In a 5 week feeding trial, cashewnut meal was substituted for Soyabean meal at 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% and the diets were respectively designated as diets 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 in a completely randomized design. Body weight changes, feed intake, feed-to-gain ratio and the economics of production were investigated. The feed-to-gain ratio was significantly (p<0.05) influenced while other parameters were not. Diet 3 gave the best value (2.24) followed closely by diets 4 (2.25) and 2 (2.28) respectively, while diet 1 had the poorest value (2.53) followed by diet 5 (2.40). The mean daily feed intake numerically improved as the percent cashewnut meal substitution increased from 0 to 100%. Birds fed diet 4 had the highest value (120.58g) while birds fed diet 1 had the least value (115.84g). The mean total body weight gain (g) was highest (2214g) for birds fed diet 3 while birds fed diet 1 had the least value (1878.00g). The cost/kg diet (N) decreased as the dietary inclusion of the test ingredient increased from 0 to 100%. At the end of the trial, the highest marginal revenue was obtained from birds fed diet 4 (N415.32). This was closely followed by birds fed diets 3, 5, 2 and 1. Cashewnut meal is therefore recommended as a substitute for the expensive conventional plant proteins at 25, 50 and 75% levels.


The market for high-brightness Light Emitting Diodes (LED) is expected to grow strongly in the near future. In order to meet the rising demand, suppliers are developing new ways of manufacturing components on a larger scale. SCHOTT has now patented a precision molding process for producing strips and arrays of mini lenses made of highly refractive glass. Multiple LEDs can thus be positioned side by side and very closely together to allow for a strong and defined light beam to be formed. The precisely shaped lenses enable compact designs of light sources as well as optical systems.


Viruses exploit host metabolic and defence machinery for their own replication. The flaviviruses, which include Dengue (DENV), Yellow Fever (YFV), Japanese Encephalitis (JEV), West Nile (WNV) and Zika (ZIKV) viruses, infect a broad range of hosts, cells and tissues. Flaviviruses are largely transmitted by mosquito bites and humans are usually incidental, dead-end hosts, with the notable exceptions of YFV, DENV and ZIKV. Infection by flaviviruses elicits cellular responses including cell death via necrosis, pyroptosis (involving inflammation) or apoptosis (which avoids inflammation). Flaviviruses exploit these mechanisms and subvert them to prolong viral replication. The different effects induced by DENV, WNV, JEV and ZIKV are reviewed. Host cell surface proteoglycans (PGs) bearing glycosaminoglycan (GAG) polysaccharides - heparan/chondroitin sulfate (HS/CS) - are involved in initial flavivirus attachment and during the expression of non-structural viral proteins play a role in disease aetiology. Recent work has shown that ZIKV-infected cells are protected from cell death by exogenous heparin (a GAG structurally similar to host cell surface HS), raising the possibility of further subtle involvement of HS PGs in flavivirus disease processes. The aim of this review is to synthesize information regarding DENV, WNV, JEV and ZIKV from two areas that are usually treated separately: the response of host cells to infection by flaviviruses and the involvement of cell surface GAGs in response to those infections.


Abstract The present study aimed to document the prevalence of and identify factors associated with excessive gestational weight gain (GWG) in early pregnancy among women with pre-pregnancy overweight or obesity. Women with pre-pregnancy overweight or obesity (n = 247) were recruited between 12 and 20 weeks of gestation and completed questionnaires and were weighed to estimate early GWG. Nearly one-third of women met (17%, n = 42) or exceeded (13%, n = 33) guidelines for total GWG in early pregnancy. Univariate analyses showed race, income, and pre-pregnancy weight status to be significantly related to GWG category in early pregnancy (p < .009). Only race and pre-pregnancy weight status remained significant in a multivariate model, with Black women and women with pre-pregnancy obesity having higher odds of having met or exceeded guidelines for total GWG in early pregnancy compared with White women and women with pre-pregnancy overweight (p < .04). These findings highlight the need for early intervention to reduce weight-related complications among pregnant women. Impact statement What is already known on this subject? Women with pre-pregnancy overweight or obesity who gain excessive gestational weight early in pregnancy are at unique risk for pregnancy complications and adverse birth outcomes. What do the results of this study add? The present study adds to a growing body of literature documenting that a notable amount of women are gaining excessive gestational weight early in pregnancy. The present study further documents that Black women and women with pre-pregnancy obesity are at particular risk of gaining excessive gestational weight early in pregnancy. What are the implications of these findings for clinical practice and/or further research? Additional work examining modifiable risk factors, particularly among Black women and women with pre-pregnancy obesity, that contribute to excessive gestational weight gain (GWG) in the first half of pregnancy is warranted and will be necessary to inform interventions aimed at promoting weight loss during the preconception and interconception periods or encouraging appropriate GWG across the entire course of pregnancy.


OBJECTIVE
To explore the effect of Th1/Th2 cytokines on the expression of nerve growth factor(NGF)in splenic lymphocytes in asthmatic model.

METHODS
Four SD rats were sensitized and challenged with ovalbumin to establish an asthmatic model, and the rat splenic lymphocytes were isolated and cultured with ConA. The expressions of NGF mRNA were detected by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), and were observed after the lymphocytes were exogenously added with interferon-gamma(IFN-gamma) or interleukin-4 (IL-4).

RESULTS
The lymphocytes of the asthmatic model stimulated by ConA in vitro expressed NGF mRNA in a time-dependent manner. After the lymphocytes had been cultured with IL-4 for 12 h, 24 h, 36 h, and 48 h, 50 microg/L IL-4 upregulated the expressions of NGF mRNA in a time-dependent manner and all the NGF mRNA expressions were significantly higher than the basal values at the same time(all Ps<0.01). After 0, 10, 50, and 100 microg/L IL-4 had been added for 24 h, IL-4 upregulated the expressions of NGF mRNA in a dose-dependent manner and the NGF mRNA expressions were all significantly higher than the values of the lower dose IL-4(all Ps<0.05). After the lymphocytes had been cultured with 10 mug/L IFN-gamma for 0 h, 12 h, 24 h, 36 h, and 48 h, IFN-gamma downregulated the expressions of NGF mRNA in a time-dependent manner and all the NGF mRNA expressions were significantly lower than the basal values at the same time(all Ps<0.01). After 0, 1, 10, and 50 microg/L IFN-gamma have been added for 24 h, IFN-gamma downregulated the expressions of NGF mRNA in a dose-dependent manner and all the NGF mRNA expressions were significantly lower than the values of the lower IFN-gamma dose(all Ps<0.05).

CONCLUSION
In the splenic lymphocytes of asthmatic rats, IL-4, one of the Th2 cytokines, can upregulate the expressions of NGF; IFN-gamma, one of the Th1 cytokines, can downregulate the expressions of NGF both in a time-dependent manner and in a dose-dependent manner. Th1/Th2 cytokine immune imbalance may indirectly induce the airway neurogenic inflammation by regulating the NGF mRNA expression.


Agricultural sustainability has the highest priority in all countries, whether developed or developing. Cropping System Analysis is essential for studying the sustainability of agriculture. Crop rotation is stated as growing one crop after another on the same piece of land in different timings (seasons) without impairing the soil fertility. A cropping system can be defined as the cropping patterns and their management to derive maximum benefits from a given resource base under specific environmental conditions. Multiplicity of cropping system has been one of the main feature of Indian agriculture and is attributed to rained agriculture and prevailing socio-economic situations of farming community. Although, it is well known that one of the main advantage of remote sensing satellites is the synoptic and repeated collection of data which facilitate to map multi-year cropping patterns and crop rotations. In the present work, crop rotation and long term changes monitoring in cropping pattern along other spatial and nonspatial collateral data have been done with the help of satellite data at block level of Hisar district of Haryana. Multi-date IRS LISS-III data of different seasons for the year 2007-08 have been used for the study. Cropping pattern maps of Rabi, Kharif and Summer season have been understood to know the spatial distribution and associations between crops or crops and uncultivated land in the same fields (although not in a particular order of sequence).


Horticultural therapy programs can benefit from the services of Master Gardeners. Trained through the U.S. Cooperative Extension Service, Master Gardeners are skilled in practical plant sciences and committed to volunteerism. A nationwide survey has determined that 374 Master Gardeners in 21 states are helping to bring structured horticultural activities to individuals in nursing homes, hospitals, rehabilitation centers, prisons, and other special service facilities.


The uptake of 2-deoxy-D-[1-3H]glucose ([1-3H]DOG)by cultured chick embryo heart cells was stimulated by exposure to triiodothyronine (T3). The concentration of free T3 for half maximal stimulation of [1-3H]DOG uptake was 8.7 x 10(-10)M. Nuclear binding studies revealed that the Kd for T3 was 4.2 x 10(-10)M. The molar potencies of other thyroactive compounds in stimulating [1-3H]DOG uptake, relative to L-T3, were: 500% for 3'-isopropyl-3,5-diiodo-L-thyronine, 20% for L-thyroxine (T4), 17% for D-T3, 2.2% for D-T4, 0.6% for 3,5-diiodo-L-thyronine and less than 0.1% for 3',5',3-triiodo-L-thyronine and L-thyronine. These data suggest that cultured chick embryo heart cells may serve in the study of the mode of action of thyroid hormones.


A comparative study of ferroelectric and non-ferroelectric-gated organic field-effect transistors (FETs) have been carried out by using a small molecule semiconductor 6,13 bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl) pentacene (TIPS-pentacene) to understand the fundamental aspects of carrier transport in FET architectures. Temperature-dependent current-voltage characteristics from non-ferroelectric dielectric-gated FETs show a clear activated transport, independent of the dielectric constant. While using the ferroelectric dielectric polymer poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene) (PVDF-TrFE), where the dielectric constant may be tuned by changing the temperature, a negative temperature coefficient of the carrier mobility is observed beyond 200 K. The polarization fluctuation dominant transport inherent to a ferroelectric dielectric in conjunction with the discrete nature of traps in TIPS-pentacene results in an effective de-trapping of the shallow trap states into more mobile states.


