This research involved analysis and field testing of numerous foundation support components for highway bridges. Two classes of components were tested - cast-in-drilled-hole (CIDH) reinforced concrete piles (drilled shafts) and an abutment backwall. The emphasis of this document (Part II of the full report) is abutment backwall elements. The backwall test specimen was backfilled to a height of 5.5 up from the base of the wall with well-compacted silty sand backfill material (SE 30). The wall is displaced perpendicular to its longitudinal axis. Wing walls are constructed with low-friction interfaces to simulate 2D conditions. The backfill extends below the base of the wall to ensure that the failure surface occurs entirely within the sand backfill soil, which was confirmed following testing. The specimen was constructed and tested under boundary conditions in which the wall was displaced laterally into the backfill and not allowed to displace vertically. A maximum passive capacity of 497 kips was attained at a wall displacement of about 2.0 in, which corresponds to a passive earth pressure coefficient Kp of 16.3. Strain softening occurs following the peak resistance, and a residual resistance of approximately 460 kips is achieved for displacements > 3.0 inch. The equivalent residual passive earth pressure coefficient is Kp = 15.1 and the equivalent uniform passive pressure at residual is approximately 5.1 ksf, which nearly matches the value in the 2004 Seismic Design Criteria of 5.0 ksf. The average abutment stiffness K50 was defined as a secant stiffness through the origin and the point of 50% of the ultimate passive force. For an abutment wall with a backfill height H of 5.5 ft, this stiffness was found to be K50 = 50 kip/in per foot of wall. The load-deflection behavior of the wall-backfill system is reasonably well described by a hyperbolic curve. The passive pressure resultant is under predicted using classical Rankine or Coulomb earth pressure theories. Good estimates of capacity are obtained using the log-spiral formulation and the method-of-slices. The method-of-slices approach is implemented with a log-spiral hyperbolic method of evaluating backbone curves that provides a good match to the data.


Objective: 3-Methylfuran (3-MF) is a common fungal volatile product with active biologic properties, and previous studies have indicated a contribution to airway disease. The aim of the present study was to assess the acute health effects of this compound in humans. Design: Acute effects were assessed via chamber exposure to (1 mg/m3) 3-MF. Participants and measurements: Twenty-nine volunteers provided symptom reports, ocular electromyograms, measurement of eye tear film break-up time, vital staining of the eye, nasal lavage, acoustic rhinometry, transfer tests, and dynamic spirometry. Results: No subjective ratings were significantly increased during exposure. Blinking frequency and the lavage biomarkers myeloperoxidase and lysozyme were significantly increased, and forced vital capacity was significantly decreased during exposure to 3-MF compared with air control. Conclusions and relevance to clinical practice: Acute effects in the eyes, nose, and airways were detected and might be the result of the biologically active properties of 3-MF. Thus, 3-MF may contribute to building-related illness.


OBJECTIVE
To study clinical effects of fibular osteotomy for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis.

METHODS
From January 2015, 12 patients (15 knees) with knee osteoarthritis were treated with fibular osteotomy. The main symptom was interval inside pain. All the patients were female with an average age of 61.3 years old. Early postoperative ambulation of joints was carried out after surgery, and the corresponding radiographic assessment before and after operations were performed with record. Finally, the following indicators were analyzed:VAS, KSS, HSS, respectively before, 2 days and 2 months after the operation.

RESULTS
The average hospitalization time was (6.0±2.4) days, and the time of unilateral operation was (33.3±8.4) minutes without significant bleeding. There were no obvious complications such as wound infection, delayed healing and nerve damage. All the patients could walk around 1 day after operations with a chief complaint of the obvious reduction or disappear of the interval medial knee pain. The VAS score, HSS score and KSS clinical score were significantly improved 2 days after surgery compared to the scores before operation. These above scores and functional score were significantly improved 2 months after operation compared to the scores before operation. X ray films of the weight bearing knees were taken 2 days after surgery, showing increased height of medial joint space to some extent compared to that before operation.

CONCLUSIONS
A fibular osteotomy has been proved to significantly reduce the postoperative pain and facilitate the good recovery of joint function with the advantages of simple surgical procedures and slighttrauma. Therefore, it is an effective method for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis with varus deformity.


Litter material was obtained from broiler birds, reared on chaffed straws of wheat (T1 to T4) and paddy (T5 to T8) at floor spaces of 0.15sq.m/bird (T1, T2, T5 & T6) and 0.18sq.m/bird (T3, T4, T7 & T8). The litter material was then mixed with 10% molasses (DMB).The treatment groups (T2, T4, T6 & T8) were inoculated by 1% (v/w) fermented milk on fresh weight basis whereas control groups (T1, T3, T5 & T7) were not inoculated. All the stacks were covered with polythene sheet and ensiled for 21 days. Pooled over values of crude protein in the control groups, where fermented milk was not added, averaged 24.71 % before ensiling and it reduced to 20.57 % after ensiling. The corresponding values in the treatment groups, where fermented milk was added, were 24.76 and 21.31 %, respectively, indicating significantly (P < 0.05) lesser losses of crude protein when ensiled with fermented milk. The pH of silage reduced from 7.6 to 6.0 in control group, whereas it reduced from 7.8 to 5.6 in the stacks in which fermented milk was added. Reduction in pH of silage is due to higher production of volatile fatty acids in the ensiled material inoculated by fermented milk, thereby indicating beneficial effect of fermented milk in silage making.


Background As Twitter has grown in popularity to 313 million monthly active users, researchers have increasingly been using it as a data source for tobacco-related research. Objective The objective of this systematic review was to assess the methodological approaches of categorically coded tobacco Twitter data and make recommendations for future studies. Methods Data sources included PsycINFO, Web of Science, PubMed, ABI/INFORM, Communication Source, and Tobacco Regulatory Science. Searches were limited to peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings in English from January 2006 to July 2016. The initial search identified 274 articles using a Twitter keyword and a tobacco keyword. One coder reviewed all abstracts and identified 27 articles that met the following inclusion criteria: (1) original research, (2) focused on tobacco or a tobacco product, (3) analyzed Twitter data, and (4) coded Twitter data categorically. One coder extracted data collection and coding methods. Results E-cigarettes were the most common type of Twitter data analyzed, followed by specific tobacco campaigns. The most prevalent data sources were Gnip and Twitter's Streaming application programming interface (API). The primary methods of coding were hand-coding and machine learning. The studies predominantly coded for relevance, sentiment, theme, user or account, and location of user. Conclusions Standards for data collection and coding should be developed to be able to more easily compare and replicate tobacco-related Twitter results. Additional recommendations include the following: sample Twitter's databases multiple times, make a distinction between message attitude and emotional tone for sentiment, code images and URLs, and analyze user profiles. Being relatively novel and widely used among adolescents and black and Hispanic individuals, Twitter could provide a rich source of tobacco surveillance data among vulnerable populations.


This paper presents a deadbeat current control strategy for a stand-alone induction generator (IG), working with variable speed and load to regulate both the IG terminal voltage and the dc-bus voltage of the pulse-width modulation (PWM) converter. The deadbeat current controller is a good application for the IG to reject the IG terminal voltage sensor. Furthermore in the proposed system, not an encoder but a newly designed phase locked loop (PLL) circuit is used to determine the stator voltage vector position of the IG. PWM converter does not control the frequency of IG but it works in synchronizing with the IG frequency by using the phase information of the PLL circuit. A 2.2 kW laboratory prototype has been built to confirm the feasibility of the proposed method.


The worldwide emergence of microbial resistance to antibiotics constitutes an important and growing public health threat, and novel antibiotics are urgently needed. In this report, a series of symmetrical membrane-active agents linked by an aromatic nucleus were designed and synthesized. Some showed high antibacterial activity against clinical drug-resistant bacterial isolates including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), carbapenemase-producing Enterobacter aerogenes and delhi metallo-β-lactamase-1-producing Enterobacteriaceae (NDM-1), as well as drug-sensitive bacteria including Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecalis, Escherichia coli, and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia. Lead compound 2n, with good selectivity for S. aureus (minimum inhibitory concentration [MIC] 0.25 μg/mL) versus mammalian erythrocytes (hemolytic concentration [HC50] 1211 μg/mL), had notable properties, including stability in complex mammalian fluids, rapid killing of pathogens, ability to eradicate established biofilms, and little induction of bacterial drug-resistance. In a mouse MRSA infection model, compound 2n exhibited a similar level of efficacy to vancomycin in killing bacteria and suppressing inflammation, demonstrating its therapeutic potential.


The best case series (BCS) is a retrospective chart review that describes a series of patients who all appear to have benefitted from the treatment under study. The BCS has been advocated as the first research step for evaluating complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) treatments for cancer. However, the research value of the BCS has not been assessed. To address this deficiency, the present study evaluates the primary characteristics of the BCS process through a systematic review of the English language scientific literature. Twenty-four individual BCS investigating 16 unique CAM treatments for cancer were identified. About half of the BCS reported evidence of tumor regression in association with a particular CAM treatment, but only six contained documentation adequate for publication in peer-reviewed journals. For these six BCS the number of responders per BCS ranged from 2 to 12 (median, 3.5), the proportion of responders in the total number of evaluated cases varied from 6% to 100% (median, 40%), and the proportion of evaluated cases to identified cases ranged from 18% to 53% (median, 29%). The primary factors confounding the identified BCS were lack of documentation of disease and/or the use of concurrent or recent conventional treatment. Despite these general deficiencies, four BCS (antineoplastons, hydrazine sulfate, laetrile, and Kelly-Gonzalez) were sufficiently convincing to warrant follow-up clinical trials. These data suggest that while well-documented BCS do have an impact on the research agenda, in general, additional rigor is needed during their compilation.


