Miz-1 (Myc-interacting zinc finger-1) is a BTB/POZ domain transcription factor that can activate or repress gene transcription. To explore the function of Miz-1, we have generated mice that express a non-functional protein lacking the POZ domain, Miz-1ΔPOZ. These mice show a very small thymus owing to a dramatic reduction of early T cell progenitors and DN4 pre-T cells. DN1-3 cells have higher apoptotic rate indicating that Miz-1 is coordinating survival signals. Miz-1ΔPOZ mice also have a DN3/DN4 transitional block and DN3 cells showed a dramtic up-regulation of the cell cycle regulator p21Waf1. Surprisingly, neither the introduction of a Bcl-2 transgene nor the deletion of p21Waf1 rescued the DN3/DN4 block in Miz-1ΔPOZ mice. The block at the pre-TCR-dependent selection stage rather suggested that Miz-1 might regulate pre-TCR signaling. Although the pre-TCR signaling does not seem to be altered by the expression of a non-functional Miz-1, the intracellular expression of the TCRβ is reduced. Introduction of a rearranged TCR transgene rescued the DN3/DN4 cell numbers and their function in Miz-1ΔPOZ mice. Our data suggest that Miz-1 is required for the transport or the stability of the pre-TCR in order to support the proliferative burst of DN3 cells. Comparative gene expression analysis will determine which are the direct effector genes of Miz-1 and contribute to a better understanding of the critical factors involved in this precise step of T cell development.


Objective: This paper aims to test the effect employee job training has on employee career development in the company.Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses a quantitative approach with the process of finding the knowledge by using data in the form of numbers as a tool that can be generalized to prove hypotheses. The population in this study was 135 employees by sampling 100 employees using sampling method probability by using random sampling type samples to use slovin formula. Analysis techniques use multiple linear regressions.Findings: The results showed that job training influences the career development of employees in companies with a significant rate of 0.00 less than α=0.05.Practical Implications: The results of the study are recommended for company employees to conduct job training as a tool to improve career development.Originality: Previous research has been conducted to test job training on employee career development in large companies; the findings conclude that employee job training affects employee career development. This research researchers try to research medium-scale companies down.


The objective of this study is to evaluate the catalytic performance of pellet-type Ru/γ-Al₂O₃ as a catalyst during liquid-phase hydrogenation of the aromatic hydrocarbon. The Ru/γ-Al₂O₃ catalyst was prepared using a wet impregnation method. After adding a binder to Ru/γ-Al₂O₃, a pellet-type catalyst was obtained through an extrusion method. Nanoporous structures are well developed in the pellet-type Ru/γ-Al₂O₃ catalyst. The average pore sizes of the Ru/γ-Al₂O₃ catalysts were approximately 10 nm. The catalytic performance of the pellet-type Ru/γ-Al₂O₃ catalyst during ethylbenzene hydrogenation was evaluated in a trickle-bed reactor. When the ruthenium loading increased from 1 to 5 wt%, the number of active sites effective for the hydrogenation of ethylbenzene increased proportionally. In order to maximize the conversion of ethylbenzene to ethylcyclohexane, it was necessary to maintain a liquid phase hydrogenation reaction in the trickle bed reactor. In this regards, the reaction temperature should be lower than 90 °C. The conversion of ethylbenzene to ethylcyclohexane on the Ru(5 wt%)/γ-Al₂O₃ catalyst was highest, which is ascribed to the largest number of active sites of the catalyst.


Protecting the environment and climate change are the main talking points in the modern world. This leads to increasing political involvement in the matter. This circumstance, as well as changing macroeconomic parameters, are the background to the investigation undertaken in this paper. The main objective of the paper is to evaluate the impact of value drivers on company value and the relationship between them. Based on the research questions, an identification and quantification of internal drivers of company value constitutes the first step. Analysis 1 is done by means of a multiple linear regression analysis. In the second step, these examined internal drivers are used in an investigation to verify and quantify the influence of external drivers (GDP, environmental tax and the Fraser index). Analysis 2 is done via a specific structural equation model (path analysis). Data in this paper are drawn from selected industrial sectors (metal, paper, and chemical) of three European countries (France, Germany, and Italy) within the period of 2006-2015. The findings show that size and profit margin are the most relevant internal drivers. GDP is the most relevant external driver with an impact on internal drivers. GDP always has a positive impact on added value. The results also indicate that the impact of GDP is higher in periods of economic crisis. Another outcome of the paper is that only in France do the environmental tax and the Fraser index have a clear impact on added value.


Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text Abstract Bilateral lambdoid and sagittal synostosis, or Mercedes Benz Syndrome, is a rare complex craniosynostosis resulting in frontal bossing, a tapered posterior fossa, and an anteriorly displaced cranial vertex. Its ideal surgical correction must result in posterior expansion, skull elongation, and caudal repositioning of the vertex. We present a craniometric analysis of skull changes with posterior-superior distraction and introduce a novel craniometric measure: vertex position. In this study, a retrospective review was performed to analyze outcomes of posterior cranial vault distraction osteogenesis (PVDO) using a posterior–superior distraction vector from 2016 to 2019. Cranial vertex position was measured as a fraction of the occipitofrontal diameter from rostral to caudal (0–1.0). Four patients underwent PVDO at mean age 10.61 ± 3.16 months utilizing a posterior–superior distraction vector. Linear distraction distance averaged 30.30 ± 0.90 mm with a mean consolidation period of 3.98 ± 0.72 months. Mean corrected change in intra-cranial volume was 236.30 ± 3.71 mL, at an average rate of 7.81 ± 2.00 mL/mm of distraction. Increases in anterior cranial height (7.83 ± 2.51 mm), middle cranial height (8.43 ± 4.21 mm), posterior cranial height (13.15 ± 7.45 mm), and posterior cranial fossa height (21.99 ± 8.55 mm) were observed. Cranial vertex demonstrated a mean posterior movement of 0.18 ± 0.13. PVDO utilizing a posterior-superior distraction vector for management of nonsyndromic bilateral lambdoid and sagittal synostosis effectively increases intracranial volume and height and provides an esthetic outcome with posterior movement of the cranial vertex.


Background We previously reported an association between infant wheezing and residence < 100 m from stop-and-go bus and truck traffic. The use of a proximity model, however, may lead to exposure misclassification. Objective Results obtained from a land use regression (LUR) model of exposure to truck and bus traffic are compared with those obtained with a proximity model. The estimates derived from the LUR model were then related to infant wheezing. Methods We derived a marker of diesel combustion—elemental carbon attributable to traffic sources (ECAT)—from ambient monitoring results of particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter < 2.5 μm. We developed a multiple regression model with ECAT as the outcome variable. Variables included in the model were locations of major roads, bus routes, truck traffic count, and elevation. Model parameter estimates were applied to estimate individual ECAT levels at infants' homes. Results The levels of estimated ECAT at the monitoring stations ranged from 0.20 to 1.02 μg/m3. A LUR model of exposure with a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.75 was applied to infants' homes. The mean (± SD) ambient exposure of ECAT for infants previously categorized as unexposed, exposed to stop-and-go traffic, or exposed to moving traffic was 0.32 ± 0.06, 0.42 ± 0.14, and 0.49 ± 0.14 μg/m3, respectively. Levels of ECAT from 0.30 to 0.90 μg/m3 were significantly associated with infant wheezing. Conclusions The LUR model resulted in a range of ECAT individually derived for all infants' homes that may reduce the exposure misclassification that can arise from a proximity model.


Pulsed and quasi-static current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of threshold switching in TiN/TaOx/TiN crossbar devices were measured as a function of stage temperature (200-495 K) and oxygen flow during the deposition of TaOx. A comparison of the pulsed and quasi-static characteristics in the high resistance part of the I-V revealed that Joule self-heating significantly affected the current and was a likely source of negative differential resistance (NDR) and thermal runaway. The experimental quasi-static I-V's were simulated using a finite element electro-thermal model that coupled current and heat flow and incorporated an external circuit with an appropriate load resistor. The simulation reproduced the experimental I-V including the OFF-state at low currents and the volatile NDR region. In the NDR region, the simulation predicted spontaneous current constriction forming a small-diameter hot conducting filament with a radius of 250 nm in a 6 μm diameter device.


Based on a simple model of multivariate calibration, a cross-validation procedure was performed for estimating the number of principal components with the help of singular value decomposition (SVD). The multivariate calibration method with an appropriate number of principal components has been used to determine simultaneously several components in composite aspirin tablets and in composite vitamin B tablets with satisfactory precision and accuracy. The result obtained by the method is very similar to that by partial least squares (PLS) and superior to that by multiple linear regression (MLR). Provided that the matrix composition of the calibration system is similar to that of the analysis system, the method is suitable for the direct or indirect calibration of multicomponent systems or of real samples with incomplete information.


By modeling religious activity as a product of rational choice and market forces, the economics of religion offers new insights concerning religious trends, the consequences of religious freedom, doctrinal innovation, and the enduring appeal of extremism. The work both complements and challenges that of sociologists, historians, and other religious scholars. Club-theoretic models of sectarianism highlight the potential benefits of strictness and sacrifice, not only in religions, but also in communes, gangs, military units, social movements, political organizations, and even academic subfields.


Although non-immortalized primary cultures have been widely used, and continue to be used, for the production of biological materials, there are many instances where the use of immortalized cell lines presents a significant saving in effort as well as cost. Furthermore, circumstances can often arise where the cell substrate must be engineered to a degree which cannot be achieved in primary cultures; in such cases the use of immortalized cells would be a necessity. The downside of using immortalized cells is that the vast majority of currently available immortalized cell lines display malignant phenotypes, which in many cases can limit their usefulness for the production of biologicals. In this review we will explore the biological basis of the immortalization process, as well as recent advances in our ability to engineer immortalization using well-defined interventions.


