Abstract Extreme grain-size reduction due to cataclasis, neocrystallization or phase change results in a switch to diffusion creep and dramatic weakening in deforming rocks. Grain growth increases strength until dislocation creep becomes a significant deformation mechanism. We quantify the 'lifetime' of diffusion creep by substituting the normal grain growth law into the diffusion creep flow law to calculate the time taken for dislocation creep to become significant. Stress-temperature and strain-rate-temperature space is outlined where diffusion creep may accommodate significant strain: these regions have an upper temperature limit beyond which grain growth is fast enough to move the rock quickly into the dislocation creep field. For plagioclase the limit lies in the amphibolite facies. Rocks in a mantle upwelling experience grain-size reduction during phase changes. Pressure-dependent grain growth limits the deformation that can be accommodated by diffusion creep. This time limit and associated strain limit is independent of starting grain size with a small dependence on upwelling rate and plume width. In both these tectonic environments, second phases are likely to play a role in the maximum achievable grain size due to grain-boundary pinning. Hence we predict the minimum lifetimes of diffusion-creep-dominated deformation following extreme grain-size reduction.


Risk assessment for airborne carcinogens is often limited by a lack of inhalation bioassay data. While extrapolation from oral-based cancer potency factors may be possible for some agents, this is not considered feasible for contact site carcinogens. The change in contact sites (oral: g.i. tract; inhalation: respiratory tract) when switching dose routes leads to possible differences in tissue sensitivity as well as chemical delivery. This research evaluates the feasibility to extrapolate across dose routes for a contact site carcinogen through a case study with epichlorohydrin (EPI). EPI cancer potency at contact sites is compared across three bioassays involving different dose routes (gavage, drinking water, inhalation) through the use of dosimetry models to adjust for EPI delivery to contact sites. Results indicate a large disparity (two orders of magnitude) in potency across the three routes of administration when expressed as the externally applied dose. However, when expressed as peak delivered dose, inhalation and oral potency estimates are similar and overall, the three potency estimates are within a factor of seven. The results suggest that contact site response to EPI is more dependent upon the rate than the route of delivery, with peak concentration the best way to extrapolate across dose routes. These results cannot be projected to other carcinogens without further study.


This study analyzed the effect of fairness of personnel management systems of public organizations on job satisfaction and job performance. For hits, satisfaction, problems, and improvements of personnel management systems were investigated targeting 4 personnel management systems which are being operated in Chungcheongnam-do and analyzed the correlations between job satisfaction and job performance with it. Personnel fairness has the positive effect on job satisfaction and performance of public servants. When personnel management is done by considering career, degrees of work difficulty, and efforts, job satisfaction and performance can increase. This shows that fair personnel management plays the important role in organizations and employees' morale. As the various personnel management systems are being operated in Chungcheongnam-do, the fact that personnel management of public servants is done according to objective evaluation materials and procedures with the same principles should be recognized. ■ keyword :∣Personnel Management Systems∣Job Satisfaction∣Job Performance∣ * 본 연구는 2012년 충남발전연구원 기본연구과제로 수행된 과제임 접수일자 : 2013년 09월 23일 수정일자 : 2013년 10월 15일 심사완료일 : 2013년 10월 21일 교신저자 : 고승희, e-mail : email@example.com 대구대학교 | IP: 203.244.***.232 | Accessed 2018/05/24 06:45(KST) 인사제도의 공정성이 직무만족과 직무성과에 미치는 영향 -충청남도 인사제도를 중심으로213


The common sense relates reality as given. Phenomenology shows up reality is more differentiated than our given conscience presents. It is qualified Husserl's concept of reality in everyday clinics. Firstly it is resented the difference between psychic reality and material reality (Wirklichkeit). It is also distinguished object and thing from thing sketch. Then on it is correlated data from schizophrenia and obsession neurosis. Clinical evidences and phenomenological analysis show thing sketch is not modified in obsession neurosis. But it is in schizophrenia. The hypothesis that thing sketch is corrupted in schizophrenia by language is analyzed. More on it is shown links with this hypothesis and perception and rhetorical production.


UNLABELLED
Hemorrhoid is protrusion of plexus or blood vessels in the anal canal. The hemorrhoid may cause symptoms that are: bleeding, pain, prolaps, itching, soilage of feces, and psychologic discomfort. There are many methods for treatment of hemorrhoid like, medical therapy, cryo-therapy, rubber band ligation, sclerotherapy, laser, and surgery. All methods have some complication in postoperative period and recurrence.

THE AIM OF THE STUDY
Was to evaluate Diode laser for treatment of hemorrhoid.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
This study included patients who suffer from the hemorrhoid. Cases with fistula and fissure had been omitted. Patients with hemorrhoid in grade 2, 3, 4 and mixed were treated with diode laser. Follow up was done 1,7,14, 30, 90, and 360 days laser therapy.

RESULTS
In this study, 341 patients with hemorrhoid treated with diode laser were included. Results of follow-up were as follows: need for analgesia in hospital stay and home was very low total complication was seen in 12 patient (3.51%), edema in 8 patient (2.34%), hemorrhage and abscess each of them in 2 patient (0.58%), stricture and recurrence was zero after one year.

CONCLUSIONS
All methods used for hemorrhoid treatment has advantages, disadvantages, and limitations. But treatment of hemorrhoid by Diode laser, which is done by skilled surgeon has several advantages over other treatments. This advantages include, less operation time, less pain and bleeding, allow quick healing of piles, no stricture, and minimal recurrence after operation.


Noise removal operation is commonly applied as pre-processing step before subsequent image processing tasks due to the occurrence of noise during acquisition or transmission process. A common problem in imaging systems by using CMOS or CCD sensors is appearance of the salt and pepper noise. This paper presents Cellular Automata (CA) framework for noise removal of distorted image by the salt and pepper noise. In order to enhance the performance of the designed CA for noise removal, a parallel programming approach has been adopted and implemented on GPU. The results obtained show that the proposed CA models implemented on general purpose processor and GPU are able to suppress noise in high noise intensity up to 90 percents. The proposed CA implemented on GPU has successfully outperformed the method implemented on CPU by factor of 2 for gray scale image and factor of 10 for color images.


Rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) is one of most important oilseed crops in the world. There are now various rapeseed cultivars in nature that differ in their seed oil content because they vary in oil-content alleles and there are high-oil alleles among the high-oil rapeseed cultivars. For these experiments, we generated doubled haploid (DH) lines derived from the cross between the specially high-oil cultivar zy036 whose seed oil content is approximately 50% and the specially low-oil cultivar 51070 whose seed oil content is approximately 36%. First, to address the deficiency in polymorphic markers, we designed 5944 pairs of newly developed genome-sourced primers and 443 pairs of newly developed primers related to oil-content genes to complement the 2244 pairs of publicly available primers. Second, we constructed a new DH genetic linkage map using 527 molecular markers, consisting of 181 publicly available markers, 298 newly developed genome-sourced markers and 48 newly developed markers related to oil-content genes. The map contained 19 linkage groups, covering a total length of 2,265.54 cM with an average distance between markers of 4.30 cM. Third, we identified quantitative trait loci (QTL) for seed oil content using field data collected at three sites over 3 years, and found a total of 12 QTL. Of the 12 QTL associated with seed oil content identified, 9 were high-oil QTL which derived from the specially high-oil cultivar zy036. Two high-oil QTL on chromosomes A2 and C9 co-localized in two out of three trials. By QTL mapping for seed oil content, we found four candidate genes for seed oil content related to four gene markers: GSNP39, GSSR161, GIFLP106 and GIFLP046. This information will be useful for cloning functional genes correlated with seed oil content in the future.


As more and more devices are connected to the Internet-of-Things, often made by non-specialist companies or short-lived startups, the likelihood that these devices will be hacked and used for nefarious activity online increases. We seek to support non-expert users in managing the network behaviour of their IoT devices, and assisting them in handling the cases where those devices are hacked. To do so, we wish to enable anomaly detection at the network level, determining when a device starts behaving unusually. This requires capturing data about how devices behave in a diverse range of real deployments, not just lab environments. To that end, we present IoTCrowdsourcery, a toolset for capturing traffic data from real-world IoT deployments. Participants collect packet traces from their IoT devices through our software, and provide them via a crowdsourcing infrastructure. The key challenges to overcome are to make the process straightforward enough for non-expert participants to carry out, and to ensure that legal (notably GDPR) and ethical issues are carefully handled by ensuring that participants understand what they are doing, and are provided with various means to exercise agency in participating, and ultimately to withdraw their participation if they wish. We envisage the captured traces being analysed to develop behavioural models of IoT devices which will be used for anomaly detection, improving the security of our smart homes and more generally of the Internet.


AIMS
In obesity, chronic low-grade inflammation and overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in fat contribute to the development of metabolic syndrome. Suppression of inflammation and ROS production in fat may attenuate the metabolic syndrome. Activation of mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) promotes inflammation in heart, kidney, and vasculature via ROS generation. However, the significance of MR in fat remains elusive. Here we investigated whether MR blockade attenuates obesity-related insulin resistance and improves adipocyte dysfunction.

METHODS AND RESULTS
Obese ob/ob and db/db mice were treated with eplerenone, a MR antagonist, for 3 weeks. 3T3-L1 adipocytes were treated with aldosterone or H2O2, with and without eplerenone or MR-siRNA. High levels of MR mRNA were detected in adipose tissue of obese ob/ob and db/db mice. Eplerenone treatment significantly reduced insulin resistance, suppressed macrophage infiltration and ROS production in adipose tissues, and corrected the mRNA levels of obesity-related genes in obese mice. In 3T3-L1 adipocytes, aldosterone and H2O2 increased intracellular ROS levels and MR blockade inhibited such increases. H2O2 and aldosterone resulted in dysregulation of mRNAs of various genes related to ROS and cytokines, whereas MR blockade corrected such changes.

CONCLUSION
MR blockade attenuates obesity-related insulin resistance partly through reduction of fat ROS production, inflammatory process, and induction of cytokines.