State Capacity in East Asia examines states and state capacity in four countries - China, Japan, Taiwan, and Vietnam - that have experienced rapid economic growth over several decades. The book is informed by the view that even though modern market forces and transnational corporations exert new pressures which erode some powers formerly held by the nation-state, it is much too early to declare the state dead. The modern state is constantly being shaped by social interaction in a process of mutual empowerment at both the central and local level. States also have a history which is built into their structures and ideology and will influence the way they change and adapt to outside pressures. The book argues that the capability to adapt and to develop new capacities and institutions is at the heart of the Asian states' recovery from the deep economic and social crisis of the late 1990s.


Minimal quantity lubrication (MQL) machining typically uses several tens of milliliters per hour of cutting fluid: a very small quantity compared with generally several tens of thousands of milliliters per hour in the conventional flood supply of cutting fluids. MQL machining can reduce considerably the consumption of cutting fluids, so is a representative and successful environmentally friendly manufacturing operation. Specific synthetic polyol esters with high biodegradability, excellent oxidation stability, and satisfactory cutting performance were evaluated as optimal cutting fluids for MQL machining. The esters are required to work as an effective lubricant in the cutting zone in very small amounts, so the tribological actions are particularly important to improve the cutting performance. A controlled atmosphere cutting apparatus was devised to investigate the relationship between the tribological action and the practical cutting performance of the esters in MQL machining. A model ester and oxygen showed mutually enhanced adsorption activities for machining of steel by the efficient formation of an adsorption film which provided the lubricating effect and improved the cutting performance. In contrast, the presence of oxygen resulted in unfavorable cutting situations for machining of aluminum.


Several lines of evidence point to lifestyle choices that may improve brain health. Genetic factors are important to the process of aging, especially as it relates to vulnerability to Alzheimer's disease (AD), but non-genetic factors clearly have a role as well. This paper highlights studies suggesting that diet, exercise, socialization, and supplements may protect the brain from age-related decline. Observational evidence has indicated that several dietary practices can help maintain the health of one's brain. The first such practice is to moderate one's caloric intake. Illnesses related to obesity, such as diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol, are associated with poorer brain health. The second is to increase one's intake of antioxidant foods, such as fresh fruits, and vegetables. The third is to increase intake of foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids, such as fish and olive oil. These fats in the diet may be associated with lower risk of dementia. Finally, consuming low glycemic-index carbohydrates instead of high glycemic-index carbohydrates, which spike blood sugar levels and are associated with higher risk of type 2 diabetes, may benefit the brain. Many studies have been conducted on the connection between a lower risk for AD and healthy diet. While there are not much data from randomized-controlled trials, epidemiologic studies support the theory that diet can have an impact on vulnerability to AD.


Channel feedback is essential in frequency division duplexing (FDD) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. Unfortunately, prior work on multiuser MIMO has shown that the feedback overhead scales linearly with the number of base station (BS) antennas, which is large in massive MIMO systems. To reduce the feedback overhead, we propose an angle-of-departure (AoD) adaptive subspace codebook for channel feedback in FDD massive MIMO systems. Our key insight is to leverage the observation that path AoDs vary more slowly than the path gains. Within the angle coherence time, by utilizing the constant AoD information, the proposed AoD-adaptive subspace codebook is able to quantize the channel vector in a more accurate way. From the performance analysis, we show that the feedback overhead of the proposed codebook only scales linearly with a small number of dominant (path) AoDs instead of the large number of BS antennas. Moreover, we compare the proposed quantized feedback technique using the AoD-adaptive subspace codebook with a comparable analog feedback method. Extensive simulations show that the proposed AoD-adaptive subspace codebook achieves good channel feedback quality, while requiring low overhead.


Ampullary Neuroendocrine tumor (ANET) is a rare GI
malignancy, representing less than 1% of GI neuroendocrine tumors and less than
2% of ampullary tumors. Traditional treatment is often a
pancreaticoduodenectomy; however, local and endoscopic resections have been
successful. We report a rare case of ANET in a 21-year-old Burmese man who presented with a 6-year history
of non-specific intermittent abdominal pain who was successfully managed
through transduodenal ampullectomy. At 24 months postoperatively he
remains disease and symptom free. ANET is a rare cause of recurrent abdominal pain, and
local excision of small ANETs can be an alternative, less morbid treatment for
young patients. We follow the case with a brief review of the
literature.


Homogenates of hamster and bovine glands contain a "sperm motility factor" (SMF) that stimulates the motility of hamster epididymal spermatozoa in vitro. The potency of these adrenal preparations was severely attenuated after gel filtration on a Sephadex G-10 column. This loss of activity was ascribed to the retardation and separation of co-factors for SMF which appeared to be catecholamines. The sperm motility-stimulating activity of the SMF-containing fractions was fully restored by addition of either the 'retarded' fractions or catecholamines (epinephrine or norepinephrine). Neither the catecholamines nor the 'retarded' fractions were able to sustain vigorous sperm motility in the absence of the SMF-containing fractions. The potentiating action of catecholamines on SMF was mimicked by the adrenergic agonists isoproterenol and phenylephrine and inhibited by the alpha-adrenergic antagonist phentolamine, but not by the beta-adrenergic antagonist propranolol. Our results indicate that one or more catecholamines are essential co-factors of SMF and demonstrate that hamster spermatozoa require catecholamines for their motility in vitro.


Contexte: The fight against
HIV/AIDS epidemics is one of the greatest challenges of this century. The
epidemic affects generally under-developed countries, and Sub-Saharan Africa
are the most concerned. The combined marketed form known as Triomune was used
as first-line treatment in several sub-Saharan African Countries (60% of VIH
infected people), including Chad. However, no evaluation has been done for that
treatment in the country. Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety
immuno-virological of Triomune at the General Hospital in N'Djamena/Chad.
Methods: 48 HIV-1 positive patients eligible for ARV treatment were enrolled in
our study, and they have been then followed for 8 months. We have measured in
these patients the CD4 cell count before treatment and at the 8th month of
treatment. After 8 months of treatment, we have also evaluated the Lymphocyte T
CD4 and the plasma viral load (VL). Comparisons of means of CD4 lymphocytes and
plasma CV (≥1000 copies/ml) were used to define treatment failure. Results: 48
patients were under Triomune regime. The average CD4 count was decreased from
462 ± 179.22 [56 - 981] cells/mm3 before treatment to 327.23 ±
153.77 [10 - 1008] cells/mm3 at the 8th month of treatment. The
mean plasma viral load for patients was 66008.62 copies/ml. The failure rate to
Triomune was 43.75% (21/48). Conclusion: Aside from the side effects
already described for Triomune, our study reveals a high treatment failure
rate. Hence, there is the need of regular revisions of therapeutic regime
administer in the first intention.


The establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs) requires a thorough assessment of the abundance, distribution, and habitat preferences of a variety of marine species. Small cetacean spatial distribution and abundance were examined in the Pacific waters of Guatemala to provide this information. Boat surveys were conducted for 38 months between January 2008 and June 2012. A total of 64,678 cetaceans in 505 sightings from nine Delphinidae species were recorded. Three species, referred to as common species, accounted for 90% (n = 456) of all sightings. They included Tursiops truncatus (56%, n = 278), Stenella attenuata (29%, n = 143), and Stenella longirostris (7%, n = 35). Group size was significantly different among the common species (p < 0.001). S. longirostris had the largest group size (444 ± 75 dolphins), followed by S. attenuata (28 ± 5 dolphins), and T. truncatus (15 ± 2 dolphins). T. truncatus was the most common in the study area (0.02 ± 0.002 sightings/km of survey effort), and S. attenuata (0.37 ± 0.16 dolphins/km) and S. longirostris (1.62 ± 0.41 dolphins/km) were the most abundant in the neritic (≤200 m depth) and oceanic zones (≥200 m depth), respectively. The wide-ranging distribution of T. truncatus overlapped with the distribution of S. attenuata in the neritic zone and S. longirostris in the oceanic zone. Little overlap was observed in the distribution of S. attenuata and S. longirostris. Most hot spots (∼66%) were in the oceanic zone and no hot spots were near or in the MPAs. Hot spots were identified along the 200 m isobath, the Middle America trench, and the San José Canyon. These could be areas of high productivity where dolphins concentrate to feed. To the north of the San José Canyon, five species of small cetaceans were observed in a stretch of the neritic zone including three MPAs. No other section of this zone had such high diversity. Results need to be taken with caution given the small sample size. Our results suggest that the protection of small cetaceans needs to consider the creation of oceanic MPAs that should be integrated into the existing network.


ABSTRACT As Louisiana continues to experience substantial coastal wetland loss—at the rate of a football field every 45 min—and multiple disasters, state and federal officials struggle with implementing restoration plans in this highly productive ecosystem. The 2007 Louisiana Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast is the first large-scale restoration plan in the United States to incorporate hazard mitigation. However, there is no mandate for local governments to adhere to this plan. Building upon the planning quality and evaluation literature, this study analyzes comprehensive land use plans in Louisiana's coastal zone to systematically assess the quality of the plans within the context of a non-mandated, $50 billion large-scale state restoration plan. Results indicate a great disparity in plan quality; a majority of the local governments lack the capacity to implement the nonstructural programmatic elements of the state's plan.  The study concludes with a discussion and recommendations for practice and future research.


PurposeThis study explores the contribution that tech startups can provide in the fight against COVID-19. The Tech4Covid movement is presented to that effect, which has joined several Portuguese tech startups. This initiative gathers more than 5,000 volunteers and 28 ongoing projects in several interdisciplinary areas, including science, technology, health and education.Design/methodology/approachTwo qualitative methods are adopted: the case study and the field research technique. This joint approach allows exploring in-depth the relevance and impact of the different areas included in Tech4Covid movement. Data were collected both from primary sources, namely by the authors' participation in the movement and by the use of secondary sources from each project.FindingsThe findings reveal three main areas in which the 28 ongoing projects can be categorized, respectively: support to health professionals and hospital equipment, health and education services and business and leisure. These projects offer direct and indirect contributions to the fight against COVID-19. From a perspective, they were initially designed to support health professionals in gathering protective equipment and supporting screening for suspicious cases. From another perspective, they also offer indirect benefits to citizens and the local economy.Originality/valueThis paper addresses a recent phenomenon with a dramatic impact on public health, social and economic dimensions. The study provides essentially practical contributions by revealing how Portuguese technological startups were organized and worked together to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is expected this study will serve as a reference for other countries and communities that intend to replicate this model.