With the rapid growth in Internet traffic, demands for a high-capacity switching network with low end-to-end latency are being felt. Optical-label switching, in general, and optical burst switching (OBS), in particular, can provide such a solution with realizable device technology. This paper is a summary of the Photonic Network Project undertaken in Japan, wherein we have implemented a prototype OBS-node testbed based on novel device concepts. A three-node OBS core testbed and edge nodes operating over payload bit rates of 10 Gb/s to 40 Gb/s were developed, demonstrating feasibility of the OBS concept. We report newly developed key photonic building blocks of the OBS node, namely: a fast matrix switch based on lead-lanthanum-zirconate-titanate, a bit-rate transparent tunable wavelength converter based on a monolithically integrated wavelength converter; a fast tunable wavelength laser diode; compact arrayed waveguide amplifiers; and athermal, flat-top multiplexers. Together, with an optical-label recognition scheme implemented in a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), we have integrated the building blocks into an optical burst switching-node prototype that can potentially be scaled up to 64 times 64 ports. We have confirmed error-free optical burst forwarding for more than 10 hops in an OBS network with variable length, asynchronous burst arrival. We have also achieved a mixed bit-rate optical burst forwarding and contention resolution with wavelength conversion. We have also demonstrated coordination of OBS with upper-layer protocols by implementing an Ethernet-frame-to-optical-burst converter edge node, which successfully transmitted real application data over the OBS network at 40 Gb/s. Similar results were achieved in a multinode testbed under the field fiber environments, with a low frame error rate of less than 1 times 10-6.


Injection locking properties of distributed feedback semiconductor lasers are studied systematically. Due to the high side mode suppression, these devices show different locking properties when compared to lasers with Fabry-Perot structures. The main result is the identification of four regimes for different injection levels. In particular, a symmetrical locking band at low optical injection level is confirmed. The presence of this symmetrical band can be exploited in some applications. As examples, the measurement of the linewidth enhancement factor and the phase-shift-keying modulation capability are reported. >


Avian influenza type A viruses (AIV) can infect a broad range of hosts including human and birds, making them an important viral pathogen with zoonotic potential. Among birds, ducks are a known reservoir for many avian viruses including the AIV. During migration seasons in Iran, this bird species is generally at a high risk of being infected by free-living aquatic birds. In this study, 962 cloacal swabs were collected from domestic ducks at several live poultry markets (LPMs) of Gilan, Mazandaran and Golestan provinces of Iran in the year 2017. Preliminary assays such as HI, NI, MDT, ICPI and RT-qPCR suggested that 0.5% of the birds were infected by H3 low pathogenic influenza viruses (LPAI). Three isolates were selected for whole genome sequencing. The cleavage site of the HA genes showed a PEKQTR/GLF motif, an indicator of LPAI. Furthermore, BLAST and phylogenetic analyses of the HA gene showed high homology to the Eurasian lineage of H3N8 AIV (95.5–97.1% to several European and East Asian isolates). However, the NA genes showed high homology (at most 96.5–96.9%) to those belonging to AIV N2 subtype. Furthermore, internal genes showed high homology (96–98%) to a variety of duck-origin subtypes and glycoprotein combinations, which were different for each segment. This showed a complex reassortment between different subtypes. Our report is the first whole genome sequencing and complete characterization of H3N2 AIV from Iran. Such surveillance should continue to study the evolution and possible emergence of viruses with pandemic potential.


Tissue perfusion was determined by cardiac index (Cl) and skeletal muscle capillary blood flow (MBF), and arteriovenous oxygen difference (AVD) and oxygen uptake were compared in seven patients with severe spesis and eight nonseptic patients. Skeletal capillary muscle blood flow also was measured before and after a 2 day fast in 14 normal volunteers. In both septic and nonseptic patients, MBF varied directly with Cl. The average muscle blood flow was greater in septic than in nonseptic patients and, in addition, was greater per unit Cl. AVD in septic patients was narrower than in nonseptic patients. Septic patients with an AVD of less than 4 ml. of O2 had markedly higher MBF and Cl than did septic patients with an AVD greater than 4 ml. of O2. Fasting normal volunteers who, like the septic patients, would be catabolic had a significant increase in MBF during the fast. Although peripheral shunts are not ruled out ans an explanation of the hyperdynamic circulation in sepsis, the evidence is against their existence, at least in skeletal muscle, since capillary flow increases in direct proportion to cardiac output. If capillary flow is increased in fact in sepsis, then flow like blood pressure becomes less of a critical factor in explaining the demise of the septic patient. It might be postulated that the increased capillary flow seen in sepsis is secondary to the mobilization of amino acids from the body cell mass for gluconeogenesis and energy.


Bony hyperostosis is commonly associated with meningioma growth and is considered one of the characteristic signs on imaging; however, recurrence of meningiomas in the sphenoorbital area, including associated hyperostosis, is typically precluded by gross total resection of the lesion. This 63-year-old man presented with progressive double vision and proptosis in the right eye. He underwent frontotemporal craniotomy and partial removal after magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated a right sphenoorbital meningioma extending to the orbit and middle fossa. He had transient improvement of his symptoms postoperatively but experienced a progressive recurrence of symptoms and new onset of right facial hypoesthesia in the distribution of V1 and V2. We performed a right frontotemporal craniotomy with removal of the nodular part, as well as extensive drilling. Although the postoperative computed tomography scan revealed a gross total resection, the five-year follow-up scan demonstrated a recurrent hyperostosis in the region of the lesser and greater sphenoid wings, the middle cranial fossa floor with inferior extension toward the infratemporal fossa, and the sphenoid sinus wall. After another redo surgery, the patient continues to be monitored with yearly imaging. The extent of surgical resection is one of the most important predictors of meningioma recurrence postoperatively, and cases of recurrence after gross total resection are rare.


A general efficient method for analysing transient currents on lightning-control installations for protecting various structures (buildings) against lightning electromagnetic pulse (LEMP) effects is presented. The method is based upon the frequency-domain mixed-potential electric field integral equation formulation combined with the method of moments and the Fourier transform technique. Attention is focused on predicting the indirect effects of LEMP. The transmission-line representation of lightning return stroke, and the double exponential pulse model for the current at the channel base are employed in LEMP calculation. Several example problems are considered to illustrate the capability of the method. Some theoretical results are compared with experimental data obtained from measurements on the reduced-size models of lightning protection systems.


Periodontal disease has been associated with poor dental care, which promotes the accumulation of bacteria and the development of diseases of the mouth. Porphyromonas gingivalis are anaerobic Gramnegative bacteria found in the subgingival plaque. They are largely responsible for chronic periodontal disease. Streptococcus intermedius is a Gram positive coccus found in the supragingival plaque. The objective of the present work was to evaluate the expression of several virulence genes of P. gingivalis in a mixed culture with S. intermedius using qPCR and heterologous microarrays. P. gingivalis ATCC 33277 and W83 and S. intermedius ATCC 27335 strains were cultured and total RNA was extracted using the High Pure RNA isolation kit. Oligodeoxynucleotides were designed to make multiple comparisons with organisms. Microarray was performed to identify gene expression. To quantify gene expression, cDNA samples from three different P. gingivalis:S. intermedius ratios were diluted 10-1, 10-2 and 10-3. The microarray experiment indicated that in P. gingivalis , 29 genes were upregulated. The putative function of upregulated genes was the biosynthesis of different metabolic pathways. Heterologous microarrays are a new approach that are useful for investigating gene expression. Keywords: Porphyromonas gingivalis, Streptococcus intermedius , periodontal disease, virulence genes, cross gene regulation. African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(28), pp. 4498-4502


