Background : From a food security perspective, yam is an important crop in the tropics and subtropics, where it produced both as a subsistence crop and on a commercial scale. This study aimed to assess the ethnobotanical knowledge and nutritional values of two domestic yams in Abaya Woreda, southern Ethiopia. Methods : Data were collected from sixty informants in three kebeles. From each kebele, the most productive top twenty farmers were selected by researchers based on their potential cultivation of yams with the assistance of Development Agency (DA). Ethnobotanical data were collected by semi-structured interviews and edible tubers and bulbils of these crops were collected for nutritional analysis at the Hawassa University Food Laboratory. The data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) using MS-Excel and SPSS. Results : The results showed that farmers of Abaya Woreda have indigenous knowledge about forms of consumption, meal preferences, medicinal use, storage mechanisms and propagation systems of yams. Significant variation was observed in knowledge of edible plant parts and methods of tuber preservation for propagation in the study area. Similarly, the nutritional content of the crops showed variation in some of the measured parameters. For instance, Dioscorea bulbifera had higher carbohydrate content and total energy although it was the lower in moisture content. Conclusions : The present study has attempted to document ethnobotanical knowledge and nutritional values of two domestic Dioscorea species in Abaya Woreda, which should get attention by farmers, researchers, governmental and nongovernmental bodies in order to increase the food potential and indigenous knowledge in the study area. For the results presented here may help to conserve yam germplasm and create awareness about the importance of these crops to alleviate food insecurity. Key words : ethnobotany, nutritional value, yam, Abaya woreda.


A strain of Langat virus (LGT), T-1674, was isolated from a pool of Haemaphysalis papuana Thorell collected in the forest of Khao Yai National Park in Central Thailand. The isolated virus was found to have growth and antigenic similarity to the prototype Langat strain (TP-21). This is the first report of a natural infection of Haemaphysalis ticks with LGT and of the isolation of this arbovirus in Thailand. The wide distribution of known vectors of LGT in Thailand suggests that the virus may be present in other areas of the country.


It is now one year since we started our microsurgical venture. The idea was to round-off the care coverage of our Reproduction Unit since, in June 92, we had launched the FIV-TE program. The Unit Incorporates professionals from different services (urology, gynaecology, laboratory) imbued by the notion that it is not the isolated individual but the couple who, at any particular time, have a fertility problem. Approach to the study is, therefore, done in an integrate and concurrent way to both members of the couple, progressing then to establishment of diagnosis and the outline of a therapeutic alternative. We introduce below the case of a couple which may well be an example of the above statements. The couple refers a 4-year evolution of primary sterility. The 34-year-old male is a long-evolution insulin-dependent diabetic with erectile dysfunction and backward ejaculation. The erectile dysfunction is successfully managed with PGE1 self-injections. In their wish for fertility and after failure of spermatozoa recovery both in urine following orgasm and intravesical Menezo, we attempt MAE (12 million of spermatozoa with motility, after swim-up) + FIC-TE in a FSHp- and HCG-induced cycle, securing the uptake, by ultrasound-guided follicular puncture under local anaesthetics, of 5 mature ovocytes 4 of which were fertilized; the same four undergoing intrauterine transferral with the result of pregnancy, this being the second one to be accomplished in the country and the first one In our Unit, by microaspiration of spermatozoa at the deferent level In a situation of primary sterility by plain male factor.


The potential of producing glucose from oil palms lignocellulosic wastes which include oil palm trunks (OPT), fronds, empty fruit bunches (EFB) and palm pressed fibers (PPF) by sulphuric acid hydrolysis was investigated. The glucose obtained was then fermented using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. From the total amount of oil palm wastes available, as well as the value of glucose yield obtainable and the fermentation efficiency found, the total amount of ethanol that can be produced can be estimated. Thus, the total energy in the front of ethanol obtainable from these oil palm wastes can be calculated. The results of this study showed that the total energy in the form of ethanol obtainable from the oil palm wastes approximately 1.32 × 10 17 J. This is about 20% of the total energy requirements of the transportation sector in Malaysia in the year 2000. This percentage can be further increased if the xylose fractions from these wastes are also utilized to produce ethanol.


Dynamically allocating computing nodes to parallel applications is a promising technique for improving the utilization of cluster resources. We introduce the concept of dynamic efficiency which expresses the resource utilization efficiency as a function of time. We propose a simulation framework which enables predicting the dynamic efficiency of a parallel application. It relies on the DPS parallelization framework to which we add direct execution simulation capabilities. The high level flow graph description of DPS applications enables the accurate simulation of parallel applications without needing to modify the application code. Thanks to partial direct execution, simulation times and memory requirements may be reduced. In simulations under partial direct execution, the application's parallel behavior is simulated thanks to direct execution, and the duration of individual operations is obtained from a performance prediction model or from prior measurements. We verify the accuracy of our simulator by comparing the effective running time, respectively the dynamic efficiency, of parallel program executions with the running time, respectively the dynamic efficiency, predicted by the simulator. These comparisons are performed for an LU factorization application under different parallelization and dynamic node allocation strategies


The objective of this article is to present a new methodological approach to the field of military sciences – namely the egocentric network -interview, which is a qualitative technique of Social Network Analysis (SNA). The article discusses the history of SNA focusing especially on its application on the field of learning research. The use of egocentric network -interview is illustrated with an empirical research example. The example is an empirical case-study concerning workplace learning of Non-commissioned officers (NCO) in three companies of one Finnish Army's unit. An egocentric network -interview was conducted with the NCOs. The visualized egocentric network-data was analyzed qualitatively. The results of the research example suggest that personal networks were central to the learning of NCOs and the networks varied considerably. The possible applications of egocentric network -interview within military sciences are discussed and some central aspects important for conducting network-research are highlighted.


The study was carried out to isolate and detect the resistance of E. coli bacteria from four livestock in Surabaya, Indonesia.
This research used 40 samples of chicken thigh meat. The first step is isolated Escherichia coli bacteria using BGBB media (Brillilliant Green Bile Broth), and then used EMBA (Eosin Methylen Blue Agar) media for confirmatory tests, IMViC tests (Indole, Methyl Red, Voges Praskauer, and Citrat) to identify the enterobacteriaceae bacteria, and performed the gram staining test. Determined the Escherichia coli sensitivity to antibiotic by using disk diffusion method.
Resistance test has resulted for ampicillin against E.coli is 100% resistance in all farms. In this research 13 of 40 samples from chicken meat had positive E.coli. The result from electrophoresis product of PCR said that resistance Escherichia coli had a specific band. Total 13 samples of positive Escherichia coli resistance ampicillin has specific DNA band primary shv with 768 bp in length.


Healthy Running Step by Step will help runners of all ages and abilities understand why running injuries occur, how to prevent them, and how to speed up recovery. Injuries plague the majority of runners, wrecking training plans and cutting running careers short by decades, but they are not inevitable. Authors Robert Forster, P.T., and Roy M. Wallack explain that nearly all running injuries can be rehabilitated quicker and even avoided altogether with the right training, strengthening, stretching, running form, and diet strategy. Drawing from Forster's three decades of training and treating Olympic athletes and more than 10,000 runners at his award-winning Santa Monica, California, physical therapy and high-performance centers, this book emphasizes that better performance is inextricably bound to injury reduction and that a comprehensive, science-based training plan with built-in anti-injury "insurance" must include these crucial elements: Periodization training Proper technique and footwear Nutrition Posture and flexibility Strength training This book also includes detailed, step-by-step rehabilitation matrixes for the five most common running injuries: IT band syndrome, Achilles tendonitis, shin splints, plantar fasciitis, and hamstring injuries. Using these unique matrixes as your guide, you'll recover from injuries more quickly and understand what you need to do to prevent their reoccurrence. Healthy Running Step by Step is a must-have guide if you've ever been injured, are recovering from an injury, want to prevent injuries, or run injury-free for decades to come.


In order to adapt to the high-efficiency and low-resistance performances required by the new generation of gas turbine, a new type of two-pass rectangular channel with cross bridge and oval-shaped dimple structure is proposed for internal cooling of blade mid chord region. Firstly, the flow structure, heat transfer and friction characteristics of the novel channels under stationary and rotating conditions are numerically analyzed and compared in detail. Then the effects of cross bridge type/layout and dimple dimension/arrangement on the cooling performance are discussed. And the coupling mechanism of cross bridge, turning bend, oval-shaped dimple and rotation effect is revealed. The results show that the introduction of the cross bridge enables the coolant flow into the second pass in a distributed manner, which weakens the flow aggregation and extrusion in the tip turning bend region, thus the flow structure is optimized. Although the heat transfer is slightly weakened, the friction factor is reduced by 66.3% and 51.4%, and the overall thermal performance is improved by 16.7% and 11.6% (different cases) at most, for stationary and rotating conditions, respectively. The oval-shaped dimple achieves local heat transfer enhancement by controlling flow separation and reattachment. Furthermore, the optimized cross bridge type/layout and dimple dimension/arrangement are also obtained. This research will provide important reference data for the development of high-efficiency mid chord cooling technology for gas turbine blade.