Creeping segments of strike-slip faults are often characterized by high rates of microseismicity on or near the fault. This microseismicity releases only a small fraction of the slip occurring on the fault and the majority of the accumulating elastic strain is released either through aseismic creep or in rare large events. Distinguishing between creeping or non-creeping patches on faults and determining the resulting accumulated slip deficit is important in assessing the seismic hazard associated with a fault. Unfortunately, surface creep data alone are insufficient to constrain the creep at depth on the fault. Here we analyze the possibility of using microseismicity as a further constraint. An analysis of the accumulation of Coulomb stress associated with the fault creep indicates that the transition from creeping regions to locked patches has the potential to affect the local seismicity pattern. Precise relative relocations of the microseismicity of the Hayward fault [1] [F. Waldhauser, W.L. Ellsworth, Fault structure and mechanics of the Hayward Fault, California, from double-difference earthquake locations, J. Geophys. Res. 107(3), doi:10.1029/2000JB000084, 2002.] indicate that a fraction of the events repeat, indicating recurrent ruptures of the same small patch. A comparison of the creeping pattern resulting from a Finite Element deformation Model with this precisely relocated microseismicity indicates that the non-repeating earthquakes mainly occur in the transitional zones from creeping to locked patches, while recurrent (repeating) earthquakes cluster in high creep-rate regions. Building from this observation, we have developed an analysis approach to better define patterns of creep, and thus the slip deficit, on the Hayward fault. Additionally this creep rate and its spatial pattern on the fault vary as a function of time after the system is loaded by earthquakes on the locked patches. D 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.


ABSTRACT One hundred and twenty five sites from 91 rivers and streams in Indiana were evaluated from 1990–2005 to determine grass pickerel Esox americanus vermiculatus habitat use. Macro-habitat analysis was conducted using the Qualitative Habitat Evaluation Index (QHEI) and had no significant relationship with grass pickerel catch. However, the individual components that made up the QHEI metric of "pool/glide and riffle/run quality" were significant and showed that grass pickerel avoided riffle habitats. At selected (n = 9) stream sites, microhabitat analysis indicated grass pickerel were always associated with either aquatic macrophytes or logs/woody debris. Although the Index of Biotic Integrity has been used to infer overall stream health and community fish quality, this index was minimally related to grass pickerel catch. The results of this study suggested that grass pickerel preferred habitat types in Indiana streams of aquatic macrophytes, logs/woody debris and slow moving water.


Purpose: The aim of this study was to compare the clinical and electrodiagnostic efficacy of ultrasound (US)-guided versus landmark (LM)-guided steroid injections in patients with carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). Methods: This randomized clinical trial included 47 patients (60 affected hands) with moderate CTS (30 hands in each group). All clinically suspected patients with CTS who met the inclusion criteria confirmed by electrodiagnostic tests were enrolled. The subjects received 40 mg of methylprednisolone either with the US-guide or the LM-guided injection technique. They were evaluated using the Boston Carpal Tunnel Questionnaire (symptom/function/total) and 6 electrodiagnostic findings at the baseline and 12 weeks after injection. Results: Symptom severity scores and functional status scores and electrodiagnostic parameters were significantly improved within each group at week 12 after treatment (P < 0.05), except for compound muscle action potential amplitude and motor nerve conduction velocity (P > 0.05). The improvement in symptom severity scores and functional status scores in the US-guided group was more than in the LM-guided group after 12 weeks, but there was no statistically significant difference (P = 0.79 and 0.64). The mean changes in electrodiagnostic parameters were also not different between groups except for the higher sensory nerve action potential amplitude in LM-guided group (P = 0.003). Conclusions: Both US-guided and LM-guided steroid injections were effective in reducing the symptoms, improving the function and electrodiagnostic findings of CTS. Although there was better symptomatic improvement with US-guided injections and better increase in sensory nerve action potential amplitude with LM-guided injection, a significant difference was not generally observed between US-guided and LM-guided CTS injections.


Most Natural Language Generation systems focus on the production of perfectly written text for visual presentation. But as NLG tries to move into other areas of language production, such as speech in dialogue systems, it is not clear that approaches for traditional applications are best. Speech exhibits particular features like disfluency that are not found in written discourse. In this paper, we thus present an initial look at what may be necessary to allow current NLG systems to seamlessly make the transition to spoken language production.


Background: several studies have demonstrated that angiogenic markers can improve the clinical management of hypertensive disorders (HDs) and fetal growth restriction (FGR) in singleton pregnancies, but few studies have evaluated the performance of these tests in multiple pregnancies. Our aim was to investigate the role of soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase 1 (sFlt-1) in predicting adverse obstetric outcomes in hospitalized multiple pregnancies with HD (preeclampsia/gestational hypertension/uncontrolled chronic hypertension) and/or FGR in one or more fetuses. Methods: A retrospective analysis of multiple pregnancies with HD/FGR occurring after the 20th gestational week. Pregnant women were divided into two groups: women with high levels of sFlt-1 and those with low levels of sFlt-1. A value of sFlt-1 greater than or equal to 15,802 pg/mL was considered arbitrarily high, as it is equivalent to two times the 90th percentile expected in an uncomplicated full-term singleton pregnancy based on data from a prospective multicenter study (7901 pg/mL). Results: The cohort included 39 multiple pregnancies. There were no cases of birth <34 weeks, HELLP syndrome, ICU admission, and urgent cesarean sections for HD/FGR complications reported among women with low levels of sFlt-1. Conclusions: A cut-off value of sFlt-1 ≥ 15,802 pg/mL could represent a valuable tool for predicting adverse obstetric outcomes in multiple pregnancies hospitalized for HD/FGR disorders, regardless of gestational age and chorionicity.


One of the major theoretic frameworks through which human development is studied is a process-oriented model involving selection, optimization, and compensation. These three processes each provide accounts for methods by which gains are maximized and losses minimized throughout the lifespan, in particular during later life. These processes can be cast within the framework of dynamical systems theory and then modeled using differential equations. The current article will review basic tenets of selection, optimization, and compensation while introducing language and concepts from dynamical systems. Four categories of interindividual differences and intraindividual variability in dynamics are then described and discussed in the context of selection, optimization, and compensation.


In order to utilise low enthalpy natural heat sources, a heat pipe using a binary fluid is a good device which can extract heat without using electric power. When the heat flux in a geothermal bore is moderate, a long heat pipe is needed. We developed a 150 m long, large scale heat pipe of 150mm outer diameter, in which liquid feeding tubes with showering nozzles were installed. It has an excellent thermal performance compared with other long vertical evaporators. A demonstration test was carried out in a well with temperatures between 100 and 150 C at a geothermal site in Kyushu, Japan. The heat pipe extracted 90 kW heat at a working temperature of 80 C. We also calculated the extraction rate for different lengths of the heat pipe and different temperatures of the geothermal source. Similar pipes can be used for heat extraction of high temperature geothermal fluids . In addition to heat extraction, we also studied the performance of a turbine which can be installed on top of a heat pipe using a binary fluid. We used a modification of a thermosyphon, with excellent heat and mass transfer characteristics, and incorporated a turbine. The heat transfer in a thermosyphon occurs through the circulation of a binary working fluid through a sequence of evaporation, vapour transfer, condensation and liquid return. It is then possible to convert some of the energy of the vapour stream into electric energy by installing a turbine which is coupled to an electric generator. Simulation showed that a heat pipe turbine, using R-123 as working fluid, can generate about 7.8 kW electric power at a turbine speed of 3000 rpm when the rotor diameter is about 0.8m and the evaporator section of the heat pipe is 150m long. The Heat Pipe Turbine or Thermosyphon Rankine Engine (TSR) is therefore an interesting concept for power generation using geothermal or other low grade heat sources.


Since 2019, the novel coronavirus has spread rapidly worldwide, greatly affecting social stability and human health. Pandemic prevention has become China's primary task in responding to the transmission of COVID-19. Risk mapping and the proposal and implementation of epidemic prevention measures emphasize many research efforts. In this study, we collected location information for confirmed COVID-19 cases in Beijing, Shenyang, Dalian, and Shijiazhuang from 5 October 2020 to 5 January 2021, and selected 15 environmental variables to construct a model that comprehensively considered the parameters affecting the outbreak and spread of COVID-19 epidemics. Annual average temperature, catering, medical facilities, and other variables were processed using ArcGIS 10.3 and classified into three groups, including natural environmental variables, positive socio-environmental variables, and benign socio-environmental variables. We modeled the epidemic risk distribution for each area using the MaxEnt model based on the case occurrence data and environmental variables in four regions, and evaluated the key environmental variables influencing the epidemic distribution. The results showed that medium-risk zones were mainly distributed in Changping and Shunyi in Beijing, while Huanggu District in Shenyang and the southern part of Jinzhou District and the eastern part of Ganjingzi District in Dalian also represented areas at moderate risk of epidemics. For Shijiazhuang, Xinle, Gaocheng and other places were key COVID-19 epidemic spread areas. The jackknife assessment results revealed that positive socio-environmental variables are the most important factors affecting the outbreak and spread of COVID-19. The average contribution rate of the seafood market was 21.12%, and this contribution reached as high as 61.3% in Shenyang. The comprehensive analysis showed that improved seafood market management, strengthened crowd control and information recording, industry-catered specifications, and well-trained employees have become urgently needed prevention strategies in different regions. The comprehensive analysis indicated that the niche model could be used to classify the epidemic risk and propose prevention and control strategies when combined with the assessment results of the jackknife test, thus providing a theoretical basis and information support for suppressing the spread of COVID-19 epidemics.


Chess is one of the student's favourite sports in KUKTEM. All Chess tournaments in KUKTEM are organized by chess club. Unfortunately,tournaments cannot run smoothly due to problems that occurred during the tournaments' management
process.Lateness of pairing and unfair colour allocation was among the problems that should be overcome by Chess Club generally.Involvement of too many players in a particular tournament causes lateness. The organizer has to waste a lot of time in chess pairing. Besides that, problems of unfair colour allocation lead to argument among players. All players prefer white colour rather than black colour because they got better chance to win if they are white side. Furthermore,mistake always occurred when tournament comes to heavy task like chess pairing and colour allocation.This cause players complaint about the unfair treatments in the tournament. So for that, in order to overcome the problem, Chess Pairing module needs to be developed.The development
of chcss pairing module of Chess Tournament Management System is suggested for handling the player pairing and colour allocation in every match.A Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is use as a method in the development of this
system.Chess Pairing module will use Gale Shapley method as a based idea to develop an algorithm to do the entire pairing and colour allocation task.


