networks, particularly mega satellite network communications. It details the unique features of mega satellite networks, and the overarching challenges concomitant with their integration into the current communication infrastructure. Moreover, the article provides insights into state-of-the-art AI techniques across various layers of the communication link. This entails applying AI for forecasting the highly dynamic radio channel, spectrum sensing and classification, signal detection and demodulation, inter-satellite link and satellite access network optimization, and network security. Moreover, future paradigms and the mapping of these mechanisms onto practical networks are outlined.


1 Abstract --The penetration of DGs would drastically affect the traditional distribution power system fault current level and the characteristics of fault currents, consequently, the traditional protection arrangements developed in radial systems are difficult in coordination, and also the reclosing scheme would be affected. With the rapid developments in distribution system automation and communication technology, the protection coordination and reclosing scheme based on information exchange for distribution power system can be realized flexibly. A protection coordination mode based on multi-agent technology is discussed in this paper.


The Designers' Workbench is a system, developed to support designers in large organizations, such as Rolls-Royce, by making sure that the design is consistent with the specification for the particular design as well as with the company's design rule book(s). Currently, to capture the constraint information, a domain expert (design engineer) has to work with a knowledge engineer to identify the constraints, and it is then the task of the knowledge engineer to encode these into the Workbench's knowledge base (KB). This is an error prone and time consuming task. It is highly desirable to relieve the knowledge engineer of this task, and so we have developed a tool, ConEditor+ that enables domain experts themselves to capture and maintain these constraints. The tool allows the user to combine selected entities from the domain ontology with keywords and operators of a constraint language to form a constraint expression. Further, we hypothesize that to apply constraints appropriately, it is necessary to understand the context in which each constraint is applicable. We refer to this as "application conditions". We show that an explicit representation of application conditions, in a machine interpretable format, along with the constraints and the domain ontology can be used to support the verification and maintenance of constraints.


Dynamic Movement Primitives (DMPs) as a robust and efficient framework has been studied widely for robot learning from demonstration. Classical DMPs framework mainly focuses on the movement learning in Cartesian or joint space, and can't properly represent end-effector orientation. In this paper, we present an Extended DMPs framework (EDMPs) both in Cartesian space and Riemannian manifolds for Quaternion-based orientations learning and generalization. Gaussian Mixture Model and Gaussian Mixture Regression are adopted as the initialization phase of EDMPs to handle multi-demonstrations and obtain their mean and covariance. Additionally, some evaluation indicators including reachability and similarity are defined to characterize the learning and generalization abilities of EDMPs. Finally, the quaternion-based orientations are successfully transferred from human to the robot, and a real-world experiment is conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The experimental results reveal that the presented approach can learn and generalize multi-space parameters under multi-demonstrations.


Many of the common bean growing regions around the world are prone to drought stress, making drought the major challenge to production and yield stability in rainfed environments. Mapping of yield-associated loci under drought stress will offer a better understanding of the genetics of drought tolerance to the plant breeders and therefore, will accelerate the selection of drought tolerant crop varieties through marker assisted selection (MAS).The current study reports identification of quantitative trait loci (QTL) linked to physiological, phenological, yield and yield related traits using 120 F2 population derived from a cross between two common bean genotypes, KAT B1 (drought tolerant) and GLP2 (drought susceptible) evaluated under drought stress and well-watered conditions. The research was conducted at the Agricultural and Mechanization Institute, Machakos, Kenya. The F2 population showed significant variation in traits under drought stress. From the 374 polymorphic SNP markers surveyed, 20 genomic regions were identified for various traits under drought stress, individually explaining 2.6 to 21.3% of phenotypic variation. The number of QTLs identified per trait were: 2-grain/seed yield (GY); 1-number of branches (NBP); 2-stem biomass (SB); 1-leaf biomass (LB); 1-pod biomass (PB); 3-days to flowering; 2-days to maturity (DM); 4number of pods per plant (NPP); 1-seed weight (SW); 2-stomatal conductance (SMTL) and 1-leaf water potential (LWP). QTLs for number of pods per plant, number of grains/seeds per pod, days to flowering, leaf biomass and stem biomass were found co-locating with QTLs for grain yield on chromosome Pv02 under drought stress treatment. The cumulative effects of these QTLs on chromosomes 2 resulted in higher grain/seed yield. This study has provided information on QTLs in common bean that could be used in selection purpose for grain yield under drought conditions.