Breastfeeding mothers needed adequate energy intake to provide 6-month exclusive breastfeeding that is necessary for infant growth and development. This study aimed to investigate real intake at the first and sixth month of breastfeeding and determine the dominant factor affecting 6-month exclusive breastfeeding provision. The design of this study was cross-sectional conducted in March-April 2015 among 109 mothers with 6-12- month-old infant living and registered at integrated health care in Kalangan Primary Health Care area. Data were collected through interview using questionnaires. Breastfeeding mothers' intake was asked using Semi-Quantitative Food Frequency Questionnaire. The study found that 6-month exclusive breastfeeding proportion was 22.9%. Mean energy intake of breastfeeding mothers declined from 2551 kcal/day in the first month of breastfeeding to 1718 kcal/day in the sixth month of breastfeeding. After controlled by other variables, energy intake in the sixth month of breastfeeding was found to be the most dominant factor affecting 6-month exclusive breastfeeding provision. Mothers with low energy intake at the sixth month of breastfeeding period were likely 9 times more to fail in providing 6-month exclusive breastfeeding compared to those with adequate energy intake.


Between 1957 and 1964 the Conservative governments of Harold Macmillan and Sir Alec Douglas-Home presided over a short but key period in 20th-century British history. During this period the British Empire was transformed into a multi-racial Commonwealth. This title examines the end of the empire during its climactic phase and aims to provide a closer understanding of the dynamics involved in decolonization. Published in two parts, it contains 583 official documents and covers many aspects and areas of colonial disengagement together with the main strategic questions of continuing defence commitments in Aden, the Indian Ocean and Singapore.


In recent years, significant progress have been made on the biochemical and molecular characterization of cell surface antigens of human polymorphonuclears. Particularly, the molecular basis of the NA1/NA2 polymorphism associated to Fcupsilon RIIIb (CD16), the main target of autoantibodies against neutrophils, was clarified. Autoimmune neutropenia is observed in an heterogeneous group of disorders. The major clinical manifestation of this cytopenia is a marked increase in susceptibility to infections since the primary role of neutrophils is bacterial killing. However, autoantibodies are directed at molecules which exhibit important functional properties. These are members of the superfamily of immunoglobulins, the main example being Fc upsilon RIIIb, Fc upsilon RII, integrins (CD11b/CD18) or lactosaminoglycans (CD15). Therefore, the severity of infections is related to the rate of neutropenia but most likely also depends on the function of the target of the antibody.


The Lakshadweep Islands lie on the sea route between west Asia and Africa on the one hand and south Asia and the Far East on the other. In maritime history, these islands have played a vital role by providing shelter, fresh water and landmarks to navigators through the ages. Recent discoveries made during marine archaeological exploration and excavations in the Lakshadweep have revealed evidences of early settlement and shipwrecks. The findings suggest that the islands had been inhabited much before the early historical period.


This article examines the uptake and application of podcasting in a particular higher education context, drawing on the the authors' experience in late 2008 when both were employed as casual tutors on large-scale first-year communications and cultural studies courses at the University of Western Sydney. The article maps out the limits of technological innovation within the teaching of cultural studies, as well as its limits in promoting the radical potential of a cultural studies approach. It also charts some of the effects and affects of an over-reliance on casualised labour, which we argue can have a profoundly destabilising and atomising impact on academic practice and student engagement. We argue there is a parallel between the appropriation of popular media technologies into the university and the current system of casual academic employment in Australia, in that both the podcast and the casual academic represent 'new' interfaces of outsourced academic labour. Stipulated from our positions as casual teachers in cultural studies, this article is written from an embedded perspective which conceptualises both the podcast and the casual academic in line with the most prevalent mode of their employment in the academy: as ' hired hands ', appendages to traditional models of pedagogy.


NGS-based analysis of the immune repertoire (IR) is a powerful tool to monitor disease, adaptive immune responses to disease, vaccination and therapeutic interventions. IR characterization by NGS usually requires large primer panels, due to the extensive combinatorial diversity, and a complex system of synthetic controls to account for differential amplification efficiency across segment combinations. Anchored Multiplex PCR (AMP™) uses molecular barcoded (MBC) adapters and gene-specific primers (GSPs), enabling NGS-based immune chain mRNA interrogation from a single side. This eliminates the need for opposing primers that bind within the highly variable V-segment, eliminating clone dropout due to somatic hypermutation. Here, we describe AMP-based NGS assays for IR characterization, Immunoverse™ IGH and TCR, which utilize a minimal set of unidirectional GSPs and MBC adapters that reduce amplification bias.

 The quantitative reproducibility and sensitivity of our assays was validated using mRNA isolated from PBMCs of healthy donors, B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia donors and formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue.

 Both assays demonstrated high reproducibility between replicates with quantitative clone tracking down to 0.01%. The ability to determine isotype, clonotype and IGHV mutational status in a single assay was demonstrated. Preliminary TCR assay data indicates that CDR3 sequence capture is possible from FFPE tissue with clonotype calling being driven by input quantity, T-cell content, and, to a lesser degree, mRNA quality.

 AMP-based NGS with MBC quantification and error-correction is a powerful method to characterize the immune repertoire.


The location policy in distributed load balancing schemes locates the destination nodes to or from which tasks will be transferred. It should evenly distribute workload to the entire nodes with minimal delay for transferring task. The traditional policies can be classified into dynamic selection, random selection, and state polling. However, the policies representatively cause unpredictable state, excessive task transfers, and useless polling problems, respectively. An efficient adaptive location policy is required in the sense that it can react to changes in system state and achieve high performance. We propose on advanced state polling policy based on predictable system state information. The system state information is composed of the state information collected at run time and the predefined static information that is a global priority order of each node for transferring tasks. The global priority order is generated by the global priority network. When load balancing is triggered at a heavily loaded node, the proposed location policy dynamically predicts lightly loaded nodes and other heavily loaded ones by exploiting predictable state information. Then it adaptively finds a good lightly loaded node that minimizes useless polling and maximizes even load distribution. An analytic model is developed to compare the presented policy with other well known policies. The validity of the model is checked with an event driven simulation, and it is shown that the proposed policy exhibits a significant performance improvement over other policies.


Background/Aims To identify strategies likely to improve composite measures of diabetes care quality. Methods Study subjects were 14,750 adults with diabetes identified in one care delivery system in the SUPREME-DM project (HS19859) who had BP measures in both 2005 (Y1) and 2010 (Y2). We report the proportion of patients who met clinical goals (A1c <8%, LDL <100 mg/dl, BP <140/90, no tobacco use, or composite D4 goal requiring all 4 components to be at goal) in Y1 but not in Y2, based on the last available assessments in each of the two 12-month periods. Results Among those with measures in Y1 and Y2 and at goal in Y1, the proportion not at goal in Y2 for A1c, BP, LDL, tobacco, and the D4 was 13.7%, 8.5%, 12.8%, 1.6%, and 20.7% respectively. When those missing measures in Y2 were classified as not at goal in Y2, the proportion of those in control in Y1 but not in Y2 for A1c, BP, LDL, tobacco, and the D4 was 25.7%, 8.5%, 27.1%, 24.1%, and 52.6% respectively. Among those with measures in both Y1 and Y2, the proportion of all those not at goal in year 2 who had been at goal in Y1 for A1c, BP, LDL, tobacco and the D4 was 21.1%, 45.2%, 25.9%, 14.1%, and 14.7% respectively. The proportion of those who failed to meet the D4 goal because of missing measures of one or more D4 components was 52.2% in Y1 and 54.1% in Y2. Conclusions Strategies to improve composite measures of diabetes quality include: (a) Record measures of A1c, LDL, and tobacco use more frequently, and (b) Implement strategies to prevent clinical relapse in those at highest risk of relapse, especially for BP.


In this paper, we discuss the pre-earthquake and post-earthquake groundwater scenario in context of Nepal. Nepal being one of the most earthquake vulnerable countries, the implications of earthquake in Nepal is considerable. Study requires not so only above the earth surface, but also in sub-surface conditions. Of various geo-physical and geo-chemical, subsurface conditions, this particular study concerns with groundwater chemical parameters. Before the occurrence of earthquake, groundwater chemistry has been found to change in numerous instances as promising precursor of earthquake. On the other hand, the chemical changes in groundwater have been found to continue beyond the occurrence of earthquake. Some of these changes, due to their toxic nature, are likely to cause health hazards to people who directly consume groundwater. In this premise, we deduce that constant observation of groundwater chemistry before and after earthquake is crucial for both earthquake prediction science and for monitoring health risks that may arise from consuming chemically altered groundwater due to tectonic activity.Journal of the Institute of Engineering, 2017, 13(1): 201-205


Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated their significant potential to be applied for addressing various application tasks. However, traditional recommender systems continue to face great challenges such as poor interactivity and explainability, which actually also hinder their broad deployment in real-world systems. To address these limitations, this paper proposes a novel paradigm called Chat-Rec (ChatGPT Augmented Recommender System) that innovatively augments LLMs for building conversational recommender systems by converting user profiles and historical interactions into prompts. Chat-Rec is demonstrated to be effective in learning user preferences and establishing connections between users and products through in-context learning, which also makes the recommendation process more interactive and explainable. What's more, within the Chat-Rec framework, user's preferences can transfer to different products for cross-domain recommendations, and prompt-based injection of information into LLMs can also handle the cold-start scenarios with new items. In our experiments, Chat-Rec effectively improve the results of top-k recommendations and performs better in zero-shot rating prediction task. Chat-Rec offers a novel approach to improving recommender systems and presents new practical scenarios for the implementation of AIGC (AI generated content) in recommender system studies.