The paper aims at flagging some new insights the innovation literature has recently offered to the economic analysis of the firm and of the industry. Using as "guide-posts" the three research papers of the present issue - written by some of the most notable scholars in the field - we argue that the economics of innovation has brought to the front concepts which turn out inescapable in addressing what Ronald Coase called the "nature of the firm". The existence of the firm, first of all, and its ontological nature find in such notions as capabilities and competencies crucial explanatory factors. The same holds true for the firm boundaries, whose definition can not prevent from strategic elements pertaining to the management of innovation. Last, but not least, the firm organization has been found to mirror several aspects of the firm involvement in product and process technological innovations. Accordingly, not only is innovation affected by the market structure firms and consumers contribute to determine. But it also becomes closely linked to the way firms compete among them and crucially affects the dynamics of the industries they operate in. Relying on Schumpeter's idea of the ubiquitous nature of the innovative process, these and other related insights become "normal" attributes of the nature of the firm and thus candidate as conceptual pillars of an "innovation theory of the firm" whose systematization is still diffuse but increasingly more urgent.


Digital twins are expected to form a network, a "Digital Twin Web," in the future. Digital Twin Web follows a similar structure to the World Wide Web and consists of meta-level digital twins that are described as digital twin description documents and distributed via Digital Twin Web servers. Standards must be established before the Digital Twin Web can be used efficiently, and having an easily accessible server implementation can foster the development of those standards. Twinbase is an open-source, Git-based Digital Twin Web server developed with user-friendliness in mind. Twinbase stores digital twin documents in a Git repository, modifies them with Git workflows, and distributes them to users via a static web server, from which the documents can be accessed via a client library or a regular web browser. A demo server is available at https://dtw.twinbase.org and new server instances can be initialized free-of-charge at GitHub via its browser interface. Twinbase is built with GitHub repository, Pages, and Actions but can be extended to support other providers or self-hosting. We describe the underlying architecture of Twinbase to support the creation of derivative and alternative server implementations. The Digital Twin Web requires permanent, globally accessible, and transferable identifiers to function properly, and to address this issue, we introduce the concept of digital twin identifier registry. Performance measurements showed that the median response times for fetching a digital twin document from Twinbase varied between 0.4 and 1.2 seconds depending on the identifier registry.


Biogenic amines (BAs) are produced by microbial decarboxylation in various foods. Histamine and tyramine are recognized as the most toxic of all BAs. Applying degrading amine enzymes such as multicopper oxidase (MCO) is considered an effective method to reduce BAs in food systems. This study analyzed the characterization of heterologously expressed MCO from L. sakei LS. Towards the typical substrate 2,2′-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS), the optimal temperature and pH for recombinant MCO (rMCO) were 25 °C and 3.0, respectively, with the specific enzyme activity of 1.27 U/mg. Then, the effect of different environmental factors on the degrading activity of MCO towards two kinds of BAs was investigated. The degradation activity of rMCO is independent of exogenous copper and mediators. Additionally, the oxidation ability of rMCO was improved for histamine and tyramine with an increased NaCl concentration. Several food matrices could influence the amine-oxidizing activity of rMCO. Although the histamine-degrading activities of rMCO were affected, this enzyme reached a degradation rate of 28.1% in the presence of surimi. Grape juice improved the tyramine degradation activity of rMCO by up to 31.18%. These characteristics of rMCO indicate that this enzyme would be a good candidate for degrading toxic biogenic amines in food systems.


This paper seeks to understand temporal changes in poverty and well-being in Indian cities during the era of economic reforms. The evidence on improvements in well being is mixed. During this period, there was an increase in the number of urban poor. Using two nationally representative samples, we compare the joint distribution of monthly per capita expenditure (a private good) and access to drainage (a public good) in slums and non-slum areas of Indian cities to understand changes in well being. A comparison at two points in time, 1993 and 2002, suggests that the share of slum dwellers in urban poor has declined. However, we do not find evidence for improvement in the well-being of slum dwellers over time. We do find that non-slum urban dwellers are better off in 2002 compared to 1993


The graft copolymerization of methacrylic acid onto poly(ethylene terephthalate) fibers, by the aid of benzoyl peroxide, have been investigated. The graft yield increased up to 85°C, and then decreased with the further increase in temperature. The maximum graft yield was obtained at benzoyl peroxide concentration of 4.0 × 10−3 mol/L. The increase in the concentration of monomer was found to increase the graft yield. The change in the graft yield was followed by the experiments carried out using different water/solvent mixtures. Also, the change in the properties of polye (thylene terephthalate) fibers grafted with methacrylic acid such as moisture regain, density, and diameter were investigated.


New Zealand has prolific, cool, clear fresh water of high quality, found in numerous medium to small rivers and streams and low elevation to high country lakes. These waterways carry a highly endemic fish fauna of low diversity (36 indigenous species, 21 exotic species). The indigenous fauna is dominated by Galaxiidae (20 species), whereas the most diverse exotic groups are Salmonidae and Cyprinidae (7 species of each). The steep topography of the country means that the rivers and streams tend to be swiftly flowing, with coarse gravel and cobble, substrates of hard rock, and a high proportion of the indigenous species live within these substrates. About half the indigenous species are diadromous, undertaking regular, seasonally-timed migrations to and from the sea. Fisheries based on the indigenous fauna include modest commercial anguillid eel and galaxiid whitebait fisheries, but probably the chief form of freshwater fisheries exploitation (in overall economic terms) is for New Zealand's world-renowned, recreational angling fisheries for salmonids. Research on the fauna is broadly spread across diverse fields, from studies of the place of freshwater fishes in the community ecology of river and stream biotas as a whole, to focussed studies on habitats of threatened species, design of fish passage facilities for migratory fishes, the effects of introduced exotic species on the indigenous fauna, the impacts of human stream perturbation on aquatic values including fish, and understanding the local ecology of species introduced to New Zealand from other lands.


Objectives Current outcome measures in cardiac surgery are largely described in terms of mortality. Given the changing demographic profiles and increasingly aged populations referred for cardiac surgery this may not be the most appropriate measure. Postoperative quality of life is an outcome of importance to all ages, but perhaps particularly so for those whose absolute life expectancy is limited by virtue of age. We undertook a systematic review of the literature to clarify and summarise the existing evidence regarding postoperative quality of life of older people following cardiac surgery. For the purpose of this review we defined our population as people aged 80 years of age or over. Methods A systematic review of MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, trial registers and conference abstracts was undertaken to identify studies addressing quality of life following cardiac surgery in patients 80 or over. Results Forty-four studies were identified that addressed this topic, of these nine were prospective therefore overall conclusions are drawn from largely retrospective observational studies. No randomised controlled data were identified. Conclusions Overall there appears to be an improvement in quality of life in the majority of elderly patients following cardiac surgery, however there was a minority in whom quality of life declined (8–19%). There is an urgent need to validate these data and if correct to develop a robust prediction tool to identify these patients before surgery. Such a tool could guide informed consent, policy development and resource allocation.


The article examines the interaction of domestic anti-abuse rules with Article 9 of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Model Convention. To be considered non-abusive, a transaction must do more than satisfy domestic anti-abuse provisions. It must also pass the test under the treaty rule that incorporates paragraphs 1.36-1.41 of the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines. If tax authorities may not re-characterize transactions under domestic law, they may do so under a treaty, which may broaden the power of tax authorities to re-characterize transactions.


We demonstrate a self-aligned balanced cross correlator based on a single type-II phase-matched periodically poled KTiOPO4 crystal. The birefringence of the crystal generates a walk-off between the two orthogonally polarized pulses. This enables the balancing of the cross correlator with input pulses at the same center wavelength. As a first application of this single-crystal balanced cross correlator, we stabilized a 310 m long optical fiber link for timing distribution with long-term stable 10 fs precision.


High grade serous ovarian cancer remains deadly for countless women; therefore, better treatment options are necessary. To identify new targeted therapies for this disease, it is necessary to delineate critical signaling pathways that are driving the pathogenesis of ovarian cancer. Since ovarian cancer in patients grows as three dimensional clusters, particularly within the peritoneum, we examined signaling pathways that were activated with 3D culture in vitro . Comparing the growth of ovarian cancer cell lines in 2D and 3D, we found that the transcription factor STAT3 consistently becomes activated in 3D culture systems. Ovarian cancer cells that lack STAT3 activation when grown in 2D acquire STAT3 activation when grown in 3D. Additionally, ovarian cancer cell lines that have constitutively active STAT3 when grown in 2D display enhanced STAT3 activation when these cells are grown in 3D. STAT3 is often activated through autocrine or paracrine mechanisms via cytokine receptors interacting with the transmembrane signal transducing molecule GP130 and intracellular Jak kinases. Once activated, these kinases tyrosine phosphorylate STAT3, which then translocates to the nucleus, binds to cognate DNA binding sites, and regulates genes that are involved in migration, invasion, and survival. We have found that not only is STAT3 tyrosine phosphorylated in cells grown in 3D, but that STAT3 is functionally active such that STAT3 DNA binding and target gene expression is enhanced in ovarian cancer cells grown in 3D versus 2D. We next determined if STAT3 signaling was necessary for ovarian cancer cell growth in 3D. Using RNA interference directed to STAT3 or GP130, we found that both proteins are necessary for the 3D growth of ovarian cancer cells. In addition, we have found that cells grown in 3D are more resistant to cytotoxic drugs; therefore, we wanted to determine if inhibiting STAT3 would enhance the response to conventional chemotherapy. Using both chemical biology and computational approaches, we have identified small molecule inhibitors of STAT3 that target a number of distinct points in the STAT3 activation pathway. We have found that a subset of these compounds disrupt the morphology of ovarian cancer spheroids. Furthermore, combination of these inhibitors with paclitaxel leads to enhanced loss of viability of cells grown in 3D, raising the possibility of using STAT3 inhibitors alone or in combination with chemotherapeutic drugs for the treatment of ovarian cancer. Citation Format: Sarah R. Walker, Yixi Zhang, Suhu Liu, Zachary T. Giaccone, and David A. Frank. TARGETING COMPONENTS OF THE STAT3 SIGNALING PATHWAY FOR OVARIAN CANCER THERAPY: IMPLICATIONS FROM 3D CULTURE SYSTEMS [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 11th Biennial Ovarian Cancer Research Symposium; Sep 12-13, 2016; Seattle, WA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Clin Cancer Res 2017;23(11 Suppl):Abstract nr NTOC-111.


