Erosion by wind is one of the principal processes associated with land degradation in drylands and is a significant concern to land managers and policymakers globally. In the drylands of North America, millions of tons of soil are lost to wind erosion annually. Of the 60 million ha in the United States identified as most vulnerable to wind erosion (arid and dominated by fine sandy soils), 64% are managed by federal agencies (37 million ha). Here we review the drivers and consequences of wind erosion and dust emissions on drylands in the United States, with an emphasis on actionable responses available to policymakers and practitioners. We find that while dryland soils are often relatively stable when intact, disturbances including fire, domestic livestock grazing, and off‐highway vehicles can increase horizontal eolian flux by an order of magnitude, in some cases as much as 40‐fold. A growing body of literature documents the large‐scale impacts of deposited dust changing the albedo of mountain snow cover and in some cases reducing regional water supplies by ~5%. Predicted future increases in aridity and extreme weather events, including drought, will likely increase wind erosion and consequent dust generation. Under a drier and more variable future climate, new and existing soil‐ and vegetation‐disturbing practices may interact in synergistic ways, with dire consequences for environments and society that are unforeseen to many but fairly predictable given current scientific understanding. Conventional restoration and reclamation approaches, which often entail surface disturbance and rely on adequate moisture to prevent erosion, also carry considerable erosion risk especially under drought conditions. Innovative approaches to dryland restoration that minimize surface disturbance may accomplish restoration or reclamation goals while limiting wind erosion risk. Finally, multidisciplinary and multijurisdictional approaches and perspectives are necessary to understand the complex processes driving dust emissions and provide timely, context‐specific information for mitigating the drivers and impacts of wind erosion and dust.


Conversational ease-based reasoning (CCBR) a form of interactive case-based reasoning where users input a partial problem description (in text). The CCBR system responds with ranked solution display, which lists the solutions of stored cases whose problem descriptions best match the user's, and a ranked question display, which lists the unanswered questions in these cases. Users interact with these displays, either refining their problem description by answering selected questions, or selecting a solution to apply. CCBR systems should support dialogue inferencing; they should infer answers to questions that are implied by the problem description. Otherwise, questions will be listed that the user believes they have already answered. The standard approach to dialogue inferencing allows case library designers to insert rules that define implications between the problem description and unanswered questions. However, this approach imposes substantial knowledge engineering requirements. We introduce an alternative approach whereby an intelligent assistant guides the designer in defining a model of their case library, from which implication rules are derived. We detail this approach, its benefits, and explain how it can be supported through an integration with Parka-DB, a fast relational database system. We will evaluate our approach in the context of our CCBR system, named NaCoDAE.


Abstract: Introduction: Since first introduced by Finney and Hepperlen in 1978, the Double-J "DJ" Stent has become a routine armament that every Urologist uses everyday. Over time, there have been developments and improvements in both designs and materials, in order to improve the efficacy of the stents themselves. The use of the DJ Stent can not be separated from the morbidity or complications that might occur, including discomfort arising from the insertion of stents, forgotten to remove, urinary tract infections, biofilm formation, even encrustation of the stent. This research aims to know the correlation between the urine metabolites condition and urinary tract infection in the formation of biofilm and encrustation in patients with urinary tract stones at Saiful Anwar General Hospital, Malang.
Method: This is a cohort study using chi-square analysis and relative risk calculation. The datas were obtained from patients at Saiful Anwar General Hospital from March 2016 until December 2017. The examination includes urine metabolites, urinalysis, and urine culture prior to the insertion of DJ Stent, at polyclinic, and before the removal of DJ Stent. After the DJ Stent was removed, we evaluate if there was an encrustation on the DJ Stent or not and biofilm using congo agar plate. The subjects in this research was patient with urinary tract stone and patient without urinary tract stone as control group.
Result: There were 60 patients with urinary track stones, as well as 60 patients without a urinary track stone as a control. We found that high level of uric acid prior to removal of DJ Stent and during polyclinic control, and also high level of magnesium urine before DJ Stent removal were five times higher to form biofilm in patients with urinary tract stones. The presence of urinary tract infections when the subject control at polyclinic and before DJ Stent removal, and the presence of bacteria in urine before the insertion of DJ Stent in patients with urinary tract stones is significantly have five times higher risk to form encrustation on the DJ stent. Patients without urinary tract stone have four times higher risk in the formation of encrustation with abnormal level of magnesium that removal of DJ Stent. Delayed in DJ Stent removal in patients without urinary track stone were significantly have ten times higher risk in biofilm formation and six times higher risk in the formation of encrustation in patients with urinary tract stones.
Conclusions: There is a relationship between the condition of urine metabolites and urinary tract infections with biofilm formation and DJ Stent's encrustation in patients with urinary tract stones.


It has been suggested that the cerebellum plays a critical role in learning to make movements more "automatic" (i.e., requiring less attention to the details of a movement). We hypothesized that cerebellar damage compromises learning of movement automaticity, resulting in increased attentional demands for movement control. The purpose of our study was to determine whether cerebellar damage disrupts the ability to make a practiced movement more automatic. We developed a dual task paradigm using two tasks that did not have overlapping sensory or motor requirements for execution. Our motor task required subjects to maintain an upright posture while performing a figure-8 movement using their arm. This motor task was chosen to simulate requirements of everyday movements (e.g., standing while reaching for objects), but it was novel enough to require practice for improvement. Our secondary task was an auditory vigilance task where subjects listened to letter sequences and were asked to identify the number of times a target letter was heard. We tested controls and people with cerebellar damage as they practiced the movement task alone and then performed it with the auditory task. We recorded 3D position data from the arm, trunk, and leg during the movement task. Errors were recorded for both the movement and the letter tasks. Our results show that cerebellar subjects can improve the movement to a very limited extent with practice. Unlike controls, the motor performance of cerebellar subjects deteriorates to prepractice levels when attention is focused away from the movement during dual task trials. Control subjects' insensitivity to dual task interference after practice was due to learned movement automaticity and was not a reflection of better dual task performance generally. Overall, our findings suggest that the cerebellum may be important for shifting movement performance from an attentionally demanding (unpracticed) state to a more automatic (practiced) state.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the variability of parental interest in the depth of detail provided regarding vaccine information.

PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS
We performed a cross-sectional, observational study in a primary care pediatric practice from September 1 to September 30, 1995. We provided each participant an opportunity to use a self-directed, computer-based information system using the varicella vaccine as a prototype. The system covered 7 topics regarding the vaccine and offered 5 stages of information, ranging from general, indisputable information at stage 1 to less common, potentially unresolved details at stage 5. Parents viewed stage 1 information for each topic. Parents would then choose to either view more stages or view the next topic.

RESULTS
Of 130 parents visiting the pediatric practice, 112 (86%) agreed to participate. We found substantial variability in the amount of information sought. Some parents stopped with stage 1 information (15%-45%, depending on the topic), whereas others indicated they would seek more information beyond the fifth stage (2%-14%). Overall, parents reported high satisfaction with the system.

CONCLUSION
Quantifiable variability exists in parents' requirements for vaccine information, and our information system addresses this issue.


The declining of children under five of age mortality has been seen over several decades. But the rate of neonatal death remains stagnant. Neonatal death is crucial if one want to decrease the under five mortality as it has been stated as the fourth goal of the Millennium Development Goals. At year 2000 there were 130 million births, among whom 4 million was died during neonatal period, which was 2/3 from the infant death. Two third of the neonatal death occurred at the first week of life and 99% happen in developing countries. The timing of maternal death mostly occurred at the end of pregnancy, at birth and within one week after delivery. Intervention of maternal and neonatal death should be done simultaneously. Evidence have showed that simple measures on community based approach are able to reduce neonatal and maternal mortality significantly. WHO and UNICEF in 2009 have made joint statement: "Home visits for the newborn child: a strategy to improve survival". There were 7 points of recommendation that need to be addressed by countries who want to reduce neonatal mortality. Each country should look at the existing program and make necessary changes accordingly. Key words : Newborn, neonatal mortality, essential newborn care


The long-lasting hegemonic rule of President Hugo Chavez not only involved significant rearrangements in the control of political power in Venezuela but also shifts in the way its citizens constructed, connected and interacted with politics. In this book, Elena Block explores the political communication style developed by Chavez to transmit his ideologies and engage with his publics - A style that unfolded incrementally between 1998, the year of his first presidential campaign, and March 13th 2013 when his death was announced after a long struggle with cancer. What sort of political communication did Hugo Chavez develop to establish hegemony in Venezuela? What made him so popular? Block argues that Chavez's political communication style can be better understood through the concept of mimetisation, a systematic sequence of communicational events and practices whereby the Venezuelan President managed to build a bond with his constituents. Applying a mixed qualitative method of collection and analysis of relevant data, this phenomenon is examined via the President's emotional use of common cultural symbols; dramatized and informalised language; savvy use of communication and media, and boost of inclusive, compensatory, and participatory practices in which his constituents not only felt mimetically mirrored, but also endowed with an identity. Shedding new light on contemporary theories of populism from the perspective of political communication and identity construction, the notion of mimetisation can be adjusted and applied to study the links of populist phenomena, the mediatisation of politics and government, cultural appeal and identity politics in other cultures and situations in contemporary times.


