We present the fabrication and characterization of a flash memory device based on a van der Waals (vdW) heterostructure comprising graphene (Gr), hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), and molybdenum disulfide (MoS2). The device exhibits versatile functionalities and demonstrates memtransistor-like behavior, making it a promising candidate for synaptic devices and neuromorphic computing. The Gr/h-BN/MoS2 heterostructure allows for the manipulation of charge concentration in the floating gate (FG) through control gate voltage (VBG), resulting in conductance switching. Moreover, the overlap structure of the FG and source-drain electrodes enables memtransistor-like operations, where the writing processes rely on the source-drain voltage (VDS). By varying carrier storage concentrations in the Gr-FG, multiple memory states can be achieved, offering analog information processing capabilities. In addition, the combination of dual-input functionality allows for the identification of a substantial on/off ratio even when utilizing a lower reading VDS, consequently strengthening the dependability of the memory state. Our work showcases the great potential of the Gr/h-BN/MoS2 heterostructure for advanced nanoelectronics, providing a platform for the development of computing architectures and neuromorphic systems.


As youth sport participation grows, athletic trainers (ATs) continue to be important health care providers in managing growth-related injuries.

 To examine secondary school ATs' reported knowledge on diagnosing and treating growth-related injuries and reported confidence for determining growth status and to report methods secondary school ATs use to determine patient growth status.

 Cross-sectional.

 An online questionnaire was distributed to secondary school ATs in the United States. Data collection occurred in the summer of 2021 over a 6-week period.

 A total of 430 secondary school ATs (highest degree earned: master's degree = 66%).

 The questionnaire contained secondary school ATs' confidence in determining if an athlete was going through a growth spurt, level of knowledge on diagnosing and treating growth-related injuries, methods secondary school ATs use to determine growth status in their athletes, and demographics.

 Most secondary school ATs believed that growth spurts affected sport-related injury risk (88%); however, only 37% of secondary school ATs were fairly or completely confident in their ability to determine if an athlete was going through a growth spurt. For those 37% of secondary school ATs, 89% of them used history or observation over time, but no formal method, for determining growth status of their patients. Patient self-assessed Tanner stages (32%) and clinical evaluation of Tanner stages (28%) were the next most used methods for assessing growth.

 In accord with Domain I of athletic training, secondary school ATs could benefit from improved knowledge on how to measure and manage growth in their patient population. To aid education in this area, future researchers should focus on assessing barriers secondary school ATs face in implementing methods for measuring growth and exploring secondary school ATs' knowledge levels on risk management programs for youth athletes going through growth spurts.


The COVID-19 pandemic has imploded the traditional ways in which creative, cultural and artistic content are presented and consumed. Museums, libraries, archives, and other cultural institutions have been closed in lockdowns all around the European Union, and their content presented and consumed online. This paper will analyse how copyright rules affect cultural heritage institutions (publicly accessible libraries or museums, archives or film or audio heritage institutions) in the digital age. Four recent legal documents at the European level refer to the digitalisation of their collections and the digitised content's exposure to the public in the Digital Single Market. These are Directive 2001/29/EC, Directive 2012/28/EU, Directive (EU) 2019/790 and Directive (EU) 2019/1024. This paper willfirst analyse how exclusive rights are regulated for authors, other creators, publishers, and producers in the digital age. Those rights need to be respected and exercised effectively by their owners. On the other hand, there is also a public interest, in that digitisation and access to digitised content should be free in cultural heritage institutions. To resolve the tension inherent in this relationship is not easy. The recent rapid change in consumption of creative, cultural and artistic content in the Single Digital Market (due to the pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus) has triggered the need for swifter digitisation of cultural heritage institutions' collections. The European legal framework offers some solutions to this need, which will be presented here. It does not resolve the situation generally, but refers to particular issues, such as orphan works, out-of-commerce works, text and data mining and the re-use of public sector information. In general, copyright protection prevails. Nevertheless, the tendencies towards free access grow stronger every day. This paper will analyse how these four directives interact with each other in the effort to resolve the tension between copyright, digitisation and free access to digitised content in cultural heritage institutions. At the end, two ideas for a new balance are presented.


Polyimide nanocomposites prepared by the in situ generation of crosslinked organosilicon nanophase by sol-gel techniques were investigated by dielectric relaxation spectroscopy, themally stimulated depolarization currents and dynamic mechanical analysis. Two series of samples were investigated with molar mass 5000 and 10000 of the polyimide chains. In both series a non-additive decrease of the dielectric permittivity with increasing amount of filler was observed, indicating a loose inner structure of the spatial aggregates of the organosilicon nanophase. The magnitude of the dielectric γ relaxation of polyimide was found to increase with increasing filler content for the shorter chains, whereas the opposite was observed for the longer ones.


Due to the need for increased security, cryptography has become a necessity in many embedded applications. It has become an integral portion of embedded applications that include hand held radios used by law enforcement, hand held computers, smart cards, and other industries wanting the ability to maintain and transfer sensitive data. Elliptic Curve Cryptosystems (ECCs) have become the cryptography of choice because of the reduced overhead required in comparison to other Cryptosystems to achieve the same level of security. Elliptic curve algorithms, used in Elliptic Curve Cryptosystems, are a series of hundreds to thousands of finite arithmetic operations. A great deal of research has been performed to determine the most efficient algorithms to implement elliptic curve arithmetic, particularly the use of large processors that are very efficient at performing multi-precision arithmetic. This paper focuses on implementing this complex arithmetic in an embedded system with small, low power processors with, potentially limited, multi-precision arithmetic capability.


The stories we tell ourselves about our beginnings are a vital part of our sense of identity and belonging. For Druids living in the UK those stories tend to be deeply rooted in a sense of connectedness with the landscape and with the 'Ancestors', usually situated in an imagined and often idealized pre-Christian past. Since the time of William Stukeley, himself associated with the Druid Revival of the Eighteenth Century; the Druids have been associated in the popular romantic imagination with the ancient burial mounds that proliferate in the landscape. The fact that this association is not historically correct has done little to weaken its power.
This paper will focus on the construction, in recent years, of a number of barrows, mimicking the Neolithic monuments, and designed to take human cremated remains in niches built into the construction. The fact that this initiative has proved hugely popular with Druids, but also with many others testifies to the power that the barrows hold over the imagination. Why is this? What stories are being told about the barrows, and do those stories have to say about connections to 'deep time', to the land, to each other, to community and to the future.


Objective: this study assessed the influence of pre-operative body mass index (BMI) has upon lymphedema, scar tissue adhesion, pain, and heaviness in the upper limb at two years after surgery for breast cancer. Methods: retrospective analysis of 631 medical records of women who underwent surgery for breast cancer and were referred to the Physiotherapy Program at Prof. Dr. Jose Aristodemo Pinotti Women's Hospital of the Center for Integral Women's Health Care, CAISM/UNICAMP between January 2006 and December 2007. Results: mean age of women was 56.5 years (±13.7 years) and the most part (55%) were overweight or obese, surgical stages II and III were present in 63% of women studied. Radical mastectomy was the most frequent surgery (54.4%), followed by quadrantectomy (32.1%). In the first year after surgery, there was no significant association between BMI categories and incidence of scar tissue adhesion, pain, heaviness and lymphedema. In the second year, overweight and obese women had higher rates of heaviness in the upper limb and lymphedema. For lymphedema, there was a significant difference among BMI categories (p=0.0268). Obese women are 3.6 times more likely to develop lymphedema in the second year after surgery (odds ratio 3.61 95% CI 1.36 to 9.41). Conclusion: BMI ≥25kg/m2 prior to treatment for breast cancer can be considered a risk factor for developing lymphedema in the two years after surgery. There was no association between BMI and the development of other complications.


The catch composition of the bottom trawl fishery along the coasts of Karatas was evaluated in the 2002-2003 fishing season. A total of 110 species were registered, the fishes showed the highest diversity (90 species) followed by 15 crustaceans species and 5 species of cephalopods. The highest catch per unit effort (CPUE) value (66.8 kg h -1 ) was recorded in September when the fishing season was opened and decreased to the lowest value in March (12.5 kg h -1 ). The average CPUE was 26.3 ± 18.9 kg h -1 . The result showed that catch of fish decrease with increasing depth. The highest fish catch (47.42%) was found in 0-20 m depth range. 35.58 percent of the catch was between 20-50 m, and 17.00% between 50-100 m depth. Lessepsian fish comprise 18.90% of all fish in terms of the number of species and 26.66% of the total fish catch.


Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is a common problem in the intensive care unit (ICU). It is associated with a distinct spectrum of pathogens and its pathogenesis involves microaspiration of oropharyngeal organisms. Clinical and radiographic criteria have been shown to be unreliable in diagnosing VAP, and it remains a challenge for intensivists to utilise the array of diagnostic procedures at their disposal to optimise diagnostic accuracy (improve specificity) and guide in therapy. These procedures and guided antibiotic therapy may not always improve the outcome and therefore simple preventive measures should be employed to reduce the incidence.


The author presents a new channel coding scheme for multicode CDMA systems. A convolutional code is applied in a serial concatenation with a rate one block encoder, also referred to as 'mapper', which enables further bit error rate reduction at the receiver through iterative decoding. The bit error rate (BER) performance of iterative demapping and decoding for multicode CDMA is evaluated by means of simulation. The convergence behavior is visualized in the extrinsic information transfer chart.