The group theory and fundamental physics foundation.- The Wigner Medal.- Tribute to Eugene P. Wigner by A. Bohm.- Tribute to Valentine Bargmann by Eugene Wigner.- Solitons.- Semi-classical results in quantum field theory.- Some classical solutions of SU (2) Yang-Mills equations.- Collapsons: New nonlinear excitations.- The excited states of the Prasad-Sommerfield soliton and its SU(3)-generalization.- Geometry for solitons and inverse scattering.- Instantons and embeddings.- A consistent quantization procedure for non-linear problems.- A Lienard-Wiechert type of solution in SU(2).- Application of the boson polynomials of U(n) to physical problems.- Unitary group approach to molecular electronic structure.- Shift operators for the classical groups.- Computer programs for the reduction of Kronecker products and symmetrized Kronecker powers of space group irreducible representations.- A new method for calculating Clebsch-Gordan coefficients.- A biological field theory of evolution.- General Flodmark-Blokker method for irreducible representatives.- Group structure for general lattice systems and surface tension.- Dynamical symmetries of the time-dependent Lewis-Riesenfeld harmonic oscillator.- Induced representations and spontaneous molecular symmetry breaking.- "Phase ordering" and symmetry in Hg3-?AsF6.- On the application of group theory to the renormalization-group method.- Renormalization group theory of structural phase transitions in A-15: Pm3n-Oh 3.- "Structure of the images of the irreducible linear representations of the crystallographic little space groups".- Unitary group formulation of Hartree-Fock theory.- On Symmetries of infinite macrosystems in a standard representation.- Geometry of collective motion.- On labeling the basis in Gln and identifying the racah algebra with SN.- Dynamical groups of parametrized systems: Atomic supermultiplets.- Geometrically formulated gauge dynamics for extended hadrons.- Fundamental length hypothesis in a Gauge theory context.- Superunified theories in superspace.- Relativity principles and fibre bundles.- Dynamical groups for the motion of relativistic composite systems.- Clebsch-Gordon coefficients for the holomorphic discrete series.- Deformation cohomology of the primitive infinite lie algebras.- Interactions in a model of extended particles.- Rigorous results in lattice and continuum Gauge quantum field theories.- A unitary relativistic wave equation exhibiting extended particle structure.- Line space construction of non-self-dual Yang-Mills fields.- An explicit model exhibiting mass and spin mixing.- The ambiguity group for canonical transformations in classical mechanics and its role in their representation in quantum mechanics.- Generating functions for characters of group representations and their applications.- Phase space representations of the Poincare group & their applications to relativistic particle dynamics.- On subgroups of physical symmetry groups and their invariant "electromagnetic" fields and potentials.- Covariant observables and instruments.- Quantum spin systems, fermi systems and group extensions.- Review of research on presymmetry.- On the four Euclidean conformal group structure of the Sturmian operator.- An SL(2,R) approach to Schrodinger spectral problem with pseudosingular potential.- Ergodic Theory in von Neumann algebras.- SU(2) harmonic analysis as a basis for quantization.- Some new aspects of Cayley-quantum theory.- Application of quasiclassical methods to uniaxial spin systems.- Mathematical remarks to resonances and their Eigenfunctionals in decay-scattering systems, demonstrated by means of Friedrich's model..- Quatum decay processes and quatum dynamical semigroups.- Unstable quantum states and rigged Hilbert spaces.- Irreversible processes in quantum theory.- Analytic continuation in decay-scattering system.- On the inverse problem of the abstract relativistic scattering theory.- The rigged Hilbert space and decaying states.- Excitation and decay of a multilevel atom.- Dynamical spin spreading of unstable particles in four models.- Sequential decays of open quantum systems.- Quantization via the imprimitivity systems and superselection rules.- A class of soluble one particle models.- Resonances in quantum mechanics over phase space.- Complex mass and field operator for unstable particle.- A canonical description of semigroup law for unstable systems.- Deformation of symplectic structure and quantization.- Presymplectic Hamilton and Lagrange systems, Gauge transformations and the Dirac theory of constraints.- Deformation theory and quantization.- On certain events in geometric quantization.- Kostant-Souriau quantization of Robertson-Walker cosmologies with a scalar field.- Infinite-dimensional Lie groups and quantum dynamical systems.- Geometric quantization of nuclear collective models.- Idea and application of spectrum-generating SU(3) and SU(4).- Baryon semileptonic decays-spectrum generating SU(3) and the Cabibbo Model.- Spectrum-generating SU(3) and local current algebra.- The effect of the choice of wave functions on theoretical predictions for symmetry breaking processes: A view from the DKP formalism.- Algebraic approach to hadrons without seeing quarks.- Gauge invariance with massive Gauge bosons.- Group teoretical interpretation of relativistic hardonis structures.- A simple broken-symmetry treatment of the ground and radially excited state mesons and the ?+? P ? decay.- Self-dual Gauge fields and space-times.- Torsion and quantum gravity.- Surface deformations, their square root and the signature of spacetime.- The role of group theory in the quest for exact solutions of Einstein's field equations: Some recent developments.- On group covariant physical laws and gravitation.- On the exact solutions of Tomimatsu-Sato family for stationary axial-symmetric gravitational fields.- Remarks to homogeneous solutions of Einstein's field equations.- Description of particles with internal structure in general relativity.- Symmetries and statistical behavior in fermion systems.- SU3 symmetry and integral kernels for nuclear cluster problems.- Dynamical symmetries in nuclei.- Recent work on collective motion.- The calculation of 6j symbols for compact groups.- Application of group theory to composite nuclear particl interactions.- Contravariant form for infinite-dimensional Lie algebras and superalgebras.- Dual sets in associative algebras and generalized Lie algebras.- Molien function for a symmetric group.- Generalized Lie algebras.- Superconforial group and quark-like fermionic coordinates.- Parafields and supergroup transformations.- Supermanifolds.- Graded G-structures.- Space-time properties of supergravity.- The Gauge group and geometry of supergravity.- Recent developments in superconformal gravity.- Geometrization in superspace and local supersymmetry.- Superfield supergravity.- How to build hadron multiplets from stable particles.- Structure of the multiquark meson states.- Octonionic structures in particle physics.- Multilocal field theory.- Multiquark states.- UN the Eriksenlike form of the Melosh transformation and its group theoretical interpretation.- Working with H.A. Kramers in SU(4).- Dynamical groups and the quarkonium problem.- Weight multiplicities of the exceptional Lie groups.- Conserved currents and symmetries of the S-matrix.- Group theoretical aspects of more-than-four quark models.- Infinite unitary group, quarks, unitary symmetry.


As an emerging technique, cold gas dynamic spray is one of the latest tools for dimensional repair and coating applications. Cold spray (CS) utilizes high velocity particles as feedstock rather than high temperature to produce a coating without over melting feedstock, and thereby achieves a free-oxide coating. One of today's critical coating applications is thermal barrier coating (TBC) for high efficiency turbine engine components, assisting and enabling today's super alloys for turbine components to operate at a higher firing temperature. Many studies reveal that the formation of thermally grown oxide (TGO) on MCrAlY bondcoat, and the surface morphology profile of the bondcoat play paramount roles in failure modes and lifetimes of TBCs. This work has been focused on exploring the feasibility of CS MCrAlY as a bondcoat candidate for TBC application by comparing with those deposited by thermal spray processes, mainly plasma spray (APS) and high velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF). In this work, the features and properties of CS coatings were characterized mainly on microstructure, surface morphology, and TGO formation in isothermal oxidation test at 1100oC. Also, CS bondcoat and its thermal barrier coating were tested together with APS and HVOF formed TBC coatings. CS NiCoCrAlY coatings are identified with some unique aspects and characteristics: A desirable microstructure can be achieved, with oxide-free and high density. Solid solution of NiAl phase at local regions of grain boundaries is discovered; CS-bondcoat has a honeycomb network-like surface morphology. Long-range roughness is characterized from all honeycomb networks, and short-range roughness from the peaks within individual network cells; Kinetic curve of isothermal oxidation test at 1100oC indicates that a low-rate and stable TGO scale is formed on CS-bondcoat; and thermal cycling test demonstrates that CS-bondcoat TBC and APS-TBC have higher resistance to the spallation of ceramic topcoat.


Winter road maintenance (WRM) decision making is crucial for traffic safety during winter weather conditions such as snow, ice, black ice and snow slush. WRM decision making in Latvia involves a lot of manual effort. To address the WRM challenges, an automated solution for WRM process administration IWiRoM is being developed. Solution includes road surface state evaluation and decision making regarding the necessary road maintenance operations, as well as passing resulting decision-making information to external systems. One of the IWiRoM challenges is formalization of different regulatory requirements and WRM expert defined WRM best practices that slightly differs among the municipalities of Latvia. This paper describes the WRM requirements formalization approach in a form of rules decision table.


Background/Aims: Migraine is a disabling condition that severely impacts socioeconomic function and quality of life. The focus of this study was to develop a mouse model of trigeminal pain that mimics migraine. Methods: After undergoing dural cannulation surgery, mice were treated with repeated dural doses of an acidic solution to induce trigeminal pain. Results: The method elicited intermittent, head-directed wiping and scratching as well as the expression of both the c-FOS gene in the spinal trigeminal nucleus caudalis and calcitonin gene related peptide (CGRP) in the periaqueductal grey matter. Interestingly, the acid-induced trigeminal pain behaviour was inhibited by amiloride, an antagonist of acid-sensing ion channels (ASICs), but not by AMG-9810, an inhibitor of transient receptor potential cation channel V1(TRPV1). In addition, the relative mRNA and protein expression levels of ASIC1a and ASIC3 were increased in the acid-induced trigeminal nociceptive pathways. Furthermore, blocking CaMKII with KN-93 significantly reduced the acid-induced trigeminal pain behaviour and c-FOS gene expression. Conclusion: The data suggested that chronic intermittent administration of an acidic solution to mice resulted in trigeminal hypersensitivity and that dural acid-induced trigeminal pain behaviour in mice may mechanistically mimic migraine. The observations here identify an entirely novel treatment strategy for migraine.


The capacity of tropical whitespotted bamboo sharks Chiloscyllium plagiosum to metabolically compensate, at both the whole-animal and biochemical levels, to prolonged exposure to temperatures higher (30° C) and lower (20 and 15° C) than their native temperature (24·5° C) was examined. As expected, whitespotted bamboo shark oxygen consumption increased upon exposure to 30° C and decreased at 20 and 15° C. Initial changes in oxygen consumption were maintained even after months at the experimental temperature, indicating that whitespotted bamboo sharks did not compensate metabolically to the experimental temperatures. Maximal activities and thermal sensitivity of citrate synthase and lactate dehydrogenase from whitespotted bamboo shark white locomotor muscle were similar between control animals maintained at 24·5° C and those maintained at 15° C, indicating that cold-exposed animals did not compensate at the biochemical level. Similarly, lactate dehydrogenase activity did not change following prolonged exposure to 30° C. White muscle from whitespotted bamboo sharks maintained at 30° C had significantly lower citrate synthase activity than did control animals. This result was surprising given the lack of metabolic compensation at the whole-animal level. Overall, whole-animal oxygen consumption measurements supported the hypothesis that animals from thermally stable environments lacked the capacity to metabolically compensate to altered temperatures. Enzymatic results, however, suggested that the metabolic potential of muscle could change following temperature acclimation even in the absence of metabolic compensation at the whole-animal level.


In a mobile ad hoc network, routes may often fail due to movements of nodes. In this paper, we analyze route failure time of multiple node-disjoint paths between a given pair of nodes. We discuss an exact expression for the expected value of route failure time when lifetimes of individual paths are independent and identically distributed random variables. In case lifetimes are not independent, we discuss an upper bound on route failure time. In order to validate the model, we simulate exponentially distributed random variables. Values of route failure time obtained from simulations are close to those obtained analytically


Two new proopiomelanocortin (POMC)-derived beta-endorphin (BE)-containing proteins were detected in the human pituitary, using HPLC, trypsin digestion, and a high sensitivity search with liquid secondary ion mass spectrometry (LSIMS) for the protonated molecule ion, (M + H)+, of tryptic peptides that are unique to BE. Proteins were extracted from pituitary tissues and were purified by solid phase extraction (SPE) chromatography and RP-HPLC. Each HPLC fraction was treated with trypsin, and each unseparated peptide mixture was analyzed by LSIMS to detect the two selected marker peptides (BE 20-24 and BE 10-19) that have excellent LSIMS desorption-ionization properties. The detection of both of those peptides indicated the presence of BE-containing proteins in two HPLC fractions (number 47 and 51). Tandem MS determined the amino acid sequence of the marker peptide BE 20-24 (NAIIK), and those sequence data optimized the specificity of the method. The two new BE-containing proteins derive from the C-terminal region of POMC, and were minor components in the two HPLC fractions. The major component in fraction 51 derived from the vasopressin-neurophysin 2-copeptin precursor.


