Background: Dental anxiety is a relatively frequent problem that can lead to more serious problems such as a child entering a vicious cycle as he/she becomes reluctant to accept the required dental treatments. The aim of this randomized double-blind clinical trial study was to evaluate the anxiolytic and sedative effect of pregabalin in children. Materials and Methods: Twenty-five children were randomized to a double-blind placebo-controlled crossover clinical trial. Two visits were scheduled for each patient. At the first visit, 75 mg pregabalin or placebo was given randomly, and the alternative was administered at the next visit. Anxiolytic and sedative effects were measured using the visual analogue scale. The child's behavior was rated with the Frankl behavioral rating scale and the sedation level during the dental procedure was scored using the Ramsay sedation scale. The unpaired, two-tailed Student's t-test was used to compare the mean changes of visual analog scale (VAS) for anxiety in the pregabalin group with that of the placebo group. A repeated measures MANOVA model was used to detect differences in sedation level in the pregabalin and placebo groups regarding the interaction of 3-time measurements; sub-group analysis was performed using Student's t-test. The Mann–Whitney U-test was used to analyze the nonparametric data of the Frankl and Ramsay scales. A P < 0.05 was considered significant. Results: The reduction of the VAS-anxiety score from 2 h post-dose was statistically significant in the pregabalin group. From 2 h to 4 h post-dose, the VAS-sedation score increased significantly in the pregabalin group. The child's behavior rating was not significantly different between the groups. The number of "successful" treatment visits was higher in the pregabalin group compared to the placebo group. Conclusion: Significant anxiolytic and sedative effects can be anticipated 2 h after oral administration of pregabalin without serious side effects.


In this paper, we develop new efficient projection-free algorithms for Online Convex Optimization (OCO). Online Gradient Descent (OGD) is an example of a classical OCO algorithm that guarantees the optimal $O(\sqrt{T})$ regret bound. However, OGD and other projection-based OCO algorithms need to perform a Euclidean projection onto the feasible set $\mathcal{C}\subset \mathbb{R}^d$ whenever their iterates step outside $\mathcal{C}$. For various sets of interests, this projection step can be computationally costly, especially when the ambient dimension is large. This has motivated the development of projection-free OCO algorithms that swap Euclidean projections for often much cheaper operations such as Linear Optimization (LO). However, state-of-the-art LO-based algorithms only achieve a suboptimal $O(T^{3/4})$ regret for general OCO. In this paper, we leverage recent results in parameter-free Online Learning, and develop an OCO algorithm that makes two calls to an LO Oracle per round and achieves the near-optimal $\widetilde{O}(\sqrt{T})$ regret whenever the feasible set is strongly convex. We also present an algorithm for general convex sets that makes $\widetilde O(d)$ expected number of calls to an LO Oracle per round and guarantees a $\widetilde O(T^{2/3})$ regret, improving on the previous best $O(T^{3/4})$. We achieve the latter by approximating any convex set $\mathcal{C}$ by a strongly convex one, where LO can be performed using $\widetilde {O}(d)$ expected number of calls to an LO Oracle for $\mathcal{C}$.


The Challenger Deep is the deepest ocean on Earth. The present study investigated microbial community structures and geochemical cycles associated with the trench bottom sediments of the Challenger Deep, the Mariana Trench. The SSU rRNA gene communities found in trench bottom sediments were dominated by the bacteria Chloroflexi (SAR202 and other lineages), Bacteroidetes, Planctomycetes, "Ca. Marinimicrobia" (SAR406), and Gemmatimonadetes and by the archaeal α subgroup of MGI Thaumarchaeota and "Ca. Woesearchaeota" (Deep-sea Hydrothermal Vent Euryarchaeotic Group 6). The SSU rRNA gene sequencing analysis indicated that the dominant populations of the thaumarchaeal α group in hadal water and sediments were similar to each other at the species or genus level. In addition, the co-occurrence of nitrification and denitrification was revealed by the combination of pore water geochemical analyses and quantitative PCR for nitrifiers.


The research aims to investigate the relationship between the exchange rate of Thai Baht against USD and oil price using daily data from January 1999 to March 2019. To test whether there is the long-run relationship between selected variables, the Johansen cointegration method is employed. The results indicate the evidence of long-run relationship between oil price and the Thai Baht. Then, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) technique is employed for estimation. For ANN estimation, the results suggest that the most influential variables for the Thai Baht is gold price and oil price is the third influential variable for Thai Baht. The research applies the mean squared error, root mean square error and the mean absolute percentage error to measure the error. The results suggest that ANN estimation is more efficient than linear model in term of error estimation.


Each quarter we are pleased to present abstracts of recent doctoral dissertations in Computer Algebra and Symbolic Computation. We encourage all recent Ph.D. graduates who have defended in the past two years (and their supervisors), to submit their abstracts for publication in CCA. Please send abstracts to the CCA editors <firstname.lastname@example.com> for consideration.


Controlling tick bites on farmers is important to the management of tick-borne diseases and occupational health risks in agriculture. Based on an extensive household survey conducted between June and August 2015 with 219 farmers from western Hungary where tick-borne diseases are endemic, we analysed the pattern of farmers' self-reported contacts with ticks, and investigated the potential interactions between farmers, landscape and the risk of exposure to tick bites. We developed a lifestyle typology based on farmers' socioeconomic profiles, farming objectives and time use patterns, and a habitat typology describing different configurations of tick habitats and agricultural areas in place of farming. We found no relationship between tick exposure risk and self-prevention. The lifestyle typology could be used to classify the risk of tick bites and the adoption of prevention measures into different levels, the difference between which could further be modified by the habitat typology. Our results suggest that (i) farmers who are frequently engaged in outdoor recreations and (ii) part-time and inexperienced farmers who have lower rate of preventive actions are likely to experience greater exposure to tick bites either in less cultivated, semi-natural habitats or in agricultural landscape with highly diverse land uses. Future disease prevention practices should take into consideration the interaction of lifestyle and habitat and the need to associate different farmer groups with different landscape configurations.


Recent advances and the technical options that have lately become available in the surgical treatment of spinal injuries mean that clear definition of the indications is essential. Precise observation and classification of each injury to the cervical spine are of paramount importance for this purpose, to allow the comparison of proposed methods of treatment and of the results obtained with them. There are a number of classification systems for injuries to the cervical spine, none of which, however, is generally accepted. These classification systems are based on different criteria, such as nature of the accident at which the injury was sustained, neurologic deficits, morphological criteria, the concept of instability, and implications for treatment and prognosis. These criteria, however, hardly allow the classification of most of the injuries affecting the upper and those affecting the lower cervical spine in a single system. Therefore, the authors propose a system of their own, which draws on the principles of classification suggested by the ASIF for fractures of the extremities. According to this proposed new system, injuries are divided into those of the upper and those of the lower cervical spine, and each of these two main groups is further divided into three subgroups. In the case of the lower cervical spine, injuries are classed according as whether they affect the anterior or the posterior section of the spine more, or both to the same degree. Beyond this, injuries are subdivided with reference to whether they affect primarily bone, bone and ligament equally, or primarily ligament. Further subdivision by severity and implications for treatment allows more detailed differentiation. This classification system is based on the analysis of over 200 cases of injury to the cervical spine treated by the authors and of cases from the literature.


Instrumentation is often used to monitor the performance of engineered infrastructure slopes. This paper looks at the current role of instrumentation and monitoring, including the reasons for monitoring infrastructure slopes, the instrumentation typically installed and parameters measured. The paper then investigates recent developments in technology and considers how these may change the way that monitoring is used in the future, and tries to summarize the barriers and challenges to greater use of instrumentation in slope engineering. The challenges relate to economics of instrumentation within a wider risk management system, a better understanding of the way in which slopes perform and/or lose performance, and the complexities of managing and making decisions from greater quantities of data.


Public clouds become essential for many organizations to run their applications because they provide huge financial benefits and great flexibility. However, it is very challenging to accurately evaluate the performance and cost of applications without actual deployment on the clouds. Existing cloud simulators are generally designed from the perspective of cloud service providers, thus they can be under-developed for answering questions for the perspective of cloud users. To solve this prediction and evaluation problem, we created a Public Cloud IaaS Simulator (PICS). PICS enables the cloud user to evaluate the cost and performance of public IaaS clouds along with such dimensions like VM and storage service, resource scaling, job scheduling, and diverse workload patterns. We extensively validated PICS by comparing its results with the data acquired from real public IaaS cloud using real cloud-applications. We show that PICS provides highly accurate simulation results (less than 5% of average errors) under a variety of use cases. Moreover, we evaluated PICS' sensitivity with imprecise simulation parameters. The results show that PICS still provides very reliable simulation results with imprecise simulation parameters and performance uncertainty.


This work describes the main hydraulic features of vortex dropshafts along with some examples of their mis-designs and consequent malfunction. Laboratory experiments were conducted to test the hydraulic performance of subcritical vortex intakes using supercritical approach flow design basis. The purposes of these drop structures are to: (i) convey the storm runoff towards the sea through the existing sewer system located at lower elevations and (ii) by-pass insufficient sewers. The proper operation of these structures is crucial to prevent flooding and to guarantee the urban safety. This issue is particularly relevant for the sewer system of Naples (Italy), which is strongly constrained by its hilly landscape. Several drop structures were realized to connect the modern urban drainage system to the early sewer mains located at the sea level. This work intends to highlight practical issues to enhance the existing vortex dropshafts, with possible applications to other cases similar to the Neapolitan context.