The potential of phytochemicals in sustainable disease management is increasing. Brassica crops have bioactive compounds called glucosinolates (GSLs), which in higher quantities may result in plant resistance against biotic stress. Due to the lack of material with the same genetic background there are not conclusive studies on the defensive role of GSLs against phytopathogens in vivo. The interaction between six genotypes of Brassica oleracea (kale) and the pathogenic bacterium Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris (Xcc) was studied. These genotypes had different GSL content: high and low sinigrin (HSIN, LSIN), glucoiberin (HGIB, LGIB) and glucobrassicin (HGBS, LGBS), which had been obtained by a divergent selection program. During two consecutive experiments carried out in controlled conditions (time 1 and time 2), thirty plants of each genotype were inoculated with Xcc. Lesions area, disease severity and concentration of GSLs were measured at the end of each experiment. In general, the quantity of GSLs was higher and disease traits were lower in samples from time 2. There was diverse response among high content GSLs genotypes against pathogen. In GBS genotypes, less diseases severity and lower lesion area were observed in HGBS. In GIB selection, there was not significant difference between genotypes for disease severity but the interaction between genotype and time was significant. The individual analysis by time revealed that HGIB had higher disease severity in time 1 than LGIB, whereas in time 2 the relationship was inverted. HSIN and LSIN performed similar in both times and there was not effect on disease development with increased SIN quantity. As conclusion, increasing the amount of GSL in the plant, does not always lead to an increase in the response of the plant to pathogen. There was a clear effect of the indolic GSL (GBS) but not of the aliphatics (SIN, GIB).


Patients and nurses at a psychiatric hospital were asked which aspects of care they rated most highly. The results showed that the two groups had very different perceptions. Tonmoy Sharma and colleagues report their findings and the implications.


In this paper, a blind near-far resistant position localisation algorithm is proposed for time-varying asynchronous multipath DS-CDMA systems. The proposed algorithm is applicable in the deployment of (1) wearable or implantable medical physiological sensors for body sensor network, (2) ambient sensors or other sensor nodes for wireless sensor network, and (3) mobile terminal geolocation for cellular network. Many conventional position localisation algorithms suffer performance degradation in a multipath environment (especially in an indoor or urban setup), thus compromising the reliability of the system. The proposed algorithm hence addresses this issue and in addition is capable of operating in the presence of strong co-channel interferences. A representative example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach and to highlight some of the key features of the algorithm.


The implementation of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) has been found to bring numerous benefits to its learners. There has been a rising trend in introducing EMI at higher education institutions worldwide. However, challenges are ubiquitous and there is still prevalent hesitation in integrating content and language in many institutions. This study aimed to explore factors hindering students' level of lesson comprehension in EMI classes through a mixed-method study carried out on 233 participants at Hoa Sen University, Vietnam. The findings showed that variables hampering students from lesson understanding were mainly associated with instructors' teaching methods and students' and instructors' language competences. Results from standard multiple regression indicated that vocabulary range, writing skills and teaching methods were found to have significant contribution to the prediction of the level of lesson comprehension of the students. The findings of the study could be a considerable reference source for universities aiming at implementing EMI programmes.


Schistosomes infect over 200 million of the world's poorest people, but unfortunately treatment relies on a single drug. Nuclear hormone receptors are ligand-activated transcription factors that regulate diverse processes in metazoans, yet few have been functionally characterized in schistosomes. During a systematic analysis of nuclear receptor function, we found that an FTZ-F1-like receptor was essential for parasite survival. Using a combination of transcriptional profiling and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP), we discovered that the micro-exon gene meg-8.3 is a transcriptional target of SmFTZ-F1. We found that both Smftz-f1 and meg-8.3 are required for esophageal gland maintenance as well as integrity of the worm's head. Together, these studies define a new role for micro-exon gene function in the parasite and suggest that factors associated with the esophageal gland could represent viable therapeutic targets.


ABSTRACT Low-virulence Newcastle disease viruses (loNDV) are frequently recovered from wild bird species, but little is known about their distribution, genetic diversity, or potential to cause disease in poultry. NDV isolates recovered from cloacal samples of apparently healthy waterfowl and shorebirds (WS) in the United States during 1986 to 2005 were examined for genomic diversity and their potential for virulence (n = 249). In addition 19 loNDV isolates from U.S. live bird markets (LBMs) were analyzed and found to be genetically distinct from NDV used in live vaccines but related to WS-origin NDV. Phylogenetic analysis of the fusion protein identified nine novel genotypes among the class I NDV, and new genomic subgroups were identified among genotypes I and II of the class II viruses. The WS-origin viruses exhibited broad genetic and antigenic diversity, and some WS genotypes displayed a closer phylogenetic relationship to LBM-origin NDV. All NDV were predicted to be lentogenic based upon sequencing of the fusion cleavage site, intracerebral pathogenicity index, or mean death time in embryo assays. The USDA real-time reverse transcription-PCR assay, which targets the matrix gene, identified nearly all of the class II NDV tested but failed to detect class I viruses from both LBM and WS. The close phylogenetic proximity of some WS and LBM loNDV suggests that viral transmission may occur among wild birds and poultry; however, these events may occur unnoticed due to the broad genetic diversity of loNDV, the lentogenic presentation in birds, and the limitations of current rapid diagnostic tools.


This letter addresses the optimum energy partition between the midamble and data fields, given the total energy per burst, in channel estimation for joint detected time-division code-division multiple-access systems. We show that, given the lengths of the data and midamble, in general, the optimal solution requires different amplitude levels. We also derive the burst structure leading to the optimum energy partition with equal amplitude symbols, and the performance degradation by using traditional choices. The analysis is validated by simulations.


An optoelectronic integrated circuit (OEIC) suitable for applications requiring highly parallel optical interconnections has been designed, fabricated and demonstrated. The chip integrates optical emitters, optical detectors and GaAs based electronic I.C.s on the same substrate. Its architecture consists of a two-dimensional 8x8 array of cells, with each cell containing a double heterojunction Light Emitting Diode (LED), a lateral ionimplanted photoconducting detector (PD), and a GaAs Metal-Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor (MESFET) circuit which performs amplification of the detector signal, thresholding, memory and LED drive functions. The chip consists of a total of 1300 FETs, 64 LEDs, 64 photodetectors and 500 thin-film resistors. Discrete devices fabricated with the integrated process have performance characteristics similar to those of non-integrated devices. The electrical and optical functionality of 8x8 arrays has been demonstrated. However, a feedback problem has been shown to exist between the LEDs and LED driver FETs. The source of this problem is discussed.


The K+ transporter/high-affinity K+/K+ uptake (KT/HAK/KUP) transporters dominate K+ uptake, transport, and allocation that play a pivotal role in mineral homeostasis and plant adaptation to adverse abiotic stresses. However, molecular mechanisms towards K+ nutrition in forest trees are extremely rare, especially in willow. In this study, we identified 22 KT/HAK/KUP transporter genes in purple osier willow (designated as SpuHAK1 to SpuHAK22) and examined their expression under K+ deficiency, drought, and salt stress conditions. Both transcriptomic and quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) analyses demonstrated that SpuHAKs were predominantly expressed in stems, and the expression levels of SpuHAK1, SpuHAK2, SpuHAK3, SpuHAK7, and SpuHAK8 were higher at the whole plant level, whereas SpuHAK9, SpuHAK11, SpuHAK20, and SpuHAK22 were hardly detected in tested tissues. In addition, both K+ deficiency and salt stress decreased the tissue K+ content, while drought increased the tissue K+ content in purple osier plant. Moreover, SpuHAK genes were differentially responsive to K+ deficiency, drought, and salt stresses in roots. K+ deficiency and salt stress mainly enhanced the expression level of responsive SpuHAK genes. Fifteen putative cis-acting regulatory elements, including the stress response, hormone response, circadian regulation, and nutrition and development, were identified in the promoter region of SpuHAK genes. Our findings provide a foundation for further functional characterization of KT/HAK/KUP transporters in forest trees and may be useful for breeding willow rootstocks that utilize potassium more efficiently.


To find an alternative treatment for neonatal hyperbilirubinemia, the effect of a decoction of Artemisia Rheum Gardeniae was tested in an animal model. Fifteen male newborn piglets (four to six days old) were separated into three groups (five piglets/group). The animals of the first group, or Control Group, were intravenously infused with purified bilirubin (40 mg/kg) to simulate neonatal indirect hyperbilirubinemia. The animals of the second and the third groups received the decoction via oral-gastric tube feeding (Enteral Treatment Group) and intravenous injection (Parenteral Treatment Group), respectively, after infusion of bilirubin. Serum bilirubin levels were determined at 0, 0.5, 1, 2, 4 and 8 hours in these groups. The results revealed no significant effect of the decoction on hyperbilirubinemia within eight hours. The implication of this study suggests that a decoction of Artemisia Rheum Gardeniae may be not useful in the treatment of neonatal hyperbilirubinemia.


While urban-scale building energy modeling is becoming increasingly common, it currently lacks standards, guidelines, or empirical validation against measured data. Empirical validation necessary to enable best practices is becoming increasingly tractable. The growing prevalence of advanced metering infrastructure has led to significant data regarding the energy consumption within individual buildings, but is something utilities and countries are still struggling to analyze and use wisely. In partnership with the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, Tennessee, a crude OpenStudio/EnergyPlus model of over 178,000 buildings has been created and used to compare simulated energy against actual, 15-min, whole-building electrical consumption of each building. In this study, classifying building type is treated as a use case for quantifying performance associated with smart meter data. This article attempts to provide guidance for working with advanced metering infrastructure for buildings related to: quality control, pathological data classifications, statistical metrics on performance, a methodology for classifying building types, and assess accuracy. Advanced metering infrastructure was used to collect whole-building electricity consumption for 178,333 buildings, define equations for common data issues (missing values, zeros, and spiking), propose a new method for assigning building type, and empirically validate gaps between real buildings and existing prototypes using industry-standard accuracy metrics.


This chapter provides a basic overview of banking and financial regulation for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics (Francesco Parisi, ed.). Among other things, the chapter compares traditional and shadow banking and their regulation, differentiating "microprudential" regulation (which focuses on protecting individual components of the financial system, such as banks) and "macroprudential" regulation (which focuses on protecting against systemic risk). The chapter also examines how regulation can help to correct market failures that undermine financial efficiency. In that context, it discusses, among other things, capital requirements, ring-fencing, and stress testing. Finally, the chapter examines how regulation can help to protect against systemic risk, including by addressing potential triggers of systemic risk (such as maturity transformation — the asset-liability mismatch that results from the short-term funding of long-term projects — and limited liability).