T-DNA transfer by Agrobacterium tumefaciens depends on the right border repeat of the T-DNA and is greatly stimulated by overdrive, an adjacent sequence. We report that the function of overdrive does not depend on helical position with respect to the border repeat. A synthetic 24-bp overdrive and a 12-bp region containing a fully conserved 8-bp core overdrive sequence stimulated virulence equally, but full function required additional bases to the left of the 24-bp sequence.


Introduction

Regardless of their titles or designations, games and dances have always been an integral part of the culture of Iranian ethnicities, and while preserving their original form and content to some extent, many of them have persisted as paykubi (the Persian word for dance), dhikr, and Sama. Such dances are known as listeks (games) among Kurmanjis in northern Khorasan. For the Kurds of Khorasan, in addition to being a ritual physical exercise, dance is a type of collective game. The main structure and theme of such games are political and social events, passionate epics, historical events, and enchanting emotional fables. Ritual dance and games are one of the most prominent features of the Kurmanji community's identity in Khorasan, which is in serious danger of being forgotten due to various political and cultural reasons, its declining role in people's lives, and the fact that their performance has been limited to domestic and foreign festivals. Therefore, given the oral transmission of this culture and despite the linguistic and cultural gap between the young and old generations, it is essential to carry out studies to preserve such dramatic rituals.

 Methodology

The descriptive-analytical study was an attempt to present the structure of form and content of some dramatic rituals of the Kurmanjis in northern Khorasan, Iran. To analyze their formal structure, the rituals were observed thoroughly, described and categorized, and their different stages of their movements were recorded through photographing, filming, and illustrating them as graphics. In order to analyze the symbolic content of these dances based on the Kurmanji cultural background, Kurmanji music, drama, and folklore scholars and researchers were interviewed as the target population. The interviews were conducted using in-depth and unstructured methods.

 Discussion

Qarsa games are one of the oldest Kurmanji group or hand-hold dances. Clapping or qarsaing is one of the main characteristics of this type of dance that creates a sense of cheerfulness and vivacity. Qarsa denotes "clapping", derived from the ancient Persian Dari term "Qarsak" (striking the palms of one's hands together repeatedly). These games, which mostly involve moving the hands and upper part of the body and are considered a type of exercise, start with slow movements (one qarsa) and proceed to fast and uninterrupted jumping, bouncing, and rotating movements or "twelve qarsas". At the end of the game, the players move their legs up and forward swiftly while half-raised. The alternation used to create balance at this stage is so exhilarating that it is referred to as the ancient word "shelang andaz" suggesting buoyancy and cheerfulness and its music is also called "shelangi" (Javid, 2015, p. 115). Each qarsa is one clap; clapping indeed implies that the palms move to strike each other, but barely touch and do not make the clapping sound. In general, more common today among the Kurmanjis of Khorasan are games of one, two, three, six, and twelve qarsas. It should be noted that the manner and order of movements in these games slightly vary in different regions (personal interview, Kashmiri, December 30, 2017). This study presented and analyzed "one-qarsa", "two-qarsa" and "six-qarsa" listeks (Kurdish dance).
In order to analyze the formal structure of Kurmanji listeks, in addition to observing the performances thoroughly and making videos and taking photographs, using Adobe Illustrator, the general structure of listek dancers' movements and postures were drawn in a graphic plan. First, the general form of the dances and rotations around the circle, as well as the dancers' rotations around the dance circle and also around themselves were recorded in an overhead shot, and then the specific movements and postures performed in each game, including hand and leg movements, were illustrated.
Just as the human speech system is a communication tool originating from the existing system in social and cultural structures and organizations, dancing also has its own unique conventional language, which designates elements within the socio-cultural networks of a society. In other words, ritual dance is an arena in which the individual and collective desires, aspirations, and goals are expressed at their highest and most refined levels. The narrative language of ritual dances reflects events from various parts of life (marriage, war, birth, mourning, etc.) that cannot be expressed in words, rather in the conventional signs and symbols associated with such events. This rich and strong symbolism inherent in folk dances necessitates the deciphering of symbols and signs for its interpreters. To understand such a symbolic language, decipher, and make sense of it, it is necessary to obtain a reasonable grasp of the cultural context of a particular folk. Thus, the concepts incorporated in the dance's purpose are achieved through the symbolic language of the dance, that is, the process that goes from perception to knowledge and creates an understanding of a different type of life (different style) in the audience (Fakuhi, 2016, p. 132).
In order to approach the symbolic content of the qarsa games, this study first separated the general form of the dances and their specific movements. Then the relationship between forms and movements with the cultural identity and social system of the Kurmanji people was discovered. Data was collected through interviews with researchers and experts in Kurmanji music and folklore, who have published credible studies in this field. Other sources included documented literature that had analyzed the ritual dances of different ethnicities in Iran. Then, from the obtained information, common points and features expressed by the participants in the analysis of dances were obtained as the following six points:

Circular and rotational movements;
Counterclockwise movements;
Snapping fingers;
Qarsas and claps;
Special feet movements;
Special head movements.

 Conclusion

This study investigated the form and symbolic content of listeks (Kurdish dance) of the Kurmanjis of northern Khorasan. In the first part of the research aiming to analyze the formal structure of actions and movements in the dances, the steps in each performance were described and then graphical presentation or so-called "note-taking" was carried out for each dance in Adobe Illustrator. The general structure of the actions was drawn as overhead shots, and movements and rotations of each dancer were drawn separately. In the second part aiming to analyze the listeks' symbolic content of the actions and movements, and building on data obtained through interviews with researchers and scholars in this field and the experiences of listek dancers in each region, the commonalities of the contents were obtained in six categories. It is also worth mentioning that in conducting this part of the research, many commonalities were found between the ritual dances of different Iranian ethnicities, particularly between the Bakhtiari nomads and the Kurmanjis.
Multiple circular or chain-like dances among the Kurmanjis of northern Khorasan start from "one qarsa" with slow and gentle movements and rhythms, and proceed to anaraky or hand warm-up, and then lead to "two qarsas", "larilari" or "three qarsas", "six qarsas", and "twelve qarsas", in which the movements of the feet and sitting and standing are done entirely for sports and martial purposes. According to the findings, listek is a combination of Kurmanjis' bravery and border guardianship and is rooted in the combat rituals of the people because warfare and combat are an integral part of the cultural identity of the Kurmanjis living in northern Khorasan. Over time, due to their forced migration from their original homeland to the northeastern borders, their religious dance of thanksgiving and praise have given way to multiple dances, all featuring combat actions, movements, and jumps aimed at increasing physical strength.


Printable organic bioelectronics provide a fast and cost-effective approach for the fabrication of novel biodevices, while the general challenge is to achieve optimized reaction kinetics at multiphase boundaries between biomolecules and electrodes. Here, we present an entirely new concept based on a modular approach for the construction of heterostructured bioelectronic interfaces by using tailored functional "biological microparticles" combined with "transducer microparticles" as modular building blocks. This approach offers high versatility for the design and fabrication of bioelectrodes with a variety of forms of interparticle spatial organization, from layered-structures to more advance bulk heterostructured architectures. The heterostructured biocatalytic electrodes delivered twice the reaction rate and a six-fold increase in the effective diffusion kinetics in response to a catalytic model using glucose as the substrate, together with the advantage of shortened diffusion paths for reactants between multiple interparticle junctions and large active particle surface. The consequent benefits of this improved performance combined with the simple means of mass production are of major significance for the emerging printed electronics industry.


Anatectic migmatites in medium‐ to low‐pressure granulite facies metasediments exposed in the Larsemann Hills, East Antarctica, contain leucosomes with abundant quartz and plagioclase and minor interstitial K‐feldspar, and assemblages of garnet–cordierite–spinel–ilmenite–sillimanite. Qualitative modelling in the system K2O–FeO–MgO–Al2O3–SiO2–H2O–TiO2–O2, in conjunction with various P–T  calculations indicate that the high‐grade retrograde evolution of the terrane was dominated by decompression from peak conditions of c. 7 kbar at c. 800 °C to 4–5 kbar at c. 750 °C. Extensive partial melting during decompression involved the replacement of biotite by the assemblage cordierite–garnet–spinel within the leucosomes. These leucosomes represent the site of partial melt generation, the cordierite–garnet–spinel–ilmenite assemblage representing the solid products and excess reactants from the melting reaction. The extraction and accumulation of this decompression‐generated melt led to the formation of syntectonic pegmatites and extensive granitic plutons. Leucosome development and terrane decompression proceeded during crustal transpression, synchronous with upper crustal extension, during a progressive Early Palaeozoic collisional event. Subsequent retrograde evolution was characterized by cooling, as indicated by the growth of biotite replacing spinel and garnet, thin mantles of cordierite replacing spinel and quartz within metapelites, and garnet replacing orthopyroxene and hornblende within metabasites. P–T calculations on late mylonites indicate lower grade conditions of formation of c. 3.5 kbar at c. 650 °C, consistent with the development of late cooling textures.