In the framework of the Bethe-Salpeter formalism used in pre vious papers to evaluate the quarkonium spectrum, here we reverse the point of view to ex ract an "experimental" running couplingα s (Q2) in the infrared (IR) region from the data. The values so obtai ned agree within the erros with the Shirkov-Solovtsov analytic coupling for 200 MeV< Q < 1.2 GeV, thus giving a very satisfactory unifying description of high and low ener gy phenomena. Below 1 GeV however α s (Q2) seems to vanish as Q→ 0. The paper is based on a work in progress in collaboration wi th D. V. Shirkov.


OBJECTIVES
To demonstrate the usefulness of intrapericardial inspection of pulmonary vessels by video assisted thoracoscopy (VAT), for determining whether suspicion indicated by computed axial tomography (CAT) or magnetic resonance (MR) scanning is justified or not.

PATIENTS AND METHOD
Since 1993 we have used exploratory VAT for final staging and assessment of lung cancer resectability. Intrapericardial vascular exploration (IVE) is a complementary method of assessing resectability in cT4 cases. We have performed 20 IVE among 460 VAT when intrapericardial involvement of pulmonary vessels has been suspected (19 men, 1 woman, mean age 64.6 years, range 50-77). VAT demonstrated invasion for 11 patients with previous suspicion based on hilar and vascular invasion shown by CAT scan; in 9 others such involvement was found during IVE for assessing resectability. VAT-IVE was performed through three or sometimes four entrance approaches, from which intrapericardial vessels were explored easily.

RESULTS
Five cases were non-resectable: four due to invasion of the pulmonary artery to its point of origin and one due to extensive invasion of pulmonary veins and the left auricle. The remaining 15 cases were resectable and lesions were removed by posterolateral thoracotomy with intrapericardial dissection and ligature of the vessels. Five had been considered non-resectable by teams at other hospitals where they were classified as advanced cT4 cancers after imaging. The mean duration of IVE was 23 minutes (range 16 to 33); mean postprocedural stay was 48 h in non-resected patients, who were sent for neoadjuvant therapy on the third day. These patients, who underwent only IVE, had no complications and there were no deaths, with five unnecessary thoracotomies avoided.

CONCLUSIONS
IVE allows correct staging of the T parameter in patients for whom T4 classification is suspected, avoiding unnecessary thoracotomies in non-resectable cases and allowing for surgical removal in cases where CAT or MR imaging results are unclear.


The Young's modulus and the tensile fracture strength of Bi2223 filaments extracted from multifilamentary tape have been evaluated using the single-fibre tensile test; they are estimated to be 106 GPa and 45 MPa, respectively. The distribution of the fracture strength can be analysed using the Weibull distribution function. It was found that the observed scatter of strength is very large compared with other superconducting filaments such as NbTi and Nb3Al. The Young's modulus was nearly identical with the estimated values based on the rule of mixture from the unload/reload modulus.


This article examines how the immigration and schooling systems in Canada intersect to deny access to migrant youth with precarious status throughout educational trajectories. While there are access policies at the primary and secondary school level, barriers increase in post-secondary education. We argue that such students transitioning to university experience a "double punishment" through racialized exclusion in the education and immigration systems. Our research draws from semi-structured interviews with migrant youth and our experience organizing an access program at York University that targets precarious status students for inclusion. We propose that Canadian universities and policymakers learn from such access programs to increase equitable inclusion at other institutions.