Pornography cannot be classified as good or bad on the basis of the sex of the featured participants. This article criticizes Professor Jeffrey Sherman's claim that gay male pornography, unlike heterosexual pornography, provides the consumer with a necessary component to a 'flourishing life,' and that there is no inequality in gay male pornography. In his recent article, "Love Speech: The Social Utility of Pornography," 47 Stan. L. Rev. 661 (1995), Sherman reasons that because gay men are of the same station within a gender hierarchy, then gay pornography cannot contribute to or perpetuate inequality. However, Sherman ignores the fact that sameness of gender does not necessarily mean parity of power; men, like women, can be coerced. Sexual partners, though of the same sex, may differ in terms of race, class, age, or power in a relationship. Sherman ignores certain categories of images that he does not find praise-worthy and fails to make a meaningful distinction between erotica and pornography. Sherman also portrays sexual identity as a fixed, immutable construction and places himself in a privileged position which uniquely enables him to determine what images are good for gay men. This has the effect of cutting off debate and ignoring questions about the harms that pornography perpetuates.


Practical resolution, the minimum feature size with a depth of focus (DOF) required for LSI fabrication process, is analyzed. Dependence of practical resolution on various factors, such as optical system parameters (exposure wavelength lambda , and numerical aperture NA), resist processes, and required DOF, is investigated. It is shown that practical resolution in the sub-halfmicrometer region is not improved, and may even be degraded, with increasing NA. Furthermore, resolution improvement by increasing NA becomes less effective as lambda becomes shorter. This means that the high-resolution capability of high-NA/short-wavelength optics cannot be utilized to create fine-pattern LSIs. In order to overcome this limitation, the effectiveness of advanced image formation techniques, the phase-shifting method and the FLEX method, in practical resolution enhancement is investigated. It is experimentally verified, using a phase-shifting mask and the excimer laser stepper, that a pattern feature size less than 0.2 mu m can be clearly delineated with sufficient focus latitude. These advanced techniques make it possible to overcome the resolution limitation of conventional optical lithography. >


Introduction: Klebsilla pneumoniae is one of must opportunistic pathogens that causes nosocomial infection, UTI, respiratory tract infections and blood infections. ZrO2 nanoparticles have antimicrobial activity against some pathogenic bacteria and fungi. Ceftazidime is one of third generation cephalosporins groups of antibiotecs, characterized by its broad spectrum on bacteria in general and particularly on Enterobacteriaceae family like Klebsiella spp.
Method: Diverse clinical samples of Klebsilla pneumoniae were isolated from several hospitals in Baghdad – Iraq and ZrO2 nanoparticles was investigated against it. Ceftazidime was also investigated against K. pneumoniae. Both of ZrO2 nanoparticles and ceftazidime were mixed together and investigated against K. pneumoniae.
Results: The result showed that ZrO2 nanoparticles were effectivity on inhibiting opportunistic pathogens. By using zirconium oxide nanoparticles on Klebsiella pneumonia isolates in 24h. of incubation time, inhibition zones were (38,34,10,10,8,0) mm respectively on agar plates. By using ceftazidime alone against the same bacteria inhibition zones were (40,32,10,9,8,0) mm. respectively.
Conclusion:The present study results that the antibacterial activity of ceftazidime against bacteria was increased when combination between ZrO2 nanoparticles and the antibiotic had done, because, inhibition zones in case of mixing both of ZrO2 nanoparticles and ceftazidime were (43,40,12,12,10,0) mm respectively. So that we can conclude that the combination of zirconium oxide nanoparticles (ZrO2)
and ceftazidime was a useful method for the treatment of Klebsilla pneumonia that cause nosocomial infection, UTI, respiratory tract infections and blood infections.


Gujarat has been organizing every year a month long Krishi Mahotsav (Agrarian Festival) in a campaign mode. The campaign has modest financial costs but entails a massive mobilization effort involving over 1 lakh functionaries of government departments, farmer co-operatives, Panchayats, Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs), private input suppliers, agricultural marketing companies and NGOs all in an effort to expose the farmer to modern technologies, new crops and market opportunities. While the conventional extension machinery based on Training and Visit (T&V) system has become defunct everywhere in India, Gujarat's Krishi Mahotsav promises an innovative approach to reinventing agricultural extension, to reconnecting the scientist with the farmer, and in general, to extending the farmer's production possibility frontier. Has Krishi Mahotsav served that purpose? Do farmers find it worthwhile? Is it able to reach out to one and all? IWMI-Tata Program, with the help of partners, surveyed 1445 farmers around Gujarat to analyse their perceptions about Krishi Mahotsav. This Highlight summarizes the results of the survey. Tushaar Shah, Itishree Pattnaik, Sonal Bhatt, G. Kopa and Amita Shah Water Policy Research


The aim of this chapter is to analyze consumer boycott from the perception of men's and women's guilt on a specific case involving Nike company through partners in its supply chain in China. The study was conducted with 281 consumers in the city of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in 2012. In the process of validating a scale of consumer boycott in Brazil, the 13 items of the original scale were kept, but were grouped in different factors. The emerged factors were perception of guilt, influence from others, boycott efficiency, and purchase frequency. Testing relationship among demographic variables and these factors, only gender was significant on perception of guilt. In this sense, we seek in psychology, psychoanalysis (also briefly in anthropology and history), features that could explain the reasons why women feel guiltier than men, and thus are more likely to boycott.


In this paper we will examine the persistence of "misconceptions." We used data from a longitudinal study of personal ideas in 24 students' thinking about ecological processes. The results show students often speaking about personal experiences dating from an early age, to which they had also referred in similar interviews conducted years before. These data are compared with results from a different study of middle school physics students' thinking about energy and steam engines. After the new learning had been "successfull" completed and assessed, old ideas returned. These findings are used to set up a theoretical basis for understanding the longitudinal results. Findings from memory studies are shown to explicate the long-term effects of the passage of time and prompts for the recall of scientific concepts. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed88:885–900, 2004


Article Info Background: The examination of workers' health behaviors and their quality of life, as well as providing support in missing areas are important in terms of both occupational health and community health. This study aims to assess workers' quality of life and health-promoting lifestyle in a workplace in 2017 and to determine their relationship with some socio-demographic characteristics. Material and Methods: This descriptive study was conducted from January to March 2017 in Samsun province. A total of 151 workers participated in the study. The data were collected using a questionnaire on workers' socio-demographic characteristics, HealthPromoting Lifestyle Profile II (HPLP II), and Short Form-36 Quality of Life Scale (SF-36). The mean values were compared using Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests. The correlation was evaluated using Spearman's correlation analysis. In addition, p-value 0<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The workers had an average of 132.48±23.65 points on the HPL profile. In addition, HPL scores were significantly higher in the older age group (p<0.05). However, there was no difference in terms of other socio-demographic characteristics (p>0.05). Besides, there was a positive and low level significant correlation between the workers' HPL scale scores and only four subscales of SF 36 (p<0.05). Conclusion: According to the result of this study, the workers' health-related quality of life was found to be below the Turkish community standards, with the workers' healthy lifestyle behavior having been moderate. In addition, some sociodemographic characteristics had a negligible effect on the quality of life, and healthy lifestyle behaviors positively increased employees' quality of life.


Progress in Multiple Object Tracking (MOT) has been historically limited by the size of the available datasets. We present an efficient framework to annotate trajectories and use it to produce a MOT dataset of unprecedented size. In our novel path supervision the annotator loosely follows the object with the cursor while watching the video, providing a path annotation for each object in the sequence. Our approach is able to turn such weak annotations into dense box trajectories. Our experiments on existing datasets prove that our framework produces more accurate annotations than the state of the art, in a fraction of the time. We further validate our approach by crowdsourcing the PathTrack dataset, with more than 15,000 person trajectories in 720 sequences. Tracking approaches can benefit training on such large-scale datasets, as did object recognition. We prove this by re-training an off-the-shelf person matching network, originally trained on the MOT15 dataset, almost halving the misclassification rate. Additionally, training on our data consistently improves tracking results, both on our dataset and on MOT15. On the latter, we improve the top-performing tracker (NOMT) dropping the number of ID Switches by 18% and fragments by 5%.


The present research relates to class of adsorbents obtained by systematic biopolymer modification of cenospheres transfigured from coal fly ash (CFA): an immense waste by-product of coal based thermal power plant, method of preparation thereof and their use in wastewater treatment contaminated by tanneries, distilleries, cosmetics, textiles, plastics, pulp and paper industries, paints, electroplating and food processing industries effluents. Removal percentage of disperse dyes had better correlated with Langmuir isotherm, tested among Freundlich, Temkin and Redlich-Peterson isotherm which indicated saturated monolayer attachment of dye molecules onto the surface of adsorbent with maximum capacity 500.4 and 500.0 mg/g for Disperse Orange 25 (DO) and Disperse Blue 79:1 (DB) dyes, respectively. The uptake rate of dye molecules followed pseudosecond order kinetics in all cases. Recovery of dye molecules was completed best in three cycles with acetic acid for CFA and cenospheres, with Di-chloromethane for CNAC and in four cycles with non-polar solvent (chloroform) for zeolite and CNCH nanocomposite. The used adsorbents could easily be dumped into landfill with in concrete pit liming, or can also be used in brick making to minimize the environmental risk.


Pre-trained models for Natural Languages (NL) like BERT and GPT have been recently shown to transfer well to Programming Languages (PL) and largely benefit a broad set of code-related tasks. Despite their success, most current methods either rely on an encoder-only (or decoder-only) pre-training that is suboptimal for generation (resp. understanding) tasks or process the code snippet in the same way as NL, neglecting the special characteristics of PL such as token types. We present CodeT5, a unified pre-trained encoder-decoder Transformer model that better leverages the code semantics conveyed from the developer-assigned identifiers. Our model employs a unified framework to seamlessly support both code understanding and generation tasks and allows for multi-task learning. Besides, we propose a novel identifier-aware pre-training task that enables the model to distinguish which code tokens are identifiers and to recover them when they are masked. Furthermore, we propose to exploit the user-written code comments with a bimodal dual generation task for better NL-PL alignment. Comprehensive experiments show that CodeT5 significantly outperforms prior methods on understanding tasks such as code defect detection and clone detection, and generation tasks across various directions including PL-NL, NL-PL, and PL-PL. Further analysis reveals that our model can better capture semantic information from code. Our code and pre-trained models are released at https://github.com/salesforce/CodeT5.


