A total of 34 apple (Malus × domestica Borkh.) cDNA libraries were constructed from root, leaf, bud, shoot, flower, and fruit tissues, at various developmental stages and/or under biotic or abiotic stress conditions, and of several genotypes. From these libraries, 190,425 clones were partially sequenced from the 5′ end and 42,619 clones were sequenced from the 3′ end, and a total of 182,241 high‐quality expressed sequence tags (ESTs) were obtained. These coalesced into 23,442 tentative contigs and 9843 singletons, for a total of 33,825 apple unigenes. Functional annotation of this unigene set revealed an even distribution of apple sequences among the three main gene ontology categories. Of ∼33,000 apple unigenes, 8437 (25%) had no detectable homologs (E >0.1) in the Arabidopsis genome. When the entire apple unigene set was compared with the entire citrus [Citrus sinensis (L.) Osbeck] unigene set and the poplar (Populus trichocarpa Torr. & Gray) predicted proteome, both members of the core eudicot and rosids clade, 13,521 of apple unigenes matched one or more sequences in citrus, while 25,817 had counterparts in the poplar protein database. Apple–Arabidopsis–citrus–poplar comparisons revealed closer evolutionary relationships between apple and poplar than with the other two species. Genes involved in basic metabolic pathways appear to be largely conserved among apple, citrus, poplar, and Arabidopsis.


Today economic vulnerability, heightened inequality, and reduced government capacities has fueled nationalist and xenophobic movements in many countries. Such movements threaten democracy and human rights within countries and globally. Less visible amid these disturbing trends—but no less important for the future of democracy—is the simultaneous expansion of locally-organized human rights initiatives around the world, especially since 2000. A proliferation of place-based movements claiming "rights to the city" is becoming increasingly visible and trans-locally networked. After outlining some of the global dimensions of this development, I discuss work happening in the U.S. city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and explore the broader possibilities for locally based human rights initiatives to address contemporary threats to social justice and peace.


The very high energy (VHE, E > 100 GeV) sky is dominated by blazars, radio-loud active galactic nuclei whose relativistic jet is closely aligned with the line of sight. Blazars are characterized by rapid variability at all wavelengths and thus an important part of the H.E.S.S. blazar program is devoted to target of opportunity (ToO) observations. H.E.S.S. triggers blazar ToOs on the basis of publicly available blazar observations at longer wavelengths (optical, X-rays, and γ-rays), from private optical observations with the ATOM telescope, and from private communications by γ-ray partners in the context of MoUs. In 2015, about 70 hours of H.E.S.S. data were taken in the form of blazar ToOs, which represents 15% of all extragalactic observations. In this contribution, we present the H.E.S.S. blazar ToO status, and we focus on two major results from the 2015 season: the detection of VHE emission from 3C 279 during the June 2015 flare, and the discovery of PKS 0736+017 as a new VHE quasar.


SiK, Dr Arndt correctlv reminds us that several factors nia> influence ihe degree n(" discomfort caused by local anaesthetic injections, including: the depth of the injection; rate of injection; and needle gauge,' However, the choice of local anaesthetic agent is also extremel) imporiant. We investigated possible causes ofthe discotnfort in 32 individuals by means of comparing paired injections of uniform depth and rate, using 27-gauge needles.^ In all 32 individuals injeciion of 1%, lignocaine was more painful ihan 0 5% lignocaine, Lignocaine with adrenaline I in 200 000 was more painful than plain lignocaine, and the addition of sodium metabisulphite (the aniioxidant present in commercial adrenalized lignocaine) also significantly increased the degree of discomfort. Tbe acidic pH ot most local anaesthetics is claimed to he a major cause of the discomfort associated with injection.' ^ However, 1"̂ , procaine pH 4 3 is less painful than 1% lignocaine pH 6-3."'̂ We found rhat 0-5",, lignocaine with sodium metahisulpbite pH 3-1 was less painful than O-S"-,, lignocaine with adrenaline 1 in 200000 pH 4-13. Neutralization of acidic 0-5";, lignocaine pH 4-7 by ihc addition of sodium bicarbonate reduced the discumfort in 14 (44%) of our patients, hut the results were not statistically significant. Thus the concentration oflignocaine, the presence of adrenaline, the presence of sodium tnetabisuiphitc, and possibly the pH all influence the degree of discomfort. Plain lignocaine, 0-5"/,, causes the least discomfort, and thus should he used as firsf choice for most minor procedures.


Calcium and calmodulin are implicated in mediating the Ca-dependent regulation of gap junctions that are essential for the intercellular transmission of molecules such as nutrients, metabolites, metal ions and signal messengers (< 1000 Da) through its specialized cell membrane channels and communication to extracellular environment. To understand the key determinants for calcium and calmodulin regulation of gap junction, in this study, we identified a calmodulin binding domain in the second half of the intracellular loop of Cxonnexin50 (the major gap junction protein found in an eye lens) using peptide fragments that encompass predicted CaM binding sites and various biophysical methods. Our study provides the first direct evidence that CaM binds to a specific region of the ubiquitous gap junction protein Cx50 in a Ca-dependent manner. Furthermore, two novel CaM binding regions in cytosolic loop and C-termini of Connexin43 (the most ubiquitous connexin) have been shown to interact with CaM with different binding modes in the presence of Ca using high resolution NMR. Our results also elucidate the molecular determinants of regulation of gap junction by multiple CaM targeting regions and provide insight into the molecular basis of gap junction gating mechanism and the binding of CaM to the cytoslic region Cx43-3p as the major regulation site. Upon response to the cytosolic calcium increase, CaM binds to the cytosolic loop to result in the conformational change of gap junction and close the channel. It is possible for CaM to use an adjacent region as an anchor close to the regulation site to allow for fast response. Since a large number of residues in the Cxs mutated in human diseases reside at the highly identified CaM binding sites in Cxs, our studies provide insights into define the critical cellular changes and molecular mechanisms contributing to human disease pathogenesis as part of an integrated molecular model for the calcium regulation of GJs. In addition, we have applied the grafting approach to probe the metal binding capability of predicted EF-hand motifs within the streptococcal hemoprotein receptor (Shr) of Streptococcus pyrogenes as well as the nonstructural protein 1 (nsP1) of Sindbis virus and Poxvirus. This fast and robust method allows us to analyze putative EF-hand proteins at genome-wide scale and to further visualize the evolutionary scenario of the EF-hand protein family. Further, mass spectrometry has also been applied to probe modification of proteins such as CaM labeling by florescence dye and 7E15 by PEG. INDEX WORDS: Calcium, EF-hand, Calcium binding proteins, Calmodulin, CalbindinD9k, CD2, Calmodulin target protein, Protein-protein interaction, Protein grafted approach, Gap junction, Connexin26, Connexin43, Connexin50 DISSECTING KEY DETERMINANTS FOR CALCIUM AND CALMODULIN REGULATION OF GAP JUNCTION AND VIRAL PROTEIN


Aged mice exhibit diminished CD8(+) cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) response to influenza virus. Previously, interleukin-12 (IL-12) was shown to partially restore in vitro influenza virus-specific CD8(+) CTL activity and interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) production in aged mice. The present study investigated IL-18 production and its ability to collaborate with IL-12 to enhance these responses to the levels of young mice. IL-18 protein production and mRNA expression in influenza virus-specific CTL from aged mice were higher than from young mice. In contrast, IL-18 receptor (IL-18R) mRNA expression was significantly reduced in CD8(+) CTL from aged mice. Generation of CTL in the presence of IL-12 alone caused a significant increase in IFN-gamma production in both old and young mice. IL-18 treatment alone significantly increased IFN-gamma in CTL from young but not old mice. However, a combination of IL-18 and IL-12 significantly increased IFN-gamma in both old and young mice. IL-18 and IL-12, either alone or in combination, stimulated significant influenza virus-specific cytotoxicity in both old and young mice, but no significant synergistic effect was observed. These results represent an initial demonstration of downregulated IL-18R expression in aging mice and are consistent with age-related cytotoxic T lymphocyte 1 (Tc1) deficiency. Potentially, IL-18 and IL-12 can augment IFN-gamma production and reverse CD8(+) CTL deficiency in aging, independently or synergistically.


This thesis has eight chapters, each organised according to interwoven themes that permit easy linkages between the salient questions of the study. The thesis utilises a multi-disciplinary approach in the analysis of deprivation occasioned by scarcity. The concept of masculinity is also crucial for understanding the issues related to violence escalation, conflict management and peace in Mbale, Uganda. Employing qualitative methodologies, the study examines the way that violence in Mbale has been understood by the survivors, perpetrators, witnesses and state officials. The study analyses the experiences of those involved in these violent conflict situations and seeks to understand the way in which scarce resources and violent masculinity among the Bagisu people impact upon the dynamics of conflict, particularly in terms of violence escalation, conflict management and peace development in the area. The study also seeks to understand why the various processes and structures of government, civil society and traditional authority failed to prevent widespread violence. Subsequently, I examine the questions of effective conflict management, both as a deterrent to violence and as a means of maintaining the peace necessary for sustainable development. I examine the efficacy of alternative policies that might promote a wider, more inclusive and more gender sensitive strategy towards conflict management that might fully tap into the existing and powerful resources within the socio-economic and political fabric for promoting sustainable peace and development.