Objective: Fetal heart rate (FHR) variation during chorionic villus sampling (CVS) is a controversial topic. Limited studies have been published on this subject. Our study intended to evaluate the effects of CVS on the FHR. Method: One hundred and sixty-five patients undergoing first-trimester elective CVS for prenatal diagnosis of β-thalassemia were entered into a prospective study. M-mode FHR was obtained before and immediately after CVS in the patients. Potentially confounding variables also recorded included: gestational age, number of needle passes and placental location. Results: FHR values before and after CVS were compared using the paired t test and showed no statistically significant differences by 95% confidence. No differences were found in data analyzing gestational age, number of needle passes or placental location. Conclusion: We were unable to detect any significant change in FHR after performing CVS. It seems that FHR is generally not altered by CVS.


Studies on aphasia of Chinese culture in college English teaching have been focused for a long time. Yet little attention has been paid to the senior high school English teaching concerning this problem. As a matter of fact, senior high school English teaching plays an essential role in English learning. In order to find out whether aphasia of Chinese culture exists in this stage and dig out the factors, the author has carried out a survey with quantitative and qualitative methodologies in the senior high school students of Grade one and teachers of a key middle school in Kunming. The survey reveals that this phenomenon does exist in senior high school English teaching and the extent is rather severe. The main reasons are lack of introduction on Chinese culture in English class, inadequacy of Chinese culture in textbooks and no emphasis on Chinese culture in English test. According to the explored reasons, the author proposes the corresponding suggestive solutions to the problem. They are: to reform the culture teaching, to add more Chinese culture in textbooks and to revise NMET (National Matriculation English Test).


Bacterial infections may cause disease and death. Infants and children are often subject to bacterial infections. Antimicrobials kill bacteria protecting the infected patients andreducing the risk of morbidity and mortality caused by bacteria. The antibiotics may lose their antibacterial activity when they become resistant to a bacteria. The resistance to different antibiotics in a bacteria is named multidrug-resistance. Gram-negative bacilli, especially Escherichia coli, Klebsiella, Enterobacter, Salmonella, Shigella, Pseudomonas, Streptococcus, and Haemophilus influenzae type b, may become resistant. Amikacin ampicillin, amoxicillin, amoxiclav, cefuroxime, cefotaxime, ceftazidime, cefoperazone tetracycline, chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, and gentamicin may cause bacterial-resistance. Resistance to bacteria for several pathogens makes complications in the treatment of infections caused by them. Salmonella strains may become resistant to ampicillin, cephalotin, ceftriaxone, gentamicin, amikacin, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, chloramphenicol, and tetracycline. Shigella strains may become resistant to ampicillin, cotrimoxazole, chloramphenicol, and streptomycin. Multidrug-resistance of Streptococcus pneumoniae may be due to I²-lactams, macrolides, tetracycline, chloramphenicol, and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. Multidrug-resistance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa may become resistant to I²-lactams, chloramphenicol, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, and tetracycline. The antibacterial activity against Haemophilus strains may occur with ampicillin, sulbactam-ampicillin, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, gentamicin, chloramphenicol, and ciprofloxacin. Multidrug-resistance of the Klebsiella species may be due with ampicillin, cefotaxime, cefuroxime, co-amxilav, mezlocillin, chloramphenicol, gentamicin, and ceftazidime. Multidrug-resistance of Escherichia coli may be caused by ampicillin, cotrimoxazole, chloramphenicol, ceftriaxone, and ceftazidime. Vibrio cholera may become resistant to cotrimoxazole, chloramphenicol, ampicillin, with least resistance to erythromicin, tetracycline, and ciprofloxacin. The aim of this study is to review the published data on the resistance of different antimicrobials in infants and children.


Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) farmers from diverse geographical areas in northern Cameroon selected breeding lines from on-station trials for their own fields and explained their reasons (criteria) for making the selections. The average selection intensity employed by farmers varied from 6 to 17% and was similar to that employed by plant breeders. Their selection criteria fell into three broad categories relating to yield, preference and quality, and labour, which were very consistent over years, locations and gender. Selection criteria were strongly influenced by market preferences, reflecting the increasing role of cowpea as a cash crop. Implications of these findings for breeding strategies and genetic resource conservation are discussed.