Network-on-a-chip (NoC) is becoming a promising paradigm of core-based system. We propose a new method for test scheduling in NoC. The method is based on the use of a dedicated routing path for the test of each core. We show that test scheduling under this approach is NP-complete and present an ILP model for solving small NoC instances. For NoCs with larger number of cores, we present an efficient heuristic. We then improve the heuristic by including BISTs and precedence constraints. Experimental results for the ITC'02 SoC benchmarks show that the new method leads to substantial reduction on test application time compared to previous work. The inclusion of BIST tests and precedence constraints provides a comprehensive solution for test scheduling in NoC.


readability to how they appeal to patients. Previous studies have demonstrated a positive impact of visual media across the range of patients' literacy skills, both health-specific and generic. Objectives To devise a production mechanism for serious games in patient education aligned with the current development of patient guidelines, keeping costs manageable in the long term. Methods The MUSE FP7 Project, funded by the European Commission, brings together computer scientists, cognitive psychologists and one GIN member. The project investigates the long-term potential of automatic generation of serious games from patient guidelines documents. It uses state-of-the art commercial gaming technology as well as developing new text analysis software. Results A first prototype has been developed on the topic of bariatric surgery education. It features male and female patient avatars in a hospital environment and supports the interactive exploration and rehearsal of the various stages of the process. All the game actions can be related to specific portions of the patient education document. Discussion The popularity of new media such as computer games improves dissemination prospects for patient education information. In addition, as suggested by recent research, the interactive nature of serious games makes the information more accessible, facilitates learning and addresses issues not covered by textual dissemination such as patient anxiety. Implications for Guideline Developers/Users Serious gaming is poised to become a major health-related medium, hence the need for specific development processes.


Purpose: The study aimed to determine the impact of the fixed asset investment on farms' productivity. The study adopted a research hypothesis according to which the increase of investment in fixed assets contributes to improved productivity of production factors in agriculture. Design/methodology/approach: The research was based on the Central Statistical Office data storage statistics and the study of reference books. The main source of information was the data from 4,803 farms, which consistently kept accounts within the Farm Accountancy Data Network system. The analyses were based on the productivity indicators in the researched farms. The Cobb-Douglas production function was used in the research. In addition to evaluating the effectiveness of the investment, there were used elements of marginal accounting. Findings: The Polish agricultural sector's investments after 2004 led to changes in the value and structure of agricultural holdings and supported the substitution of human labor with objectified labor. The studies have shown that an increase in the level of investment in agricultural holdings contributes to labor and land productivity growth. Moreover, the examined farms in the years 2005-2013 increased the productivity of capital equity, which indicates the development of farms. The increase in the investment outlays per unit of production factor contributed to increased investment efficiency. Practical Implications: The research results may be useful in economic practice in shaping investments in fixed assets in farms. They can also help to create an agricultural policy to support investment in agriculture. Originality/Value: The originality of the research consists of determining the impact of investments in fixed assets on the productivity of production factors in farms based on the Cobb-Douglas production function.


Knowledge is becoming increasingly important in contemporary economic systems, and economic growth and welfare depend on how promptly economic agents are able to exploit the benefits derived from technological innovations. In a landscape characterized by globalization, the contributors to this volume analyse some of the major trends and policy challenges in this "new economy" from the viewpoint of technical innovation and competence building, and offer a new perspective on the transformation undertaken by firms, universities, and other agents. They urge for a wider involvement of public policies to foster learning and innovation. The individual chapters report on the most significant policies adopted, and assess them in the light of the European experience in comparison with that of the USA and Japan. They are primarily based on research pursued under the European Commissionʹs Targeted Socio-Economic Research (TSER) programme.


This study aims to analyze Institutional Model of Fishery and Marine Economy Development and Banking and Finance Institution Support in Development of Innovation System of Fishery and Marine Region in North Sumatera. This type of research is descriptive quantitative. The data used are primary data. The population and samples used are the stakeholders of marine and fisheries development in North Sumatra Province. The analysis used with Structural Equation Modeling. The results show that institutional collaboration and Banking and Finance Institution support are able to establish Regional Innovation Systems of Fisheries and Marine Affairs in


This meta-analysis tested the major theoretical assumptions about behavior change by examining the outcomes and mediating mechanisms of different preventive strategies in a sample of 354 HIV-prevention interventions and 99 control groups, spanning the past 17 years. There were 2 main conclusions from this extensive review. First, the most effective interventions were those that contained attitudinal arguments, educational information, behavioral skills arguments, and behavioral skills training, whereas the least effective ones were those that attempted to induce fear of HIV. Second, the impact of the interventions and the different strategies behind them was contingent on the gender, age, ethnicity, risk group, and past condom use of the target audience in ways that illuminate the direction of future preventive efforts.


Assessment in Postsecondary Education is a required course for students in the master's degree program in Postsecondary Education: Student Affairs at the University of Northern Iowa. Students from the selected doctoral programs from the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and the Department of Technology also have the option of taking the course as an elective in their degree program. This semester-long, face-to-face course meets for three hours once a week. The course is supported by a learning management system web site that provides course-related resources and information for students and is incorporated into class-period activities. The overall purposes of the course are to provide students with basic content knowledge and skills related to conducting assessment activities as practitioners in their field and to encourage the development of a positive view of the value of assessment in postsecondary education.


Several of the top ranked supercomputers are based on the hybrid architecture consisting of a large number of CPUs and GPUs. High performance has been obtained for problems with special structures, such as FFT-based imaging processing or N-body based particle calculations. However, for the class of problems described by partial differential equations (PDEs) discretized by finite difference (or other mesh based methods such as finite element) methods, obtaining even reasonably good performance on a CPU/GPU cluster is still a challenge. In this paper, we propose and test an hybrid algorithm which matches the architecture of the cluster. The scalability of the approach is implemented by a domain decomposition method, and the GPU performance is realized by using a smoothed aggregation based algebraic multigrid method. Incomplete factorization, which performs beautifully on CPU but poorly on GPU, is completely avoided in the approach. Numerical experiments are carried out by using up to 32 CPU/GPUs for solving PDE problems discretized by FDM with up to 32 millions unknowns.


plied. This study highlights the problems inherent in classifying stone tools based on form and emphasizes the need for an integrated morpho-functional scheme that has far superior interpretative potential regarding human behavioral implications. Secondary technical data are contained in several appendices, which allows for better readability; photographic documentation of use-wear types and related activities is well done.


The SEC, FASB, and IASB have expressed interest in the recent proliferation of non-GAAP reporting, raising questions about what this increasing reporting trend means for IFRS- and GAAP-based reporting. Our goal is (1) to inform standard setters and regulators about the current state of non-GAAP reporting and (2) explore how the discretion afforded in non-GAAP reporting influences earnings consistency and comparability, two tenets of IFRS- and GAAP-based earnings. We begin by providing an up-to-date discussion of the most common questions examined in the extant literature to provide insights on what academics have learned to date about non-GAAP reporting. Next, we utilize a novel dataset of detailed non-GAAP disclosures to provide in-depth descriptive evidence on the current state of non-GAAP reporting. We find that the frequency of non-GAAP reporting has increased by 35% in recent years, a trend that we find in every sector. We also provide evidence on how the frequency and magnitude of specific exclusions has changed over time. Of particular interest is the increasing frequency with which firms exclude items that are not commonly excluded by other firms, indicating that more idiosyncratic definitions of non-GAAP earnings are emerging in the marketplace. Finally, we examine how discretion in non-GAAP reporting affects earnings consistency and comparability. We find that the consistency with which firms exclude specific items varies across exclusion types. Importantly, we also find some evidence that inconsistent non-GAAP reporting is associated with lower quality non-GAAP metrics. In examining across-firm comparability, we find descriptive evidence indicating that within-sector performance rankings based on GAAP earnings better explains concurrent stock returns than comparisons based on non-GAAP earnings. However, our preliminary analyses indicate that these differences are not statistically significant.


