Extended interaction oscillators (EIOs) are high-frequency vacuum-electronic sources, capable to generate millimeter-wave to terahertz (THz) radiations. They are considered to be potential sources of high-power submillimeter wavelengths. Different slow-wave structures and beam geometries are used for EIOs. This paper presents a quantitative figure of merit, the critical unloaded oscillating frequency (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${f}_{\textsf {cr}} $ </tex-math></inline-formula>) for any specific geometry of EIO. This figure is calculated and tested for <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$2\pi $ </tex-math></inline-formula> standing-wave modes (a common mode for EIOs) of two different slow-wave structures (SWSs), one double-ridge SWS driven by a sheet electron beam and one ring-loaded waveguide driven by a cylindrical beam. The calculated <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${f}_{\textsf {cr}}\text{s}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> are compared with particle-in-cell (PIC) results, showing an acceptable agreement. The derived <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${f}_{\textsf {cr}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> is calculated three to four orders of magnitude faster than the PIC solver. Generality of the method, its clear physical interpretation and computational rapidity, makes it a convenient approach to evaluate the high-frequency behavior of any specified EIO geometry. This allows to investigate the changes in geometry to attain higher frequencies at THz spectrum.


Attention is central for many aspects of cognitive performance, but there is no singular measure of a person's overall attentional functioning across tasks. To develop a universal measure that integrates multiple components of attention, we collected data from more than 90 participants performing three different attention-demanding tasks during fMRI. We constructed a suite of whole-brain models that can predict a profile of multiple attentional components – sustained attention, divided attention and tracking, and working memory capacity – from a single fMRI scan type within novel individuals. Multiple brain regions across the frontoparietal, salience, and subcortical networks drive accurate predictions, supporting a universal (general) attention factor across tasks, which can be distinguished from task-specific attention factors and their neural mechanisms. Furthermore, connectome-to-connectome transformation modeling enhanced predictions of an individual's attention-task connectomes and behavioral performance from their rest connectomes. These models were integrated to produce a new universal attention measure that generalizes best across multiple, independent datasets, and which should have broad utility for both research and clinical applications.


Extramedullary plasmacytoma is a rare form of plasma cell dyscrasia, in which malignant plasma cell tumors arise outside the bone marrow. The tumor may arise in any part of the body but the vast majority occur in the head and neck, primarily in the nasal cavity, paranasal sinuses, or upper airway. Six patients with extramedullary plasmacytoma are presented and the clinical and radiographic findings are reviewed.


This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Assisted Assessment, CAA 2014, held in Zeist, The Netherlands, in June/July 2014. The 16 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers address issues such as large-scale testing facilities in higher education; formative assessment for 21st century skills; future trends for technology-enhanced assessment; latest advancements of technologies; practical experiences.


The productivity of forage depends on the availability of nutrients in the soil where it is grown, so fertilization to replace harvested produce is absolutely necessary. This study aims to study the response of gamal and indigofera forage on application of inorganic and organic fertilizers. Research using a completely randomized design factorial pattern of two factors, the first factor is the type of plant (G = Gamal; I = Indigofera) and the second factor is the type of fertilizer (T = without Fertilizer; A = Inorganic fertilizer NPK; K = commercial organic fertilizer; O = conventional organic fertilizer; B = bioorganic fertilizer), repeated 4 times so that it consists of 40 experimental units. The variables observed were plant height, number of leaves, stem diameter, leaf dry weight, stem dry weight, total dry weight of leaves, ratio of dry weight of leaves/stems and leaf area per pot. The results showed that there was no interaction between plant species and types of fertilizer in influencing the response of gamal and indigofera plants. Plant species have a significant effect on stem diameter, while fertilizer types have a significant effect on plant height, leaf dry weight, total dry weight of leaves and leaf area per pot. Based on the results of the study it can be concluded that the response of gamal plants is similar to indigofera, all types of fertilizers can improve the response of plants and organic fertilizers produce the same crop response with inorganic fertilizers.
Keywords: gamal, indigofera, inorganic fertilizer, organic fertilizer


Can an online discussion forum supply insight into the evolution of brand meaning? In 2003 Porsche launched a sport utility vehicle, dividing Porsche purists from newcomers to the brand. Vocal members of online and offline Porsche communities ridiculed the Cayenne SUV and disapproved of the new breed of driver. Some opposed offering Porsche Club membership to them, and some even refused to extend the fraternal Porsche "wave" or headlight flashing to them on the road. Porsche's values of speed, luxury, and a certain masculine zeal resonated strongly with its devotees, while drivers of the Cayenne (which came to be known as "the SUV for soccer moms") tended to be safety-conscious, family-oriented, and conservative. Evolving debates on forums allow a class to debate whether the brand had strayed too far from its core values and was at risk.Learning Objective: To facilitate understanding of the uses and limitations of online forums as a source of consumer insight.


The limits of using B or BF2 alone in forming ultrashallow junctions have been reached for the 90 nm CMOS generation. In this paper we evaluate the use of Ge and F co-implants to extend conventional implantation and spike anneal to the 65 nm CMOS technology node. In this work we show that the F co-implant can improve the abruptness of the B junction, while the single Ge usually degrades it. The use of Ge co-implanted with F gives the best junction abruptness - less than 5nm/decade. The best trade-off between junction depth (Xj) and sheet resistance (Rsheet) is achieved by deep Ge pre-amorphization and deep co-implantation of F. A comparison between slow and fast ramp-up is made. Significant improvement for the junction activation, its depth and abruptness is obtained by spike anneal with fast ramp-up for B junctions with Ge and F co-implantation.


Introduction: The mechanisms behind the cardiovascular benefits of Sodium-Glucose Co-Transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors have not been fully clarified. We aimed to identify potential mechanisms underlying the favorable effects of SGLT2 inhibitors on cardiovascular events.

Methods: The 50 diabetic patients with established Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) included in this study analysis were administered 10 mg/day of empagliflozin. Cookie meal testing (carbohydrates: 75 g, fat: 28.5 g), endothelial function testing using Flow-Mediated Dilatation (FMD), and body composition evaluation were performed before and after 6 months treatments. Evaluation of changes in % FMD between treatment periods, and its association with metabolic biomarkers were evaluated.

Results: After the 6 month treatment, body weight and body fat percentage decreased significantly, while body muscle percentage increased significantly. HbA1C level and fasting and postprandial plasma glucose levels were significantly decreased by treatment. Postprandial insulin secretion was also significantly suppressed and insulin resistance index was significantly decreased. Furthermore, fasting and postprandial triglyceride levels decreased significantly while total ketone body increased significantly after the 6 months treatment. While plasma brain natriuretic peptide level was not changed, C-reactive protein was decreased, and FMD was significantly improved after the 6 months treatment. Multiple regression analysis showed the strongest predictive factor of FMD improvement to be change in fasting and postprandial plasma triglyceride levels.

Conclusion: SGLT2 inhibitors improved multiple metabolic parameters. Of these, reduction in plasma triglyceride was strongly associated with endothelial function recovery in diabetic patients with CAD, and this reduction may be related to the cardiovascular benefit of SGLT2 inhibitors.


The gamma gamma directional correlation method was used to determine the spins of levels in 140Ce populated following the beta decay of 140La. The multipolarities of gamma -ray transitions were measured and, on the basis of the dominant multiple and published ICC data parity assignments were made. Past ambiguities in the decay have been removed, and from the present measurements the authors make unique spin-parity assignments to the following levels: 2350.0 keV, 5+; 2516.1 keV, 3+; 2548.0 keV, 1+. The structure is well accounted for by the shell-model calculation of B.H. Wildenthal, (1969). The level systematics of nuclei in this region are examined and it is found that the change from a vibrational- to a rotational-like structure is not so well defined as in heavier isotopes such as Sm or Gd. The behaviour of the 3- level energy as a function of Z value is examined for a ground of isotones in this mass region and is found to be linear.


To investigate the quality properties of functional anchovy fish sauce added with raw sea tangle, 2%, 5%, and 10% (w/w) of sea tangle was added to 25% (w/w) salted anchovy and then fermented at 20℃. During fermentation period, the amino nitrogen contents were increased at all groups and the highest contents were at 450 days of fermentation with 11.99 ±0.08, 12.51±0.08, and 11.95±0.08 ㎎/mL at 2%, 5%, and 10% addition of raw sea tangle, respectively. After later, the contents were keeping at a similar level. VBN contents were continuously increased until 270 days of fermentation with 208.10±3.50, 210.00±4.10, 215.15±1.50 ㎎/100ml at 2%, 5%, 10% addition of raw sea tangle, respectively. Alginic acid recovery was gradually increased in fermentation duration, showed the highest concentration at 540 days of fermentation with 67.00, 67.25, 67.90% at 2%, 5% and 10% addition of raw sea tangle, respectively. Dietary fiber recovery was rapidly increased at the beginning of fermentation and then decreased slowly as the fermentation is progressed. The highest recovery was at 30 days with 18.7, 18.6, and 17.9%, and the lowest was at 360 days with 8.7 and 11.1% at 2 and 10% addition of raw sea tangle, respectively, and 450 days with 11.4% at 5% sea tangle. The lowest fucoidan contents were exhibited at 30 days of fermentation with 0.07% at both of 2% and 5% addition, and 90 days with 0.10% at 10% addtion of sea tangle. The highest fucoidan contents were 270 days showing 0.24, 0.25, and 0.23% at 2, 5, and 10% addition, respectively. All groups adding different sea tangle concentration were not significantly different at all properties. However, the newly developed products were sufficient to the standard guideline of Korea Food Drug Adminstration. The best processing process of functional anchovy fish sauce in addition with raw sea tangle is 2% addition of raw sea tangle and fermented more than 450 days. The results obtained in this study indicated that the fish sauce added with sea tangle is superior in taste, functions to traditional fish sauce and could be competitive fishery fermented food.