Derivation of geometry theorems belongs to mighty tools of automated geometry theorem proving. By elimination of suitable variables in the system of algebraic equations describing a geometric situation we get required formulas. The power of derivation is presented on computation of the area of planar polygons given by their lengths of sides and diagonals. This part we conclude with derivation of a formula of Robbins for the area of a cyclic pentagon given by its side lengths. Searching for loci of points of given properties is a special case of derivation. This topic belongs to the most difficult parts of school mathematics all over the world. New technologies DGS and CAS enable to overcome this problem. We demonstrate it in a few examples from elementary geometry.


Patellofemoral Pain (PFP) is a very common knee condition with various aetiologies. This short communication facilitates a 'collective' case study approach that draws together a range of evidence from different 'cases'. These cases are defined as areas of evidence underpinning PFP management as an applied physiotherapy phenomenon. This communication reports the complexity of PFP in terms of the (i) evidence-base, (ii) the application of clear guidance, (iii) the actions of physiotherapists in the applied field context and (iv) and the fundamental dissonance rather than bridging of the evidence-base and applied practice.
A model of applied physiotherapy is presented that articulates how PFP should be viewed as a complex intervention and that a modified Promoting Action on Research Implementation (PARIHS) framework should be utilised to address the deficits of clinical practice.


The Clarno Formation is an Eocene to lower Oligocene volcanic and volcaniclastic formation in central Oregon. It was apparently formed in response to subduction of Pacific Ocean crust under the western margin of North America. Clarno flow rocks, which constitute at least 50% of the formation, are compositionally intermediate between flow rocks typical of continental margins and those typical of island arcs. The dominant rock type is andesite, in a range from rhyolite to basalt, and the SiO 2 frequently distribution is unimodal about a mean of 60%. The principal phenocryst in the basalts and andesites is clinopyroxene. Abundances of lithophile elements (K, Rb, and Ba) in the basalts are very similar to average abundances in calc-alkalic basalts of island arcs. Lithophile abundances in Clarno andesites, however, are generally greater than those of island-arc andesites and less than those of andesites from continental margins. The Clarno Formation may be inferred to have formed on a crust intermediate between oceanic and continental; a thickness of 20 to 30 km can be estimated from K 2 O contents and also from Rb-Sr relationships.


The electronic structure of the molecules LaF+ and LaF was studied using frozen-core four-component multiconfigurational quasidegenerate perturbation theory. To obtain proper excitation energies for LaF+, it was essential to include electronic correlations between the outermost valence electrons (4f, 5d, and 6s) and ionic core electrons composed of (4s, 4p, 4d, 5s, and 5p). The lowest-lying 16 excited states were examined for LaF+, and the lowest 30 states were examined for LaF. The excitation energies calculated for LaF+ agree with the available experimental values, as well as with values from ligand field theory. Errors are within 0.4 eV; for example, the highest observed state 2Pi is 3.77 eV above the ground state, and the present value is 4.09 eV. For LaF, agreement between the experimental and theoretical state assignments and between the experimental and calculated excitation energies was generally good, except for the electron configurations of certain states. Errors are within 0.4 eV except for a single anomaly; for example, the highest observed excited-state discussed in this work is 2.80 eV above the ground state, and the present value is 2.42 eV. We discuss the characteristics of the bonding in LaF+ and LaF.


I revisit the relation between aftermarket power and basic market competition. I consider an infinite period model with overlapping consumers: in each period, one consumer is born and joins one of the existing installed bases, then aftermarket payoffs are received by sellers and consumers, then finally one consumer dies. I derive the unique symmetric Markov equilibrium of this game and the resulting stationary distribution over states (each firm's installed base). I show that an increase in aftermarket power increases the extent of increasing dominance (i.e., a large firm is increasingly more likely to capture a new consumer than a small firm). This in turn leads to several implications of aftermarket power. First, the stationary distribution places greater weight on asymmetric states. Second, social welfare is greater. Third, under some conditions consumer welfare is also greater. Fourth, the value of a firm with zero installed base is lower, and so barriers to entry are higher.


In a paper recently communicated to the Royal Society, experiments dealing with the absorption spectra of several metals were described, in which it was found that bismuth vapour shows both lines and bands in absorption. The banded spectrum consists of three groups of bands, each group consisting of a number of bands degraded towards the red, the group of bands in the visible region appearing at high temperatures. In the above experiments it was hoped that by raising the temperature of the absorption chamber sufficiently high, and raising the absorption in the lines of the several bands, it might be possible to detect a fine structure in some of these bands. Accordingly, the author modified the furnace pre viously used so as to blow through it a larger quantity of compressed air, and succeeded finally by using coke and this furnace to obtain a temperature of about 1500° C. to 1600° C. At this temperature the vapour emitted a fluorescent radiation orange yellow in colour. In these experiments the spectra were photographed by a Hilger glass spectrometer of the constant deviation type. To obtain the fluorescence and absorption spectra in juxtaposition, the slit of the collimator is provided with [Plate 12.]


Continuous improvements in data analysis and cloud computing have allowed more opportunities to develop systems with user-focused designs. This not only leads to higher success in day-to-day usage, but it increases the overall probability of technology adoption. Advancing Cloud Database Systems and Capacity Planning with Dynamic Applications is a key resource on the latest innovations in cloud database systems and their impact on the daily lives of people in modern society. Highlighting multidisciplinary studies on information storage and retrieval, big data architectures, and artificial intelligence, this publication is an ideal reference source for academicians, researchers, scientists, advanced level students, technology developers and IT officials.


Abstract Problem-solving competence is an important requirement in back offices across different industries. Thus, the assessment of problem-solving competence has become an important issue in learning and instruction in vocational and professional contexts. We developed a computer-based low-stakes assessment of problem-solving competence in the domain of controlling. The assessment required participants to process three complex and authentic business-related scenarios within an office simulation. The low number of items and the open-ended response threaten the reliability of the scoring. We collected data from 780 German students in Vocational Education and Training (VET) and applied the following procedure to score the participants' solutions to the three scenarios: A fine-grained scoring resulted in a comprehensive set of response patterns for each scenario. Experts assigned partial credit scores for each of these response patterns and received feedback based on point-biserial correlations of WLE scores for the partial credit items with the total score of the respective subdimension. Finally, a multi-dimensional model was calibrated based on these partial credits and this model was further developed. This procedure leads to satisfying EAP/PV reliabilities between .78 and .84 for the subdimensions and .89 for the overarching construct.


We propose a new sheaf semantics for secure information flow over a space of abstract behaviors, based on synthetic domain theory: security classes are open/closed partitions, types are sheaves, and redaction of sensitive information corresponds to restricting a sheaf to a closed subspace. Our security-aware computational model satisfies termination-insensitive noninterference automatically, and therefore constitutes an intrinsic alternative to state of the art extrinsic/relational models of noninterference. Our semantics is the latest application of Sterling and Harper's recent re-interpretation of phase distinctions and noninterference in programming languages in terms of Artin gluing and topos-theoretic open/closed modalities. Prior applications include parametricity for ML modules, the proof of normalization for cubical type theory by Sterling and Angiuli, and the cost-aware logical framework of Niu et al. In this paper we employ the phase distinction perspective twice: first to reconstruct the syntax and semantics of secure information flow as a lattice of phase distinctions between"higher"and"lower"security, and second to verify the computational adequacy of our sheaf semantics vis-\`a-vis an extension of Abadi et al.'s dependency core calculus with a construct for declassifying termination channels.


Aerobic granular activated sludge is an attractive and promising process for intensive and high-rate biological nutrient removal (BNR) and secondary clarification in a single reactor. This work reports the performance of aerobic granular sludge sequential batch reactor (SBR) seeded with flocculated activated sludge collected from an Iraqi municipal wastewater treatment plant, using synthetic wastewater . The conditions under which the successful cultivation of aerobic granular sludge was done are as follows: influent chemical oxygen demand (COD) was 1100 mg/l, volumetric exchange rate was 50%, aeration time was 10 hr, anoxic time was 2 hr aeration and sludge settling time was about 0.5 min. After 90 days, the dominant granules size was 1.5-3.5 mm. The granules became regular in shape with smooth surface, sharp boundaries and compact in structure. The biomass concentration in the reactor in terms of MLSS was 4100 mg/l. Sludge volume index (SVI) was 60 ml/g. High synthetic COD removal and simultaneous nitrification and denitrification during aerobic phase was observed. Subjection of the mature granules to a low COD municipal wastewater the activity of the granules was significantly reduced.


: The advent of cybertechnologies has led to radical paradigm shifts in our social, economic, cultural, and psychological conceptualizations. The paper investigates the advent of cyborgs, indeed our transformation into cyborgs, and the impact of this transformation upon identities and face management, which has an important social value since the late modernism. Cyborg is a designation for the inhabitants of the new environment: the cyberspace. They represent manifold boundary pollutions. The idea of cyberspace already marks the fusion of the real with the imagined and the fantastic. This new virtual space is being inhabited with a new kind of actors: intelligent agents. A fusion of animal and machine. The boundary between human and non- human is also being transgressed. The problematic concept of selfhood and the related technologies constitute the subject of this discourse. It is argued that this process of confusion and corruption can be viewed as also a process of breaking down monological communication and totality.