Bionic acids are bioactive compounds demonstrating numerous interesting properties. They are widely produced by chemical or enzymatic oxidation of disaccharides. This paper focuses on the galactosyl derivative of gluconic acid as a result of a new method of bionic acid synthesis which utilises the transglycosylation properties of β-galactosidase and introduces lactose as a substrate. Products obtained in such a process are characterised by different structures (and, potentially, properties) than those resulting from traditional oxidation of disaccharides. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of selected parameters (concentration and ratio of substrates, dose of the enzyme, time, pH, presence of salts) on the course of the reaction carried out with the enzymatic preparation Lactozym, containing β-galactosidase from Kluyveromyces lactis. Research has shown that increased dry matter content in the baseline solution (up to 50%, by mass per volume) and an addition of NaCl contribute to higher yield. On the other hand, reduced content of the derivative is a result of increased pH from 7.0 to 9.0 and an addition of magnesium and manganese salts. Moreover, exceeding the β-galactosidase dose over approx. 35 000 U per 100 g of lactose also leads to reduced yield of the process. The most favourable molar ratio of sodium gluconate to lactose is 2.225:0.675. Depending on the conditions of the synthesis, the product concentration ranged between 17.3 and 118.3 g/L of the reaction mixture, which corresponded to the mass fraction of 6.64-23.7% of dry matter. The data obtained as a result of the present study may be useful for designing an industrial process.


The objectives of this research were to find out the types of figurative language in Langston Hughes poetry. This study deals with the analysis of figurative language in Langston Hughes attainments on Poetry. The study done is based on the poetry in the data which were shared from Dream variation, Dream, Dream deferred,I dream a world, As I grew older, I continue to dream. This research was carried out by using descriptive qualitative method. There were 56 sample analyzing in poetry. The findings of the data analysis showed that there are six types figurative language. The findings also found that there were six figurative language analyzed in the data namely hyperbole(42,85%), personification(26,78%), imagery(1,78%), simile(14,28%), euphemism(5,35%) and metaphor(8,92%). It was found that the most dominant types of figurative languages were hyperbole and personification


: It was demonstrated that mutations T, Fu, Ki, t6 of chromosome 17 cause preferential transmission of the acrocentric homologues to the progeny from female Rb heterozygotes. The results indicate that the effects of these mutations on segregation are restricted to the Robertsonian translocations involving chromosome 17. Substitution of the parts of chromosome 17 distal or proximal to the T-locus did not alter the effect, of this chromosome on the transmission rate of the homologue. The transmissions effects of these mutations, whether cis or trans with Rb, were the same. It was observed that mothers Rb7/T43H transmitted the chromosome with the reciprocal translocation T43H to 70.9% of their progeny. Data were obtained supporting the idea that structural changes of the chromosomes caused by mutations affect segregation of the homologues in Rb heterozygous females. The possible mechanism of this influence is discussed.


Background In patients with resectable esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC), the decision for neoadjuvant treatment depends on clinical staging with endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) and positron-emission tomography (PET) scan. Patients with locally advanced EAC pathology misclassified as early EAC by clinical staging are missing the opportunity to receive neoadjuvant therapy. We aim to identify predictors of locally advanced pathology in EAC to determine more accurately those who benefit from neoadjuvant therapy. Methods Retrospective study of patients who underwent upfront endoscopic or surgical resection for EAC without neoadjuvant therapy from January 2011 to December 2017 was performed. Clinical characteristics, EUS, PET scan and histologic findings were analyzed. Multivariable analysis of predictors of locally advanced stage was performed and a risk prediction score was developed. Results A total of 97 patients were included; 68 patients were staged as early EAC (pT1 or pT2 and pN0) and 29 patients were staged as locally advanced EAC (pT1 or pT2 with pN1 and pT3 or pT4 irrespective of N status). In a predictive model of EAC, patients presenting with dysphagia, tumor size >2 cm, exophytic mass appearance on endoscopy and absence of hiatal hernia were more likely to be have locally advanced pathology with a probability of 70% (C-statistic 0.766). Conclusions A risk prediction model based on the presence of dysphagia, tumor size >2 cm, exophytic mass appearance and absence of hiatal hernia can be used to identify locally advanced pathology in EAC patients.