The aim of the work is to present a case report of multiple evanescent white-dot syndrome in the left eye of 34 years old female. It's a rare disease entity which runs as a idiopathic inflammation of retina and choroid. Additional investigations which are performed in the clinic such as fluorescein angiography, indocyanine green angiography validated a primary diagnosis in this case. Intravenous infusion of methylprednisolone was administered with oral steroid continuation of therapy during four weeks. A quick visual improvement to 1.0 in the left eye was obtained with removalof characteristic for MEWDS alterations in additional investigations.


The Ocean Gene Atlas is a web service to explore the biogeography of genes from marine planktonic organisms. It allows users to query protein or nucleotide sequences against global ocean reference gene catalogs. With just one click, the abundance and location of target sequences are visualized on world maps as well as their taxonomic distribution. Interactive results panels allow for adjusting cutoffs for homology and displaying the abundances of genes in the context of environmental features (temperature, nutrients, etc.) measured at the time of sampling. The ease of use enables non-bioinformaticians to explore quantitative and contextualized information on genes of interest in the global ocean ecosystem. Currently the Ocean Gene Atlas is deployed with i) the Ocean Microbial Reference Gene Catalog (OM-RGC) comprising 40 million non-redundant mostly prokaryotic gene sequences, and ii) the Marine Atlas of Tara Ocean Unigenes (MATOU) composed of >116 million eukaryote unigenes, both produced by the Tara Oceans sequencing effort. Additional datasets will be added upon availability of further marine environmental datasets that provide the required complement of sequence assemblies, raw reads and contextual environmental parameters. Ocean Gene Atlas is a freely-available web service at: http://tara-oceans.mio.osupytheas.fr/ocean-gene-atlas/.


The objectives of this study were to investigate the ability to help themselves and depression of the ageing based on sex and living conditions. The purposive sampling was employed to select a group of the 702-elderly aged between 60 and 90 years old using statistical values which were Mean (70.29) and Standard Deviation (7.32). The subjects were 285 men and 417 women. Based on the conditions of residence, 470 of them lived with families (Lf) while 232 lived alone (La). The ability to help themselves and depression was classified based on the aging-questionnaire, 2015 and Thai geriatric depression scale (TGDS) by the Ministry of Public Health. The results of the study found that most ageing still have good mental conditions and help themselves as normal basic movement. But it is necessary considered base on a caseby-case depend on the condition of sex, living status and health condition.


An elevated expression of TNF-alpha in embryonic microenvironment was found to be associated with postimplantation loss. In this work, we examined the pattern of TNF-alpha expression at both the mRNA and the protein level as well as the distribution of TNF-alpha receptor mRNA in the uteroplacental unit of mice with induced (cyclophosphamide-treated) or spontaneous (CBA/J x DBA/2J mouse combination) pregnancy loss. RNase protection analysis demonstrated an increase in TNF-alpha mRNA expression in the placentae of mice with pregnancy loss compared with that in control mice. TNF-alpha messages were localized to the uterine epithelium and stroma as well as the giant and spongiotrophoblast cells of the placenta. The intensity of the hybridization signal in placentae of mice with pregnancy loss was substantially higher than that in control mice. The up-regulation of TNF-alpha mRNA was accompanied by an increase in the expression of TNF-alpha receptor I mRNA in the same cell populations. The elevation of TNF-alpha production was also demonstrated at the protein level. Western blot analysis showed an increased level of the 18- and 26-kDa TNF-alpha protein species in the uteroplacental unit of mice with pregnancy loss. Immunostaining revealed TNF-alpha-positive leukocytes located in the uterus and placenta. Finally, we found that immunization of mice with cyclophosphamide-induced pregnancy loss while decreasing the resorption rate in these females resulted in a decline in TNF-alpha expression at the fetomaternal interface. These data clearly suggest an involvement of TNF-alpha in pathways leading to both spontaneous and induced placental death.


Although he spent almost all of his artistic career in the post-1948 state of Israel, S. Yizhar hardly wrote about this era. This article explores Yizhar's persistent return to the year of 1948 in Israel/Palestine. I suggest that this return entails the textual formation of a nonnovelistic narration of continuous expectation and deferral that rejects the present time of action and develops nonfactual, speculative temporality. This temporality is at the core of Yizhar's "1948-time," engaging a potential rupture in historical time and positing an active refusal of the post-1948 Israeli time of sovereignty. Examining the literary working of this speculative temporality in one passage of Yizhar's 1949 novella "Hirbet Hiz'ah," I show how reading Yizhar's work from this "1948-time" might alter the way we conceptualize the novella's subject matter and political meaning. Ultimately, I ask what might happen if we start thinking about Hebrew literature from the vantage point of this 1948-time.


We have studied the formation and carried out an in vivo evaluation of hydroxyapatite (HAp)/collagen and HAp/denatured collagen (gelatin) composite coatings on titanium substrates using a thermal substrate method. The coatings were formed on commercial pure titanium rods (diameter = 2 mm, length = 5 mm) and plates (thickness = 0.3 mm) using a thermal substrate method in aqueous solutions that contained 0.3 mM Ca(H2PO4)2, 0.7 mM CaCl2, and a concentration of acid-soluble collagen (Type I) of � 432 mg dm � 3 . The coating experiments were conducted at 40–140 � C and pH ¼ 8 for periods of 15 or 30 min. The coating temperature and collagen content in the solution influenced the surface morphology and collagen (or gelatin) content in the films. A coated rod was implanted in a 10-week-old male rat's tibia with a noncoated titanium rod being used as a control. The constructs were retrieved after a period of 14 d postimplantation and examined for new bone formation and for tissue response in the cancellous and cortical bone parts, respectively. HAp/gelatin composite films coated at > 60 � C showed a slight improvement in osteoconductivity in the cortical bone. In contrast, there was no improvement in the cancellous bone, compared with HAp, which had no gelatin. However, the HAp/collagen composites showed a high osteoconductivity in the cortical bone region, and this increased with increasing collagen content in the films. There was the same tendency in the cancellous bone part. However, too higher a collagen content (40 mass%) in the films gave rise to an obvious negative osteoconductive effect. [doi:10.2320/matertrans.MRA2008459]


Introduction:
 Patients with unprovoked venous thromboembolism (VTE) have a high recurrence risk, and, according to guidelines, should receive extended oral anticoagulation (OAC). OAC prevents recurrence in most patients but may cause major bleeding. Patients with a low recurrence risk could therefore benefit from limited OAC duration. The Vienna prediction model (VPM) estimates the recurrence risk of patients with a first unprovoked deep vein thrombosis (DVT) of the leg and/or pulmonary embolism (PE) based on the patient's sex, site of index VTE and D-Dimer measured after stopping OAC (Eichinger et al., Circulation 2010). In a prospective cohort management study, we evaluated whether the VPM can identify patients with an unprovoked VTE at low recurrence risk.
 Methods: The study was performed between January 2013 and May 2021 at two tertiary Austrian hospitals. Patients >18 years with a first symptomatic DVT of the leg and/or symptomatic PE were eligible. The diagnosis of VTE was established by compression ultrasonography (CUS), spiral computed tomography, or lung scanning. We excluded patients with previous VTE, VTE provoked by a temporary risk factor including surgery, trauma, pregnancy, immobilisation, or female hormone intake, with cancer, OAC duration longer than 7 months or OAC for reasons other than VTE. OAC was discontinued 3 to 7 months after VTE diagnosis. D-Dimer was measured by a quantitative assay 3 weeks later and the probability of recurrence was estimated by the VPM. In patients with <180 risk points (corresponding to a predicted one-year recurrence risk of <4.4%), OAC was not resumed. CUS of both legs was performed at the time of discontinuation of OAC for reference baseline imaging in case of suspected recurrence. Patients were seen after 3, 12 and 24 months or at recurrence. Patients with a high recurrence risk (>180 VPM risk points) were excluded and their management was left to the discretion of their local practitioner. The main outcome measure was independently adjudicated recurrence of symptomatic DVT of the leg and/or symptomatic PE.
 The study was approved by the local ethics committees and all patients gave written informed consent.
 Statistical analysis:
 Baseline characteristics of patients were described by median and interquartile range (IQR) or by absolute frequency and percentage. The cumulative risk of recurrent VTE after discontinuation of OAC was estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method. Recurrence risk was also predicted with the VPM for each patient, and predictions were averaged over the study group.
 Results:
 Of 818 eligible patients, 520 (65%) had a risk score of <180 points and were classified as being at low risk of recurrence. They were included in the study and did not resume OAC. Their median age was 52 (42-65) years, and 289 (56%) were men. 226 (43%) patients had PE, 206 (40%) proximal and 88 (17%) distal DVT as index VTE. Median duration of anticoagulation was 3.9 (3.3-5.7) months, and the median time of follow-up was 23.9 (23.8, 23.9) months. Ten (1.9%) patients were lost to follow-up.52 patients (of which 30 were male) had non-fatal recurrent VTE (5.8 events per 100 patient-years, 95% CI 4.4-7.7). 28 (54%) patients had PE, 17 (33%) proximal and 7 (13%) distal DVT at recurrence.
 The cumulative risk of recurrence at one and two years was 5.2% (95% CI 3.2-7.2) and 11.2% (95% CI 8.3-14), respectively (Figure 1). The corresponding predicted recurrence risk for the study group was 4% and 7%, respectively.
 Conclusion: The VPM identifies patients with unprovoked VTE at low risk of recurrence. Applying the VPM refines risk stratification which could facilitate treatment decisions on the duration of OAC for patients and physicians. The model was well calibrated at one year. The apparent underestimation of the recurrence risk at two years could be countered by recalibration.
 Figure 1 Figure 1.