Objectives : BALB/c mice were administered with JeEoTmg extract after rheumatoid arthritis elicitation were observed to investigate the mitigative effect of JeEoTang for rheumatoid arthritis. Methods : The JeEoTang extract(3.3 ml/kg/day) was daily administered for 14 days to mice suffered from rheumatoid arthritis induced by LPS(300 pt/kg). These specimens were decalcificated in EDTA solution for 4 Weeks. Results : All parameters involved in the rheumatoid arthritis of synovial membrane - hyperplasia of synoviocytes, fibrosis, angiogensis. and infiltration of inflammatory cells - were dramatically decreased in JeEoTmg extract administered mice. The number of NK-1.1, IL-lP, IL-2R-a, and ICAM-1 positive cells in synovial membrane was also remarkably diminished in JeEoTmg extract administered mice and apoptotic cell was decreased. Conclusions : These results indicate that the immnue suppression of JeEoTmg work on the mitigation of synovial damages in mice with rheumatoid arthritis, subsequently JeEoTung may play a role as a cure for rheumatoid arthritis.


Abstract I argue that in Plato's Parmenides 141a6–c4, things in time come to be simultaneously older and younger than themselves because a thing's past and present selves are both real. As a result, whatever temporal relation is predicated of any of these past and present selves is true of the thing in question. Unlike other interpretations, this reading neither assumes that things in time have to replace their parts, nor that time is circular. I conclude that the passage is committed to a conception of the ongoing present and a rejection of presentism and endurantism in favour of a growing universe theory and perdurantism.


The paper presents a design of CMOS Pixel Sensor (CPS) using the vertical integration technology (3DIT), expected to alleviate the most essential limitations of 2D-CPS. Our objective is to develop an intelligent architecture in order to meet the requirements of the innermost layer of the International Linear Collider (ILC) vertex detectors, which are particularly demanding in spatial resolution of less than 3 μm and associated frame readout time of 10 μs. The sensor, with a pixel pitch of 23 μm, will be composed of 3-tiers Integrated Circuits (IC) with different functionalities: detection with in pixel analogue processing, pixel-level 3-bit Analogue to Digital Conversion (ADC) and fast parallel sparse readout.


Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) have recently emerged as promising candidates for channel materials in future nanoelectronic devices due to their exceptional electronic, thermal, and mechanical properties and chemical inertness. However, the adoption of GNRs in commercial technologies is currently hampered by materials science and integration challenges pertaining to synthesis and devices. In this Review, we present an overview of the current status of challenges, recent breakthroughs toward overcoming these challenges, and possible future directions for the field of GNR electronics. We motivate the need for exploration of scalable synthetic techniques that yield atomically precise, placed, registered, and oriented GNRs on CMOS-compatible substrates and stimulate ideas for contact and dielectric engineering to realize experimental performance close to theoretically predicted metrics. We also briefly discuss unconventional device architectures that could be experimentally investigated to harness the maximum potential of GNRs in future spintronic and quantum information technologies.


Background: The emergence of drug resistance in pathogens as well as appearance of undesirable side effects of certain antibiotics has led to the discovery of new antibacterial agents particularly from medicinal plants. Objective: In this study, we have found the in vitro antibacterial, antifungal and phytotoxicity activity of dichloromethane and methanol extract of leaves of kalanchoe pinnata (lam) pers. Method:The antibacterial activity of the plant leaves evaluated against microbial flora Bacillus subtilis (PTCC 1207), Bacillus cereus (PTCC 1247), Staphylococcus epidermidis (PTCC 1114) and Escherichia coli (PTCC 1047) antifungal activity against Epidermophyton floccosum, Trichophytum mentogrophytes, T.rubrum, T.simii, T.scheonleinii, Microsporum canis, Pseudallescheria boydii, Candida albicans by using disc diffusion method etc. Results: Result showed that the tested extracts posses mild or non-significant antimicrobial and antifungal activities. Amoxicillin 10mg/ml was used as standard compound. The leaves extract of dichloromethane and methanol showed less zone inhibition compared than standard compound. Conclusion: It could be suggested that the dichloromethane and methanol extracts of Kalanchoe pinnata leaves possess non-significant antibacterial and anti-fungal activities


two subscripts 'm — sn — V read 'm — sn + 1'; ibid., line 22: read ' /n ' for the third occurrence o f ' « ' ; ibid., line 23: insert 'v' at the start of the line; p. 278, lines 1 If.: for two occurrences of 'n —' read 'n—'; p. 279, 4th last line of text: replace the first minus by a plus; p. 311, last 6 lines: in three cases fractions with 'x' seemingly in the denominator should have it in the numerator; p. 314, line 6: the same goes for 'l/3n' which should read 'n /3 ' ; p. 320, note 13: each 'tv' should be an 'ai', and the exponent ' 2 ' should be ' 3 ' ; p. 391, 2nd last line: insert closing double quotes before question mark; p. 396, line 11: for 'same' read 'sample'; p. 416, lines If.: twice read '10,000' for '1,000'; p. 420, line 14: for '81 ' read '91 ' ; p. 444, line 16; for •413/' read '4/13'. DAVID MILLER


The article extensively presents ethical, technological and patent aspects of the impact on the distribution and socialization of blockchain technology. It was proposed to single out the stages of technological adaptation to the needs and demands of the global community, namely: single applications, localization, substitutions, transformation and ethics. Problems in the patenting of blockchain technology were studied, the influence of corporate structures and state regulatory agencies on the use and distribution of blockchains was determined. It was also proven that the blockchain social and ethical adaptation of technology is a significant obstacle to the development of the ecosystem of the blockchain.


Dietary habits build on in the formative years persist across the lifespan; therefore, developing healthy nutritional behaviors is crucial among school-going children. The school education can be a powerful influence in modifying the nutritional behaviors of children. Available evidence indicates that school-based nutrition education may promote improved dietary behaviours of school children if it is integrated with motivation, action, and a supportive environment. This study aims to design, implement and evaluate a school-based participatory nutrition education program (SBPNEP) to transform the nutritional behavior of students through participatory action research (PAR). This study uses a transformative mixed-method design as part of  the PAR methodology. Five co-educational community schools are selected from Chitwan district of Nepal following the inclusion criteria of NORHED Rupantran Project under  Tribhuvan University. Among the five schools, one is selected as the 'action school' where intervention sessions will be implemented. The remaining four schools serve as the 'reference schools' where effective intervention components of the action school will be replicated. Basic school students, their parents, basic school science and health education teachers, and school leaders are the co-researchers of this study. Both quantitative tools and qualitative methods will be used to generate the data. Quantitative data will be analyzed using inferential statistics (bivariate and multivariate), whilst the interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) method will be used for meaning making process of the qualitative data. Three components of the intervention also said to be PAR cycles: sensitization and motivation', 'nutrition pedagogy' and 'creating a supportive environment for sustainability' will be implemented following an iterative process of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting of the PAR cycle. The effectiveness of the intervention activities will be evaluated under three phases: short-term, mid-term, and long-term.


The Escherichia coli SeqA protein binds preferentially to hemimethylated DNA and is required for inactivation (sequestration) of newly formed origins. A mutant SeqA protein, SeqA4 (A25T), which is deficient in origin sequestration in vivo, was found here to have lost the ability to form multimers, but could bind as dimers with wild‐type affinity to a pair of hemimethylated GATC sites. In vitro, binding of SeqA dimers to a plasmid first generates a topology change equivalent to a few positive supercoils, then the binding leads to a topology change in the "opposite" direction, resulting in a restraint of negative supercoils. Binding of SeqA4 mutant dimers produced the former effect, but not the latter, showing that a topology change equivalent to positive supercoiling is caused by the binding of single dimers, whereas restraint of negative supercoils requires multimerization via the N‐terminus. In vivo, mutant SeqA4 protein was not capable of forming foci observed by immunofluorescence microscopy, showing that N‐terminus–dependent multimerization is required for building SeqA foci. Overproduction of SeqA4 led to partially restored initiation synchrony, indicating that origin sequestration may not depend on efficient higher‐order multimerization into foci, but do require a high local concentration of SeqA.


Background: Traditional Chinese medicine injections (TCMIs) are widely applied to treat many chronic diseases. However, product quality problems occur occasionally due to unknown constituents in TCMIs. 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF), NƐ-(carboxymethyl)lysine (CML) and NƐ-(carboxyethyl)lysine (CEL) are three compounds generated during food and Chinese medicinal herb processing and may be harmful to human health. Methods: In this study, the contents of 5-HMF, CML and CEL were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC). For 5-HMF, the separation was performed on a Hypersil ODS2 column (250 mm×4.6 mm, 5 µm), and the column temperature was set at 30℃. The mobile phase was composed of water-methanol (95:5) at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. For CML and CEL, separation was performed on a CORTECS HILIC UPLC column (2.1 mm×50 mm, 1.6 µm), and the column temperature was set at 40℃. The mobile phase was composed of acetonitrile-water (3:7) at a flow rate of 0.3 mL/min. Multiple-reaction monitoring mode was employed for analyte determination with positive ionization. Results: The contents of 5-HMF in 16 TCMIs varied from 0.19 to 74.98 µg/mL, with a larger variation than the contents of CML and CEL. The Ciwujia injection had the highest content of 5-HMF, and the Qingkailing injection had the lowest 5-HMF content. The contents of CML and CEL among these TCMIs were 0.51-7.32 ng·mL-1 and 0.38-5.49 ng·mL-1, respectively. The contents of CML and CEL in the Shuxuetong injection were much higher than in the others.Conclusions: The methods established in this study were simple, rapid and accurate and could provide a theoretical basis for the quality evaluation of TCMIs.