A challenge for multiview displays is how to concurrently exhibit many different views on the same physical medium without sacrificing image quality for individual viewers. To address the above challenge, we propose a novel scheme of fovea weighting in the framework of the TPVM multiview computational display to enhance users' visual experiences. Underlying our new design is an optimization problem of nonnegative matrix factorization. This seemingly difficult problem turns out to be solvable by efficient algorithms. The effectiveness of the proposed multiview fovea weighting is validated by simulation results.


287 patients with Acute Gastroenteritis were studied. Rotavirus accounted for 29.7% and bacterial aetiology for 9.3% of the cases. In the early infant age group (0-6 months), bacterial aetiology (28.8%) was commoner than Rotavirus aetiology (7.7%). In the older age groups, Rotavirus was more common than bacteria as a cause for Gastroenteritis.


Typically, owners of medical practices use financial formulas such as ROI and net present value to evaluate the financial benefit of new projects. However, economic value added, a concept used by many large corporations to define and maximize return, may add greater benefit in helping medical practice owners realize a reasonable return on their core business.


Among all fashion attributes, color is challenging to detect due to its subjective perception. Existing classification approaches can not go beyond the predefined list of discrete color names. In this paper, we argue that color detection is a regression problem. Thus, we propose a new architecture, based on attention modules and in two-stages. The first stage corrects the image illumination while detecting the main discrete color name. The second stage combines a colorname-attention (dependent of the detected color) with an object-attention (dependent of the clothing category) and finally weights a spatial pooling over the image pixels' RGB values. We further expand our work for multiple colors garments. We collect a dataset where each fashion item is labeled with a continuous color palette: we empirically show the benefits of our approach.


In his two chief works, the Theogony and Works and Days, Hesiod treats the possibility of providence. In the former poem, he considers what sort of god could claim to gives human beings guidance. After arriving at Zeus as the only consistent possibility, Hesiod presents Zeus' rule as both cosmic and legalistic. In the latter poem, however, Hesiod shows that so long as Zeus is legalistic, his rule is limited cosmically to the human being. Ultimately, Zeus' rule emerges as more human than cosmic, and thus unable to fulfil the cosmic demands of piety. Hesiod's presentation thus begs, without thematically posing, the question of how human beings ought to live. Accordingly, Hesiod's theological analysis, and not his theogony (or, implicit cosmogony or cosmology), sets the stage for the inquiries of the early Greek philosophers, and so political philosophy as a whole.


The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of nasopharyngeal carriers of Neisseria meningitidis and Haemophilus influenzae, and to evaluate their chemoresistance. N. meningitidis was more frequently isolated in adolescents (10-15 years). All of meningococci were susceptible to ceftriaxone and rifampin, only one isolate showed reduced susceptibility to chloramphenicol and four strains showed reduced penicillin susceptibility. The results show that these drugs are still effective for prophylaxis and treatment in our area. All strains of H. influenzae were susceptible to penicillin, ceftriaxone, chloramphenicol, rifampin, azithromicin and gentamicin. 6 nontypeable strains were resistant to sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim, 7 strains of type a and c-f, and 3 non-typeable strains showed reduced susceptibility to tetracycline. In contrast with the current trend in the world, in our area the susceptibility of H. influenzae to betalactams was 100%, therefore these antibiotics are still the drugs of choice for treatment of invasive diseases.


In today's National Airspace System (NAS), when an application requires information from another application, a custom application-to-application interface is built. This results in an increasingly complex system, where applications are tightly coupled and expensive to develop and maintain. System-wide information management (SWIM) addresses these shortfalls by implementing a shared infrastructure for managing NAS information. SWIM is based on a service-oriented architecture, a fast growing trend in information technology. It will help the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) meet the information-sharing needs of the Next Generation Air Traffic System (NGATS) and the federal government's E-government Initiative. SWIM will reduce the cost, complexity and cycle time for building new applications and help the FAA implement SWIM-enabled applications that increase FAA and user productivity


Academic studies and news reports have suggested that the increasing number of obese youth derive at least partially from television viewing and video game use. In particular, the couch potato hypothesis suggests that watching television and playing video games consume time that could be spent engaging in physical activities. This hypothesis assumes that video gamers pursue their hobby by pressing buttons and moving joysticks while occupying comfortable chairs placed in front of large video screens. An accurate stereotype until recently, this form of gaming is being supplanted by a new generation of games and controllers that entice players to become more physically active. Low-cost cameras and advanced video processing algorithms let video games be controlled by bodily movements, while touch-sensitive floor sensors let players dance in virtual spaces. The article looks briefly at some of these new generation games including: Dance Dance Revolution; and GameBike.


Ensemble classifiers have been proven to result in better classification accuracy than that of a single strong learner in many machine learning studies. Although many studies on electroencephalography-brain-computer interface (BCI) used ensemble classifiers to enhance the BCI performance, ensemble classifiers have hardly been employed for near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS)-BCIs. In addition, since there has not been any systematic and comparative study, the efficacy of ensemble classifiers for NIRS-BCIs remains unknown. In this study, four NIRS-BCI datasets were employed to evaluate the efficacy of linear discriminant analysis ensemble classifiers based on the bootstrap aggregating. From the analysis results, significant (or marginally significant) increases in the bitrate as well as the classification accuracy were found for all four NIRS-BCI datasets employed in this study. Moreover, significant bitrate improvements were found in two of the four datasets.


INTRODUCTION
vitamin D deficiency (VDD) has been associated with depressive symptoms in pregnancy and postpartum, which can result in increased adverse outcomes in the maternal-infant segment. A possible explanation in the literature is VDD relationship with genetic and neurological mechanisms.

OBJECTIVE
to evaluate VDD relationship with gestational and postpartum depression.

METHODS
this review followed the recommendations proposed by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis. Research was conducted in electronic databases, PubMed and LILACS, including studies of the analytical type (cross-sectional and longitudinal), systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and controlled clinical trials carried out in humans; inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
in this systematic review, eight articles were analyzed comprising 8,583 women from seven different countries. Among the selected articles, six found an association between VDD and gestational and postpartum depression. Considering the data collection, it was possible to conclude that there is a probable relationship between VDD and a higher predisposition to gestational and postpartum depression. Also, we concluded that vitamin D supplementation has proven to be a promising strategy for reducing the risk of depressive symptoms.


A single pulse interferometric coherent anti-Stokes Raman (CARS) spectroscopy method is used to obtain broadband CARS spectra and microscopy images of liquid and polymer samples. The pump, Stokes, and probe pulses are all selected inside a single broadband ultrafast pulse by a phase- and polarization-controlled pulse shaping technique and used to generate two spectral interference CARS signals simultaneously. The normalized difference of these two signals provides an amplified background-free broadband resonant CARS spectrum over the 400-1500 cm(-1) range with 35 cm(-1) spectral resolution. Chemically selective microscopy images of multicomponent polymer and liquid samples are investigated with this new CARS method. Multiplex CARS spectra at 10,000 spatial points are measured within a few minutes, and used to construct chemically selective microscopy images with a spatial resolution of 400 nm. The spectral bandwidth limits, sensitivity, homodyne amplification advantages, spatial resolution, depolarization, chromatic aberration, and chemical imaging aspects of this new technique are discussed in detail.


Conjugal multiple sclerosis (MS) is a rare form of MS in which both spouses are affected, and at least one is affected after marriage. Among 1606 definite MS patients, 1076 were in marital relationship, among whom we identified six conjugal pairs, giving the conjugal rate of 0.5%. This rate is 12.5 times higher than the estimated risk of MS for the general population (0.04%). The observed conjugal rate suggests an increased risk of developing MS for MS patients' spouses, this could be due to transmission or, more likely, to the same environmental factors shared in adult life. Multiple Sclerosis 2007; 13: 673-675. http://msj.sagepub.com


Doubly excited Ar7+ (2p53s nl)2,4L ions are produced in th charge exchange collision Ar8+(2p53s)3P0.2+H2 at 2 keV amu-1. Their radiative stabilisation is observed in the wavelength interval 4-5.3 nm. It is shown that the spectrum consists of lines arising from states produced in the capture into (2p53s5l)2,4L and decaying to 2p65 l2L and from states such as 2p53s3l2,4L populated by cascades and decaying to 2p63l 2L. These Na-like Ar satellite transitions are situated in wavelength relative to the mother Ne-like Ar transitions 2p53s 1P1 to 2p6 1S0 and 2p53s 3P1 to 2p6 1S0 observed as the end of the cascade following the charge-exchange collision Ar9++H2 to Ar8++H2+.


Following the recent trend in the automotive industry, hybrid and pure electric powertrain systems are more and more preferred over conventional combustion powertrain systems due to their significant potential to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Although electric powertrains do not produce direct emissions during their operational time, the indirect emissions over their whole life cycle have to be taken into consideration. In this direction, the carbon footprint due to the electrification of the hand-held power tool industry needs to be examined in the preliminary design phase. In this paper, after defining the carbon footprint calculation framework, assumptions and simplifications used for the calculations, a direct comparison of the total carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2eq) emissions of three equivalent power and range powertrain systems - a combustion-driven, a hybrid-driven, and a cordless electric-driven - is presented. The relative comparison of their life cycle CO2eq emissions delivers important insights for the future design considerations of hand-held power tools. Furthermore. as the energy storage system has the leading influence on CO2eq emissions for the hybrid and electric powertrains, a sensitivity analysis by examining different battery charging conditions and scenarios is presented. The aim of this study is to introduce useful knowledge of life cycle assessment for these small powertrains and forward an argumentation for different powertrain alternatives in the hand-held tool industry.