In this work, high performance 32 bit digital parallel counter architecture based on state look ahead logic is presented. A novel pipeline partitioning methodology, using only three simple repeated CMOS-logic module types namely: (1) an initial module, (2) simple D-type flip-flops, (3)2-bit counters. Here counter operating frequency is enhanced using a novel parallel counting architecture in conjunction with a state look-ahead path and pipelining to eliminate the carry chain delay . The state look-ahead path are partitioned using the pipelined alignment paradigm and thereby provides the correct anticipated overflow states for all counting stages. The proposed parallel 32 bit counter implementation is carried out using 0.15micrometer technology and synthesis and simulation results are obtained using Xilinx 10.1 and modelsim 6.0 respectively and results are discussed.


This study evaluated the efficacy of rAd-p53 (Gendicine®) followed by chemotherapy for the treatment of uterine sarcoma. Twelve cases of uterine sarcoma treated at Shengjing Hospital were retrospectively analyzed. Among the 12 patients, one had primary cancer, and 11 had recurrent cancer. For the recurrent cases, the interval between the first operation and diagnosis of recurrence, or progression-free survival time 1 (PFS1), was 1-18 months (median 3 months). All patients were treated with local application of rAd-p53 followed by chemotherapy (local injection of bleomycin and i.v. infusion of cisplatin, epirubicin, and isocyclophosphamide). Efficacy was evaluated, and the rates of complete remission (CR) and partial remission (PR) were calculated. During follow-up, PFS time 2 (PFS2) after the baseline period and overall survival (OS) time after the baseline period of rAd-p53 treatment data were obtained. The treatment resulted in one CR, seven PR, three with stable disease (SD), and one with progressive disease (PD). The remission rate (CR + PR) was 66.7%, and the responsive (CR + PR + SD) rate was 91.7%. PFS2 ranged from 2 to 62 months, with a median of 13 months, which is 10 months longer than that of PFS1; this difference was statistically significant (p = 0.0038). The OS time ranged from 6 to 62 months, with a median of 24 months. Following the combined treatment, four of the patients underwent a second debulking surgery. Of the two patients with liver metastases, one had CR of liver foci, and one had PR. Up to the follow-up date of the two patients who survived, one was tumor-free for 60 months. The PFS2 for the other patient was 39 months. This patient survived with tumor for 53 months with slow disease progression. The remaining 10 patients died. Local application of rAd-p53 combined with local injection of bleomycin and intravenous infusion of cisplatin, epirubicin and isocyclophosphamide was effective for treatment of uterine sarcoma, especially for patients with liver metastases. For patients with uterine sarcoma who do not have the opportunity for surgery, this regimen can be used as a new adjuvant therapy to obtain a surgical opportunity that allows further debulking of the tumor mass.


The term "Distributed Real-Time Computing System" is described whenever number of computers interconnected in some fashion such that a program or procedure utilizes this distributed but combined power and gets executed in Real Time. The term has different meanings with regard to different systems, because processors can be interconnected in many ways for various reasons. In its most general form, the word distribution implies that the processors are fixed in geographically separated locations. Occasionally, the term is also applied to an operating environment using multiple mini-computers not connected with each other with the help of physical communication lines but are connected through satellite. In a Distributed Real Time System (DRTS), the single communication channel share by all the processors for Inter-Processor Communication (IPC). A program whose execution is distributed among several processors in a distributed system has the total processing cost equal to the sum of processors costs and Inter Tasks Communication Cost (ITCC), which are function of the amount of data transmitted. An optimal assignment is a distribution of modules that has lowest total Execution Cost (EC). The model discussed in this paper provides an optimal solution for assigning a set of "m" tasks to a set of "n" processors where m >> n, in such a way that allocated load on all processors is balanced according to the relative speed. Distributed Real-Time System finds extensive applications in the faculties, where large amount of data is to be processed in relatively short period of time, or where Real-Time computations are required. Meteorology, Cryptography, Image Analysis, Signal Processing, Solar and Radar Surveillance, Simulation of VLSI circuits and Industrial process monitoring are areas of such applications. These applications require not only very fast computation speeds but also different strategies involving distributed task allocation systems. In such applications the quality of the output is proportional to the amount of Real-Time computations. In a Distributed Real-Time System the execution of a program may be distributed among several processing elements to reduce the overall system cost by taking the advantage of heterogeneous computational capabilities and other resources within the system. For the optimal utilization of processors systematic allocation of task is necessary. Keyword: Distributed real time system; Task assignment; Inter-task communication cost; Execution cost


Here we present results on the experimental observation of intrinsic surface magnetism of the bulk paramagnetic material YCo2. As predicted by theory, the observed magnetism of the low-index crystallographic (111) plane of YCo2 is explained by the increasing of density of electronic states at the Fermi level due to the reduced atomic coordination at the surface. Since this magnetic order exists at room temperature, YCo2 shows great potential for an application in magnetic nanotechnology.


The exponential rise in the number of sensors generating data to the cloud services has boosted studies regarding Internet-of-Things (IoT). In this scenario, a huge problem has arisen: How to accurately deal with this growing demand in processing devices to address such amount of data, and consequently send it to the cloudƒ This paper proposes a fog environment as a solution to deal with this limitation. Therefore, this work presents a set of evaluations that help to understand how to pick IoT sensors up based on its capabilities along with the features required by fog customers applications. In other words, it refers to how to deal with timeliness in Fog Computing Environments. The results showed valuable outcomes based on parameters such as effective transmission and packet error which is essential to explain how to choose IoT sensors when dealing with timeliness in fog computing environments.


This study compares the access of group and individual farmer-clients to the credit services of microfinance institutions in Enugu State, Nigeria. The study was designed to ascertain specifically the factors that determine access, the reasons for differences in the levels of access by the respondents as well as their perceptions of the effects of the credit guidelines of MFIs on their levels of access. A total of 72 respondents, 36 individuals and 36 groups, were randomly selected for the study. Multiple regression analysis, Levene's test for equality of means as well as Likert Rating Scale were used for data analysis. Regression result showed that years of experience in farming, size of farm, credit history, size of income from farming, value of collateral, interest rate, compulsory deposit requirement and distance to MFIs affected access for both group and individual clients. Levene's test for equality of mean scores of the group and the individual clients were statistically significantly (p > 0.05) different. Likert Rating result indicate that MFI credit guidelines such as minimum deposit requirement, interest rate and loan size were perceived as constraints by group clients while individual clients perceived, in addition to these, provision of acceptable surety as hindrances to their access to MFI credit. Group lending option scored better than the individual option suggesting that insistence on group formation still remains a better approach to accessing MFI credit. Keywords: Microfinance, credit access, groups, individuals


The performance of 68 HIV-1 seropositive asymptomatic (HIV+) subjects stratified on CD4 levels were compared with 82 HIV-1 seronegative (HIV-) subjects on a battery of neuropsychological, mood state, and perceived health status measures. The neuropsychological test battery included measures of attention, reaction time, memory, intellectual ability, psychomotor speed, frontal lobe or "executive" function, and decision time. None of the HIV+ subjects were taking antiviral agents. The groups did not differ for age, mood state, or WAIS-R Verbal and Performance IQ scores. Due to group differences for education and weekly ethanol consumption, both variables were used as covariates in multivariate analyses of variance. Relatively few differences were observed between subgroups of HIV+ patients or between these subgroups and control subjects. These data suggest that factors other than absolute levels of immunosuppression as expressed by CD4 levels alone, appear to be responsible for the deficits observed in HIV+ asymptomatic patients.


INTRODUCTION: The objective of this study was to assess the durability, short-term and long-term effectiveness, and safety of tofacitinib in ulcerative colitis (UC) in clinical practice. METHODS: This is a retrospective multicenter study including patients with UC who had received the first tofacitinib dose at least 8 weeks before the inclusion. Clinical effectiveness was based on partial Mayo score. RESULTS: A total of 408 patients were included. Of them, 184 (45%) withdrew tofacitinib during follow-up (mean = 18 months). The probability of maintaining tofacitinib was 67% at 6 m, 58% at 12 m, and 49% at 24 m. The main reason for tofacitinib withdrawal was primary nonresponse (44%). Older age at the start of tofacitinib and a higher severity of clinical activity were associated with tofacitinib withdrawal. The proportion of patients in remission was 38% at week 4, 45% at week 8, and 47% at week 16. Having moderate-to-severe vs mild disease activity at baseline and older age at tofacitinib start were associated with a lower and higher likelihood of remission at week 8, respectively. Of 171 patients in remission at week 8, 83 (49%) relapsed. The probability of maintaining response was 66% at 6 m and 54% at 12 m. There were 93 adverse events related to tofacitinib treatment (including 2 pulmonary thromboembolisms [in patients with risk factors] and 2 peripheral vascular thrombosis), and 29 led to tofacitinib discontinuation. DISCUSSION: Tofacitinib is effective in both short-term and long-term in patients with UC. The safety profile is similar to that previously reported.