This Research in the form of design, application of Programmable Logic Controller ( PLC) as system control Temperature of Multi Range, using IC LM 35 and Thermocouples as censor. Plant to be controlled is: Fan, arranging temperature room with the definition temperature between 25 0 C - 30 0 C. Induction machine, controlled at temperature 65 0 C until 75 0 C. Heater System, controlled at temperature 85 0 C until 120 0 C. Output of censor in the form of analog so that needed by change from analog to digital (ADC), what is needed by as input of PLC.


We report on recent Ks-band interferometric observations of the young pre-main-sequence star AB Aurigae obtained with the Palomar Fiber Nuller (PFN). Reaching a contrast of a few 10−4 inside a field of view extending from 35 to 275 mas (5–40 AU at AB Aur's distance), the PFN is able to explore angular scales that are intermediate between those accessed by coronagraphic imaging and long baseline interferometry. This intermediate region is of special interest given that many young stellar objects are believed to harbor extended halos at such angular scales. Using destructive interference (nulling) between two sub-apertures of the Palomar 200 inch telescope and rotating the telescope pupil, we measured a resolved circumstellar excess at all probed azimuth angles. The astrophysical null measured over the full rotation is fairly constant, with a mean value of 1.52%, and a slight additional azimuthal modulation of ±0.2%. The isotropic astrophysical null is indicative of circumstellar emission dominated by an azimuthally extended source, possibly a halo, or one or more rings of dust, accounting for several percent of the total Ks-band flux. The modest azimuthal variation may be explained by some skewness or anisotropy of the spatially extended source, e.g., an elliptical or spiral geometry, or clumping, but it could also be due to the presence of a point source located at a separation of ∼120 mas (17 AU) with ∼6 × 10−3 of the stellar flux. We combine our results with previous Infrared Optical Telescope Array observations of AB Aur at H band, and demonstrate that a dust ring located at ∼30 mas (4.3 AU) represents the best-fitting model to explain both sets of visibilities. We are also able to test a few previously hypothesized models of the incoherent component evident at longer interferometric baselines.


Esophageal foreign bodies should be retrieved as soon as possible, as they may cause complications such as bleeding, perforation, and respiratory distress. Flexible endoscopy is the preferred method, because it is effective and safe, but rigid esophagoscopy or a surgical procedure should be considered if flexible endoscopy fails. Extraction with a Foley balloon is an effective method for removing blunt foreign bodies from the esophagus. The general technique used is to insert the catheter into the esophagus through the nose or mouth, place it in the distal part of the foreign body, balloon the catheter, and remove the foreign body by pulling the catheter out. This procedure is generally performed under fluoroscopy, but a few reports have used Foley balloon extraction during endoscopy. We report a case of an elderly woman with a blunt foreign body in the upper esophagus. After failing to remove the object by endoscopy, we removed it with a Foley balloon under endoscopy. (Korean J Gastrointest Endosc 2011;42:369-372)


Title of Thesis: DEVELOPING CITIZENSHIP THROUGH COMMUNITY SERVICE: EXAMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COMMUNITY SERVICE INVOLVEMENT AND SELFPERCEIVED CITIZENSHIP AMONG UNDERGRADUATES Jennifer Anne Smist, Master of Arts, 2006 Thesis directed by: Dr. Barbara Jacoby, Affiliate Associate Professor Department of Counseling and Personnel Services This thesis investigated the relationship between community service involvement in curricular and cocurricular community service and students' self-perceived citizenship. Community service involvement was addressed through four methods: community service as part of a class, with a student organization, as part of a work-study experience, and on one's own. This study used data collected from 1,205 undergraduate students at the University of Maryland in spring 2006 as part of the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership. The instrument employed in this study was based on a revised version of the Socially Responsible Leadership Scale (SRLS-Rev 2) and was designed to assess student leadership development within the framework of the social change model of leadership development (Higher Education Research Institute, 1996). Self-perceived citizenship scores differed significantly based on whether students participated in community service during college. Community service through student organizations and work-study experiences were found to be significant predictors of self-perceived citizenship.


This paper offers an assessment of farmers' vulnerability to climate risks in relation to the location of farms from farmers' ordinary dwelling place in rural communities of northern Benin. The ongoing urbanisation processes in the district of Banikoara, main cotton production area of Benin and one of the biggest producers of different food crops, is considered to be responsible for the exacerbation of the existing land access problems. Sixty farmers of 40 ±9 years old, cultivating 8.4 ±6.02 ha and producing about 7.3 ±6.65 tonnes per year, supplied empirical data in four different villages: Gomparou, Alibori, Somperekou and Godokpagounou. The key respondents were selected through purposive sampling during fieldworks. At the end of the data collection period, a half-day participatory workshop was organized for all interviewees, including some local stakeholders, in order to draw a jointly validated Sensitivity Matrix and Vulnerability Profile of farmers. Plausible exposure and impact indexes were calculated. The results show that: (i) The urbanisation process has resulted in the geographical remoteness of farms by preventing local farmers from cultivating more land. 85 % of farmers move about 10 km up and down to perform farm works, 12 % commute daily over 45 km to reach their farms and only 3 % live on or closely to their farms. (ii) Five major climate risks with highly sensitive impact indexes affect agricultural production: drought (73 %), floods (66 %), fires (60 %), lack of rainfall (60 %) and high winds (46 %); and three resources having high exposure indexes are most damaged: soil (76 %), water (68 %) and vegetation (64 %). (iii) The distance from farms to residence is a factor of vulnerability to the various climate risks leading to three categories of farmers: "Waterist Farmers" (Agri-BF) shriveled up in valley bottoms and most vulnerable to floods regardless of their residence, "Nearist Farmers" most vulnerable to droughts (Agri-CP) and at last "Farist Farmers" (Agri-CE) most vulnerable to wildfires. This vulnerability is likely to affect the national economy which is dependent on agriculture and especially on Banikoara produced cotton. These findings should be used to reframe both environmental and agricultural policies in the context of climate change.


Desirable application performance is typically guaranteed through the use of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that specify fixed fractions of resource capacities that must be allocated for unencumbered use by the application. The mapping between what constitutes desirable performance and SLAs is not unique: multiple SLA expressions might be functionally equivalent. Having the flexibility to transform SLAs from one form to another in a manner that is provably safe would enable hosting solutions to achieve significant efficiencies. This paper demonstrates the promise of such an approach by proposing a type-theoretic framework for the representation and safe transformation of SLAs. Based on that framework, the paper describes a methodical approach for the inference of efficient and safe mappings of periodic, real-time tasks to the physical and virtual hosts that constitute a hierarchical scheduler. Extensive experimental results support the conclusion that the flexibility afforded by safe SLA transformations has the potential to yield significant savings.


Virtual endoscopy, which is a noninvasive procedure for detecting anomalies inside human organs, is meaningful for medical diagnosis and surgery. In order to perform an accurate navigation, the centerline of the model must be extracted. In this paper, a new centerline extraction algorithm based on Hessian Matrix is proposed. First, the distance transformation is performed. Then the initial path is obtained by computing the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the Hessian matrix. After that, the visibility test with an adaptive visibility sphere radius, which is determined by the eigenvalues of the Hessian matrix, is carried out to remove the useless voxels in the centerline. Finally, the path with all the points staying away from the surface is generated by Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm. The experimental results illustrate the efficiency of the proposed algorithm.


We associate with every locally expanding self-covering $f:M\to M$ of a compact path connected metric space a finitely presented group $V_f$. We prove that this group is a complete invariant of the dynamical system: two groups $V_{f_1}$ and $V_{f_2}$ are isomorphic as abstract groups if and only if the corresponding dynamical systems are topologically conjugate. We also show that the commutator subgroup of $V_f$ is simple, and give a topological interpretation of $V_f/V_f'$.


A general dynamic hysteresis core loss model has been developed. Experimental data for different lamination thicknesses have been measured and analyzed at various frequencies. Based on the analysis, a dynamic hysteresis finite element core loss model is established and validated by experiments. The developed dynamic hysteresis model is simple and efficient, and has been shown to be very accurate compared with the experiments. Moreover, the model can calculate core losses based on the input parameters obtained from experimental measurements at only one single frequency in a thin lamination. The model, to our best knowledge, is the first one that is capable of calculating core losses for different thicknesses of materials and different operating frequencies, without a massive experimental database. In addition, only the eddy current and hysteresis models are necessary for this calculation but with the important addition of the variation of the flux density within the lamination.


Sickle cell disease (SCD) is caused by a point mutation in the beta-globin gene. SCD is characterized by chronic hemolytic anemia, vaso-occlusive events leading to tissue ischemia, and progressive organ failure. Chronic inflammatory state is part of the pathophysiology of SCD. Patients with SCD have extremely variable phenotypes, from mild disease to severe complications including early age death. The spleen is commonly injured in SCD. Early splenic dysfunction and progressive spleen atrophy are common. Splenomegaly and hypersplenism can also occur with the loss of the crucial splenic function. Acute, life-threatening spleen-related complications in SCD are well studied. The association of laboratory parameters with the spleen status including hyposplenism, asplenia, and splenomegaly/hypersplenism, and their implication in vaso-occlusive crisis and long-term complications in SCD remain to be determined. We evaluated the association between the spleen status with clinical and laboratory parameters in 31 SCD patients: Group a) Patients with asplenia/hyposplenism (N = 22) (including auto-splenectomy and splenectomized patients) vs. Group b) patients with splenomegaly and or hypersplenism (N = 9). Laboratory studies included: Complete Blood Count, reticulocyte count, iron metabolism parameters, C Reactive Protein (CRP), Hb variant distribution, and D-dimer. Metabolic and morphological red blood cell (RBC) studies included: density gradient (by Percoll), glucose consumption, lactate release, and K+ leakage, fetal RBC (F-Cells) and F-Reticulocytes, annexinV+, CD71+, oxidative stress measured by GSH presence in RBC and finally Howell Jolly Bodies count were all analyzed by Flow Cytometry. Scanning electron microscopy analysis of RBC was also performed. Patients with asplenia/hyposplenism showed significantly higher WBC, platelet, Hematocrit, hemoglobin S, CRP, D-dimer, Gamma Glutamyl Transferase (GGT), cholesterol, transferrin, annexin V+ RBCs, CD71+ RBCs, together with a markedly lower F Reticulocyte levels in comparison with splenomegaly/hypersplenism patients. In summary, important differences were also found between the groups in the studied RBCs parameters. Further studies are required to elucidate the effect of the spleen including hyper and hypo-splenia on laboratory parameters and in clinical manifestations, vascular pathology, and long-term complications of SCD. The benefits and risks of splenectomy compared to chronic transfusion need to be evaluated in clinical trials and the standard approach managing hypersplenism in SCD patients should be re-evaluated.