The paucity of videos in current action classification datasets (UCF-101 and HMDB-51) has made it difficult to identify good video architectures, as most methods obtain similar performance on existing small-scale benchmarks. This paper re-evaluates state-of-the-art architectures in light of the new Kinetics Human Action Video dataset. Kinetics has two orders of magnitude more data, with 400 human action classes and over 400 clips per class, and is collected from realistic, challenging YouTube videos. We provide an analysis on how current architectures fare on the task of action classification on this dataset and how much performance improves on the smaller benchmark datasets after pre-training on Kinetics. We also introduce a new Two-Stream Inflated 3D ConvNet (I3D) that is based on 2D ConvNet inflation: filters and pooling kernels of very deep image classification ConvNets are expanded into 3D, making it possible to learn seamless spatio-temporal feature extractors from video while leveraging successful ImageNet architecture designs and even their parameters. We show that, after pre-training on Kinetics, I3D models considerably improve upon the state-of-the-art in action classification, reaching 80.2% on HMDB-51 and 97.9% on UCF-101.


Although conversion disorder rarely is diagnosed formally in ordinary pediatric practice, busy pediatricians often do encounter the phenomenon of conversion. Conversion is the experiencing of unacceptable emotional conflicts as symptoms, usually but not always physical, rather than as mental events. Conversion is commonplace, affecting almost all body systems. It must be recognized and managed appropriately early in its course, lest inappropriate evaluations and treatments occur; in addition to their other costs, such unnecessary procedures may introduce the child inadvertently to such symptomatization as a life-long pattern of behavior. More than a century ago, Briquet recognized that at least 50% of adult "professional patients" begin their symptomatic careers before puberty; thus, inappropriate care of the young patient who has conversion symptoms may have serious, long-lasting consequences.
 Problems in Diagnosing Conversion
 The traditional diagnostic elements of conversion often are difficult to demonstrate in pediatric practice. Almost all are either not specific to conversion or hard to confirm in young patients for reasons of developmental immaturity. These "standard" elements include the following:
 • Stress or conflict preceding symptoms (true of many illnesses)
 • Unconscious symptom production outside the patient's awareness (thus often inaccessible to the pediatrician)
 • A model for the symptom (either unverifiable or prone to observer bias)
 • Primary gain or relief of underlying conflict (again, difficult to confirm)


The purpose of this study is two-fold: to investigate the degree to which the formal structure of the HR organization is reflected in the concrete activities of the HR function; and to explore the extent to which social capital, as a resource, impacts on the actual HR functional activities. The study sought to contribute to our knowledge of HR functional roles in MNCs by taking into account how social capital may operate on the enacting of these roles. Most prior studies have concentrated on HR roles, instead of ascertaining role performance from HR professionals' actual day-to-day activities. Knowing what HR professionals actually do is the strongest gauge for determining if the function is strategically aligned to serving line needs or not. This study aimed to employ social capital as a tool to conceptualize HR formal roles versus actual activities in an exploratory setting. It was based on a single case study of an MNC subsidiary. A total of 10 interviews were conducted. The finding showed the HR function was highly evaluated for administrative tasks. However, strong callswere made on HR to increase their involvement with a particular focus on activities related to the business support role. There appeared to be a connection between HR social capital and the actual activities of the HR organization. Although strong formal linkages between the HR function and line management were evident, the level of informal relationships was weak between them. This is a slice of case study research in a subsidiary, and therefore the findings may not be generalizable. Further quantitative research is recommended. The practical implication for HR professionals is that careful consideration should be taken in observing how social capital between the HR function and the larger organization adds value.


The chaotic dynamics of a DFB laser are studied experimentally under a combination of short and long feedbacks. Chaos bandwidth enhancement is demonstrated using a hybrid III–V/Si DFB laser with a large relaxation oscillation frequency (ROF) of 14 GHz. The impact of short feedback on the ROF is studied and an increase of 2 GHz is observed. Under long feedback, the route to chaos of the device and its dependence on the short feedback dynamics are studied. The short feedback allows tuning the chaotic dynamics obtained under long feedback, and the increase of the ROF translates into an enhancement of the chaos bandwidth to above 16 GHz. This configuration can allow generation of wideband chaos using a single laser source in a photonic integrated circuit.


Abstract: As a critical index for monitoring the response of terrestrial ecosystems to climate change, net primary productivity (NPP) is widely used to reflect the vegetation productivity under natural conditions. However, little is known about vegetation NPP in Buryatiya Republic, Russia. To fully understand temporal and spatial variations in vegetation NPP and its response to climate change, satellite images of Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) products in conjunction with ground-based observations of climatology were used to estimate vegetation NPP in Buryatiya Republic from 2000 to 2008. Observed values of vegetation NPP and MODIS NPP products were jointly utilized to verify simulations of vegetation NPP in this area. The Carnegie Ames Stanford Approach (CASA) model was improved by adjusting its parameters with bio-temperature instead of monthly average temperature in a sub-model of soil water content. Model reliability was tested with observed vegetation NPP. Variation in vegetation NPP, and its relationship with climatic factors, was analyzed in detail. Results showed that the modified CASA model can be used to estimate vegetation NPP in Buryatiya Republic, and that the accuracy of the model was generally high with a correlation coefficient of 0.91 (P<0.01). The vegetation average annual NPP was 542.45 g C m-2 y-1 and the total NPP was estimated as 1.91E+ 14 g C y-1 from 2000 to 2008. Monthly vegetation NPP increased significantly from April to July, decreased rapidly from August to November, and remained steady from December to March of the next year. Vegetation NPP increased with increasing longitude and decreased with increasing latitude. Different vegetation types differ in total NPP, with the highest NPP in forests, followed by forest-steppe, high mountain vegetation, steppe and meadow-swamp. Temperature and precipitation were the primary factors limiting vegetation NPP in this area.


The long-fascinated idea of creating 3D images that depict depth information along with color and brightness has been realized with the advent of a light-field camera (LFC). Recently advanced LFCs mainly utilize micro-lens arrays (MLAs) as a key component to acquire rich 3D information, including depth, encoded color, reflectivity, refraction, occlusion, and transparency. The wide field-of-view (FOV) capability of LFCs, which is expected to be of great benefit for extended applications, is obstructed by the fundamental limitations of LFCs. Here, we present a practical strategy for the wide FOV-LFC by adjusting the spacing factor. Multiplicity (M) is the inverse magnification of the MLA located between the image plane and the sensor, which was introduced as the overlap ratio between the micro-images. M was adopted as a design parameter in several factors of the LFC, and a commercial lens with adjustable FOV was used as the main lens for practicality. The light-field (LF) information was evaluated by considering the pixel resolution and overlapping area in narrow and wide FOV. The M was optimized for narrow and wide FOV, respectively, by the trade-off relationship between pixel resolution and geometric resolution. Customized wide FOV-LFCs with different M were compared by spatial resolution test and depth information test, and the wide FOV-LFC with optimized M provides LF images with high accuracy.


There has been a rapid growth in the development of harder and difficult to machine metals and newly developed alloys. Conventional machining methods are not suitable and uneconomical for such materials, thus development starts for newer concepts in metal machining. It thus plays a major role in the machining of dies, tools, etc., made of tungsten carbide, hard steel, alloys used in the aeronautics industry. It is a great concern in manufacturing industries. Now a days there is a demand of quality with higher productivity with minimum manufacturing cost. For this, wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM) process needs to work more efficiently. The selection of optimum machining in WEDM, material removal rate requires being maximum with optimum surface quality. In our case, oil harden non shrinking (OHNS) tool steel is used as work piece and as a tool brass wire of dia. 0.25 mm is used and dielectric fluid distilled water is used. For experimentation Taguchi's 𝐿25orthogonal array has been used. The input parameters selected for optimization are wire tension, wire feed rate, flushing pressure and servo feed rate. By using parametric optimization technique grey relational analysis coupled with signal to noise ratio methodology and results are verified by MOORA methods. Cite this Article Vedansh Chaturvedi, Anil Kumar Sharma. Parametric optimization of CNC wire cut EDM for oil harden non-shrinking steel: a comparative study. Journal of Materials & Metallurgical Engineering. 2015; 5(3): 44–58p.


A wireless transmitting apparatus inserts a training signal into a transmission burst at fixed symbol intervals as a pilot signal, a wireless receiving apparatus performs AD conversion of a received burst signal, performs symbol timing recovery, performs frame position detection and pilot signal extraction from the received burst signal for which symbol timing was established, performs frame synchronization, and performs a carrier frequency estimation using pilot signal. A carrier frequency estimation is also performed with respect to a received burst signal for which frame synchronization was established, and channel distortion is estimated and output based on a frequency-corrected received burst signal. Channel distortion estimation is then performed with respect to a frequency-corrected received burst signal, and a data symbol sequence of the channel-compensated received burst signal is converted to a received data bit stream.


We empirically investigate the effects of beef packer concentration and size efficiencies, packer procurement and pricing methods, and other market variables and quality characteristics on the prices paid by packers for slaughter cattle. We find that packers pay less for fed cattle in more concentrated regions. However, we find that concentration is only one of numerous market factors determining fed cattle prices and less important than many. Quality variables controlled by sellers, like cattle type, are more important in determining the price paid by packers than packer concentration, size economies, procurement methods, or other variables outside seller control.


To calculate the welding-induced residual stresses in U-ribs of the steel deck plate and conduct quantitative analysis of influential factors, the U-ribs of steel deck plate of Xinghai Bay Bridge was taken as the research object. In the ABAQUS finite element software, the local models of U-ribs of steel deck plate were established. Nodal body force loads, i.e., heat generation rate, of the double ellipsoidal heat source models were applied via the compiled subsidiary Dflux program. The welding process of the v-groove welds was simulated, to obtain the residual stresses distribution in the top plate and U-rib plates. The influence of thickness of top plate and angle of welding groove on the residual stresses in the U-ribs were studied. The results show that the welding-induced residual stresses calculated by the numerical method proposed in this paper agree well with the experimental data. The maximum residual stresses in the top plates and the U-rib plates all occur near the welds, which exceeds the yielding limitation of the material. As the thickness of top plate increases, the maximum values of residual stresses in the top plates and U-ribs increase. However, with the increase of groove angle, the maximum values of residual stresses in the top plates and U-rib plates decrease.