We briefly review how light meson resonances are described within one and two-loop Unitarized Chiral Perturbation Theory amplitudes and how, close to Nc=3, light vectors follow the Nc behavior of $q\bar q$ mesons whereas light scalars do not. This supports the hypothesis that the lightest scalar is not predominantly a $q\bar q$ meson, although a subdominant $q\bar q$ component is suggested around 1 GeV at somewhat larger Nc. In contrast, when Nc is very far from 3, like in the Nc --> infinity limit, we explain again in detail why unitarization is not, a priori, reliable nor robust and why this limit should not be used to drag any conclusions about the dominant nature of physical light scalar mesons.


Water is an inevitable by-product of oil production. Produced water has become one of the major environmental concerns in the oil industry.  The first step in solving this problem is to correctly diagnose the source of the waterbefore applying a successful treatment. Because of the lack of proper diagnostic approaches, the water treatment techniques have witnessed many failures in their application.This paper introduces a new systematic software program for decision making when diagnosing the water production problems and their sources through a logical algorithm. The software program was named MYA program after the initials of the three engineers who constructed the methodology, Motaz, Yassin and Ali.Case studies were taken from a Sudanese oil field and were diagnosed using this software. It was concluded that applying the algorithm improve the understanding and determining of the water production mechanisms. The program succeeded in giving a proper diagnosis to each type of water production mechanisms in short time without using of any Production logging data. Adoption of this software would result in obtaining a proper diagnosis and consequently an appropriate treatment would be applied leading to a significant increase in hydrocarbon recovery and reducing the risk and cost of environmental hazards of produced water.


This is the second of a three part series of papers presented at the Control Systems 92 Conference at Whistler, B.C. describing the development of an advanced control applica tion from concept to startup. Part 1,High-Fidelity Real Time Dynamic Process Simulation with Object-Oriented Pro gramming, describes the tool and development environment while Part 3, Advanced Control Development-Adaptive Nonlinear Control describes the resulting control strategy. This paper describes the process model used and introduces a fixed time zone model development methodology. Simu lation studies showed the advantages of fixed time zone partitioning relative to conventional fixed position partition ing in the simulation of a plug flow process and demonstrated the high fidelity and flexibility achievable with the develop ment tool utilized. Fixed time zone techniques were system atically applied for a high fidelity simulation of an oxygen delignification tower. The resultant model was applied for testing an advanced kappa number control scheme utilizing Simon's IDEAS™ simulation package.


The objective of our study is to estimate the radiation exposure to pediatric patients with sarcoma getting required (or highly recommended) ionizing radiation scans during initial chemotherapy and to determine how often distant progressive disease was discovered. Data from the last 25 years from the Children's Oncology Group open phase III protocols were reviewed for the most common pediatric sarcomas: osteosarcoma, Ewing's sarcoma, and rhabdomyosarcoma. The number of required/recommended ionizing radiation scans, including chest radiographs, chest computed tomography, positron emission tomography scans, and bone scans during induction, consolidation, and maintenance chemotherapy, were recorded and the total radiation dose per patient was calculated. In addition, the number of patients who were removed from protocol during chemotherapy because of new or distant progressive disease was documented. In our analysis of 5845 patients, the average pediatric patient with sarcoma on protocol was exposed to an ionizing radiation dose of 37.1 mGy, equivalent to the lifetime dose of nuclear power plant workers, whereas the progression of disease was detected at most in 5.4% of the patients. Our study is meant to inform pediatric oncologists more precisely of the actual risks and benefits of mandated surveillance scans during chemotherapy in patients with sarcoma.


Penang Hokkien was spoken by the early Hokkien settlers as a
 heritage language in a Malay dominant environment before it became a lingua
 franca of the Chinese communities in present-day Penang and its neighboring
 states in Northern Malaysia. Over two centuries, Penang Hokkien has assimilated
 Malay words and structures. This article discusses the forms and functions of
 pún and tio̍h, which have assimilated
 Malay elements as response strategies to two key triggers for deviation from the
 baseline Southern Min dialect: ambiguity and complex structure. Through a
 detailed study of pún and tio̍h, this article
 contributes to a better understanding of the development of a Malay-dominant
 heritage language that is based on a Chinese dialect spoken in the Malay
 peninsula.


Surgery has a pivotal role in the treatment of bronchogenic carcinoma. Indeed, resection is the standard treatment of early stages (I & II) non-small cell lung cancer, remains optional for a portion of patients with a locally advanced disease (IIIA & IIIB) and in anecdotal carefully selected patients with an oligometastatic disease (IV). In France, this surgery is framed by strict regulations. It is performed by qualified surgeons only, in authorized institutions, on the basis in particular of a minimal volume activity. The current risk of postoperative death is less than 5%, and the probability of 5-year overall survival exceeds 60% in stage I patients. The standard surgical approach is an open thoracotomy. In poor-risk patients with stage I disease who are considered appropriate candidates for thoracoscopic anatomic lung resection, the use of video-assisted techniques is an acceptable alternative to open thoracotomy. In patients who are medically fit for conventional surgical resection, lobectomy or greater resections are recommended. Systematic mediastinal lymph node dissection should be performed for accurate pathologic staging and treatment. The practice of extended resections to mediastinal structures should be regionalized and reserved to high volume expert teams. The effort of standardization of surgical practices and the prospective collection of their results are necessary prerequisites for the evaluation of the quality of care.


In this study, numerical tsunami simulations along the Bangladesh coast were conducted in order to make tsunami database. The numerical model is based on the spatial grid system in Cartesian coordinate system using a non-linear tsunami theory. Two types of bathymetry grid interval were considered in this study such as (1) one arc minute, that is about 1850 m and (2) twenty arc seconds that is about 616.67 m. The source points have been set up near the Bangladesh coast and parallel to the trench. The coastal points, forecast points and one tide gauge station were set up near the coast. Ten source points were selected with four different magnitudes (M w 6.5, 7.0, 7.5 and 8.0) and four different depths (0, 10, 20 and 30 km). Tsunami heights were checked graphically for all cases. The Green's Law was applied to obtain the reliable tsunami heights along the coast from the tsunami heights at forecast points. Results of both grid interval of bathymetry were compared with each other. The simulation results were stored in MySQL system for a tsunami database.


The notion of academic integrity fulfills the mission of a peculiar enzyme-catalyst of systemic social changes - not the only one, but one of the most important in modern society, which is at the same time a society of knowledge, an information society and a society of risk. If the correct understanding of academic integrity can provide us with a lot of benefits, then its misunderstanding and even inaccurate interpretations can lead and already lead to socially undesirable consequences.
We propose to understand academic integrity (especially considering its specific interpretation in Ukraine) as an integral characteristic, the core of which is a certain moral integrity of a person as his/her commitment in keeping its own principles, and its necessary, attributive consequences-characteristics is the dignity of a person who seeks to find the truth through knowledge, and also performative excellence, virtuosity in achieving this goal, perfect knowledge management, and on this basis – practical achievement, pragmatic focus on the truth.
The only reliable way of asserting academic integrity is the full dimension functioning of academic institutions: universities, research institutes, academies. Academic establishments should carry out those invisible but constant and persistent "nudges" (according to Richard R. Thaler's terminology), peculiar soft, but unambiguous pushes for everyone who begins to engage in academic affairs, toward a support of academic values. It is in this ultimate sense that the institutional purpose of academic integrity is to preserve and promote academic values.
The success of the institutional protection of academic integrity is critically dependent on the successful conceptualization of the functioning of these institutions, that is, first of all, the achievement of a clear certainty with the basic concepts used in such conceptualization. The concept of academic integrity should receive a constant new conceptualizations, and therefore the imperfect current application by most participants in the struggle for academic integrity in Ukraine is not critical - the presence or absence of desire of each of them to improve their own understanding of academic integrity is critical, rather than dogmatically stopping on its partial interpretation that precisely because of this incompleteness inevitably leads to its practical misuse.


Gaseous fuels have important emission and resource benefits but are not generally suitable for compression ignition (diesel) CI engines because of their low cetane numbers. However, the dual-fuel (DF) concept solves this problem. At the university of New South Wales (UNSW), fundamental studies are being followed with the development of a DF combustion bomb and a rapid compression machine. A three-dimensional (3D) finite volume code has been developed to describe their constant volume, DF combustion. The recent focus of the work simulates factors of importance in engines such as the effect of swirl, the duration of the ignition delay, and the gaseous fuel characteristics on the DF combustion process.


Identifying trustworthy information in the presence of noisy data contributed by numerous unvetted sources from online social media (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram) has been a crucial task in the era of big data. This task, referred to as truth discovery, targets at identifying the reliability of the sources and the truthfulness of claims they make without knowing either a priori. In this work, we identified three important challenges that have not been well addressed in the current truth discovery literature. The first one is "misinformation spread" where a significant number of sources are contributing to false claims, making the identification of truthful claims difficult. For example, on Twitter, rumors, scams, and influence bots are common examples of sources colluding, either intentionally or unintentionally, to spread misinformation and obscure the truth. The second challenge is "data sparsity" or the "long-tail phenomenon" where a majority of sources only contribute a small number of claims, providing insufficient evidence to determine those sources' trustworthiness. For example, in the Twitter datasets that we collected during real-world events, more than 90 percent of sources only contributed to a single claim. Third, many current solutions are not scalable to large-scale social sensing events because of the centralized nature of their truth discovery algorithms. In this paper, we develop a Scalable and Robust Truth Discovery (SRTD) scheme to address the above three challenges. In particular, the SRTD scheme jointly quantifies both the reliability of sources and the credibility of claims using a principled approach. We further develop a distributed framework to implement the proposed truth discovery scheme using Work Queue in an HTCondor system. The evaluation results on three real-world datasets show that the SRTD scheme significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art truth discovery methods in terms of both effectiveness and efficiency.