Abstract Background: Bone marrow examination is an essential diagnostic tool in acute leukemia for the determination of lineage of blasts by flow cytometry or immunophenotyping. In cases of dry tap or where facilities of flow cytometry is not available, immunohistochemistry (IHC) on trephine biopsy sections can be used as a supportive tool to diagnose and classify acute leukemia. Materials and Methods: The giemsa-stained peripheral smears and bone marrow aspirate/imprints smears were retrospectively evaluated. IHC was done on trephine biopsy sections using a panel of antibodies which included CD34, MPO, CD117, Tdt, CD3, CD20, PAX5, and CD10 Results: Of the 29 cases diagnosed by IHC on trephine sections, 25 cases could be accurately classified based on the expression of myeloid and lymphoid markers. Majority of the acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) were of B-cell lineage (81.25%), and almost half of the B-ALL were common acute lymphoblastic leukemia-associated antigen positive. Conclusion: IHC on trephine biopsy facilitates the confirmation and subtyping of leukemia in more than 85% cases. A limited panel of antibodies using CD34, MPO, TdT, CD3 CD20, PAX 5, and CD10 can be used for subtyping of leukemias in trephine biopsy sections, especially in centers with limited resources. It obviates the need for a repeat bone marrow procedure where material is not available for flow cytometry.


By analyzing serious flaws that exist in the current elearning systems in the areas of adoptability and individualization, based on empirical data collected during tutoring system development process, utilizing key technologies such as fuzzy evaluation method and neural network, distance elearners' behavioral and performance data is obtained in the context of Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS). The establishment and evaluation of dynamic student models were studied, while adapting tutoring strategy to the learning characteristics of different classes of students. Finally, an ITS based on such student model is outlined.


The aim of this retrospective study was to analyze the factors which affected the auxological response to GnRH agonist treatment and the final height (FH) outcome in 71 girls with idiopathic and truly precocious (onset before 8 years) central puberty (CTPP) who had been treated with the same therapy protocol (Decapeptyl Depot, 60 microg/kg i.m. every 28 days) for at least 2 years (since 7.0+/-1. 3 (S.D.) years of age) and followed until puberty was completed and FH was reached. During the entire treatment period we observed: (a) a decrease of height standard deviation scores (SDS) (from 1.5+/-1.7 to 0.9+/-1.3 SDS, P<0.01); (b) a striking deceleration of bone age (BA), revealed by the subnormal DeltaBA:Deltachronological age (CA) ratio (0.2+/-0.1); (c) an increase of predicted adult height (from 155.6+/-7.0 to 160.7+/-6.7 cm, P<0.0005). Treatment interruption was followed by an important catch-down growth, with an FH (158.4+/-5.8 cm) lower (P<0.025) than that predicted at the end of therapy. However, FH fell within the population norm and the target range in respectively 87.3 and 90% of the patients. The tallest FH was recorded in the patients who started therapy at less than 6 years of age and in those who discontinued treatment at a BA of 12.0--12.5 years. At stepwise regression analysis, FH in the whole study population was positively affected by the following independent factors: (a) height at the end of therapy (F=45.45, P<0.0001); (b) pretreatment height (F=13.91, P<0.0005); (c) treatment duration (F=8. 51, P<0.005); (d) target height (TH) (F=7.70, P<0.01). We conclude that: (i) most girls with idiopathic CTPP treated by GnRH agonists may achieve an adult height within the population norm and/or their target range; (ii) the height gain from therapy onset until FH attainment, however, is generally rather limited (on average 2.9 cm) and only few patients are able to reach their target percentile; (iii) the most favorable height prognosis with respect to TH is generally observed in the subjects with the tallest height at the end of treatment and the lowest BA2:CA2 ratio, due to the important deterioration of height prognosis which frequently follows therapy interruption; (iv) FH is also significantly conditioned by both TH and treatment duration; (v) in order to strengthen the weak therapeutic effect of GnRH agonists in CTPP this treatment should be started as early as possible and discontinued at a BA of 12.0--12.5 years.


Background: Loss of reduction of proximal metatarsal osteotomies may result from poor bone quality, suboptimal fixation, and limitations inherent in the bony geometry of the osteotomy. This study evaluated the mechanical benefit of adding two supplementary Kirschner wires to the crescentic and Ludloff osteotomies. Methods: Eleven and 10 matched pairs of cadaver foot specimens were used for the Ludloff and the proximal crescentic metatarsal osteotomies, respectively. Each metatarsal head specimen was then loaded to failure using a servohydraulic MTS Mini Bionix test frame (MTS Systems Corp, Eden Prairie, MN), and the failure gap was measured with an extensometer. To account for variable bone quality in the study specimens, the failure loads were normalized with the measured bone mineral density (BMD) values of the metatarsal specimens. A paired Student's t-test analysis was used to compare the failure loads between the specimens with the conventional osteotomies and the osteotomies supplemented with two axial Kirschner wires. Results: The load-to-failure of the Ludloff osteotomy with two screws and with one proximal screw and two Kirschner wires was 858.5 N cm 2 /gm and 692.3 N cm 2 /gm, respectively (p > 0.05). The average load-to-failure of crescentic osteotomy with one screw and two axial Kirschner wires (458.8 N cm 2 /gm) was significantly higher than the strength of crescentic osteotomy fixed with one screw only (367.5 N cm 2 /gm) (p = 0.05). For the Ludloff osteotomy, 16 specimens (72.7%) failed by more than 2 mm of gapping. The crescentic osteotomy failures included 16 2-mm gap failures (80%). The Ludloff osteotomy showed a trend toward increased fixation stability as compared with both crescentic osteotomy constructs. Conclusion: The use of two supplemental axial Kirschner wires offers a simple and effective means to improve the initial mechanical stability of the proximal crescentic osteotomy and can be used in the standard Ludloff osteotomy to replace the second screw when screw purchase is poor without significant loss of fixation strength. The possible advantage of Kirschner wire flexibility in restoring position after gapping of the osteotomy site should be investigated.


The Casimir effect of the deformed cavity field at finite temperature is investigated by generalizing the thermo-field dynamics formalism into a q-deformed version. It has been shown that the impact of q-deformation on the Casimir force only manifests in the finite-temperature case and the expression for the ideal pure vacuum remains unchanged, which almost coincides with the suggestions of Man'ko et al. [Phys. Lett. A 176(1993)173] about the nature of q-oscillators as the nonlinear vibrations of electromagnetic field.


In light of the urgency for policy action to address climate change, this report provides the first detailed global catalogue of targets and policies for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions in the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sector. It covers 20 countries which collectively account for nearly half of the world's AFOLU emissions. Most of these countries have recently set targets within their AFOLU sector as part of national climate mitigation strategies and commitments, although these targets are only legally-binding for two countries. However, policies to incentivise emission reductions and achieve these targets still need to be developed. Consequently, policy efforts will need to intensify for the AFOLU sector to contribute effectively to limiting global temperature increases to well below 2°C, and especially to meet the more ambitious 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement.


Objective Pharmacological treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is still evolving. Probiotics could be a promising treatment option, but their effectiveness needs to be established. The present study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of a high potency multistrain probiotic in adult patients with NAFLD. Methods Thirty-nine liver biopsy-proven patients with NAFLD were randomised in a double-blind fashion to either lifestyle modifications plus an oral multistrain probiotic (675 billion bacteria daily, n=19) or identical placebo (n=20) for 1 year. Lifestyle modifications included regular exercise for all and control of overweight/obesity (with additional dietary restrictions), hypertension and hyperlipidaemia in those with these risk factors. Primary objective of the study was the histological improvement in NAFLD activity score (NAS) and its components and secondary objectives were improvement in alanine transaminase (ALT) and cytokine profile. Results Thirty (76.9%) out of 39 patients with NAFLD completed the study with 1 year of follow-up. A repeat liver biopsy at 1 year could be done in 10 patients (52.6%) in probiotic group and five patients (25%) in placebo group. In comparison to baseline, hepatocyte ballooning (p=0.036), lobular inflammation (p=0.003) and NAS score (p=0.007) improved significantly at 1 year in the probiotic group. When compared with placebo, the NAS score improved significantly in the probiotic group (p=0.004), along with improvements in hepatocyte ballooning (p=0.05) and hepatic fibrosis (p=0.018). A significant improvement in levels of ALT (p=0.046), leptin (p=0.006), tumour necrosis factor-α (p=0.016) and endotoxins (p=0.017) was observed in probiotic group in comparison to placebo at 1 year. No significant adverse events were reported in the study. Conclusion Patients with NAFLD managed with lifestyle modifications and multistrain probiotic showed significant improvement in liver histology, ALT and cytokines. Trial registration number The clinical trial is registered with CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRYINDIA (CTRI); http://ctri.nic.in, No. CTRI/2008/091/000074


The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is correcting a document entitled "Quality Mammography Standards" that appeared in the Federal Register of October 28, 1997. The document was published with some inadvertent typographical errors and incorrect dates in the regulatory text. This document corrects those errors. FDA is also identifying with greater specificity those sections of the quality standards that will become effective October 28, 2002. For the convenience of the reader, FDA is republishing 21 CFR part 900 in its entirety with corrections.


Indonesian Government launched teacher certification program in order to increase the quality of teachers. This policy is expected to foster teacher's competences and prosperity. In terms of competency, this program enhances teachers to develop their professionalism especially in teaching and other academic activities. Test and training are provided to take this program. Several requirements such as the minimum qualification, teacher's portfolio are also given as the elements or components of the teacher certification program administration. Dealing with the prosperity, teachers who passed this program are also given financial support. Some studies on the effectiveness of teacher certification program were conducted. The results showed that this program does not guarantee teachers to have quality improvement. However, it does not mean this program is not successful at all or it does not have any advantage or contribution for teachers. Therefore, this paper aims to discuss on how far teacher certification program lead teachers to develop their professionalism and bring them into lifelong learning activities or situation.