The financial performance and relationships between several management factors and financial performance are examined in a panel of 107 New York dairy farms. A panel regression model with fixed effects is estimated in an effort to identify management factors that influence profitability. The model is estimated with two-stage least squares to account for endogenous farm size and debt use variables. Production management factors such as farm size, rate of milk production, and milking system had a positive impact on farm profitability. Financial management variables for the type of accounting system used and the debt use were also significantly related to profitability. Unlike the findings of many other studies, measures of human capital did not have a statistically significant impact on profitability.


The paper identifies a class of violent acts that can best be described as sanctioned massacres. The special features of sanctioned massacres are that they occur in the context of a genocidal policy, and that they are directed at groups that have not themselves threatened or engaged in hostile actions against the perpetrators of the violence. The psychological environment in which such massacres occur lacks the conditions normally perceived as providing some degree of moral justification for violence. In searching for a psychological explanation of mass violence under these conditions, it is instructive to focus on factors reducing the strength of restraining forces against violence. Three interrelated processes are discussed in detail: (a) processes of authorization, which define the situation as one in which standard moral principles do not apply and the individual is absolved of responsibility to make personal moral choices; (b) processes of routinization, which so organize the action that there is no opportunity for raising moral questions and making moral decisions; and (c) processes of dehumanization which deprive both victim and victimizer of identity and community. The paper concludes with suggestions for corrective efforts that might help to prevent sanctioned massacres by counteracting the systemic and attitudinal supports for the processes described.


Abstract. The microbial community composition in subsoils remains understudied, and it is largely unknown whether subsoil microorganisms show a similar response to global warming as microorganisms at the soil surface do. Since microorganisms are the key drivers of soil organic carbon decomposition, this knowledge gap causes uncertainty in the predictions of future carbon cycling in the subsoil carbon pool (> 50 % of the soil organic carbon stocks are below 30 cm soil depth). In the Blodgett Forest field warming experiment (California, USA) we investigated how +4 ∘C warming in the whole-soil profile to 100 cm soil depth for 4.5 years has affected the abundance and community structure of microorganisms. We used proxies for bulk microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and functional microbial groups based on lipid biomarkers, such as phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs) and branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (brGDGTs). With depth, the microbial biomass decreased and the community composition changed. Our results show that the concentration of PLFAs decreased with warming in the subsoil (below 30 cm) by 28 % but was not affected in the topsoil. Phospholipid fatty acid concentrations changed in concert with soil organic carbon. The microbial community response to warming was depth dependent. The relative abundance of Actinobacteria increased in warmed subsoil, and Gram+ bacteria in subsoils adapted their cell membrane structure to warming-induced stress, as indicated by the ratio of anteiso to iso branched PLFAs. Our results show for the first time that subsoil microorganisms can be more affected by warming compared to topsoil microorganisms. These microbial responses could be explained by the observed decrease in subsoil organic carbon concentrations in the warmed plots. A decrease in microbial abundance in warmed subsoils might reduce the magnitude of the respiration response over time. The shift in the subsoil microbial community towards more Actinobacteria might disproportionately enhance the degradation of previously stable subsoil carbon, as this group is able to metabolize complex carbon sources.


This paper reports new evidence from a survey of over 408 U.S. employers concerning their use of temporary and on-call workers. More than 90 percent of responding organizations reported reliance on these flexible staffing arrangements. They accounted for an average of 1.5 percent of total labor input at user organizations during 1985; at some organizations, they accounted for 10 percent or even 20 percent of total labor input. Four-fifths of survey respondents indicated that flexible staffing arrangements play an important role in absorbing workload fluctuations. Moreover, organizations with highly seasonal or highly cyclical demand made significantly greater use of flexible staffing arrangements during 1985 than organizations with less seasonal or less cyclical demand. The use of flexible staffing arrangements appears to be a more important component of employers' short-term adjustment strategies than has previously been recognized.


This thesis contains some fundamental understandings of mechanism related to the dielectric, ferroelectric and impedance spectroscopic study of AgNbO3 and its modified systems. The results analysis are mostly qualitative in nature which has accounted previous reported facts while explaining as well as added some new concepts that fits to be more appropriate. The quantitative figures are less stressed in order to focus more on the underlying physics for different mechanisms of some particular electric properties in the titled compounds. The modified systems are designed by partially incorporating impurity atoms at the B-site of the ABO3 perovskite compound. The impurity atoms are chosen of isovalent (Ta5+, Sb5+, V5+) as well as alieovalent (Mn4+, W6+, Ti4+) in nature. The alieovalent impurities are chosen to design charge carrier (electron/hole)-doped systems. The effect of Jahn-Teller ions (Mn3+, W5+ and Ti3+) on the ferroelectric properties also understood and properly explained. The role of impurities in bringing structural and microstructural changes and their effect on dielectric, ferroelectric and other electric properties of the compound is extensively analysed and discussed in the subsequent chapters.
This work was carried out to improve the dielectric and ferroelectric properties of AgNbO3 to be an alternative for the hazardous lead (Pb) based ferroelectrics. This is because the dynamics of cations (Ag, Nb) and nature of Ag-O, Nb-O bonds in AgNbO3 features similarly to that of the dynamics of cations in Pb-based compounds. The compound exhibits an exceptionally large spontaneous polarisation(52μC/cm2)in its polycrystalline form at sufficient applied field (220kV/cm) and iscomparable to 50 μC/cm2 of polycrystalline PbTiO3 ceramic, at room temperature. But, the former shows a poor 0.041 μC/cm2 at ~12kV which is quite lower than the latter, which is a matter of concern. Multiple dielectric anomalies also appear in the temperature dependent permittivity of the compound which is related to the complex coupling between NbO6 octahedra and the cations dynamics. Therefore, numbers of modifications were carried out to verify the effects of dopants on dielectric and ferroelectric parameters and to understand the underlying science of several mechanisms.
Solid state synthesis route is chosen to prepare samples for the investigated compound (AgNbO3) in which required oxide materials are taken as raw precursors (Ag2O, Nb2O5). Manual grinding is opted in order to properly mix the oxide powders for their homogeneous presence. Calcination and sintering are two thermal processes which are followed to bring the desired phase of the compound and to densify the pellet type sample for various experiments. The modified systems are titled with the element oxide (Ta2O5, Sb2O5, V2O5, MnO2, WO3, TiO2)-doped AgNbO3 systems. The amount of element oxides is measured in molecular weight fraction of Nb2O5 in order to partially incorporate the metal elements in place of Nb, at the B-site of ABO3 perovskite structure. All the prepared samples are characterised with X-ray diffraction technique (XRD), Scanning electron microscope (SEM)/Field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and RAMAN spectroscopy to extract the structure and microstructure information. The frequency dependent electrical parameters (impedance, dielectric loss, phase angle and capacitance) are collected with the help of Impedance analyser within a broad range of temperature from room temperature (RT), 25oC to 450oC. The temperature dependent dielectric constant is extracted from the impedance data to examine the nature of dielectric anomalies, the effect of modification on dielectric constants, Curie temperatures and dielectric losses of the compounds. The polarisation-electric field (P-E) hysteresis loops for all the samples are collected by Radiant precision loop tracer.
The role of precipitated silver particles in AgNbO3 is thoroughly and systematically investigated by complex impedance spectroscopy within frequency and temperature domain of 100Hz to 1MHz and 25 oC to 450 oC respectively. Extensive analysis over relaxation mechanisms verified that only intrinsic (grain) conduction is the major contributing source. The absence of extrinsic (interfacial) conduction indicates that the precipitated silver nano particles has no active role in the electrical properties as these are supposed to be deposited in various interfaces. In the isovalent metal oxides doping, satisfactory results in ferroelectric properties came in Sb2O5-doped and V2O5-doped systems. In the Sb2O5-doped system, the improved P-E loop appeared at higher applied field. MnO2-doped AgNbO3 systems are prepared successfully by retaining the phase of the parent system. Low concentration of MnO2 was substituted in molecular weight fraction (x = 0.02, 0.04) of Nb2O5 to prepare the modified AgNbO3 compound by solid state route, with an object to partially incorporate Mn4+ in place of Nb5+ site. The XPS results identify the presence of manganese in Mn4+ and Mn3+state. The ferroelectric parameters were improved and results were properly discussed. WO3-doped AgNbO3 systems were successfully prepared by retaining the phase of the parent system. Low concentration of WO3 was substituted in molecular weight fraction (x = 0.02, 0.04) of Nb2O5 to prepare the modified AgNbO3 with an object to incorporate W6+ in place of Nb5+ to design the electron doped systems. XPS peaks identify the presence of tungsten in W6+ and W5+ state and hence confirm the possible hole doping in the modified systems. In the AWN2 system, the ferroelectric properties reduced but in AWN4 system, significant increase in the parameters was observed which were analysed with possible reasons. Transition metal oxide TiO2 was selected to dope with the AgNbO3 system in order to partially incorporate Ti4+ in place of Nb5+ cation. XPS results confirmed the presence of Ti4+ and Ti3+ state and hence the possible hole doping in the system was successful. In the TiO2-doped systems, though ferroelectric parameters exhibited high enhanced value but the shape of the loop approaches lossy feature. Apart from this, the effect of modifications on structure, microstructure, dielectric constant, tangent loss, activation energy, resistance of the materials were accurately reported, sincerely analysed and properly discussed.
The thesis provides some qualitative information regarding the titled compound which will benefit the other researchers to go for other transition metal oxide modifications. The properties of the modified systems are also suitable to be used in capacitors and memory applications.