That which in art reminds us of our greater selves, our unexplored potentials, and our personal mysteries —however beautiful, dignified, humiliating, or painful— ultimately opens us to transpersonal realities of which we are not immediately conscious. Ana Mendieta and Yoko Ono used ritual-in-performance to explore myths and realities of identity toward seeking a greater self. When Yoko Ono began to exhibit and perform in the United States in the early 1960s, she inspired what became the Fluxus movement, with performance and conceptual work that exemplified the risk artists might take to explore such issues as personal boundaries, humility, chance, reverence and trust. In "Cut Piece," (Figure 1) performed in 1964, as she was slowly, ritualistically stripped by members of the audience, her vulnerable, yet stoic disposition exemplified a transpersonal moment. She meditatively sat through the drama of her clothes cutting with no overt anxiety about physical violence. Ana Mendieta's body rituals transgressed personal boundaries in a different way than Ono's. Mendieta assumed the identities of archetypal deities, evoked and transformed rituals from the African-Cuban religious practice Santería, a syncretization of West African (Yoruba) animistic symbolism with Spanish Catholicism.1 (Figure 2) Mendieta recreated rituals that intentionally involved a level of sacrifice in order to fuse body, nature, and art. The ritual process for Mendieta, as for Ono, was a stripping down of ego to manifest a transpersonal moment that is self-empowering through its voluntary self-loss. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Futurist and Dada artists pursued performance over other media to challenge the formality of how art was perceived and engaged in by the audience. It was not until the 1950s that artists returned to favoring performance over other art media, creating work that can be compared with the Baroque sensibility, both wrought with a decadence and a strong impetus for indulgence. Performance artists of the sixties were seminal in re-initiating the mechanism of performance as a creative means for expressing a freedom of the body and the self. This aesthetic, often dismissed as mischievously self-deprecating and narcissistic, was, in fact, a sobering self-revelatory process of reaffirming the body and identity (while inevitably exploiting them). This process of self-inflicted disengagement, manipulation, humiliation, and critical evaluation was an essential part of the process of re-structuring a greater consciousness. Using ritual, Yoko Ono and Ana Mendieta enriched the potentially debilitating deconstructive process of the body projected in performance. The ritual process established a reverence from which they not only achieved a reclaiming of identity on a personal level but also challenged any fixed perception of identity and its relationship to a single culture or nationality. In my examination of their processes, I will demonstrate how the performance work of Ono and Mendieta invigorates the dialogue on identity by re-claiming identity as an experience of totality rather than as a limited, fragmented, or singularly encapsulated, self-indulgent experience.


© 2017 S. Karger AG, Basel www.karger.com/cre During 2017, ORCA has continued to receive generous financial support from both charitable bodies and commercial organisations. This has enabled ORCA to carry out its work in education and in the stimulation of caries research internationally. ORCA is very pleased to give warm thanks to all its charitable and corporate members for their valuable support.


【We proposed circular AlGaN/GaN schottky barrier diode, which has no mesa structure near the current path. Proposed device showed low leakage current of 10 nA/mm at -100 V while that of the rectangular device was 34 nA/mm at the same condition. Proposed circular AIGaN/GaN SBD showed high forward current of 88.61 mA at 3,5 V while that of the conventional device was 14.1 mA at the same condition.】


A set of successive approximation formulas for calculating the refractive index profile of optical fibers from their transverse interference patterns has been derived. The probing ray refraction due to the index gradient in the core is corrected for by these formulas, and the accuracy of index determination is improved. The error is confirmed to be less than 3 x 10(-3)% of the index difference by means of computer simulations. The index profiles of some optical fibers are practically determined with the help of these formulas.


The Stochastic and Blocking Job Shop Scheduling problems are two extensions of the Standard Job Scheduling Problem. In the stochastic extension, processing times retrieve a probability distribution. This results in an objective function that is also a stochastic variable. In order to reliably calculate the objective value, a simulation has to be executed. When solving such problems, new complexities come into play and different solution approaches need to be developed. This thesis presents several new solution approaches that can optimize the Stochastic Job Shop Scheduling Problem. The blocking extension removes the unlimited intermediate machine buffers. When the buffers are not available, the already NP-Hard job shop becomes even harder to solve. In this thesis, additional solution approaches, built upon existing approaches, are discussed that can optimize the Blocking Job Shop Problem better. Using a randomized neighbourhood in combination with a MIP, new areas of solutions are being explored that lead to better solutions. Also a cycle analysis is given that describes the problem infeasibilities in greater detail.


Genetic mosaicism is thought to be a common phenomenon in inherited skin disorders. It is the leading molecular mechanism explaining cutaneous hamartomas and nevoid disorders, skin manifestations of most X-linked genodermatoses and specific forms of clinical variability and topographic distribution in autosomal skin disorders. The developmental (in utero) origin and timing dependence are two major attributes for the current definition of cutaneous mosaicism. Chromosomal mosaicism, lyonization in X-linked genodermatoses, and various types of mosaicism (i.e. type 1, type 2 and revertant mosaicism) in autosomal skin disorders are mechanisms well defined at the molecular level. All these concepts have been fully included in the current medical terminology in dermatology and genetics. Mitotic crossing-over, paradominant inheritance, monoallelic expression of autosomal traits and mosaicism in acquired skin disorders remain without a formal molecular proof and still represent sources of debate in the scientific community. This review summarizes current concepts, discoveries and controversies in the field of cutaneous mosaicism for practitioners and clinical researchers to enhance their understanding of such a underestimated clinical phenomenon and its biological basis.


This thesis explores the contexts and effects of water governance in transitional Vietnam. There, as in many other developing country contexts, commodification of water – a process of converting water or water services formerly subject to non-market social rules into one that is primarily subject to market rules – is being promoted with enthusiasm to address local water problems. This has given rise to a number of local market and market-social hybrid mechanisms to address water governance. Water markets, particularly a market for water licences and permits, are proposed at the policy level as a means to achieve efficient use and equitable allocation of water. In a country like Vietnam, which has an extensive history of elaborate management of water especially for agriculture, such developments are radical, and potentially very far reaching. The proposed market solutions arguably fit alongside the fundamental reforms to the Vietnamese economy, which have resulted in an average growth of 7.5 percent per annum over the last decade. Like the economic reforms, the water reforms are not of local provenance. Rather, they reflect international orthodoxies, deployed in this case in accordance with such instruments as the Dublin Statement on Water and Sustainable Development – an international protocol on management and development of water resources signed in Dublin in January 1992, and endorsed by world leaders at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in June of that year. For all such orthodoxies to be effective, in Vietnam as elsewhere, the water reforms must be implemented in practical ways alongside existing orthodox and unorthodox modes of governance, which are both layered and complex. By exploring the juncture and/or disjuncture between international, mainstream and everyday, local modes of water governance, this paper shows how and why water markets, especially the water use rights market, may or may not function well in the polycentric complexities of Vietnam. It also sheds light on the question of whether or not the markets are likely to achieve their targeted goals and generate expected outcomes.


Outlier detection in high-dimensional data is a challenging yet important task, as it has applications in, e.g., fraud detection and quality control. State-of-the-art density-based algorithms perform well because they 1) take the local neighbourhoods of data points into account and 2) consider feature subspaces. In highly complex and high-dimensional data, however, existing methods are likely to overlook important outliers because they do not explicitly take into account that the data is often a mixture distribution of multiple components. We therefore introduce GLOSS, an algorithm that performs local subspace outlier detection using global neighbourhoods. Experiments on synthetic data demonstrate that GLOSS more accurately detects local outliers in mixed data than its competitors. Moreover, experiments on real-world data show that our approach identifies relevant outliers overlooked by existing methods, confirming that one should keep an eye on the global perspective even when doing local outlier detection.


Following the release of Qucs-0.0.18 in August 2014 the Qucs Development Team considered in detail a number of possible directions that future versions of the software could take. Spice4qucs is one of these routes. It addresses a number of problems observed with the current version of Qucs while attempting to combine some of the best features of other GPL circuit simulation packages. The project also aims to add additional model development tools to those currently available in Qucs-0.0.18. Qucs was originally written as an RF and microwave engineering design tool which provided features not found in SPICE, like S parameter simulation, two and multiport small signal AC circuit analysis and RF network synthesis. Since it was first release under the General Public License (GPL) in 2003 Qucs has provided users with a relatively stable, flexible and reasonably functional circuit simulation package which is particularly suited to high frequency circuit simulation. In the years following 2003 the Qucs Development team added a number of additional simulation facilities, including for example, transient simulation, device parameter sweep capabilities and single tone Harmonic Balance simulation, making Qucs functionality comparable to SPICE at low frequencies and significantly extended at high frequencies. Considerable effort has also been made to improve the device modelling tools distributed with Qucs. The recent versions of the software include code for algebraic equation manipulation, Equation-Defined Device (EDD) modelling, Radio Frequency Equation-Defined Device (RFEDD) simulation and Verilog-A synthesised model development plus a range of compact and behavioural device modelling and post simulation data analysis tools that have become central features in an open source software package of surprising power and utility.

One of the most often requested new Qucs features is "better documentation", especially documentation outlining the use and limitations of the simulation and the modelling features built into Qucs. Qucs is a large and complex package which is very flexible in the way that it can be used as a circuit design aid. Hence, however much documentation is written describing its functionality there are always likely be simulation and modelling examples that are missing from the Qucs documentation. In future Qucs releases will be accompanied by two or more basic Qucs documents. The first of these, simply called "Qucs-Help", provides introductory information for beginners and indeed any other users, who require help in starting to use Qucs. The second Qucs document, called "Spice4qucs-Help", introduces more advanced simulation and modelling topics. Both documents present a large number of typical circuit simulation and compact device modelling examples.