Whilst many commentators would posit witchcraft as a major factor behind the violence, others would stress the importance of socio-economic deprivation, scarcity and violent masculinity as factors contributing to the dynamics of the Mbale violence and its management. The thesis concurs with the latter assessment, exposing violent masculinity and scarcity as powerful influences for the dynamics and management of conflict and violence in Mbale. Violent masculinity inculcates a culture of violent conflict, whilst economic scarcity and deprivation acted as social catalysts for its explosive manifestation.

Whilst the violent struggle witnessed in Mbale officially came to an end in 1996, the road to peace was still long and far from easy, having major repercussions, not only for the socio-economic and political developments of the area, but also for the East African region as a whole. A decade on and there have been no significant initiatives to secure 'peace', neither from community leaders nor from responsible government departments, which thereby poses serious questions concerning the sustainability of peace and development, given their inextricable fate. Peace is a vital component to a country's further development: sustainable development requires a peaceful environment. Although this study recognises the importance of formal structures for peace keeping and its maintenance, it also recognises that where such institutionalised structures are not fully developed, as in the case of Mbale, then alternative initiatives tapping into existing grass-root traditions must be employed as supplemental capacities for bringing about and maintaining lasting peace and sustainable development.


The Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) is a digital cellular radio network that employs time division multiple access (TDMA). In such a cellular system, frequencies are reused in different regions for spectral efficiency, and thus, the transmissions in a given cell can interfere with those in distant cells. This cochannel interference can be a major impairment to the signal of interest. In this paper, we describe a beamformer and equalizer system that is capable of separating and demodulating several cochannel GSM signals. The signal model includes intersymbol interference (ISI) induced by the Gaussian transmit filter, and the channel model incorporates multipath propagation and additive white Gaussian noise. The GSM synchronization sequences are used to compute the beamformer weights and achieve frame synchronization simultaneously. Decision-feedback equalization is employed to compensate for the transmit filter ISI and to demodulate the data.


The advanced features of 5G mobile wireless network systems yield new security requirements and challenges. This paper presents a comprehensive survey on security of 5G wireless network systems compared to the traditional cellular networks. The paper starts with a review on 5G wireless networks particularities as well as on the new requirements and motivations of 5G wireless security. The potential attacks and security services with the consideration of new service requirements and new use cases in 5G wireless networks are then summarized. The recent development and the existing schemes for the 5G wireless security are presented based on the corresponding security services including authentication, availability, data confidentiality, key management and privacy. The paper further discusses the new security features involving different technologies applied to 5G such as heterogeneous networks, device-to-device communications, massive multiple-input multiple-output, software defined networks and Internet of Things. Motivated by these security research and development activities, we propose a new 5G wireless security architecture, based on which the analysis of identity management and flexible authentication is provided. As a case study, we explore a handover procedure as well as a signaling load scheme to show the advantage of the proposed security architecture. The challenges and future directions of 5G wireless security are finally summarized.


Entropy generation for a fully developed laminar viscous flow in a duct subjected to constant wall temperature is investigated analytically. The temperature dependence on the viscosity is taken into consideration in the analysis. The ratio of the pumping power to the total heat flux decreases considerably and the entropy generation increases along the duct length for viscous fluids. The variation of total exergy loss due to both the entropy generation and the pumping process is studied along the duct length as well as varying the fluid inlet temperature for fixed duct length. For low heat transfer conditions the entropy generation due to viscous friction becomes dominant and the dependence of viscosity with the temperature becomes essentially important to be considered in order to determine the entropy generation accurately


Previous studies have shown that preoperative factors predict the postoperative Barthel Index score in patients with trochanteric fractures, while there is less evidence on the effects of perioperative factors on the prediction. This study aimed to assess the effects of preoperative and perioperative factors on the early postoperative Barthel Index score in patients with trochanteric fractures. Consecutive 288 patients aged ≥60 years with trochanteric fractures who could independently walk before injury were included. Patients were grouped according to the Barthel Index score measured after 2 weeks of surgery; the cut-off value was 20 points. Two logistic regression models were created to assess the effects of preoperative (model 1: dementia, walking ability before injury, and nutrition status) and perioperative (model 2: independent variables in model 1, reduction quality, and basic mobility function) factors on the Barthel Index score. Sensitivity and specificity were used to assess the predicative accuracy of the models. Poor preoperative (model 1: χ2 = 34.626, P < 0.01) and perioperative (model 2: χ2 = 43.956, P < 0.01) characteristics were significantly related to lower Barthel Index score. Sensitivity and specificity were similar between the models (model 1: 83.3% and 38.9% and model 2: 82.2% and 42.6%, respectively). Both preoperative and perioperative factors were significantly related to the early postoperative Barthel Index score after trochanteric fracture. However, only minimal increase in predictive accuracy was observed when perioperative predictors were analyzed along with preoperative factors. Both baseline characteristics and basic postoperative mobility should be considered when treating patients with trochanteric fractures.


In a hospital setting, it never did happen that the core component of focus will be the medical staff; it has always been the end product of the deliverance-of-care equation. The focus has always been the patient who needs most of the attention in the medical field; the one who needs most of the love and care. Treatments that might be easily tolerated in younger patients may pose a much greater risk of producing harmful effects in older patients. Thus, treatment may be viewed as a stress. Due to the perceived stress, it was known that elderly populace wishes more to die than to live. This argument then gives substance to the deliverance of a profoundly-planted care in the healthcare setting. The aim of this study was to understand the perception of elderly clients about the meaning of Tender Loving Care provided by healthcare professionals. A qualitative approach and phenomenological design guided the technique used for data collection. Eight elderly clients took part in the study. The data were analyzed using Cool and Warm Analyses. The findings show that Tender Loving Care delivered by healthcare professionals can be seen by elderly clients as patient-focused attention, compact relationship of healthcare giver to patient, valued sensation conveyed, and marked competency. The new understanding that arrived was the dependency of the emergence of Tender Loving Care's interpretations to the theme that denotes patient linking themselves to their healthcare givers. The results of this study aspired to benefit the healthcare team, specifically in terms of understanding their clients. Likewise, further researches would get assistance from this research through foundation supplementation.


Every language has its own rhythm. Unlike many other languages in the world, English depends on the correct pronunciation of stressed and unstressed or weakened syllables recuring in the same phrase or sentence. Mastering the rhythm of English makes speaking more effective. Experiments have shown that we tend to hear speech as more rhythmical than it actually is. English is a stress-timed language, and one general rule of rhythm is that an equal amount of time is taken from one stressed syllable to the next. Bolinger suggests that the most important factor for English rhythm is neither the number of syllables nor the number of stresses but the pattern made in any section of continuous speech by the mixture of syllables containing full vowels with syllables containing reduced vowels. Despite the obvious relevance of rhythm and tempo to verbal interaction, the linguistic textbooks have had nothing to say about them. In any sentence, some words carry a stress. These are the 'strong' or 'lexical' words (usually nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs). The remaining words are ' grammatical ' words and are unstressed or ' weak '. Rhythm is the beat of one's speech, like a drumbeat, composed of such suprasegmental elements as pitch, stress and tempo. Thinking in musical terms, we can hear the musical beat of such musical forms as march, waltz and syncopated jazz. Intonation and rhythm patterns go a long way in carrying the meaning across in English. One can be speaking with perfect pronunciation, but put the stress on the wrong syllable and the whole statement may go without being understood. It is likewise with how and where the pitch and inflections rise and fall, and the  tempo-rhythms of one's speech. Spoken English words with two or more syllables have different stress and length patterns. Some syllables are stressed more than others and some syllables are pronounced longer than others. It is important for non-native speakers to understand and master the rhythm of English. If the wrong words are stressed in a sentence or if all words are pronounced with the same length or loudness, the speech will be difficult to understand. Proficient pronunciation is essential to language learning because below a certain level of rhythm consciousness, even if grammar and vocabulary have been mastered, communication simply cannot take place. Language learners make pronunciation errors of two types: those involving the articulation of phones (phonemes) and those involving the use of prosody. Prosody is represented by three distinct components in the acoustic signal: (a) fundamental frequency (pitch), (b) duration (speaking rate and timing), (c) intensity (amplitude or loudness). Early prosody instruction, starting the first year of language study, could be a boon to learning both syntax and phone articulation. When listening to a foreign speaker, it is not uncommon to hear a sentence with correct phones and syntax that is hard to understand because of prosody errors. Learners of English  as  a  foreign  language must be introduced as early as possible to the rhythm of the new language they encounter, They must be taught recognition before production. Their teachers must integrate rhythm and other aspects of phonology into grammar, vocabulary and functional language lessons as well as listening and speaking activities. Teachers must do relevant drills (especially backchaining), physical movement (finger-clicking, clapping, tapping, jumping) in time to the rhythm of the sentence. They must focus on stress in short dialogues (kn you? Yes I can); invent short dialogues, paying attention to stress and rhythm by focusing on short utterances with distinctive stress and intonation patterns and a specific rhythm (long numbers, phone numbers, football results etc.). They must recite jazz chants, poems, rhymes and tongue-twisters (limericks are good at higher levels); sing along with them popular songs and jazz chants. Because phonology is a system, learners cannot achieve a natural rhythm in speech without understanding the stress-timed nature of the language and the interrelated components of stress, connected speech and intonation. Rhythm should be included into a syllabus for teaching English pronunciation is (at least) two-fold. Activities related to the correction of these errors are designed to meet students' different learning styles, namely auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic learning. In this way, the goal of the "learner-centered" classroom is hoped to be pragmatically achieved. Key Words: rhythm, pitch, unstressed, weak


Determining the productivity of individual workers engaged in team production is difficult. Monitoring expenses may be high, or the observable output of the entire team may be some single product. One way to collect information about individual productivity is to observe how total output changes when the composition of the team changes. While some employers may explicitly shift workers from team to team for exactly this reason, the most common reasons for changes in team composition are at least partly voluntary: vacation time and sick days. In this paper, we develop a model of optimal absenteeism by employees which accounts for strategic interactions between employees. We assume the employer uses both observed changes in output and the strategies of the employees to form beliefs about a given worker's type. We argue that the model we develop is applicable to a variety of workplace situations where signaling models are not, because it allows a worker's decisions to provide information about other workers, as well as about himself.