Lightweight or mobile neural networks used for real-time computer vision tasks contain fewer parameters than normal networks, which lead to a constrained performance. In this work, we proposed a novel activation function named Tanh Exponential Activation Function (TanhExp) which can improve the performance for these networks on image classification task significantly. The definition of TanhExp is f(x) = xtanh(e^x). We demonstrate the simplicity, efficiency, and robustness of TanhExp on various datasets and network models and TanhExp outperforms its counterparts in both convergence speed and accuracy. Its behaviour also remains stable even with noise added and dataset altered. We show that without increasing the size of the network, the capacity of lightweight neural networks can be enhanced by TanhExp with only a few training epochs and no extra parameters added.


In this paper, the concepts of structured and nonstructured concurrency are introduced to classify concurrent systems, and a hierarchical partition method is used to handle the complexity of nonstructured concurrent systems. A concurrent system with structured and nonstructured concurrency is modeled by a precedence graph. The language of the precedence graph is defined, and a representation method of the language is developed. By decomposing the language hierarchically, hierarchical partitions of the concurrent system can be obtained. From the partitions, a concurrent system can be reduced hierarchically.


Diabetic macular edema (DME) is the most common cause of visual loss in patients with diabetes. Antivascular endothelial growth factors (anti-VEGF) agents are first-line therapy for DME. Nevertheless, up to 60% of patients (depending on the anti-VEGF drug used) have an inadequate response to anti-VEGF treatment. Several cytokines are increased in aqueous humor of patients with DME. Differences in response to treatment may be related to baseline cytokine levels. Intravitreal corticosteroids may be used as an alternative to anti-VEGF agents. Steroids have a different pharmacological profile and act on different pathophysiologic mechanisms. Their effect on aqueous humor cytokines is different from the effect of anti-VEGF therapy. This review highlights the major cytokines involved in DME and evaluates whether baseline cytokine levels could be predictors of response to treatment in DME. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Antivascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) agents are efficient as diabetic macular edema (DME) treatment. However, in some cases, DME fails to respond to anti-VEGF intravitreal injections. Changes in cytokine levels after treatment supported the idea that other cytokines than VEGF are implicated in DME pathogenesis and could be predictors of response to anti-VEGF treatment or corticosteroids allowing targeted and individualized therapy guided by cytokine levels.


Infusion of magnesium chloride markedly increased the excretion of calcium in dogs. A slight but significant increase in the excretion of magnesium occurred following the infusion of calcium chloride. Utilizing the stop-flow technique it was noted that magnesium and calcium achieved minimal concentration ratios in the distal segments of the nephron. Infusion of magnesium chloride during stop-flow studies increased U/PCa/U/PCr ratios both in the proximal and distal samples. These observations support the postulate that magnesium and calcium compete for a common reabsorptive system in the renal tubules. In several stop-flow experiments Mg28 and Ca45 were injected along with inulin 1 or 2 minutes before releasing the ureteral occlusion. Mg28 and Ca45 appeared simultaneously in the urine prior to the appearance of inulin, suggesting transtubular flux of these cations. Such observations, while indicating bidirectional movement of these ions across the tubular epithelium, do not imply active or net secretion.


The maximum output torque developed by the machine is dependent on the allowable current rating and maximum voltage that the inverter can supply to the machine. Therefore, to use the inverter capacity fully, it is desirable to use the control scheme considering the voltage and current limit condition, which can yield the maximum torque per ampere over the entire speed range. This controller is controlled speed using artificial intelligent PI(AIPI) controller. Also, this paper is proposed control of maximum torque per ampere(MTPA) of induction motor. The performance of the proposed induction motor drive with maximum torque control using AIPI controller is verified by analysis results at dynamic operation conditions.


The paper discusses a new configuration of the surface-wave sustained plasma - ''the coaxial structure''. The coaxial structure is investigated on the base of one-dimensional axial fluid model. That model is adequate enough for low pressure plasma, when the main process for charged particles production is the direct ionization from the ground state and the loss of electrons is due to diffusion to the wall. The role of the geometric factors is evaluated and discussed, varying the discharge conditions in the theoretical model. The main equations of the model - the local dispersion relation and the wave energy balance equation are obtained from Maxwell's equations with appropriate boundary conditions. The phase diagrams, the radial profiles of the electric field and the axial profiles of dimensionless electron number density, wave number, wave power are obtained at various plasma radii and dielectric tube thickness. The results are compared with those for the typical cylindrical plasma column at similar conditions. For the purpose of modelling at low pressure of a coaxial discharge sustained by a travelling electromagnetic wave, some important characteristics of the propagation of surface waves have been investigated experimentally. The axial profiles of the propagation coefficient and radial profiles of the electric field at different experimental conditions have been obtained and discussed.


The aim of this study was to investigate the relation between sleepiness and accidents among professional drivers in Iran. This is a case-control study carried out among 820 professional drivers of whom 300 drivers were assigned to the case group and 520 drivers were as the control group, of whom 104 cases were excluded from the study because their questionnaire was not completed. Finally, the collected data on 716 cases were analyzed. The data relating to road traffic accidents, demographic factors and sleepiness were collected using questionnaire and interview. Data analysis was performed using SPSS16 (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 16). The mean of sleepiness score among cases was 6.2 whereas this mean in control group was 4.6. 20.9% of the experimental group had Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS)>10 while just 8.2% of the controls had ESS>10. The difference between sleepiness in the case who had precedence of accident and controls without precedence of accident was statistically significant (P<0.001). This study showed that sleepiness in drivers who had precedence of accidents was higher than the drivers without any accidents. Sleepiness can be one of the causes of accidents among the professional drivers in Iran.


The transient receptor potential vanilloid 5 (TRPV5) channel is a highly calcium selective ion channel that regulates systemic calcium homeostasis by acting as a critical gate for calcium reabsorption in the kidney. Human polymorphisms of this channel have exemplified the importance of TRPV5 in disorders of calcium homeostasis, but atomic level information regarding this channel had remained unknown. To address this gap, we utilized cryo‐electron microscopy (cryo‐EM) to understand the gating and modulation of TRPV5. Moreover, this newly obtained structural information coupled with structure‐based virtual screening allowed us to uncover novel inhibitors of TRPV5 and revealed unique mechanisms of TRPV5 inhibition. These studies have thus expanded the base of understanding of TRPV5 at the atomic level and laid the foundation for future rational drug design.


Electrode polarization analysis is frequently used to determine free-ion diffusivity and number density in ionic conductors. In the present study, this approach is critically examined in a wide variety of electrolytes, including aqueous and nonaqueous solutions, polymer electrolytes, and ionic liquids. It is shown that the electrode polarization analysis based on the Macdonald-Trukhan model [J. Chem. Phys. 124, 144903 (2006); J. Non-Cryst. Solids 357, 3064 (2011)] progressively fails to give reasonable values of free-ion diffusivity and number density with increasing salt concentration. This should be expected because the original model of electrode polarization is designed for dilute electrolytes. An empirical correction method which yields ion diffusivities in reasonable agreement with pulsed-field gradient nuclear magnetic resonance measurements is proposed. However, the analysis of free-ion diffusivity and number density from electrode polarization should still be exercised with great caution because there is no solid theoretical justification for the proposed corrections.


A sequential, prospective analysis of humoral and cellular immune function was performed on 20 burn patients with injuries involving ≤45% total body surface area. Infected patients had significantly worse neutrophil bactericidal activity against Staphylococcus aureus 502A than did noninfected patients. Chemotaxis of neutrophils correlated poorly with infection although chemotaxis was frequently abnormal. The opsonic index of serum was depressed early after the burn but returned to nearly normal values by the fourth to the fourteenth postburn day. There was no difference between infected and noninfected patients. Serum levels of IgG, properdin and C3, while initially low, remained within the normal range after the ninth postburn day in both groups. Factor B levels rose rapidly during the first three weeks after injury to more than double normal levels in many patients. Suggestive evidence for consumption of opsonic protein occurred with five of 19 episodes of bacteremia. The responsiveness of isolated lymphocytes to PHA was normal. However, patients' sera were shown to significantly inhibit the responsiveness of normal lymphocytes to PHA. Analysis of immunologic profiles for individual patients indicates that abnormalities of neutrophil function are the most important acquired defect predisposing patients to the development of bacteremia following major thermal injury; abnormalities of opsonic action play a secondary but important role.


Vascular calcification is present in arterial vessels used for dialysis vascular access creation prior to surgical creation. Calcification in the veins used to create a new vascular access has not previously been documented. The objective of this study was to describe the prevalence of venous calcification in samples collected at the time of vascular access creation. Sixty‐seven vein samples were studied. A von Kossa stain was performed to quantify calcification. A semi‐quantitative scoring system from 0 to 4+ was used to quantify the percentage positive area for calcification as a fraction of total area (0: 0; 1+: 1–10%; 2+: 11–25%; 3+: 26–50%; 4+: >50% positive). Twenty‐two of 67 (33%) samples showed evidence of venous calcification. Histologic examination showed varying degrees of calcification within each cell layer. Among the subset of patients with calcification, 4/22 (18%), 19/22 (86%), 22/22 (100%), and 7/22 (32%) had calcification present within the endothelium, intima, media, and adventitia, respectively. The mean semi‐quantitative scores of the 22 samples with calcification were 0.18 ± 0.08, 1.2 ± 0.14, 1.6 ± 0.13, and 0.36 ± 0.12 for the endothelium, intima, media, and adventitia, respectively. Our results demonstrate that vascular calcification is present within veins used to create new dialysis vascular access, and located predominately within the neointimal and medial layers.