Background Treatment of in-stent restenosis (ISR) is still a clinical challenge in interventional cardiology. Paclitaxel-coated balloons (PCBs) are an attractive therapeutic option for ISR. There are several different types of PCBs available for percutaneous coronary intervention, but to date, comparative data between different types of PCBs for the treatment of ISR are scarce. Patients and methods This single centre, nonrandomized, retrospective study under real-world condition included 194 patients with 194 ISR treated by repeat percutaneous coronary intervention with PCBs. The primary end point was major adverse cardiac events (MACEs), defined as cardiac death, myocardial infarction and need for target lesion revascularization (TLR) at 1 year. Secondary end points were MACE and TLR at long-term follow-up. Results Baseline clinical and angiographic parameters were comparable between the two groups. Patients in the iopromide-based PCB and butyryl-tri-hexyl citrate (BTHC)-PCB groups were followed up for 32.2±20.5 and 24.2±13.3 months, respectively (P=0.001). MACEs at 1-year follow-up were 15.0 and 15.8% (P=0.879) for the BTHC-PCB and iopromide-based PCB groups, respectively. TLR, myocardial infarction and cardiac death for BTHC-PCB versus iopromide-based PCB at 1-year follow-up were 9.6 versus 11.8%, P=0.622; 5.3 versus 3.9%, P=0.640; and 5.3 versus 3.9%, P=0.640, respectively. If complete follow-up periods were included in the analysis, BTHC-PCB and iopromide-based PCB had comparable rates of MACE (P=0.835) and TLR (P=0.792). Conclusion BTHC-PCB and iopromide-based PCB had comparable rates of MACE and TLR for the treatment of ISR at 1-year and long-term follow-up.


Workflow management systems (WMS) support the composition and deployment of workflow-oriented applications in distributed computing environments. They hide the complexity of managing large-scale applications, which includes the controlling data pipelining between tasks, ensuring the application's execution, and orchestrating the distributed computational resources to get a reasonable processing time. With the increasing trends of scientific workflow adoption, the demand to deploy them using a third-party service begins to increase. Workflow-as-a-service (WaaS) is a term representing the platform that serves the users who require to deploy their workflow applications on third-party cloud-managed services. This concept drives the existing WMS technology to evolve towards the development of the WaaS cloud platform. Based on this requirement, we extend CloudBus WMS functionality to handle the workload of multiple workflows and develop the WaaS cloud platform prototype. We implemented the Elastic Budget-constrained resource Provisioning and Scheduling algorithm for Multiple workflows (EBPSM) algorithm that is capable of scheduling multiple workflows and evaluated the platform using two bioinformatics workflows. Our experimental results show that the platform is capable of efficiently handling multiple workflows execution and gaining its purpose to minimize the makespan while meeting the budget.


Purpose.  Currently exploitation of outdoor swimming pools is often not cost-effective and, despite of their relevance, such pools are closed in large quantities. At this time there is no the whole mathematical model which would allow assessing qualitatively the effect of energy-saving measures. The aim of this work is to develop a mathematical model of heat and mass exchange processes for calculating basic heat and mass losses that occur during its exploitation.  Methodology.  The method for determination of heat and mass loses based on the theory of similarity criteria equations is used.  Findings.  The main types of heat and mass losses of outdoor pool were analyzed. The most significant types were allocated and mathematically described. Namely: by evaporation of water from the surface of the pool, by natural and forced convection, by radiation to the environment, heat consumption for water heating.  Originality.  The mathematical model of heat and mass exchange process of the outdoor swimming pool was developed, which allows calculating the basic heat and mass loses that occur during its exploitation.  Practical value.  The method of determining heat and mass loses of outdoor swimming pool as a software system was developed and implemented. It is based on the mathematical model proposed by the authors. This method can be used for the conceptual design of energy-efficient structures of outdoor pools, to assess their use of energy-intensive and selecting the optimum energy-saving measures. A further step in research in this area is the experimental validation of the method of calculation of heat losses in outdoor swimming pools with its use as an example the pool of Dnipropetrovsk National University of Railway Transport named after Academician V. Lazaryan. The outdoor pool, with water heating-up from the boiler room of the university, is operated year-round.


The Indian laurel-leaf fig (Ficus microcarpa) is an important ornamental tree widely distributed in the urban areas of Italy. Surveys conducted in 2019 and 2020 on several tree-lined streets, squares, and public parks in Catania and Siracusa provinces (Sicily, southern Italy) revealed the presence of a new disease on mature trees. About 9% of approximately 450 mature plants showed extensive branch cankers and dieback. Isolations from woody tissues obtained from ten symptomatic plants consistently yielded species belonging to the Botryosphaeriaceae family. The identification of the recovered fungal isolates was based on a multi-loci phylogenetic (maximum parsimony and maximum likelihood) approach of the ITS, tef1-α, and tub2 gene regions. The results of the analyses confirmed the presence of three species: Botryosphaeria dothidea, Neofusicoccum mediterraneum, and N. parvum. Pathogenicity tests were conducted on potted, healthy, 4-year-old trees using the mycelial plug technique. The inoculation experiments revealed that all the Botryosphaeriaceae species identified in this study were pathogenic to this host. Previous studies conducted in California showed similar disease caused by Botryosphaeriaceae spp., and the pathogenic role of these fungi was demonstrated. To our knowledge, this is the first report of Botryosphaeriaceae affecting Ficus microcarpa in Europe.


1. 1. Visual stimuli presented to a locust during performance of a defensive kick fail to elicit a response from the descending contralateral movement detector (DCMD) visual interneurone. Similar control stimuli presented before the initial flexion and at least 1s after the movement elicit a normal DCMD response (10–15 spikes).

2. 2. External stimuli used to elicit defensive kicking can sometimes cause suppression of the DCMD without the occurrence of kicking, but only when there is an increase in central nervous activity, or associated behavioural response.

3. 3. Proprioceptive stimulation similar to that occurring in a kick does not cause suppression of the DCMD unless there is an increase in central nervous activity or associated behavioural response.

4. 4. Extensive dorsal dissection abolishes the suppression of the DCMD.


OBJECTIVE
To explore the effectiveness of modified percutaneous mini-incision Achilles tendon lengthening for the treatment of Achilles contracture syndrome by comparing with traditional open Achilles tendon lengthening.

METHODS
Between May 2008 and May 2012, 42 patients with Achilles contracture syndrome were treated and the clinical data were retrospectively analyzed according to the inclusion criteria. The modified percutaneous mini-incision Achilles tendon lengthening was used in 19 cases (19 feet, trial group); 0.5 cm incisions were designed at medial and lateral Achilles tendon according to the degree of Achilles contracture syndrome; and percutaneous double hemi-section was done according to the deformity range ofvarus and valgus foot. The traditional open Achilles tendon lengthening was used in 23 cases (24 feet, control group). There was no significant difference in age, gender, disease duration, motion of ankle dorsiflexion, and Hannover Achilles tendon score (P > 0.05).

RESULTS
The operation time, postoperative hospitalization days, and intraoperative blood loss in the trial group were less than those in the control group, showing significant differences (P < 0.05). After operation, incision healing by first intention was obtained in the other cases except 1 case which had infection in the control group. The patients were followed up 6-35 months in the trial group and 8-34 months in the control group. Correction of varus deformity foot was not obvious in 1 case of the trial group, correction of varus and valgus deformity feet were satisfactory in the other cases. There was no significant difference in motion of ankle dorsiflexion and Hannover Achilles tendon score between 2 groups at last follow-up (P > 0.05), but significant differences were found between preoperation and last follow-up in 2 groups (P < 0.05). There were significant differences in motion of ankle dorsiflexion and Hannover Achilles tendon score between normal and affected sides in 2 groups at last follow-up (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION
Modified percutaneous mini-incision Achilles tendon lengthening has similar effectiveness to the traditional open Achilles tendon lengthening for Achilles tendon contracture syndrome. And it can effectively correct varus and valgus deformities of the foot with less trauma and fast recovery.


The study evaluates the operation of rainwater harvesting and treatment systems (RHTS), receiving effluents from the wholesale market and fuel station (twenty years of observations). Changes of the basic elements of RHT systems (e.g. earthen reservoirs – sealed settler, infiltration reservoir) were characterized and the impact of climatic conditions on the system monitored. The analyses also referred to the stability and work safety of the most important equipment and water treatment efficiency. In the study period, due to the accumulation of erosive phenomena, it was necessary to optimize the system. The infiltration reservoir was considerably modified. At the same time, another reservoir of a similar type was built. The quality of water in the reservoirs were measured in 2008–2010 (before the modernisation) and in 2016–2018 (after the modernisation). Selected physical, oxygen, biogenic and salinity indicators were determined in the water. During the study the harvesting and treatment system had a positive effect on the quality of rainwater runoff – the values of many contaminants were reduced (RHTS 1: suspended solids, nitrogen, iron, potassium; RHTS 2: conductivity, suspended solids, nitrogen). Design and operational errors were noticed that in the long run may contribute to deteriorating the operational efficiency and even lead to a building collapse (intense erosive phenomena). This study clearly demonstrates that building a rainwater management system is a highly site-specific issue.


The 'black box' quality of contemporary algorithmic tools raises concerns related to their use in court because of the law's emphasis on explanations, transparency, and public reasons. We argue that the problems of explainability associated with contemporary algorithmic tools are, from a legal perspective, neither sui generis nor irreconcilable with existing norms. We distinguish between the types of explanations required by fact-finders and those required from judges. We conclude that apparent tensions can be reconciled by attending to the epistemic division of labour between the legal and scientific communities, contextualizing expert evidence appropriately, and distinguishing between explanation as reconstruction and as justification.