Summary A laboratory method has been developed for studying the action of chemical disinfectants on milking equipment using a wet film and both metal and rubber surfaces. It was shown that milking machines may be soiled as effectively with fresh milk of low bacterial content as with aged milk of high bacterial content. When a single heat treatment preceded the soiling with milk and subsequent treatment with detergent and chemical disinfectant, a build-up of bacteria began on the third day. However, when the surfaces were heat treated daily 18 h before soiling, followed by cleaning and disinfection, no build-up occurred. These findings support the hypothesis that contamination of milk results from bacteria developing on the milking equipment and not merely from those added to it at each milking. The sites of bacterial contamination were shown to be the under surfaces of lid gaskets and the joints of the short milk tubes and the metal clawpiece nipples.


Currently, household travel survey has been conducted in a number of cities. Cities, travel behavior and data processing capability have changed, requiring current data for analysis and planning: but nonresponse bias persists, often leading to a lack of adequate representation of low-income and low-education, residents. The purpose of this study is to suggest a method for improving the weighting process by incorporating the spatial pattern of return rates as an additional step in the weighting process. Also this study suggests the weighting method when the populations of weighting variables are not available. A method to subdivide a study area geographically into microz ones to account for the differences in return rates is suggested in conjunction with conventional factoring. In order to estimate the populations of weighting variables, the DSF procedure considering the sampling rates of weighting z ones has been suggested. In applying the weighting method to data collected in suburban Chicago, the representation of public transportation, Metra, ridership shows that suggested weighting method matches the actual ridership data well.


Spring ecosystems are often neglected although they belong to the important part of streams. We studied 56 sites in the Western Carpathian Mountains and focused on one part of permanent fauna–on clitellate assemblages ("Oligochaeta" and leeches). Spring fens are wetlands that are formed by one or more spring outflow, spring brook(s), small pools and places that are permanently or occasionally wet. Their stable water conditions (mainly in and near the outflow) provide optimal environment for aquatic macroinvertebrates. Individual spring fens differ in water chemistry (especially in mineral richness) that is forming species composition of fauna and flora. In spring and autumn (2006–2012) we sampled macroinvertebrates at two contrasting mesohabitats in fens (flowing and standing water) using an iron frame (25x25 cm, 5 cm depth). Clitellates were manually sorted out and determined to the species or genus level. We found over 24.000 individuals belonging to 55 taxa of clitellates. There were typically aquatic species (from families Naididae and Lumbriculidae) but also semiaquatic (e.g. Eiseniella tetraedra, Trocheta cylindrica or some enchytraeids) and rarely terrestrial species (from family Lumbricidae and Enchytraeidae). In most of sites (52) there were always found individuals from family Lumbriculidae (Lumbriculus variegatus, Stylodrilus heringianus, Trichodrilus strandi and T. tatrensis). In 25 sites lumbriculids dominated in samples (their percentage in assemblage was equal to or higher than 50%). Cluster analysis divided those 25 sites into 3 groups. Although taxa richness was the same, average number of individuals was different. First group comprised of sites where only L. variegatus and S. heringianus were found, also naidids, enchytraeids and leeches were very frequent. By contrast, in second group's sites only T. strandi was found and enchytraeids and leeches were rare. The third group can be characterized as a group with no S. heringianus and very little naidids dominated with T. strandi and/or L. variegatus. These differences in clitellate assemblages are caused by changes in water chemistry, details on symposium.


The MARINE (Model of Anticipation of Runoff and INundations for Extreme events) hydrological model is a distributed model dedicated to flash flood simulation. Recent developments of the MARINE model are explored in this work. On one hand, transfers of water through the subsurface, formerly relying on water height, now take place in a homogeneous soil column based on the soil saturation degree (SSF model). On the other hand, the soil column is divided into two layers, which represent, respectively, the upper soil layer and the deep weathered rocks (SSF–DWF model). The aim of the present work is to assess the accuracy of these new representations for the simulation of soil moisture during flash flood events. An exploration of the various products available in the literature for soil moisture estimation is performed. The efficiency of the models for soil saturation degree simulation is estimated with respect to several products either at the local scale or spatially distributed: (i) the gridded soil moisture product provided by the operational modeling chain SAFRAN-ISBA-MODCOU; (ii) the gridded soil moisture product provided by the LDAS-Monde assimilation chain, which is based on the ISBA-A-gs land surface model and assimilating satellite derived data; (iii) the upper soil water content hourly measurements taken from the SMOSMANIA observation network; and (iv) the Soil Water Index provided by the Copernicus Global Land Service (CGLS), which is derived from Sentinel-1 C-SAR and ASCAT satellite data. The case study is performed over two French Mediterranean catchments impacted by flash flood events over the 2017–2019 period. The local comparison of the MARINE outputs with the SMOSMANIA measurements, as well as the comparison at the basin scale of the MARINE outputs with the gridded LDAS-Monde and CGLS data, lead to the following conclusion: both the dynamics and the amplitudes of the soil saturation degree simulated with the SSF and SSF–DWF models are better correlated with both the SMOSMANIA measurements and the LDASMonde data than the outputs of the base model. Finally, the soil saturation degree simulated by the two-layers model for the deep layer is compared to the soil saturation degree provided by the LDAS-Monde product at corresponding depths. In conclusion, the developments presented for the representation of subsurface flow in the MARINE model enhance the soil saturation degree simulation during flash floods with respect to both gridded data and local soil moisture measurements.


A commercial computational fluid dynamics package could be used to develop a three dimensional, fully turbulent model of the compressible flow across a complex geometry venturi, such as those found in small engine carburettors. The results of the CFD simulation can be used to understand the effect of the different obstacles in the flow on the mass flow rate and the static pressure at the tip of the fuel tube. This would be helpful to analyze the pressure loss in the throat area. Analysis would be performed to study airflow across carburettor venturi by locating fuel tube at the diverging nozzle of the venturi and for various positions of throttle valve in the present paper, fuel tube and throttle plate would be modelled and analyze in order to have better understanding of the flow in complex venturi. The results of this study necessitate for modification throttle valve design. The carburettor body is remodelled with two throttle bodies replacing conventional throttle. Analysis has been performed to study flow field with modified design and results have been discussed.


DNA sequences encoding porcine tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF alpha) were reconstructed from a genomic-derived PCR product for expression in Escherichia coli. A synthetic DNA primer containing most of exon III was fused to exon IV sequences by means of PCR. The fused product was then inserted into the novel FLAG vector by restriction and ligation. This initial recombinant construct was propagated in single-strand form through use of a helper phage and subjected to oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis for the purpose of introducing additional coding sequences from exons II and III. The final construct encoded a fusion protein consisting of the Omp-A signal peptide, a seven-amino acid FLAG peptide and the soluble form of porcine TNF alpha. Bacteria containing this construct produced a protein which was recognized by anti-FLAG monoclonal antibody in Western blots and which was purified by anti-FLAG immunoaffinity chromatography. The purified material was cleaved with enterokinase to remove the FLAG peptide. Both the enterokinase-cleaved form and the uncleaved form were shown to have TNF activity in a WEHI cell cytotoxicity assay.


INTRODUCTION: Functional electrical stimulation (FES) may evoke movements in people with movement impairments due to neurological lesion. The mean value of electrical current or voltage during FES depends on the stimulatory profile parameters. To investigate the relationship between peak and mean amplitudes of the stimulator output voltage while causing a knee extension angle change from 90o to 40o to choose the best and safest profile to be applied in people who have suffered a spinal cord injury. METHODS: Healthy (N = 10) volunteers and those with spinal cord injuries (N = 10) participated in this study. Each FES profile (P1, P2, P3 and P4) had 1-kHz pulses (100 µs or 200 µs on and 900 µs or 800 µs off) with burst frequencies of 50 Hz (3 ms on and 17 ms off) or 70 Hz (3 ms on and 11 ms off) and peak amplitudes set between 53-125V for healthy volunteers and 68-198 V for volunteers with spinal cord injury. RESULTS: The highest mean amplitude were obtained using a FES profile with active/total pulse period of 200 us/1000 us and burst frequency of 3ms/14ms. The best results of mean amplitude were observed using a FES profile duty cycle of 10% for pulses (100 µs/1000 µs) and 15% for bursts (3 ms/20 ms). CONCLUSION: The FES profile (100 µs - 50 Hz) seems to be the most suitable for both groups, inasmuch as it presents smaller mean amplitudes and peak amplitudes similar to other FES profiles.


The choice of the right maintenance strategy is an important but also difficult topic for every energy utility. The difficulty consists in the huge number of interacting cost parameters. The present paper shows how from the biology well known process is adapted as an optimization algorithm in order to handle the parameter diversity. Outgoing from the definition of Life Cycle Cost and a method for substation reliability calculation the main idea of genetic algorithm and its application for Life Cycle Cost optimization is presented. Closing a case study shows the suitability of the algorithm.


Uncertainty in the transfer of power responsivity from a cryogenic radiometer to a detector arises from several factors. These include the transmittance and scatter of the Brewster window present in the absolute power measurement and the relative positions in the laser beam of the detector and radiometer. To investigate these, the responsivity of a three-element silicon photodiode reflectance trap has been determined against a cryogenic radiometer at 488 nm. The responsivity measurement was performed in two different positions along the path of the irradiating laser beam: firstly in front of the radiometer's Brewster window, and secondly in the plane of the radiometer's cavity. The resulting responsivities are compared in terms of the significant differences between each measurement technique and the uncertainty budget of the two calibrations. In addition, the uncertainty in and feasibility of measurements made in vacuum behind the Brewster window and in the cavity plane are assessed.


Read before the Society Wednesday 14th January 1970. The recognition that the mammalian organism is capable of developing an immune response against its own normal tissue components has aroused interest in the implication of auto-immune reactions in human disease. This interest may, however, be too widely applied, and the label "auto-immune" may be applied to a particular clinical entity with a complete disregard for the rather exacting criteria which this aetiology demands; indeed one might say that the word auto-immune is almost synonymous with the word idiopathic, in the clinician's dictionary. Some definitions first.  By auto-immune disease it is widely understood that there is a failure at some point for the body to differentiate between its own tissue components and those of a foreign material; it can no longer distinguish, if one likes to put it in more crude terms, between "self" and "non-self" . Consequently the host launches an immunological response towards its tissue components, with the resulting pathological changes and clinical manifestations.