Compressional wave-velocity anisotropy has been measured to 1 kb confining pressure in several mylonites, in one cataclasite, and in their protoliths. No significant difference in the velocity or density was found between the protolith and the tectonically altered rock. At 1 kb, strong seismic anisotropy (greater than 10%) was present in only two of nine mylonites measured. The anisotropy was due to their aphanitic texture, high content of layered silicates, and pervasive foliation. Most mylonitic rocks studied were not strongly anisotropic despite a well-developed macroscopic foliation. Where anisotropy was present, velocities usually were slowest perpendicular to the foliation and fastest parallel to both foliation and lineation. These preliminary results suggest that ductile fault zones in the crust are not strong seismic reflectors unless mylonites in the fault zone are aphanitic and contain large amounts of foliated phyllosilicates. It is also possible that anomalous environmental conditions such as high pore pressure in the fault zone in situ may explain observed seismic reflectivity.


Aim: To identify the mechanisms by which social interactions with classmates influence marijuana use in the transition into adolescence.Design: Using four waves of longitudinal social network data collected quarterly during the school year from the spring of 8th grade to the spring of 9th grade (2014-2016), we examine how friendship ties relate to marijuana use. Participants: 1075 adolescents were included in the present analysis. An implicit consent procedure was used: all students whose parents did not opt out of the study were eligible to participate.Setting: Participants were drawn from 12 schools with 8th graders, from five rural and two nonrural school districts in Western Oregon.Measurements: At each assessment wave participants reported on their marijuana use in the past 30 days. Using stochastic actor-oriented modeling, we examined whether classmates with similar marijuana use were more likely to select each other as friends, and if a classmate's marijuana use was influenced by friends' use. Findings: Past 30-day marijuana use increased in prevalence across 9th grade. Classmates with similar marijuana use were more likely to select each other as friends, and classmates were more likely to adopt similar patterns of marijuana use as their friends. This influence effect did not depend on the friend's popularity or closeness; best friends had no more influence on marijuana use than less-close friends. Conclusion: In the transition into high school, adolescents tend to select friends who report similar recent marijuana use, and are also more likely to adopt the marijuana use patterns of their friends regardless of how close or popular they are.


A novel family of alkyl-substituted S,N-heteropentacenes SN5 4–6 with a systematic variation of the alkyl side chains from methyl to hexyl is presented. The parent heteroacene series 4 and the acceptor end-capped series 5 and 6 were synthesized and characterized with respect to their structure–property relationships. The dicyanovinyl (DCV) end-capped derivatives 6a–f were implemented as donors in vacuum-processed bulk-heterojunction solar cells with fullerene C60 as acceptor, their photovoltaic behaviour studied, and structure–device relationships discussed. The devices exhibited power conversion efficiencies (PCE) in the range of 4–6% and interestingly a correlation between the length of the alkyl side chains and the photovoltaic performance of the resulting devices was discovered: an odd–even effect with higher values for the even-numbered alkyl chains. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) studies on the active layer surfaces gave hints for the explanation of this effect.


Easy photo-taking and photo-sharing today make image an increasingly important type of media in people's everyday life, which arouses a growing demand for a practical image understanding technique. Traditional computer vision or machine learning methods which learn models based on a set of training data are still in the stage of tackling hundreds of object categories. Such a scale is far from practical usage. In recent years, the technique of search-based image annotation on a large-scale data set has demonstrated great success. Rather than directly mapping visual features to texts which is inevitably hindered by the semantic gap, it understands the content of an image by propagating labels of its similar images in a large-scale data set. Since similarity search is performed among homogenous data, the difficulty is greatly reduced. This paper summarizes the extensive work on web image annotation using the large-scale metadata and social information available on the Web, and introduces the Arista system, which is a nonparametric image annotation platform built upon two billion web images. We propose a highly efficient and scalable duplicate-search technique so that the Arista system can be deployed on a few servers. A few interesting applications such as building large-scale celebrity face database and text-to-image translation are also presented in this paper.


Reeds biomass has been successfully extracted. It calcinated with annealing temperatures at 800 °C (A800), 850 °C (A850), and 900 °C (A900). The x-ray pattern showed that it has a cristoballite (SiO2) crystal structure. The band gap energy values are 3.8 eV, 3.7 eV and 4.7 eV, respectively. FTIR spectra show the groups are silanol, siloxane, and monohydride. Quantitatively, it provide results to determine the optical properties and dielectric functions which indicate shift to longer wavelengths with an increase in annealing temperature. The morphology gives different image where the particles are formed flakes (A800), aggregates (A850) and porous aggregates (A900). Full Text: PDF References

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This paper reviews the use of Sen's capability approach (CA) in the field of Information and Communication Technology for development (ICT4D). While ICT4D scholars have a high regard for Sen's CA, there is an apparent lack of knowledge on how to practically apply the CA in ICT4D. This paper investigates the gap between the theory of the CA and its application in ICT4D. It does so by identifying frameworks developed by scholars to operationalise the CA, and thereafter searching through journals with a prominent ICT4D focus to see how the CA has been used in practice. The study reveals four frameworks that have sought to operationalise the CA; however there seems to be a lack of usage of these frameworks where the CA is applied in ICT4D. This calls for further investigation as to why this mismatch exists.


People usually associate the color black with aggression. Previous studies have revealed that people are perceived as more aggressive, and act more aggressively, when wearing dark clothes. To investigate the influence of black clothing on criminal justice agency personnel, this study examined whether police departments that wear dark uniforms are more aggressive than those that wear lighter uniforms. It was predicted that departments utilizing black uniforms would experience more assaults on officers, citizens killed by police, and excessive force complaints. No statistically significant difference was found between departments wearing black and light uniforms after controlling for community contextual variables. The potential reasons for the inconsistency between this study and previous research findings are discussed, as are recommendations for further study.


The National Socialist regime's policies of discrimination, territorial expansion and genocide, and their immediate consequences, radically transformed the demographic, geographic and political map of Europe. These historical circumstances also lastingly recast what it meant to be German. The violence of these events was such that it reverberates across generations until the present. Yet if German nationalism was discredited by the defeat of Hitler, the war also seemed to confirm the necessity of a convergence between peoples and state borders. In addition, the legacies of violence perpetuated the distinction between overwhelmingly Jewish victims and German perpetrators. This thesis explores the development of a variety of constructions and uses of Germanness in the aftermath of World War Two. It is based on the case study of Bukovina, a former province of the Habsburg Empire regarded as both an 'island of Germanness' and a model of 'peaceful coexistence among peoples'. Until the Second World War, the historical territory of Bukovina was home to a significant minority of German-speaking Jews, and self-defining ethnic Germans. After 1945, many of these German-speaking Bukovinians developed a nostalgic and quasi-diasporic relationship to this homeland, epitomised by the creation of Landsmannschaften (homeland societies) in Germany and Israel. This thesis explores the complexities of these Bukovinian identities in different and changing post-war contexts, primarily West Germany, but also former East Germany, Romania and Israel. It argues that these narratives and enactments influenced each other, but also need to be related to the larger post-war categories of 'expellees' (Heimatvertriebene) and 'Holocaust survivors' in particular. Adopting a socio-cultural approach and taking Bukovina as a site of interaction of different discourses on Germanness in the post-war period, this thesis challenges the direct link often posited between experience, identification and national frameworks of understanding. Instead, it emphasises the importance of 'belonging', 'compensation' and 'coherence'.


Besides floodplains, hillslopes are basic units that mainly control water movement and flow pathways within catchments of subdued mountain ranges. The structure of their shallow subsurface affects water balance, e.g. infiltration, retention, and runoff. Nevertheless, there is still a gap in the knowledge of the hydrological dynamics on hillslopes, notably due to the lack of generalization and transferability. This study presents a robust multi-method framework of electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) in addition to hydrometric point measurements, transferring hydrometric data into higher spatial scales to obtain additional patterns of distribution and dynamics of soil moisture on a hillslope. A geoelectrical monitoring in a small catchment in the eastern Ore Mountains was carried out at weekly intervals from May to December 2008 to image seasonal moisture dynamics on the hillslope scale. To link water content and electrical resistivity, the parameters of Archie's law were determined using different core samples. To optimize inversion parameters and methods, the derived spatial and temporal water content distribution was compared to tensiometer data. The results from ERT measurements show a strong correlation with the hydrometric data. The response is congruent to the soil tension data. Water content calculated from the ERT profile shows similar variations as that of water content from soil moisture sensors. Consequently, soil moisture dynamics on the hillslope scale may be determined not only by expensive invasive punctual hydrometric measurements, but also by minimally invasive time-lapse ERT, provided that pedo-/petrophysical relationships are known. Since ERT integrates larger spatial scales, a combination with hydrometric point measurements improves the understanding of the ongoing hydrological processes and better suits identification of heterogeneities.