Abstract The increasing popularity of electric scooters in Poland is associated with the growing number of e-scooter-related accidents, which often involve head traumas. Although the most common types of injuries are abrasions and cuts to the skin, they sometimes include severe brain injuries. Most e-scooter accidents occur in the warm months. In winter, when there are unfavorable conditions for using this means of transport, e-scooter-related accidents are rare. Described in the text are 2 cases of severe cases of skull and brain injuries which required neurosurgical intervention. In both cases, the riders were under the influence of alcohol and did not use helmets, which had a measurable influence on the profile and the extent of injuries.


A Three-Phase five level AC/DC Converter with Cascaded H-Bridge (CHB) Converter topology is presented to achieve unity power factor and improve power quality. The CHB active rectifier is an attractive topology that allows feeding of similar or different multiple DC loads. In this paper, the AC/DC converter is controlled in Synchronous Reference Frame (SRF) scheme, such that it draws a sinusoidal line current with unity power factor from the AC source. The SRF is adopted in the system to track line current command and output voltage reference. The system model and control algorithm are described. A Zero Current Injection (ZCI) solution is presented for voltage balancing of distinct dc buses in multi level CHB rectifier. This method ensures that the dc bus capacitor voltages converge to the reference value, even when the loads attached to them are extracting different amounts of power with acceptable load power limits. Multilevel Sine Pulse Width Modulated (SPWM) scheme is used to reduce the current harmonics in the input and obtain regulated DC output. The effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm is verified by the computer simulations and validated with experimental results.


A breakpoint classification and tuning approach is proposed for the multiprimitive segmentation of planar curves, and cockhead-like graph is suggested to evaluate the multiprimitive segmentation algorithms. The breakpoints are divided into corners and smooth joints and the types of the segments on both sides of a breakpoint are identified. Then, a joint tuning procedure is exercised to merge/split segments and adjust the joint locations. The carefully designed cockhead-like graph includes all possible combinations and parameters of line and are segments and serves as a benchmark to test the algorithms. The proposed scheme is simple, fast, threshold-free and robust to quantization and preprocessing errors, thus allowing it to be employed in a variety of applications such as matching and recognition. Test against the suggested benchmark and comparison with those in the literature assures the superiority of the method suggested.


In this paper, we present a digital circuit of arithmetic unit implementing addition and subtraction operations in multiple-precision arithmetic (MPA). This adder-subtractor unit is a part of MPA coprocessor supporting and offloading the central processing unit (CPU) in computations requiring precision higher than 32/64 bits. Although addition and subtraction operations of two n-digit numbers require O(n) operations, the efficient implementation of these operations can provide valuable time-savings for the MPA coprocessor. Furthermore, MPA numbers are usually stored with the use of the sign-magnitude representation which is not so straightforward for addition/subtraction implementation as the two's complement representation.Our adder-subtractor unit is implemented using the very high speed integrated circuit hardware description language (VHDL) and benchmarked on Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA. The developed digital circuit of the MPA adder-subtractor works with integer numbers of precision varying in the range between 64 bits and 32 kbits with the limb size set to 64 bits. It can currently work with the clock frequency exceeding 450 MHz. For the developed implementation, the addition of two k-limb numbers takes 33+k clock cycles. Hence, the developed coprocessor is 1.7 times faster than a single core of modern i7 processor for precision set to 32704 bits.


A control approach where the fuzzy logic methodology is combined with impulsive control is developed for controlling some time-delay chaotic systems in this paper. We first introduce impulses into each subsystem with delay of the Takagi–Sugeno (TS) fuzzy IF–THEN rules and then present a unified TS impulsive fuzzy model with delay for chaos control. Based on the new model, a simple and unified set of conditions for controlling chaotic systems is derived by the Lyapunov–Razumikhin method, and a design procedure for estimating bounds on control matrices is also given. Several numerical examples are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of this method.