We propose a simple and effective method for visual loop closure detection in appearance-based robot SLAM. Unlike the Bag-of-Words (BoW hereafter) approach in most existing work of the problem, our method uses direct feature matching to detect loop closures and therefore avoid the perceptual aliasing problem caused by the vector quantization process of BoW. We show that a tree structure can be efficient in online loop closure detection. In our method, a KD-tree is built over all the key frame features and an indexing table is kept for retrieving relevant key frames. Due to the efficiency of the tree-based feature matching, loop closure detection can be achieved in real-time. To investigate the scalability of the method, we also apply the scale dependent feature selection in our method and show that the run time can be reduced significantly at the expense of sacrificing the performance to some extent. The proposed method is validated on an indoor SLAM dataset with 7,420 images.


Background : Infertility is a major health problem in Nigeria and commonly results from complications of genital tract infections. Abnormalities of the cervix and its secretions are known significant factors in infertility in  women. This study is aimed at determining the pattern of cervical abnormalities detected in cervicograms (CVGs) and assessed the value of the study in evaluation of infertile women in North Central Nigeria. Materials and Methods : Hysterosalpingograms (HSGs) and radiology report of 998 consecutive infertile women who had HSG over 10.year period at Jos University Teaching Hospital, Jos were retrieved and reviewed  retrospectively, with particular attention to the cervicohysterograms. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics with Excel 2010. Results : The women were aged 15-44 years, 4.4% of them were  teenagers. Women with secondary infertility were more than those with primary infertility (59% vs. 41%). Cervical abnormalities were seen in 12.6% of the women. Complication rate for HSG was 8.5%. Conclusion : Infection.related cervical disorders were the most common abnormalities seen on the CVGs of women with infertility in this environment. Attention to CVG at HSG, therefore, can give clue to cervical factor in infertility.


The increasing resistance of bacteria to antibacterial therapy poses an enormous health problem, it renders the development of new antibacterial agents with novel mechanism of action an urgent need. Peptide deformylase, a metalloenzyme which catalytically removes N‐formyl group from N‐terminal methionine of newly synthesized polypeptides, is an important target in antibacterial drug discovery. In this study, we report the structure‐based virtual screening of ZINC database in order to discover potential hits as bacterial peptide deformylase enzyme inhibitors with more affinity as compared to GSK1322322, previously known inhibitor. After virtual screening, fifteen compounds of the top hits predicted were purchased and evaluated in vitro for their antibacterial activities against one Gram positive (Staphylococcus aureus) and three Gram negative (Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella. pneumoniae) bacteria in different concentrations by disc diffusion method. Out of these, three compounds, ZINC00039650, ZINC03872971 and ZINC00126407, exhibited significant zone of inhibition. The results obtained were confirmed using the dilution method. Thus, these proposed compounds may aid the development of more efficient antibacterial agents.


Miniati and Bell (2011) proposed a mechanism for the generation of magnetic seeds that is based the finite resistivity of the low temperature IGM in the high redshift universe. In this model, cosmic-ray protons generated by the first generation of galaxies, escape into the intergalactic medium carrying an electric current that induces return currents, $j_t$, and associated electric fields, $\vec E=\eta\vec j_t$ there. Because the resistivity, $\eta$, depends on the IGM temperature, which is highly inhomogeneous due to adiabatic contraction and shocks produced by structure formation, a non-vanishing curl of the electric field exists which sustains the growth of magnetic field. In this contribution we have developed an approximate numerical model for this process by implementing the source terms of the resistive mechanism in the cosmological code CHARM. Our numerical estimates substantiate the earlier analysis in Miniati and Bell (2011) which found magnetic seeds between 10$^{-18}$ and 10$^{-16}$ Gauss throughout cosmic space at redshift z~6, consistent with conservative estimates of magnetic fields in voids at z~0 from recent gamma-ray experiments.


Indian population growth by 2030 is expected to be 1.515 billion surpassing China with the present trend of reduction in arable land created a challenge on the sustainability of food production system. Countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America due to the population pressure and to safeguard the food security have adopted a system of crop intensification among various crops like wheat, finger millet, sugarcane, mustard, soybean and kidney bean. The system of crop intensification along with new technologies could show crop improvement in the growth of yield during the previous decade (2011-12 to 2021-22) in rice-wheat. There is an evident yield gain particularly in SRI cultivation as reported by many researchers. The technologies of SRI advocate intensive use of some inputs combined with organic components making the plant sturdy for better intake of nutrients. Studies on standardization of the techniques for SCI by repeated experimentation are observed as a lacuna by the present study. The recent alternatives like using less quantum and more efficient use of water recommended by dry seeded rice techniques in compression with SCI techniques were not tested with ground reality. The changes perceived with the policies related to irrigation, procurement, price policy and trade policy are examined in the present study. Additional areas brought into irrigation were always converted into rice fields. Due to area expansion and also by the potential yield gains by SCI, the whole enhanced production will reach the market for want of marketing. This excessive supply of rice reported by the balance sheet of rice which resulted in price crash, price volatility etc. Curbing the unnecessary area expansion under single mono cropping by diversifying with crops like millets, pulses and oilseeds. The excessive supply also creates a burden on procurement of grain which necessitates additional storage space public and private and payment burden on Central government as well as agencies like FCI. Instead of MSP as a whole a differential payment approach also can be adopted to reach more farmers and cover volumes of production. Moreover, additional supply may create more exports but the question of virtual water trade arises there resulting in a dilemma to expand exports or not. On the other hand, India being a strong exporter of rice can influence the imports of the exporting counties and flare up the food inflation in the world. All the above discussions favor the controlled and balanced production which may be affected through the SCI i.e., achieve the desirable production through reduced area under rice thereby allocating the remaining areas in cultivation of diversified crops. The experiences of rice can be replicated in other crops also.


Background: Influenza A viruses are globally important respiratory pathogens which cause a high degree of morbidity and mortality during annual epidemics. M2 protein which expressed on the viral surface facilitates virus entry to the host cells. The extracellular domain of M2 protein (M2e) consists of N-terminal 24 residue which shows remarkable conservation among all subtypes of influenza A viruses. In this study, we evaluated the immunogenicity of three tandem repeats of M2e along with different adjuvants in BALB/C mice model. Materials and Methods: Recombinant protein (3M2e) was expressed in Escherichia coli and purified. Six weeks old BALB/c mice were immunized interdermally with three doses of 3M2e alone or supplemented with Alum/CpG motif as adjuvant. Control group was injected with PBS. Two weeks after the last immunization, specific anti-M2 was measured using ELISA method and finally mice were challenged with one lethal dose (LD90) of PR8 virus. Results: The results showed that 3M2e can induce specific antibody alone. However, 3M2e protein supplemented with Alum-CpG induced higher level of specific antibodies, so that, there was a significant difference with 3M2e group (p<0.05). Anti-M2 antibodies mostly consisted of IgG2a subclass which considered as activity index of TH1 Cells. Moreover, this group showed enhanced protection against wild-type virus (survival rate=60%). Conclusion: Applying Alum-CpG as a complex adjuvant may play a crucial role in integrating innate and acquisitive immunity. We increased density of M2e in combination with complex adjuvant and showed that this vaccine induced power immune responses and semi-protected mice against lethal challenge.


ONE YEAR AGO WE HAD THE GOOD FORTUNE of discovering some forgotten and unused historical resources hidden in a storage closet at the Cherokee County Georgia Historical Society. From these resources, we were able to weave an intriguing narrative encompassing people and events in history. We hope our story will encourage other teachers and students to explore primary sources from their community--in local archives, libraries, historical associations, and homes. In the historical society storage closet, we found a somewhat tattered box of letters, correspondences, newspaper clippings, and memorabilia from the family of a man named William Asaph Perry. (1) The box had not been catalogued and was among an assortment of other local historical primary documents and artifacts. Like many small and medium sized communities, Cherokee County does not have a formal local historical archive. Instead, some of the most important local primary historical resources and the relating stories of the past are maintained by amateur enthusiasts and an historical society. We decided to explore the Perry materials along with a small group of university pre-service social studies teachers. The reasons were multifold; for one thing we wanted to tell a story that was, in a sense, untold. The pre-service teachers who participated were particularly interested in the prospect of developing a resource that could later be used in their classrooms. They also wanted to create something that was flexible enough to work in various contexts, so we made a deliberate effort to expand our content focus. For example, since Asaph Perry was born in 1870 and came of age at a time of tremendous change and innovation, we decided to tell some of his story in the context of these changes. Broadening this context enabled us to explore how technological changes allowed Asaph Perry and others in the late 1890S and early 1900s to live and work differently than their parents. Students in a high school history class in Cherokee County also explored the Perry resources. The study of Asaph Perry allowed these students to identify, themselves within larger historical contexts and to also recognize "their shared humanity and common problems" regardless of time or place. (2) The study of personal or local history empowered our students to make sense of larger narratives about the past. Asaph Perry's story is not an unusual one, but it is a story about, and full of, opportunities--opportunities for teachers to help students engage and make sense of the past. The life of Asaph Perry, a resident of Cherokee County during the era in which modern America would begin to emerge, exemplifies a variety of historical themes in American history: technological change, industrialization, entrepreneurial spirit, family life, and changing gender roles. Students had a unique opportunity to examine the life and times of a real family using actual documents written by and to Perry, as well as other relevant artifacts he collected. However, the documents and artifacts only gave us glimpses into his life. Our aim was to understand as much about Perry's life as possible, but to do this with a parallel aim of engaging lager stories and themes from history Students in our classes, armed with the tools of historical analysis, inquired about the past using these specific artifacts and, in a sense, Asaph Perry become a telescope into the past. The study of Perry's life within the larger context of American history allowed our students to truly understand the changes that were taking place--industrial, technological, economic, and societal--during a time when the modern United States that they now live in was beginning to take shape. Alone, the significance of Asaph Perry's letters is not evident; however, using the processes of analysis and interpretation, students gained a deeper understanding of the past. Invested with a personal and scholarly interest, we pursued Asaph Perry's story, much like historian Carl Becket's "Mr. …