The identification of a person on the basis of scanned images of handwriting is a useful biometric modality with application in forensic and historic document analysis. An efficient method for text-independent writer identification using a codebook method is introduced. The method uses the occurrence histogram of the shapes in a codebook to create a feature vector for each specific manuscript. Offline text-independent writer identification method based on scale invariant feature transform (SIFT).It include three stages: training, enrollment, and identification stages. In three stages, an isotropic LoG filter is first used to segment the handwriting image into word regions (WRs).Then, the SIFT descriptors of word region and the corresponding scales and orientations (SOs) are extracted. In the second stage, an SD codebook is constructed by clustering the SDs of training samples. In the third stage, the SDs of the input handwriting are adopted to form an SD signature (SDS) by looking up the SD codebook and the SOs are utilized to generate a scale and orientation histogram (SOH). In the identification stage, the SDS and SOH of the input handwriting are extracted and matched with the enrolled ones for identification. Here we extracted six public data set. We also proposed a method that is k-means clustering instead of neural network which provides more efficiency.


Human dental pulp cells signifi cantly contribute to the generation of patient-specifi c human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) because dental pulp is easily accessible and contains high-quality mesenchymal stem cells. This study aimed to generate hiPSCs from deciduous dental pulp cells, using three factors, OCT3/4, SOX2, and KLF4, and to evaluate the feasibility of hiPSCs as substitutes for odontogenic cells. HiPSCs were mixed with heterogeneous cells of porcine third molar tooth germs extracted from the mandibles of six-month-old pigs. The mixed cells were seeded in a disc-shaped poly (D, L-lactic-co-glycolic acid) scaffold. The cell–scaffold complexes were then wrapped around the omentum of immunocompromised rats as recipients to promote vascularization and maturation of the implants; the implants were harvested at 16 weeks after transplantation. The paraffi n-embedded sections of the implants were used for histological observation and for immunohistochemical and immunofl uorescence analyses. Histologically, several small pieces of odontogenic tissue were observed in the implants. The enamel organ-like structures were observed and the tall and columnar-shaped cells facing the enamel stained positive for anti-human nuclei and amelogenin antibodies. Dentin– pulp complexes with dentinal tubules were observed and the columnar-shaped cells facing the dentin stained positive for anti-human nuclei and dentin sialophosphoprotein antibodies. Dental root-like structures accompanying the Hertwig's epithelial root sheath (HERS)-like bilayer were observed and cells constituting the HERS-like bilayer stained positive for anti-human nuclei and cytokeratin 14 antibodies and negative for anti-vimentin antibody. The cementum adjacent to the dentin was recognized, and staining for bone sialoprotein (BSP) was observed to be intense at the cementum–dentin border. Cementoblasts and cementocytes stained positive for anti-human nuclei and BSP antibodies. These results suggest that hiPSCs have the potential to differentiate into ameloblasts, odontoblasts, and cementocytes, and are capable of generating odontogenic tissues.


We introduce a probabilistic approach to the LMS filter. By means of an efficient approximation, this approach provides an adaptable step-size LMS algorithm together with a measure of uncertainty about the estimation. In addition, the proposed approximation preserves the linear complexity of the standard LMS. Numerical results show the improved performance of the algorithm with respect to standard LMS and state-of-the-art algorithms with similar complexity. The goal of this work, therefore, is to open the door to bring somemore Bayesian machine learning techniques to adaptive filtering.


Supplemental Digital Content is Available in the Text. Background: Drug concentrations of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) are routinely determined from blood serum or plasma at trough levels (before intake of morning dose). In capillary blood collection, blood is taken from the fingertip with the aid of a disposable tool and dried on absorbent material. The volumetric absorptive microsampling technique offers several advantages over the use of filter paper cards. The aim of this study was to determine conversion factors for the estimation of AED serum concentrations from capillary blood concentrations. Methods: Venous and capillary blood samples were collected from adult inpatients with epilepsy who were treated with lacosamide (LCM, n = 30), lamotrigine (LTG, n = 40), and/or levetiracetam (LEV, n = 36). A validated liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) method for dried blood samples for these AEDs was compared with routine serum laboratory methods. Method agreement was evaluated using different regression techniques, and the conversion factors were calculated. Results: Regression analyses revealed a linear relationship between serum and capillary blood concentrations for all 3 AEDs (r ≥ 0.95). For LTG, the regression intercept was significantly different from 0, indicating that the relationship was linear, but not necessarily proportional. Although LEV and LCM concentrations tended to be lower in capillary blood than in serum (mean ratio of serum concentration to capillary blood concentration: 1.14 and 1.22, respectively), LTG concentrations were higher in capillary blood (mean ratio = 0.85). Conclusions: The estimation of serum concentrations from measured capillary blood concentrations is feasible for LCM, LTG, and LEV. A simple ratio approach using the mean ratio and Passing–Bablok regression showed the best results for all 3 AEDs. The volumetric absorptive microsampling technique facilitates the quantitative sample collection of capillary blood and overcomes the drawbacks associated with the classical dried blood spot technique.


For automatic disease-severity-level estimation, a large-scale medical image dataset with level annotations is generally necessary. However, attaching absolute-level annotations (such as levels 0, 1, and 3) is very costly and even inaccurate due to the level ambiguity. In this study, we proved experimentally that using a ranking function for level estimation can relax this difficulty. We propose a multi-task learning method for automatically estimating disease-severity levels that combine learning to rank with regression. The ranking function of the proposed method is trainable by relative-level and a small number of absolute-level annotations. For relative-level annotation, an annotator only needs to specify that one image has a higher disease level than another—this is much easier than absolute-level annotation. The proposed method enables disease-severity classification by calibrating the ranking function based on relative-level annotation through regression. The effectiveness of the method was proved through a large-scale experiment of ulcerative colitis-severity estimation with colonoscopy images.


We present a proof of Arrow's theorem from social choice theory that uses a fixpoint argument. Specifically, we use Banach's result on the existence of a fixpoint of a contractive map defined on a complete metric space. Conceptually, our approach shows that dictatorships can be seen as fixpoints of a certain process.


GPUs are often limited by the off-chip memory bandwidth. With the advent of general-purpose computing on GPUs, cache hierarchy has been introduced to filter the bandwidth demand to the off-chip memory. However, the cache hierarchy presents its own bandwidth limitations in sustaining such high levels of memory traffic. In this work, we characterize the bandwidth bottleneck in GPUs present across the memory hierarchy for general-purpose applications. We show that the improvement in performance achieved by mitigating the bandwidth bottleneck in the cache hierarchy can exceed the speedup obtained by a memory system with a baseline cache hierarchy and high bandwidth off-chip memory. We also show that addressing the bandwidth bottleneck in isolation at specific levels can be sub-optimal and can even be counter-productive. Therefore, we show that it is imperative to resolve the bandwidth bottleneck synergistically across different levels of the memory hierarchy.


Drift tubes of 1.9-mm radius and 25- mu wall thickness were exposed to neutrons and associated gamma radiation from uranium fission at the MIT Research Reactor. In 45 hours of irradiation, the drift tubes received a neutron fluence with energy greater than 0.5 MeV of 1.1*10/sup 13/ cm/sup -2/ And accumulated a charge per wire length of 0.08 coul cm/sup -1/, about that expected for three years of operation at the SSC for a lead scintillator calorimeter at a 1-m radius and for drift tubes at a distance of several tens of centimeters from the beam axis. Measurement of the pulse height, pulse shape, counting rates, andcurrents showed no degradation in drift tube performance. Fast (few nanosecond rise time), sharp (20-ns width) pulses were observed at counting rates of 5 MHz using CF/sub 4/ as the drift gas. >


In the course of the past ten years, during which the development of angiography has placed at the disposal of the clinician a highly reliable objective method of examination, many cases of peripheral arterial occlusive disease formerly classified as thromboangiitis obliterans (TAO) or Buerger's disease (BD) were, on reappraisal by the newer diagnostic tool, found to be manifestations of arteriosclerosis in patients of the younger age groups. Under more critical scrutiny of this type, the number of the cases of TAO seen in many clinics declined—often drastically. It is not surprising that in the minds of some clinicians doubt arose regarding the very existence of this entity. 1,2 For our part, in a rather large group of patients with peripheral occlusive arterial disease (numbering over 1,400) extensively studied during the past 12 years by angiographic means from the point of view of operability, we have continued to see the complex


The team that carried out the Survey of Language Use and Language Teaching in Eastern Africa (with specific reference to Uganda) was non-committal on stating the number of languages there are in Uganda. In the end, they mentioned 63 languages/dialects which fall into 5 groups based on broad lexical and grammatical affinity. The 5 groups in turn came under 3 language families: Bantu, Sudanic and Nilotic. Bolder estimations put the number to 30 distinct languages. (Ladefoged, Glick, Criper 1971:16, 83). If we add English and Kiswahili, the number comes to 32 languages. Uganda is therefore a multilingual country, with approximately 32 languages. It is , however, very easy to discern three powerful languages fighting for influence: English, Luganda and Kiswahili. Nevertheless, the language policy statements have never failed to make reference to other indigenous languages. Three years after independence, Uganda acquired a language policy in education when, in 1965, it adopted the Castle Report of 1963 which made a number of recommendations. First, six Ugandan languages were to be used as mediums of instruction iin the primary schools: Luganda, Akarimojong/Ateso, Lugbara, Luo, Runyoro/Rutooro and Runyankole/Rukiga. Secondly, children were to be taught in their own language in the early years of school. Thirdly, English was to be introduced as a subject in primary 1 and continue as a subject for all seven years of primary school. In Primary IV Mathematics and Physical Education were to be taught through the medium of English. Then English as a medium of instruction would be gradually extended to Science, Geography, Art, Crafts and Music in the fifth year, and in the sixth and seventh year all subjects would be taught in English. (Ladefoged, et al., 1971:96) With such an elaborate policy statement, one would assume that the implementation of the stated decisions would be assured and would be equally elaborate; but was it? The main aim of this paper is to analyse the relationship between language policy theorizing and implementation in Uganda since independence. To appreciate the processes at play in policy formulation better, we set out by clarifying the duality between the notions of language Policy and Language Planning. Further, as already mooted above, historical factors as well as language policy have nurtured three languages which are continually vying for influence both in the system of education and in mass communication. We examine the position of each of these languages in the context of language policy and planning in the Ugandan polity. The role of the other 'minority' indigenous languages must also not be underrated and overlooked. The salient deterrents to the implementation of language policy decisions are also outlined and discussed. Finally, propositions for the way forward are offered.