This article takes on the parallel processes of law reform and cultural transformation by comparing gender violence reform projects in the United States with those in South Africa. It does so by focusing on one strand of advocacy, that focusing on the economics of abuse. Since economic independence is central to women's ability to navigate abuse, women's ability to work in its aftermath is critical. This article compares each country's current and potential reform projects to address the ways gender violence impacts survivors' ability to get and keep their jobs. Despite the stark contrasts between the countries' respective legal and economic contexts, the challenges faced by advocates are different in degree rather than in kind. This article reviews the prevalence of gender violence in each country and the extent and nature of women's workplace participation. It places reforms addressing the impact of abuse on employment in the broader context of each country's domestic and sexual violence reform movements and describes employment-related projects, with a focus on those in South Africa. The similarities and differences in economics, culture and law underscore several lessons about the possibility of achieving transformational change. The article identifies several theories under which South Africa's progressive legal frameworks could afford recourse to survivors whose employment is adversely affected as a result of abuse. Nevertheless, the comparison highlights the inherent similarities of law reform projects that seek to transform historic biases and cultural norms. It underscores the importance of enforcement and implementation, of centering anti-subordination initiatives in the context of equality, and of maintaining the difficult and ongoing project of challenging bias in its many forms, in order to create both legal change and cultural transformation.


Over the last decennium, the object detection is the pivotal step in any machine vision and image processing application. It is the initial step applied to extract most informative pixel from the video stream. Many algorithms are available in literature for extraction of visual information or foreground object from video sequence. This paper also provides a detailed overview of both conventional and traditional approaches used for detection of object. This paper explores various related methods, major challenges, applications, resources such as datasets, web-sources, etc. This paper presents a detailed overview of a moving object detection using background subtraction techniques in the video surveillance system that provide safety in cities, towns or home when video sequence is captured using IP cameras. The experimental work of this paper is performed over change detection, I2R, and wallflower datasets. The experimental work also depicts a comparative analysis of some of the peer methods. This work demonstrates several performance metrics to check robustness of the compared state-of-the-art methods.


Organic system of agricultural production is particularly important in the context of agriculture sustainability. Taking into consideration sustainability premises, agricultural sector should deliver environmental, social and economic profits. One of the most important form of agriculture in this context is organic production. In 2019, the European strategy of Green Deal underlined the need of further and faster development of organic farms in the EU. The purpose of the paper is establishing current tendencies, as well as perspectives of organic farming development, including its market environment in the EU. The accent was focused on Poland`s situation and experiences. The period of the analysis covered the years 2012-2020. The data used in the research came from national institution Agricultural and Food Quality Inspection, Statistics Poland reports and papers, as well as database of Eurostat. Indicator analysis methods were used and trends were established.
The results of the study revealed, that during the analyzed period, organic farming developed in the EU. The main statistics, such as the number of organic farms and organic agricultural land improved significantly. The current trends in individual European countries in the field of development of the organic management system indicate, that this segment of the agricultural market has different significance in individual countries, which may also result from local economic and market conditions. Based on the research results, it was stated, that organic farming development in the EU – in the nearest further – will be challenging, especially in the context of the european strategic purposes, presented in Green Deal documents.
Keywords: organic farming, organic farms, agricultural land in organic system of production, organic processors,  European Green Deal strategy, EU, Poland


A previous study indicated that the oxidative assimilation capacity of a heterogeneous microbial population for acetic acid did not return to the initial value after a period of endogenous respiration in the presence of ammonium sulfate. In view of this finding it was not possible to recommend fully the use of a continuous oxidative assimilation process for the treatment of nitrogen-deficient waste waters of noncarbohydrate nature. To put the process to a severe test, a laboratory-scale pilot plant study was done. Acetate (1,000 mg/liter) was fed continuously to a completely mixed, aerated reactor vessel, from which the mixed liquor was channeled to a settling basin. The settling basin supernatant fluid was continuously discharged, and a portion of the settled biological sludge was subjected to endogenous respiration in the presence of ammonium sulfate and was recycled to the aeration vessel. Experiments were conducted at three levels of ammonia nitrogen in the endogenous phase. Approximately 90% removal of the carbon source (expressed as chemical oxygen demand, COD) was attained with a low level of supplemental nitrogen (COD/N = 70:1) and a fairly low reactor detention time (4 hr). Based upon these and previous results, it has been concluded that the process shows promise for application to the treatment of a wide variety of nitrogen-deficient industrial wastes.


The complete analysis of possible DNA structures has been undertaken in the space of dihedral angles. The structural sets obtained join energetically and geometrically possible conformations. Thus, the necessary condtions of existence are fulfilled for these structural forms. The half of our structural families includes all structures and structural sets proposed by other authors [10, 24]. Other six families have not been presented elsewhere. The results of the energy optimization suggest the left handed forms are unfavourable energetically, because main chain torsional term and the energy of nucleotide moiety. At the same time there is a great number of various lefthanded forms.


Probabilistic generative models are attractive for scientific modeling because their inferred parameters can be used to generate hypotheses and design experiments. This requires that the learned model accurately represents the input data and yields a latent space that effectively predicts outcomes relevant to the scientific question. Supervised Variational Autoencoders (SVAEs) have previously been used for this purpose, as a carefully designed decoder can be used as an interpretable generative model of the data, while the supervised objective ensures a predictive latent representation. Unfortunately, the supervised objective forces the encoder to learn a biased approximation to the generative posterior distribution, which renders the generative parameters unreliable. This issue has remained undetected as reconstruction losses commonly used to evaluate model performance do not detect bias in the encoder. We address this previously-unreported issue by developing a new framework (SOS-VAE) that updates the decoder parameters, rather than the encoder, to induce a predictive latent representation. This ensures that the encoder maintains a reliable posterior approximation and the decoder parameters can be effectively interpreted. We extend this technique to allow the user to trade-off the bias in the generative parameters for improved predictive performance, acting as an intermediate option between SVAEs and SOS-VAE. We also use this methodology to address missing data issues that often arise when combining recordings from multiple scientific experiments. We demonstrate the effectiveness of these developments using synthetic data and electrophysiological recordings with an emphasis on how our learned representations can be used to design scientific experiments.


Objective: Zirconia cores have limited light transmittance and data are scarce on light transmission through zirconia cores with and without the veneering ceramic. Methods: In this in vitro study, Disc-shaped specimens (11.5 mm in diameter and 0.4 (0.05) mm in thickness) were fabricated of three types of zirconia namely Mamut, Heany and ZirkonZahn (n=5). A disc-shaped specimen (11.5 mm in diameter and 0.65 (0.05) mm in thickness) of veneering ceramic (Cerabien ZR, Kuraray, Noritake, Japan) was also fabricated. The intensity of light transmitted through the zirconia specimens with and without the veneering ceramic was recorded using a light curing unit (LED, SDI Radii Plus, Australia) and its respective radiometer (LED Radiometer, SDI, Australia). Data were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA and Tukey's HSD test. Results: A significant difference was noted in light transmission among different types of zirconia before and after veneering. After veneering, light transmission decreased in all specimens and the reduction in light transmission in Zirkonzahn group was significantly greater than that in Heany and Mamut groups (p<0.001). Conclusion: Veneered zirconia systems have limited translucency and ceramic veneering


Abstract This essay argues that the literary atmosphere of Charles Dickens's Little Dorrit (1855–57) reciprocates the condition of the mid-century London air, as Dickens understood it. Through exploring the novel's connections with contemporary medical-political debates about air purity, I hope to show that the novel can be read as a study of atmospheric influence, in both material and moral terms. In particular, I examine the metaphorical and phenomenal roles of airborne pollutants in the narrative. Dickens repeatedly correlates socioeconomic with meteorological climates: toxic investment spreads like an epidemic miasma; shady business dealings leave murky deposits; debtors are trapped in conditions of bodily and psychological stagnancy. Eventually these clouds lift from the imprisoned Clennam: as forms of atmospheric contamination the Marshalsea's imprisoned air, the tainted ambience of the Clennam house are purified or dispersed. In Little Dorrit air becomes a medium of interchange between the body and its environment, between individuals and their society, and between the literal and the figurative.