"[A] State is free as a matter of its own law to impose greater restrictions on police activity than those this Court holds to be necessary upon federal constitutional standards." (1) For rather obvious reasons, fears for the health of our federal system of government have seemed to focus on the apparently ever-expanding grasp of the federal government on matters that once were items of the states' exercise of their inherent police power. Thus, for example, even incremental setbacks to the rapacious use by Congress of its power to regulate commerce between the states (2) should be cheered by defenders of federalism. One would, then, hardly expect to find a state actually surrendering some of its power to the federal government, specifically the highest court of that government. Nevertheless, Florida has seen its constitution amended to do this, not once, but twice. (3) Both instances involved legislatively proposed changes to the state constitution that took away the power of Florida courts--ultimately the Florida Supreme Court--to interpret two provisions of the Florida Constitution's Declaration of Rights. The amendments removed provisions that Florida courts could interpret as guaranteeing more protection against the state than did the generally equivalent provisions of the Federal Constitution as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court. (4) Both occurred, incidentally, under circumstances where it could be argued that the electorate did not understand that for which it voted. (5) In 1981, the Florida Legislature became concerned, if not alarmed, by the decision of the Florida Supreme Court in State v. Sarmiento. (6) There, the court issued a significant decision under Article I, Section 12 of the Florida Constitution--the search and seizure provision. (7) The court held that while an individual did not have a reasonable, expectation of privacy in a conversation held in his home because it might later be repeated, that individual did have a reasonable expectation of privacy against "unknown eavesdroppers [that] might clandestinely participate in that conversation and later reveal its contents." (8) The U.S. Supreme Court held on two prior occasions that such police conduct did not violate the Fourth Amendment. (9) The Florida Legislature was also concerned that the developing law of good faith exceptions to the search and seizure exclusionary rule established by the U.S. Supreme Court would not be permitted to function in Florida due to the specific language of the Florida Constitution. (10) The Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule is, of course, a product of judicial creation. (11) Therefore, the legislature placed on the ballot in the 1982 General Election a proposed amendment to article I, section 12, which would tie both that section's limitations on search and seizure and its explicit exclusionary rule to the Fourth Amendment as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court. The amendment, in its entirety, read: ARTICLE I DECLARATION OF RIGHTS: Section 12. Searches and seizures. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, and against the unreasonable interception of private communications by any means, shall not be violated. No warrant shall be issued except upon probable cause, supported by affidavit, particularly describing the place or places to be searched, the person or persons, thing or things to be seized, the communication to be intercepted, and the nature of evidence to be obtained. This right shall be construed in conformity with the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution, as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court. Articles or information obtained in violation of this right shall not be admissible in evidence if such articles or information would be inadmissible under decisions of the United States Supreme Court construing the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution. …


Background and Aim: One of the most challenging procedures in restorative dentistry is fitting the color of the restoration to the tooth. The main purpose of this study was to determine the ability rate of color matching among the students of Yazd faculty of dentistry in December 2004. Methods and Materials: In this descriptive study, 127 dental clinical students of Yazd faculty were participated. Age, gender, wearing eyeglasses or lens and the year of starting the dental faculty were assessed as variable. Heliomolar composite with 16 colors was used to make the shade guide and 6 colors of the same composite were used as test group. The students were matched the shade guide with the test group in similar conditions. The data was analyzed by t, ANOVA and LSD test. Results: Mean truth definition of all colors in 20-29 years old students were 3.86 and in 30-40 years old group were  3.38 and there was no significant differences between them. Mean truth definition in male group was 3.57 and was 3.91 in females. There was no significant differences between them. Mean truth definition in all of the colors by students without eyeglasses or contact lens were 3.98 and the other group was 3.55 which was significantly differences (P=0.023). The difference between the entrance year for mean truth definition of all colors was significant (P=0.016). Conclusion: In this study, the students whom specially wear photochoromic eyeglasses or contact lenses were lower truth color definition, but age and gender had no effect on truth color definition.


We demonstrate a first simultaneous measurement of the real and imaginary parts of the refractive index of a highly turbid medium by observing the real-time reflectance profile of a divergent laser beam made incident on the surface of the turbid medium. We find that the reflectance data are well described by Fresnel theory that correctly includes the effect on total internal reflection of angle-dependent penetration into the turbid medium.


As the shape of the spatial helical irregular steel sculpture is singularly, this paper studies the structure's stability and dynamic properties with finite element analysis software in order to determine its ultimate bearing capacity, The structure's natural vibration characteristics are obtained by modal analysis. The structure's deformation characteristics within a small time history is also obtained by transient dynamic analysis. Feasibility of the new irregular steel structure is verified by calculation and analysis in this article which can lay the foundation for the development of the irregular steel structure.


Background. The aims of the present study were: a) to construct nonlinear integrated subjective well-being (SWB) model based on bottom-up approach and experimental data on several personality variables: inner directedness, time competence, sociotropy, perfectionism, locus of control, body dissatisfaction, neuroticism, and alexithymia; b) to use SWB model for evaluating the effectiveness of rhythmic movement therapy (RMT) in the increasing of SWB level. Methods. A total of 273 subjects (54 males and 219 females, mean age was 37.3±10.5 years) were selected at random in nonclinical population and assessed with the appropriate surveys and questionnaires. The obtained data were used to construct the SWB model, evaluation of its parameters and validation. The RMT program was proposed to the 105 subjects (24 males, 81 females, mean age 37.6±11.7 years) with very low, low and medium SWB level. Control group was included. Findings. Results revealed that: a) the SWB model not only predicts the level of SWB satisfactorily but also allows obtaining the partial response functions of psychological predictors of SWB directly as a result of estimation of model's parameters; b) the efficacy of RMT intervention for increasing SWB level was confirmed; c) SWB model predicts the changes in SWB after RMT intervention satisfactorily and can help to identify the reliable predictors of success.


The Central Library of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur is engaged in developing a single window seamless access system for personalizing electronic contents to its faculty and researchers. Since a computer-based retrieval system requires carefully selected search terms to selectively separate useful and relevant information from the large collection of information available in a specific branch of knowledge and most of the electronic systems use technical terms in vogue in the concerned field, sticking to these standard terms while conducting the search helps to avoid the noise and irrelevant retrievals. Since thesaurus and other subject heading lists are very exhaustive and are not very much required in a research area description context, we look for alternative sources, but standard and authentic to create standard subject terms for use with the personalization system. As part of the system, we are devising a subsystem for assigning standardized terms for selecting and incorporating subject specializations of researchers. For example, with the aid of subject terms gathered from the specializations of the 34 Special Interest Groups of ACM and the research areas, courses and projects of faculty members in the relevant departments, we tried to arrive at standardized representation of subject terms for researchers in Computer and allied disciplines and those having computer related specializations in other branches. A similar attempt is being made to extend the subject specializations of researchers in Physics with the exhaustive list of terms provided in the Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme. This paper will briefly illustrate some personalization projects in USA and UK, contents identified for personalization in the Institute, standardization of Computer Science terms and a partial list for terms generated for Physics along with some of the challenges and benefits.


Pregnancy-specific protein B (PSPB) was isolated, purified, and partially characterized from elk and moose placenta. The procedure, which was monitored by bovine PSPB (bPSPB) RIA, included homogenization and extraction in aqueous solution, acidic and ammonium sulfate precipitation, and ion exchange, gel filtration, and affinity chromatographies. The estimated molecular sizes of moose PSPB (mPSPB) were 58 kDa and 31 kDa, and of elk PSPB (ePSPB) were 57 kDa, 45 kDa, and 31 kDa by SDS-PAGE. The isoelectric points of mPSPB were 4.8, 6.6, and 6.7, and of ePSPB were 4.8, 4.9, 6.1, and 6.2 as determined by isoelectric focusing and two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. The carbohydrate contents of mPSPB and ePSPB were approximately 3.15% and 4.98%, respectively. Although ePSPB and mPSPB were recognized by anti-bPSPB in an Ouchterlony double immunodiffusion test, they were found to share identical epitopes and partial identities compared to bPSPB. After treatment at different temperatures (20-60 degrees C) for 1 h, the immunoreactivities of ePSPB and mPSPB in serum were very stable. Only ePSPB in serum treated at 60 degrees C lost some immunoreactivity. After alteration of serum pH (pH 3-11) for 2 h, the immunoreactivities of ePSPB and mPSPB became lower at pH 3 and 4, and remained stable from pH 5 to 11. These data show that moose and elk PSPB have properties similar to those of bovine and ovine PSPB.


Through theoretical calculation, systemic analysis of dynamic performance of the 64m single and double line railway steel truss bridges on the expanding condition and conventional condition. Contrast and analysis the main dynamic performance parameters of bridges on the two kinds of operating condition. In 64m steel truss bridges of Shuozhou-Huanghuagang Railway application practice proves that on expanding heavy-load condition, the main dynamic performance parameters of bridges are slightly larger than conventional condition, but the variation law of vertical acceleration of mid-span is different.