We formalize the model of computation of modern graphics cards based on the specification of Nvidia's Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA). CUDA programs are executed by thousands of threads concurrently and have access to several different types of memory with unique access patterns and latencies. The underlying hardware uses a single instruction, multiple threads execution model that groups threads into warps. All threads of the same warp execute the program in lockstep. If threads of the same warp execute a data-dependent control flow instruction, control flow might diverge and the different execution paths are executed sequentially. Once all paths complete execution, all threads are executed in parallel again. An operational semantics of a significant subset of CUDA's memory operations and programming instructions is presented, including shared and non-shared memory operations, atomic operations on shared memory, cached memory access, recursive function calls, control flow instructions, and thread synchronization. Based on this formalization we prove that CUDA's single instruction, multiple threads execution model is safe: For all threads it is provably true that a thread only executes the instructions it is allowed to execute, that it does not continue execution after processing the last instruction of the program, and that it does not skip any instructions it should have executed. On the other hand, we demonstrate that CUDA's inability to handle control flow instructions individually for each thread can cause unexpected program behavior in the sense that a liveness property is violated.


Motor dysfunction in youth at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis is thought to reflect abnormal neurodevelopment within cortical-subcortical motor circuits and may be important for understanding clinical trajectories of CHR individuals. However, to date, our perspective of brain-behavior relationships has been informed solely by cross-sectional correlational studies linking behavior in the lab to brain structure or respective resting-state network connectivity. Here, we assess movement dysfunction from 2 perspectives: study 1 investigates the longitudinal progression of handwriting variability and positive symptoms in a sample of 91 CHR and healthy controls during a 12-month follow-up and study 2 involves a multiband functional magnetic resonance imaging task exploring the relationship between power grip force stability and motor network brain activation in a subset of participants. In study 1, we found that greater handwriting variability was a stable feature of CHR participants who experienced worse symptom progression. Study 2 results showed that CHR individuals had greater variability in their grip force and greater variability was related to decreased activation in the associative cortico-striatal network compared to controls. Motor variability may be a stable marker of vulnerability for psychosis risk and possible indicator of a vulnerable cortico-striatal brain network functioning in CHR participants, although the effects of antipsychotic medication should be considered.


The introduction of the fifth generation (5G) of wireless communication will increase the number of high-frequency-powered base stations and other devices. The question is if such higher frequencies (in this review, 6–100 GHz, millimeter waves, MMW) can have a health impact. This review analyzed 94 relevant publications performing in vivo or in vitro investigations. Each study was characterized for: study type (in vivo, in vitro), biological material (species, cell type, etc.), biological endpoint, exposure (frequency, exposure duration, power density), results, and certain quality criteria. Eighty percent of the in vivo studies showed responses to exposure, while 58% of the in vitro studies demonstrated effects. The responses affected all biological endpoints studied. There was no consistent relationship between power density, exposure duration, or frequency, and exposure effects. The available studies do not provide adequate and sufficient information for a meaningful safety assessment, or for the question about non-thermal effects. There is a need for research regarding local heat developments on small surfaces, e.g., skin or the eye, and on any environmental impact. Our quality analysis shows that for future studies to be useful for safety assessment, design and implementation need to be significantly improved.


Large highly migratory predators can have major impacts on local marine ecosystems by reducing prey populations and leading to trophic cascades that affect the entire fish community. These trophic interactions are typically non-linear and can alter both the migratory behaviour of the predator and the stability of the fish community. The impact of a migrating top-predator is investigated here for Atlantic bluefin tuna in the North Sea. Bluefin tuna has been absent from the region for half-century, but recent years have seen recovery of migrations and a return of bluefin tuna in the area. We use a size spectrum model to analyse the trophic impact of the returning tuna on the entire fish community, under scenarios with varying levels of tuna consumption and fishing mortality on the prey. We show that with high level of prey fishing mortality in the North Sea, the effect of a tuna re-colonization results in only limited trophic cascades. However, high tuna consumption or changes in fishing mortality may result in a sudden recruitment failure of small-pelagic fish due to cascading effects on the fish community. In present-day conditions, the level of tuna consumption that triggers recruitment failure is lower at increasing fishing mortalities on their prey, providing indications for the future sustainable management of both small-pelagics and bluefin tuna in the area.


Objective: To show better improvement of sleep quality when treating non-organic insomniacs with extractum Valerianae radix siccum instead of oxazepam. Design: Randomised, double blind, comparative study. Setting: Out-patients of 8 general practitioners. Patients: Non-organic and non-psychiatric insomniacs aged between 18 and 70 years were included into the trial. Persons with known hypersensitivity to valerian or benzodiazepines, other psychotropic drugs and various contraindications/limitations for benzodiazepines were excluded. Intervention: 75 patients were randomly allocated either to the index group (2 × 300 mg extractum Valerianae radix siccum dragées LI 156) or control group (2 × 5 mg oxazepam dragées). The patients took study medication daily over a period of 28 days 30 min before going to bed. Outcomes: The factor sleep quality of the SF-B was defined as primary outcome. Secondary outcomes were other sleep characteristics of the SF-B, well-being (Bf-S) and anxiety (HAMA). Controls were performed before treatment as well as after 1, 2 and 4 weeks. Vital and laboratory parameters as well as unexpected events were assessed for safety and tolerability. Statistics: For all outcomes effect sizes between groups were calculated. For the main outcome criteria significance was tested by repeated-measures ANOVA considering all cases for which data of at least one follow-up existed (n = 70). Results: Baseline characteristics were well balanced. 70% (54/75) of the patients were females, over 53% (40/75) reported insomnia for more than 1 year. Mean age was 52 ± 12 years. In both groups sleep quality improved significantly (p <0.001), but no statistically significant difference could be found between groups (p = 0.70). Effect sizes between groups varied between 0.02 and 0.25. Five persons withdrew due to possibly adverse drug reactions (2 ( valerian, 3 ( oxazepam). No serious adverse events happened. Conclusions: The study showed no differences in the efficacy for valerian and oxazepam. Because of the more favourable adverse effect profile of valerian compared to oxazepam, this hypothesis should be analysed confirmatorily in an equivalence study.


Purpose The extant response shift definitions and theoretical response shift models, while helpful, also introduce predicaments and theoretical debates continue. To address these predicaments and stimulate empirical research, we propose a more specific formal definition of response shift and a revised theoretical model. Methods This work is an international collaborative effort and involved a critical assessment of the literature. Results Three main predicaments were identified. First, the formal definitions of response shift need further specification and clarification. Second, previous models were focused on explaining change in the construct intended to be measured rather than explaining the construct at multiple time points and neglected the importance of using at least two time points to investigate response shift. Third, extant models do not explicitly distinguish the measure from the construct. Here we define response shift as an effect occurring whenever observed change (e.g., change in patient-reported outcome measures (PROM) scores) is not fully explained by target change (i.e., change in the construct intended to be measured). The revised model distinguishes the measure (e.g., PROM) from the underlying target construct (e.g., quality of life) at two time points. The major plausible paths are delineated, and the underlying assumptions of this model are explicated. Conclusion It is our hope that this refined definition and model are useful in the further development of response shift theory. The model with its explicit list of assumptions and hypothesized relationships lends itself for critical, empirical examination. Future studies are needed to empirically test the assumptions and hypothesized relationships.


Local Ca2+ rises and propagated Ca2+ signals represent different patterns that are differentially decoded for fine tuning cellular signalling. This Ca2+ concentration plasticity is absolutely required to allow adaptation to different needs of the cells ranging from contraction or increased learning to proliferation and cell death. A wide diversity of molecular structures and specific location of Ca2+ signalling molecules confer spatial and temporal versatility to the Ca2+ changes allowing specific cellular responses to be elicited. Various types of local Ca2+ signals have been described. Ca2+ spikes correspond to Ca2+ signals spanning several micrometers but displaying limited propagation into a cell leading to regulation of cellular functions in one particular zone of this cell. This is of particular relevance in cells presenting distinct morphological specializations, i.e. apical versus basal sites or dendritic versus somatic/axonal sites. More stereotyped elementary Ca2+ events (denominated Ca2+ sparks or Ca2+ puffs depending on the type of endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ release channel involved) are highly confined and non-propagated Ca2+ rises which are observed in the close neighbouring of the Ca2+ channels. These elementary Ca2+ events play a major role in controlling cellular excitability. Elementary Ca2+ events involve Ca2+ release channels such as the ryanodine receptors (RyRs) and the inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptors (InsP3Rs). The molecular bases underlying the various local Ca2+ release events will be discussed by reviewing the channels and particularly the different isoforms of RyRs and InsP3Rs and their role in inducing localized Ca2+ responses. These calcium release events are controlled by various second messengers and are regulated by Ca2+ channel-associated proteins, intra-luminal Ca2+ content of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and other Ca2+ organelles. We will discuss on how the control of local cellular Ca2+ content may account for cellular functions in physiological and physiopathological conditions.