 Eichinger: Takeda: Speakers Bureau; Daiichi-Sankyo: Speakers Bureau; BMS: Speakers Bureau; Bayer: Speakers Bureau; Pfizer: Speakers Bureau; Boehringer-Ingelheim: Speakers Bureau; CSL Behring: Speakers Bureau.


Abstract Conodonts have been restudied in order to define the base of the Changhsingian Stage boundary at Meishan, Changxing County, Zhejiang Province, China. The Changhsingian represents the second and last stage of the Upper Permian, which is also known as the Lopingian Series. A sample-population based taxonomic approach has been used and described. This approach usually views the entire collection within a given sample as a population and recognizes the most consistent and stable characters within that 'sample-population' for identification. Three related conodont species, Clarkina longicuspidata Mei & Wardlaw in Mei et al. 1994, C. wangi (Zhang 1987) and C. subcarinata (Sweet in Teichert et al. 1973) have been redefined and redescribed using this new approach that recognizes carinal development as an apomorphic character for these taxa. A consistent change in denticulation has been observed between Clarkina longicuspidata and Clarkina wangi wherein C. longicuspidata has a prominent gap in front of the cusp, whereas C. wangi has a 'wall'-like carina. The carinal change may have resulted from a heterochronic process involving acceleration, since juvenile descendants exhibit features of ancestral adults; the change may be related to the evolution of other biota that may represent potential food sources for the conodont animal, given the apparent importance of the conodont carina for food processing. It is suggested that the base of the Changhsingian Stage could be defined within the C. longicuspidata-C. wangi lineage, based on the newly refined taxonomy. This boundary occurs close to the flooding surface that represents at least the second parasequence within the Changxing Limestone. The proposed boundary is close to, but not identical with, the traditionally defined boundary.


The New Space Age is awash with discourses about space colonization and resource exploitation, and these happily coexist with the age-old and curiosity-driven question, "Are we alone in the universe?" Astrobiology addresses this question and, at the same time, codifies knowledge useful for protecting our planet and other celestial bodies from harmful contamination. This article critically examines astroenvironmentalism as discussed within astrobiology and attempts to rescue it from becoming a principle of border creation in otherworldly ecologies. To do so, it merges astrobiology with visions and images from feminist postcolonial and decolonial theory, STS, and science fiction, and reflects on the enduring colonial tropes that provide the building blocks of current knowledge on outer space. The same colonial cartographic imagination at play in the much-debated frontier narrative animates the concept of planetary parks. These have gained increased popularity as a mechanism of environmental protection in space, but it is important to note how they entertain a settler future in outer space and legitimize claims to territorial property and extraction. In a dialogue that is contrapuntal to the codification of this form of transplanetary environmentalism, this article traces how Lynn Margulis's cosmic symbiosis, Donna Haraway's sympoiesis, and Ursula K. Le Guin's The Word for World Is Forest (1976) intersect with concerns of astrobiological knowledge. Crucially, they enable the blurring of three types of borders: between science and fiction; planetary inside and outside; life and matter. This border-crossing can be generative of a process of creating more-than-human relationalities beyond Earth-centric geographies.


We describe changes in the morphology of the oviductal epithelium of an oviparous skink, Lampropholis guichenoti, during the course of egg production and oviposition : to characterize the luminal epithelial changes; to provide a baseline for understanding uterine changes in viviparous species; and to establish whether the plasma membrane transformation of uterine epithelial cells is indeed a feature restricted to viviparous species. Oviducts from vitellogenic, gravid, and postgravid females were observed using scanning electron microscopy. Cellular characteristics of the oviductal epithelium previously used to determine the plasma membrane transformation were assessed morphologically. Three anatomically different areas were defined within the oviduct, but no plasma membrane transformation was observed in the oviparous skink, suggesting that this is a phenomenon particular to viviparity. J. Morphol. 262:536–544, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Teams often need to adapt to planned discontinuous task change or fundamental alteration of tasks, tools, and work systems. Although team adaptation theories have made substantive progress in explaining how teams can respond to change, they have not adequately considered the unique impact that discontinuous task change can have on teams. Such change can render not only collective but also individual task capabilities obsolete and necessitate a multilevel task relearning process. Drawing on the team compilation model, we suggest that adaptation to discontinuous task change is akin to team (re)development. We posit that teams are more effective when they approach discontinuous task change by first focusing on the rebuilding of individual task capabilities and only later shifting their attention to the rebuilding of team-level task capabilities. Moreover, we argue that the uncertainty caused by discontinuous task change makes reward fairness salient such that equity and equality in rewards are particularly useful in motivating members to (re)develop individual and collective task capabilities, respectively. We provide support for these arguments using survey, qualitative, and archival data from 115 manufacturing teams and discuss the implications of our findings for both research and practice. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.1621 .


In this paper, I propose that what I will call "#selfie" is far from being a figurative object as it is generally assumed, since figurativeness is not an accidental consequence.  As 'figurative', we mean the quality of the image with iconic reference to objects and subjects belonging to the natural world (beings, phenomena, things). According to Greimas (1984), in order to analyse a work of art you must first determine whether it is of a figurative or abstract kind and, therefore, whether it represents icons that are related to the natural world (beings, phenomena, objects) or those which have no figurative references.  Based on a number of examples of #selfies, I shall instead demonstrate that the context in which these self-portraying pictures are taken, as well as the online and social environment in which they are shared, are more important than the self-portrayed subjects themselves. The hashtag "#", in fact, indicates the centrality of the tag, the gesture of tagging, which is considerably more important than the fact of being self-portrayed through the #selfie. This implies that research on the practice of taking and sharing #selfies should (re)consider the current discussion focus on all those contemporary phenomena that are fostering and developing self-expression through new media. Taking into account the reflections made by Esposito on the impersonal (2007) and the research by Villa on contemporary self-portraits (2012, 2013), I will try to relate the production of #selfies to the practices of conceptual art (eg. Location of the I by Martin John Callanan), rather than privileging the idea of artistic (self)representation.


Attenuation is a major drawback for the field of satellite communication which we can not ignore, but, ofcourse can try to mitigate at an instant. In this project, my focus is on the attenutaion part. I am trying to explain the types of attenuation which is being faced by the signal at tropospheric region. We will see how the signal changes its properties when it passes through tropospheric region. Different type of models is being used by the research scientist for measurement of the attenuation impact over the signal. Many times the models has given the fruitful result but some time they are failed as per different location. I took the Ku-band signal from NSS-6 (geostationary 950E) at an elevation angle of from Kolkata. My result outcome shows that the ITU-R model is the best model out of them and it makes the best predictions for different tropical climates. Based on my experimental result, I am trying to show that the ITU-R model is the best option for our climate. On the other side, I have explained through my project that how much signal depolarized at the different percentage of time at one-minute rain rate distribution.


Recognizing emotional reactions of movie audiences to affective movie content is a challenging task in affective computing. Previous research on induced emotion recognition has mainly focused on using audio-visual movie content. Nevertheless, the relationship between the perceptions of the affective movie content (perceived emotions) and the emotions evoked in the audiences (induced emotions) is unexplored. In this work, we studied the relationship between perceived and induced emotions of movie audiences. Moreover, we investigated multimodal modelling approaches to predict movie induced emotions from movie content based features, as well as physiological and behavioral reactions of movie audiences. To carry out analysis of induced and perceived emotions, we first extended an existing database for movie affect analysis by annotating perceived emotions in a crowd-sourced manner. We find that perceived and induced emotions are not always consistent with each other. In addition, we show that perceived emotions, movie dialogues, and aesthetic highlights are discriminative for movie induced emotion recognition besides spectators' physiological and behavioral reactions. Also, our experiments revealed that induced emotion recognition could benefit from including temporal information and performing multimodal fusion. Moreover, our work deeply investigated the gap between affective content analysis and induced emotion recognition by gaining insight into the relationships between aesthetic highlights, induced emotions, and perceived emotions.


Purpose: Evaluation of the cost and effectiveness of therapy for patients with the wet form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in routine clinical practice. Methods: A retrospective multicentre evaluation of changes in the best-corrected visual acuity in applied kinds of therapy and a comparison with the cost of individual therapeutic procedures. Results: An overall total of 788 eyes of 763 patients with an average age of 73.2 ± 8.6 years was evaluated for a 1-year minimum period. In the ranibizumab and pegaptanib therapy groups, a reduction of 1.3 letters (p = 0.303) and 1.4 letters (p = 0.197) was found, respectively. In the group of photodynamic therapy (PDT) with verteporfin, a reduction of 5.2 letters was achieved (p < 0.001). Under the conditions of routine practice in the Czech Republic, the annual cost is highest (EUR 5,467.63/patient) in patients with pegaptanib therapy. The annual cost in patients with ranibizumab therapy is lower by EUR 1,220.16. The cost is nearly half (EUR 2,783.65) in the group treated with PDT with verteporfin. Conclusion: An initiation of AMD therapy by ranibizumab is cost-effective as compared to pegaptanib. Both ranibizumab and pegaptanib are significantly more efficient as compared to PDT with verteporfin. Therapy with ranibizumab and pegaptanib, as compared to PDT with verteporfin, prevents the loss of 1 line of vision on the ETDRS chart for EUR 1,225.98 and 2,286.18, respectively.