Zero-Shot Learning (ZSL) models aim to classify object classes that are not seen during the training process. However, the problem of class imbalance is rarely discussed, despite its presence in several ZSL datasets. In this paper, we propose a Neural Network model that learns a latent feature embedding and a Gaussian Process (GP) regression model that predicts latent feature prototypes of unseen classes. A calibrated classifier is then constructed for ZSL and Generalized ZSL tasks. Our Neural Network model is trained efficiently with a simple training strategy that mitigates the impact of class-imbalanced training data. The model has an average training time of 5 minutes and can achieve state-of-the-art (SOTA) performance on imbalanced ZSL benchmark datasets like AWA2, AWA1 and APY, while having relatively good performance on the SUN and CUB datasets.


We have conducted an in vitro coagulation study, using the thrombelastograph (TEG), to determine if the enhanced coagulability of whole blood after haemodilution with normal saline can still be demonstrated after administration of an antiplatelet agent. Aspirin inhibits the platelet-endothelial interaction that is part of the coagulation process. We investigated the role of aspirin in the phenomenon of haemodilution-induced coagulability to identify if the platelet-endothelial system is involved in the process. Previous work showed that the TEG is not altered by oral ingestion of aspirin. Blood from 20 volunteers was divided into two aliquots of 4 ml each. One sample was diluted by 20% by addition of 0.9% saline 1 ml while the other was not diluted and served as a control. Coagulation studies were performed using the TEG and enhanced coagulation was seen in the saline diluted samples. Subjects then received soluble aspirin 375 mg daily for 3 days, after which the tests were repeated. There was no difference in the control TEG values and saline enhancement of coagulation was preserved in all subjects after 3 days of aspirin administration. We conclude that aspirin had no effect on the observation that haemodilution with saline enhances the coagulability of whole blood.


The problem of charge exchange in fast collisions of completely stripped projectiles with hydrogen-like atoms is theoretically investigated with the impulse hypothesis. The standard single-centre impulse approximation (IA) is substantially revised. The framework of two-centre scattering is explored to consistently formulate the problem with full respect of the exact boundary conditions to the complete state vectors in both entrance and exit channels. This is achieved by simultaneously introducing intermediate states for an attractive and a repulsive Coulomb potential with the same interaction strength. The difference between these potentials, which are present in the main dynamic equation for the two-centre continuum states, reduces to a short-range interaction at large distances. As a consequence, the resulting double continua, which originate from the action of a two-potential Möller wave operator onto three-particle intermediate plane waves, exist in a mathematically rigorous manner. This is strictly required by the formal scattering theory. In addition, the present model, termed the reformulated impulse approximation (RIA), includes multiple scattering effects, which are completely discarded in the standard IA. As an illustration of the proposed theory, differential and total cross-sections are computed for electron capture by a proton from an atomic hydrogen at impact energies ranging from 20 to 7500 keV. Significant improvement over the IA is obtained. The IA severely underestimates the experimental data on total cross-sections in the range 20-350 keV, whereas the RIA is in very good agreement with the measurements at all the energies under study. Moreover, the IA completely fails to reproduce the experimental differential cross-sections at intermediate energies 25, 60 and 125 at which the RIA is very successful. Also at high energies such as 2, 2.8, 3 and 5 MeV, where Thomas double scattering enriches the angular distribution of scattered projectiles, the RIA is in much better agreement with the measurements than the IA.


One of the major obstacles in employing complex-valued trajectory methods for quantum barrier scattering calculations is the search for isochrones. In this study, complex-valued derivative propagation method trajectories in the arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian frame are employed to solve the complex Hamilton-Jacobi equation for quantum barrier scattering problems employing constant velocity trajectories moving along rectilinear paths whose initial points can be in the complex plane or even along the real axis. It is shown that this effectively removes the need for isochrones for barrier transmission problems. Model problems tested include the Eckart, Gaussian, and metastable quadratic+cubic potentials over a variety of wave packet energies. For comparison, the "exact" solution is computed from the time-dependent Schrodinger equation via pseudospectral methods.


We report the development of equally sloped tomography for the reconstruction of a 3D object from a number of 2D projections. In a combination of pseudopolar fast Fourier transform and the oversampling method with an iterative algorithm, equally sloped tomography makes superior 3D reconstruction to conventional tomography that has an intrinsic drawback due to the use of equally angled 2D projections. We believe this general approach will find applications in x-ray imaging, electron microscopy, coherent diffraction microscopy, and other tomographic imaging fields.


ABSTRACT Airborne fungal spores are extensively reported as the elicitors of respiratory allergies in human. Fusarium lateritium is one such fungal species reported for eliciting significant skin prick results from India. The present study aims to analyze the allergenic potential of F. lateritium followed by the identification of allergens. The total protein of F. lateritium was subjected to 1dimensional (1D) and 2D gel electrophoresis followed by corresponding IgE-specific immunoblots. We found 8 immunoreactive bands/zones in (1D) immunoblot using 11 F. lateritium-sensitised patient sera. In 1D immunoblot, a 34 kDa band was detected in >80% of the patients and hence considered as a potential allergen of F. lateritium. Corresponding 34 kDa spot in 2D-immunoblot was analyzed by mass spectrometric analysis and identified as Glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase. The identified F. lateritium allergen holds the potential to instigate vaccine development for immunotherapy of F. lateritium sensitized patients.


An improved and colony algorithm was proposed. Genetic algorithm was utilized to optimize the parameters of ant colony algorithm. The improved algorithm was used to solve the optimization routing of the basic vehicle routing problem. The algorithm possesses some characteristics such as strong total researching ability. The experimental results show that the improved ant colony algorithm possesses better optimization quantity and effect than the traditional ant colony algorithm.


Connections between the boundary behaviour of polyanalytic functions and the structure of the boundary are investigated. In particular, a Jordan domain with Lipschitz boundary is constructed which is regular for the Dirichlet problem in the class of bianalytic functions. Bibliography: 14 titles.


Order Picking activity has about 55% of warehouse operational cost. Because of that, a company XYZ, management views that warehouse activities which employs human energy need to be improved and be efficient. One of the strategies is to do order picking simultaneously for some customer orders, this way is common called Order Batching. The type of order batching is static and based on Earliest Due Date. The result of order batching implementation has an impact on reduction of travel distance about 31.8%.


QUINN, T. 13. 1980. Evidence for celestial and magnetic compass orientation in lake-migrating sockeye salmon fry. Journal of Comparative Physiology 137:243-248. SCHULTEN, K., AND A. WINDEMUTH. 1986. Model for a physiological magnetic ompass. Pages 99-106 in Biophysical effects of steady magnetic fields (G. Maret, N. Boccara, and J. Kiepenheuer, Eds.). Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, Germany. WILTSCHKO, R., AND W. WILTSCHKO. 1978. Evidence for the use of magnetic outward journey information in homing pigeons. Naturwissenschaften 65:112.


Many different human cell lines, including both normal and cancer cells, appear to converge to a state that contains an unusual number of chromosomes when they are grown in culture.


Atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition has been identified as a major threat to biodiversity, but field surveys of its effects have rarely focussed on sites which are actively managed to maintain characteristic species. We analysed permanent quadrat data from 106 plots in nature reserves on calcareous grassland sites in the United Kingdom collected during a survey between 1990 and 1993 and compared the data with the results from resurvey of 48 of these plots between 2006 and 2009. N deposition showed no significant spatial association with species richness, species diversity, or the frequency of species adapted to low nutrient conditions in the 1990–1993 dataset. However, temporal analysis showed that N deposition was significantly associated with changes in Shannon diversity and evenness. In plots with high rates of N deposition, there was a decrease in species diversity and evenness, a decline in the frequency of characteristic calcareous grassland species, and a lower number of rare and scarce species. As all sites had active management to maintain a high diversity and characteristic species, our results imply that even focussed management on nature conservation objectives cannot prevent adverse effects of high rates of N deposition. Structural equation modelling was used to compare different causal mechanisms to explain the observed effects. For change in Shannon diversity, direct effects of N deposition were the dominant mechanism and there was an independent effect of change in grazing intensity. In contrast, for change in herb species number, indirect effects on soil acidity, linked to both N and S deposition, were more important than direct effects of N deposition.


Most data scientists use nowadays functional or semi-functional languages like SQL, Scala or R to treat data, obtained directly from databases. Such process requires to fetch data, process it, then store again, and such process tends to be done outside the DB, in often complex data-flows. Recently, database service providers have decided to integrate "R-as-a-Service" in their DB solutions. The analytics engine is called directly from the SQL query tree, and results are returned as part of the same query. Here we show a first taste of such technology by testing the portability of our ALOJA-ML analytics framework, coded in R, to Microsoft SQL-Server 2016, one of the SQL+R solutions released recently. In this work we discuss some data-flow schemes for porting a local DB + analytics engine architecture towards Big Data, focusing specially on the new DB Integrated Analytics approach, and commenting the first experiences in usability and performance obtained from such new services and capabilities.


The study of the two-shell system started in 'pair of null gravitating shells I and II' is continued. The pull back of the Liouville form to the constraint surface, which contains complete information about the Poisson brackets of Dirac observables, is computed in the singular double-null Eddington–Finkelstein (DNEF) gauge. The resulting formula shows that the variables conjugate to the Schwarzschild masses of the intershell spacetimes are simple combinations of the values of the DNEF coordinates on these spacetimes at the shells. The formula is valid for any number of in- and outgoing shells. After applying it to the two-shell system, the symplectic form is calculated for each component of the physical phase space; regular coordinates are found, defining it as a symplectic manifold. The symplectic transformation between the initial and final values of observables for the shell-crossing case is given.