: In view of weak implication of immunoinflammatory mechanisms in pathogenesis of noninflammatory nephropathy one may expect the disease course improvement and more slow progression of renal dysfunction. The mechanism of this action can be realized through hypolipidemic effect. In recent research there are data on a direct lovastatin action on the mechanism underlying nephritis progression by means of inhibiting proliferation of mesangial cells.


Robust training of deep neural networks requires a large amount of data. However gathering and labeling this data can be expensive and determining which distribution of features are needed for training is not a trivial problem. This is compounded when training neural networks for autonomous navigation in continuous non-deterministic environments using only visual input. Increasing the quantity of demonstrated data does not solve this problem as the demonstrated sequences of actions are not guaranteed to produce the same outcomes and slight changes in orientation generate drastically different visual representations. This results in a training set with a different distribution than what the agent will typically encounter in application. Here, we develop a method that can grow a training set from the same distribution as the agent's experiences and capture useful features not found in demonstrated behavior. Additionally, we show that our approach scales to efficiently handle complex tasks that require a large amount of data (experiences) for training. Concretely, we propose the deep asynchronous Dagger framework, which combines the Dagger algorithm with an asynchronous actor-learner architecture for parallel dataset aggregation and network policy learning. We apply our method to the task of navigating 3D mazes in Minecraft with randomly changing block types and analyze our results.


A general model for digitally linearizable companding laws for use in digital communication systems is presented. The model is utilized to compare a ternary code presented by Neu and Kundig with a binary code. The primary considerations are ratio of signal to quantization noise, companding improvement, and linearization.


The purpose of this retrospective study was to investigate the influence of several factors on students' course evaluation scores. Scores from the past five years were collected from all the professors in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Department, and then examined with respect to differences between graduating classes, the percentage of A and B grades given, average grade given, and difference between professors co-teaching in the same course. The results of this study indicate that students' evaluation scores are not influenced significantly by any one of these factors, but rather are influenced primarily by the students' perception about the professor.


This study analyses mechanisms through which Cold War themed video games played from an American perspective propagate US authoritarianism by reiterating concepts of Americanness generated in popular media during the Cold War era. These video games work with cultural, historical, and social stereotypes to generate a dichotomy between good and evil and they heavily rely on emotions and morality in their portrayal of communist, socialist, and Soviet enemy forces. Popular concepts associated with America are used to propagate democracy and (political) freedom, while simultaneously vilifying their adversaries. Through drawing parallels to American Cold War propaganda and its utilisation of popular media, this paper asks how stereotypical notions of America are generated through symbolism in an engagement with material objects as well as thoughts and beliefs. Topics engaged with are media control, free speech, programming, espionage, intrigues, paranoia, trust, and the morality of the individual in a hyperreal environment. This study is conducted in reference to Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis (2001), Freedom Fighters (2003), Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010), Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction (2010), Homefront (2011), and Alekhine's Gun (2016). By considering mechanisms of propaganda in these games, it is shown how manifestations of Americanness are generated in them and how they affect friend and foe images.


The concurrency literature presents a number of approaches for building non-blocking, FIFO, multiple-producer and multiple-consumer (MPMC) queues. However, only a fraction of them have high performance. In addition, many queue designs, such as LCRQ, trade memory usage for better performance. The recently proposed SCQ design achieves both memory efficiency as well as excellent performance. Unfortunately, both LCRQ and SCQ are only lock-free. On the other hand, existing wait-free queues are either not very performant or suffer from potentially unbounded memory usage. Strictly described, the latter queues, such as Yang & Mellor-Crummey's (YMC) queue, forfeit wait-freedom as they are blocking when memory is exhausted. We present a wait-free queue, called wCQ. wCQ is based on SCQ and uses its own variation of fast-path-slow-path methodology to attain wait-freedom and bound memory usage. Our experimental studies on x86 and PowerPC architectures validate wCQ's great performance and memory efficiency. They also show that wCQ's performance is often on par with the best known concurrent queue designs.


The object of the investigation was to compare the effect of three different physiotherapy masks on the incidence of postoperative complications after thoracic surgery. It was carried out as a prospective, consecutive, randomized comparison at a Department of Thoracic and Heart Surgery at a University Hospital. The therapy was performed by experienced and specially trained physiotherapists. One hundred and sixty patients were evaluated; 60 patients undergoing heart surgery, 59 patients having pulmonary resection, and 41 patients with exploratory thoracotomy. In each operative category the patients were treated with one of three face mask systems used in addition to routine chest physiotherapy. These were either continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), positive expiratory pressure (PEP), or inspiratory resistance--positive expiratory pressure (IR-PEP). Postoperative pulmonary complications were assessed by forced vital capacity (FVC), arterial oxygen tension (PaO2), and chest X-ray examination, all parameters were measured preoperatively and on the fourth and ninth postoperative day. The patients filled in a questionnaire concerning their opinions about their mask treatment. IR-PEP showed a lesser decrease in PaO2 on day nine. Otherwise there was an equal decrease in FVC and PaO2, and equal frequency of atelectasis in the three mask treatments. It is therefore concluded that any of the three therapies: continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), positive expiratory pressure (PEP), and inspiratory resistance--positive expiratory pressure (IR-PEP) may be used as supplement to standard chest physiotherapy.


The first volume of New Vocal Repertory identified a genuine need, amongst singers and their teachers, for expert help in choosing contemporary repertoire from the often bewildering volume and variety of music available. It is now in regular use in teaching institutions, and many works featured have found a wider audience. This has prompted Jane Manning to produce a further personal selection of over 60 vocal works, recommended for general repertoire. As before, pieces are graded according to their demands on vocal techniques and musicianship. Each is given detailed treatment from both performing and teaching viewpoints, with music examples, programming suggestions, and practical information. The stylistic range is even wider - composers from Norway and New Zealand are featured, and a strong contingent of British and North American composers, including early pioneers as well as young talents. Works in foreign languages are now included, as are pieces for solo voice, and voice and tape. Jane Manning's persuasive advocacy is reinforced by over 30 year's international experience, and over 300 world premieres. This invaluable guide will be warmly wlecomed by amateurs and professional alike.


Purpose: To investigate the process of emmetropization in anisometropic amblyopic subjects during childhood and to determine the effects of spectacle use only and patching. Methods: Retrospectively, the records of patients who were diagnosed as anisometropic amblyopes were reviewed and 132 subjects who were between the ages of 5 to 8 at the time of diagnosis, with minimum follow-up of 3 years, were included in the study. Full ophthalmological examination was performed in every subjects and the information from every visit was retrieved for evaluation. Patients were divided into two groups according to the treatment they applied: patching and spectacle alone. Results: The emmetropization process was similar to normal subjects after 3 years of follow-up, with a change of −0.71 D from the baseline spheric retinoscopy measurement in the spectacle group and −0.53 D in patching group (p > 0.809). Patching and spectacle use did not change the decrease in hypermetropia. Astigmatism and anisometropia scores did not show any difference in two groups in the 3-year follow-up period. Conclusion: The emmetropization process is similar to normal population in anisometropic subjects and spectacle use and patching therapy have no effects on this process. The anisometropia score does not change with patching and stays relatively the same during the follow-up in childhood.


Collections of library which contains a lot of information is one thing that is very useful and beneficial to people's lives. However, there are some collections that are considered dangerous to the state, disturbing the public, and the public order. On the other hand, sometimes students or researchers requires the collection, so that the management might be quite a dilemma for the library. That dilemma mostly faced by public libraries because the public libraries have to served what the public's information needs indiscriminately. It will be a special consideration for policy-makers in managing the illegal collection. Badan Perpustakaan dan Arsip Daerah (BPAD) Yogyakarta as a public library has an obligation to manage the collection to be a beneficial collection to the society. The purpose of this research is to formulate a strategy of preservation and services forbidden collections in BPAD Yogyakarta. This study was a qualitative research. The author uses the method of interviews and direct observation to collect data, in this case the author as well as a research instrument. The informants were interviewed is BPAD Yogyakarta librarian who worked on the rare collections. Validity and reliability using triangulation. Analysis of the data by reducing the interviews and observations. The results show that BPAD Yogyakarta have some forbidden collections and service them specially. Forbidden collection located at rare collection rooms, and simboled by 'L' in the book label, it meant by 'Langka' (rare) . The user may read and copy the collection if the physical condition was good. BPAD Yogyakarta didn't collect all the forbidden collections. This is contrary to the Law No. 4 of 1990 (Deposit) of give-stored printed and recorded, morally, requires the National Library (Also Regional Library) stores each printed works (books, newspapers, magazines, posters) and paper records (tapes, diskettes, films, microfilm). BPAD Yogyakarta should be bold and aggressive in pursuing completeness the forbidden book collections. This effort have to be conducted, remembering the BPAD Yogyakarta under the National Library of the Republic of Indonesia has a strong legal basis with the Deposit Laws.