Abstract:  Many wide‐ranging mammal species have experienced significant declines over the last 200 years; restoring these species will require long‐term, large‐scale recovery efforts. We highlight 5 attributes of a recent range‐wide vision‐setting exercise for ecological recovery of the North American bison (Bison bison) that are broadly applicable to other species and restoration targets. The result of the exercise, the "Vermejo Statement" on bison restoration, is explicitly (1) large scale, (2) long term, (3) inclusive, (4) fulfilling of different values, and (5) ambitious. It reads, in part, "Over the next century, the ecological recovery of the North American bison will occur when multiple large herds move freely across extensive landscapes within all major habitats of their historic range, interacting in ecologically significant ways with the fullest possible set of other native species, and inspiring, sustaining and connecting human cultures." We refined the vision into a scorecard that illustrates how individual bison herds can contribute to the vision. We also developed a set of maps and analyzed the current and potential future distributions of bison on the basis of expert assessment. Although more than 500,000 bison exist in North America today, we estimated they occupy <1% of their historical range and in no place express the full range of ecological and social values of previous times. By formulating an inclusive, affirmative, and specific vision through consultation with a wide range of stakeholders, we hope to provide a foundation for conservation of bison, and other wide‐ranging species, over the next 100 years.


Background . In the context of the burden of disease and the need to promote health among the Malawian population, Health Communication for Life in 2016 embarked on a 5-year social and behaviour change communication (SBCC) project to support the Malawian government's effort to expand access to sustainable health services. As part of this support, a capacity assessment was conducted in the Ministry of Health.  Objectives . To obtain a baseline measurement of current SBCC competencies, and to inform skills building for SBCC.  Methods. Two standardised participatory tools were developed to capture SBCC competencies at the national and zonal/district levels, based on a collective competency framework. The national assessment was conducted with 8 health promotion officers based in the Health Education Section of the Ministry of Health. At district level, 30 district health promotion officers from 28 districts participated in the assessment.  Results . The capacity assessment showed that health promotion officers had on average low capacity to plan, implement and evaluate SBCC interventions. However, there was variation within different domains, where the institutional capacity to lead and co-ordinate at both national and district levels was fairly strong, yet organisational capacity to evaluate, scale and sustain SBCC interventions was relatively weak. Participants also provided input to improve the assessment tools.  Conclusion. By presenting the process and results of the capacity assessments, this article highlights the need for articulating SBCC requisite skills, and establishing a baseline measurement of these skills as a step towards strengthening SBCC capacity at different levels of government.


Selfish mining, originally discovered by Eyal et al. [9], is a well-known attack where a selfish miner, under certain conditions, can gain a disproportionate share of reward by deviating from the honest behavior. In this paper, we expand the mining strategy space to include novel "stubborn" strategies that, for a large range of parameters, earn the miner more revenue. Consequently, we show that the selfish mining attack is not (in general) optimal. Further, we show how a miner can further amplify its gain by non-trivially composing mining attacks with network-level eclipse attacks. We show, surprisingly, that given the attacker's best strategy, in some cases victims of an eclipse attack can actually benefit from being eclipsed!


Basori Small Medium Enterprise hasn't done financial planning yet therefore Basori Small Medium Enterprise need cost volume profit analysis. The aims of the research were to know profile, to analyze cost, sales volume, profit at "Basori" SME in the next period. The type of this research were descriptive qualitative and quantitative. Data collection using observation, interviews, documentation and literature study. The result show that "Basori" SME is a catfish hatchery business located in the village of Maguan, Ngajum subdistict, Malang regency is quite developed. CVP analysis show that the highest cost incurred at Basori SME occurred in the period October - November 2016 amounted to IDR 6,678,656 and the lowest cost occurred in February - March 2018 period of IDR 6,473,656. While the highest seed sales volume was 293,000 seeds in the period of February - March 2018 and the lowest seed sales volume was 234,000 seeds in August - September 2016 period. The highest profit in February - March 2018 was IDR 13,666,344 and the lowest was IDR 11,541,344 in October - November 2016. CVP analysis results are known to forecast sales volume and profits an increase, while costs tend to decrease. Looking at the results of the CVP analysis needs to be done strategic planning to prevent the decline in profits. In this CVP analysis used alternative strategy to increase product sales volume by 2% and reduction of variable cost selected by 5% which will generate profit equal to IDR 115,233,994 with BEP condition at IDR 4,463,340.


This study employs an incompressible homogeneous flow framework with a transport-equation-based cavitation model and shear stress transport turbulence model to successfully reproduce the unsteady cavitating flow around a three-dimensional hydrofoil. Cavity growth, development, and break-off during the periodic shedding process are adequately reproduced and match experimental observations. The predicted shedding frequency is very close to the experimental value of 23 ms. By monitoring the motions of the seeding trackers, growth-up of attached cavity and dynamic evolution of U-type cavity are clearly displayed, which indicating the trackers could serve as an effective tool to visualize the cavitating field. Repelling Lagrangian coherent structure (RLCS) is so complex that abundant flow patterns are highlighted, reflecting the intricacy of cavity development. The formation of cloud cavities is clearly characterized by the attracting Lagrangian coherent structure (ALCS), where bumbling wave wrapping the whole shedding cavities indicates the rotating transform of cavities, and stretching of the wave eyes shows the distortion of vortices. Generation of the re-entrant jet is considered to be not only associated with the adverse pressure gradient due to the positive attack angle but also the contribution of cloud cavitating flow, based on the observation of a buffer zone between the attached and cloud cavities.


The reaction of the dinuclear species (mu-NH,NH)[Fe(III)(L(IP))(L(AP))](2) dissolved in CH(2)Cl(2) with dioxygen affords black microcrystals of diamagnetic (mu-S,S)[Fe(III)(L(IP))(L(ISQ))](2).n-hexane (6) upon the addition of n-hexane, where (L(IP))(2)(-) represents the dianion of 4,6-di-tert-butyl-2-aminothiophenol, (L(AP))(-) is the corresponding monoanion, and (L(ISQ))(-) is the corresponding o-iminothionebenzosemiquinonate(1-) pi radical monoanion; similarly, the dianion ('H(2)N(2)S(2)')(2)(-) is derived from 1,2-ethanediamine-N,N'-bis(2-benzenethiol), and ('N(2)S(2)(*)')(3)(-) is its monoradical trianion. The above reaction in a CH(2)Cl(2)/CH(3)OH (1:1) mixture yields the diamagnetic isomer (mu-NH,NH)[Fe(III)(L(IP))(L(ISQ))](2).5CH(3)OH (7), whereas air oxidation of (mu-S,S)[Fe(II)('H(2)N(2)S(2)')](2) in CH(3)CN yields diamagnetic (mu-S,S)[Fe(III)('N(2)S(2)(*)')](2) (8). Complexes 6 and 8 were shown to undergo addition reactions with phosphines, phosphites, or cyanide affording the following complexes: trans-[Fe(II)(L(ISQ))(2)(P(OPh)(3))] (9; S(t) = 0) and [N(n-Bu)(4)][Fe(II)(L(ISQ))(2)(CN)] (S(t) = 0). Oxidation of 6 in CH(2)Cl(2) with iodine, bromine, and chlorine respectively yields black microcrystals of [Fe(III)(L(ISQ))(2)X] (X = I, Br, or Cl) with S(t) = (1)/(2). The structures of complexes 6-9 have been determined by X-ray crystallography at 100 K. The oxidation level of the ligands and iron ions in all complexes has been unequivocally established, as indicated by crystallography; electron paramagnetic resonance, UV-vis, and Mössbauer spectroscopies; and magnetic-susceptibility measurements. The N,S-coordinated o-iminothionebenzosemiquinonate(1-) pi radicals have been identified in all new complexes. The electronic structures of the new complexes have been determined, and it is shown that no evidence for iron oxidation states >III is found in this chemistry.


Background: Patients with highly increased plasma triglyceride levels are at risk of developing serious complications such as pancreatitis, coronary heart disease and stroke. Therefore it is important to rapidly decrease plasma triglyceride levels. A sufficient control of triglyceride levels with drugs like fibrates, statins or nicotinic acid can usually only be attained after a couple of weeks. Plasma exchange appears to be a fast but expensive method to reduce triglyceride levels. In this study we describe the use of a new ω–3 fatty acid and medium-chain triglyceride-rich formula diet as a therapeutic concept to reduce plasma triglyceride levels fast and effectively. Methods: Thirty-two patients with severe hypertriglyceridemia were treated with the especially composed formula diet for a period of 7 days. Results: Within this period of time, plasma triglycerides decreased from 1,601 (402–4,555) to 554 (142–2,382) mg/dl (p < 0.05). Total cholesterol levels were reduced from 417 (211–841) to 287 (165–457) mg/dl (p < 0.001). Fasting glucose and uric acid levels also slightly decreased (–8%; –12%). The formula diet as a 1-week treatment was well tolerated and accepted by the patients. Conclusion: This diet was successfully used as an acute treatment in severe hypertriglyceridemia and showed effectiveness in rapidly and safely lowering plasma triglyceride levels.


Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) famously follows annual cycles, with incidence elevation in the fall and spring. Should some version of cyclic annual pattern be expected from other psychiatric disorders? Would annual cycles be similar for distinct psychiatric conditions? This study probes these questions using 2 very large datasets describing the health histories of 150 million unique U.S. citizens and the entire Swedish population. We performed 2 types of analysis, using "uncorrected" and "corrected" observations. The former analysis focused on counts of daily patient visits associated with each disease. The latter analysis instead looked at the proportion of disease-specific visits within the total volume of visits for a time interval. In the uncorrected analysis, we found that psychiatric disorders' annual patterns were remarkably similar across the studied diseases in both countries, with the magnitude of annual variation significantly higher in Sweden than in the United States for psychiatric, but not infectious diseases. In the corrected analysis, only 1 group of patients—11 to 20 years old—reproduced all regularities we observed for psychiatric disorders in the uncorrected analysis; the annual healthcare-seeking visit patterns associated with other age-groups changed drastically. Analogous analyses over infectious diseases were less divergent over these 2 types of computation. Comparing these 2 sets of results in the context of published psychiatric disorder seasonality studies, we tend to believe that our uncorrected results are more likely to capture the real trends, while the corrected results perhaps reflect mostly artifacts determined by dominantly fluctuating, health-seeking visits across a given year. However, the divergent results are ultimately inconclusive; thus, we present both sets of results unredacted, and, in the spirit of full disclosure, leave the verdict to the reader.