A duplex fiber-optic connector which mates to a transmitter receiver module is described, and an analysis of the factors affecting the ability to plug the connector into the module is presented. The analysis presented includes a detailed model predicting the force required to insert the ferrule into the bore, complemented by a measurement technique in which the plug force effects of controlled ferrule-to-bore offset are characterized. The results indicate several parameters of the connector design, related to both suspension mechanics and dimensional constraints, which affect the force required to plug the ferrule into the bore. One of the primary factors identified is the radial force generated by the connector spring, resulting from its axial compression, for which a unique measuring apparatus was developed. The effect of the radial force on connector plugging was studied through a combination of spring and connector pluggability measurements.<<ETX>>


Introduction: Health is impacted by a wide range of nonmedical factors, collectively termed the social determinants of health (SDoH). As the mechanisms by which these factors influence wellness and disease continue to be uncovered, health systems are beginning to assess their roles in addressing patient's social needs. This study seeks to identify and analyze clinic-based interventions aimed at addressing patients' social needs in perinatal care, including prenatal, antepartum, and postpartum care. Methods: We conducted a search of six databases through May 2020 for articles describing screening or intervention activities addressing social needs in at least one SDoH domain as defined by Healthy People 2020. We required that studies include pregnant or postpartum women and be based in a clinical setting. Results: Thirty-one publications describing 26 unique studies were identified. Most studies were either randomized-controlled trials (n=10) or observational studies (n=7) and study settings were both public and private. The mean age of women ranged from 17.4 to 34.1 years. Most studies addressed intimate partner violence (n=19). The next most common need addressed was social support (n=5), followed by food insecurity (n=3), and housing (n=2). Types of interventions varied from simple screening to ongoing counseling and case management. There was wide heterogeneity in outcomes investigated. Most IPV interventions that included counseling or ongoing support resulted in reduced IPV recurrence and severity. No intervention with only screening showed a reduction in rate of IPV. Conclusion: This systematic review shines light on several avenues to support pregnant and postpartum women through interventions that embed acknowledgment of social needs and actions addressing these needs into the clinical environment. The results of this review suggest that interventions with counseling or ongoing support may show promise in alleviating social risk factors and improving some clinical outcomes. However, the strength of this evidence is limited by the paucity of studies. More rigorous research is imperative to augment the knowledge of social needs interventions, especially in domains outside of IPV.


The investigation of bronchoactive drugs in healthy volunteers may be divided into studies on the drug effects on basal airway calibre, the effects on induced bronchoconstriction and the examination of the pharmacokinetic and side effect profile of new chemical entities. In the studies presented in this paper, whole body plethysmography was used to assess the pharmacological activity of three new development compounds. In the first example, bronchodilatation was measured after administration of an anticholinergic drug. In two further examples, the bronchial effects were studied in asthma models in which an increase in airflow resistance was produced using inhaled methacholine and platelet activating factor (PAF). The method applied in these tests allowed the antagonistic effects of drugs on the constrictor effect of individual agents to be followed. Antiasthmatic drugs can also have a systemic effect on different physiological and biochemical parameters. These parameters can be applied as useful tools in the determination of the pharmacological activity of a given drug, irrespective of the conventional methods used to evaluate the efficacy of bronchodilators by the degree of bronchial muscular relaxation. A complex nonbronchial model is shown in order to demonstrate how it is possible to identify the pharmacologically effective dose of a new beta 2-adrenoceptor agonist.


Background: Arteriovenous malformations are one of the most common vascular disorders of the colon. Vascular disorders present as painless, high-volume rectal bleeding. Case Presentation: This study elucidates two rare cases of vascular disorders that are diagnosed as angiodysplasia of the left colon and cavernous hemangioma of the colon and rectum. The chief complaint in two patients was rectorrhagia. The patients who were diagnosed of ulcerative colitis were treated with sulfadiazine and prednisone. Due to continuous bleeding, the patients were referred to the surgery department for operation. The patients underwent total proctocolectomy. Conclusion: We discuss the faults in the diagnosis and management of vascular disorders of the intestine.


This paper presents measurement-based calculations for actual aggregate and link throughputs of Bluetooth system. The co-interference between fully loaded piconets formed in a 10*10 sq. meter room is inspected. The results show that the maximum aggregate throughput is gained with 45 active piconets. When comparing the ideal performance with the one based on measured results best overall performance over a distance of 10 meters can be achieved using DM5, DM3 and DH1 packets for data transfer. When the distance is less than 3 meters the use of only DH packets gives the best results.


Bibliometric data are relatively simple and describe objective processes of publishing articles and citing others. It seems quite straightforward to define reasonable measures of a researcher's productivity, research quality, or overall performance based on these data. Why do we still have no acceptable bibliometric measures of scientific performance? Instead, there are hundreds of indicators with nobody knowing how to use them. At the same time, an increasing number of researchers and some research fields have been excluded from the standard bibliometric analysis to avoid manifestly contradictive conclusions. I argue that the current biggest problem is the inadequate rule of credit allocation for multiple authored articles in mainstream bibliometrics. Clinging to this historical choice excludes any systematic and logically consistent bibliometrics-based evaluation of researchers, research groups, and institutions. During the last 50 years, several authors have called for a change. Apparently, there are no serious methodologically justified or evidence-based arguments in the favor of the present system. However, there are intractable social, psychological, and economical issues that make adoption of a logically sound counting system almost impossible.


Abstract The paper presents a literature review regarding the pathogenesis and therapy options of postinfectious (PI) cough.It was shown that the pathogenesis of PI cough may be multifactorial, and in general, the state is of a great interest for otolaryngologists, because on the one hand, there is a large number of patients with PI cough, and on the other hand, it is unclear practical solution. In this regard, since the pharmacological viewpoint of the largest positive effect can be expected with combination of medications with synergistic actions. One of them is Ascoril expectorant whose effectiveness in both children and adults with respect to the dynamics of cough has been demonstrated in many studies.


Federated learning (FL) aims to minimize the communication complexity of training a model over heterogeneous data distributed across many clients. A common approach is local methods, where clients take multiple optimization steps over local data before communicating with the server (e.g., FedAvg). Local methods can exploit similarity between clients' data. However, in existing analyses, this comes at the cost of slow convergence in terms of the dependence on the number of communication rounds R. On the other hand, global methods, where clients simply return a gradient vector in each round (e.g., SGD), converge faster in terms of R but fail to exploit the similarity between clients even when clients are homogeneous. We propose FedChain, an algorithmic framework that combines the strengths of local methods and global methods to achieve fast convergence in terms of R while leveraging the similarity between clients. Using FedChain, we instantiate algorithms that improve upon previously known rates in the general convex and PL settings, and are near-optimal (via an algorithm-independent lower bound that we show) for problems that satisfy strong convexity. Empirical results support this theoretical gain over existing methods.


The case report ascribed a patient of Stage IV carcinoma ovary papillary serous cell carcinoma, who has survived this disease for past 8 years. The patient was treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy and cytoreductive surgery followed by adjuvant chemotherapy. The patient remained disease free for 1 year thereafter, developed biochemical relapse.. However, for past 8 years, the patient never achieved a complete remission and despite developing progressive disease, responded substantially to the treatment given and is leading her normal life with minimal imperilment. The patient's long-term survival may be attributed to the favorable responses to the treatment received. The management of ovarian cancer is most impressive when tailored to the individual needs of the patient, maximizing its virtue and prolonging the patient's survival rate. The present case may permit pragmatic acumen into the clinical management of Stage IV ovarian cancer.


This paper reports CaWO4:Sm3+ nanophosphors with varying compositions of Sm3+ (Sm3+ = 2, 5, 7 and 10 at%). As-prepared (ASP) samples were annealed at 800 °C for 2 h to eliminate unwanted organic moieties present in the sample and to improve crystallinity. These nanoparticles are characterized employing X-ray diffraction (XRD), differential thermal analysis (DTA), thermogravimetric (TG) analysis, Fourier-transform IR spectroscopy (FT-IR), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), UV-vis spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, photoluminescence studies and lifetime decay studies. The as-prepared samples exhibit a spherical morphology having particle sizes of ∼18 to 25 nm. TG study reveals that the nanophosphors are thermally stable. Excitation spectra corroborate that these were sufficiently excited over a broad wavelength range (250–405 nm). As-prepared and 800 °C annealed samples of CaWO4:Sm3+ (Sm3+ = 2, 5, 7 and 10 at%) nanoparticles show blue and green luminescence because of strong host contribution, and warm white luminescence because of different energy transfer rates from host to Sm3+ ions under 250 and 405 nm excitations, respectively. This color tunability is also verified by the CIE diagram. The critical distances Rc were found to be ∼19.58 and 19.62 A for ASP and 800 °C annealed 2 at% Sm3+-doped CaWO4, respectively. Using Van Uitert's model the type of interaction between Sm3+ ions was confirmed as a dipole–dipole interaction. The CCT (Color Correlated Temperature) values under 405 nm are in the range ∼1950 to 2900 K. These studies reveal that the emission colors can be effectively tuned by altering the excitation wavelength and annealing temperature, and these materials may be potential candidates for white light emitting diodes.


In Reply. —Ms Madden questions the time frame I used in estimating cost savings. Cost savings can be estimated by using 2 different time frames. The first estimates cost savings from Guidelines for Letters Letters will be published at the discretion of the editors as space permits and are subject to editing and abridgment. Letters will be considered if they are typewritten double-spaced and do not exceed 500 words of text and 5 references. Please include a word count. Letters discussing a recent JAMA article should be received within 4 weeks of the article's publication. Letters must not duplicate other material published or submitted for publication. A signed statement for authorship criteria and responsibility, financial disclosure, copyright transfer, and acknowledgment is essential for publication. Letters not meeting these specifications are generally not considered. Letters will not be returned unless specifically requested. Also see JAMA Instructions for Authors (July 3,1996). Letters may be


This Libguide or Subject Portal has been created especially for MBA student's studying at WBS. It contains all the neccesary information needed by students to get the best MBA they can - 'a one stop shop'.