The monitoring and detection of molecular biomarkers play crucial roles in disease diagnosis and treatment. In this work, we proposed a target-responsive netlike hybridization chain reaction (nHCR) DNA nanostructure construction method, which can offer an exceptional signal enhancement, for highly sensitive fluorescence detection of cytokine, interferon-gamma (IFN-γ). The presence of the target cytokine can lead to the conformational change of the aptamer recognition hairpin probes and the liberation of the nHCR initiator strands, which further trigger the nHCR process between two dye-labeled and double hairpin-structured probes to form netlike DNA nanostructures. The formation of the DNA nanostructures brings the dyes into close proximity, resulting in significantly amplified fluorescence resonance energy transfer signals for sensitive and enzyme-free detection of IFN-γ. The present method has a detection limit of 1.2 pM and a dynamic linear range of 5 to 1000 pM for IFN-γ detection. Besides, with the high specificity of the aptamer probe and the significant signal amplification of the nHCR, such an IFN-γ detection strategy shows excellent selectivity and high sensitivity, which can be potentially applied to detect IFN-γ in human serums. With such a demonstration of the detection of IFN-γ, this proposed method can be extended for detecting different types of biomolecules.


The OECD 1998 data analyzes shows close correlation between GDP per head and low relative price level concerning the transition and less developed economies. The correlation, however, is not a causual one. Both sides of the correlation are causually determined by the gap in qualitative properties of comodities, high transaction costs and an outsider position toward the multinational corporations. The theory of comparative advantages is not an adequate reflection of contemporary international trade. A theorem is valid: if the relative price levels of mutually trading countries are different and if each country is price-taker when importing and price-maker when exporting, then wealth is redistributed from the country having lower in favour of the country having higher relative price level. Right this is the transition countries' case.


The mitotic and meiotic chromosomes of the semiaquatic rodent Ichthyomys pittieri (Rodentia, Cricetinae) from Venezuela were analyzed by means of conventional staining and several banding techniques. The diploid chromosome number of this rare species is 2n = 92, which is the highest value known for mammals. It is assumed that this exceptionally high chromosome number is the result of repeated centric fissions. The karyotype of I. pittieri was compared with that of Anotomys leander, for which a diploid number of 2n = 92 has also been reported. The karyological relationships existing within the Neotropical Cricetidae are summarized.


The activity of cell proliferation in human chorionic villi (CV) obtained from early spontaneous abortions (SAB) and from elective abortions (EAB) was determined by means of premature chromosome condensation (PCC), and by Northern blot analysis of expression of proliferation antigens Ki67 and PCNA. The rate of chromosome aberrations among the SABs was 57%, while the EABs, taken as controls, were shown to be chromosomally normal. PCCs were induced by fusion of the chorionic interphase cells with mitotic Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells. To analyze the proliferation stages of the chorionic G1-interphases, the potential proliferation index (PPI) was ascertained. The PPI values found in SABs ranged from 36% to 97% as described for intensely proliferating tissues. They did not differ from the values found in the controls (34-90%), indicating maintenance of proliferation activity of CV cells even after death of the embryo in missed abortions. No significant PPI differences were observed between the abortion groups with different cytogenetic results. The expression of proliferation associated antigens Ki67 and PCNA showed no significant differences between mean values of the total of SABs and of the controls. However, the comparison of mean values of chromosomally abnormal with chromosomally normal SABs revealed a significantly reduced Ki67 activity in the SABs with chromosome aberrations. A similar results was obtained when comparing mean values of Ki67 and PCNA expression from trisomic SABs with those of the controls. By further subdivision of chromosome aberrations a decrease for the expression of both antigens in chorionic villi from early lethal trisomies, and a significantly increased Ki67- and PCNA-expression in triploidies became evident.


16-wavelength semiconductor laser array with fine wavelength tunability is demonstrated, utilizing gain-coupled distributed feedback (DFB) lasers with different ridge waveguide widths. Besides the coarse tuning by the ridge widths, the fine post-fabrication tunability for individual lasers in the array is achieved with a Ti thin-film resistor integrated on the chip. Due to the gain-coupling effect, 16 single-mode lasing wavelengths around 1.55 /spl mu/m in /spl sim/1 nm spacing are obtained simultaneously. An effective fine-tuning up to 1 nm is observed at a moderate heating power of 100 mW.


A huge number of LAN switches are currently in use worldwide, so ways in which they can save energy are of great practical interest. A simple way to save power is to switch the interface to sleep mode when no packets are buffered, and to keep it in active mode while there are packets to be transmitted. This would appear to be the most effective energy saving scheme. However, mode switching gives rise to an in-rush current, which causes electrical damage to devices. This problem arises from over-frequent mode switching, which should be avoided. Thus, the main objective is to develop a way to reduce the number of mode switchings that result in quite short duration sleep modes, as these do not contribute so much to energy saving but lead to damage to the device. To this end, a method is adopted which keeps the interface in active mode for an extra period after all packets are flushed out from the buffer; this is the "extra active period". This scheme protects the device at the expense of energy saving efficiency. In this paper, the scheme is evaluated analytically in terms of its power reduction ratio and the frequency of mode changes, by modifying the M/M/1 and IPP/M/1 queuing models. The numerical results show how the duration of the extra active period degrades the energy saving performance while successfully reducing the number of mode changes. These results will enable LAN switches to be designed with energy saving in mind yet within the constraints of device characteristics.


Deep Vision (the steering committee) of the Iceland Deep Drilling Project (IDDP) announces that the first IDDP-well should have been completed to target depth (4.5 km) by early July 2009. However, after series of drilling problems and several weeks delay in proceeding as planned, the drilling operation abruptly had to be terminated on 24th June, once it became clear that an active magma body existed below 2104 m depth. Rhyolitic volcanic glass (obsidian) was retrieved with the circulation fluid after the third attempt to drill below 2104 m depth in a sidetracked well labeled as IDDP-1C. Prior to that the IDDP-1 well had been sidetracked twice and a cemented casing inserted to 1958 m depth. When drilling into the magma for the third time, under total circulation loss condition, the drillers narrowly managed to avoid getting permanently stuck at that depth for the third time. Volcanic glass began returning to the surface for several hours during cooling, until all circulation fluid was lost again into the feed zone just above the magma body. The lowest 20 m of the well was plugged by obsidian. Deep Vision decided to complete the well by inserting a production/protection casing, partly cemented to the anchor casing, with a slotted liner in the lowest 120 m of the well. This enabled a flow test that was scheduled for autumn 2009. The wellhead valve is class 2500 as are the flow testing equipments, capable to deal with the expected superheated dry steam, which could be 400-500°C hot and at pressures well over 100 bars. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of this drilling and discuss the future of the IDDP project, while the result of the first flow test need be discussed at the WGC-2010 conference. The details of the various topics of the IDDP progress will be described in a series of The aim of the IDDP drilling was to penetrate into supercritical geothermal fluids and to study them as a potential source of high-grade geothermal energy. The concept behind the Iceland Deep Drilling Program is to flow supercritical fluid to the surface in such a way that it transitions directly to superheated >450°C hot steam at subcritical pressures, with up to 10 fold energy output of some ~50 MWe, as compared to average high enthalpy geothermal wells. By flow testing the IDDP-1C well under the current condition we still expect to get superheat dry steam but at somewhat lower pressure than aimed for. The experiment at Krafla may develop from conventional dry steam production, if the well does not sustain production, into the world hottest EGS experiment, by watering the magma body. Funding for the IDDP-1 well was secured by Landsvirkjun and Alcoa down to 3.5 km, and by them including the IDDP consortium, deepening the well to 4.5 km, flow testing it and pilot studies for energy production. Wells IDDP-2 and IDDP-3 are planned to be drilled in 2010-2012 in the Hengill central volcano and into the Reykjanes volcanic system, both in SW-Iceland. Funding for these wells to some 4 km depth, including cement of the 9 5/8" production casings will be secured by the energy companies the Reykjavik Energy for IDDP-2 and HS Orka hf for IDDP-3. Funding for the drilling and testing these wells in the supercritical regime remains to be accomplished. As only part of the allocated fund from the IDDP consortium was needed for the IDDP-1 well, Deep Vision will consider transferring it to the IDDP-2 and IDDP-3 wells.


The authors measure the hydrostatic stress, uniaxial stress, and photo induced dependence of the channel conductance of two-dimensional electron gas AlGaN/GaN heterostructures grown on c-axis sapphire. The structures examined are grown by nitrogen-plasma molecular beam epitaxy and metal organic chemical vapor deposition. Electrical conductance measurements are made with four point probes on Hall bar samples. Both, hydrostatic stress and uniaxial stress result in changes in the conductance. moreover, these changes in conductance have long settling times after the stress is applied and may be due to deep level defects, the energy levels of which change with stress. Stress coefficients extracted from the samples are partially attributed to deep level defects and to the piezoelectric effect resulting from different piezoelectric coefficients of GaN and AlN. Photo induced changes of the two-dimensional electron gas are also observed. They find that pulsed illumination produces long transient times in the conductance. These transients are reduced by thermal heating in some samples. However, they can still be present at 153 C.


It was aimed to study ecological succession in an old Sisalana field, abandoned 30 years ago, in the municipality of Pocinhos, Paraiba. In 20 plots (10 x 20 m), DNS (Diameter at the Soil Level) and the individual's total height were taken. The difference between adults and natural regeneration was made by DNS. For natural regeneration four size classes were established: Class I: 0.3 – 1.49 m; Class II: 1.5 – 2.49 m; Class III: 2.5 – 3.0 m and Class IV: bigger than 3 m and DNS -1 . Adult species that showed high values of importance (VI) were: Pilosocereus glaucescens (Labour.) Byles , Pithecellobium diversifolium G.P. Lewis, Caesalpinia pyramidalis Tul. and Schinopsis brasiliensis Engl. The first species contributed with 27% of the total VI. The Classes I and II got 45 and 41% of the young individuals, respectively. It is conchuded that the period of 30 years, after abandoning crop was enough for the restoration of the native vegetation, whose diversity and structure are compatible with the caatinga in regional context.