Natural gas is the most popular fossil fuel in the current era and future as well. Natural gas is existed in underground reservoirs so it may contain many of non-hydrocarbon components for instance, hydrogen sulfide, nitrogen and water vapor. These impurities are undesirable compounds and cause several technical problems for example, corrosion and environment pollution. Therefore, these impurities should be reduce or removed from natural gas stream. Khurmala dome is located in southwest Erbil-Kurdistan region. The Kurdistan region government has paid great attention for this dome to provide the fuel for Kurdistan region. However, the Khurmala associated natural gas is currently flaring at the field. Moreover, nowadays there is a plan to recover and trade this gas and to use it either as feedstock to power station or to sell it in global market. However, the laboratory analysis has showed that the Khurmala sour gas has huge quantities of H2S about (5.3%) and CO2 about (4.4%). Indeed, Khurmala gas sweetening process has been removed in previous study by using Aspen HYSYS. However, Khurmala sweet gas still contents some quintets of water about 23 ppm in sweet gas stream. This amount of water should be removed or reduced. Indeed, water content in natural gas cause several technical problems such as hydrates and corrosion. Therefore, this study aims to simulate the prospective Khurmala gas dehydration process by using Aspen HYSYS V. 7.3 program. Moreover, the simulation process succeed in reducing the water content to less than 0.1 ppm. In addition, the simulation work is also achieved process optimization by using several desiccant types for example, TEG and DEG and it also study the relationship between absorbents type and its circulation rate with HCs losses from glycol regenerator tower. Keywords—Aspen Hysys, Process simulation, gas dehydration, process optimization.


Sample 1 proved extremely organically-productive; the palynoflora comprises Carboniferous, Triassic, Jurassic and Quaternary forms. Upper Carboniferous (Westphalian) miosopores are the most prominent element (40.9%), thereby indicating reworking of significant levels of Coal Measures into the Thrussington Till south of Leicester city centre. The most likely source of these Carboniferous spores is the Pennines to the north. Late Triassic (Rhaetian) palynomorphs are also present in moderate proportions (5.9%). The most likely lithostratigraphical units which provided this Rhaetian input are the Westbury and/or Lilstock formations from the local area. Jurassic palynomorphs are relatively prominent (27.1%). These are dominated by miospores that comprise 26.4% of the entire flora. The presence of key markers indicates input from Toarcian and Mid-Late Jurassic strata. It is possible that many of these miospores were derived from the several paralic deposits of the Middle Jurassic succession of the East Midlands Shelf to the north-east. Jurassic dinoflagellate cysts are, by contrast, rare (0.7%) and indicate input from the late Callovian to early Oxfordian Stewartby and/or Weymouth members of the Oxford Clay Formation from the outcrop north-east of Leicester. Low levels (1.3%) of Quaternary pollen grains of aspect were observed and these are assumed to have been derived locally. Forms that are stratigraphically non-diagnostic are present in significant proportions (24.8%), and no evidence of input from the Lower Palaeozoic, Devonian, Permian or Cretaceous-Neogene was observed. Sample 2 also yielded an abundant and well-preserved palynoflora that is entirely comprised of Westphalian (Upper Carboniferous) miospores. This means that large levels of Coal Measures were incorporated into the Thrussington Till at Braunstone. It is highly unusual to encounter a till which is characterised by a non-heterogenous assemblage. The source of these spores is most likely to be the Pennines. The absence of Late Triassic forms in this sample is interesting because other Thrussington Till samples have yielded Rhaetian palynomorphs. The Westphalian miospores represent the far-travelled component; whereas the Rhaetian palynomorphs are locally-derived. It is possible, for example, that the local component diluted the far-travelled component dependent on the availability of Rhaetian strata in the path of the glacier. A detailed study of a complete section of the Thrussington Till would be required in order to fully assess the organic heterogeneity of this unit.


Securing a future for philosophy and wisdom in the professionalized and specialized context of twenty-first century academia is the challenge taken up by this article. If the conception of philosophy as the love of wisdom expects too much of philosophers, the construal of philosophy as the study of wisdom expects too little. To attempt to rehabilitate the relationship between philosophy and wisdom by claiming that philosophy is the study of wisdom unreasonably limits the scope of the current vibrant and expansive discipline, leaving it unclear how the more theoretical dimensions of philosophy might fit into it. Moreover, to exclude from consideration the possibility that a person might be improved by philosophy, and his or her life enhanced, is to denature the discipline. The model of philosophy as encouraging friendship with wisdom, on the other hand, does not underestimate philosophy's potential for helping someone to become the kind of person who could make the choices likely to contribute to the living of a good life. By providing a way of thinking about the relationship between philosophy and wisdom that is appropriate to our age, the idea that philosophers are friends of wisdom can contribute to our evolving practice and understanding of the discipline, while at the same time allowing philosophy and philosophers to remain vitally connected to their heritage.


Within the field of supramolecular chemistry, low molecular weight gelators are an important new class of compounds which are of special interest because of their wide scope of significant applications as advanced materials. Past and current research performed by the Wang group indicates that analogues of various 4,6-acetals of either 1-deoxy or 1-methoxy glucopyranosides form stable gels in organic, aqueous, and organic/aqueous solvents at various concentrations. To understand the structural requirements of such analogous sugar-headgroups, a series of 4,6diphenyl acetal derivatives of glucose were synthesized, and their respective gel properties were analyzed in order to understand the structural influence of these novel molecules toward supramolecular gelation. The synthesis and characterization of these new compounds are presented in this chapter, as well as a detailed analysis of how such a series with an abundance of aromatic moieties promotes π-π stacking, and thus obstructs or contributes to gel matrix formation.


Rabbit corneas were excised and mounted in a chamber to determine the permeability characteristics of a group of beta-blocking agents. By measuring the permeability rate of each drug across intact cornea, stroma alone, epithelium-stroma, and stroma-endothelium, it was possible to determine the resistance to penetration for each corneal layer. The reciprocal of the sum of resistances for the epithelium, stroma, and endothelium equaled the experimentally determined permeability coefficient for the intact cornea (104 +/- 6.0%). Thus, the penetration of beta-blocking agents through the excised rabbit cornea could be treated as three barriers in series. For hydrophilic compounds, the epithelium was the rate-determining barrier. The endothelium offered less resistance, whereas the stroma offered only very minimal resistance. The lipophilic compounds penetrated the excised cornea more rapidly. However, the stroma became rate-determining for the most lipophilic compounds (penbutolol, bufuralol, bevantolol, and propranolol). Although the octanol-buffer (pH 7.65) distribution coefficient of these compounds varied over a fourfold logarithmic range, the permeability coefficient was considered nearly constant [3.4 X 10(-5) (+/- 0.34) cm/sec] for stroma. Also, the ratios of tortuosity to porosity for the stromal layer were 1.58 +/- 0.15. These results suggest that drug diffuses through an aqueous media of gel-like mucopolysaccharide interspersed by a matrix of collagen fibrils. From further analyses intra- and intercellular pathways for epithelium and endothelium were added to the model resulting in a sigmoidal representation of permeability coefficient versus distribution coefficient. However, the intercellular (pore) pathway could not be adequately quantified because of the variation in the data for very hydrophilic compounds.


Influenza is a contagious, acute respiratory disease caused by the influenza virus. The mucosal lining in the host respiratory tract is not only the site of virus infection, but also the site of defense; it is at this site that the host immune response targets the virus and protects against reinfection. One of the most effective methods to prevent influenza is to induce specific antibody (Ab) responses in the respiratory tract by vaccination. Two types of influenza vaccines, intranasal live attenuated influenza virus (LAIV) vaccines and parenteral (injectable) inactivated vaccines, are currently used worldwide. These vaccines are approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the US Food and Drug Administration. Live attenuated vaccines induce both secretory IgA (S-IgA) and serum IgG antibodies (Abs), whereas parenteral vaccines induce only serum IgG Abs. However, intranasal administration of inactivated vaccines together with an appropriate adjuvant induces both S-IgA and IgG Abs. Several preclinical studies on adjuvant-combined, nasal-inactivated vaccines revealed that nasal S-IgA Abs, a major immune component in the upper respiratory tract, reacted with homologous virus hemagglutinin (HA) and were highly cross-reactive with viral HA variants, resulting in protection and cross-protection against infection by both homologous and variant viruses, respectively. Serum-derived IgG Abs, which are present mainly in the lower respiratory tract, are less cross-reactive and cross-protective. In addition, our own clinical trials have shown that nasal-inactivated whole virus vaccines, including a built-in adjuvant (single-stranded RNA), induced serum hemagglutination inhibition (HI) Ab titers that fulfilled the EMA criteria for vaccine efficacy. The nasal-inactivated whole virus vaccines also induced high levels of nasal HI and neutralizing Ab titers, although we have not yet evaluated the nasal HI titers due to the lack of official criteria to establish efficacy based on this parameter. Data suggest that adjuvant-combined nasal-inactivated vaccines have advantages over the current injectable vaccine because the former induce both S-IgA and serum IgG Abs. In addition, nasal-inactivated vaccines seem to be superior to the LAIV vaccines, because non-infectious preparations could be used in high-risk groups. Thus, the development of intranasal inactivated vaccines is recommended, because such vaccines are expected to improve the efficacy of influenza vaccines.