Congestion management (avoidance and control) is a set of mechanisms used to prevent network congestion and assist in the recovery from it. The constant growth of the Internet many congestion control mechanisms have been proposed and some of them implemented on the global Net. Most modifications to the original TCP protocol have faired rather well and have preserved the scalability and the stability of the Internet. The emergence of bandwidth intensive multimedia applications and the usage of UDP have proved that the existing congestion control mechanisms are not sufficient to prevent the network from exhaustion of its resources and possible congestion collapse. Multimedia applications often generate traffic flows that are unresponsive to network congestion. Consequently, the packets are not delivered to their destinations since they are being dropped at the intermediate nodes. In other words, transmitting unresponsive flows through a network is one of the main reasons behind possible network collapse, since the potential of the network is fully utilized, while too few packets reach the intended recipients. It is clear that the congestion management of unresponsive flows in presence of both responsive flows and unresponsive flows is an open problem. The paper describes the study into the possibility to use the mobile agent paradigm for management of mostly unresponsive flows and integrating this mechanism with the classical congestion control protocols in a pure TCP environment. To illustrate the main points of our position, we introduce a new model termed as CM4CC (Combined Model for Congestion Control).


Summary

During the transition from the Middle to Late Bronze Age, Cyprus became a full participant in the Levantine maritime interaction sphere. This is reflected in the archaeological record by a dramatic increase in the Cypriot pottery found in the surrounding region, widely assumed to be the by-product of an (archaeologically invisible) external demand for Cypriot copper. On the receiving end of this relationship, small numbers of imported 'luxury' goods appear on Cyprus. This paper discusses one aspect of exchange that has received little attention in the literature, the presence and significance of quantities of imported transport amphorae (Canaanite jars). These vessels have only rarely been recognized from excavations on Cyprus but recent examination of material from several sites reveals that they are more common than previously assumed. The Canaanite jar evidence may go some way towards redressing the apparent imbalance in goods exchanged and also to illuminate the processes through which Cypriot populations first engaged with the materiality of urban ways of ordering the world.


Despite several decades of Sport for All policies, social class differences in organized sports participation of youth persist. However, few population-based studies have examined how social class may influence adolescent participation. We use survey data from upper secondary school students (aged 16–19) from the Norwegian capital of Oslo (N = 10,531) and investigate the factors through which social class operates. To measure parental social class, we use the well-established Erikson, Goldthorpe and Portocarero class scheme, supplemented by indicators of economic and cultural resources. We also include data on immigrant status, neighbourhood and school affiliation. There were large differences in organized sport participation between youth from the higher and lower social classes. Indicators of parental economic resources mediated many of these differences and had an additional independent statistical effect. Indicators of cultural resources, immigrant status, and neighbourhood and school affiliation only had modest effects. We conclude that social class plays a major role in organized sport participation, and economic resources are particularly important. Methodologically, we suggest that well-established social class schemes should be used in such research, supplemented with more detailed indicators of economic resources.


A gill filament-based assay for the cytochrome P450 1A (CYP1A)-catalysed activity ethoxyresorufin O-deethylase (EROD) was developed in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and applied to Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus), Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), saithe (Pollachius virens), and spotted wolffish (Anarhichas minor). Exposure to waterborne β-naphthoflavone (βNF; 10-6 M) induced branchial EROD activity in all species but the spotted wolffish. In rainbow trout exposed to low concentrations of benzo[a]pyrene (BaP; 10-9 M) and the textile dye indigo (10-8 M) the gills responded more rapidly than the liver to BaP, and indigo induced branchial but not hepatic EROD activity.A CYP1A-dependent BaP adduct formation was shown in gills of fish exposed to waterborne 3H-BaP, i.e. the adduct formation was enhanced by βNF and blocked by ellipticine (CYP1A inhibitor). The predominant location for BaP adducts was the secondary lamellae (most exposed part of the gill filament), whereas the CYP1A enzyme was also present in the primary lamellae of the gill filament. Hence, in addition to the cell-specific expression of CYP1A an important determinant for the localisation of adducts seemed to be the bioavailability of BaP. This idea is supported by the fact that the CYP1A enzyme was induced only in secondary lamellae by BaP (10-7 M) and indigo (10-6 M), whereas it was induced in both primary and secondary lamellae by 3,3´,4,4´,5-pentachlorobiphenyl (10-8 M). Apparently, readily metabolised inducers (BaP and indigo) are biotransformed in the secondary lamellae.My results show that gill filament EROD activity is a sensitive biomarker of exposure to waterborne dioxin-like pollutants, and that the assay has potential for use in monitoring. Furthermore, the results suggest that readily metabolised dioxin-like compounds absorbed via the gills may undergo first-pass metabolism in the gill cells and therefore remain undetected by monitoring of EROD activity in the liver.


: The authors report their experience of a new surgical technique for inguinal hernia repair. This operation first introduced by Lichtenstein is accurately described by the authors. This kind of hernia repair was introduced in our operative unit because we think that the first cause of recurrence is the approximation of normally unopposed tissue under tension. This concept permits hernia repair without any suture line tension. For this principle the authors have been employing for one year the tension-free herniolplasty technique that was described by Lichtenstein. The authors consider a preliminary report of 144 cases in view of the long term follow-up; however, the results to date have been extremely satisfying: no infection has happened, no painful drugs was used, local anesthesia was usually employed, thus allowing intraoperative testing; early recovery. Finally, the technique is simple, rapid, relatively less painful, safe and effective.


The Global Positioning System (GPS), which was declared operational in December 1993, has provided continuous worldwide navigational capabilities in all types of weather. GPS has a minimum of 24 satellites in its constellation with additional fully functional spare satellites, which vary about 30 in total number. This navigational service has provided three-dimensional position within 30 meters and time within 100 ns to the civil community, which typically uses the coarse acquisition (C/A) code. The military GPS user has improved position accuracy within 6 meters using the dual GPS frequencies that carry the precise (P) code. The coarse resolution of a code measurement is about 1/10 of the smallest bit length of either code, which is about 29 m on C/A or 2.9 m with P code. Also, the GPS phase measurements can be determined well within 1/100 of a cycle by both civil and military receivers, so that the equivalent wavelength portion will be less than 0.19 cm and 0.24 cm. Recent GPS technology has improved civil navigation close to the military precision limits. To improve the precision by at least a hundred-fold, this dissertation considers a new exact linear navigation algorithm compared to the standard iterative GPS solution and also considers a new method of measurement by combining both carrier and phase measurements to improve pseudoranges within a centimeter tolerance. The GPS signal design is described in detail, and the novel techniques are derived explicitly. A simulation illustrating the novel exact solution demonstrates the greater versatility over the standard GPS iterative method, which, in some special cases, converges prematurely. Also, the GPS navigation solution is computed using both methods with actual GPS data against surveyed benchmarks. In conclusion, this dissertation: (1) derives a new exact linear GPS navigation algorithm as an alternative to the standard iterative GPS method, (2) demonstrates the standard iterative GPS navigation solution may stall prematurely in many small regions, which are dependent on the satellite configuration, before getting to the receiver's actual location, and (3) illustrates a new method that combines carrier phases with pseudorange data to obtain subcentimeter precision in the GPS pseudoranges plus improved navigation with the exact GPS algorithm.


Pluripotent stem cells are endowed with the dual capacity to self-renew and to differentiate towards all lineages. Genetic and genome-wide studies in different model organisms have provided compelling evidence for the importance of epigenetic factors both in the maintenance of pluripotency and in the establishment of cell lineage commitment, during embryonic differentiation and in regenerative events occurring in postnatal life.