PRIMERS for Protestants have usually had the understandable effect of oversimplification and one-sidedness. In this very useful primer Professor Cobb of Southern California School of Theology energetically outruns these trends by outlining nine types of Protestantism, and by presenting each as a devotee might. Then he is prepared to commend a base for Protestant unity which does not sacrifice variety.


Seydisehir Dogankuzu south block bauxite open mine is formed limestone formations. The results which were obtained in this study were about rock mass and its discontinuity. Investigationed rocks are medium hard and distribution of discontinuity spacing is approached to negative exponential and log-normal distribution. These distributions were not changed at vertical cros sections.


The simplified decommissioning cost estimation code for nuclear facilities (DECOST code) was developed in consideration of features and structures of nuclear facilities and similarity of dismantling methods. The DECOST code could calculate 8 evaluation items of decommissioning cost. Actual dismantling in the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) was evaluated; unit conversion factors used to calculate the manpower of dismantling activities were evaluated. Consequently, unit conversion factors of general components could be classified into three kinds. Weights of components and structures of the facility were necessary for calculation of manpower. Methods for evaluating weights of components and structures of the facility were studied. Consequently, the weight of components in the facility was proportional to the weight of structures of the facility. The weight of structures of the facility was proportional to the total area of floors in the facility. Decommissioning costs of 7 nuclear facilities in the JAEA were calculated by using the DECOST code. To verify the calculated results, the calculated manpower was compared with the manpower gained from actual dismantling. Consequently, the calculated manpower and actual manpower were almost equal. The outline of the DECOST code, evaluation results of unit conversion factors, the evaluation method of the weights of components and structures of the facility are described in this report.


We propose a coordinate-space regularization of the three-body problem with zero-range potentials. We include the effective range and the shape parameter in the boundary condition of the zero-range potential. The proposed extended zero-range model is tested against atomic helium trimers and is shown to provide an adequate quantitative description of these systems.


In this paper, we review data mining approaches for health applications. Our focus is on hardware-centric approaches. Modern computers consist of multiple processors, each equipped with multiple cores, each with a set of arithmetic/logical units. Thus, a modern computer may be composed of several thousand units capable of doing arithmetic operations like addition and multiplication. Graphic processors, in addition may offer some thousand such units. In both cases, single instruction multiple data and multiple instruction multiple data parallelism must be exploited. We review the principles of algorithms which exploit this parallelism and focus also on the memory issues when multiple processing units access main memory through caches. This is important for many applications of health, such as ECG, EEG, CT, SPECT, fMRI, DTI, ultrasound, microscopy, dermascopy, etc.


We present an analysis of the adiabatic approximation to understand when it applies, in view of the recent criticisms and studies for the validity of the adiabatic theorem. We point out that this approximation is just the leading order of a perturbation series, that holds in a regime of a perturbation going to infinity, and so the conditions for its validity can be only obtained going to higher orders in the expansion and removing secular terms, that is terms that runs to infinity as the time increases. In this way, it is always possible to get the exact criteria for the approximation to hold.


The paper examines the variability of wind power generated by wind farms that are geographically dispersed in a region. The reduced variability of wind power generation with increasing region size and number of wind farms is referred to as the smoothing effect. In this paper, the smoothing effect is quantified by changes in standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis of hourly wind power generation and its temporal gradients. General approximative equations are derived that allow the calculation of these parameters in dependence of the region size and the mean generation. It is shown from which point on the smoothing effect depends only on the region size and no longer on the number of wind farms. Upscaling can then be an appropriate method to simulate future wind power generation as smoothing effects are no longer neglected. This paper also shows how approximative duration curves of wind power generation or its temporal gradients can be simulated by means of the calculated parameters. Hence, the analysis can be used to assess unmeasured or potential wind power generation i n a region. The presented approach and equations are verified by German and Irish generation data. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


UNSTRUCTURED
 In this paper we propose the idea that Artificial intelligence (AI) is ushering in a new era of "Earlier Medicine," which is a predictive approach for disease prevention based on AI modeling and big data. The flourishing health care technological landscape is showing great potential—from diagnosis and prescription automation to the early detection of disease through efficient and cost-effective patient data screening tools that benefit from the predictive capabilities of AI. Monitoring the trajectories of both in- and outpatients has proven to be a task AI can perform to a reliable degree. Predictions can be a significant advantage to health care if they are accurate, prompt, and can be personalized and acted upon efficiently. This is where AI plays a crucial role in "Earlier Medicine" implementation.


Purpose
For the past 2 decades, neuroimaging studies in dyslexia have pointed toward a hypoactivation of the ventral occipitotemporal cortex (VOTC), a region that has been closely associated to reading through the extraction of a representation of words which is invariant to position, size, font or case. However, most of the studies are confined to the visual word form area (VWFA), while recent studies have demonstrated a posterior-to-anterior gradient of print specificity along the VOTC. In our study, the whole VOTC, partitioned into three main patches of cortex, is assessed in dyslexic and control adults.

Methods
A total of 30 participants were included in this study (14 developmental dyslexics and 16 age- and education-matched controls). The design consisted of alternately viewed blocks of stimuli from a given class (words, consonant strings, phase-scrambled words, phase-scrambled consonant strings, small checkerboards, large checkerboards). The analyzed contrast was print stimuli (words and consonants) versus scrambled stimuli and checkerboards.

Results
Corroborating previous findings, our results showed underactivation to print stimuli in the VWFA of dyslexics. Additionally, differences between dyslexics and controls were also found, particularly in an area of the anterior partition of the VOTC, suggesting a relevant role of this area in word processing.

Conclusions
In sum, our study goes beyond the underactivation hypothesis in the VWFA of dyslexics and indicates that a particular area on the anterior fusiform region might be particularly involved in the reading deficits in dyslexia, demonstrating the involvement of multiple areas within VOTC in reading processes.


The limitations and advantages of particular dyes for labelling proteins and other biological materials are discussed. Methods available for conjugating dyes to proteins are outlined. Following a discussion of double labelling methods the use of photoactivatable fluorochromes and time resolved fluorescence methodologies are outlined. The reasons for the photoinstability of some fluorochromes are discussed and methods for overcoming the problem are described.


Excess vehicle fuel consumption, the percentage change in fuel consumption caused by road roughness, is an important part of the environmental and cost assessment of a pavement's life cycle. Flexible and efficient computational methods make it possible to use mechanistic models to estimate excess fuel consumption. A stochastic pavement–vehicle interaction model was developed recently based on a half-truck model and stationary road roughness profiles. Although the introduced method was a step forward, it does not allow roll vibration. In addition, the error caused by stationary assumption on roughness profiles has not been quantified. This study proposes a numerical approach to assess the roughness-induced fuel consumption of a semi-trailer truck on non-deformable rough pavements. A three-dimensional (3D) semi-trailer truck model is formulated with a nonstationary parallel road roughness model. The simulation results of the integrated truck–pavement model are validated against empirical formulas. Tire stiffness is identified as the most important truck property, followed by suspension damping, suspension stiffness, and cargo loading. For road roughness characteristics, local roughness variance—overlooked by the stationary assumption—can underestimate excess fuel consumption by 42%. Using the 3D truck model and corresponding roughness profiles as excitation inputs would reduce the computation error by more than 10%. This study also proposes an extended roughness–speed–impact model, considering a second-order International Roughness Index term and effect of local roughness variance. The new regression model increases the prediction explanation R2 from 88.7% to 99.2%.


The aim of this research was to study the relationship between fruit drop  and contents of auxin, polyamines, ACC, total sugar, and starch. Cultivars of mango used were Gadung 21 and Lalijiwo.The persisting fruit and abscising fruits were used to quantify auxin, polyamine, ACC, total sugar, and starch.  The content of polyamine and ACC was determined on pericarp, auxin on seed, whereas the content of starch and total sugar was determined on mesocarp. The result of research showed that fruit drop was preceded by low content of auxin that increased the sensitivity of abscission zone to ethylene.  The increased sensitivity of abscission zone to ethylene was supported by low content of polyamine and  high content of ACC. The abscising fruit has high content of starch, but low in  total sugar content. Key words : Mango, persisting fruit, abscising fruit, auxin, polyamine, ACC, total sugar, starch


The incidence of lung cancer in 2007 is estimated to be 213,380 with 160,390 deaths in the United States. It will contribute to 31% of male and 26% of female cancer-related deaths and is the largest cause of cancer-related mortality in both men and women. Despite some advances in the treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the introduction of third-generation cytotoxic agents (vinorelbine, gemcitabine, docetaxel, irinotecan, and paclitaxel) has not achieved a breakthrough in the dismal prognosis of this disease. Several meta-analyses have proved the superiority of 2-drug chemotherapy and cisplatin-based chemotherapy, but no gold standard exists. This paper summarizes the clinical data of a new cytotoxic agent, pemetrexed, and its combination with platinums in the treatment of NSCLC. The addition of the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inhibitor (bevacizumab) or an EGFR-targeted drug (cetuximab) to pemetrexed/platinum in NSCLC, and the role of pemetrexed/platinum in adjuvant chemotherapy for early-stage NSCLC were also discussed in this paper.


Mechanism of heat stress response in plants has been studied focusing on the function of transcription factors (TFs). Generally, TFs recruit coactivators, such as Mediator, to assemble the transcriptional machinery. However, despite the close relationship with TFs, how coactivators are involved in transcriptional regulation under heat stress conditions is largely unclear. We found a severe thermosensitive phenotype of Arabidopsis mutants of MED14 and MED17. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that a quarter of the heat stress (HS)-inducible genes were commonly downregulated in these mutants. Furthermore, chromatin immunoprecipitation assay showed that the recruitment of Mediator by HsfA1s, the master regulators of heat stress response, is an important step for the expression of HS-inducible genes. There was a differential requirement of Mediator among genes; TF genes have a high requirement whereas HSPs low requirement. Furthermore, artificial activation of HsfA1d mimicking perturbation of protein homeostasis induced HSP gene expression without MED14 recruitment but not TF gene expression. Considering the essential role of MED14 in Mediator function, other coactivators may play major roles in HSP activation depending on the cellular conditions. Our findings highlight the importance of differential recruitment of Mediator for the precise control of heat stress responses in plants.