Using learning media on technology-based is one of the most crucial aspects of the study process nowadays. Utilizing learning media on technology-based is an effort to integrate technology into the study process. The research aimed to investigate the use of 3D-Pageflip-based learning media (3DP-LM) as the application of technology in chemistry learning toward students' academic achievement (SAA). This research used a quasi-experimental approach with a non-equivalent control group and post-test only. The sample in this study consisted of 65 eleventh-grade students (16-17 years old) in a high school in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. There were two groups of the total sample used in this research; the experimental group with 3D-LM (E-3D-LM group) and the control group with PowerPoint media (C-PPt-M group). The instruments applied in the research consisted of 3DP-LM, validation sheets of 3DP-LM, and student chemistry learning achievement test (SCLAT). The findings in this study indicate that the 3DP-LM was valid and reliable to be applied in the research process. The outcome of data analysis shows that there are differences in SSA between students in the E-3D-LM group and the C-PPt-M group. The E-3D-LM group is better than the C-PPt-M group. Moreover, the effect size estimation based on Cohen'd confirmed that the application of 3DP-LM has a positive impact on SAA. This research suggested that 3DP-LM is a technology-based media that can be applied in chemistry learning widely.


Faculty of Integrated Korean Medicine Bioscience, Semyung University, Jecheon 27136, KoreaAbstract - The ethnobotanical study was conducted to record and conserve the traditional knowledge of botanical taxa in Hallyeo-Haesang National Park area, S. Korea from 2012 to 2013. According to the survey results, derived from 1,430 sheets of 183 residents at 70 places, the ethnobotanical plants in Hallyeo-Haesang National Park area consisted of a total 247 taxa; 82 families, 197 genera, 224 species, 3 subspecies, 19 varieties and 1 form. The analysis of usage for 247 taxa showed that the edible use was the highest with 166 taxa, followed by medicinal with 138 taxa, craft with 27 taxa, material with 16 taxa and ritual with 9 taxa respectively. The leaf of plant was the most useful part, followed by stem and fruit plant. Quantitative analysis of the ethnobotanical plants in Hallyeo-Haesang National Park area was performed by the basic values of FC, NU and UR, and indices of CI, RFC, RI and CV. As a result, The CI places Artemisia princeps in the first position, followed by Pueraria lobata, Taraxacum platycarpum. The RFC place A. princeps in first position, followed by Achyranthes japonica, Aster scaber . The RI places A. princeps in the first position, followed by P. lobata , Pinus densiflora . The CV places A. princeps in the first position, followed by P. lobata , A. japonica . Farfugium japonicum had been used as specific ethnobotanical plant in this area, for arthralgia, postpartum arthrodynia, circulatory disturbance.


The word "emergency" is defined by time. We work in time dependent windows of diagnosis and treatment. Consider the enormous impact of biomarkers and imaging now standard in the ED (troponin, d-dimer, and lactic acid; and lightning fast pan-scanning CT and bedside ultrasound). Faster detection of critical illness has also led to more ED administration of pharmacologic interventions (aspirin, thrombolytics, antibiotics, fluid resuscitation, pressors, TXA, 4 factor-PCC, etc.). Helicopter transport, intra-osseous vascular access, and pelvic binders all improve time dependent patient care.


The effects of alcohol on bone marrow are not well understood. We measured the influence of ethanol and its metabolite, acetaldehyde, on the in vitro proliferation of hematopoietic progenitor cells from mice and human beings. Colony formation by both early and late erythroid progenitor cells was suppressed by concentrations of ethanol (0.05 to 0.2 per cent) that are easily achieved in vivo. The corresponding suppressing concentration of acetaldehyde was 0.001 per cent. In contrast, suppression of granulocyte/macrophage progenitor cells required 3.0 per cent ethanol or 0.03 per cent acetaldehyde. Spleen colony formation by pluripotent stem cells was resistant to concentrations of ethanol and acetaldehyde that suppressed in vitro colony formation of committed myeloid and erythroid progenitor cells by 50 per cent. The suppression of both myeloid and erythroid colony formation was partially reversed by supplementing the cultures with folinic acid or pyridoxine. These data provide an explanation for the preferential suppression of erythropoiesis observed clinically in ethanol abuse. They also suggest that acetaldehyde has a role in ethanol-mediated bone-marrow suppression.


Localization accuracy is one of the most important parts of Unmanned Vehicle Systems, Automated Vehicles, Robotics and Navigation. The 6-DOF Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) is a commonly used device for inertial navigation and is composed of a 3-axis accelerometer and 3-axis gyroscope. The body-fixed IMU measurements are combined with initial values to produce a position and orientation estimate in the inertial frame with every new measurement. However, IMU performance is greatly degraded by bias, scale-factor, non-orthogonality, temperature, and noise. This paper develops a sliding mode observer specifically focused on gyroscope bias estimation to improve gyro measurement results. The work presented here improves the performance of tilt sensors equipped in a commercially available smartphones with accelerometers and gyroscopes. The algorithm uses quaternions to avoid the well-known Euler angle singularities also known as gimbal lock. The observed gyro-bias can be used to reconstruct an improved estimation of the real attitude. A sliding-mode observer was constructed, and A* Matrix stability criterion were used to guarantee observer error convergence in finite time. The algorithm was verified using both a simulated IMU model and experimental tests with a custom designed rotational platform. Simulation tests used a predefined gyros-bias to ensure the algorithm-estimated results converged to the correct value. Simulation results show the observer error quickly converges to zero and the gyro-bias estimation converged to the expected values. The results also show that the proposed method is very effective for reconstructing the real attitude using the observed gyro-bias. This study presents a fast, simple gyro-bias estimation method that can help reconstruct the real attitude with a simple formulation that eliminates complicated constraints.


The structure of DNA is a double-stranded helix, where the four bases are paired and stored in the center of this helix. The two strands of DNA are intertwined and this would require the two strands to be untwisted in order to access the information stored. Topoisomerases catalyze and guide the unknotting of DNA by creating transient breaks in the DNA using a conserved Tyrosine as the catalytic residue. Two classes of Topoisomerses are identified yet. Since the overall chemical composition and connectivity of the DNA does not change, the tangled and untangled DNAs are chemical isomers, differing only in their global topology, hence the enzymes are named as Topoisomerases. The insertion of viral DNA into chromosomes and other forms of recombination also require the action of topoisomerases. Topoisomerase inhibitors are agents designed to interfere with the action of topoisomerase enzymes, which control the changes in DNA structure by catalyzing the breaking and rejoining of the phosphodiester backbone of DNA strands during the normal cell cycle. Thus they are found to be important tools for treatment of cancer.


In this paper, a robust watermarking algorithm using the wavelet transform and edge detection is presented. The efficiency of an image watermarking technique depends on the preservation of visually significant information. This is attained by embedding the watermark transparently with the maximum possible strength. The watermark embedding process is carried over the subband coefficients that lie on edges, where distortions are less noticeable, with a subband level dependent strength. Also, the watermark is embedded to selected coefficients around edges, using a different scale factor for watermark strength, that are captured by a morphological dilation operation. The experimental evaluation of the proposed method shows very good results in terms of robustness and transparency to various attacks such as median filtering, Gaussian noise, JPEG compression and geometrical transformations. Keywords—Watermarking, wavelet transform, edge detection.


This is a case report of a 68-year-old male with severe tophaceous gouty arthritis, diabetes, kidney impairment and ischaemic heart disease. The patient had repeated attacks of acute gout during a 20-year period and excessive tophaceous depositions. Walking was severely hampered by feet deformity and pain. No urate-lowering therapy was initiated despite contacts to several medical specialties. After the diagnosis was established, the patient was finally treated with allopurinol with an obvious beneficial effect on his symptoms and the size of the tophaceous depositions.


Wheat nitrogen-use efficiency in the Yaqui Valley has been estimated at about 0·31. The nitrogen that is not recovered by the crop has important environmental costs that have regional and global consequences. In addition, these nitrogen losses represent an important reduction in farm income. The objective of the present work was to validate a technology that includes the use of N-rich strips together with the GreenSeeker™ sensor and a crop algorithm in farmers' fields with the ultimate goal of improving nitrogen-use efficiency through site-specific nitrogen management in irrigated spring wheat. During the wheat crop cycle 2002/03 and 2003/04, 13 validation experiments of c. 1 ha each were established in farmers' fields in the Yaqui Valley. After the validation phase, during the wheat crop cycle 2005/06, eight technology transfer trials were established in farmers' fields; these had on an average an area of 10 ha each. Both the validation and technology transfer trials compared the farmers' conventional nitrogen management use v. the use of the N-rich strip together with the Green Seeker™ sensor and a crop algorithm to derive N recommendations for each individual field. The results of the validation trials showed that on an average over all locations, farmers were able to save 69 kg N/ha, without any yield reduction. At the price of US$0.9 per unit of N in the valley when these experiments were established, this represented savings to the farmers of US$62/ha. The technology transfer trials demonstrated that, in large commercial areas with an average size of 10 ha, farmers could improve their farm income by US$50/ha, when using sensor based N management. The combination of the N-rich strip, together with the use of the sensor and a crop algorithm to interpret the results from the sensor, allowed farmers to obtain significant savings in N use and thus in farm profits. Farm income was increased by US$56/ha, when averaged over all trials in all years.


Wireless local loop (WLL) is an emerging technology that allows rapid connection to the wired network from remote locations. One of the crucial issues for WLL is the system design so that the number of subscribers can be maximized while providing the required quality of service. This paper considers a CDMA link capacity for integrated voice/data services for both omni and sectorized base stations. The effects of the interference factor and cell loading factor on the capacity are shown for different data rates, and combined data services.