In this special issue, we have collected reviews and reports highlighting the plasticity of the epigenome in embryonic, induced pluripotent and adult stem cells, providing readers with an overview of different molecular mechanisms, spanning from DNA methylation, histone modifications and variants, and regulatory RNAs.

In response to signals from the external niche and/or to intracellular signaling pathways, embryonic and adult stem cells engage epigenetic factors in the transition process towards differentiation. L. Fagnocchi et al. have summarized the current understanding of the cross-talk between extrinsic/intrinsic signaling pathways and epigenetic factors and how they cooperatively regulate the fate of different stem cell lineages.

Together with signaling molecules from the niche, metabolites and cofactors derived from the environment modulate intracellular pathways and the epigenetic response. A. J. Harvey et al. review several examples of metabolites and cofactors, which interface metabolic pathways and epigenetic targets, affecting histone marks and transcription.

DNA methylation, once believed to be an irreversible signature restricted to germ cells and embryo development, is now recognized as a dynamic modification, occurring in all cell types. R. C. Laker and J. G. Ryall present recent advances in our knowledge of the role of DNA methylation and hydroxymethylation in skeletal muscle stem cells, with an emphasis on recent whole genome sequencing results that show genomic enrichment for these modifications outside promoter regions and underscore their plastic role in sensing environmental cues.

Recently, the novel function of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in maintaining pluripotency of ESCs has been explored. A. Rosa and M. Ballarino present an overview of the underlying molecular mechanisms of lncRNAs in regulating ESC pluripotency and differentiation. Another class of noncoding RNAs are presented in the review by A. D. Haase, in which PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) are described. piRNAs developed transcription and posttranscription strategies to limit the spread of transposon elements, which are mobile genetic elements threatening genomic integrity. The author describes piRNAs as an RNA-based immune system guarding the genome integrity through non-self-memory and adaptive protection against transposons.

Adult stem cells hold great promise for their clinical relevance in regenerative medicine.

In the article by S. Consalvi et al., the authors describe many of the epigenetic regulators involved in the differentiation of skeletal muscle stem cells. The authors focus predominantly on the processes of histone acetylation and deacetylation but also describe a potentially novel role for noncoding RNAs in the epigenetic regulation of differentiation and the potential for epigenetic modulation of skeletal muscle stem cells for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).

In the review by F. A. Choudry and M. Frontini, the authors give an overview on the changes of the epigenetic landscape within the haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) compartment occurring in the elderly, which may be linked to increased occurrence of myeloproliferative disorders, myeloid malignancy, and thrombosis observed in the elderly. Epigenetic changes in the HSC compartment affect HSC activity, survival, and function and they might lead to the selection and expansion of particular HSC clones generating myeloid and platelet skewing of the haematopoietic system distinctive of the elderly population.

The review by L. Rouhana and J. Tasaki focuses on the process of tissue regeneration in lower order organisms. The authors discuss the careful integration of DNA methylation, histone modifications, and noncoding RNAs in the regulation of regeneration, as well as the important role of programmed cell death.

In contrast to changes to the DNA sequence, epigenetic modifications are reversible and are therefore considered promising therapeutic targets for the use of stem cells in the treatment of human diseases. In their review, R. Fernandez-Santiago and M. Ezquerra describe how induced pluripotent stem cells are becoming a valuable model for neurodegenerative disorders, recapitulating key disease-associated molecular events. Furthermore, these authors highlight the potential of epigenetic regulation of patient-specific iPSC-derived neural models to develop novel therapeutic approaches for human disorders.

During the cellular reprogramming of somatic cells, distinctive chromatin status coupled with gene expression changes is an important determinant for the reprogramming efficiency towards pluripotency. In the research paper contributed by F. Dong et al., the authors showed that redistribution of histone variants H2A.Z during the reprogramming process alters nucleosome stability to increase expression of genes that promote reprogramming.

Together with kinase inhibitors, cocktails of epigenetic modulators can be used to promote reprogramming and to probe stem cells functions. In their report, Y.-C. Han et al. describe a novel method to induce neuronal stem cells from mouse embryonic fibroblasts, with the use of small molecules, and suggest that the reprogramming is enhanced by histone demethylation and histone acetylation and decreased DNA methylation.

Transdifferentiation is an alternative approach to somatic reprogramming of induced pluripotent stem cells, which allows the direct conversion of one cell type into another, bypassing safety concerns related to the pluripotent cell state. G. Palazzolo and colleagues present an original research paper documenting a transdifferentiation process used to convert fibroblasts from golden retriever dogs with muscular dystrophy (GRMD) directly to cardiac-like myocytes. While the induced cells do not exhibit spontaneous contraction in vitro, when transplanted into the hearts of neonatal mice, the induced cells were found to participate in cardiac myogenesis.

Overall, this special issue highlights recent advances in our understanding of epigenetic regulation of stem cells and describes several new approaches to investigate stem cell biology to model human disorders and develop novel therapies for disease states.

Giuseppina Caretti

Libera Berghella

Aster Juan

Lucia Latella

James Ryall


Paddy is a predominant kharif crop of Uttar Pradesh as well as the country and plays a major role in augmenting the income of small and marginal farmers of Chandauli district of Uttar Pradesh. One of the major constraints of traditional paddy cultivation is low productivity due to non-adoption of recommended package of practices and improved varieties. To overcome this anomaly Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Chandauli conducted frontline demonstrations in farmers' fields at different locations in the district with high yielding variety Swarna sub-1 and applying scientific practices in cultivation including line transplanting. The paddy productivity and economic returns under improved technologies were calculated and compared with the prevailing farmers' practice. Results revealed that Swarna sub -1 variety under improved practices recorded higher yield of 15.51% and 18.55% during 2015-16 and 2016-17 and the recommended practice gave higher net returns of Rs 56856 and 60595 per ha and B:C ratio of 3.86:1and 3.99:1 respectively as compared to farmers practice.


BACKGROUND
The poor prognosis of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is accounted for by the absence of early diagnostic markers and effective treatments. MicroRNAs inhibit the translation of their target mRNAs. The production of microRNAs is strongly altered in cancers, but the causes of these alterations are only partially known. DNA hypermethylation is a major cause of gene inactivation in cancer. Our aims were to identify microRNAs whose gene expression is inactivated by hypermethylation in PDAC and to determine whether this hypermethylation-mediated repression is an early event during pancreatic carcinogenesis. We also sought to investigate whether these differentially methylated regions can serve as a diagnostic marker for PDAC.

METHODS
MicroRNA production was measured by microarray hybridization and reverse-transcription quantitative PCR. The level of DNA methylation was measured by bisulfite mapping and semiquantitative methylation-specific PCR.

RESULTS
We identified 29 microRNAs encoded by genes whose expression is potentially inactivated by DNA hypermethylation. We focused our study on microRNA 148a (miR-148a) and found its production to be repressed, not only in PDAC samples but also in preneoplastic pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanIN) lesions. More importantly, we found that hypermethylation of the DNA region encoding miR-148a is responsible for its repression, which occurs in PanIN preneoplastic lesions. Finally, we show that the hypermethylated DNA region encoding miR-148a can serve as an ancillary marker for the differential diagnosis of PDAC and chronic pancreatitis (CP).

CONCLUSIONS
We show that the hypermethylation of the DNA region encoding miR-148a is responsible for its repression in PDAC precursor lesions and can be a useful tool for the differential diagnosis of PDAC and CP.


We develop an equilibrium model of a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) network with multiproducts, uncertain demands, and returns. This model belongs to the context of oligopolistic firms that compete noncooperatively in a Cournot-Nash framework under a stochastic environment. To satisfy the demands, we use two different channels: manufacturing new products and remanufacturing returned products through recycling used components. Since both the demands and product returns are uncertain, we consider two types of risks: overstocking and understocking of multiproducts in the forward supply chain. Then we set up the Cournot-Nash equilibrium conditions of the CLSC network whereby we maximize every oligopolistic firm's expected profit by deciding the production quantities of each new product as well as the path flows of each product on the forward supply chain. Furthermore, we formulate the Cournot-Nash equilibrium conditions of the CLSC network as a variational inequality and prove the
existence and the monotonicity of the variational inequality. Finally, numerical examples are presented to illustrate the efficiency of our model.