Study Design. This prospective cohort study investigated personal goal achievement and satisfaction with progress in patients with chronic disabling spinal disorders (CDSD). Objective. This study examined the relationships between satisfaction with progress and several alternative outcome measures for CDSD patients at least 1 year after completing a functional restoration program (FRP). Summary of Background Data. Treatment outcome measures for CDSD commonly include pain, physical capacities, and functional/vocational status. These factors are weakly correlated and may not reflect individual patients' perspectives and priorities. Methods. On enrollment in the FRP, patients' pretreatment functional, work, and recreation goals were recorded. Pre- and end-of-program clinical measures included: pain, disability, fear avoidance, lifting, trunk flexibility, and treadmill endurance. At least 1 year after program completion surveys were mailed to consecutive FRP graduates. Nonresponders were surveyed by telephone when possible. Surveys included each patient's personal pretreatment goals, and assessed Average Pain, SF-36 Physical Function, and satisfaction "with the progress made with your pain problem." Each patient indicated levels of importance and achievement for each personal goal, and these scores were integrated to yield a goal achievement score (GAS). Linear regression was used to test the relationships between 1-year satisfaction with progress and the following variables: baseline to end-of-program change in clinical measures, and 1-year pain, physical function, and GAS. Results. Of the 106 surveys mailed, 89 (84%) were returned and 86 (81%) had complete data for analysis. None of the pre-post-program clinical measures was significantly correlated with satisfaction (overall R2 = 0.013, P < 0.74). In contrast, year-end Average Pain (R2 = 0.28), Physical Function (R2 = 0.29), and GAS (R2 = 0.29) were each significantly correlated (P < 0.0001) with satisfaction, with a combined R2 = 0.43, P < 0.0001. Of these variables, GAS had the highest unique contribution to satisfaction. Conclusion. For CDSD patients 1 year after completing rehabilitation, compared to more traditional outcomes, GAS provided the greatest unique contribution to patient satisfaction. Goal achievement may be a valuable patient-centered measure of treatment outcome.


In the context of a renewed interest in Marxism outside biblical studies, this article surveys and critiques the background and current status of a similar renewal in biblical studies. It begins with a consideration of the background of current studies in liberation, materialist and political theologies, and moves on to note the division between literary and social scientific uses of Marxist theories. While those who used Marxist literary methods were initially inspired by Terry Eagleton and Fredric Jameson, more recent work has begun to make use of a whole tradition of Marxist literary criticism largely ignored in biblical studies. More consistent work, however, has taken place in the social sciences in both Hebrew Bible and New Testament studies. In Hebrew Bible studies, debates focus on the question of mode of production, especially the domestic or household mode of production, while in New Testament studies, the concerns have been with reconstructing the context of the Jesus movement and, more recently, the Pauline correspondence. I close with a number of questions concerning the division into different areas of what is really a holistic approach to texts and history.


Summary
Ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) at 33 and 42 kHz has been investigated in the extraction of polyphenols from peels of two potato varieties, cream-skinned Lady Claire (LC) and pink-skinned Lady Rosetta (LR), commonly used in snack food production. Extraction efficacy between the UAE-untreated (control) and the UAE-treated extracts was assessed on the total phenolic content and antioxidant capacities (DPPH and FRAP). Application of UAE showed significantly higher recovery of phenolic compounds compared to solid–liquid extraction process alone. Lower ultrasonic frequency (33 kHz) was more effective in recovering polyphenols compared to 42 kHz ultrasonic treatment. The liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry revealed that chlorogenic acid and caffeic acid were the most prevalent phenolics in LR peels, whereas caffeic acid was dominant in LC peels. Peleg's equation showed a good correlation (R2 > 0.92) between the experimental values and the predicted values on the kinetics of UAE of phenolic compounds.


We investigate probing the hot and dense nuclear matter with strange vector mesons ($K^*, \bar{K}^*$). Our analysis is based on PHSD which incorporates partonic and hadronic dof and describes the full dynamics of HICs. This allows to study the $K^*$ and $\bar{K}^*$ meson formation from the QGP and the in-medium effects related to the modification of their properties during the propagation in dense and hot matter. We employ relativistic Breit-Wigner spectral functions for the $K^*,\bar{K}^*$ mesons with self-energies obtained from a G-matrix approach to study the role of in-medium effects on the $K^*$ and $\bar{K}^*$ meson dynamics in HIC from FAIR/NICA to LHC energies. According to our analysis most of the final $K^*/\bar{K}^*$s, that can be observed experimentally, are produced during the late hadronic phase and stem dominantly from the $K (\bar{K}) + \pi \to K^*(\bar{K}^*)$ formation channel. The amount of $K^*/\bar{K}^*$s originating from the QGP channel is comparatively small even at LHC energies and such $K^*/\bar{K}^*$s can hardly be reconstructed experimentally due to the rescattering of final pions and (anti-)kaons. This mirrors the results from our previous study on the strange vector-meson production in HICs at RHIC energies. The influence of the in-medium effects on the dynamics of the $K^*/\bar{K}^*$ is rather small since they are mostly produced at low baryon densities. Additional cuts on the shape of the observed signal and the range of the invariant mass region of the $K^*/\bar{K}^*$ also affect the final spectra. We demonstrate that the $K^*/\bar{K}^*$ in-medium effects are more visible at lower beam energy, e.g. FAIR/NICA and BES RHIC energies, where the production of $K^*/\bar{K}^*$s occurs at larger baryon densities. Finally, we present the experimental procedures to extract information on the in-medium masses and widths by fitting final mass spectra at LHC energies.


Philippine Lime or Calamansi is considered one of the Philippine high-value crops in Nueva Ecija province. This article presents some issues and problems of the calamansi industry in terms of marketing. The study used a descriptive survey of 56 farm-owners or calamansi growers. Findings revealed that lime production could be a stable income source if the growers can provide the necessary production inputs on a sustainable basis. Calamansi farmers in the province some often confronted with the following problems: the high cost of farm inputs, price fluctuations, price manipulation of big-time traders, and other intermediaries. The study also found out that the existing actors in the chain were limited to growers, laborers, agri-supply shops, nursery owners, intermediaries, and traders. In terms of trading, there is a high degree of competition among traders in the market. The findings and results from this study may have important factors in developing and designing effective agricultural marketing program and strategic development plan by the authorities in the region.


The purpose of this paper was to examine the degree to which decision making style (i.e. rational, intuitive; Scott&Bruce, 1995), procedural accountability (Tetlock, 1985) and decision responsibility predict preference for hiring approaches to personnel selection. An experimental design was used to test whether procedure accountability and decision responsibility moderate preferences for hiring approach. 168 Human Resource professionals answered the online questionnaire built for the purpose of the study. The results showed that individuals scoring high on the intuitive decision-making style (IDMS) prefer a holistic hiring approach. However, the proposition that Rational Decision-Making Style (RDMS) scale would have a positive relationship with mechanical hiring approach was not supported. Furthermore, according to our findings the context does not explain preferred hiring approach with higher probability. One limitation of this study was that the experimental design might have affected the external validity in the context variable. Another limitation for this study was the relatively small sample size. Despite limitations, the present study has an unique contribution by tying together decision making style, procedural accountability and decision responsibility in an attempt to explain preference for holistic versus mechanical hiring approach.


Hydrophobicity manifests itself differently on large and small length scales. This review focuses on large-length-scale hydrophobicity, particularly on dewetting at single hydrophobic surfaces and drying in regions bounded on two or more sides by hydrophobic surfaces. We review applicable theories, simulations, and experiments pertaining to large-scale hydrophobicity in physical and biomolecular systems and clarify some of the critical issues pertaining to this subject. Given space constraints, we cannot review all the significant and interesting work in this active field.


In the design and analysis of political redistricting maps, it is often useful to be able to sample from the space of all partitions of the graph of census blocks into connected subgraphs of equal population. There are influential Markov chain Monte Carlo methods for doing so that are based on sampling and splitting random spanning trees. Empirical evidence suggests that the distributions such algorithms sample from place higher weight on more"compact"redistricting plans, which is a practically useful and desirable property. In this paper, we confirm these observations analytically, establishing an inverse exponential relationship between the total length of the boundaries separating districts and the probability that such a map will be sampled. This result provides theoretical underpinnings for algorithms that are already making a significant real-world impact.


Two series of 2,2′-bipyridine (bpy) ligands bearing different 6,6′-substituents (Me, nBu, isoBu, hexyl, Ph and 2-naphthyl) and carrying first-generation (ligands 1–6) or second-generation (ligands 7–12) hole transporting dendrons in the 4,4′-positions are reported. They have been incorporated into homoleptic copper(I) complexes [CuL2][PF6]. FTO/TiO2 electrodes functionalized with the anchoring ligand ((6,6′-dimethyl-[2,2′-bipyridine]-4,4′-diyl)bis(4,1-phenylene))bis(phosphonic acid), 13, were dipped in either CH2Cl2 or acetone solutions of [CuL2][PF6] to produce two series of surface-bound heteroleptic dyes. Their performances in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) are assessed. Solid-state absorption spectra of dye-functionalized electrodes show that dye uptake is greater if acetone is used in the dye-dipping cycle rather than CH2Cl2, and the DSCs made using acetone generally perform better than analogous DSCs made using CH2Cl2. Using acetone-dipping solutions, the best DSC efficiencies are obtained with the second-generation dyes [Cu(13)(L)]+ (L = 7–11 with Me, nBu, isoBu, hexyl, Ph groups); [Cu(13)(12)]+ (12 contains 2-naphthyl groups in the 6,6′-positions) and its first-generation analogue [Cu(13)(6)]+ perform poorly. When CH2Cl2 is used in the dipping cycle, DSCs with dyes [Cu(13)(1)]+ and [Cu(13)(7)]+ (6,6′-Me2-substituted) show the highest VOC, JSC and η values, and EQE spectra confirm electron injection over a wider energy range than for other dyes. For CH2Cl2 in the dipping cycle (but not for acetone), [Cu(13)(5)]+ (6,6′-Ph2-substituted) performs as well as [Cu(13)(1)]+. The overall results of the study indicate that a combination of small 6,6′-substituents and acetone in the dye-dipping cycle lead to the best performing dyes.