This paper examines the main challenges which confronted Zimbabwe's tourism sector between 1960 and 2000. The Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in 1965 led to the imposition of sanctions in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). This development set the stage for a long period of international isolation at regional and global levels. The negative image resulting from this event undermined tourism in the country. This was followed by the prosecution of the armed struggle between 1966 and 1979. Security threats undermined tourist arrivals in the country especially after the shooting down of the viscount by members of the Zimbabwe African People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) in 1978. Soon after independence in 1980, there was a surge in tourist arrivals into the country due to improved security within the country. However, the dissident menace in both Matabeleland and Midlands from 1982 to 1987 reversed the gains which had been realized at independence. After the signing of the unity, accord in 1987 there was a drastic improvement in security and this boosted tourist arrivals. However, most tourists came from neighboring South Africa and Zambia. Since some of them stayed with their relatives in Zimbabwe, they did not benefit tourist facilities such as hotels. Zimbabwe has drawn most of its tourists from its immediate neighbors while Kenya attracts tourists from as far as Europe and North America. In 2000, Zimbabwe's tourism industry suffered yet another dent with the launch of the Fast Track Land Reform Program (FTLRP). Due to the violent and bloody nature of the event, it attracted negative publicity from the media which further undermined the tourist arrivals in the country. To date the country has lagged behind Kenya in attracting European and North American tourists who bring the much needed foreign currency.  Article visualizations:


Two novel mixed valence CoII-CoIII complexes, namely [CoIICoIII(L1)(ab)(mb)2(H2O)]·dmf (1) and [CoIII2CoII(L2)4(H2O)4]·2H2O (2) [H2L1 = (E)-2-((1-hydroxybutan-2-ylimino)methyl)-6-methoxyphenol, ab = 2-amino-butan-1-ol anion, mb = p-methyl benzoate, H2L2 = 3-((2-hydroxy-3-methoxy-benzylidene)-amino)-propionic acid, and dmf = N,N-dimethyl-formamide], were synthesized and characterized by single crystal X-ray diffraction and magnetic studies at low temperature. The structure determination reveals that both complexes belong to the monoclinic system with P21/c (1) and I2/a (2) space groups. Complex 1 is a dinuclear CoIIICoII compound with distorted octahedral cobalt centers showing different coordination environments. In 2, a bent trinuclear CoIII2CoII complex, the coordination environments around the two terminal CoIII sites are alike, whereas they are different in the central CoII ion. Alternating current/direct current (ac/dc) magnetic studies revealed that both complexes show field-induced slow magnetic relaxation. The dc magnetic susceptibility and magnetization data were analyzed with the following Hamiltonianwhere D and E are the axial and rhombic zero-field splitting (zfs) parameters, respectively, and a good agreement between experimental and simulated results was found using the parameters g⊥ = 2.585, g∥ = 2.437, D = +98.1 cm-1, E/D = 0.008 and F = 8.2× 10-5 for 1 and g⊥ = 2.580, g∥ = 2.580, D = +55.4 cm-1, and E/D = 0.000 for 2.


The RBE values for neutrons vary to a wide range and the influencing factors have been discussed. The relevance of cytogenetic end points as signature of the past neutron exposure, and the importance of cosmic component of neutron have been explored. The neutron-induced multiple damage sites are understood as more mutagenic, carcinogenic and lead to complex chromosome aberrations. Low energy neutrons (0.2- 2 MeV) are the principal concern in biodosimetry. They exhibit little or no β component and also independent of dose-rate effect. The review also emphasizes the wide range of RBE need to be considered for neutrons. Such knowledge may be helpful to draw guidelines to set dose limit for radiation workers under specific field and to devise effective neutron therapy. Also to make high-altitude travels and space voyages safer for human beings.


This survey summarizes the results discussed in a talk at "Bielefeld Geometry & Topology Days" held at Bielefeld University in July 2015. We are interested in quantitative and qualitative properties of Bott-Chern cohomology. We announce new results obtained in [D. Angella, N. Tardini, Quantitative and qualitative cohomological properties for non-Kahler manifolds, arXiv:1507.07108] jointly with Nicoletta Tardini. In particular, we prove an upper bound of the dimensions of Bott-Chern cohomology in terms of Hodge numbers. We also introduce a notion, called Schweitzer qualitative property, which encodes the existence of a non-degenerate pairing in Bott-Chern cohomology, like the Poincare duality for the de Rham cohomology. We show that this property characterizes the $\partial\overline\partial$-Lemma.


Dimethylsulphide (DMS) plays a major role in the global sulphur cycle. It has important implications for atmospheric chemistry, climate regulation, and sulphur transport from the marine to the atmospheric and terrestrial environments. In addition, DMS acts as an info-chemical for a wide range of organisms ranging from micro-organisms to mammals. Micro-organisms that cycle DMS are widely distributed in a range of environments, for instance, oxic and anoxic marine, freshwater and terrestrial habitats. Despite the importance of DMS that has been unearthed by many studies since the early 1970s, the understanding of the biochemistry, genetics, and ecology of DMS-degrading micro-organisms is still limited. This review examines current knowledge on the microbial cycling of DMS and points out areas for future research that should shed more light on the role of organisms degrading DMS and related compounds in the biosphere.


Because cancer evolution underlies the therapeutic difficulties of cancer, it is clinically important to understand cancer's evolutionary dynamics Thus far, four different evolutionary modes have been proposed for cancer: linear, branching, neutral, and punctuated. However, no simulation model exists that can describe the different cancer evolutionary modes in a unified manner. In this study, we constructed a unified simulation model for describing the four cancer evolutionary modes and performed sensitivity analysis on the model to determine the conditions in which cancer growth is driven by each of the different evolutionary modes. our sensitivity analysis showed that. under the assumption of sufficiently high driver mutation rates, linear and branching evolutions occur with driver mutations of relatively strong and weak driver genes, respectively. Furthermore, we found that, although a high neutral mutation rate is necessary for neutral evolution, a stem cell hierarchy can also prompt neutral evolution by apparently increasing the mutation rate. Finally, we demonstrated the possibility that punctuated evolution underlies the evolutionary shift from branching to neutral evolution, which is observed during colorectal tumorigenesis. Collectively, this study provides a novel foundation for understanding the diversity of cancer evolution. Author summary Cancer is regarded as a disease of evolution; during tumorigenesis, a normal cell evolves to a malignant population by mutation accumulation and natural selection. Evolution enables cancer cells to adapt to a new environment and acquire malignant phenotypes such as metastasis and therapeutic resistance. Therefore, understanding of cancer evolutionary dynamics is a clinically important problem. To date, it has been proposed that four different modes exist in cancer. In this paper we introduce a unified simulation model, which can reproduce each of the different evolutionary modes. Moreover, we performed sensitivity analysis of the simulation model; that is, we checked parameter dependency of evolutionary dynamics by performing a large number of simulations with various parameter settings. This analysis successfully unveiled the conditions in which each type of the evolutionary modes works. In summary, this work deepens our understanding of cancer evolution, which is necessary for developing new therapeutic strategies.


Development of the new types of tissue engineered structures is one of the promising trends of current biotechnology. The study was directed to the assessment of prospects for the application of chitin-based skeletons derived from marine sponges of Aplysinidae family ( Aplysina fulva and Aplysina aerophoba ) for creation of bioengineered constructs based on human me senchymal stromal cells. After cleaning and demineralization procedures, sponge skeletons appeared as three-dimensional macroporous matrices formed by intersecting chitin fibrils. After seeding into chitin-based matrices the cells were attached to the surface of the fibrils and were able to spread and proliferate. Mesenchymal stromal cells within Aplysina fulva differentiated into osteogenic and adipogenic directions under the influence of appropriate inductors. Demineralized skeletons derived from marine sponges of Aplysinidae family could be used as scaffolds for mesenchymal stromal cells which provides new opportunities for the creation of adipose and bone tissue engineered structures.


While diatoms are widely present in terms of diversity and abundance in nature, few species are currently used for biotechnologically applications. Most studies have focussed on intracellularly synthesised eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), a polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) used for pharmaceutical applications. Applica- tions for other intracellular molecules, such as total lipids for biodiesel, amino acids for cosmetic, antibiotics and antiproliferative agents, are at the early stage of devel- opment. In addition, the active principle component must be identified amongst the many compounds of biotech- nological interest. Biomass from diatom culture may be applied to: (1) aquaculture diets, due to the lipid- and amino-acid-rich cell contents of these microorganisms, and (2) the treatment of water contaminated by phospho- rus and nitrogen in aquaculture effluent, or heavy metal (bioremediation). The most original application of mi- croalgal biomass, and specifically diatoms, is the use of silicon derived from frustules in nanotechnology. The competitiveness of biotechnologically relevant products from diatoms will depend on their cost of production. Apart from EPA, which is less expensive when obtained from Phaeodactylum tricornutum than from cod liver, comparative economic studies of other diatom-derived products as well as optimisation of culture conditions are needed. Extraction of intracellular metabolites should be also optimised to reduce production costs, as has already been shown for EPA. Using cell immobilisation tech- niques, benthic diatoms can be cultivated more efficiently allowing new, biotechnologically relevant products to be investigated.


In 1893, Gestro founded the genus Ceroplophana, only including the simultaneously described species C. modiglianii Gestro. He considered the genus — based on the only known specimen — closely related to Peperonota Westwood, Didrepanephorus Wood-Mason, and Dicaulocephalus Gestro. For rutelines, the males in these genera have strikingly developed secondary sexual characters. Gestro's species was the first representative from an insular locality of this South-East Asian group (Si Rambe, Batakland, North Sumatra; this locality is mentioned on the map in the report of the explorer who collected the material, Modigliani, 1891). Recently I could study seven ♂ of modiglianii from West Malaysia. They show striking differences from Gestro's description. Gestro's type specimen could not be traced in the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale at Genova (E. Tortonese, in litt.). Fortunately, Dr. Erber provided me with six ♂ and the Berlin Museum with one ♂ all from North Sumatra and collected partly in the same area as Gestro's specimen. Consequently a direct comparison became possible. The differences between the Sumatran and Malaysian specimens described and figured below appear to be constant. Both series include insects of varying size and correspondingly developed head armatures. The identical parameres and the general appearance suggest a close relationship, so only a subspecific rank seems justified for the West Malaysian form, which I name Ceroplophana modiglianii Gestro subsp. malaysiana (pl. 1). Due to the indicated differences the to be completed in several respects: Gestro:


Through five experiments, we demonstrate and characterize the basic functionality of imaging fiber bundles for optoelectronic chip-level interconnections. We demonstrate the transmission of spot arrays with spot sizes and a spot pitch roughly equal to 2 and 4 times the core pitch, respectively. We show that optoelectronic integrated circuits, including sources and detectors, can be butt coupled directly to fiber bundles without any additional optical elements. We demonstrate a 16-channel interconnect with -23 dB of cross talk, and we characterize the most significant optical loss mechanism. Finally, we show how imaging fiber bundles can be used to implement more complex interconnection structures by an example of a hybrid-bonded structure that implements a low-cost, high-connectivity solution for more advanced system architectures.