The demand for material, energy and weight saving in many industrial fields promotes the use of
novel lightweight construction materials like fibre reinforced plastics (FRP). FRP with
thermoplastic matrices provide a high potential for lightweight construction together with the
possibility of process automation, a good medium resistance, a favourable impact behaviour and
good recyclability. However, the employment of these materials raises joining problems since
usual joining technologies can scarcely be used. Preliminary studies showed that welding
technologies are superior to the conventional joining technologies riveting and adhesive bonding
with regard to the mechanical seam properties.
Therefore, the aim of the present work was the development of plant configurations and process
windows for welding thermoplastic FRP with which a material and component spectrum as big
as possible can be joined economically. The investigated materials were fabric reinforced
thermoplastics (polypropylene, polyamide 12, polyamide 6.6 and polyphenylene sulphide) with
glass fibre and/or carbon fibre reinforcement and fibre volume fractions above 35%.
The evaluation of the existing welding technologies with regard to technological, economical
and ecological aspects showed that vibration welding and induction welding are most suitable to
welding of thermoplastic FRP. Therefore, these two welding technologies were investigated in
detail in the present work.
For vibration welding the parameter influences determined in different works on unreinforced
thermoplastics were confinned qualitatively. However, for the exa1nined fabric reinforced
thermoplastics the process parameters differed quantitatively compared to those for unreinforced
thermoplastics. The optimum welding pressure as well as the necessary welding time were three
times that for unreinforced thermoplastics. Despite the abrasion of the reinforcing fibres due to
the friction forces, a very good tensile shear strength was achieved. For a glass-fibre fabric
reinforced polyamide 12, for example, a weld factor of l was achieved. A process-controlled
welding pressure reduction during the vibration phase 3, which was proposed for unreinforced
thermoplastics, was integrated into a developed system controller programme. In this the melt
displacement course is analysed online and the pressure is reduced automatically. For T-profiles
with welded braces of glass-fibre reinforced polypropylene this procedure led to an essential
strength and rigidity increase. However, for single lap joints of FRP no strength increase could
be observed. As technological and economical alternative to the vibration welding technology, a continuous
induction welding process was developed, the necessary plant was built and the process was
analysed and modelled. Current flow in the laminate was identified as the dominant mechanism
of induction heating of carbon-fibre fabric reinforced plastics, due to the contact of the crossing
fibre bundles. The essential quality relevant feature of the developed process is the course of the
laminate temperature during the four process phases. This was analysed and the influencing
process parameters were determined and quantified.
A simple model based on fibre contact in the laminate was developed, with which the necessary
induction heating time for different lmninate structures was estimated. The differing fibre contact
areas in the different fabrics were considered by the introduction of a fabric factor. In order to
obtain a more exact determination of the temperature distribution in the laminate a finite element
model was developed. With this model the temperature distribution and the absolute temperature
in carbon-fibre reinforced laminates during induction heating were predicted. It was sufficient to
model the inhomogeneous laminate in a simplified manner as monolithic material with anisotropic
properties. The three cooling phases were modelled with Fourier's law of thermal conduction
in its three-dimensional form, which was solved with the Binder-Schmidt explicit method.
The difference between measured and calculated values was less than IO %. With the developed
models it is possible to determine optimum process parameters with the aid of a few easy
preliminary experiments.
Like for vibration welding optimum process windows for carbon-fibre and glass-fibre reinforced
thermoplastics were developed for induction welding, too. The achieved tensile shear strength of
induction welded single lap joints was only slightly lower than that of vibration welded
specimens concerning equivalent laminates.
Finally, the developed welding technologies were compared with each other regarding technological
and economical aspects. It was found that vibration and induction welding complement
each other very well. Vibration welding should be used for mass production and simple shaped
parts with small to medium sizes, while induction welding is more suitable for small series of
parts with almost any shape and size.


The results of a theoretical study on the interaction of o-tetrafluorophenylene mercury with ethylene and acetylene are reported. The AM1 molecular orbital semiempirical method is applied through a complete optimization procedure without any restrictions to find the optimal equilibrium geometries. The comparative capabilities of ethylene and acetylene molecules to form stable complexes with o-tetrafluorophenylene mercury are analyzed and their corresponding bonding features are discussed. Ethylene seems to be capable of forming a molecular complex while acetylene is predicted to be incapable of doing so.


This paper presents several enhancements to ARIFS, a reuse environment that sets the foundations for reusing formal verification efforts in an iterative and incremental software process for the design of distributed reactive systems. A criterion based on generic components is added, together with a self-learning mechanism, to reduce the search space and maximize the probability of retrieving useful information. Besides, a formalization is given on how to apply verification tasks on a reduced number of states when the retrieved information is not enough for the user's intents. These enhancements are shown to improve both the effectiveness and the efficiency of ARIFS.


We consider the insurance company as a physical system which is immersed in its environment (the financial market). The insurer company interacts with the market by exchanging the money through the payments for loss claims and receiving the premium. Here in the equilibrium state we obtain the premium by using the canonical ensemble theory, and compare it with the {\it Esscher} principle, the actuaristic well known formula for premium calculation. We simulate the case of automobile insurance for quantitative comparison.


Teachers work in complex and demanding times with an increasing number of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (CLD) in classrooms. These students are over represented in statistics of under achievement. All teachers are teachers of academic language, and while no child is born with school language as a first language, for some students the match between home and school is more closely aligned than for other students. Teachers are expected to be culturally responsive, ensuring the languages and culture of students is visible in the classroom environment and the classroom curriculum. Despite the increasing knowledge about the specific strategies and approaches that will most effectively support CLD students in classrooms, the teaching of CLD students within mainstream contexts remains far from ideal. Teachers need support to access the principles of effective teaching of CLD learners that are available, and importantly to transfer the knowledge into classroom practice. Professional development and learning is linked to improved teacher practice and student learning outcomes. When teachers have opportunities to be engaged in successful elements of in-depth professional learning such as in-class modelling, observation and feedback, and co-construction of teaching and planning they are able to demonstrate improved pedagogical content knowledge. Their beliefs may also need to be challenged. The study was conducted in two schools in a large city in New Zealand where I am employed as an ESOL and literacy adviser. Using an action research method I was able to examine how a professional development and learning process shaped my own knowledge and practice as well as teacher knowledge and practice. The study fills a research space to gain insights into the effective professional learning processes that impact on teacher strategies and approaches with their CLD learners A central tenet of this research is that teachers can improve their practice of teaching CLD students and they can specifically learn strategies and approaches that are considered effective for them. 8


Introduction of IEC61850 standard for substation automation has envisaged higher efficiencies and reliability in operation of energy management systems (EMS). However, despite its benefits, utility companies are hesitant to adopt and integrate IEC61850 standard because of lack of knowledge and skills among engineers in power supply industry. Under this circumstance Victoria University has been a pioneer to model Victoria University Zone Substation Automation System based on IEC61850 standard which can be a test bench and training facility for people from industry and students in academic. Basically, the focus of this research project is concerned with the design and implementation of a model zone substation automation laboratory based on IEC61850. To simulate a real-world scenario, the model zone substation primary system is designed to match the exact requirements and arrangements as exists in Melbourne-Victoria grid terminal zone substations. Therefore, the Victoria University model Substation Automations Systems (SAS) also included two sub-transmission lines, two distribution transformers, bus couplers and feeders and their protection, control, measuring ang monitoring systems. For this SAS arrangements there are eight protection and control panels have been included to match the real-world scenario. Therefore, protection and control segregation have been designed for Main Protection (X - Protection) using ABB relays and Backup Protection (Y-Protection) using GE relays, and Communication switches, RTU and SCADA also from different venders like ABB, SIEMENS and other, and all of them compatible with the IEC61850 standard. For the designing purpose two stages have been defined; station bus level which includes configuration and communication between Protective Relays from ABB & GE, and stage two is process bus level including IEDs, CBs and Merging Units for sample values (SVs) Measurements. Through this project, interoperability facilities are inherent in IEC61850 communication standard are utilized to communicate and share substation events and reports among protection relays from different manufacturers such as ABB and GE and other. To implement this fundamental aspect of IEC61850 the overall communication system is connected to Ruggedcom switches and configured according to IEC61850 standards, using proprietary software packages and a system configuration (SCL).
In fact, the main idea for development of Victoria zone substation laboratory is to provide power engineering students, and industries like utilities for hands on experience such as how to perform tests in IEC61850 functions using various software tools from different manufacturers.
The main work for this research project was to identify the current industry requirements for SAS and design and develop a simulation system for the use of academic back ground. Therefore, to fulfil this task successfully my background as SAS design engineer work experiences contributed to a greater extent to design and implementation process of this research project.
Moreover, with the extension of the IEC61850 from substation automation level to cover distribution & transmission automation for IEC61850- 9-2 LE. In short, Victoria University's model zone substation laboratory can be utilized for R&D purposes customizing for any research studies based on IEC61850 communication standard, and given the capabilities offered by IEC61850 standard and limited implementation at substation level, development of a test bench for further utilization of IEC61850 in Power System Automation level is appreciable.