The scope in this project is the design of a dehydrogenation process for ethylbenzene using CO2 as mild oxidant including a technical and economical evaluation. Compared to the conventional process this process has a more favorable equilibrium and can therefore be operated at a lower temperature and lower energy consumption. The design is based on the data of the most promising catalyst investigated which is Fe/Al/Zn (1/2/6) reported by Mimura (2002). Laboratory results show a single pass conversion of 26% with a selectivity to styrene of 91% for a CO2/ethylbenzene ratio of 11. The process is designed according to the systematic process synthesis techniques. Results show that the low conversion and especially the high CO2/ethylbenzene ratio results in an unfeasible recycle flow. It is decided to reduce the CO2/ethylbenzene ratio to 2. The economic evaluation shows that the current margin of $200 between the product and raw material is too low and should be minimal $250. An alternative would be to increase the selectivity to minimal 93%. The available catalyst data such as selectivity, conversion and lifetime is limited and should be subject of further research especially at low CO2/ethylbenzene ratios.


To better understand the variations over time of precipitation water isotopes measured in polar ice cores, we have developed an intermediate complexity model (ICM) of atmospheric water vapor transport and associated isotopic distillation. The model builds directly from earlier work by D. Fisher and M. Hendricks and is calibrated against the measured modern spatial distribution of δD and deuterium excess (d). Model improvements include a correction to the equation governing advective transport, which solves a major puzzle arising from the earlier work. The new model shows isotopic data to be consistent with dominance of eddy diffusive transport at high latitudes. Model experiments are used to show that a wide variety of climate changes in subtropical source regions can affect Antarctic d and that such d changes are consistently anticorrelated with changes of δD. Magnitudes of ΔδD/Δd are ∼−1 to −5 and are much higher at the ice sheet margin than in the interior of the continent. Changes in the relative dominance of diffusive and advective transport are also shown to cause anticorrelated changes of similar magnitude. Isotopic sensitivities to temperature change (ΔδD/ΔT) are shown to also vary spatially, with low values in marginal zones and higher values inland. Effects of ocean surface relative humidity on Antarctic d are shown to be nearly uniform across the continent (in contrast to earlier results given by Petit et al. [1991] ) but quantitatively small. The method used by Vimeux et al. [2001] for folding humidity effects into source temperature effects is supported. We draw attention to a pervasive misapplication of marine composition corrections to Antarctic δD records. Arguments are made in support of simple interpretations of calibrated ice core isotopic time series in terms of temperature changes despite the potential complexities in the system.


Study of skulls has attracted the attention of anatomists since ages and sporadic attempts have been made to study skulls from time-to-time. Talking about the pterygoid processes of sphenoid bone, the irregular posterior border of lateral pterygoid plate usually presents, towards its upper part, a pterygo-spinous process, from which the pterygo-spinous ligament extends backwards and laterally to the spine of sphenoid. This ligament sometimes gets ossified as pterygo-spinous bar and a foramen is then formed named pterygo-spinous foramen, for the passage of muscular branches of mandibular nerve. The present study was undertaken to observe the incidence and status of pterygo-spinous bony bridge and foramen, its variations and clinical relevance in the adult human skulls of North India. For this purpose, 50 skulls were observed, pterygo-spinous bars were found to be present in 7 skulls, out of which completely ossified pterygo-spinous bony bridges were present in 2 skulls while 5 skulls had incompletely ossified pterygo-spinous ligaments. Such variations are of clinical significance for radiologists, neurologists, maxillo-facial & dental surgeons and anaesthetists, too.


This research considers forecasting 1 day-ahead hourly electricity prices in the Norwegian power market, after a principal component analysis has been applied on the data. As a way of gaining forecast accuracy, combinations of weighted individual forecast were also considered. Comparisons between the accuracy of five distinct models were made. A base model; in which principal component analysis was applied to the dataset comprising all 24 hourly prices, was used as standard to compare with the alternatives, by means of three evaluation criteria. Ultimately, the results were somewhat the same for the peak/off-peak hour model and the 4 intra-day period model: both were outperformed by the base model, mainly for periods of high volatility. The weighted principal components model simply generated poor results. The combination of weighted base model with the weighted peak/off-peak model was the only model which generated better for volatile periods, but this at the expense of losing accuracy in other periods.


A system is described that measures the vehicle count and travel time in the links of a road network. The measurements require matching vehicle signatures recorded by a wireless magnetic sensor network. The matching algorithm is based on a statistical model of the signatures. The model itself is estimated from the data. The approach is first discussed for a single-lane road and extended to multiple-lane roads. The algorithm yields a correct matching rate of 75% for a false matching rate of 5% and reliably estimates the number of vehicles on each link and its travel-time distribution. The system is tested on a 0.9-mi-long segment of San Pablo Avenue, Albany, CA.


Layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly based on hydrogen-bonding interactions is generating great interest for biomedical applications because it is composed of neutral polymers, while LbL assembly based on electrostatic interaction requires polycations which may induce toxicity issues. As a neutral polymer, poly(N-vinylamide), which has low toxicity compared to poly(acrylamide), has the potential to fabricate LbL thin films via hydrogen-bonding interactions. Herein we report interpolymer complexes of poly(N-vinylamide)s and natural polyphenol tannic acid to form the multilayered thin film. Poly(N-vinylformamide) and poly(N-vinylacetamide), which are water-soluble and insoluble in acetonitrile, could not form complexes with TA in water. On the other hand, N-alkylated poly(N-vinylamide) such as poly(N-ethyl-N-vinylformamide) and poly(N-methyl-N-vinylacetamide) was soluble in acetonitrile and allowed the LbL assembly to proceed with TA. Furthermore, the QCM frequency shift with films composed of poly(N-ethyl-N-vinylformamide) and TA were stable in water, while those of poly(N-methyl-N-vinylacetamide) and TA were instable in water, possibly because formamide has lower steric hindrance compared to acetamide to allow stronger hydrogen-bonding interactions to take place. Thus, LbL assembly reactions with alkylated poly(N-vinylamide)s and TA were investigated and revealed that poly(N-ethyl-N-formamide) and TA, which are water-soluble, effectively interacted with one another to generate water-stable hydrogen-bonded multilayered films.


High-fidelity entangling quantum gates based on Rydberg interactions are required for scalable quantum computing with neutral atoms. Their realization, however, meets a major stumbling block -- the motion-induced dephasing of the transition between the ground and Rydberg states. By using quantum interference between different detuned Rabi oscillations, we propose a practical scheme to realize a class of accurate entangling Rydberg quantum gates subject to a minimal dephasing error. We show two types of such gates, $U_{1}$ and $U_{2}$, in the form of $\text{diag}\{1, e^{i\alpha}, e^{i\gamma}, e^{i\beta}\}$, where $\alpha, \gamma$, and $\beta$ are determined by the parameters of lasers and the Rydberg blockade $V$. $U_{1}$ is realized by sending to the two qubits a single off-resonant laser pulse, while $U_{2}$ is realized by individually applying one pulse of detuned laser to each qubit. Our method has several advantages. First, the gates are accurate because the fidelity of $U_k$ is limited only by a rotation error below $10^{-5}$ and the Rydberg-state decay. Decay error on the order of $10^{-5}$ can be easily obtained because all transitions are detuned, resulting in small population in Rydberg state. Second, the motion-induced dephasing is minimized because there is no gap time in which a population is left in the Rydberg shelving states of either qubit. Third, the gate is resilient to the variation of $V$. This is because among the three phases $\alpha,\gamma$, and $\beta$, only the last has a (partial) dependence on $V$. Fourth, the Rabi frequency and $V$ in our scheme are of similar magnitude, which permits a fast implementation of the gate when both of them are of the feasible magnitude of several megahertz. The rapidity, accuracy, and feasibility of this interference method can lay the foundation for entangling gates in universal quantum computing with neutral atoms.


A practical problem facing Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud users is how to minimize their costs by choosing different pricing options based on their own demands. Recently, cloud brokerage service is introduced to tackle this problem. But due to the perishability of cloud resources, there still exists a large amount of idle resource waste during the reservation period of reserved instances. This idle resource waste problem is challenging cloud broker when buying reserved instances to accommodate users' job requests. To solve this challenge, we find that cloud users always have low priority jobs (e.g., non latency-sensitive jobs) which can be delayed to utilize these idle resources. With considering the priority of jobs, two problems need to be solved. First, how can cloud broker leverage jobs' priorities to reserve resources for profit maximization? Second, how to fairly price users' job requests with different priorities when previous studies either adopt pricing schemes from IaaS clouds or just ignore the pricing issue. To solve these problems, we first design a fair and priority aware pricing scheme, PriorityPricing, for the broker which charges users with different prices based on priorities. Then we propose three dynamic algorithms for the broker to make resource reservations with the objective of maximizing its profit. Experiments show that the broker's profit can be increased up to 2.5× than that without considering priority for offline algorithm, and 3.7× for online algorithm.


Abstract Structural characteristics of Fe3+ oxide/silica co-precipitates were investigated. The association between these materials is relevant to practically all natural aqueous systems due to the prevalence of iron and silicon in the Earth's crust. Crystallographic information is very difficult to obtain from these precipitates due to the nanocrystalline nature of ferrihydrite and the amorphous structure of precipitated silica. Several previously undetermined key insights were gained into the structure of iron oxide/silica co-precipitates through this examination. The distribution of iron and silicon throughout co-precipitate particles is illustrated along with the influence of their association. Evidence to the governing factor behind differences in apparent crystallinity is also presented. This information culminates in the formulation of a precipitation pathway, displaying the formation of the co-precipitates.


The effect of a culture powder of Propionibacterium freudenreichii ET-3 cells containing a bifidogenic growth stimulator (BGS) on fecal flora was studied in twelve healthy subjects with a mean age of 42.6 (range, 27-56 years). One gram of BGS powder containing 17.4 U of BGS activity was administered for 14 days, three times a day after meals. A significantly higher number of bifidobacteria in fecal samples was observed during the intake period of the BGS powder. The frequency of occurrence of the bifidobacteria also increased from 92% to 100%. These results indicate that the BGS acts in the intestine as a growth stimulator of bifidobacteria when the BGS powder is administered.