This chapter studies the relationship between free speech and commercial advertising. In the contemporary world, a substantial percentage of the universe of public communication consists of advertising. Speech offering to sell goods and services, typically with inducements to purchase, and often including the price and other conditions of the proposed sale, is a ubiquitous part of modern life. An important question in the theory and practice of freedom of speech is the extent to which, if at all, such communications should be protected against government regulation. Given that the United States is something of a protective outlier on free speech questions generally, even when compared to other liberal industrialized democracies, it is not surprising that free speech protection for commercial advertising is more robust in American law than it is anywhere else in the world. But the question has arisen in many other countries that profess to take the freedom of speech seriously, and thus the chapter will deal with the question of free speech protection for commercial advertising of some sort and to some degree as a question with worldwide implications, and with both theoretical and doctrinal dimensions. It is common in much of the relevant literature to refer to the topic under discussion as 'commercial speech'.


It is crucial for Islamic banks to be efficient in order to withstand competitive pressures and financial crises. This study empirically examines and compares the efficiency of selected Islamic banks in Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries (including Gulf Cooperation Countries) and Asian countries. The efficiency scores were measured using data envelopment analysis based on the intermediation approach. The sample was comprised of 63 Islamic banks, focusing on performance for a four year period (2006 to 2009).The study finds that the main source of technical inefficiency among the Islamic banks is the scale of their operations. The Islamic banks, in general, achieved a high score for pure technical efficiency, indicating that the banks' management were able to efficiently control costs and use the inputs to maximise the outputs regardless of scale effects. On average, Islamic banks from Asian countries are found to be relatively more efficient than those in MENA countries. Interestingly, most of the efficient Islamic banks were from Gulf Cooperation Countries. The economic condition of a country is found to be the main determinant of an Islamic bank's efficiency.IntroductionThe recent global financial crisis brought the Islamic financial industry into the spotlight as a possible alternative for investment and banking (Smola and Mirakhor, 2010). Islamic financial institutions have a relatively high market share in several emerging markets, such as Malaysia and several Middle Eastern countries (Beck et al., 2013). Islamic banking is recognised as one of the fastest growing areas in finance and has grown all over the world. The number of Islamic financial institutions worldwide has risen to over 300 in more than 75 countries concentrated mainly in the Middle East and South East Asia (Sufian and Noor, 2009). Countries like Malaysia and Bahrain are striving to be regional hubs for Islamic financial services (Ariss, 2010).Despite the rapid growth of the Islamic banking and finance industry, analysis of Islamic banking at a cross-country level is still in its infancy (Sufian and Noor, 2009). Furthermore, cross-country analysis - in particular of MENA and Asian countries - is important as most of the well-established Islamic banks are operating in these countries.The aim of this study is to fill the gap in the literature by providing empirical evidence on the efficiency of Islamic banks in MENA and Asian countries during the period 2006 to 2009. Interestingly, the study period includes the occurrence of the financial crisis of 2007/2008 following the subprime meltdown in the United States, which affected the global financial system including Islamic banks that work side-by-side with the conventional banks.Review of the LiteratureExtensive studies have been conducted on bank efficiency, with most focusing especially on geographical regions and individual countries. Many studies have focused on the US (see, for example: Aly et al., 1990; Spong et al., 1995) and on European countries (see, for example: Favero and Papi, 1995; Pasiouras, 2008b). Other studies have focused on the banking industry in Middle Eastern countries, for example, in Turkey (see, for example, Isik and Hassan, 2002a and 2002b), Kuwait (see, for example, Darrat et al., 2002) and Jordan (see, for example, Maghyereh, 2004); countries in Asia, for instance, Malaysia (Omar et al., 2006; Mohd. Tahir et al., 2009), China (Ariff and Can, 2008; Avkiran, 2011) and India (Sathye, 2003); and in Oceania, such as Australia (see, for example, Sathye, 2001; Sturm and Williams, 2004).Moreover, there are many studies that have conducted cross-country efficiency analyses, for instance, the work of Berg et al. (1993), Allen and Rai (1996), Hassan et al. (2000), Diestsch and Lozano-Vivas (2000), Chaffai et al. (2001), Mostafa (2009), Pasiouras (2008a) and Sun and Chang (2011). However, only a few studies have focused particularly on the Islamic banks (see, for example: Hassan and Hussein, 2003; Yudistira, 2004; Hassan, 2006; Sufian, 2006, 2007; Ahmad Mokhtar et al. …


This paper first describes the accreditation instrument currently used by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), then considers some aspects of the future relationship between this professional body and Library & Information Science (LIS) education and training in the UK. A convergence of interests between CILIP and the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) for Higher Education is discussed, notably with reference to subject benchmarking and the need to expand the traditional boundaries of LIS in order to encompass the interests of the archives, records management and museum communities. The paper also considers the impact on the information profession of certain aspects of Government policy in Higher Education, including lifelong learning and the expansion in Continuing Professional Development (CPD). The paper concludes with reference to a scoping exercise to be undertaken by CILIP in order to redefine professional territory and establish a new accreditation instrument.


In flood-prone areas, elevating a building's floor system above the anticipated flood level can significantly limit the extent of property damage associated with flooding. In hot and humid climates, such as the Gulf Coast region, raised floor systems may, however, be at risk for seasonal moisture accumulation, as the majority of residential buildings in such climates are now mechanically cooled. Conditions were monitored over a one-year period in a sample of 12 houses with insulated raised floors, eight in New Orleans and four in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Eleven of the 12 houses were located in flood hazard areas and were constructed with open pier foundations. Several types of insulation were compared across the sample of houses. In all houses, crawlspace vapor pressure was essentially the same as outdoor vapor pressure and exceeded indoor vapor pressure from May to October. Moisture conditions within plywood or solid wood subfloors were found to depend on several variables: season, indoor temperature during summer, type of interior floor finish, and type of under-floor insulation. In most cases subfloor moisture levels were higher in summer than in winter. For a given type of insulation and interior floor finish, subfloor moisture content generally increased with decreasing indoor temperature during summer. For a given indoor temperature and type of insulation, subfloor moisture content was generally higher under an impermeable finish, such as vinyl tile, than under a more permeable finish, such as carpet. Floors with foil-faced polyisocyanurate foam board installed below floor joists displayed no discernible seasonal trend in moisture content and little difference between various interior floor finishes. Subfloor moisture readings were consistently in the 10–14% moisture content (MC) range. Floors with closed cell sprayed polyurethane foam showed only a slight seasonal trend and subtle differences between interior floor finishes. Subfloor moisture contents with closed cell foam in all cases were less than 16% MC in plywood and less than 18% MC in solid wood. Clear seasonal trends were observed in floors with open cell foams and with kraft-faced glass fiber batt insulation. Subfloor moisture content readings above 20%, particularly under impermeable interior floor finishes and with low indoor temperatures during the cooling season, suggest that these insulation types do not reliably protect subfloors from seasonal moisture accumulation. For carpeted floors, where subfloor moisture contents were relatively low, application of vapor retarder paint to open cell foam had no discernible effect. In contrast, for floors finished with vinyl, vapor retarder paint applied over open cell foam appeared to result in lower summertime subfloor moisture content, as compared to that for floors insulated with open cell foam without the paint.


Major and trace element and Nd and Pb isotopic compositions of volcanic rocks from the Sanchazi (SCZ) block of the Mian-Lue ophiolitic melange in the Qinling Mountains, central China were analyzed to provide insights into the subduction processes during the Late Paleozoic along the margins of the paleoTethyan ocean. All igneous rocks from the SCZ block show characteristics typical of arc volcanic rocks such as depletion in high field-strength elements (HFSE) and enrichment in large-ion-lithophile elements (LILE) relative to normal mid-ocean ridge basalts (N-MORB). Included among these arc rocks are highMg andesites (HMAs) and an adakitic andesite. The adakitic andesite has a steep REE pattern, low Y and Yb, and high La/Yb values, which is similar to those of typical adakites derived by partial melting of subducted basaltic crust. The HMAs from the SCZ block also have adakitic affinities except that they have lower La/Yb (~10) and Al2O3 (<15 wt.%). Both the adakitic andesite and HMAs have higher MgO, Ni, and Cr contents than the normal andesites and basalts. The age-corrected Nd-Pb isotopic compositions of the HMAs and adakitic andesite show an enriched isotopic signature relative to the MORB-type rocks in the Mianlue area, suggesting that the former probably contain components from sediments or continental crust materials. The data reveal that the adakitic andesite and HMAs in the SCZ block were most probably produced by partial melting of an eclogitic oceanic crust and/or subducted sediments, followed by interaction of the melt with the overlying mantle wedge, and finally by a possible contamination of the melt by the crustal materials. Our result infers that seafloor spreading was active in the paleo-Tethyan ocean, and an ancient island arc system was present along the proto-Qinling area in the Late Paleozoic. The paleoTethys ocean separated the South China and North China blocks in Late Paleozoic. The final integration between above two blocks is suggested to have occurred in the Triassic.