All over the world stories are told in which girls become women. Young heroines survive outside and inside, lightning and thunder, earthquakes and floods … In spite of bodily harms, jealous mothers, incestuous fathers, animal suitors … changing women
emerge, bleeding instead of sleeping, alive and kicking, rooted in firm female flesh after their second birth. The author collected oral stories about growing up from girl to woman among the Sepedi and Griqua in South Africa. In this article she deals with questions about writing these stories for young readers from other cultural contexts. She attempts to answer the question: How much is lost in translation? Keywords : Oral literature, initiation rituals, Griqua, hokmeisie-ritual. Tydskrif vir Letterkunde Vol. 45 (2) 2008: pp. 112-123


A Ba-rich alkali feldspar (hyalophane to almost pure celsian) coexists with melilite in the groundmass of the S. Caterina melafoidite lava, Mt. Vulture, Italy. The accompanying phases are a very Al- and Ti-rich clinopyroxene, magnetite, hauyne–sodalite, Ca-rich nepheline, leucite, apatite–britholite and accessory phases (mainly pyrochlore). This mineral assemblage is considered to be the result of the crystallization of a highly silica-undersaturated, alkali-rich magma, in an environment that stabilized S–Cl-rich minerals and inhibited the crystallization of minerals such as phlogopite, owing to the lack of sufficient amounts of volatile species (F, OH) promoting mica crystallization. As a result, the concentration of Ba in the residual liquids, due to its broadly incompatible behavior with respect to the early-crystallized phases, forced crystallization of an increasingly Ba-rich feldspar, along with melilite and volatile-poor feldspathoids such as nepheline and leucite. This apparently incompatible mineral assemblage may occur where interstitial liquid compositions (and thus the eventual crystallizing feldspar) are very rich in Ba or Sr or both, as noted in other rare occurrences worldwide. The final liquid composition crystallized in an assemblage made up of clinopyroxene + feldspathoids + melilite + hyalophane or celsian; it was thus far more undersaturated in silica than a phonolite.


Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) were manufactured between 1929 and 1989. Due to their great chemical persistence, these substances have been used for many different purposes. These chemical properties, however, caused PCBto accumulate in the food chain and resulted in background exposure of the general population. PCB has also been used as plasticizer for sealants in prefabricated buildings, thus causing problems to the present date. At the end of the 90ies in a school in Nuremberg, Germany, elevated PCB concentrations were measured in indoor air. Some of these results were higher than 3,000 ng/m 3 which means decontamination according to the German "PCB directive". Press coverage made these results a matter of public debate, so that teachers, school children and parents were highly worried because of possible health effects. The Bavarian Minister for Health, Nutrition and Consumer Protection asked us to examine school children and teachers with regard to their internal PCB exposure and health complaints. A group of school children from a non-contaminated school served as controls. For the determination of PCB levels the plasma samples were blinded before analysis. Lower chlorinated PCB (PCB 28, 52, 101) were detected more often and in higher concentrations in plasma samples of school children of the contaminated school compared to the controls. The plasma levels of the higher chlorinated PCBs (PCB 138, 153, 180) did not show similar differences between exposed and non-exposed school children. The relative PCB doses additionally taken up in the contaminated school were less then 5% of the background exposure of the children. That is why it could finally be concluded that no appreciable additional health risk may result from inhalation of PCB contaminated indoor air in this school. Due to the design, performance and interpretation of this study, including representatives of parents and teachers, these results were widely accepted by most of the parents who initially had been very concerned about possible health effects.


Background: Stroke is one of the root causes of brain disorders at the height of the productive age and ranks second cause of death after heart disease in most countries in the world. Fairly large-scale study conducted by ASNA (ASEAN Neurological Association) in 28 Hospitals in Indonesia. This study was conducted in patients with acute stroke who were treated in hospital (hospital-based study) and conducted a survey of factors - risk factors, treatment duration and mortality and morbidity. Method: This is a cross sectional study, with intracerebral hemorrhage Head CT scan examination then examined serum levels of plasma GFAP her at the time of patient entry from RSUP. H. Adam Malik Medan from March 2014 -May 2014. Results: In this research, we found the frequency of male patients as many (62.5%), while as many women (37.5%). Predominant age range in patients encountered in this study were 46-51 years old and are the dominant ethnic Batak tribe (43.8%). Conclusion: There were no significant differences between groups in serum GFAP levels with bleeding volume ? 30 cc compared to those with bleeding volume <30 cc (p = 0.599). GFAP is a biomarker to distinguish whether stroke patients including intracerebral hemorrhage or ischemic stroke Further longitudinal study would be needed to confirm the role.


In the temporal bone, between the posterior wall of the external acoustic meatus and the posterior root of the zygomatic process is the area called the suprameatal triangle, suprameatal pit, mastoid fossa, foveolasuprameatica, or Mac Ewen's triangle, through which an instrument may be pushed into the mastoid antrum..In the adult, the antrum lies approximately 1.5 to 2 cm deep to the suprameatal triangle. This is an important landmark when performing a cortical mastoidectomy. The triangle lies deep to the cymba conchae.The sex determination of unknown human skulls can be evaluated by using the measurement of the area formed by the xerographic projection of 3craniometric points related to the mastoid process: the porion, asterion, and mastoidale points.


In order to study the nature, type, and magnitude of interactions in the binary mixtures of methyl-ethyl-ketone and a series of 2-alkanol from 2-propanol up to 2-heptanol, excess (or deficit) numbers of i and j molecules around a central molecule j ( Δnij ), by being linked  to the KB integrals, have been used and reported at T=298.15 K. Negative values of Δnij and Δnji and positive values of Δnii and Δnjj indicate the fact that in the mixtures the tendency of the similar molecular components to form the new interactions and stay together is much higher than the dissimilar molecular components. Investigating the changes in the calculated quantities for different mixtures shows that with the increase in the length of the alcoholic chain, the tendency of the heterogeneous molecules to interact with each other decreases.


Introduction: The aim of present study was to investigate the effects of royal jelly (RJ) on the number of Nissl-stained neurons in caudate putamen unit (CPU) and substantia nigra pars compacta (SNC) and the thickness of gray (TGm) and white matter (TWm) of cerebral and cerebellar cortex in male rats with Parkinson's disease (PD). Methods: Seventy five Sprague-Dawley adults' male rats were used. Rats were randomly divided into 5 groups: 1control intact rats; 2sham; rats received 0.02% ascorbic acid diluted in saline by CPU injection 3PD induction without treatment; 4 and 5PD induction + 100 or 200 mg/kg/day RJ for 21 days started 4 weeks after lesion induction. PD induction was carried out by unilateral injection of 6hydroxydopamine in CPU. The apomorphine were done one week before lesion as well as, second, fourth and seventh weeks after lesion. Nissl-stained neurons of SNC and CPU were counted. The thickness of gray and white matter was measured by histomorphometry. Results: data showed that RJ has corrected net contralateral turns of PD. RJ at both doses significantly (P<0.05) increased the number of Nissl-stained neurons in SNC and CPU in comparison to PD induction without treatment. RJ at low dose significantly (P<0.05) increased TGm and TWm of the cerebral cortex and it significantly (P<0.05) increased TGm but not TWm of cerebellum. RJ at high dose significantly (P<0.05) increased TGm and TWm in the cerebral cortex and


The Telescope Array Project studies the properties of ultra high energy cosmic rays by measuring
the extensive air showers which they induce when interacting in the Earth's atmosphere. We
do this using a variety of techniques including using an array of scintillator detectors to sample
the footprint of the air shower when it reaches the Earth's surface and telescopes to measure the
fluorescence and Cerenkov light of the air shower. From this we determine the energy spectrum
and chemical composition of the primary particles. We also search for sources of cosmic rays and
anisotropy. One of the interesting things which we have found is evidence of a possible source of
ultra high energy cosmic rays in the northern sky. The experiment and its recent measurements
are discussed.


The paper presents an analytical solution for the dispersion of a solute in a conducting immiscible fluid flowing between two parallel plates in the presence of a transverse magnetic field. The fluids in both the regions are incompressible, electrically conducting and the transport properties are assumed to be constant. The channel walls are assumed to be electrically insulating. Separate solutions for each fluid are obtained and these solutions are matched at the interface using suitable matching conditions. The results are tabulated for various values of viscosity ratio, pressure gradient and Hartman number on the effective Taylor dispersion coefficient and volumetric flow rate in the absence and in the presence of chemical reactions. It is found that the solute is dispersed relative to a plane moving with the mean speed of flow with an effective Taylor diffusion coefficient which decreases with an increase in magnetic field with or without chemical reactions. The validity of the results obtained for conducting two fluid model is verified by comparison with the available one-fluid model and the values tally very well.


Abstract Beach sands from the Rosa Marina locality (Adriatic coast, southern Italy) were analysed mainly microscopically in order to trace the source areas of their lithoclastic and bioclastic components. The main cropping out sedimentary units were also studied with the objective to identify the potential source areas of lithoclasts. This allowed to establish how the various rock units contribute to the formation of beach sands. The analysis of the bioclastic components allows to estimate the actual role of organisms regarding the supply of this material to the beach. Identification of taxa that are present in the beach sands as shell fragments or other remains was carried out at the genus or family level. Ecological investigation of the same beach and the recognition of sub-environments (mainly distinguished on the basis of the nature of the substrate and of the water depth) was the key topic that allowed to establish the actual source areas of bioclasts in the Rosa Marina beach sands. The sedimentological analysis (including a physical study of the beach and the calculation of some statistical parameters concerning the grain-size curves) shows that the Rosa Marina beach is nowadays subject to erosion.