There are several important things in Islamic teachings that must be done as soon as possible, including taking care of the corpse, serving food when guests arrive, marrying off a girl whose soul mate has arrived, paying off debts when they are due and repenting when committing small or major sins. The law of taking care of the corpse is fard kifayah. The management of the corpse must be expedited as quickly as possible. This is necessary because goodness is good for the corpse itself. In Suka Maju village, Pahae Jae sub-district, there are frequent delays in processing the bodies. In connection with this, the researcher analyzed the causes of delays in the management of corpses in Suka Maju Village and solved the problem so that there were no more delays in the management of corpses.
 Keywords: Islamic Teachings, Fardhu Kifayah, Training, Counseling, Body Management..


Expression of recombinant proteins as fusions to the eukaryotic protein ubiquitin has been found to significantly increase the yield of unstable or poorly expressed proteins. The benefit of this technique is further enhanced by the availability of naturally occurring deubiquitylating enzymes, which remove ubiquitin from the fusion product. However, the versatility of the system has been constrained due to the lack of a robust, easily purified deubiquitylating enzyme. Here we report the development of an efficient expression system, utilizing the ubiquitin fusion technique, which allows convenient high yield and easy purification of authentic protein. An Escherichia coli vector (pHUE) was constructed for the expression of proteins as histidine‐tagged ubiquitin fusions, and a histidine‐tagged deubiquitylating enzyme to cleave these fusions was expressed and purified. The expression system was tested using several proteins varying in size and complexity. These results indicate that this procedure will be suitable for the expression and rapid purification of a broad range of proteins and peptides, and should be amenable to high‐throughput applications.


ABSTRACT Objectives A questionnaire which provides desirable reliability and validity has been previously developed to assess the disease awareness of diagnosed chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients. However, conventional paper questionnaires often have disadvantages, including recall bias. To substantially improve this, we therefore aimed to explore the feasibility of developing a smartphone-based electronic version (e-version) based upon its original paper version and subsequently tested its validity, reliability, and applicability. Methods A pilot study was conducted at Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine in Guangzhou, China, during August 2019. The e-version had identical content to the paper version and was adapted in terms of layout and assisted functions via the Wechat-incorporated Wen-Juan-Xing platform. Eligible patients with diagnosed CKD were invited to participate and were assigned the e-version. Randomly selected respondents received a test-retest of the same e-version 2 weeks after their first completion. In some instances, psychometric properties, including validity and reliability of the e-version, were examined. In others, its clinical application was also tested, which included comparisons among the clinical profiles of patients who had/had not responded to the questionnaire as well as patients with above or below average questionnaire scores. Results Of the 225 patients screened, 217 were enrolled to participate, with a response rate of 52.5%. Desirable reliability (Cronbachα = 0.962, ICC for total scores = 0.948), while good convergent validity (Cronbachα = 0.962) and low discriminant validity (one extracted component), of the e-version were detected. Performing inter-group comparisons highlighted statistical differences in terms of higher education level (z = −2.436, P = 0.015) and earlier CKD stages (z = −1.978, P = 0.048), with these patients often preferring to respond. No significant differences were detected in the clinical profiles between respondents who obtained an above or below average questionnaire score. Conclusion The e-version is reliable but was not shown to be a valid approach. Audiences with higher education levels and less advanced disease condition may prefer to respond to the e-version. Adaptation of this e-questionnaire, from its original paper version, may not be a direct transition and meticulous modifications may be required during the transition process. Trial registration Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR1900024633).


On 23 May 2013, the European Commission announced that it had accepted commitments offered by Star Alliance members Air Canada, United and Lufthansa in the context of the Commission's…


The paper presents the extraction methodology and junction capacitance model of PMOSFET in VLSI. The p-n junction layouts with low perimeter and high perimeter have been designed. The LOCal Oxidation of Silicon (LOCOS) affect was used for the device area and perimeter be precisely determined. The C-V characteristics of P+/NWell junction, PLDD/NWell junction and Psub/NWell junction are measured. The model can be calculated by simple program which gives the error between the results of the measurement and the results of the simulation is in the range of less than 5%


A longitudinal malaria study was undertaken in 1990-91 in 2 adjacent ecological zones in central India: villages in forest and villages away from the forest. The prevalence of Anopheles species varied widely between the 2 ecological settings. In the villages in forest, Anopheles culicifacies and An. fluviatilis were mainly exophilic, whereas in the villages away from forest, An. culicifacies was predominantly endophilic and An. fluviatilis was equally prevalent both indoors and outdoors. The seasonal patterns of malaria transmission were also different between the 2 zones. Plasmodium falciparum was the dominant parasite species in the villages in forest, whereas malaria infection was mainly due to Plasmodium vivax in the villages away from forest. The annual parasite incidence was high in the villages in forest. The failure to control malaria in forested areas is rooted in the terrain and a variety of poorly understood sociological factors.


How can a country rapidly improve its capacity in science, technology, and innovation? Invest in people, as Latin America is doing. For Brazil, supporting this effort through international exchange and increased mobility over the past year will substantially enlarge the nation's corpus of highly qualified scientists and technologists. Argentina has increased its number of doctoral fellowships and is concentrating on recruiting back Argentine investigators working abroad to advance its own basic research and industry. And in Chile, special programs have been funding fellowships to send students abroad to obtain Ph.D. degrees in science. These activities reflect the growing desire of Latin American nations to train an educated workforce in the world's best institutions and foster "globalized" science on the continent.


Gram-negative bacterial 3-hydroxy fatty acids (3-OH-FAs) have received recent attention for their potential as palaeoclimate proxies. A novel temperature proxy, the ratio of anteiso to normal C13 3-OH-FA (RAN13), has been proposed for sea surface temperature (SST) reconstruction in the North Pacific Ocean. However, whether this newly proposed temperature proxy is applicable to marginal seas with significant terrigenous input or tropical oligotrophic seas requires further investigation. Here, we analyzed the composition and distribution of 3-OH-FAs and evaluated the possible impact of various environmental parameters (SST, water depth, dissolved oxygen, salinity and nutrient concentration) on their distribution in marine surface sediments from the Bohai Sea (BS) and the South China Sea (SCS). In the BS, the potential source proxy, fractional abundance of anteiso 3-OH-FAs (average 17%), indicates 3-OH-FA geochemical signature are not greatly overprinted by terrigenous inputs. The relative abundance of long-chain 3-OH-FAs (C15-C18) are higher in the SCS (average 41%) compared to those in other seas (average 33% for all marine samples). Massive inputs of terrigenous organic matter to the BS likely result in overestimation of SSTs based on the RAN13 proxy, and limited abundance of anteiso and normal C13 3-OH-FAs in the oligotrophic SCS may increase the uncertainty of the RAN13 estimated SSTs. More importantly, we find that most short-chain 3-OH-FAs are temperature dependent, especially the fractional abundance of i-C12, a-C13, i-C14 and n-C14 with a high determination coefficient (R2 > 0.60). Based on these newly found correlations, we propose a novel proxy: RANs. The RANs index shows a strong linear relationship with SST (R2 = 0.92, p< 0.001, n = 85) and more accurate prediction than the RAN13, especially in tropical samples. Furthermore, the RANs proxy is significantly correlated with TEX86, and RANs-based SSTs are approximate to LDI derived temperature in the SCS, which support the reliability of RANs as a temperature proxy. These findings further suggest 3-OH-FA based proxies have potential for paleo-SST reconstruction, especially at higher and lower ends of the ocean temperature spectrum and even in cases where marginal inputs of terrestrial organic matter and nutrients are high.


The technological endeavors of human beings have modified the levels of radiation exposure slightly. The emanation of radon is primarily associated with radium and its ultimate precursor uranium. The radiation dose received by human beings from indoor radon and its progeny is the largest of all doses received either by natural or man-made sources. In order to investigate the effect of paints available in the market on the radon exhalation rate from building materials, several bricks were collected. These bricks were plastered with a mixture of cement and sand. Before measurements, bricks were dried for 24 hours. These plastered bricks were then coated with white wash and again dried for 1-2 hours. After drying the bricks were coated with different brands and colors of paints. In the present study radon exhalation rates measurements were carried out for these painted bricks using "Sealed Can Technique". Radon activities were found to vary from 897.4 Bq m-3 to 1514.6 Bq m-3 with an average value of 1117.5 Bq m-3. Radon exhalation rates were found to varies from 537.1 mBq m-2 h-1 to 906.5 mBq m-2 h-1 with an average value of 669.5 mBq m-2 h-1, whereas the Indoor inhalation exposure (radon) effective dose were found to varies from 63.3 μSv y-1 to 106.8 μSv y-1 with an average value of 78.9 μSv y-1


The internet has become a participatory place where everyone can contribute and interact with others. In health in particular, social media have changed traditional patient–physician relationships. Patients are organising themselves in groups, sharing observations and helping each other, although there is still little evidence of the effectiveness of these online communities on people's health. To understand why and how people use health-related sites, we studied these sites and identified three dimensions characterising most of them: informational/supportive; general/focused; and new relationships/existing ones. We conducted an online survey about the use of health-related social networking (SN) sites and learnt that, consistent with previous research, most patients were seeking information about their medical condition online, while, at the same time, still interacting with health professionals to talk about sensitive information and complex issues. We also found that, while people's natural social network played an important role for emotional support, sometimes, people chose to not involve their family, but instead interact with peers online because of their perceived support and ability to understand someone's experience, and also to maintain a comfortable emotional distance. Finally, our results show that people using general SN sites do not necessarily use health-related sites and vice versa.


Background Airway compromise and respiratory failure are feared complications of angioedema leading to intensive care unit (ICU) admission. However, few of these patients decompensate. There is a paucity of tools that predict airway compromise in patients with angioedema, and it is unclear if automatic triage to the ICU is warranted. We analyzed patients admitted to our tertiary center ICU with angioedema for "airway watch" to find a way to triage those at greatest risk of respiratory decompensation. Methods We performed a retrospective review of patients with angioedema admitted to our ICU between 2017 and 2020. Data collected included demographics, comorbidities, nasopharyngolaryngoscopy (NPL) findings, need for intubation, and length of stay. Descriptive analysis and subsequent ANOVA or T-test statistical analysis was performed to determine the relationships between individual variables and outcomes. Categorical variables were compared using Pearson's Chi-squared test or Fisher's exact test where applicable. Continuous variables were compared using a Mann-Whitney U test. Results Of 134 patients admitted to our ICU, 63 (47%) required intubation, primarily in the emergency department (92.1%). Of those who required intubation, 61.9% had abnormal NPL findings in contrast to 25.35% of patients who did not require intubation (p<0.0001). Normal NPL findings had a negative predictive value for requiring intubation of 86.5%. Abnormal NPL findings had a positive predictive value for requiring intubation of 68.4%. Conclusion While airway compromise is a serious complication of angioedema, there is scant evidence to support triage to the ICU for those not intubated immediately. The majority of patients with angioedema who required intubation had abnormal NPL findings, and the majority of those with normal NPL findings did not require intubation. This suggests that NPL findings in patients with angioedema can help with triage to the ICU.