Background: Hypophosphatemia is a disorder with potential complications and is often unrecognized in critically ill patients. Aims: To identify the prevalence of hypophosphatemia and risk factors associated to this disorder in critically ill children. Methods: In a prospective cohort study, 82 children admitted consecutively to a pediatric intensive care unit (ICU) were monitored regarding phosphorus serum levels during the first 10 days of admission. The following variables were analyzed as independent for hypophosphatemia: age, gender, diagnosis at admission, malnutrition, phosphorus intake, clinical severity score at admission (pediatric index of mortality 2) and daily scores (Pediatric Logistic Organ Dysfunction), sepsis, use of dopamine, furosemide and steroids, starvation period, and refeeding. Children with a z score of less than −2 of expected weight for age or body mass index (National Center for Health Statistics, 2000) were considered malnourished. Variables significantly associated with hypophosphatemia by bivariate analysis (p < 0.1) were included in a multiple logistic regression model. Results: The rate of hypophosphatemia was 61% during the first 10 days of pediatric ICU stay, and 12 patients developed hypophosphatemia during the study period. Malnutrition was present in 39.1% of patients, and the sera phosphorus concentration was significantly lower in malnourished than in well-nourished children (2.6 ± 0.7 mg/dL vs. 3.5 ± 0.8 mg/dL, p = 0.01). The multiple logistic regression model indicated the diagnosis of acute respiratory disease (odds ratio: 3.22; confidence interval: 1.03–10.1; p = 0.04), use of dopamine (odds ratio: 8.65; confidence interval: 1.58–47.3; p = 0.01), and malnutrition (odds ratio: 3.96; confidence interval: 1.19–13.3; p = 0.02) as independent risk factors for hypophosphatemia. None of the other potential risk factors discriminated for hypophosphatemia. Conclusions: Hypophosphatemia was common in the first 10 days of ICU hospitalization and was associated with the diagnosis of respiratory disease, use of dopamine, and malnutrition. These factors should be taken into account during clinical follow up of critically ill children, especially when these conditions are found together.


Radiologists are playing an increasingly important role in the management of patients with head and neck cancer. Imaging is often essential in preoperative planning. It is therefore imperative for the radiologist to be familiar with the wide variety of surgical procedures used as well as the normal CT and MR imaging appearance after such procedures. In addition, familiarity with the appearance of tumor recurrence and postoperative complications is essential. This pictorial essay illustrates the appearance of the normal and abnormal postoperative neck on CT scans and MR images, with an emphasis on reconstructive flaps. Postoperative complications evident on imaging studies are depicted, as is the appearance of tumor recurrence. One lymph node classification system is briefly reviewed as a basis for discussion of neck dissection and other surgical procedures.


This study examines family school enrollment practices under five distinct national/regional contexts in two sub-Saharan African nations, Malawi and Kenya. This paper presents a model of family enrollment practices rooted in family economy theory and dependent upon local, regional, and national contexts of schooling. The model incorporates social capital arguments that family decision-making strategies may be influenced by members' networks of social relationships within communities. The paper discusses specific national and regional contexts highlighting aspects of institutional change in sub-Saharan Africa. The findings suggest that a broadened family institution model, along with community social capital contexts, can provide a more comprehensive and nuanced explanation of enrollment practices. Implications for scholarship and policy are discussed.


The design and operation of performant and safe electric vehicles depend on precise knowledge of the behavior of their electrochemical energy storage systems. The performance of the battery management systems often relies on the discrete-time battery models, which can correctly emulate the battery characteristics. Among the available methods, electric circuit-based equations have shown to be especially useful in describing the electrical characteristics of batteries. To overcome the existing drawbacks, such as discrete-time simulations for parameter estimation and the usage of look-up tables, a set of equations has been developed in this study that solely relies on the open-circuit voltage and the internal resistance of a battery. The parameters can be obtained from typical cell datasheets or can be easily extracted via standard measurements. The proposed equations allow for the direct analytical determination of available discharge capacity and the available energy content depending on the discharge current, as well as the Peukert exponent. The fidelity of the proposed system was validated experimentally using 18650 NMC and LFP lithium-ion cells, and the results are in close agreement with the datasheet.


The aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of heat stress using temperature-humidity index (THI). Two experiments were conducted using lactating Friesian-Holstein cows to measure the effects of heat stress under the Mediterranean climate, on rectal temperature (RT), milk production, respiration rate (RR), heart rate (HR), dry matter intake (DMI) and feed digestibility (FD). The hot environmental temperature had an effect on RT, RR and on HR. They were significantly higher in the heat-stressing treatment, they are respectively 39.39, 79.41 and 78.06 for THI=83.27; whereas they are respectively equal to 38.15, 43.77 and 61.99 for THI=65.62, in average THI values (83.91 ±1.3 vs. 65.62 ± 1.98) in summer and spring period. We can conclude an increase in the daily milk yield In dairy cows, under Tunisian summer conditions. Comparing hot and cold weather, digestibility was higher in summer (68.5% vs. 66.5% in spring), dry matter intake declined more rapidly with increasing temperature (18.28 Kg/d vs. 21.31 Kg/d). The yields of milk fat and protein have not a significant variation, but results show a sign ificant increase in Somatic Cell Counts (SCC).


Both 'the postulate of adequacy' (A. Schutz) and 'double hermeneutic' (A. Giddens) can be considered as critiques of positivism. I think positivism has two main components, the 'unity of science' and the 'rationality of science'. The 'rationality of science' is my coinage. It refers to the belief that scientific knowledge is rational and objective and much better than any other forms of knowledge epistimologically.Traditionally some social theorists have critisized solely the idea of the "unity of science". That has depended on the dichotomy of 'Geisteswissenschaften' and 'Naturwissenschaften'. Schutz and Giddens refute the "unity of science", too. Their views can be seen as up-to-date styles of criticism on positivism. But I argue that their critiques do not necessarily succeed. So I will suggest that to gain the post-positivistic self-understanding of sociology, sociologists must criticize not only the 'unity of science' but also the 'rationality of science' by reference to Feuerabend.


The singular-integral-equation technique is used to derive the capacitance and, hence, characteristic impedance of a rectangular coaxial line with a zero-thickness inner conductor. The position of the inner conductor is arbitrary, but its orientation is assumed to be parallel to the top and bottom walls of the outer conductor. Simple yet very accurate formulas for the capacitance and characteristic impedance are found in terms of complete elliptic integrals.


The article deals with contemporary Polish literature through the prism of influence on the formation of the reader's image of a Ukrainian and Ukraine. The interethnic dialogue is noted to be realized on the basis of imagological images that are immanent to each nation and to emphasize the vocation of literature of the new age to overcome stereotyping in the perception of the image of the Other.


Mortality rates of children aged 1 to 4 years in each country of the European Community were reviewed. Data was drawn from statistics published by the individual countries. Overall, mortality rates were 61 per 100,000 in boys and 51 per 100,000 in girls and are highest in the Republic of Ireland, the FRG and Belgium. Between 1960 and 1980, mortality decreased in all countries and for both sexes; improvement was greatest in the countries where mortality rates were the highest in 1960. Accidents of different types were the main causes of death in each country. Some were related to age group specific behaviour, such as drownings and falls in young children and suffocations in infants. However, most deaths were due to traffic accidents.


In this article we assess and compare long-term adult socioeconomic status impacts from having experienced psychological and physical health problems in childhood. To do so, we use unique prospective data from the British National Child Development Study, a continuing panel study of a cohort of 17,634 children born in Great Britain during a single week in March 1958. To date there have been nine waves for this birth cohort to monitor their physical, educational, and social development, during childhood (at birth and 7, 11, and 16 y) and adulthood (age 23, 33, 42, 46, and 50 y). Excellent contemporaneous information exists throughout childhood on physical and psychological health, captured by doctor and nurse-led medical examinations and detailed parental and teacher questionnaires. This information is combined with a wealth of contemporaneous information on adult health and economic experiences collected from cohort members. Information includes their economic circumstances (earnings, labor supply, and other sources of family income), physical and psychological health, and relationship status. Large effects are found due to childhood psychological problems on the ability of affected children to work and earn as adults and on intergenerational and within-generation social mobility. Adult family incomes are reduced by 28% by age 50 y, with sustained impacts on labor supply, marriage stability, and the conscientiousness and agreeableness components of the "Big Five" personality traits. Effects of psychological health disorders during childhood are far more important over a lifetime than physical health problems.


This paper presents our findings in using pulse measurements from a jittery one pulse per second (pps) global positioning system (GPS) clock, to synchronize the real-time clock (RTC) in each node of a wireless sensor network, when the timing jitter is subject to a empirically determined bimodal non-Gaussian distribution. Specifically, we 1) estimate the RTC phase and align it with an estimate of the true time phase, 2) calibrate the frequency of a 19.2 MHz low-cost temperaturecompensated crystal oscillator (TCXO) that drives the one pps RTC, and 3) track and compensate TCXO frequency variations due to environmental and aging effects. In our GPSdriven synchronization methodology we adopt a statistical signal processing framework to estimate the 2% percentile in the bimodal distribution, perform a long-term frequency calibration with fractional frequency adjustment, and track the changes in the TCXO frequency to within three tick per second over a nominal 19.2 MHz frequency with an adjustment made every four hours.