A few species of sap-sucking whiteflies are some of the most damaging terrestrial pests worldwide because of the crop damage they inflict and plant viruses they vector. Despite numerous studies of the biology of these species in different environments, a key life history parameter, offspring sex ratios, has received little attention, yet is important for predicting population dynamics. The primary sex ratio (sex ratio at oviposition) of Bemisia tabaci has never been reported but can be found by determining the egg fertilization rate of this haplodiploid insect. The technique involves the dechorionation of eggs with bleach, a series of fixation steps, and the application of the general DNA fluorescent stain, DAPI (4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole, a DNA-binding fluorescent dye), to bind to female and male pronuclei. Here, we present the technique, and an example of its application, to test whether an endosymbiotic bacterium, Rickettsia sp. nr. bellii, influenced the primary sex ratio of B. tabaci. This method may assist in population studies of whiteflies, or in determining if sex allocation exists with certain environmental stimuli.


There are two main interests in digital camera image forensics, namely source identification and forgery detection. In this paper, we first briefly provide an introduction to the major processing stages inside a digital camera and then review several methods for source digital camera identification and forgery detection. Existing methods for source identification explore the various processing stages inside a digital camera to derive the clues for distinguishing the source cameras while forgery detection checks for inconsistencies in image quality or for presence of certain characteristics as evidence of tampering.


The authors examined the effects of neighborhood collective efficacy and violence on adolescents' antisocial behavior tendencies by means of the dual mediation of socialization indices (i.e., social information-processing and self regulation) and routine activities. Collective efficacy and violence exposure were assessed by neighborhood "informal social control" and "social cohesion and trust" during the elementary and junior high school years, and the frequency of violence in the community during junior high and high school years. Normative beliefs about aggression, cognitive distortions, social rule appropriateness and self regulation were used to assess both the positive and negative indices of socialization. Routine activities were assessed by the experience in unstructured socializing activities. Antisocial tendencies were assessed by evaluations of the seriousness and past experience of delinquent behaviors. The results of structural equation modeling revealed that the effect of collective efficacy on antisocial tendencies was perfectly mediated by the socialization indices, whereas experienced violence was partly mediated by routine activities. Possible improvements of this dual mediation model were discussed.


This study provides a life cycle perspective on cross-national differences in pharmaceutical prices, volumes and expenditures. Most previous studies have focused solely on cross-national differences in drug prices, comparing prices for a small sample of branded products at a single point in time. However, policymakers are increasingly concerned with total drug expenditures, which reflect volume and average prices for all products. Similarly, the pharmaceutical industry, in making decisions about pricing and launch of a drug in different countries, is concerned not only with launch price but also with the total life cycle profile of price, volume and lifetime return on investment. Globally, both policymakers and industry should be concerned with the relative contributions of different countries to the common costs of pharmaceutical research and development (R&D). These relative contributions depend not only on relative prices but also on per capita consumption and hence total expenditures. The life cycle price, volume and expenditure profiles reported here address some of these policy and corporate questions, while also making a contribution to the methodology of cross-national comparisons for medicines. In this study we use comprehensive data on outpatient sales for all drugs in seven countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US) for the period 1981-1992 to provide cross-national comparisons of the profiles for average price, per capita volume and expenditure over the life of a molecule. Since our price data are at the manufacturer level, our measures can be interpreted as per capita expenditure on pharmaceuticals from the payer's perspective or per capita revenue from the manufacturer's perspective. The life cycle expenditure profiles are also converted to a discounted present value at launch, which provides a rough summary measure of each country's per capita contribution to the common costs of R&D.


Purpose
The business-to-business (B2B) marketing literature is heavily focused on the manufacturing sector. However, it is the B2B service sector that shows the highest growth in gross domestic product (GDP). Beyond a vibrant stream of literature on servitization, the B2B literature has neglected drawing on the wider service literature. This paper aims to examine recent streams of service research that have promising implications and research opportunities for B2B marketing.

Design/methodology/approach
Together, the author team has decades of research, managerial and executive teaching experience related to B2B marketing and services marketing and management. The observations and reflections in this paper originate from this unique perspective and are supplemented by insights from 16 expert interviews.

Findings
The authors identify and discuss in this paper four broad and related themes from the service literature that can stimulate B2B research and practice. First, the authors highlight the implications for capturing value in economies with their rapidly increasing specialization and related growth in B2B services. Specifically, the authors explain where B2B firms should focus on to gain bargaining power in the value chains of the future. Second, an additional strategy to enhance a B2B firm's power to capture value is servitization, which allows firms to get closer to their customers, increase their switching costs and build strategic partnerships. The authors explore how firms can use service productization to enhance their chances of successful servitization. Third, servitization is expensive, and productivity and scalability are often a challenge in B2B contexts. These issues are tackled in a recent service research stream on cost-effective service excellence (CESE) where the authors derive implications for B2B firms. Fourth and related to CESE, latest developments in intelligent automation offer exciting opportunities for B2B services to be made more scalable.

Originality/value
This paper is based on the unique perspective of the author team and a panel of experts and connects major streams of service research to the B2B literature.


The present work focuses on the failure mechanisms that occur in melt-growth composite ceramics mainly composed of fiber eutectics with random orientation. First, the stress field of the melt-growth composite ceramics under a tensile stress was obtained. It can be visualized that tensile force is transmitted between oxide fiber eutectics by means of shear stress that develop along the interfaces of oxide fiber eutectics. Consider fiber eutectics having lengths smaller than the critical length. During the composite ceramics fracture, fiber eutectics do not fracture. The average stress of a fiber eutectic can be determined by the shear stress. Then, the probability of ending fiber eutectics and bridging fiber eutectics can be gotten by defining a critical ditrict βl. Finally, consider random orientation and length of the fiber eutectics. Composite ceramics failure by slip incompatibility. The strength model of the melt-growth composite ceramics is built. It is accordance with experiments.


Using diverse mechanisms of regulation at MIR166A, YAB5, ARF3, and TAS3A, AS1-AS2 affects adaxial-abaxial polarity and leaf complexity to keep the leaf both flat and simple. Flattened leaf architecture is not a default state but depends on positional information to precisely coordinate patterns of cell division in the growing primordium. This information is provided, in part, by the boundary between the adaxial (top) and abaxial (bottom) domains of the leaf, which are specified via an intricate gene regulatory network whose precise circuitry remains poorly defined. Here, we examined the contribution of the ASYMMETRIC LEAVES (AS) pathway to adaxial-abaxial patterning in Arabidopsis thaliana and demonstrate that AS1-AS2 affects this process via multiple, distinct regulatory mechanisms. AS1-AS2 uses Polycomb-dependent and -independent mechanisms to directly repress the abaxial determinants MIR166A, YABBY5, and AUXIN RESPONSE FACTOR3 (ARF3), as well as a nonrepressive mechanism in the regulation of the adaxial determinant TAS3A. These regulatory interactions, together with data from prior studies, lead to a model in which the sequential polarization of determinants, including AS1-AS2, explains the establishment and maintenance of adaxial-abaxial leaf polarity. Moreover, our analyses show that the shared repression of ARF3 by the AS and trans-acting small interfering RNA (ta-siRNA) pathways intersects with additional AS1-AS2 targets to affect multiple nodes in leaf development, impacting polarity as well as leaf complexity. These data illustrate the surprisingly multifaceted contribution of AS1-AS2 to leaf development showing that, in conjunction with the ta-siRNA pathway, AS1-AS2 keeps the Arabidopsis leaf both flat and simple.


High-efficiency metal-free carbon electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in acidic medium are still a great challenge for the commercialization of the fuel cell technology. Herein, high-performance metal-free P,N-doped carbon catalysts (P–N-GFs-HMPA) with the E1/2 potential of about 0.78 V are successfully prepared by constructing porous foams using graphene oxides and carbon nanotubes as building bricks and hexamethylphosphoric triamide (HMPA) as the special precursor of P and N. Impressively, the HMPA compound not only facilitated the remarkable increase in the content of both P and N in the carbon frameworks, but also offered high density of the coupled N–P moieties embedded in the graphene surface. Together with the optimized local structures including open porosities and high electron transportation capacity, this foam exhibits excellent electrocatalytic performance for the ORR in acidic medium. It is markedly superior to the previously reported metal-free carbons and comparable to Fe- or Co-based ORR carbon electrocatalysts. Thus we have successfully developed a high-performance metal-free ORR catalyst in acidic medium by precisely tuning the carbon structure through coupling with non-metal elements.


axial vein thombuses, but this technique still fails to identify 30% of calf vein thrombuses.2 Thrombuses in the calf veins are usually the earliest and most frequent manifestation of deep vein thombosis. Although axial vein involvement may result from propagation of such thrombuses, isolated calf vein thombuses remain an important cause of pulmonary embolism and the postthrombotic limb syndrome.3 To date phlebography remains the only reliable and accurate investigation for the diagnosis of such thrombuses. Colour coded duplex sonography can accurately diagnose axial vein thrombosis. It may therefore have a role as a first line investigation in patients suspected of having a deep vein thrombosis. A negative result, however, must be followed up by phlebography to assess the calfvein system fully. It is possible that with all of these diagnostic criteria serial duplex scanning may improve the diagnostic yield, particularly of calf vein thrombuses. Currently reported experience with duplex sonography and deep vein thrombosis supports its continued use as a preliminary investigation, but until the diagnosis of calf vein thrombosis improves we continue to advocate combined sonography and phlebography in any patient clinically suspected of having a deep vein thrombosis.