Background Chemokines and chemoattractants play critical roles in trafficking that help regulate leukocyte infiltrates in the tumor microenvironment. Chemokines/chemoattractants can also modulate tumor cell phenotype and function, as tumor cells express functional receptors for these agents. Chemerin (retinoic acid receptor responder 2, RARRES2) is an endogenous leukocyte chemoattractant that recruits innate immune cells through its receptor, CMKLR1. RARRES2 is widely expressed in nonhematopoietic tissues and often downregulated across multiple tumor types compared with normal tissue. We and others have shown that augmenting chemerin in the tumor microenvironment significantly suppresses tumor growth, in part, by immune effector cell recruitment. As chemerin has various roles outside of leukocyte trafficking (eg adipocyte differentiation and metabolic processes), we hypothesized that it may have additional, tumor-intrinsic effects. Methods We investigated the effect of exogenous chemerin on human prostate and sarcoma tumor lines. Key signaling pathway components were elucidated using qPCR, Western blotting, siRNA knockdown, and specific inhibitors. Functional consequences of chemerin treatment were evaluated using in vitro and in vivo studies. Results We show for the first time that human tumors exposed to exogenous chemerin significantly upregulate PTEN expression/activity, and concomitantly suppress programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) expression. CMKLR1 knockdown abrogated chemerin- induced PTEN and PD-L1 modulation, revealing a novel CMKLR1/PTEN/PD-L1 signaling cascade. Targeted inhibitors suggest that signaling occurs through the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway. We found that chemerin treatment significantly reduced tumor migration, while significantly increasing T-cell–mediated cytotoxicity. Chemerin treatment was as effective as both PD-L1 knockdown and the anti–PD-L1 antibody atezolizumab in augmenting T cell mediated tumor lysis. Forced expression of chemerin in human DU145 prostate tumors significantly suppressed in vivo tumor growth, significantly increasing PTEN and decreasing PD-L1 expression. Primary prostate tumor cultures that were treated with recombinant chemerin showed significant increases in PTEN and decreases in PD-L1 expression compared to controls. Lastly, analyses of clinical trial data from human metastatic prostate cancer patients receiving treatment with ipilimumab (NCT02113657) showed higher tumoral levels of RARRES2 expression correlated with higher levels of PTEN, higher effector immune cell (eg cytotoxic T cells, NK cells) signatures, and improved clinical outcomes, suggesting a strategy to augment chemerin/RARRES2 levels in tumors may improve responses to immunotherapy. Conclusions Collectively, our data show for the first time a novel link between chemerin, PTEN, and PD-L1 in human tumor lines. These results show that chemerin – in addition to its ability to suppress tumor growth by recruitment of immune effector cells, may also have a role in improving T-cell–mediated immunotherapies through favorable modulation of PTEN and PD-L1.


The ocean's biological carbon pump is a key component of the global carbon cycle. Only a small fraction of the carbon fixed by primary production is exported to the deep ocean, yet this flux sets to first order the efficiency with which carbon is sequestered out of further contact with the atmosphere on long time scales. Here we examine global patterns in particle export efficiency (PEeff), the proportion of primary production that is exported from the surface ocean, and transfer efficiency (Teff), the fraction of exported organic matter that reaches the deep ocean. Previous studies have found a positive correlation between Teff and deep ocean calcite fluxes recovered from sediment traps, implying that ballasting by calcium carbonate may play an important role in regulating Teff. An alternative explanation is that this correlation is not causative, as regions where the dominant biomineral phase is calcite tend to be subtropical systems, which are hypothesized to produce sinking aggregates highly resistant to degradation. We attempt to distinguish between these alternative hypotheses on the control of Teff by examining the relationship between Teff and biomineral phases exported from the upper ocean, rather than those collected in deep traps. Global scale estimates derived from satellite data show, in keeping with earlier studies, that PEeff is high at high latitudes and low at low latitudes, but that Teff is low at high latitudes and high at low latitudes. However, in contrast to the relationship observed for deep biomineral fluxes in previous studies, we find that Teff is strongly negatively correlated with opal export flux from the upper ocean, but uncorrelated with calcium carbonate export flux. We hypothesize that the underlying factor governing the spatial patterns observed in Teff is ecosystem function, specifically the degree of recycling occurring in the upper ocean, rather than the availability of calcium carbonate for ballasting.


We approach the problem of exploring a virtual space by exploiting positional and camera-model constraints on navigation to provide extra assistance that focuses the user's explorational wanderings on the task objectives. Our specific design incorporates not only task-based constraints on the viewer's location, gaze, and viewing parameters, but also a personal "glide" that serves two important functions: keeping the user oriented in the navigation space, and "pointing" to interesting subject areas as they are approached. The guide's cues may be ignored by continuing in motion, but if the user stops, the gaze shifts automatically toward whatever the guide was interested in. This design has the serendipitous feature that it automatically incorporates a nested collaborative paradigm simply by allowing any given viewer to be seen as the "guide" of one or more viewers following behind; the leading automated guide (we tend to select a guide dog for this avatar) can remind the leading live human guide of interesting sites to point out, while each real human collaborator down the chain has some choices about whether to follow the local leader's hints. We have chosen VRML as our initial development medium primarily because of its portability, and we have implemented a variety of natural modes for leading and collaborating, including ways for collaborators to attach to and detach from a particular leader.


Legionella lytica comb. nov. an intracellular bacterial pathogen of small free-living amoebae was subjected to cellular fatty acid (FA) analysis employing base and acid catalyzed cleavage, gas-liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry. Both unbranched and branched (iso and anteiso) FA of chains ranging from 14 to 30 carbon atoms occurred. The presence of two long-chain FA: 27-oxo-octacosanoic acid and heptacosane-1,27-dioic acid, characteristic for legionellae, was found. Nine amide-linked 3-hydroxy-FA were revealed. The main 3-hydroxy-fatty acids comprise: 3-OH-14:0, 3-OH-16:0, 3-OH-18:0, 3-OH-i18:0, 3-OH-15:OH, 3-OH-i16:0 amd 3-OH-i17:0. The profile of hydroxy FAs permits allocation of L. lytica to group 3 of legionellae which comprise blue-white fluorescent species.


The SOLAP system for Indonesian Agricultural Commodities is a successful development based on previous studies. Agricultural commodity data are managed in a data warehouse with a galactic schema, which has 7 fact tables, namely cut flower horticulture, ornamental plant horticulture, horticulture, food crops, plantation, livestock population, and livestock production, as well as 3 dimensional tables, namely location, time, and commodity. The results of SOLAP operations on the system can be visualized in the form of crosstabs, graphs and maps. The system uses a web platform so that it can be accessed by the public. However, the SOLAP system cannot update data in real time. This study aims to develop a data warehouse for Indonesian Agricultural Commodities SOLAP in real time by creating a scraping system. This study has succeeded in developing a data warehouse in real time on the indonesian agricultural commodity SOLAP system by creating a real time scraping system that is applied to the SOLAP server and has succeeded in making the ETL process run in real time on the SOLAP server and optimizing polygon-based spatial data visualization using the Douglas-Peucker. This study has also carried out functional testing of OLAP features and functions on the Indonesian Agricultural Commodity SOLAP system using the black box testing method. The results of this study provide accurate and real-time data on the SOLAP of Indonesian Agricultural Commodities, with the results of SOLAP feature testing achieving 100 percent pass and the data conformity test results of OLAP function as expected. In addition, the results of this study make it possible to automatically update the data according to a predetermined schedule to provide real-time information.


This paper aims to present a comprehensive proposal for project scheduling and control by applying fuzzy earned value. It goes a step further than the existing literature: in the formulation of the fuzzy earned value we consider not only its duration, but also cost and production, and alternatives in the scheduling between the earliest and latest times. The mathematical model is implemented in a prototypical construction project with all the estimated values taken as fuzzy numbers. Our findings suggest that different possible schedules and the fuzzy arithmetic provide more objective results in uncertain environments than the traditional methodology. The proposed model allows for controlling the vagueness of the environment through the adjustment of the α-cut, adapting it to the specific circumstances of the project.


A reconfiguration scheme is presented that is suitable for both yield and reliability enhancement of large-area VLSI implementations of binary tree architectures. The approach proposed makes use of partially global redundancy to allow clustered effects to be tolerated. The binary tree is cut a few levels above the leaves to form an upper subtree and many lower subtrees, with spare processors being grouped adjacent to the root of each lower subtree. Redundant links with programmable switches are used to permit reconfiguration. The cost of the scheme, in terms of redundant hardware, is comparable to that of other schemes. An O(N) H-tree layout is used. In comparison to existing schemes, the proposed scheme gives much better yield and better reliability. >


The purpose of this article is to report on an attempt to substitute a dynamic model for Heider's well known Psychological "Balance" theory.Additionally, a computer simulation of this model is suggested, with help of a computer language for dynamically modelling large samples of biological cells: CELLSIM. (Computer outputs are available upon request from Henk Koppelaar MPS group, Oudennoord 6, Utrecht.


Abstract In this paper, we investigate connections between structures present in every generic extension of the universe V and computability theory. We introduce the notion of generic Muchnik reducibility that can be used to compare the complexity of uncountable structures; we establish basic properties of this reducibility, and study it in the context of generic presentability, the existence of a copy of the structure in every extension by a given forcing. We show that every forcing notion making ω 2 countable generically presents some countable structure with no copy in the ground model; and that every structure generically presentable by a forcing notion that does not make ω 2 countable has a copy in the ground model. We also show that any countable structure ${\cal A}$ that is generically presentable by a forcing notion not collapsing ω 1 has a countable copy in V, as does any structure ${\cal B}$ generically Muchnik reducible to a structure ${\cal A}$ of cardinality ℵ 1. The former positive result yields a new proof of Harrington's result that counterexamples to Vaught's conjecture have models of power ℵ 1 with Scott rank arbitrarily high below ω 2. Finally, we show that a rigid structure with copies in all generic extensions by a given forcing has a copy already in the ground model.