Estimating fixed directions-of-arrival of signals has generally been the objective in the literature. In this paper, however, we are concerned with time-varying directions-of-arrival. We propose here two different architectures of neural networks (feedforward and radial basis function networks) to estimate time-varying directions-of-arrival of signals. These networks are more amenable for hardware implementation compared to the conventional super-resolution techniques. The objective is to use these estimated directions to extract the signals. We demonstrate that neural networks of low complexity achieve our purpose, and the overall system sufficiently robust to account for the inaccuracies in the estimation of directions.


France devotes a great deal of resources to vocational training for youths and especially adults, but the system is unduly complex and yields rather poor returns. The basic literacy and numeracy skills of many French adults remain weak in international comparison, with harmful effects on employment opportunities, wages and well-being. Access to basic skills training is poor for those who need it most, many of whom come from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. Secondary vocational education and apprenticeship training still suffer from a serious image problem in the minds of French families, even though the latter have a good track record. The government has succeeded in ensuring that the number of apprenticeships is growing, but that is mostly due to those studying at the tertiary level or at least for a higher secondary diploma. The labour market outcomes of those with only shorter vocational qualifications are not good, and quality in that stream needs to improve. To do so better teachers and workplace trainers need to be attracted to the field, especially individuals who can better link practical experience and theoretical concepts. The financing of the adult training system involves complex collection mechanisms even following a major recent overhaul. Making further changes will have to confront entrenched interests, even if the use of the training levy to finance business groups and unions has now ended. The goal is to direct more training funds to workers in small firms who have the weakest skills as well as to jobseekers, but this might be more easily achieved by shifting the funding base from a levy on employers to fiscal incentives or direct subsidies. There remains a need to align responsibilities for adult training with corresponding control over funds. Workers are henceforth to be given personal training accounts in which they can accumulate rights to up to 150 hours of training. But the enormous number of providers and courses on offer calls for greater efforts to develop good guidance, evaluation and certification systems to ensure the training finally chosen is appropriate and of sufficiently high quality.


Major challenge of using metal based microchannel reactor is catalyst active phase deposition onto the metal surface. Washcoating method is one of the effective procedure for depositing supported catalyst onto the substrate surface. In order to control quality of the catalytic washcoated layer, stability of catalyst slurry, amount of catalyst solution and number of coatings were focused. The catalyst slurry used in this work contained 20wt% of 10%Ru/Al2O3, 5wt% of polyvinyl alcohol, 1% of acetic acid and water. The suitable pH of catalyst solution was in a range of 2–4. For the single layer coating, the good adherance of catalytic layer was observed. The highest %weight loss was 0.07% at pH value of 8. From the effect of catalyst slurry volume, 0.1 and 0.2 mL gave relatively low catlyst loading difference of before and after adhesion test. The average thickness of 0.2 mL single layer washcoating was 121.73 μm. Multilayer washcoating, the results clearly showed that the obtained washcoated layer can be used to apply onto the metallic substrate not only single layer but also multilayer. The double layer washcoating gave the highest catalyst loading per unit area for every volume of catalyst slurry. The 0.2 mL gave relatively good adherence and uniform washcoating layer in multilayer coating process. For single layer washcoat on microchannel structure, the obtained thickness was 5 μm.


Design education is at the crossroads of re-defining itself in the midst of the COVID pandemic. Design educators are now part of a global movement to work in isolation through web-based communication and collaboration tools, which are also at the heart of a decentralised workforce encountered in the design profession. With its social isolation requirements, many universities have closed down their physical classes and lecture halls and have required educators to abruptly transition their courses to an online delivery. Although this transition is not universally endorsed, it has forced the hand of design educators who have been reluctant to jump into the online world with both feet. As the literature reveals, many blended learning solutions have been trialled but few design educators have made online teaching and learning an ongoing building block of their design courses. This chapter examines the outcomes of this foundational shift from face-to-face design studio teaching to online by surveying design students and educators at an Australian university. The results are surprisingly optimistic but there are challenges that need to be addressed by institutions to make this transition work in the post-pandemic world. The central research question is: Will design educators who are now working in an online environment go back to the physical classroom and lecture halls once the pandemic restrictions ease? Or is online design education now a central part of the design curriculum?
https://www.proudpen.com/book/the-impact-of-covid19-on-the-international-education-system-pp/the-online-pandemic-in-design-courses-design-higher-education-in-digital-isolation/


Effective handoff communication is critical for patient safety. Research is needed to understand how information processes occurring intra-shift impact handoff effectiveness. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine medical-surgical nurses' (n = 21) perspectives about processes that promote and hinder patient safety intra-shift and during handoff. Results indicated that offgoing nurses' ability to grasp the story intra-shift was essential to convey the full picture during handoff. When oncoming nurses understood the picture being conveyed at the handoff, nurses jointly painted a full picture. Arriving and leaving the handoff with this level of information promoted patient safety. However, intra-shift disruptions often impeded nurses in their processes to grasp the story thus posing risks to patient safety. Improvement efforts need to target the different processes involved in grasping the story and painting a full picture. Future research needs to examine handoff practices and outcomes on units with good and poor practice environments.


With increased interests of neural networks, hardware implementations of neural networks have been investigated. Researchers pursue low hardware cost by using different technologies such as stochastic computing and quantization. For example, the quantization is able to reduce total number of trained weights and results in low hardware cost. Stochastic computing aims to lower hardware costs substantially by using simple gates instead of complex arithmetic operations. In this paper, we propose a new stochastic multiplier with shifted unary code adders (SUC-Adder) for quantized neural networks. The new design uses the characteristic of quantized weights and tremendously reduces the hardware cost of neural networks. Experimental results indicate that our stochastic design achieves about 10x energy reduction compared to its counterpart binary implementation while maintaining slightly higher recognition error rates than the binary implementation.


A parasite study was conducted from August 2004 to July 2005 to highlight the distribution of gill Monogenean parasites from Oreochromis niloticus. A total of 370 fish collected from Ayame man-made Lake, Cote d'Ivoire were examined for Monogenean species using routine parasitological techniques. The study revealed the presence of six species of Monogeneans (Cichlidogyrus thurstonae, Cichlidogyrus halli, Cichlidogyrus tilapiae, Cichlidogyrus rognoni, Cichlidogyrus cirratus and Scutogyrus longicornis). These species showed an aggregate pattern within the host population. Four species of parasites showed positive and significant correlation with parasitic abundance and the relative condition factor. The prevalence and intensity of the infection of these parasites were highest in the long rainy season and lowest in the dry season. The large sized fishes were more subjected to parasitic infection than smaller ones. In contrast, no sex effect was observed on the infestation of O. niloticus by the Monogeneans. No preference for the right or left side of the fish host was observed and the parasite species mostly colonized the middle arches (II and III). This could lead to more informed aquacultural practises, and maximization of the production of O. niloticus.

 Key words: Disease, season, sex, infestation, gill.


Purpose: We evaluated the pattern of recurrence and the prognostic factors for patients who suffered with upper urinary tract transitional cell carcinoma (TCCa) and were surgically treated. Materials and Methods: Between 1986 and 2003, the medical records on 228 patients who were diagnosed and surgically treated for upper urinary tract TCCa were retrospectively analyzed with regard to the pattern of recurrence and the prognostic factors. The main site of the tumors was the renal pelvis in 127 patients and the ureter in 101 patients. Nephroureterectomy and/or bladder cuff resection was performed on 215 patients and conservative surgery was performed on 13 patients, respectively. Results: Recurrence developed in 75 patients (32.9%) and the mean time to recurrence was 23.9 months (3-120). Of these 75 patients, locoregional recurrence without metastasis occurred in 28.0%, locoregional recurrence with metastasis occurred in 25.3%, metastasis without locoregional recurrence occurred in 42.7% and contralateral upper tract recurrence occurred in 4%. There was no difference between the renal pelvic cancer and ureteral cancer regarding the pattern of recurrence. Meanwhile, 5-year recurrence-free and disease-specific survival rates were 63.9% and 69.7%, respectively. On univariate analysis, the T stage, tumor grade, lymphovascular permeation, margin status and nodal status had a significant influence on recurrence-free survival and disease-specific survival. On multivariate analysis, the T stage and lymphovascular permeation were independent prognostic factors for upper urinary tract TCCa. Conclusions: Locoregional recurrence and metastasis frequently occurred in the upper urinary tract TCCa irrespective of the tumor location. The T stage and lymphovascular permeation were independent prognostic factors for the upper urinary tract TCCa. (Korean J Urol 2006;47:124-130) ꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏ


BACKGROUND
The effectiveness of combining magnesium (Mg) administration with both general and spinal anesthesia to reduce postoperative pain and analgesic consumption is still debated. We evaluated the effects of an intravenous (IV) infusion of Mg sulphate on analgesic consumption and postoperative pain score after total knee arthroplasty performed under spinal anesthesia.

METHODS
We studied 40 patients who underwent spinal anesthesia with bupivacaine plus morphine. Patients were randomly assigned to two groups, each of 20 patients, who received either treatment (i.e., intravenous Mg sulphate 40 mg kg(-1) followed by an infusion of 10 mg kg(-1) h(-1)), or the same amounts of isotonic saline (controls). Irrespective of the group of randomization, all patients received postoperative paracetamol, ketorolac, and patient-controlled analgesia with morphine.

RESULTS
The Mg postoperative blood level was 0.85 ± 0.02 mmol/L and 1.25 ± 0.11 mmol/L for C and Mg groups, respectively (P<0.001). Sensory level of the spinal block, height of spinal block, mean time to first pain and incidence of PONV were similar in the two groups. Morphine consumption did not show any statistically significant difference between the two groups. The pain score was not significantly different between the two groups. No severe adverse effects were recorded after Mg infusion.