Quang Tri Province is located in the central part of Vietnam. Quang Tri has very special geographic characteristics, with mountains in the west and a very flat east side. The east side has a coastal zone which has two main rivers, the Ben Hai river and the Thach Han river. These two rivers have many tributaries and finish in the South China Sea. The two estuaries of these rivers, Cua Tung and Cua Viet are very good sites for aquaculture to take place, because of the brackish environment. That's the main reason that many shrimp farms are located near or at the estuaries.
Shrimp production could be a very good economic resource for the Quang Tri Province, but the last couple of years problems are occurring at the shrimp farms concerning diseases. In 2006 at some farms up to 80% of the production of shrimps was lost. The main reason for the diseases to occur is that the farmers take in water directly from the river. The water quality of the rivers are often not suitable for shrimp farming. The water gets polluted by industries, agriculture and shrimp ponds themselves.
Water is taken in at the beginning of each production period, but it is also taken in more frequently during production because of the high evaporation at that time, which effects the salinity rate of the water in the ponds. Salt water can only be taken in at high tides, but at high tides the polluted water that is discharged by farms at the end of a harvesting period tends to flow back upstream of the river.
In this research a literature study is done about similar problems that occurred years ago in Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh and China. In these countries the problems have largely been solved. This information in combination with new research information about water quality problems, provided enough information about possible measures.
The measures have been evaluated with the help of a Multi-Criteria Analysis. And as the best result the combination of better management, a fresh water reservoir and a reservoir with a culture in it seemed to be the most suitable. Though after the fieldtrip of November 2007, it became clear that because of the wide diversity of the structure of shrimp farming communities, a closed circuit biofilter seemed to be more useful for the smaller communities. Better management will include, better equipment for water quality measurement, simple tools to prevent external factors to affect the shrimp ponds, and policies by the government to be able to make a better structure for the shrimp farming in the province.
In this research the problems and the possible impact of solutions would be modeled in the MIKE11 model, but unfortunately because of the delay of the fieldtrip in which a lot of important data was gathered, time didn't allow me to use the model for this thesis already. So this should be done in the next project for this case.
The recommendations are to make a complete quantitative analysis with more and specific data about the water quality around the shrimp ponds, to make a study about the quantitative impact of all the proposed measures, Simple measures should be applied immediately and step by step the Quang Tri province should work towards a stable economic environment for the brackish aquaculture, this will require a lot of effort from the government, but also from the farmers.


One often overlooked aspect to building an aircraft is the manufacturing process used to put it into production. This may be a major contributor to acquisition cost and requires a large amount of money to implement. Once all the tooling has been purchased, one of the greatest costs is labor. The experience of building an all-aluminum aircraft shows that the production process is one which may be done in many different ways. Minimizing the assembly time is important for aircraft manufacturers and one of the best ways to do that is on the assembly line itself. Specific practices in the manufacturing process can speed up production, and this paper shows some practical examples of that.


This article investigates sphairopoiia, the art of making instruments that display the heavens, in Claudius Ptolemy's Planetary Hypotheses. It takes up two questions: what kind of instrument does Ptolemy describe? And, could such an instrument have been constructed? I argue that Ptolemy did not propose one specific type of instrument, but instead he offered a range of possible designs, with the details to be worked out by the craftsman. Moreover, in addition to exhibiting his astronomical models and having the ability to estimate predictions, the instrument he proposed would have also shown the physical workings of the heavens. What emerges is both a clearer idea of what Ptolemy wanted the technician to build, and the purpose of such instruments.


This thesis is concerned with the two main causes of wage inequality in the Malaysian labour market during the period 1983--1999. These are the impact of changes in trade patterns and technological change. These two hypotheses have been well tested using the Heckscher-Ohlin and Samuelson (HOS) models following the pioneering work by Lawrence and Slaughter (1993), Haskel and Slaughter (1998--2002) and Wood (1994). This theoretical framework provides three methodologies to measure relative demand changes namely: a decomposition approach, a cost function approach and the use of earnings equations which can then be used to examine the significance of trade and technology in determining the changes. All of these are used in the study. The study has employed two sets of data. Firstly, we have used the five-digit aggregate data for the manufacturing sector between 1983--1999 to estimate the changes that take place between, and within, industries in the sector. The second set of data comprises micro-level data from the Household Income Survey (HIS) for several years during the period 1984 to 1997. As far as the different sets of data are concerned, at a macro-level we have divided labour groups into skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers. On the other hand, the skills measured in the micro-level data are based on the workers' levels of education though we have based these on similar levels of skill as in the macro analysis. The main finding of this thesis is that changes in the relative demand for labour favour semiskilled workers and that technological change is the main explanation for the changing pattern of employment in the Malaysian economy. The study also finds that changes in the pattern of trade have had only small effects in explaining the changes in the relative demand for labour. Notwithstanding this, this study finds a some support for the prediction of the basic HOS model in that trade can explain the changes in industry skill wage premia at higher levels of education. In addition, and not unexpectedly, trade is also found to increase the relative demand for production workers at low levels of education. Interestingly, the study also finds that technological change is more dominant in explaining changes in the relative demand for males whilst the effects of trade are most evident for female workers. Finally, the study also shows that changes in relative demand are most evident in terms of the way they affect employment rather than through changes in wage levels.


To examine the possible role of iodine in the aetiology of congenital hypothyroidism, urinary iodine concentration was compared in 23 neonates with congenital hypothyroidism detected by neonatal screening program in Riyadh region (mean cord TSH 403 ±123 mU/L), and their mothers. Twenty-five normal neonates (mean cord TSH 6.74 ± 4.03 mU/L) were randomly selected as control. The mean urine iodine concentration of the congenital hypothyroid group was 21.3 ± 11.2 μg/dl, which was significantly (P<0.05) higher than their mothers with mean of 16.3 ± 7.5 μg/dl, and the control group; mean 14.4 ± 4.6 μg/dl. We conclude that neonates with congenital hypothyroidism have normal iodine concentration, and that iodine does not seem to play a role in the aetiological diagnosis of congenital hypothyroidism.


This paper provides a theoretical foundation for some common formulations of inverse problems in wave propagation, based on hyperbolic systems of linear integro-differential equations with bounded and measurable coefficients. The coefficients of these time-dependent partial differential equations represent parametrically the spatially varying mechanical properties of materials. Rocks, manufactured materials, and other wave propagation environments often exhibit spatial heterogeneity in mechanical properties at a wide variety of scales, and coefficient functions representing these properties must mimic this heterogeneity. We show how to choose domains (classes of nonsmooth coefficient functions) and data definitions (traces of weak solutions) so that optimization formulations of inverse wave problems satisfy some of the prerequisites for application of Newton's method and its relatives. These results follow from the properties of a class of abstract first-order evolution systems, of which various physical wave systems appear as concrete instances. Finite speed of propagation for linear waves with bounded, measurable mechanical parameter fields is one of the by-products of this theory.


Human interleukin-12 (hIL-12) is a heparin-binding cytokine whose activity was previously shown to be enhanced by heparin and other sulfated glycosaminoglycans. The current study investigated the mechanisms by which heparin increases hIL-12 activity. Using multiple human cell types, including natural killer cells, an IL-12 indicator cell line, and primary peripheral blood mononuclear and T cells, along with bioactivity, flow cytometry, and isothermal titration calorimetry assays, we found that heparin-dependent modulation of hIL-12 function correlates with several of heparin's biophysical characteristics, including chain length, sulfation level, and concentration. Specifically, only heparin molecules longer than eight saccharide units enhanced hIL-12 activity. Furthermore, heparin molecules with three sulfate groups per disaccharide unit outperformed heparin molecules with one or two sulfate groups per disaccharide unit in terms of enhanced hIL-12 binding and activity. Heparin also significantly reduced the EC50 value of hIL-12 by up to 11.8-fold, depending on the responding cell type. Cytokine-profiling analyses revealed that heparin affected the level, but not the type, of cytokines produced by lymphocytes in response to hIL-12. Interestingly, although murine IL-12 also binds heparin, heparin did not enhance its activity. Using the gathered data, we propose a model of hIL-12 stabilization in which heparin serves as a co-receptor enhancing the interaction between heterodimeric hIL-12 and its receptor subunits. The results of this study provide a foundation for further investigation of heparin's interactions with IL-12 family cytokines and for the use of heparin as an immunomodulatory agent.


Ion-induced nucleation by cosmic rays influenced by solar modulation is of interest, and several studies with radioactive sources or accelerator beams have been performed. We focused on ionization with high-linear energy transfer (LET) particles, such as protons, neutrons, and ions, in secondary cosmic rays and the ion density of the secondary cosmic rays near the ground using the excel-based program for calculating atmospheric cosmic-ray spectrum (EXPACS). According to the calculation, not only muons but also protons and neutrons leave substantial traces of solar modulation at an altitude of 3 km from the ground. To verify the ion-induced nucleation by these secondary high-LET cosmic rays, a chamber experiment was conducted at the accelerator facility HIMAC. Using a chamber with a capacity of 75 L, experiments were conducted by irradiating protons and nitrogen ion beams with a constant energy of 180 MeV/u with varying intensity.
The experimental results confirm that the ion density and aerosol density increased as the beam intensity increased. The aerosol density was found to be proportional to the ion density, but irrelevant to the ionization density. It was concluded that the ion-induced nucleation by high-LET secondary cosmic rays, such as protons and neutrons, provides no evidence of enhancement owing to ionization density and cannot account for the claimed variation of cloud formation due to the solar modulation.