Abstract: The small and medium-sized entities (SMEs) One of the most fundamental pillars of the economy of any country, whether developed or developing it They represent more than  (95%) of  the sum companies all over the world and given the importance ,where has the International Accounting Standards Board issued an accounting standard international special in small and medium-sized entities.in July (2009) Where The Board has developed and issued a separate standard for application to the general purpose financial statements and other financial reports prepared within those companies.
  Therefore, the current study aims to determine the impact of the application of IFRS for SMEs that would lead to quality in the financial statements by conducting a field study of a sample of investment banks listed in the Iraqi Stock Exchange. The test was conducted by the statistical program (spss). The results reveal that the adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards leads to the acquisition of good accounting information, which reflects the impact on the financial statements to become high quality globally to reflect the fact of the economic reality of the company to allow investors to take the decisions smart, Leading to the ease of exchange international trade.


The current path tracking control method is usually based on the steering wheel angle loop, which often makes the driver lose control of the automatic driving control loop. In order to involve the driver in the automatic driving control loop, and to solve the vehicle path tracking control problem with system robustness and model uncertainty, this paper puts forward a steering torque control method based on model predictive control algorithm. Based on the vehicle model, this method introduces the steering system model and the steering resistance torque model, and calculates the optimal control torque of the vehicle through the real-time vehicle status, so as to make up for the model mismatch, interference and other uncertainties, and ensure the real-time participation of the driver in the automatic driving control loop. To combine the nonlinear vehicle dynamics model with the steering column model, and to take the vehicle state parameters as the feedback variables of the model predictive controller model, then input the solution of the steering superposition control rate into the vehicle model, the design of the steering controller is realized. Finally, to carry out the simulation of lane keeping based on CarSim software and Simulink control model, and the hardware in-the-loop test on the hardware in-the-loop experimental platform of CarSim/LabVIEW-RT. The simulation and test results indicate that the designed torque loop path tracking control method based on model predictive control can help the driver track the target path better.


In thyroid surgery, an emergency tracheostomy is mandatory, as is well known, in acute pre- and postoperative asphyxia due to obstruction of the upper airways, especially in cases of malignant tumours. In particular conditions, in the presence of benign thyroid disease and when there is no reduction in the laryngo-tracheal lumen, tracheostomy has an important precautionary function following total thyroidectomy. The authors describe their experience with 6 patients treated by precautionary tracheostomy after total thyroidectomy for benign thyroid disease, analysing the indications and the advantages of this method.


Wide-Area Measurement System (WAMS) plays a significant role in recovering the historical data for power system post-mortem analysis. For this purpose, the paper presents a new methodology for partitioning a WAM network into number of WAMS regions. It enables restoration process easier. Later, it also suggests a reliable placement of Phasor Data Concentrators (PDCs). For this, transformer equivalent bus constraint, generation-load balance and observability constraints are considered. An IEEE-30 bus system is used for demonstrating the proposed scheme.


This study was done to know the changes in the levels of potassium in the vitreous humour of eye with increasing time since death by flame photometry method. 200 cases brought to the mortuary of Govt. Medical College, Patiala, formed the material of this study. The cases were divided in 2 groups, burn cases (24) and non-burn cases (176). The data thus collected was analyzed statistically. It was found that the vitreous humour potassium concentration was increasing in a linear fashion with increasing time since death and this increase in the level was independent of the factors like age, sex, environmental temperature and humidity.


Waveguide photodetectors (WGPDs) are promising candidates for applications in high-speed optical communications and interconnections. In these high-speed photodetectors, both high bandwidth and high external quantum efficiency can be achieved simultaneously. Mushroom-WGPD is proposed to overcome the trade-off between the capacitance and contact resistance of the photodetector. In this article, a physical model of the mushroom-WGPD is presented including both time and frequency responses of this photodetector and how they depend on the parameters of the photodetector. A SPICE model for mushroom-WGPD including all the parasitics is also presented, showing the dependence of the transfer function of this model on the dimensions and the material parameters of the photodetector. The effects of the parasitics are also studied for different photodetector areas. The characteristics of mushroom-WGPD are studied for two cases, first without an inductor added in series with the load resistance and second, if an induc...


The private-collective business models that involve both private investment incentives and the production of public goods are not well understood. This empirically oriented research uses the unique data from the software industries of five European countries (Finland, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain) to illuminate the patterns of private, entrepreneurial provision of software placed in the public domain. The estimation results strongly suggest that the highly restrictive GPL (General Public License) works as an efficient coordination mechanism for the (leading) developers of the OSS community and spreads particularly via the firms that have participated in the OSS development projects. The software companies supplying the OSS, instead, tend not to aim at using the GPL to coordinate the further development of their own OSS. The firms are rather the origin of more flexibly licensed OSS products though gener-ally the software firms OSS business strategies relate to the restrictive licensing strategy choices


Correction for 'Bioinspired hydrogel-based nanofluidic ionic diodes: nano-confined network tuning and ion transport regulation' by Congcong Zhu et al., Chem. Commun., 2020, 56, 8123-8126, DOI: 10.1039/D0CC01313G.


The last few years have seen interesting trends and developments in financing student loans in the debt capital markets (and equity markets to some extent). As the inventory of federally insured student loans in private hands continues to dwindle and private student loans continue to emerge as the more visible part of the student loan landscape, new players and old standbys have orchestrated a variety of financings, both short term and long term, to support their businesses in the education finance industry. This article surveys the current state of play for financing student loan assets, with particular attention to efforts to comply with risk retention rules and other regulatory requirements.


Aim Liraglutide, a once-daily subcutaneous glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonist, is approved for treatment of hyperglycemia in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). For patients with established cardiovascular diseases, liraglutide has also been shown to reduce major cardiovascular events. However, its cost is relatively higher than other oral antidiabetic drugs. This study aims to compare the costs and benefits of liraglutide vs sitagliptin, in treating T2DM in Thailand. Methods This study consists of two parts. In part 1, the cost of keeping T2DM under control per patient (HbA1c<7.0% with no reported hypoglycemia and no body weight gain) with liraglutide (1.2 and 1.8 mg daily) was compared with using sitagliptin (100 mg daily). Costs were based on Thai local data. Clinical outcomes were based on head-to-head randomized controlled trials. Part 2 estimated the cost-per-controlled patient, based on major cardiovascular outcomes (cardiovascular death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, non-fatal stroke). Economic benefit was calculated as the reduction in cardiovascular outcomes. Results In Thailand, liraglutide (1.8 mg daily) costs 7.37-times more than sitagliptin 100 mg. The cost per patient achieving a composite clinical endpoint (HbA1c<7.0%, with no weight gain and no hypoglycemic events) in patients with T2DM receiving liraglutide 1.8 mg is 2.80-times higher than patients receiving sitagliptin 100 mg. When cardiovascular benefits (reduced composite endpoint of major cardiovascular events, ie, cardiovascular death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, and nonfatal stroke) were taken into account, it was found that liraglutide had lower cost than sitagliptin, resulting in estimated savings of 20,085 THB (620 USD) per patient per year. Conclusion The clinical benefits of liraglutide (HbA1c<7.0%, no hypoglycemia, no weight gain, reduced cardiovascular outcomes) partly offset its high price. Therefore, liraglutide should be considered as an appropriate treatment alternative to sitagliptin, particularly for T2DM patients with high cardiovascular risks.


A rule-based deterministic model is used to forecast recruitment of anchovy Engraulis capensis in the southern Benguela from field measurements of biological and environmental variables collected during two consecutive years. Field data were obtained on a monthly basis during the anchovy spawning season as part of the South African Sardine and Anchovy Recruitment Programme (SARP). A total of six indicator variables was considered for the analysis: distance offshore of the 16°C isotherm; southerly wind stress; anchovy egg abundance; incidence of oocyte atresia in adult females; an index of fish starvation; and oil : meal ratios obtained from commercial data (which were used as an index of fish condition). In the model, data for each variable were assessed against a threshold value. "Active" variables were assumed to contribute towards below-average recruitment by being either above or below their threshold values, as defiNed by the rules. The model was not based on the SARP field data, which were used to test the model. Predicted results from the expert system compared favourably with final estimates of recruitment strength for both 1994 and 1995 (years of below average recruitment), indicating that field measurements of biological and environmental variables may be used in a structured manner to obtain forecasts of anchovy recruitment to the fishery.


This paper begins with two cases pertaining to the internet in an effort to identify some of the difficult normative issues and some of the new directions in using the Internet to facilitate democratic participation, particularly in transnational contexts. Can the Internet be used in ways that advance democracy globally both within nation-states that lack it and in newly transnational ways? Can it contribute to strengthening not only democratic procedures of majority rule, periodic elections, and representation, but also more substantive forms of deliberative democracy? And specifically, which directions are to be encouraged and on what normative basis? Or, instead, is the Internet to become ever more a means for facilitating commercial sales, corporate control, or government surveillance? This sort of normative account, while not addressing public policy questions directly, suggests a framework within which, I would argue, such policy questions can be helpfully considered.


In this work, numerical heat transfer simulations of direct water-cooled gain modules for thin disk (TD) Ti:Sapphire (Ti:Sa) power amplifiers are presented. By using the TD technique in combination with the extraction during pumping (EDP) method 100-TW class amplifiers operating around 300 W average power could be reached in the future. Single and double-sided cooling arrangements were investigated for several coolant flow velocities. Simulations which upscale the gain module for multiple kilowatts of average power were also performed for large aperture Ti:Sa disks and for multiple disks with several coolant channels.


A cooperative diversity protocol for multi-relay wireless networks is proposed. Its distinguishable feature is to protect the transmission of the source through distributed diversity while simultaneously serving the data traffic of the relays. Therefore, the performance of the source is improved without reducing the aggregate throughput. The protocol exploits a recently introduced concept for multiple- antennas wireless systems, which is known as Spatial Modulation (SM). The contribution of this paper is threefold: i) the optimal receiver that takes into account demodulation errors at the relays is developed; ii) its achievable diversity is studied analytically; and iii) it is shown, with the help of Monte Carlo simulations, that it outperforms state- of-the-art cooperative diversity protocols.