CONCLUSION
IV perioperative administration of Mg did not influence postoperative pain control and analgesic consumption after total knee arthroplasty. More studies should be performed with different intra and postoperative pain protocols to enhance the potential anti-nociceptive effect of Mg.


Sorkin's coevents can be thought of as the `beables' of a quantum histories theory; in this paper we study the 'logical' implications of taking this claim at face value, constructing a propositional lattice for the space of coevents applicable to a given histories theory and comparing it to the more traditional propositional lattice of events. In particular we focus on multiplicative coevents, and find that the precise nature of their anhomomorphism leads to a particularly simple relationship between the two propositional lattices. Finally, we notice that our constructions contain elements intuitively similar to topos nations of truth values and use this to suggest a means of applying Isham's topos theoretic constructions to multiplicative coevents.


Alloplastic bone graft materials are widely been used in combination with barrier membranes to achieve guided tissue regeneration in the treatment of periodontal intrabony defects. This study was designed to evaluate the clinical outcome of a composite material, beta tricalcium phosphate in combination with calcium sulphate in the treatment of periodontal intrabony defects. The combination of these materials is believed to aid in guided tissue regeneration owing to their properties. Thirty nine intrabony defects in 21 patients were treated with Fortoss Vital (Biocomposites, Staffordshire, UK). Clinical parameters were evaluated including changes in probing depth, clinical attachment level/loss and gingival recession at baseline and one year postoperatively. The mean differences in measurements between the baseline and one year postoperatively are a reduction of 1.98 +/- 1.16 mm (p = 0.000) in case of probing depth and a gain of 1.68 +/- 1.12 mm (p = 0.000) in clinical attachment level and an increase of 0.31 +/- 0.67 mm (p = 0.009) in gingival recession measurements. The study results show that the treatment with a combination of beta tricalcium phosphate and calcium sulphate led to a significantly favorable clinical improvement in periodontal intrabony defects one year postoperatively.


The "systemic turn" has been one of the most important developments in deliberative democracy in the past decade. Through a deliberative systems approach, scholars and practitioners are challenged to think about ways in which various venues and institutions interact together to produce a healthy democratic subsystem. One major challenge to this approach, however, is its methodological weakness. How exactly are various venues and institutions connected? How do they interact with each other? What conceptual tools are available in making sense of the deliberative system? This article proposes the use of "venue coupling" and "actor circulation" to operationalize some of the key concepts of the deliberative system. Through the case of the Local Health Integration Networks in Ontario, Canada, this article maps the governance system, its institutional and interpersonal components, and their interconnections (or lack thereof). By drawing together key concepts in deliberative democracy and network governance, this article sketches out a framework that can be used to analyze governance contexts in which deliberative practices are fused with traditional political institutions like legislative bodies and bureaucracies.


The relation between the thermodynamic entropy production and non-Markovian evolutions is matter of current research. Here, we study the behavior of the stochastic entropy production in open quantum systems undergoing unital non-Markovian dynamics. In particular, we show that in some specific time intervals both the average entropy production and the variance can decrease, provided that the quantum dynamics fails to be P-divisible. This may be interpreted as a transient tendency towards reversibility, described as a delta peaked distribution of entropy production around zero. Finally, we also provide analytical bounds on the parameters in the generator giving rise to the quantum system dynamics, so as to ensure reversibility revival of the corresponding non-Markovian evolution.


The advantage of permeable breakwaters over more traditional types has attracted great interest in the behavior of these structures in the field of engineering. The main objective of this study is to apply 19 well-known machine learning regressors to derive the best model of innovative breakwater hydrodynamic behavior with reflection and transmission coefficients as the target parameters. A database of 360 laboratory tests on the low-scale breakwater is used to establish the model. The proposed models link the reflection and transmission coefficients to seven dimensionless parameters, including relative chamber width, relative rockfill height, relative chamber width in terms of wavelength, wave steepness, wave number multiplied by water depth, and relative wave height in terms of rockfill height. For the validation of the models, the cross-validation method was used for all models except the multilayer perceptron neural network (MLP) and genetic programming (GP) models. To validate the MLP and GP, the database is divided into three categories: training, validation, and testing. Furthermore, two explicit functional relationships are developed by utilizing the GP for each target. The exponential Gaussian process regression (GPR) model in predicting the reflection coefficient (R2 = 0.95, OBJ function = 0.0273), and similarly, the exponential GPR model in predicting the transmission coefficient (R2 = 0.98, OBJ function = 0.0267) showed the best performance and the highest correlation with the actual records and can further be used as a reference for engineers in practical work. Also, the sensitivity analysis of the proposed models determined that the relative height parameter of the rockfill material has the greatest contribution to the introduced breakwater behavior.


CONTEXT
Estimates of physician supply in the United States have been based on data that may overestimate the number of older physicians in the workforce.

OBJECTIVE
To compare physician workforce estimates and supply projections using the American Medical Association Physician Masterfile (Masterfile) data with estimates and projections using data from the US Census Bureau Current Population Survey (CPS).

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS
Parallel retrospective cohort analyses of employment trends of the number of active physicians by age and sex using annual data from the Masterfile and the CPS between 1979 and 2008. Recent workforce trends were used to project future physician supply by age.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE
Annual number of physicians working at least 20 hours per week in 10-year age categories.

RESULTS
In an average year in the sample period, the CPS estimated 67,000 (10%) fewer active physicians than did the Masterfile (95% confidence interval [CI], 57,000-78,000; P < .001), almost entirely due to fewer active physicians aged 55 years or older. The CPS estimated more young physicians (ages 25-34 years) than did the Masterfile, with the difference increasing to an average of 17,000 (12%) during the final 15 years (95% CI, 13,000-22,000; P < .001). The CPS estimates of more young physicians were consistent with historical growth observed in the number of first-year residents, and the CPS estimates of fewer older physicians were consistent with lower Medicare billing by older physicians. Projections based on both the CPS and the Masterfile data indicate that the number of active physicians will increase by approximately 20% between 2005 and 2020. However, projections for 2020 using CPS data estimate nearly 100,000 (9%) fewer active physicians than projections using the Masterfile data (957,000 vs 1,050,000), and estimate that a smaller proportion of active physicians will be 65 years or older (9% vs 18%). The increasing proportion of female physicians had little effect on physician supply projections because, unlike male physicians, female physicians were found to maintain their work activity after age 55 years.

CONCLUSION
Compared with the Masterfile data, estimates using the CPS data found more young physicians entering the workforce and fewer older physicians remaining active, resulting in estimates of a smaller and younger physician workforce now and in the future.


1-(2-Chloroethyl)-3-(beta-D-glucopyranosyl)-1-nitrosourea (GANU), a water-soluble nitrosourea, differs from 2-[3-(2-chloroethyl)-3-nitrosoureido]-D-glucopyranose (chlorozotocin) by the placement of the cytotoxic group on C-1 of glucose. Its biological and biochemical properties are compared with those of chlorozotocin. At a 10% lethal dose (10 mg/kg i.p.), GANU demonstrates minimal myelosuppression. This dose failed to depress normal bone marrow DNA synthesis, in contrast to a 96% inhibition in L1210 DNA synthesis. In L1210 cell suspension, equimolar doses of GANU and chlorozotocin produced equivalent degrees of inhibition in DNA synthesis. GANU has significant L1210 activity in BALB/c X DBA/2 F1 mice treated on Day 2 of tumor growth. A 117% increased life-span and 15% 45-day survivors are atained with 15 mg/kg i.p., a 50% lethal dose. However, in concurrent studies using randomly selected littermate groups of mice, GANU proved less active than chlorozotocin which produced a 306% increased life-span (15 mg/kg i.p.). GANU and chlorozotocin have similar in vitro alkylating activity but the in vitro carbamoylating activity of GANU is sevenfold that of chlorozotocin. On a molar basis, the lethal toxicity of GANU is twice that of chlorozotocin. The significant carbamoylating activity of GANU may contribute to its greater toxicity and therefore limit the mumoles of alkylating agent that can be administered to the tumor. These structure-activity studies further confirm that the addition of a glucose carrier to a cytotoxic nitrosourea moiety can selectively reduce bone marrow toxicity while retaining antitumor activity.


Plug-in electric vehicle (PHEV) technology is seen as promising technology for reducing oil use, improving local air quality, and/or possibly reducing GHG emissions to support a sustainable transportation system. This paper examines the usage of household vehicles to support assessment of the market potential of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), the higher purchase price of which requires high usage rates to pay off the investment in the technology. According to the 2009 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS), about 40% of household vehicles were not used on the survey travel day [1]. This study analyzed household vehicle use and non-use by vehicle type, age, area type (metropolitan statistical area [MSA] and non-MSA), and population density. Vehicles used on survey day with or without a reported travel time and distance in the survey are considered "vehicles used". All others are referred to as "vehicles not used". We divided the "vehicles not used" into three categories: 1) left at home while other household vehicles were used; 2) not used because travelers used other modes; and 3) no household trips. The "vehicle used" consists of two categories: 1) those with distance and time data and 2) those with no travel data. Within these five categories, vehicles were subdivided according to four vehicle types: car, van, SUV, and pickup. Each vehicle type was further subdivided in two age groups: 10 years or less (≤10) and more than 10 years (>10). In addition, vehicle usage was compared in both MSAs and non-MSAs and during weekdays and weekends. Results indicate that most vehicles—especially pickups—are not used because the households own and use other vehicles. Moreover, SUVs—especially newer SUVs (≤10 years)—are the most utilized vehicle type and should be strongly considered as a primary vehicle type for PHEVs, in addition to cars.