In this paper, genetic algorithms are used to robustify digital multivariable PID controllers for robotic manipulators. This process of robustification is effected by using genetic algorithms to determine the optimal set of controller tuning parameters for typical trajectory-tracking tasks. This use of genetic algorithms is illustrated by the design of a digital trajectory-tracking controller for a typical three-degree-of-freedom robotic manipulator.


Text-conditioned image generation models often generate incorrect associations between entities and their visual attributes. This reflects an impaired mapping between linguistic binding of entities and modifiers in the prompt and visual binding of the corresponding elements in the generated image. As one notable example, a query like"a pink sunflower and a yellow flamingo"may incorrectly produce an image of a yellow sunflower and a pink flamingo. To remedy this issue, we propose SynGen, an approach which first syntactically analyses the prompt to identify entities and their modifiers, and then uses a novel loss function that encourages the cross-attention maps to agree with the linguistic binding reflected by the syntax. Specifically, we encourage large overlap between attention maps of entities and their modifiers, and small overlap with other entities and modifier words. The loss is optimized during inference, without retraining or fine-tuning the model. Human evaluation on three datasets, including one new and challenging set, demonstrate significant improvements of SynGen compared with current state of the art methods. This work highlights how making use of sentence structure during inference can efficiently and substantially improve the faithfulness of text-to-image generation.


The present study was undertaken to evaluate the antioxidant effect of alcoholic extract of Chlorella vulgaris and Spirulina platensis on extending the shelf life of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) fillet in 4 ± 1 °C. The experiments were performed on 5 samples (1 blank and 4 treatments) and in triplicate. The results from DPPH and FRAP assays represents the higher antioxidant activity of Chlorella (42.96% and 0.33) at concentration of 200 μg/ml and Spirulina (62.46% and 0.41; 77.12% and 0.46) at concentrations of 400 and 600 μg/ml, respectively. The results from performed chemical tests compared to the blank sample showed that samples treated with algae extracts were able to control the increase in these parameters. Among the treated samples, maximum control of peroxide value, thiobarbituric acid and free fatty acid, respectively pertained to the treatments containing 0.1% of Spirulina (3.14, 2.93 and 2.25) and Chlorella (3.21, 3.06 and 2.28) extracts. The results of sensory evaluation showed that except the sample containing 0.05% of Chlorella, in other samples containing the algae extract, less negative effects on color, odor, texture and taste were observed. Consequently, Chlorella and Spirulina extracts can delay lipid oxidation process and maintain or improve sensory properties of refrigerated


Although access to remote laboratory equipment through a networking infrastructure is becoming an actively investigated and experimented topic, most current implementations are dedicated to specific application environments. Nonetheless, essentially the same basic structure, in terms of protocol and software architecture, can be used to face a great deal of heterogeneous experimental settings. The variability in the resources available to users, both in terminal and access network capabilities, requires a high degree of flexibility, abstraction, application independence, and ease of configuration in the user's access devices. A further aspect regards the possible need of distributing the experiment's results to a large user population, which calls for the adoption of multicasting. This paper reports the architecture developed and the results achieved within the three-year term LABNET project, which has addressed these issues within an integrated laboratory environment, aimed at providing unified access to heterogeneous equipment for a multiplicity of users with potentially different capabilities and skills


Feral cats (Felus catus) inhabiting the Dutch island of Schiermonnikoog are a potential threat for local prey species populations. To get more insight into the spatial ecology of this invasive predator, ten feral cats were equipped with GPS tags and followed from May till July 2014. Spatio-temporal analyses show an average 3-month home range of 81 ha for Kernel 95% and 158 ha for MCP 95%. Nocturnal home ranges were larger than diurnal home ranges but no differences were found between sexes or age classes. Habitat use showed that the cats had a small preference for short salt marsh vegetation during the night. Also, the cats showed a higher nightly displacement, while the daily migration and cumulative daily displacement varied greatly per cat. Scat analyses revealed that hares contributed the most to the diet in terms of relative prey volume, but the common vole (Microtus arvalis) was the most numerous prey item. The preference for short salt marsh vegetation during the night could indicate hunting for nocturnal species foraging there, such as hares (Lepus europaeus) and rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus). While voles were the main prey, frequent bird remains in the scats still suggest a potential threat for bird populations.


Prior to 1871 public elementary education in the borough of South Shields was carried on by various bodies. These included the National Society, the British and Foreign Society, the Roman Catholic and the Presbyterian Church authorities and local industrial companies. There were eleven voluntary schools providing 5,092 places for about 8,000 children of school age. The curriculum in these schools was almost exclusively confined to the three R's as laid down by the Revised Code of 1862.II. The School Board was an ad hoc body set up under the Elementary Education Act, 1870,to provide the elementary school places which were urgently needed in the borough. Eleven school boards functioned successively between 1871 and 1903 providing the necessary school places. The Board built fifteen schools and took over the management of six voluntary schools providing accommodation for 14,865 children. Nine voluntary schools also functioned in 1903 with 4,918 places. Attendance was made compulsory from the inception of the Board and the school fees were high compared with other school boards. The Board's administration under the Elementary Education Acts and the regulations of the central authority was typical of the kind to be found in 'a poor and populous' district. It met the challenge of providing sufficient elementary school places when the population of the borough was rising rapidly and in spite of the opposition from the rate-payers. The struggle to gain control of the Board continued throughout its existence between the two opposing factions, the Sectarians and the Unsectarians. The Sectarians promoted the interests of the voluntary schools whilst the Unsectarians, who controlled nine of the eleven Boards, endeavoured to gain exclusive control of public elementary education in the borough. Despite this struggle the 'dual' system was firmly established when the new local authority took over the responsibility for public education under the Education Act o f 1902. III. By a generous interpretation of the Elementary Education Acts, together with the acquiescence of the Education Department, the Board provided higher elementary and technical education in its day and evening schools. Beginning with the Science and Art classes a t the Ocean Road Board School in 1887,the Board next built a higher grade department as part of the Westoe Road Board School in 1890; it was re-organised in 1895 as a higher grade and organised science school. The Board finally built a new higher grade school at Westoe for 680 pupils whilst|the Gockerton case was proceeding.


Tribological attributes of post-chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) brush scrubbing process were investigated as a function of type and velocity of the brush roller, applied pressure, and the pH of the cleaning solution. Coefficient of friction (COF) results were significantly different for the two types of brush rollers over a wide range of operating conditions. The two types of rollers were subjected to a battery of dynamic mechanical analyses and shown to be identical to one another in terms of flexural storage modulus and tan δ. By quantifying the extent of deformation of the entire brush roller during actual scrubbing using real-time pressure sensing technology, it became apparent that for a given applied load on the brush, the less compliant brush roller (by about 10%) resulted in proportionately higher COF, thus underscoring the importance of brush design and method of mechanical testing of the roller for imparting desired amounts of shear force on the surface of the wafer during scrubbing.


Ice is a common mineral at the Earth's surface. How much ice is stored in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets depends on its mechanical properties. Therefore properties of ice directly impact on human society through its role in controlling sea level. The bulk behaviour of large ice masses is the result of the behaviour of the ensemble of individual ice grains. This is strongly influenced by the viscoplastic anisotropy of these grains and their lattice orientation. Numerical modelling provides a better insight into the mechanics of ice from the micro to the ice sheet scale. We present numerical simulations that predict the microstructural evolution of an aggregate of pure ice grains at different strain rates. We simulate co-axial deformation and dynamic recrystallization up to large strain using a full-field approach.
The crystal plasticity code (Lebensohn et al., 2009) is used to calculate the response of a polycrystalline aggregate that deforms by purely dislocation glide, applying a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). This code is coupled with the ELLE microstructural modelling platform to include intracrystalline recovery, as well as grain boundary migration driven by the reduction of surface and strain energies.
The results show a strong effect of recrystallization on the final microstructure, producing larger and more equiaxed grains, with smooth boundaries. This effect does not significantly modify the single-maximum pattern of c-axes that are distributed at a low angle to the shortening direction. However, in experiments with significant recrystallization the a-axes rotate towards the elongation axis at the same time as the c-axes rotate towards the compression axis. If slip systems on prismatic and/or pyramidal planes are active, it is thought that a-axes gradually concentrate with depth (Miyamoto, 2005). The bulk activity of the slip systems is different depending on the relative activity of deformation versus recrystallization: the non-basal slip systems are more active at high strain in experiments with dynamic recrystallization compared to those experiments with low recrystallization activity.