Introduction: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is a standard of care in locally advanced breast carcinomas. The major purpose of neoadjuvant chemotherapy is breast conserving surgery. Advantages in survival have only been shown in patients undergoing achieving pathological complete response (pCR). Lobular carcinomas seem less chemosensitive than ductal carcinomas to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NCT). Purpose: To compare the clinical and pathological response rate and the outcome of lobular (ILC) versus ductal (IDC) invasive breast carcinomas after NCT. Patients and methods: Between 1985 and 2010, 385 patients with locally advanced and/or inflammatory breast carcinomas from Saint Louis hospital received neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Forty-four (11, 4%) ILC and 341 (88, 6%) IDC were diagnosed by surgical or core needle biopsy before CT. All patients received anthracyclines based CT,181 (47%) additionally received a taxane (four cycles of epirubicin 75 mg/m 2 and cyclophosphamide 750 mg/m 2 then four cycles of taxotere 100mg/m2 or six cycles of a dose dense regimen of 75 mg/m2 epirubicin and 1200mg/m2 cyclophosphamide, every 14 days),and underwent breast surgical excision (lumpectomy or mastectomy) and axillary node dissection.Clinical response was defined by the lack of palpable tumor in the breast before surgery.Pathological complete response was defined by no residual invasive tumor in breast. Radiotherapy and hormonotherapy were delivered to patients, when appliable. Results: Clinical response to NCT was higher for ILC (27, 3%) than IDC (13,4%). ILC with clinical response tended to have higher histological grade 2 (91,6 % versus 30,4% for IDC),more estrogens receptors (RE) positivity (91,6% vs 45,6%), p53 wild type (66,6% vs 30,4%) and HER2- negative tumors (91,6% vs 76%) Pathologic response (pCR) rate was lower for ILC than for IDC (2, 7% vs 9, 3%). Only one ILC (grade 2, RE+, HER2 negative, p53 wild type) underwent pCR. Thirty two (9, 3%) IDC haved pCR: 15,6% haved histological grade 2, 15,6% RE positivity,9,3% p53 wild type, 62,5% HER2 negative. Thirteen percent of ILD and 9 % of ILC haved breast conservating surgery .At a median follow up of 60 months, ILC patients tended to have longer overall survival (55% vs 48%) and recurrence free survival (44% vs 36,8%) than IDC. Conclusions: ILC was characterized by better clinical response rates but lower pathologic response and breast conservating surgery rates .Despite the low pCR rate, patients with ILC tended to have better outcomes than did patients with IDC. Pathological complete response to NCT in ILC did not seem to have prognostic significance. Further data are warranted to help clarify the characteristics genomics and proteomics of ILC which explains this better outcome. Citation Information: Cancer Res 2010;70(24 Suppl):Abstract nr P1-11-14.


American ginseng ( Panax quinquefolius L. [Araliaceae]), a native plant species of North American eastern woodlands, is highly sought for its medicinal value. The long-lived perennial herb reaches a maximum height of about 50 cm (20 in) and annually grows a determinate shoot from a short underground rhizome atop a fleshy taproot. Ginseng harvesters remove the root, which kills the plant. Commercial harvesting of wild ginseng plants has occurred since the 1700s. Continued pressure for wild harvested roots potentially threatens to diminish the size and number of populations in many states in the US, and the species faces possible extirpation in others. The Nature Conservancy's Natural Heritage ranking of the species globally changed in 2000 from "common" to "rare/common." Fewer than half the US states and Canadian provinces rank the species "apparently secure." Seeds are the sole means of reproduction and relatively few seeds are produced before plants are vulnerable to harvest. The trend may be to harvest younger plants as ginseng populations are depleted of larger plants by harvesting and as number and size of populations decline. Balancing commercial demands with actions necessary to preserve the species should dictate our behavior. Fortunately, we know more about the biology of ginseng than most species that are in peril in portions of their historic ranges. Effective management and monitoring programs must incorporate this knowledge to ensure that ginseng will be maintained as a viable species and continue to be a product of our native forests.


In OFDM, the sub-carriers are orthogonal to each other. It avoids the interference between the sub-channels and hence no need of guard bands. Therefore the design of both the transmitter and receiver becomes easy, Unlike conventional FDM, a separate filter is not necessary for each sub-channel. The orthogonality also allows high spectral efficiency. But OFDM requires accurate frequency synchronization between the receiver and the transmitter. This paper describes the basic introduction of OFDM system and explains the different channel estimation algorithms.


Tourism agents of distribution are organizational links in a travel product producer's system of describing, selling, and confirming travel arrangements to the buyer. Such channels are needed because it is impractical for any supplier to own sales outlets in every market city. It is much more feasible and productive to distribute the product, for example, through 25,000 retail travel agencies. There are specialty channels of many kinds. The Electronic Commerce is a new force in the sale of travel today. It will grow in importance in the future and have an impact on the travel distribution system. Travel distribution channels are similar to those used in other industries. But tourism products are intangible. Then the particular travel product can be integrated into the distributor's operation. Some channels are very evident, such as travel agencies. However, depending on the individual product, additional distributors, such as incentive travel firms, corporate travel departments, hotel sales reps, and associations, can be very sales-effective.


The mature human braun contains over 10 billion nerve cells (neurons), whose functions are directly related to the acquisition, transfer, processing, analysis, and utilization of all the information. There are also billions of glial cells, which serve primarily to support and to maintain the integrity of the neuron network and to synthesize an essential fatty strucfure, myelin. In the human brain DNA content therefore cell number rises rapidly until birth and then more slowly until months of age, when it reaches a maximum. While glial cells may be replaced, the more important nerve cell neurons can never be replaced once they are formed. Humans are born with their full complement of neurons and every neuron is as old as each individual. Thus prenatal malnutrition can seriously affect a person's entire life by severely inhibiting the production of neurons before birth.It has been demonstrated that in humans severe malnutrition during the fetal period and in infancy is associated with intellectual impairment. Severely malnourished children have brains smaller than average size and have been found to have fewer brain cells than wellnourished childen. There is growing body of literature pointing to malnutrition as a cause of abnormal behavior as evidence that suggests these abnormalities may produce chromosomal damage that may persist forever. Although cognitive development in children is affected by multiple environmental factors, nutrition certainly deaerves more attention than it has received.


The research is devoted to the study of writing errors in patients with Broca's aphasia performing the human-specific writing tasks. The object of the study is writing, the
subject – disorder of writing in Broca's agraphia. The aim of the research was to identify the most specific types of errors in writing language, depending on the cultural and historical significance of the actualized functions of writing language in Broca's aphasia. Used instruments include classical neuropsychological assessment as well as specially developed experimental tasks aimed at actualization of cultural-historical functions of writing (communicative, mnestic and regulatory functions). Nonparametric Chi-square Friedman and Wilcoxon T-criteria used for pairwise comparison of data and analtysis of the distribution of errors. The study involved 22 patients with organic brain damage due to ischemic stroke in the basin of the left middle cerebral artery. Shown that the most specific grammatical errors were syntactic errors such as breaking of the sentence boundaries, omissions of independent and functional words, disorders of concordance and execution. Diversity in the performance of writing tasks that are similar in neuropsychological component structure but differ in functional purposes are explained by the choice of different strategies of writing. However, the general pattern is the dominance of the semantic content of the text over its formal structuring, expressed in grammatical rules. The research confirms that when studying agraphia, it is important to consider both structural (speech act operations) and functional (cultural and historical specific) aspects of writing.


Purpose: The ideas of integrity, unity, systematic organization of teacher's work allow presenting the work of the teacher – a complex pedagogical reality – in the form of the unity of three interrelated spaces: the teacher's personality, pedagogical activity, and pedagogical communication.
Methodology: The analysis of the works of national and foreign experts devoted to the study of competences and competencies shows convincingly that, first of all, this phenomenon is associated with professional activity. A natural continuation of the study of competence problems in the late twentieth – early XXI century is the scientific and practical interest in the possibility of forming and developing competence in a specially organized environment.
Result: For the authors of the article it is important not only how the teacher develops his pedagogical competence in the process of professional activity, but also how it increases the effectiveness of the educational activity of the student. Discussion. In our opinion, the basic competencies of a teacher of a professional educational institution should reflect the culture of the teacher and are divided into professional-pedagogical, social-motivational, information, communicative, creative. Special competencies integrate the knowledge of the teaching subject and methods of teaching, are divided into objective, content, design, reflexive, monitoring.
Applications: This research can be used for the universities, teachers, and students.
Novelty/Originality: In this research, the model of the development of teacher's pedagogical competence in the conditions of professional educational organization is presented in a comprehensive and complete manner.


INTRODUCTION
The aim of the research was to determine the effectivity and the safety of the intravenous application of Esomeprazole (Nexium - Astra Zeneca) like prevention of the development of stress-ulcers of the gastric mucous with high risk patients at ICU with mechanic ventilation.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
47 patients subjected to mechanic ventilation over 48 hours with availability of just one more risk factor for development of stress-ulcers of gastric musous were included in the study. Samples of gastric juice for determination of the acidity and presence of fresh erythrocytes and microbiological cultures from gastric contents, wash away of the mouth cavity and tracheal aspiration were tested on the 1st, the 3rd and the 5th day from the start of the treatment. At the end of the therapy there has been determinated the outcome - survivor or died and total quantity of the haemotransfusions.

RESULTS
The acidity of the gastric juice changed in the range over pH 5 during the 24 hours by the application of esomeprazole. Fibrogastroscopic examinations were performed of patients who were found to have fresh erythrocytes in the gastric contents. No one was registered with bleeding of the gastric mucous. The isolated microorganisms of the gastric juice and wash away of mouth cavity were identical with those of tracheobronchial aspiration in about 13 %.