Various hydrogenation reactions on transition metals are important commercially whereas certain hydrogenolysis reactions are useful from fundamental point of view. Understanding the hydrogen mobility and kinetics of adsorption-desorption of hydrogen is important in understanding the mechanisms of such reactions involving hydrogen. The kinetics of hydrogen chemisorption was studied by means of selective excitation NMR on silica supported Pt, Rh and Pt-Rh catalysts. The activation energy of hydrogen desorption was found to be lower on silica supported Pt catalysts as compared to Rh and Pt-Rh catalysts. It was found that the rates of hydrogen adsorption and desorption on Pt-Rh catalyst were similar to those on Rh catalyst and much higher as compared to Pt catalyst. The Ru-Ag bimetallic system is much simpler to study than the Pt-Rh system and serves as a model system to characterize more complicated systems such as the K/Ru system. Ag was found to decrease the amounts of adsorbed hydrogen and the hydrogen-to-ruthenium stoichiometry. Ag reduced the populations of states with low and intermediate binding energies of hydrogen on silica supported Ru catalyst. The rates of hydrogen adsorption and desorption were also lower on silica supported Ru-Ag catalyst as compared to Ru catalyst. This report contains introductory information, the literature review, general conclusions, and four appendices. An additional four chapters and one appendix have been processed separately for inclusion on the data base.


Sreemoti Ratna Sarker 30 years old lady presented to us with the complaints of amenorrhea for 5 months, lower abdominal pain for 5 days, slight per vaginal bleeding for 2-3 days, a cord like structure is coming down p/v on the day of admission. On general examination she was stable and on p/v examination there was cord prolapse. A gentle traction was given and it was expelled out along with a small piece of placental tissue without any fetal parts and bleeding. Then she was advised for USG of abdomen. USG reported a fetus like structure in the abdominal cavity and the empty uterine cavity . She was managed surgically. Now she is doing well. KYAMC Journal Vol. 5, No.-1, Jul 2014, Page 491-493


The antibacterial activity of the aqueous, ethanol and chloroform extracts from the stems of Tinospora cordifolia was studied using disc diffusion method against Escherichia coil, Proteus vulgaris, Enterobacter faecalis, Salmonella typhi (Gram-negative), Staphylococcus aureus and Serratia marcesenses (Gram-positive). Results suggest that the ethanolic extract has significant antibacterial activity against tested bacteria. The present study justifies the claimed uses of Tinospora cordifolia in the traditional system of medicine to treat various infectious diseases.


In the traditional Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) network model, Internet protocol (IP) provided only an unreliable, best-effort delivery service. As a result, the effects of the physical and data-link layers on IP performance were ignored. In the current Internet service provider (ISP) environment, service-level agreements (SLA) require that IP-based services provide quality of service (QoS) guarantees. These guarantees (e.g., asynchronous transfer mode [ATM], connection admission control, and frame relay [FR] traffic policing) are often based on or enforced through physical and link-layer provisioning parameters. In this paper, we examine the effects of the ATM and FR physical and data-link layers and their interworking on IP performance. Specifically, we characterize the impact of ATM and FR impairments, traffic policing, and interworking on IP traffic. © 2003 Lucent Technologies Inc.


Dentist's personality values are known to be one of the most important qualities on which professionalismis based on. The aim of this study was to find out which attributes, according to Baltic dental students,are the most important for a "reliable dentist".Material and methods. 190 Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian dental students were given an anonymous questionnaire. The questionnaire included a number of questions about dentist's personality, work and scientific activity attributes. The answers about the importance of dentist's personality attributes were presented on a 5-point Likert scale, allocated accordingto the level of importance with the given dentist'squality.Results. 113 respondents (60%) were Lithuanian dental students, 30 (16%) were Latvian and 45 (24%) were Estonian students. Lithuanian students' response rate was 90,4%, Latvian – 83,3%, Estonian– 58%. 88% Lithuanian, 93% Latvian and 97% Estonian respondents accentuated the importance of behaviour during painful and unpleasant proceduresand pain management. Ability to control stressful situations was more essential for Estonian (p<0,001) and Latvian students (p=0,007) than for Lithuanian respondents. Self confidence was more appreciated by Estonians than by Lithuanian dentalstudents (p=0.045). Dentist's gender was more valued by male respondents (p<0,05). Estonians and Latvians accentuated dentist's gender, empathy, neat clothing and punctuality more than Lithuanian students (p<0.05).Conclusions: This study clearly revealed Baltic students'attitude to the importance of reliable dentist's personality attributes, which is important in educatingstudents and undergraduates, developing and improving dental study programs.Many patients are known to choose a reliable dentist.Being reliable is a vigorous and challenging task, involving many professional and ethical responsibilities.Professionals are expected to be not only communicative, emphatic, respecting patient's confidentiality, maintaining appropriate relations with patients etc., but also be committed to lifelong learning and be responsible for maintaining the medicalknowledge, clinical and team-skills necessary for the provision of quality care. Dentist's personalityattributes are known to be one of the most importantqualities on which professionalism is based on. The key mission of dental education is development of student professionalism [1]. Therefore, we decidedto identify Baltic students' views on the most important personality attributes that should be possessedby a "reliable dentist".


We propose a new approach for multichannel robust speech recognition. This approach extends the vector Taylor series (VTS)-based feature compensation from the single channel to the multichannel case. Precisely, we use the first order VTS to approximate each of the microphone feature vectors. Afterwards, these features are jointly processed to estimate the acoustic channel and noise statistics via expectation maximization (EM). Experimental results with TI-Digits and measured impulse responses show that the proposed method can achieve significant gains in terms of word recognition accuracy in different noise conditions.


Proteins or peptides having an N-terminal-blocked amino acid were successively digested by pronase E, proteinase K, and carboxypeptidase Y. The N-blocked amino acids released from proteins or peptides were derivatized with 9-anthryldiazomethane (ADAM) to the corresponding esters followed by addition of formic acid to remove the remaining ADAM which interfered with further analysis. The anthryl esters were analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography equipped with a fluorimetric detector. Twelve N-acetylamino acids (Asn, Gln, Ser, Thr, Gly, Ala, Tyr, Pro, Met, Val, Ile, and Leu), pyroglutamic acid, N-formylMet, and N-myristoylGly could be separated from each other and identified on the same chromatographic run. As examples of applied experiments to proteins and peptides, N-acetyl derivatives of Ser, Ala, Met, Gly, Tyr, and Pro as well as N-myristoylGly could be satisfactorily identified using 100 pmol each of seven proteins and peptides. The method reported here is an improved one that was reported in the previous paper based on the same principles.


Nitration of substituted (1-deaza)purines using a mixture of tetrabutylammonium nitrate (TBAN) and trifluoracetic acid anhydride (TFAA) was applied to prepare nitrosubstituted (1-deaza)purines at low temperature. The nitro group influences the system twofold: 1) it activates other substituents towards nucleophilic aromatic substitution and 2) it can be substituted itself leading to a variety of di-substituted (1-deaza)purines, also via solid phase syntheses. Several of the molecules obtained were studied for their antiprotozoal activity and for interactions with the different human adenosine receptors.


Since the pioneering work by Dentcheva and Ruszczyński [Optimization with stochastic dominance constraints, SIAM J. Optim. 14 (2003), pp. 548–566], stochastic programs with second-order dominance constraints (SPSODC) have received extensive discussions over the past decade from theory of optimality to numerical schemes and practical applications. In this paper, we investigate discrete approximation of SPSODC when (a) the true probability is known but continuously distributed and (b) the true probability distribution is unknown but it lies within an ambiguity set of distributions. Differing from the well-known Monte Carlo discretization method, we propose a deterministic discrete approximation scheme due to Pflug and Pichler [Approximations for Probability Distributions and Stochastic Optimization Problems, International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, Vol. 163, Springer, New York, 2011, pp. 343–387] and demonstrate that the discrete probability measure and the ambiguity set of discrete probability measures approximate their continuous counterparts under the Kantorovich metric. Stability analysis of the optimal value and optimal solutions of the resulting discrete optimization problems is presented and some comparative numerical test results are reported.


A new microsurgical instrument, the surgical pocket, is described, and its value for storing instruments in the surgical field during operation is discussed. Specific procedures for using the pocket in the field with the bipolar coagulator, suction irrigator, dissector, and scissors are presented. Proximity storage of microsurgical instruments reduces the surgeon's reliance upon other surgical personnel by allowing instrument transfers to be made without assistance. In addition, it reduces stress and fatigue for the surgeon by shortening the length of the operation and reducing eye strain by reducing the need to shift vision from the eyepieces of the microscope to the operating room and back each time an instrument is exchanged.


This book examines the impact of changing modes of cultural transmission on Jewish and Western cultures over the past two thousand years. The contributors to the volume survey some of the ways -- conscious and subconscious -- in which cultural elements arc selected, shaped, and transmitted, and some of the ways they in turn shape the future of their cultures. Focusing on a range of Jewish cultures from late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the modern period, the authors consider both the transformation of traditions in their travels from one contemporaneous cultural context to another and their transformation within a single culture overtime.Some of the studies in the book deal with the transition from mixed oral-written cultures to ones in which written-print is nearly exclusive. Other chapters deal with the processes of transmission such as anthologizing, translating, teaching, and sermonizing. By contextualizing Jewish culture within Western culture and including a comparative perspective, the book makes an important contribution to Judaic studies as well as to other areas of the humanities concerned with questions of textuality and culture.