ABSTRACT Objective: The aim of this review was to scope the literature for publications on the practice of screening for depression and anxiety in acute coronary syndrome patients in acute care by identifying instruments for the screening of anxiety and/or depression; determining if screening for anxiety and/or depression has been integrated into cardiac models of care and clinical pathways; and identifying any evidence practice gap in the screening and management of anxiety and/or depression in this population. Introduction: Depression in acute coronary syndrome is bidirectional. Depression is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease, and comorbid depression is associated with a twofold greater risk of mortality in patients with cardiovascular disease. The presence of acute coronary syndrome increases the risk of depressive disorders or anxiety during the first one to two years following an acute event, and both depression and anxiety are associated with a higher risk of further acute coronary health concerns. Clinical practice guidelines have previously recommended routine screening for depression following a cardiac event, although many current guidelines do not include recommendations for screening in an acute setting. To date there have been no previous scoping reviews investigating depression and anxiety screening in patients with acute coronary syndrome in the acute care setting. Inclusion criteria: Adults (18 years and over) with acute coronary syndrome who are screened for anxiety and/or depression (not anxiety alone) in an acute care setting. Methods: A systematic search of the literature was conducted by a research librarian. Research studies of any design published in English from January 1, 2012, to May 31, 2018, were included. Data were extracted from the included studies to address the three objectives. Purposefully designed tables were used to collate information and present findings. Data are also presented as figures and by narrative synthesis. Results: Fifty-one articles met the inclusion criteria. Primary research studies were from 21 countries and included 21,790 participants; clinical practice guidelines were from two countries. The most common instruments used for the screening of depression and anxiety were: i) the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (n = 18); ii) the Beck Depression Inventory (n = 16); and iii) the nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire (n = 7). Eleven studies included screening for anxiety in 2181 participants (30% female) using the full version of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was used to screen 444 participants in three of the studies. Four studies applied an intervention for those found to have depression, including two randomized controlled trials with interventions targeting depression. Of the seven acute coronary syndrome international guidelines published since 2012, three (43%) did not contain any recommendations for screening for depression and anxiety, although four (57%) had recommendations for treatment of comorbidities. Conclusions: This review has identified a lack of consistency in how depression and anxiety screening tools are integrated into cardiac models of care and clinical pathways. Guidelines for acute coronary syndrome are not consistent in their recommendations for screening for depression and/or anxiety, or in identifying the best screening tools.


Three states (Georgia, Oklahoma and Florida) recently introduced Universal Pre-Kindergarten (Universal Pre-K) programs offering free preschool to all age-eligible children, and policy makers in many other states are promoting similar policies. How do such policies affect the participation of children in preschool programs (or do they merely substitute for preschool offered by the market)? Does the implicit child care subsidy afforded by Universal Pre-K change maternal labor supply? I present a model that includes preferences for child quality and shows the directions of change in preschool enrollment and maternal labor supply in response to Universal Pre-K programs are theoretically ambiguous. Using restricted-access data from the Census, together with year and birthday based eligibility cutoffs, I employ a regression discontinuity framework to estimate the effects of Universal Pre-K availability. Universal Pre-K availability increases preschool enrollment by 12 to 15 percent, with the largest effect on children of women with less than a Bachelor's Degree. Universal Pre-K availability has little effect on the labor supply of most women. However, women residing in rural areas in Georgia increase their children's preschool enrollment and their own employment by 22 and 20 percent, respectively, when Universal Pre-K is available.


Biofuels are common addition or substitute for fossil fuels, applied as an attempt to decrease the impact of transport on the environment. Because of a large variety of already known biofuels and intensive research in the field, there is a high demand for analytical techniques for their quantification in fuels. Liquid scintillation counting (LSC) is one of the ideal candidates for this kind of measurements because the measured substance is radiocarbon found in all biofuels. This chapter describes the fundamental feature of LSC measurements and possible sample preparation steps. One of the methods (direct LSC method) is highlighted. One of the method's advantages is simple sample preparation, thus suitability for every LSC laboratory. Calibration and validation results of three types of biocomponents, i.e., bioethanol, synthetic biodiesel [hydrogen‐ ated vegetable oil (HVO)], and conventional biodiesel [fatty acid methyl esters (FAME)], are presented. All results show that the described method is suitable for routine analysis of various biocomponents.


Recrystallization of the solid Cd10S4(SC6H5)12 from a solution of pyridine and N, N-di-methylformamide (DMF) results in the formation of the cluster Cd32S14(SC6H5)36-DMF4 as pale yellow cubes. The structure consists of an 82-atom CdS core that is a roughly spherical piece of the cubic sphalerite lattice ∼12 angstroms in diameter. The four corners of the lattice are capped by hexagonal wurtzite-like CdS units, which results in an overall tetrahedral cluster ∼15 angstroms in diameter. This cluster dissolves intact in tetrahydrofuran where its absorption spectrum reveals a sharp peak at 358 nanometers at room temperature and its emission spectra show a strong broad band at 500 nanometers.


The energization of power transformers following a complete or partial collapse of the system is an important issue. This paper describes a method for the modeling of the electric network between the source and a target transformer, taking into account the data accuracy which has a strong impact on the resonance frequency of the network and consequently on the temporary harmonic overvoltages involved. This methodology has been validated by on site tests, the resonance frequency and the initial conditions being derived from the measurements. Finally a comparison between measurements and EMTP (EPRI/DCG version 3.0) simulations has been performed, showing a good agreement on currents, the average discrepancy being equal to 5%, the value of the subtransient reactance of the generator and the capacitance of the line having a value within the accuracy initially stated.


Today industrial automation of spray painting is limited to high part volumes and robot trajectories that are programmed by off-line programming and manual teach-in. This paper presents an approach that uses range image data to obtain the geometry of an unknown part and to automatically generate the robot spray painting trajectories. Laser strip range sensors are installed in front of the paint booth to acquire a range image of the part. Utilizing process knowledge (a geometric library containing descriptions of different geometric features relevant for the painting application) geometric primitives are detected in the range data. From the geometric primitives a normal vector field is generated that enables to extract main faces. The main faces are located in 3D space and the process knowledge related to each geometric primitive is utilized to obtain the trajectory for the paint gun. Results of painting a car mirror and a steering column are given.


This paper presents initial research outcomes of an on-going process of conceptual decision-making regarding the planning, design and use of new teaching and learning spaces for all academies on the new campus of the NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences. The outcome of this research presents a conceptual framework for all future teaching and learning spaces, and is the results of the translation of the Educational Vision of NHTV 2014-2019 into a design blueprint (Graf, 2015). This design blueprint will be used as guiding principal in consulting with academies regarding their desired level of facility functionality and serviceability in delivering educational excellence.A comprehensive approach to data collection, analysis and multi-party involvement in decision-making was deemed a critical prerequisite for ensuring the validity of the design blueprint as conceptual framework. Based on the process steps of the Accommodation-Choice Model (Van der Voordt et al., 2011), the research design consisted of 3 parts: (i) identifying and interpreting all relevant existing information on the planning, design and use of teaching and learning spaces, (ii) identifying all relevant organisational and educational objectives for and with the new teaching and learning spaces, and (iii) making conceptual decisions regarding the planning, design, and use of all future teaching and learning spaces on the NHTV Campus.Preliminary results of the study emphasizes the need for creating optimal facility flexibility by ensuring all teaching and learning spaces can accommodate and facilitate multiple modes of teaching and learning. In developing the design blueprint previous research on the future learning environment on the NHTV Campus by Graf (2015) was used to identify 5 recognisable spatial typologies for teaching and learning, and to develop a matrix for indicating the extent to which these spatial typologies support the 3 primary ways of learning. By adapting the design blueprint as originally proposed by Finkelstein et al. (2014), outcomes of this matrix was were used to define the required functionality and serviceability of the various teaching and learning spaces with regards to space / layout, furniture, technologies, acoustics and lighting / colour.The study provides a valid and transparent approach to multi-party decision-making on academy-specific requirements for all new teaching and learning spaces on the NHTV Campus


Abstract Purpose In a nuclear or radiological event, an early diagnostic or prognostic tool is needed to distinguish unexposed from low- and highly exposed individuals with the latter requiring early and intensive medical care. Radiation-induced gene expression (GE) changes observed within hours and days after irradiation have shown potential to serve as biomarkers for either dose reconstruction (retrospective dosimetry) or the prediction of consecutively occurring acute or chronic health effects. The advantage of GE markers lies in their capability for early (1–3 days after irradiation), high-throughput, and point-of-care (POC) diagnosis required for the prediction of the acute radiation syndrome (ARS). Conclusions As a key session of the ConRad conference in 2021, experts from different institutions were invited to provide state-of-the-art information on a range of topics including: (1) Biodosimetry: What are the current efforts to enhance the applicability of this method to perform retrospective biodosimetry? (2) Effect prediction: Can we apply radiation-induced GE changes for prediction of acute health effects as an approach, complementary to and integrating retrospective dose estimation? (3) High-throughput and point-of-care diagnostics: What are the current developments to make the GE approach applicable as a high-throughput as well as a POC diagnostic platform? (4) Low level radiation: What is the lowest dose range where GE can be used for biodosimetry purposes? (5) Methodological considerations: Different aspects of radiation-induced GE related to more detailed analysis of exons, transcripts and next-generation sequencing (NGS) were reported.