Few early New England practices troubled European observers more than the attempt to restrict church membership to the regenerate. The requirement that each prospective church member give a "relation" of his experience of grace, a public declaration "of God's manner of working upon [his] soul," won quick notoriety. In his list of sixteen questions designed to embarass the Independent party, for instance, the Dutch minister William Apollonius began by raising the issue of the qualifications of church members. "Is no one to be admitted into the communion of the external visible church," he demanded, "unless he is endowed with the real internal holiness of regeneration and with justifying faith in Christ? Must such a person undergo a strict examination…?" Robert Baillie suggested that prospective members' obligation "to show to the whole congregation convincing signs of their regeneration" was the "capital and fundamental difference" between his position and that of the New Englanders. He and his fellow Scot Samuel Rutherford were convinced that by requiring such a test, the New England churches had so seriously deviated from traditional Christian practice that they had aligned themselves with the sectarians.


Background The National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP) has quite successfully involved private sector for referral of presumptive drug resistant TB (DR-TB) patients for molecular testing and referral for DR-TB management. There was a challenge as all the referred patients were not reaching to the facilities. A "DOST" intervention model was implemented to strengthen the patient care pathway. We conducted this study to describe the patient care cascade, the clinico-demographic characteristics of patients linked to the treatment and to estimate the mean turn-around time for drug resistant TB care services. Methods It is a cross-sectional study conducted at New Delhi during the period July 2019-December 2020 under programmatic settings. Results A total of 9,331 patients were subjected to CB-NAAT test and 382 (4%) were found to be resistant for rifampicin and 231 (76%) were initiated on treatment in the public sector under NTEP. Conclusion The DOST intervention model developed to link the DR-TB patients from private sector to the public sector DR-TB centers is found to be efficient and effective.


The effects of soil fertility correction levels (control, liming, fertilization and liming + fertilization) and regrowth ages (21, 28, 35, 42, 49, 56, 63, 70, 77 and 84 days) on growth dynamics, forage yield and morphogenetic and structural characteristics of Trachypogon plumosus were assessed in Roraimas savannas. Dry matter yields (DMY), absolute growth rate (AGR), tiller population density (TPD), number of live leaves (NLL), final leaf length (FLL), leaf area index (LAI), leaf elongation rate (LER) and leaf senescence rate (LSR) increased consistently with regrowth age, while average growth rate (AvGR), and leaf appearance rate (LAR) were inversely proportional to regrowth age. The grass showed high responsiveness to the soil fertility improvement. Liming + fertilization or fertilization alone promoted higher DMY (2,116 and 1,759 kg ha -1 ), AGR (40.5 and 33.6 kg ha -1 .day), AvGR (32.5 and 27.9 kg ha -1 .day), NLL (5.5 and 4.9 leaf tiller -1 ), LAR (0.119 and 0.109 leaf day -1 tiller -1 ), LER (2.53 and 2.06 cm day -1 tiller -1 ), FLL (22.1 and 18.9 cm), LAI (2.64 and 2.83) and TPD (762 and 725 tillers m -2 ). To maximize the forage use efficiency and to prevent losses to leaves senescence, it is recommended a regrowth period between 56 to 63 days for fertilization and liming + fertilization, and 63 to 70 days for control or liming pastures.


Information technology has become an integral aspect of the drug development process. The virtual screening process (VS) is a computational technique for screening chemical compounds in a reasonable amount of time and cost. The similarity search is one of the primary tasks in VS that estimates a molecule's similarity. It is predicated on the idea that molecules with similar structures may also have similar activities. Many techniques for comparing the biological similarity between a target compound and each compound in the database have been established. Although the approaches have a strong performance, particularly when dealing with molecules with homogenous active structural, they are not enough good when dealing with structurally heterogeneous compounds. The previous works examined many deep learning methods in the enhanced Siamese similarity model and demonstrated that the Enhanced Siamese Multi-Layer Perceptron similarity model (SMLP) and the Siamese Convolutional Neural Network-one dimension similarity model (SCNN1D) have good outcomes when dealing with structurally heterogeneous molecules. To further improve the retrieval effectiveness of the similarity model, we incorporate the best two models in one hybrid model. The reason is that each method gives good results in some classes, so combining them in one hybrid model may improve the retrieval recall. Many designs of the hybrid models will be tested in this study. Several experiments on real-world data sets were conducted, and the findings demonstrated that the new approaches outperformed the previous method.


Niobium-phosphatetitania supported on silica as oxidative-acidic bifunctional catalyst has been synthesized via sol-gel and impregnation methods in different sequences n"r"]y, (i) TiO2, l\brO, and POa3-impregnated stepwise onto silica (P/Nb/T.i/Si), (ii) mixture of TiO2 and Nb2O5 ffleonateo onto silica, f9]l_owed by impregnation of eoo]1e71Nu+Ti)/Si), ano liiii Nb2o5 and PO+" Impregnated onto TiO2-SiO2 (P/Nb/Ti-Si). The results indicated the diffeient properties resulted from varied jnteractions among SiO2 support, TiO2 catalyst and its modifiers have greatly affected the bifunctional catalytic behavior of the synth-esized materials. The XRD results showed an identified peak of titanium oxide in sample P/Nbffi/Si. Meanwhile, samptes P/(Nb+Ti)/Si and P/Nb/Ti-Si were in amorphous form indicating that Ti and Nb were dispeised well on the surface of silica. UV-Vis DR results revealed that oitaheoral or polymeric Ti species was the dominant species in sample P/Nb/Ti/Si while hydrated tetrahedrri Ti rp""ies was predominant in samples P/(Nb+Ti)/Si and P/Nb/Ti-Si. Besides of tetrahedrallv coordinated Ti species, it has been demonstrated that the presence of Nb, POa3- as well as ifr" SiO, support has contributg_d significantly in improving the oxidative catalytic activity. Meanwhile, interaction between PO4"- groups and Nb has generated Bronsted acidity for the high yield of diol. lt has been shown that P/Nb/Ti-Si was the best bifunctional oxidaiive-acidic 6atilystin consecutive transformation of 1-octene to 1,2-octanediol through formation of 1,2-epoxyoctane using aqueous H2O2at 343 K.lt was expected that synthetic method used in preparation of p/Nb/Ti-Si has aided the effective interaction between POa3- and Nb, leading to foimaiion of more Bronsted acidity in this sample.


The purpose of this thesis is to develop a method for estimating both the thickness and permittivity of layers simultaneously utilizing an open-ended coaxial probe. One possible application of this method is the detection and characterization of deposits inside pipelines; examples are gas hydrate deposits in multiphase petroleum transportation. The hydrates forming can result in deposits on the interior surface of the piping and may restrict the flow of the production, it is thus necessary to monitor the layer thickness of the deposits to prevent any obstruction of flow, and the permittivity can tell us something about the composition of the deposits. The open-ended coaxial probe is a coaxial line that is a cut-off section of the transmission line. Permittivity measurements with the open-ended coaxial probe rely on analyzing the reflection of the electromagnetic wave from the probe-sample boundary. The open-ended coaxial probe is known to become radiating at high frequencies when the probe dimensions are comparable to the wavelength in the material under test. When measuring on samples with a finite thickness, this may result in additional reflections from the sample boundary interfering with the main reflection. If the applied permittivity model assumes an infinite thickness, the additional reflection may result in artifacts in the measured permittivity. Typically, this effect will be stronger at some frequencies due to resonance effects, which is seen as an unwanted measurement error. The resonance amplitude and frequency depend on the layer thickness, the permittivity of the layer/backing material and the probe dimensions. This thesis shows that by comparing the measured permittivity spectra with a matrix of finite element simulation, we can estimate both the layer thickness and material by comparing the measured data against the simulations. The simulations were verified by measuring liquids with known dielectric properties. The unwanted resonances manifest as artifacts in the permittivity spectra and increase the accuracy of the comparison. With the methods proposed in the thesis, we can also determine when the resonances occur for a given material, layer thickness, and frequency.


This paper presents a detailed derivation of a permanent magnet synchronous motor, which may be used as the electric power train for the simulation of a hybrid electric vehicle. A torque tracking control of the permanent magnet synchronous motor is developed by using an adaptive proportional-integral-derivative controller. Several tests such as step function, saw tooth function, sine wave function and square wave function were used in order to examine the performance of the proposed control structure. The effectiveness of the proposed controller was verified and compared with the same system under a PID controller and the desired control. The result of the observations shows that the proposed control structure proves to be effective in tracking the desired torque with a good response. The findings of this study will be considered in the design, optimisation and experimentation of series hybrid electric vehicle. Keyword: Modelling; permanent magnet synchronous motor; torque tracking control; Adaptive PID; PID controller.


The paper presents the results of DIAL measurements of the vertical ozone distribution at the Siberian lidar station. Sensing is performed according to the method of differential absorption and scattering at wavelength pair of 299/341 nm, which are, respectively, the first and second Stokes components of SRS conversion of 4th harmonic of Nd:YAG laser (266 nm) in hydrogen. Lidar with receiving mirror 0.5 m in diameter is used to implement sensing of vertical ozone distribution in altitude range of 6-16 km. The temperature correction of zone absorption coefficients is introduced in the software to reduce the retrieval errors.