Promising for digital signal processing applications, approximate computing has been extensively considered to tradeoff limited accuracy for improvements in other circuit metrics such as area, power, and performance. In this paper, approximate arithmetic circuits are proposed by using emerging nanoscale spintronic devices. Leveraging the intrinsic current-mode thresholding operation of spintronic devices, we initially present a hybrid spin-CMOS majority gate design based on a composite spintronic device structure consisting of a magnetic domain wall motion stripe and a magnetic tunnel junction. We further propose a compact and energy-efficient accuracy-configurable adder design based on the majority gate. Unlike most previous approximate circuit designs that hardwire a constant degree of approximation, this design is adaptive to the inherent resilience in various applications to different degrees of accuracy. Subsequently, we propose two new approximate compressors for utilization in fast multiplier designs. The device-circuit SPICE simulation shows 34.58% and 66% improvement in power consumption, respectively, for the accurate and approximate modes of the accuracy-configurable adder, compared to the recently reported domain wall motion-based full adder design. In addition, the proposed accuracy-configurable adder and approximate compressors can be efficiently utilized in the discrete cosine transform (DCT) as a widely-used digital image processing algorithm. The results indicate that the DCT and inverse DCT (IDCT) using the approximate multiplier achieve  $\sim$2x energy saving and 3x speed-up compared to an exactly-designed circuit, while achieving comparable quality in its output result.


Abstract: A group of African American and Dalit scholars are at work on a project on the similarities in the histories and lives of African and Dalit peoples. Scholars such as Ivan van Sertima, Runoko Rashidi, V. T. Rajshekar, and others form this submerged network of Afro-Dalit literature. The Afro-Dalit project seeks to posit a common origin for Africans and Dalits as a means to call for political solidarity in the present. "Afro-Dalits of the Earth, Unite!" explores the framework of Afro-Dalit scholarship, critiques it, and then offers an alternative approach to the interconnections in African and Indian life. Rather than endorsing epidermal determinism, this article calls for a polycultural approach to the cosmopolitanism of our lives.


This thesis aims to understand how indigenous heritage values might be represented in post-colonial urban environments. Using an urban design and landscape architecture lens, this paper builds on an emerging body of heritage knowledge in an attempt to recognize the contrasts between western and indigenous heritage values.  Through the study of a selection of indigenous landscape precedents from America, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand, common representational trends of heritage design are identified. These examples illustrate some of the issues that arise when landscapes of indigenous significance are presented within a western heritage framework.  The documents, Tapuwae and Te Aranga: Māori Cultural Landscape Strategy are introduced as guides to Māori intangible heritage. These guides are discussed in relation to the New Zealand urban design and heritage discourse. Contemporary outcomes of this current heritage climate include Waitangi Park and Pipitea pa. These are discussed and found to possess a number of values contributing to a positive approach to indigenous heritage design within Wellington's challenging urban environment.  To continue this discussion, 39 Taranaki Street becomes the site of a design exploration. In 2005, three ponga (silver tree fern) whare (houses) of Te Aro pa, were unearthed on this site. The whare are the only known physical trace of the Taranaki whānui's pa (village), which stood from 1835 to 1902. The whare are currently preserved in-situ as part of an apartment complex. The design concept is to link the past layers to the current and future development of the site and its precinct in order to celebrate the close connection between the past and the present that intangible heritage practices facilitate.


The inositol pyrophosphate signaling molecule 1,5-IP8 modulates fission yeast phosphate homeostasis via its action as an agonist of RNA 3′-processing and transcription termination. Cellular IP8 levels are determined by Asp1, a bifunctional enzyme composed of an N-terminal kinase and a C-terminal pyrophosphatase domain. ABSTRACT Expression of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe phosphate regulon is sensitive to the intracellular level of the inositol pyrophosphate signaling molecule 1,5-IP8. IP8 dynamics are determined by Asp1, a bifunctional enzyme consisting of an N-terminal kinase domain and a C-terminal pyrophosphatase domain that catalyze IP8 synthesis and catabolism, respectively. Here, we report structures of the Asp1 kinase domain, crystallized with two protomers in the asymmetric unit, one of which was complexed with ligands (ADPNP, ADP, or ATP; Mg2+ or Mn2+; IP6, 5-IP7, or 1,5-IP8) and the other which was ligand-free. The ligand-free enzyme adopts an "open" conformation that allows ingress of substrates and egress of products. ADPNP, ADP, and ATP and associated metal ions occupy a deep phospho-donor pocket in the active site. IP6 or 5-IP7 engagement above the nucleotide favors adoption of a "closed" conformation, in which surface protein segments undergo movement and a disordered-to-ordered transition to form an inositol polyphosphate-binding site. In a structure mimetic of the kinase Michaelis complex, the anionic 5-IP7 phosphates are encaged by an ensemble of nine cationic amino acids: Lys43, Arg223, Lys224, Lys260, Arg274, Arg285, Lys290, Arg293, and Lys341. Alanine mutagenesis of amino acids that contact the adenosine nucleoside of the ATP donor underscored the contributions of Asp258 interaction with the ribose 3′-OH and of Glu248 with adenine-N6. Changing Glu248 to Gln elicited a gain of function whereby the kinase became adept at using GTP as phosphate donor. Wild-type Asp1 kinase can utilize N6-benzyl-ATP as phosphate donor. IMPORTANCE The inositol pyrophosphate signaling molecule 1,5-IP8 modulates fission yeast phosphate homeostasis via its action as an agonist of RNA 3′-processing and transcription termination. Cellular IP8 levels are determined by Asp1, a bifunctional enzyme composed of an N-terminal kinase and a C-terminal pyrophosphatase domain. Here, we present a series of crystal structures of the Asp1 kinase domain, in a ligand-free state and in complexes with nucleotides ADPNP, ADP, and ATP, divalent cations magnesium and manganese, and inositol polyphosphates IP6, 5-IP7, and 1,5-IP8. Substrate binding elicits a switch from open to closed conformations, entailing a disordered-to-ordered transition and a rearrangement or movement of two peptide segments that form a binding site for the phospho-acceptor. Our structures, along with structure-guided mutagenesis, fortify understanding of the mechanism and substrate specificity of Asp1 kinase, and they extend and complement structural and functional studies of the orthologous human kinase PPIP5K2.


In 2006, Hong Kong's Court of Appeal had to decide whether it was lawful for an employer to deliberately adopt a strategy to avoid having to make a statutory payment to an employee. The employer's liability to make that payment was contingent on the employee completing a prescribed period of continuous service. The employer engaged the employee under successive, non-continuous contracts of employment, each for a shorter duration than the prescribed period to prevent his liability for the payment from crystallising. The Court of Appeal held that there was nothing unlawful in an employer arranging his affairs so as to prevent his liability for the payment from even arising. This article analyses the case concerned and expounds how the foregoing decision could see employers avoiding a whole range of employee rights and benefi ts under the Employment Ordinance. The article views such conduct as negating the legislative intention and as being contrary to the norms of justice. To rectify the situation as it currently stands, we propose an amendment to the Employment Ordinance to prohibit such avoidance.