The pneumatic actuator represents the main force control operator in many industrial applications, where its static and dynamic characteristics play an important role in the overall behavior of the control system. Therefore improving the dynamic behavior of the pneumatic actuator is of prime interest to control system designers. This paper is a review of literature that related of the pneumatic actuator systems. In particular, the innovations in different control strategies applied to pneumatic actuators along with the modeling, controlling and simulation techniques developed for different applications of pneumatic actuators are reviewed. The review concentrates also on the analysis, investigation, performance, practical constraints, nonlinearities, uncertainties and the new applications of the pneumatic actuators.


Globally around one-third of food produced for human consumption is wasted or lost. Although the food waste issues on land are being widely discussed, the food waste generated on ships seems not to receive similar attention. The Baltic Sea suffers from elevated nutrient levels and has been, as the first region in the world, designated special area under MARPOL Annex IV where discharges of sewage from passenger ships are prohibited. The food waste and grey water are not included in the coming regulations. The annual contribution of nutrients from ship generated food waste is about 182 tonnes N and 34 tonnes P, which is 2-3 times lower than nutrient contribution from ship-generated sewage. Nitrogen and phosphorous in the waste discharged from the ships are low compared to the total load of nutrients that enter the Baltic Sea. The phosphorus discharged with the waste is of interest in analysing the impact on cyanobacteria growth. It has been calculated, for areas with high cruise ship traffic that the phosphorus load in close vicinity of the ship is comparable to the load of phosphorus from the air deposition. The calculated P load is however most likely very temporary due to the ship and water movements. The waste generated on board ships operating in the Baltic Sea contain phosphorous estimated to be 100 tonnes annually and in the light of expected global phosphorus scarcity there is potential to recover this element. Therefore, it is preferable to encourage ships to dispose the waste ashore, where it can be processed further to recycle the phosphorus. In the processing of wastes, it is important to consider also the rest-products and their further fate. Combustion of solid waste generates ash streams that need to be disposed. The suggested washing process helps to reduce leaching of soluble salts from the cyclone ash from municipal solid waste. Antimony however was mobilized by the ash treatment and this should issue be monitored. In this work a sustainable solution for the ship-generated food waste in the region is based on three pillars: the food waste should be (1)separated from other waste streams, (2) it should be measured and (3) constantly reduced. The food waste preferably should be disposed onshore in a well-working cooperation between actors from ship and land, where it further is managed to recover energy and valuable constituents. However, the pathways towards this scenario vary according to the individual ships and their unique characteristics and the ship operators may use tools from technology, economy, management and regulations areas. The solutions used on land can be also applied in shipping, but with modification to fit the maritime environment.


Spatial pattern analysis plays an important role in geography for understanding geographical phenomena, identifying causes, and predicting future trends. Traditional pattern analysis tools assess cluster or dispersed patterns of geographical features based on the distribution of nonspatial attributes. These metrics ignore the shape of spatial objects—a critical consideration. The study of shape analysis, on the other hand, measures the compactness, elongation, or convexity of an areal feature based merely on geometry, without considering patterns of its attribute distribution. This article reports our efforts in developing a new pattern analysis method called the normalized mass moment of inertia (NMMI) that integrates both shape and nonspatial attributes into the analysis of compactness patterns. The NMMI is based on a well-known concept in physics—the mass moment of inertia—and is capable of detecting the degree of concentration or diffusion of some continuous attribute on an areal feature. We termed this the mass compactness. This measure can be reduced to a shape compactness measure when the attribute is evenly distributed on the feature. We first describe the theoretical model of the NMMI and its computation and then demonstrate its good performance through a series of experiments. We further discuss potentially broad applications of this approach in the contexts of urban expansion and political districting. In the political districting context, higher NMMI of a congressional district suggests a lower degree of gerrymander and vice versa. This work makes an original and unique contribution to spatial pattern and shape analysis by introducing this new, effective, and efficient measure of mass compactness that accounts for both geometric and spatial distribution.


Depending on the needs of the times, the university has seen a lot of changes. The main gate area of university is a space that many changes are required for most of the increase in vehicle use, especially of changes in environmental conditions around. Many universities were carried out the project to improve the environment of main gate area in order to solve this problem. But many aspects are missing on the results of the project. The purpose of this study was to analyze the case of the environment improvement project for the main gate area of campus and to classify the type of environmental improvement of the main gate and to evaluate user's satisfaction corresponding to each type. This Study presents a scheme that allows it to minimize the problems that occur during the Improvement of Environment for the Main Gate Area, get the high user's satisfaction.


Correction : Figure 3 was corrupted and so the PDF was replaced on 29th December 2016 with the corrected Figure 3. A field experiment and simulation modeling study in combination for different maize cultivars planted at different sowing dates were accomplished at Kawasoti-5, Nawalparasi during spring season of 2013 to assess the impact of climate change scenario as predicted by IPCC in rainfed spring maize by using CSM-CERES-Maize model. Result showed that RML-4/RML-17 produced higher kernel rows/ ear (13.77), kernel per row (30.42) and test weight (244.9 g). Significantly higher grain yield was also found for RML-4/RML-17 (6.03 t/ha) compared to Poshilo makai-1 (4.73 t/ha), Arun-2 (3.55 t/ha) and Local (2.92 t/ha). Earlier sowing date (7th April) actually produced higher kernel/row (27.97), kernel rows/ear (12.89) and 1000 grain weight (230 g). Significantly higher grain yield (5.13t/ha) was obtained in earlier sowing date (7th April). The CSM-CERES-Maize model was calibrated and found well validated with days to anthesis (RMSE= 0.426 day and D-index= 0.998), days to physiological maturity (RMSE=0.674 day and D-index= 0.999), number of grain/m 2 at maturity (RMSE= 85.287 grain /m 2 and D-index= 0.993), unit weight at maturity (RMSE=0.012 g/kernel and D-index= 0.854) and grain yield (RMSE=54.94 kg/ha and D-index= 1.00). The model was found sensitive to climate change parameters. The sensitivity for various climate change parameter indicated that there was severely decreased trend in simulated rainfed spring maize yield with the increment of maximum and minimum temperature, decrease in solar radiation and decrease carbondioxide concentration. Even 2°C rise in temperature can decrease around 15-20% yield of spring maize and this negative effect was even more pronounced in hybrid than other cultivars. Journal of Maize Research and Development (2015) 1(1):123-133 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.34289


Underpinning a general pattern of higher suicide rates in men is the assumption that men do not ask for help or utilize the health-care system during times of psychological distress. There has been a failure to grapple with the dynamic of when, how and from whom men might ask for help during times of psychological distress, and what key barriers or enabling factors are likely to influence potential help-givers' capacity or willingness to offer help to men in psychological distress. The aim of this study was to investigate how masculine norms impact men's help-seeking as well as care givers' behaviors and willingness to support men in need of psychological help or perceived to be at risk of suicide. Focus groups (n = 13) were used with "high-risk suicide" groups of men and community gatekeepers. The principles of grounded theory were used for data analysis. Three themes emerged: "negotiating ways to ask for, offer and accept help without compromising masculinity"; "making and sustaining contact with men in psychological distress"; and "navigating roles responsibilities and boundaries to support men in psychological distress." Approaches to suicide prevention need to take account of how masculine norms shape men's willingness to ask for and accept help during times of psychological distress as well as care givers willingness to offer help. The findings address a gap in the literature by looking beyond men's help-seeking as a passive, one dimensional construct, to a more dynamic triad of help-seeking/giving/taking behaviors that are embedded in the sociocultural context of men's lives.


Although functional alterations in the central nervous system (CNS) and peripheral nerves are well documented in overt hypothyroidism, little is known about alterations of CNS in acute hypothyroidism. Sixteen patients with differentiated thyroid carcinoma were studied when prepared for radioiodine scanning after stopping levothyroxine (LT 4 ) therapy for 6 weeks to determine whether acute hypothyroidism leads to alteration in brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEPs). Repeat BAEPs were performed on the same patients at 6 months of the following L-T 4 therapy when patients were eu-thyroid. Neurophysiological findings were compared with a group of 20 normal controls with no hystory of thyroid disease. Wave I latency and I-III, III-V and I-V interpeak latencies in BAEPs were studied. A signifiant prolongation of wave I latency found in patients with acute hypothyroidism when com-pared to those in control subjects. Abnormal latencies were not correlated with thyroid hormone levels. These neurophysiologic abnormalities were completely restored to normal at 6 months after L-T 4 therapy. We conclude that acute hypothyroidism leads to reversible alterations in peripheral components of BAEPs. Our results also suggest that BAEPs could be useful tests to monitor functionale alteration of the central nervous system in acute hypothyroidism.