The built environment has changed dramatically due to the increased interest in mitigating climate change. Homes are becoming more energy-efficient, responding to energy issues, and reducing carbon emissions primarily. Nevertheless, we started to realize the unintended consequences of these changes that impact a home's indoor environment and occupants' health. Indoor air quality is a critical aspect as indoor pollutants are increasing in homes. More than ever, it is crucial to adhere to the best ventilation practices, building materials, and cleaning products. Additionally, behaviour changes, such as those for healthy homes, can prevent their health impact. Interdisciplinary research between public health and building professionals needs to educate citizens and present evidence for legislative changes and recommendations to spur change to reduce indoor air pollution and protect vulnerable populations preventing harmful effects on future generations' health.


This thesis reports on a mixed methods classroom research study carried out at a British university. The study investigates the effectiveness of two different explicit teaching approaches, Illustration – Interaction – Induction (III) and Present – Practice – Produce (PPP) used to teach the same spoken discourse markers to two different groups of Chinese learners at the same level of language competency. It was hypothesised that one explicit teaching approach would be more effective than the other in terms of both short and longer term acquisition and both would be more effective than no teaching when viewed objectively with test data and subjectively by the learners themselves.

Thirty six Chinese learners (fourteen male, twenty two female) at the same level of language proficiency were assigned to three groups, experimental group 1 (III), experimental group 2 (PPP) and group 3 (control). The average age of the learners was twenty two and all were taking a three week pre-sessional in academic English. Each experimental group received ten hours of explicit instruction on the target language. The control group received no instruction on the target language. The III group were taught using activities which presented the language in context and encouraged them to notice features of the target language by sensitising them to differences between spoken and written modes of language and by comparing the target language with their first language. This group were not given any practice of the target language in class. The PPP group were taught using activities which presented the language in context, checked meaning and form and provided them with opportunities to practice in class.

The hypothesis was tested through the use of a free response speaking test used as a pre-test, an immediate post-test and a delayed post-test of eight weeks. The tests were analysed for the amount of target DMs used and learners were rated for interactive ability, discourse management and global achievement. In addition, diaries kept by each learner in the experimental group and focus group interviews were analysed to assess the extent to which this qualitative data supported or added to the quantitative data.

Raw counts of the target DMs and interactive ability, discourse management and global test scores indicated that both experimental groups outperformed the control group in the immediate post-test in terms of the target DMs used but that this was weaker in the delayed test. Raw interactive ability, discourse management and global scores weakened in the immediate post-test but improved in the delayed test, suggesting that the increase in use of target DMs did not have an impact upon these scores. Univariate analysis of the pre- and post-tests, using one-way ANOVAs, indicated statistically significant differences between the experimental PPP group and the control group in terms of a higher mean usage of the target DMs in the immediate post-test, whilst the III group's score did not indicate a statistically significant difference when compared to the PPP and control groups. The analysis of the interactive ability, discourse management and global scores did not demonstrate statistically significant differences between the groups.

The qualitative results were analysed with Computer Assisted Qualitative Data AnalysiS (CAQDAS) software and supported some of the findings from the test results. This data demonstrated that both groups felt that instruction on the target language was of value to them and the PPP group found their method to be generally more useful, which tallied with their better performances on the tests. The III group showed more evidence of having noticed aspects of language, such as the difference between the target language and their first language and how these spoken forms differ from written ones, although both groups displayed some metalinguistic awareness. Both groups were generally in favour of practice within the classroom but also expressed some strong doubts about its usefulness and articulated a desire for a different kind of practice to be used in class, based on rehearsal for real world tasks. This suggested the need to re-conceptualise practice within III, PPP or other teaching frameworks.


The c-fos protooncogene is induced by GH rapidly, but transiently. Induction requires C kinase activation and the serum response element, and recent binding studies have also implicated the sis-inducible element (SIE). However, no systematic study of the promoter elements responsible for transactivation by GH has been undertaken. Here we used Chinese hamster ovary K1 cells transiently cotransfected with rabbit GH receptor and c-fos promoter-luciferase constructs to demonstrate that the major region responsible for GH induction is located between 284-396 base pairs upstream of the transcription start site. Full induction by GH requires all of the known elements located in this region to be intact, including the SIE or signal transducer and activator of transcription binding element. We also report novel negative elements located around -216 upstream of the start site that reduce induction by GH and provide gel shift evidence for factors binding in this region. Cotransfection of Chinese hamster ovary K1 cells with c-fms and c-fos promoter constructs followed by the addition of CSF-1 revealed that these same c-fos elements contribute to transactivation by c-fms. Serum also uses the same elements to induce c-fos expression, except for the SIE. These results indicate that GH receptor and c-fms tyrosine kinase operate through multiple common response elements to regulate c-fos gene expression despite their structural differences.


Background. Propofol is a popular intravenous anesthetic and varieties of formulations were produced from different laboratories. The present study compared efficacy of propofol of different laboratories and different concentrations (1 and 2%) during induction of anesthesia. Methods. Seventy-five scheduled surgical patients were randomly allocated into three groups. The patients of group D1 received AstraZeneca Diprivan 1% (Osaka, Japan) at a rate of 40 mg kg−1 h−1. Group M1 was given 1% Maruishi (Maruishi Pharmaceutical, Osaka, Japan) and group M2 was given 2% formulation at the same rate of propofol. Achieving hypnosis was defined as failure to open their eyes in response to a verbal command and the venous blood sample was withdrawn. Results. The hypnotic doses of M2 were significantly larger (D1: 91.4 ± 30.9, M1: 90.7 ± 26.7, and M2: 118.4 ± 40.2 mg, resp. (mean ± SD). p < 0.005). Age and gender were selected as statistically significant covariates using general linear model-ANOVA. The blood concentration showed no significant difference among the groups (3.73 ± 2.34, 4.10 ± 3.04, and 4.70 ± 2.12 μg mL−1, resp.). Conclusion. The required dose of propofol was different among the formulations; however, the serum concentration showed no significant difference. This trial is registered with UMIN Clinical Trial Registry: UMIN000019925.


This study seeks to identify the determinants of auditors' independence in public enterprises and determine the policy implications of lack of auditors' independence in the public sector. The data for the research was primary and collected via questionnaire from the Nigerian Ports Authority Headquarters Lagos. The questionnaire responses were analyzed using the percentage method. The hypothesis was tested using the chi-square method. The study revealed that there is need for the audit of public enterprises in Nigeria; there is objectivity in the appointment of the external auditor for the audit of public enterprises in Nigeria; and that the independence of the auditor has a significant impact on the accountability disposition of Nigerian public enterprises. It was also found that provision of other services by the auditor as well as non-rotation of auditors are some of the strong factors, which may negatively impact on the auditor's independence and objectivity. It was recommended that the remuneration of the auditor should be determined by office of the Auditor-General for the Federation rather than by the Head of the Public enterprise being audited. In addition, more powers (statutory backing) should be given to the external auditor in order to free him from influence or intimidation by the client while the auditor should avoid other non-audit services and being in the audit of the client for longer than three years.


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Households have several ways to economize on their purchases at retail food stores when prices increase or their incomes fall. This report investigates a household's choice among retail fluid milk products categorized along three dimensions: three levels of fat content, two levels of package size, and organic versus conventional methods of production. Nielsen Homescan data from 2007-08 are used to estimate a choice model, which accounts for price, income, and other choice determinants. Results show that small changes in prices and income have a modest impact on a household's choice among milk products. However, households mitigate the impact of more substantial price and income shocks by switching from more expensive to less expensive products. We also find that the demand for organic milk is more sensitive to swings in income and food prices than is demand for conventional milk.


Ni60Nb20� xTaxTi15Zr5 (x ¼ 0, 5, 15 and 20 at%) glassy alloys with high thermal stability and high corrosion resistance have been synthesized by the melt spinning technique. The substitution of tantalum for a portion of niobium in the Ni60Nb20Ti15Zr5 glassy alloy causes a significant increase in the supercooled liquid region (� Tx ¼ TxTg) from 52 K at 0 at% Ta to 67 K at 20 at% Ta accompanied by an increase in Tg and Tx. The glassy alloys are spontaneously passivated in a wide passive region and at low passive current densities of the order of 10 � 2 Am � 2 in pH 2 H2SO4 and pH 2 H2SO4 + 500 ppm NaCl solutions at a high temperature of 353 K. On the other hand, in pH 2 H2SO4 + 500 ppm NaF solution at 353 K, the alloys without Ta and with 5 at% Ta suffer general corrosion, while the passive current densities decrease by about two orders of magnitude with the addition of 15-20 at% Ta to the Ni-Nb-Ti-Zr glassy alloy. It indicates that the effect of the addition of tantalum is more pronounced for improving the corrosion resistance in fluoride containing solutions than the other two types of solutions.


Surface modification of nanoparticles is often utilized to tailor the interfacial properties in dielectric nanocomposites. Introducing different functional groups to the nanoparticles' surface may induce localized states (traps) that can enhance the dielectric performance of the material depending on their density and energy levels. Furthermore, surface modification of the filler can affect the dispersion quality and crystallization of the nanocomposites which can ultimately alter the dielectric response of the material. In this study, functionalization of silica nanoparticles is demonstrated using 3-(trimethoxysilyl)propyl methacrylate (TMPM) and 1-[3-(trimethoxysilyl)propyl]urea (TMPU) as modifying agents. The effect of such modifications on the crystallization behavior, dispersion quality of the nanoparticles, as well as charge trapping and transport under a medium DC field is studied in nanocomposites based on polypropylene (PP)/ethylene-octene-copolymer (EOC) blends at 1% and 5% of filler concentrations. The results show that both ureido and methacrylate functional groups introduce localized states, but with different energy levels. Nitrogen containing ureido groups in TMPU tend to introduce deeper traps to the filler-polymer interfaces, compared to the methacrylate silane modification. Comparing the two types of surface functionalization, the ureido-functionalized silica resulted in a suppression of space charge formation at the interfaces under a medium DC electric field, despite the relatively larger mean cluster size of nanoparticles.