In human's expression recognition, the representation of expression features is essential for the recognition accuracy. In this work we propose a novel approach for extracting expression dynamic features from facial expression videos. Rather than utilising statistical models e.g. Hidden Markov Model (HMM), our approach integrates expression dynamic features into a static image, the Histogram Variances Face (HVF), by fusing histogram variances among the frames in a video. The HVFs can be automatically obtained from videos with different frame rates and immune to illumination interference. In our experiments, for the videos picturing the same facial expression, e.g., surprise, happy and sadness etc., their corresponding HVFs are similar, even though the performers and frame rates are different. Therefore the static facial recognition approaches can be utilised for the dynamic expression recognition. We have applied this approach on the well-known Cohn-Kanade AU-Coded Facial Expression database then classified HVFs using PCA and Support Vector Machine (SVMs), and found the accuracy of HVFs classification is very encouraging.


The discussion on global warming is part of a global increase in ecological awareness that has been going on for some time now. Though the research results and the predictions contain some uncertainties, it appears clear that the global climate is warming at quite a fast pace and that this warming is largely due to human influence. At the same time in order to ensure the welfare of the citizens of European countries, the objective of economic policy is continuous growth. Major tools for achieving this objective are lifelong learning and lifelong guidance. The observed and predicted changes connected to climate change bring forth the issue of global ethics of lifelong guidance. In this article we ask how we can define the ethics of lifelong guidance if we are to consider both sustainable development and well-being of citizens. Individuals who conceive of themselves as participants in a generational continuum have duties to their predecessors and descendants. Therefore the ethics of lifelong guidance should be based on the principles of sustainable development.


Antimicrobial photodynamic therapy and allied photodynamic antimicrobial chemotherapy have shown remarkable activity against bacterial pathogens in both planktonic and biofilm forms. There has been little or no resistance development against antimicrobial photodynamic therapy. Furthermore, recent developments in therapies that involve antimicrobial photodynamic therapy in combination with photothermal hyperthermia therapy, magnetic hyperthermia therapy, antibiotic chemotherapy and cold atmospheric pressure plasma therapy have shown additive and synergistic enhancement of its efficacy. This paper reviews applications of antimicrobial photodynamic therapy and non-invasive combination therapies often used with it, including sonodynamic therapy and nanozyme enhanced photodynamic therapy. The antimicrobial and antibiofilm mechanisms are discussed. This review proposes that these technologies have a great potential to overcome the bacterial resistance associated with bacterial biofilm formation.


When designing a large-scale system, it is more effective to consider the system as a set of sub-systems, and to design each sub-system and its relations respectively. Modern manufacturing systems are becoming larger and more complex and demanding more flexibility. To consider the control of such systems, it would be difficult to apply traditional centralized control because of the deficiencies in robustness and flexibility. The concept of decentralized control is being adopted. Many researchers find that the multi-agent model is suitable for such decentralized control. Our research is concerned with applying the theory of multi-agent models to autonomous distributed manufacturing systems.


BIOPHYSICS. For the article ''Microviscometry reveals reduced blood viscosity and altered shear rate and shear stress profiles in microvessels after hemodilution,'' by David S. Long, Michael L. Smith, Axel R. Pries, Klaus Ley, and Edward R. Damiano, which appeared in issue 27, July 6, 2004, of Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA (101, 10060–10065; first published June 25, 2004; 10.1073 pnas.0402937101), the first two authors, David S. Long and Michael L. Smith, contributed equally to this work.


ABSTRACT In this project, we investigate the relationship between the use of military force and trade interdependence, suggesting that the influence of trade on militarized conflict varies based on the issue under dispute. For some issues, trade is likely to attenuate the chances that states escalate a dispute to the use of military force, while for others trade can intensify disputes so that military conflict is more likely. Specifically, we hypothesize that greater trade interdependence decreases the probability of military conflict over realpolitik issues like territory. On the other hand, greater trade interdependence increases the probability that states use military force when the issue under dispute concerns the regime, policies, and conditions in the target. To test our hypotheses, we employ new data on dyadic uses of force from the International Military Intervention data set that records the initiator's reason(s) for using force against the target. The statistical tests support our hypotheses; trade decreases the use of force against a target for territorial and military/diplomatic reasons, which is consistent with arguments from the liberal paradigm. However, trade interdependence increases the use of force for humanitarian and economic reasons as well as to affect the regime or policy of the target. Thus, our study improves upon current research about the relationship between economic interdependence and foreign policy by specifying a conditional relationship based on the issues under contention.


Tuberculosis caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis have been a major challenge for medical and healthcare sectors in many underdeveloped countries with limited diagnosis tools. Tuberculosis can be detected from microscopic slides and chest X-ray but as a result of the high cases of tuberculosis, this method can be tedious for both Microbiologists and Radiologists and can lead to miss-diagnosis. These challenges can be solved by employing Computer-Aided Detection (CAD)via AI-driven models which learn features based on convolution and result in an output with high accuracy. In this paper, we described automated discrimination of X-ray and microscope slide images into tuberculosis and non-tuberculosis cases using pretrained AlexNet Models. The study employed Chest X-ray dataset made available on Kaggle repository and microscopic slide images from both Near East University Hospital and Kaggle repository. For classification of tuberculosis using microscopic slide images, the model achieved 90.56% accuracy, 97.78% sensitivity and 83.33% specificity for 70: 30 splits. For classification of tuberculosis using X-ray images, the model achieved 93.89% accuracy, 96.67% sensitivity and 91.11% specificity for 70:30 splits. Our result is in line with the notion that CNN models can be used for classifying medical images with higher accuracy and precision.


Chiral spiro diphosphines (SDP) are efficient ligands for the Pd-catalyzed asymmetric allylic alkylation of 1,3-diphenyl-2-propenyl acetate with dimethyl malonate and related nucleophiles. The newly synthesized ligand DMM-SDP (1e) with 3,5-dimethyl-4-methoxy groups on the P-phenyl rings of the phosphine shows the highest enantioselectivity (up to 99.1% ee). Diethylzinc as a base is critical for obtaining high enantioselectivity in the allylic alkylation using beta-dicarbonyl nucleophiles. The structure of catalyst [PdCl(2)((S)-SDP)] was determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction. The SDP ligands create an effective asymmetric environment around the palladium, resulting in high enantioselectivities for the asymmetric allylic alkylation reaction.


Surface‐oxidized molybdenum nanopowders are compacted by spark plasma sintering (SPS). The oxide impurity behavior is analyzed under various sintering temperatures. The densification mechanism of the nanopowders with a melted oxide phase is identified in situ by regression analysis of the experimental data on the temperature‐dependent porosity change and on the SPS multistep pressure dilatometry. To increase the density of the compacted pellets, the nanopowders with the oxide phase are consolidated by SPS using the two in situ oxide removal methods: carbothermic reduction and particle surface cleaning by the electric current flow through the powders. The advantages and disadvantages of these methods in terms of the density, grain size, and mechanical properties of the final products are discussed.


Cocoyam (Xanthosoma sagittifolium (L.) Schott) is an important crop which serves as a staple food for a large number of people in developing nations including Nigeria. Its perishability necessitates immediate processing after harvest to obtain products such as chips, flakes and flour with better storage stability. Proper selection of appropriate packaging materials for cocoyam flour is important to maintain the quality attributes during storage and to extend its shelf life. This study, therefore, examined the influence of packaging materials and storage period on the quality of cocoyam flour. Cocoyam flour was produced from fresh, wholesome cormels. The flour samples were stored in three packaging materials (polyethylene terephthalate [PET] bottles, polyethylene bags and woven polypropylene sacks) for six months under ambient conditions. The flour samples were then analyzed at four-week intervals for proximate composition, pH, colour and sensory analysis using standard methods. The results showed that packaging materials and length of storage significantly affected crude fibre and carbohydrate content of cocoyam flour. The moisture content of the flour packed in woven polypropylene decreased to a larger extent due to its higher water vapour permeability. The type of packaging did not significantly affect the crude fat content of the flour throughout the storage period. The PET bottle performed better in retaining the protein and ash content of the flour. Although significant differences were observed in the pH levels and colour of the cocoyam flour samples after storage in the different packaging materials, the type of packaging material did not affect these physicochemical properties. The sensory properties of the cocoyam flour in three packaging materials were found to be within acceptable limits at the end of storage. All the selected packaging materials performed well in retaining the quality attributes of the cocoyam flour throughout the period of storage.


This paper is concerned with the use of social welfare functions in evaluating changes. In particular, it considers suggestions that welfare weights to be used in comparing the gains and losses of different individuals (or other appropriate units of analysis), and a social time preference rate for use in cost benefit evaluation, can be estimated either from consumers' behaviour or from the judgements implicit in tax policy. It is suggested that results are highly sensitive to the context and model specification assumed. More importantly, the argument that an estimated elasticity of marginal utility or time preference rate should be used in policy evaluations fails to recognise that fundamental value judgements are involved. Various estimates may be of interest, but they cannot be used by economists to impose value judgements. The main contribution economists can make is to examine the implications of adopting a range of alternative value judgements.


The purpose of this study was to compare topical application of orasep verses honey on radiation induced mucositis. ObjectivesTo assess the existing level of mucositis. To determine the effect of Orasep and honey on radiation induced mucositis. To find out the association between selected demographic variables & mucositis score. MethodsAn experimental pre-test, post-test experimental design were used. The 40 patients were selected by purposive sampling technique. ResultsThe onset of mucositis and the severity of mucositis were graded during the course of the radiotherapy and 5 and 10 day after radiotherapy,. The mean score of 0.7, Std. Deviation .571 in reducing level of mucositis in Orasep group and mean score honey group of 0.55, Std. Deviation 0.510. Null hypothesis accepted therefore there is no significant difference on radiation induced mucositis in Orasep and honey groups after the10th day intervention. No significant reduction in mucositis in honey-received patients compared with orasep applied patient succored. There were no differences between the groups. There all variables do not show significant association between a radiations induced mucositis and demographic variables. Conclusion: natural honey is an effective agent in managing radiation induced oral mucositis. Honey could be a simple, potent and inexpensive agent, which is easily available, and it can be a better therapeutic agent in managing radiation mucositis in developing countries like India for the management of this morbidity. Also in orasep help to relief of pain and dry, scratchy mouth for the relief of pain associated with canker sores, irritation of the mouth and gums.