A series of MnOx-CeO2 with different Mn contents was prepared using CeBTC-MOF as the sacrificial template. These constituted a new kind of porous crystalline materials assembled by cerium as metal ions and 1, 3, 5-benzenetricarboxylic acid as organic ligands. The composite oxides exhibited good redox properties and were tested as catalysts in the oxidation of toluene. To obtain insight into the structure-activity relationship of the catalysts, the samples were characterized using powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), nitrogen adsorption-desorption, thermogravimetric analysis (TG), elemental analysis (EA), inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), H2 temperature-programmed reduction (H2-TPR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman spectroscopy (Raman), and UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. Studies of the CeBTC-MOF template showed that the metal-organic framework could be completely decomposed at a calcination temperature of 300 ℃. Therefore, CeBTC-MOF decomposed and generated CO2 and H2O during the calcination process. The gas molecule spilled out from the structure to form the interior void space. The spilling out could be controlled by varying the calcination temperature. This regulated the quantity and size of the interior void, which in turn made the surface area controllable. The secondary building unit of CeBTC-MOF was oxidized to nano-sized crystalline particles, which exhibited outstanding interfacial contact. SEM and TEM results showed that the composite oxides prepared by pyrolysis of the CeBTC-MOF template exhibited rod-shaped nanocrystalline particles. While introducing Mn into MOF, part of Mn entered the ceria lattice to form solid solution and the remaining Mn was dispersed on CeO2 surface. The elemental mappings revealed a well-proportioned distribution of Mn, which confirmed the successful formation of bimetallic metal oxides using the MOF-template method. All the samples exhibited sizes and shapes similar to their parent MOFs. As for catalytic activity, all the composite oxides showed better performances than pure CeO2 for catalytic oxidation of toluene. This could be attributed to higher concentration of oxygen vacancies, which was characterized by Raman spectroscopy. In addition, the XPS results indicated that Mn4+/(Mn2++Mn3+), Ce4+/Ce3+, Olatt (lattice oxygen), and Osur(surface oxygen) all participated in the redox process during catalytic oxidation of toluene, which helped elucidate the mechanism at a micro level.

Interestingly, the catalytic activity did not improve further when the Mn content of the composite oxides reached 5%. This could be ascribed to two different states of the dispersed Mn: monolayer dispersion state and crystalline phase. The strong interaction between ceria oxides and dispersed Mn species played an important role in affecting catalytic activity. The results showed the presence of a monolayer dispersion threshold (6.2%), confirmed by XPS characterization, which was in accordance with all the characterization results; it was proved that this threshold had a significant impact on the catalytic activity. When the dispersed Mn content was lower than the monolayer dispersion threshold, Mn reacted with the surface CeO2 in the form of an incorporation model, leading to charge transfer and higher concentration of oxygen vacancies, which in turn effectively promoted the catalytic performance. When the dispersed Mn content exceeded the monolayer dispersion threshold, Mn3O4 was formed on the CeO2 surface; this disrupted the promotion of catalytic activity, which explains the same catalytic activity of all the samples (5% MnOx-CeO2, 8% MnOx-CeO2, and 10% MnOx-CeO2).

This successful formation of bimetallic metal oxides using CeBTC-MOF template indicated that composite oxide synthesis was feasible using the MOF template method. To obtain high catalyst performance of these composite oxides, it was important to control the metal content at the level of the monolayer dispersion threshold.


This article examines the portrayals of Chinese and Japanese female video game characters in a purposive sample of video games and how users of online discussion forums understand these representations. The majority of game studies scholarship lacks an intersectional component regarding gender and race. As such, this analysis addresses this gap by focusing on the relation between gender and race in the construction of problematic stereotypes existing in gameplay and gaming communities. Drawing on a feminist theoretical framework, I employ the concept of "the gaze" to draw a connection between character image and interpretation and their relation to the intersections of gender and race. These intersections are analyzed in both visual and textual form in order to explore alternative methodological approaches and establish the relationship between a character's image and dialogic interpretations of these images by players. The findings identify how video games and players support stereotypes, and conversely, how player dialogue that challenges oppressive concepts of gender and race may be a means by which to consider alternative approaches to gendered and racialized character design.