Fault diagnosis of anomalies in induction motors is essential to ensure industry safety. This paper presents a new hybrid Invasive Weed Optimization and Machine Learning approach for fault diagnosis in an induction motor. The vibration signal provides a lot of information about the motor's operating conditions. Therefore, the vibration signal of the motor was chosen to investigate the fault diagnosis. Two identical 400-V, 50-Hz, 4-pole 0.75 HP induction motors were under healthy, mechanical, and electrical faults tested in a laboratory with different loading. A hybrid model was developed using the vibration signal, the Invasive Weed Optimization algorithm (IWO), and machine learning classifiers. Some statistical features were extracted from the signal using Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT). The invasive weed optimization algorithm (IWO) was utilized to reduce the number of the extracted features and select the most suitable ones. Then, three classification algorithms namely k-Nearest Neighbor neural network (KNN), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Random Forest (RF), were trained using k-fold cross-validation and tested to predict the true class. The advantage of combining these techniques is to reduce the training time and increase the average accuracy of the model. The performance of the proposed fault diagnosis model was evaluated by measuring the Specificity, Accuracy, Precision, Recall, and F1_score. The experimental results prove that the proposed model has achieved more than 99.90% of accuracy. Furthermore, the other evaluation parameters also show the same representation of performance. The hybrid model has proved successfully its robust for diagnosing the faults under different load conditions.


Lignocellulosic biomass such as sugarcane bagasse (SCB) is a renewable and abundant source for ethanol production. Sugarcane bagasse is composed of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, extractives, and several inorganic materials. Pretreatment methods of SCB are necessary for the successful conversion of SCB to ethanol. Each pretreatment process has a specific effect on the cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin fraction. The conversion of SCB to ethanol typically consists of four main steps: pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, fermentation, and distillation. Hence, different pretreatment methods should be chosen according to the process design for the following hydrolysis, fermentation, and distillation steps. There are many types of pretreatments such as physical, chemical, physico-chemical, and biological pretreatments. This chapter reviews the chemical and physico-chemical pretreatment methods of SCB which are often used by many research- ers for ethanol production. Different chemical and physico-chemical pretreatment meth ods of SCB are introduced and discussed based on relevance to the sugar yield, lignin removal, and cellulose content after pretreatment.


The gaining returns in line with risks is always a major concern for market play-ers. This study compared the selection of stock portfolios based on the strategy of buying and retaining winning stocks and the purchase strategy based on the level of investment risks. In this study, the two-step optimization algorithms NSGA-II and SPEA-II were used to optimize the stock portfolios. In order to determine the winning algorithm, the performance indexes, Set coverage and the Mean Ideal Distance were used. Finally, the active shares of 50 Tehran Stock Exchange com-panies were analysed (2007-2016). The results indicate that the SPEA-II algo-rithm can perform optimization and achieve a better performance than the NSGA-II. This algorithm could achieve better outcomes than the winning strategy during the selection period based on the risk-taking strategies in different months


BACKGROUND
New treatment alternatives have improved the prospects for patients with ankylosing spondylitis.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Experts from 10 countries developed and voted for 9 questions regarding diagnostics, monitoring and pharmacological treatment (except biological) of ankylosing spondylitis. The Norwegian group added two questions on non-pharmacological treatment. A thorough literature search was performed. 39 experts attended a Norwegian consensus meeting where they developed and voted for the final recommendations for treatment of ankylosing spondylitis.

RESULTS
Statements are generally based on limited evidence, but are highly supported by the experts. Important diagnostic factors are persistent inflammatory back pain in individuals under 40 years, HLA-B27-tissue, effect of NSAIDs, peripheral arthritis, morning stiffness and elevated acute phase reactants. MRI of sacroiliac joints is important for early diagnosis, but abnormalities must be verified by conventional radiographs. Long-term follow-up should include measures of inflammation, pain and function. NSAIDs and local corticosteroids are first line drugs for treatment of enthesitis. NSAIDs/coxibs are recommended as flexible on-demand-regimens. Patients should be encouraged to adapt exercising to disease severity and individual needs.

INTERPRETATION
Consensus-based processes among experts may give valuable contributions to the management of ankylosing spondylitis.


Early instars of three mud crab Scylla species were reared in different salinities and survival and growth were compared. Scylla olivacea were reared in salinities of 12, 16, 20, 24, and 32 g/l (control). Scylla serrata and S. tranquebarica were reared in salinities of 8, 16, 20, 24, and 32 g/l (control) After 75 days, survival of S. olivacea and S. serrata was not affected by salinity but survival in S. tranquebarica was significantly higher in 8-20 g/l than in 24 and 32 g/l. The molt interval was shorter in S. olivacea, and more animals attained the fifth molt, than in the other species. The molt interval was shorter in 12-20 g/l than in 24 and 32 g/l for S. olivacea, did not vary among test salinities for S. serrata, and was shortest in 20 and 24 g/l in S. tranquebarica where fewer animals attained a fourth molt in 32 g/l than in 820 g/l. The molt increment was influenced by salinity only in S. olivacea. At the end of the test, all three species exhibited lower internal carapace width and mean body weights in 32 g/l. Among the three species, S. serrata was most versatile in tolerating a wide range of salinities during nursery culture.


Post-collisional context is commonly associated with production of large amount of peraluminous granitic magmas produced from the melting of crustal material. The variability of the produced granite commonly varies from leucogranitic to granodioritic and are mostly peraluminous. The South-Eastern French Massif Central (EFMC) region record several evidence for crustal melting revealed by migmatitic and granitic bodies providing ~30 Ma history of peraluminous granite production. Previous thermobarometric studies provides records for two successivves melting event: 1) a biotite stable event at ~314Ma (720°C and 5 kb) 2) a bitotite breakdown melting event constrained at ~301Ma (850°C 4kb) This suggests geotherms evolution from 45 °C/km to 70°C/km in 13Ma. A thermodynamic modelling approach considering a 20km thick pile of crustal material undergoing successive geotherm evolving from 25°C/km to 70°C/km with starting conditions between 3 and 10 kb. Along this evolution our approach allows successive melt extraction and the monitoring of melt compositional variability, residuum evolution and mineral phases modal and compositional variabities according to depth, geotherm and composition of the source. Over the 5 crustal sources used as starting composition for the model, 305 individual partial melting reactions are triggered. Melt and peritectic phases produced provide a variability that suggest the importance of source composition in matter of granite production for some element and ratios (K/Na, XMg). Compared to regional granites (EMCF). Most of the granites produced in the post collisional context of the EFMC can be reproduced by either melt only (leucogranite) or melt in addition to peritectic material produced along with melt (granite to granodiorite). In the same way, the relative-time constrain provided by the approach shows that it is possible to produce simultaneously heterogeneous granitic magmas in respect to source protolith and depth. Identically, the residual crust undergo an very variable evolution depending on protolith leading to an heterogeneous granulitic lower crust.


This article proposes that modern child custody law should be reassessed in light of recent scientific findings. Judicial determinations of custody use the "best interests of the child" rule. The rule is justified to a large extent by the goal of maximizing child developmental outcomes. The assumption is that a child whose "best interests" are protected stands a better chance of becoming a socially well-adjusted, productive and prosperous citizen.Recent child development studies have shown that so-called "shared environment," or home environment factors have little effect on child development so long as the shared environment is minimally adequate. Genetics and "non-shared environment" have a far greater influence on child development outcomes. While other reasons for the "best interests" rule may ultimately justify it, maximizing positive child development is not a justification supported by science.


Salients, convex-to-the-foreland curves in the map traces of orogens, typically involve fold-thrust belts formed along the foreland margin of orogens. An examination of the map-view shape, degree of asymmetry, dimensions, and structural trend-line patterns (i.e., the variation in fold trend and fault strike along the length of the belt) of 20 fold-thrust belt salients worldwide illustrates relationships between salient geometry and the geologic setting in which the salient formed. In order to understand these relationships, we used simple sandbox models to simulate the formation of three of the several types of salients. Specifically, we examined indenter-controlled salients (the geometry of which reflects interaction of a fold-thrust belt with a hinterland indenter), basin-controlled salients (the geometry of which reflects lateral variations in the thickness of predeformational basin fill), and detachment-controlled salients (the geometry of which reflects lateral variations in the strength of a detachment surface). Our models demonstrate that thrusts in these three types of salients initiate with a curved shape, and that rocks within thrust sheets on the limbs of salients can undergo a vertical-axis rotation in response to simple shear, without requiring major rotation of the fault trace. Furthermore, trend-line patterns distinguish basin-controlled from indenter-controlled salients. Specifically, structural trend lines in basin-controlled salients converge at the end points of the curve, while in indenter-controlled salients, they diverge at the end points of the curve. The asymmetry of a salient correlates with the asymmetry of the predeformational basin and/or of the indenter, and with the convergence direction. Thus, our results explain geometric characteristics of individual salients, and address controversies concerning paleomagnetic data in salients. They also may help prioritize petroleum-exploration targets in salients (foreland-basin oil fields concentrate at the apex of basin-controlled salients) because the geologic factors that generate the salient also contribute to localizing oil fields.