This paper presents result of a study on the effectiveness of palm oil clinker (POC) as an alternative to gravel in
self–compacting lightweight concrete. Specimens were prepared by using ordinary Portland cement, Kahang
sand, palm oil clinker, timber industry ash (TIA), tap water and superplasticizer named Rheobuild 1100. The
quality of the mix, especially the strength is monitor for age 7-days, 28-days and 90-days. The results shows that
by utilizing palm oil clinker as the lightweight aggregate and the superplasticizer as the admixture, a low water
cement ratio in the range of 0.39 – 0.42 self-compacting lightweight concrete with high workability and the
strength that meets the minimum requirements can be produced.


The conclusions presented by the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC or Commission) to President Clinton in its Report on human cloning1 are neither dramatic nor surprising. They are the practical responses of Western thinkers to the questions spawned by the announcement in February 1997 that a sheep had been cloned. The NBAC Report is also, by design, a meditation upon culture. It addresses many of the central conundrums of the age in considering what cloning means, and in expressing an underlying apprehension of contempo? rary culture. The conundrums include the comparative values of scientific discovery and social responsibility, of biological and social conceptions of personhood, of individualism and community, and of free choice and political regulation. The underlying apprehension, deeply ingrained in the nation's history, flows from the essentially contradictory demands of enduring, solidary community, and of unfettered individuality and choice. In mediating these demands, the NBAC Report resorts to an intellectual and practical compromise?one that is socially responsible and also protective of the freedoms of choice and action that are essential to autonomous individuality. Although ostensibly siding with commu? nity and social responsibility, the Report hedges its recommendations so as to protect freedom and choice. Ultimately, this compromise may prove more successful at masking the underlying apprehension than at balancing the consequences of apparently unending choice.


The system studied here consists of a non‐rotating cylinder sliding inside a fully lubricated parallel track with a prescribed longitudinal velocity, carrying a transverse load (normal to the track). Reynolds equations are used for the particular case of a non‐rotating sliding cylinder in a fully lubricated track. Two short‐bearing mobility charts are developed for a normalized clearance track (equivalent to those developed by Booker for journal‐bearings). Pressure distributions around the cylinder and motion paths within the clearance track are produced for prescribed transverse loading and longitudinal speed requirements for hydrodynamic analysis purposes. Numerical application examples are presented for general and specific cases at the end.


The investigation of underwater structures and natural features through Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) is an expanding field with applications in archaeology, engineering, environmental sciences and astrobiology. Processing and analyzing the raw sonar data generated by automated surveys is challenging due to the presence of complex error sources like water chemistry, zero-depth variations, inertial navigation errors and multipath reflections. Furthermore, the complexity of the collected data makes it difficult to perform effective analysis on a standard display. Point clouds made up of hundreds of millions to billions of points are not uncommon. Highly interactive, immersive visualization is a desirable tool that researchers can use to improve the quality of a final sonar-based data product. In this paper we present a scalable toolkit for the processing and visualization of sonar point clouds on a cluster-based, large scale immersive visualization environment. The cluster is used simultaneously as a parallel processing platform that performs sonar beam-tracing of the source raw data, and as the rendering driver of the immersive display.


The objective of this study was to evaluate the variation and importance of certain hematological, enzymatic, and oxidative stress markers in women with breast cancer under chemotherapy treatment. Hematological parameters, enzymes' activities, and oxidative stress status were estimated in cancer patients and the sensitivity and specificity of biomarkers (MDA, GSH, Catalase, and ORAC) in blood and saliva were compared between the patient and control groups using receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve design. Results showed that the erythrocyte line (RBC, HGB, and HCT) significantly decreased (p <0.001, p <0.01, and p <0.05, respectively) and ALP, amylase, and transaminases activities were not significantly changed in breast cancer patients group compared to the control group and the reference values. The results showed that GSH levels in leukocytes, erythrocytes, and saliva, as well as ORAC in serum, were significantly increased in patients with breast cancer compared to healthy controls, whereas MDA level and catalase activity did not change significantly. On the other hand, there was not any significant correlation in GSH levels between erythrocyte, leukocyte, and saliva in patients and control groups. ROC analysis indicated that GSH and ORAC levels are better diagnostic tools than other oxidative markers, suggesting to be used as systematic markers for diagnosis and prognosis of breast cancer.


I review three key claims regarding the impact of production globalization on manufacturing workers worldwide, and subject them to empirical scrutiny. Some argue that production globalization causes a "race to the bottom" that leads to a downward convergence of manufacturing workers' labor power worldwide. Others suggest instead that production globalization leads to an upward convergence of labor power among manufacturing workers worldwide. A third perspective is agnostic with respect to the average level of this labor power, but predicts divergence between the global North and global South. Using a novel empirical approach to cross-national and temporally comparable measurement of manufacturing labor market power, I show that both the (country-average) level and (between-country) dispersion of labor market power have increased worldwide since the mid-1960s. To explain these trends, I juxtapose insights from Heckscher-Ohlin trade theory with those from the interdisciplinary literature on global value chains and production networks. Both predict that globalization should increase labor market power more in the global North than in the global South. However, the former focuses on labor demand shocks from international trade, while the latter focuses on relationships between firms in the North and South in light of the strategic behavior of network/chain leaders. Augmenting the empirical approach to the measurement of the aggregate positional power of national manufacturing firms developed elsewhere, I show that both international trade and positional power matter for the distribution of manufacturing labor-market power worldwide, but the latter effects are stronger. I conclude by positioning these results within larger debates about the fate of labor in a globalized manufacturing economy.


Satellite cells, resident myogenic stem cells found in postnatal skeletal muscle, are most abundant during early postnatal development and sharply decline in frequency thereafter to adult levels in mice and rats. Therefore, postnatal changes in satellite cell mitotic activities are important aspects for further understanding a muscle growth strategy. In large meat-production animals, however, the traditional in vivo proliferation assay may be less realistic because it requires intra-peritoneal (ip) injection of huge dosage of mutagenic nucleosides, (3)H-labeled thymidine or bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU), at each age-time of sacrifice. We report in the present pilot study using rats that in vivo proliferation activity of satellite cells can be evaluated by an in vitro BrdU-incorporation assay in early cultures. Briefly, satellite cells were prepared from upper hind-limb and back muscles and maintained for 24 h with imposing by BrdU addition for the last 2 h, followed by the regular immunocytochemistry for determining BrdU-incorporated cell percentage. This in vitro assay demonstrated a rapid decrease in proliferating satellite cell frequency to the adult level during about 3-month period after birth, and yielded a high correlation to the measurements by the in vivo BrdU ip-injection method during the postnatal period examined from day-2 to month-11. The in vitro proliferation assay may be further adaptable for large domestic animals by the combination with a muscle biopsy technique that enables age-interval sampling from the same growing animals.


Abstract. Semi-autonomous software entities called spatial agents can be programmed to perform spatial and property interrogation functions, estimations and construction operations for simple graphical objects, that may be usable in building three-dimensional geological surfaces. These surfaces form the building blocks from which full topological models are built and may be useful in sparse data environments, where ancillary or a-priori information is available. Critical in developing natural domain models is the use of gradient information. Increasing the density of spatial gradient information (fabric dips, fold plunges, local or regional anisotropies) from geologic feature orientations (planar and linear) is key to more accurate geologic modelling, and core to the functions of spatial agents presented herein. This study, for the first time, examines the potential use of spatial agents to increase these types of gradient constraints in the context of the Loop 3D project (loop3d.org) in which new complementary methods are being developed for modelling complex geology for regional applications. The Spatial Agent codes presented may act to densify and supplement gradient and on contact control points used in LoopStructural (www.github.com/Loop3d/LoopStructural) and Map2Loop (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4288476). Spatial agents are used to represent common geological data constraints such as interface locations and gradient geometry, and simple but topologically consistent triangulated meshes. Spatial agents can potentially be used to develop surfaces that conform to reasonable geological patterns of interest, provided they are embedded with behaviors that are reflective of the knowledge of their geological environment. Initially this would involve detecting simple geological constraints; locations, trajectories and trends of geological interfaces. Local and global eigenvectors enable spatial continuity estimates which can reflect geological trends with rotational bias using a quaternion implementation. Spatial interpolation of structural geology orientation data with spatial agents employ a range of simple nearest neighbour to inverse distance weighted (IDW) and quaternion based spherical linear interpolation (SLERP) schemes. This simulation environment implemented in NetLogo is potentially useful for complex geology - sparse data environments where extension, projection and propagation functions are needed to create more realistic geological forms.


Ingestion or exposure to chemicals poses a serious health risk. Early detection of cellular changes induced by such events is vital to identify appropriate countermeasures to prevent organ damage. We hypothesize that chemically induced organ injuries are uniquely associated with a set (module) of genes exhibiting significant changes in expression. We have previously identified gene modules specifically associated with organ injuries by analyzing gene expression levels in liver and kidney tissue from rats exposed to diverse chemical insults. Here, we assess and validate our injury-associated gene modules by analyzing gene expression data in liver, kidney, and heart tissues obtained from Sprague-Dawley rats exposed to thioacetamide, a known liver toxicant that promotes fibrosis. The rats were injected intraperitoneally with a low (25 mg/kg) or high (100 mg/kg) dose of thioacetamide for 8 or 24 h, and definite organ injury was diagnosed by histopathology. Injury-associated gene modules indicated organ injury specificity, with the liver being most affected by thioacetamide. The most activated liver gene modules were those associated with inflammatory cell infiltration and fibrosis. Previous studies on thioacetamide toxicity and our histological analyses supported these results, signifying the potential of gene expression data to identify organ injuries.