CONCLUSIONS
In our study the application of esomeprazole i.v. was effective and safe approach for profilaxy of the stress-ulcers and the bleeding of the gastric mucous. Comparative studies with H2-blockers and sucralfat are necessary for clarifying and objectifying the significance of the microbiologic isolates of the gastric contents and wash away from mouth cavity and their relation to the development of nosocomial pneumonia.


This paper combines data from the Galileo spacecraft plasma and energetic particle instruments. Data are included from two Ganymede flybys when the spacecraft was at northern Ganymede latitudes. Electron intensities from the two instruments are in very good agreement. Fits to 60 electron energy spectra are presented. We find the power of precipitating 0.5–3.0 keV electrons into both polar caps of Ganymede is ∼3 × 109 W. By assuming the instruments are intercalibrated, we infer that sulfur dominates the ion intensities at least in the tens of keV energy range. Furthermore, fits to the ion data indicate that the intensities are dominated by heavy ions below about 100 keV. Fits to these data are also used to estimate the sputtering rate of Ganymede's icy surface. It is found that ∼2 × 1026 water molecules/s are sputtered from Ganymede's polar caps which, when not redeposited on the surface, give an erosion rate of ∼8 m/Gyr.


Solid waste management (SWM) is one of the major reasons of environmental degradation in Pakistan. Inappropriate management of solid waste causes hazards to dwellers. Recent literature on current SWM practices in five major cities of Pakistan has been reviewed, and an effort has been made to provide a comprehensive review on the total amount of municipal solid waste generated, storage, collection, physical composition, transfer, processing and disposal of SW. There is an overall fragmented approach to the SWM in Pakistan. Inadequate waste collection system exists as it is collected only 51-69% of the total waste generated in a few major cities. Municipal collection of household waste is quite irregular and limited to highincome areas. Generally, inadequate disposal service and no weighing facilities are installed at most of the disposal sites. There is a poor management of hazardous waste and under the current disposal practice no proper method is being employed. The review of the legal framework indicates that there is a need for detailed and clear regulations dealing specifically with solid waste. In addition, promotion of public awareness, legislation, financial and economic calculations, strengthen institutional capacity and regulations enforcement and establishment of a proper sanitary landfill are considered to be principal remedial measures to ensure sound environmental maintenance.


Abstract A chronological relationship between the annual profiles of oxidative stress markers, the key regulator of stress physiology has been sought in a terrestrial mollusc (Nerita articulata) under natural photothermal conditions. The hemolymph samples were collected at two different times in each month (from January to December) and the same was repeated for two consecutive years throughout an annual cycle. The fluctuations in the concentrations of certain heavy and trace metals (zinc, copper, cadmium, mercury, lead, and nickel) in both soil and hemolymph of Nerita are also estimated accordingly. Therefore, the present study aims to explore the rhythmic responses of oxidative stress marker to assess the impact of different trace and heavy metals on selected mollusc species. We tries to develop a realistic conceptual idea to analyze and predict the effect of changing environmental pollution on the possible shift in the rhythmicity of aforesaid antioxidants in terrestrial mollusc and their adaptive responses to thrive in such environment. Our results indicates that the amplitude of circannual rhythms of all the selected stress markers varied accordingly but the pattern of annual fluctuation is noted to be similar, and correlated with the metal accumulation. Therefore current information might help to frame the adaptive strategies for invertebrate species under similar toxic circumstances.


In this paper, a new scheme called aggregated multipath routing (AMR) is presented. In ad hoc networks, routing has been the most focused area for its nodes' mobility and topology variability. Now most of the on-demand routing protocols for current ad hoc networks build and rely on single route for each data session. It is proved in wireless networks that multipath routing is more effective and efficient than single path routing. So multipath routing protocols have been developed for ad hoc networks recently. Whereas these protocols have not provided a good scheme for the source node to collect enough information, a scheme called aggregated multipath routing is proposed. This scheme saves routing information in the source node, uses it to construct multipath, and sends data through these paths alternatively or simultaneously.


Let  , , be an n-dimensional homogeneous Lorentzian manifold of which the Jacobi operator associated to the Weyl conformal curvature tensor has constant eigenvalues on the bundle of unit timelike (spacelike) tangent vectors (known as conformally Osserman Lorentzian manifolds). Then  is a conformally Osserman Lorentzian manifold if and only if  is a conformally flat manifold, (Blazic, 2005). In this paper, by utilizing this equivalence and the similar arguments in Erdogan and Ikawa (1995)  and Sekigawa and Takagi (1971), we classify locally conformally flat homogeneous Lorentzian manifolds and, equivalently, as well as conformally Osserman Lorentzian manifolds which satisfy  a condition on the Ricci tensor.

 Key words:  Conformally manifold,  Weyl conformal tensor,  conformally Osserman manifold,  conformal Jacobi operator.


In this paper the impact of distributed generation and adverse weather on distribution network reliability is studied. This paper illustrates a distribution network reliability calculation model that considering act of weather and DG, and the maximum economic benefits was used as objective function to determine the island. Then improves the minimal path method of the traditional reliability calculation and makes it suit to calculate the distribution network with weather and DG. Program was divided into four types: without DG and weather, only DG, Only weather, both DG and weather, calculated and compared load points, feeders and system reliability indices of the four types. The calculating results indicate that the reliability of distribution network was reduced when considering weather factors, especially in adverse weather conditions, and improved in the island when DG connected. Considering both of DG and weather, the reliability of distribution network were more accurate response actual and proved the validity of the model.


The wake vortices shed by large aircraft and their associated hazard to following aircraft remain an important issue in commercial aviation. Extensive research into methods for alleviating this wake vortex hazard has been continuing for many years. This paper presents results from numerical simulations detailing a potentially useful mechanism for accelerating the destruction of the aircraft vortex wake and reducing the wake vortex hazard. The term destruction is used to refer to the progressive annihilation of the wake caused by mixing of vorticity of opposite sign and the associated elimination of large coherent structures. The emphasis here is on a description of the mechanism and its connection to previous work


The liquid zinc amalgam method was developed as a rapid procedure for the reduction of pentavalent protactinium. Several minutes were sufficient for the complete reduction of 4.2×10−4 M pentavalent protactinium in both hydrochloric and sulfuric acid solutions. The stability of tetravalent protactinium in these media was investigated by spectrophotometry. Re-oxidation occurred gradually, even in the absence of atmospheric oxygen, and amounted to 8% in 15 hr. These results may be understood in terms of the slow rate of the (2Pa4++2H+\ightleftarrows2Pa5++H2) reaction. The formation of sulfato complexes of tetravalent protactinium was inferred by spectrophotometry with relation to the similarity of the electronic structure between Pa4+(5f1) and Ce3+(4f1).


Nowadays, a lot of people spend most of their days in closed buildings: offices, apartments or hospital rooms. Vertical gardens create an opportunity for modern people to experience the nature indoors. Additionally, they clean the air, insulate rooms and improve mood along with concentration. The aim of this project is to design a concept of an ecological, easy to use and aseptic vertical garden that could be installed in a hospital and in consequence, in any other indoor space. The project uses methodology of research-based design that applies methods such as prototyping and user research through questionnaires, observations and design probes. Employees from a restaurant, an office and a hospital were interviewed. Interviews showed that their work is stressful and the environment they are working in is too loud. Further participatory study, during which potential users were taking care of designed vertical garden prototypes for a week, proved that people enjoy observing and interacting with plants and the form of vertical gardening is appealing to them. The final prototype is constructed with bamboo pole and biodegradable, aseptic nonwoven material. It incorporates two plants species: Snake plant and Spider plant that are safe for people with allergies and they were proved by NASA to efficiently clean the air from harmful substances. Optional automatic watering system for the garden was designed. It is controlled by mobile application. In the end, goals of the project were achieved. The prototype of the vertical garden is easy to use, ecological and risk of bacteria is low


The learning model used by teachers does not vary, resulting in the activeness and independence of students in learning is reduced. Therefore, a new learning model needs to be developed that stimulate the activeness and independence of students, namely the discussion learning model and personal investigation. This research used a Research and Development (R&D) approach. Researchers were focused on developing discussion learning models and personal investigations to be able developing a new learning model that can be applied in learning with clear steps according to scientific rules. The results of research were as follows: (1) students were more active in learning, (2) students no longer rely on friends when there are assignments or discussions, (3) problems that occur in learning can be analyzed by students easily, (4) Models could help foster a sense of responsibility in each student, especially responsibilities as a group member, (5) the learning process in the class was more enjoyable. Based on the analysis of research results and discussions, it can be concluded that the development of discussion learning models and personal investigations that have been implemented in sociology learning has a positive impact both for students and teachers. Students were more active in learning, and students were more independent and better identify social problems. The discussion learning model and personal investigation are appropriately applied in sociology learning in the classroom. Based on the results of the research, it was suggested that: (1) teachers should use different learning models in the learning process so that students are more active in the following learning, (2) This new learning model can be used as a reference for teachers in doing classroom learning, and (3) Discussion learning models and investigative personals can be applied by teachers in sociology learning.


A large symptomatic and unresolved pancreatic pseudocyst is treated surgically by internal drainage to a neighboring adherent viscus. Recently the various minimal invasive approaches have been used to treat this condition. A 30-year-old man who had been in clinical follow-up for a chronic pancreatitis. For the necrotizing pancreatitis, the patient had undergone surgical debridement and external drainage 5 years, and 3 years ago, respectively. Abdominal ultrasonography and computed tomography revealed 8.2×7.7 cm sized pseudocyst in the body of pancreas. Endoscopic internal fistula formation was tried, but it was failed due to bleeding. We underwent adhesiotomy and cystogastrostomy totally with laparoscopic techniques. The patient started a diet on the 5th postoperative day and discharged on the 11th postoperative day. There was no postoperative complicationand no recurrence during 6 months. Laparoscopic cystogastrostomy is safe and feasible method in the pancreatic pseudocyst even in case of severe abdominal adhesion.