Vegetation is a common feature in natural coastal and riverine waters, interacting with both water flow and sediment transport. However, the physical processes governing these interactions are still poorly understood, which makes it difficult to predict sediment transport and associated morphodynamics in a vegetated environment. In this context, an experimental study was conducted in laboratory with a movable bed trapped in artificial vegetation. The experimental flume is a rectangular open channel 5.75 m long and 0.29 m wide. For flow measurements, the channel is equipped with a fast camera and ADV probe. This work focuses on identifying the vegetation effects on flows and sediment transport. In fact, it was shown that the vegetation presence in a watercourse promotes deposition and sediment accumulation. This is explained by a reduction of the bed shear stress, since the friction occurs mainly by the drag force effect exerted by the vegetation. It was shown too that the vegetation reduced the bedload transport. Thanks to the partitioning of shear stress, it was possible to predict the bedload transport using standard formulas with a reasonable accuracy.


BACKGROUND
The Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, enacted under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, is a reality for many working families. As public policies are enacted, unintended consequences for infants/children must be minimized. Child advocates in Wisconsin, leading this nation in reforming Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), are concerned about supporting eligible infants/children as safety-net programs are unlinked.

OBJECTIVE
This study reviews the enrollment status of 4 linked programs over time in Wisconsin, from January 1995 to August 1998. Eligible infants/children in programs, such as Medicaid/AFDC, Medicaid/Healthy Start, and Food Stamps, were analyzed and compared with enrollment in Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants/children (WIC), a nonlinked program.

DESIGN
A cross-sectional analysis of monthly enrollment for infants/children was subdivided into 3 periods: prewelfare reform or AFDC (January 1, 1995 to December 31, 1995), the welfare reform pilot or Pay For Performance (January 1, 1996 to August 31, 1997), and welfare reform better known as Wisconsin Works (W-2), (September 1, 1998 to August 31, 1998), periods 1, 2, and 3, respectively.

PARTICIPANTS
Infants/children in Wisconsin from birth to 18 years of age enrolled in W-2 and/or other safety-net programs were monitored: AFDC or W-2, WIC, Food Stamps, Medicaid/AFDC, and Medicaid/Healthy Start.

RESULTS
The average number of infants/children removed from AFDC and Medicaid/AFDC during periods l and 2 were -1210 increasing to -3128 per month, respectively, almost tripling the rates of decline during the pilot period (see ). By the end of this study, >100 000 (111 198) infants/children were removed from AFDC/W-2 enrollment and 51 559 fewer infants/children benefited from Medicaid. This rate of decline slowed during period 3, averaging -687 per month, while W-2 enrollment continued to decline significantly at a rate of -2692 per month. In contrast, Medicaid/Healthy Start enrollment, targeted to infants/children <6 years of age, increased significantly over all periods by +332, +1327, and +266, respectively. Food Stamps enrollment also declined throughout all 3 consecutive periods, -603, -2462, and -1450, respectively. However, enrollment in the WIC program did not decline significantly to the same degree as other certification-linked programs with AFDC or W-2, as indicated by the consecutive slopes of -60, -111, and -183, respectively.

CONCLUSION
Wisconsin infants/children were rapidly removed from welfare rolls in unprecedented numbers during the periods January 1995 and August 1998. Comparisons of periods before W-2 implementation and 1 year after implementation support the fact that certification-linked programs, such as Medicaid and Food Stamps, were sufficiently aligned to AFDC/W-2 to significantly impact infants/children enrollment. Historically, WIC certification in Wisconsin has not been linked to AFDC, and infants/children traditionally eligible for Medicaid and Food Stamps are also eligible for WIC. Yet, contrary to the AFDC-linked safety-net programs, declines in WIC enrollment were not statistically significant during all study periods. Statewide and local interventions within Wisconsin, such as outreach activities, targeted to Medicaid/Healthy Start and more recently Title XXI (State Children Health Insurance Program), slowed the reductions of Medicaid enrollment for Wisconsin infants/children. These findings support that altering safety-net programs can result in unintended consequences if not carefully transitioned as demonstrated in Wisconsin welfare reform.


Recent research shows that journal reviewing practices are neither objective nor fair. I propose a procedure to increase the likelihood of publishing important papers. This will be tested by Interfaces for a year.


This paper describes a two-dimensional finite-element analysis of an 8/6 switched reluctance motor with static eccentricity. It describes the influence of the eccentricity on the static characteristics of the motor and shows how to obtain flux lines, flux density distribution, and the flux-linkage/rotor angular position characteristic of the motor in both healthy and faulty conditions, as well as the static torque profiles of phases for different degrees of eccentricity. It shows that, at low current, the effect of the eccentricity is considerable compared to that at the rated current. Fourier analysis of the torque profile is used to study the variations of static torque harmonic contents.


We present a method to abstract, formalize, and verify industrial flash memory implementations. Flash memories contain specialized transistors, e.g., floating gate and split gate devices, which preclude the use of traditional switch-level abstractions for their verification. We circumvent this problem through behavioral abstractions, which allow formalization of the behaviors of the design as interacting state machines. Behavioral abstractions are agnostic to transistor type, making them suitable for formalizing flash memories. We have verified industrial flash memory implementations based on both floating gate and split gate technologies. Our work provides the first formal functional verification results for industrial flash memories.


Backgroundand Objective- Plants known for their magical and beneficial effects and uses; coffee makes you attentive, holy basil effective to prevent cancer and much more.  In this study, an attempt has been made to study the plants material which responsible for condensing metal corrosion. Selection of (Neem-Azadirachtaindica ) to studyinhibition against Aluminiumbased on the fact that their extracts were found to have tolerance to various oxidative conditions.
Material and Methods-Aluminium sheets (99.9%) were taken for the metal coupon, All analytical acids were used to perform the experiment. Weight loss method, GCMS analysis and surface morphology used to obtain results.
Results- TheNeem (AZI) works as an inhibitor in the acid surroundings. The results showed that the inhibition efficiency was increased by increasingthe inhibitor concentration and reached the maximum at 1000 p.m. (72hr)   in 1N HCl and H2SO4 and in HNO3 solution.
Conclusion- Neem observed as good inhibitor for aluminium corrosion in all acid medium on 250,500,750and 1000ppm concentration. The AZI   was found to follow Temkinadsorption isotherm with all the concentrations in different acidic mediums studied. The phenomenon of physical adsorption obtained and the process is spontaneous.


Selling retail marijuana in the United States is illegal — or is it? A rising number of states have legalized the retail sale of marijuana and are busily regulating these sales and the companies that make them. Even so, the sale of marijuana is a crime under federal law. Are companies that sell retail marijuana duly sanctioned, productive contributors to their state economies, or are they felons just waiting for the wheels of justice to turn in their direction? At this moment, no one can answer that question with certainty.

What is certain is that more companies are being formed each day for the purpose of cultivating, producing, and/or distributing retail marijuana, many of which are being formed as corporations (Retail Marijuana Corporations). Like their counterparts outside of the marijuana industry, Retail Marijuana Corporations are subject to the same state corporation statutes and the same federal criminal statutes and securities laws. This means, like other corporations, Retail Marijuana Corporations are governed by boards of directors, who owe their companies the traditional duties of care and loyalty.

What sets directors of Retail Marijuana Corporations apart from other directors is their precarious legal circumstances: Directors of Retail Marijuana Corporations sit at the helm of companies that are knowingly violating federal law. In overseeing these companies' businesses and guiding them toward profitability, directors of Retail Marijuana Corporations expose themselves to a great deal of potential criminal and civil liability.

Existing scholarship on marijuana-related businesses introduces some of the challenges faced by corporations engaged in the marijuana industry under state law. This Article expands the inquiry to explore new avenues of state and federal liability with a particular focus on directors. Part I provides a brief outline of the laws regulating the retail marijuana business at the federal and state levels. Part II surveys the various sources of liability directors of Retail Marijuana Corporations face. It first addresses liability for breach of fiduciary duty under state fiduciary duty principles. Next, it outlines criminal aiding and abetting liability under the federal Controlled Substances Act. It then discusses directors' exposure under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Last, it analyzes these directors' potential liability under the federal securities laws' antifraud provisions. Part III concludes with thoughts about why directors' liability matters to Retail Marijuana Corporations' investors.


(100-x) LiCF3SO3 + (x) CeO2 composite electrolytes were prepared using sol-gel technique followed by sintering at 300 °C for four hours. Structural property and conductivity of the prepared composite electrolytes were studied using X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-Ray (EDX) analysis and Impedance Spectroscopy. The XRD spectra show only crystalline peaks of CeO2 indicating that LiCF3SO3 exists in the form of amorphous phase. This is confirmed by SEM and EDX analyses. The highest ionic conductivity at room temperature is found to be in the order of 10-3 S cm-1 for the composite of 70 mol % LiCF3SO3 - 30 mol % CeO2. The conductivity of the composite electrolytes is observed to increase gradually with temperature.


Wavefield extrapolation is at the heart of modeling, imaging, and Full waveform inversion. Spectral methods gained well deserved attention due to their dispersion free solutions and their natural handling of anisotropic media. We propose a scheme a modified one-step lowrank wave extrapolation using Shanks transform in isotropic, and anisotropic media. Specifically, we utilize a velocity gradient term to add to the accuracy of the phase approximation function in the spectral implementation. With the higher accuracy, we can utilize larger time steps and make the extrapolation more efficient. Applications to models with strong inhomogeneity and considerable anisotropy demonstrates the utility of the approach.