The Induction motors (IM) are used worldwide as the workhorse in most of the industrial applications due to their simplicity, high performance, robustness and capability of operating in hazardous as well as extreme environmental conditions. However, the speed control of IM is complex as compared to the DC motor due to the presence of coupling between torque and flux producing components. The speed of the IM can be controlled using scalar control and vector control techniques. The most commonly used technique for speed control of IM is scalar control method. In this method, only the magnitude and frequency of the stator voltage or current is regulated. This method is easy to implement, but suffers from the poor dynamic response. Therefore, the vector control or field oriented control (FOC) is used for IM drives to achieve improved dynamic performance. In this method, the IM is operated like a fully compensated and separately excited DC motor. However, it requires more coordinate transformations, current controllers and modulation schemes. In order to get quick dynamic performance, direct torque and flux controlled (DTFC) IM drive is used. The DTFC is achieved by direct and independent control of flux linkages and electromagnetic torque through the selection of optimal inverter switching which gives fast torque and flux response without the use of current controllers, more coordinate transformations and modulation schemes. Many industries have marked various forms of IM drives using DTFC since 1980.
The linear fixed-gain proportional-integral (PI) based speed controller is used in DTFC of an IM drive (IMD) under various operating modes. However, The PI controller (PIC) requires proper and accurate gain values to get high performance. The PIC gain values are tuned for a specific operating point and which may not be able to perform satisfactorily when the load torque and operating point changes. Therefore, the PIC is replaced by Type-1 fuzzy logic controller (T1FLC) to improve the dynamic performance over a wide speed range and also load torque disturbance rejections. The T1FLC is simple, easy to implement and effectively deals with the nonlinear control system without requiring complex mathematical equations using simple logical rules, which are decided by the expert. In order to further improve the controller performance, the T1FLC is replaced by Type-2 fuzzy logic controller (T2FLC). The T2FLC effectively handles the large footprint of uncertainties compared to the T1FLC due to the availability of three-dimensional control with type-reduction technique (i.e. Type-2 fuzzy sets and Type-2 reducer set) in the defuzzification process, whereas the T1FLC consists only a Type-1 fuzzy sets and single membership function. The training data for T1FLC and T2FLC is selected based on the PIC scheme.


Anelastic relaxation measurements have been used in order to obtain information about several aspects of the behavior of solutes in metals, for example, matrix-solute interaction, interstitial diffusion, etc. The diffusion coefficient for interstitial solutes in body centered-cubic metals is accurately determined by anelastic relaxation measurements. The kind of preferential occupation of the interstitial solutes in body centered-cubic metals, such as oxygen and nitrogen in tantalum, is still controversial. Internal friction and frequency measurements as a function of temperature in tantalum sample were performed using a torsion pendulum operating in a frequency oscillation in the hertz bandwidth. These results presented the following phenomenon: the intensity of the internal friction peak decreased between the first run and the other runs. These results were decomposed, by the successive subtraction method, in elementary Debye peaks, for determination of characteristic anelastic relaxation parameters (relaxation strength, peak temperature, activation energy and relaxation time). Interstitial diffusion coefficients for oxygen in tantalum were determined, for different intensities of internal friction peaks, and when compared with literature, these results introduced a better adjustment for the tetrahedral preferential occupation sites of oxygen in tantalum.


The (small-strain) elastic moduli of soil can be determined from stress wave velocity measurements. Bender/extender elements are widely used in laboratory experiments; however, discussion on how to accurately determine wave velocities using this method continues. Planar piezoelectric transducers (sometimes called shear plates) are a relatively new technology, whose use is not yet widely established, that appear to offer some advantages in comparison with bender/extender elements for laboratory geophysics tests. This contribution critically assesses the use of planar piezoelectric elements experimentally and using discrete element method (DEM) simulations. Planar piezoelectric elements capable of generating and receiving either shear or compression waves were placed in the top and base caps of a triaxial apparatus. Samples of glass ballotini were used so that stress wave propagation simulations could be performed on equivalent virtual samples using DEM. The appropriate shear plate configuration to effectively measure the shear wave velocity is explored. Considering both time- and frequency-domain responses, it is revealed that shear plate signals are sensitive to the surface area and thickness of the piezoelectric elements and to the lateral boundary conditions. Using a shear plate with the widest possible surface area exposed to the soil specimen is recommended to increase the signal-to-noise ratio and to produce more planar shear waves, resulting in a more accurate measurement of shear wave velocity.


Objective: Procalcitonin is considered a possible predictive marker of severity in the early phase of acute pancreatitis. The variations of procalcitonin levels after ERCP and its contribution to the determination of the severity of post-ERCP pancreatitis were studied. Methods: Serum procalcitonin was measured with immunoluminometric assay (normal<0.5ng/ml) in 196 patients who underwent ERCP. Samples from all patients included in the study were collected 6 hours after ERCP. Samples from patients who experienced pancreatic type pain were also collected 24 hours after ERCP. Severity of pancreatitis was graded according to consensus criteria. Results: Ten patients developed pancreatitis, 3 severe, 1 moderate and 6 mild. Procalcitonin did not exceed 0.5ng/ml in any of them. Significant elevations of procalcitonin were observed when acute cholangitis was encountered. Conclusion: Procalcitonin was not useful in the prediction of the severity in the early phase of post-ERCP acute pancreatitis. The absence of organ failure and infective complications may have contributed to this result.


The effect of burning by fire flame on the behavior and load carrying capacity of rectangular reinforced concrete (RC) rigid beams is addressed in this paper. Reduced scale beam models (which are believed to resemble as much as possible field conditions) were suggested. Five end restrained beam specimens of casting and testing. The specimens were subjected to fire flame temperatures ranging from (25-750°C) at age of 60 days, two temperature levels of 400 and 750°C were chosen with exposure duration of 1.5 h. The rectangular reinforced concrete beam (2250×375×375 mm) (length× width× height respectively) were cast and subjected to fire. Test results indicate remarkable reduction in the ultrasonic pulse velocity and rebound number of the rigid beams cooled in water were (2-5%) more than the rigid beam specimens cooled in air. Load-deflection curves indicate deleterious response to the fire exposure. Also, it was noticed that the maximum crack width increases with increasing fire temperature.

 Key words: Reinforced concrete (RC), rigid beams, fire flame, cracking, nominal moment capacity, fire resistance.


Volunteers in Social Service: Dorothy H. Sills. 51 pp., 1947. National Travelers Aid Association, ~25 Fourth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 35 cents. This pamphlet is focused on a discussion of the volunteer's role in direct service to clients in casework agencies. It attempts to analyze the resistance of professional staff to sharing responsibility for clients with volunteers and to outline the basic principles of planning for volunteer participation. Emphasis is put on careful analysis by the agency of that part of the total job which does not need to be carried by professional staff and on selective recruiting and careful training and supervision of volunteers. The most helpful chapter is that on .. Volunteers in Travelers Aid" where general broad principles are modified by specific criteria on the use of volunteers in one agency.


Lumpectomy and irradiation is an increasingly popular treatment option for women with breast cancer. Currently, modified radical mastectomy is selected about as often. Most women choosing to have a mastectomy desire reconstruction to improve the cosmetic result; this procedure can be done immediately or at a later time. If immediate reconstruction using a plastic implant is selected, an expander can be used if the skin cover is inadequate. A myocutaneous flap can be used either immediately or later and whether sufficient skin is available. The trans rectus abdominal myocutaneous (TRAM) flap is increasingly popular because a large amount of tissue can be transferred and the cosmetic blemish from tissue transfer is preferable on the lower abdomen than elsewhere. Treatment costs are of some importance. The cheapest procedure is the modified radical mastectomy; lumpectomy with iridium implant is the most expensive, and the other treatments fall in between. Cancer 68:1144–1147, 1991.


Abstract As we enter the 21st Century, school psychologists are in a key position to participate in comprehensive health care of children and adolescents. For the most part, however, school psychologists have persisted in the conduct of traditional psychoeducational assessment as a primary function. Presented here is a model for thinking about school psychology in which practitioners assume an active role in addressing the health and mental health needs of children and adolescents. Comprehensive health care is defined as an integrated system of culture-specific services ranging from prevention to treatment directed toward health, mental health, and related needs of students and their families. The model is rooted in developmental-ecological theory and action research methodology and embodies a participatory approach in which caregivers, stakeholders, and professionals work together to design, implement, and evaluate interventions. Realizing a role in health care requires changes in the conceptual framework and professional identity characterizing school psychology.


Recently, it has been shown that an asymmetric nanoscale deformation of translationally symmetric optical fibres can cause strong localization of whispering gallery modes. In particular, a whispering gallery mode nanobump microresonator has been introduced and its theory was developed. In this presentation, the spectral properties of resonators created by more complex nanoscale deformations of the optical fibre surface and refractive index (e.g., multi-bump resonators and resonators with harmonic azimuthal effective radius variation) are investigated. The results are important for the design and fabrication of SNAP (Surface Nanoscale Axial Photonics) devices which are created by permanent or temporal nanoscale local deformation of optical fibres.


This paper presents a novel approach to generate online jerk-limited trajectories for multi-DOF robotic systems. Finite Impulse Response filters are used to efficiently turn low computational cost acceleration-limited profiles into jerk-limited profiles. Starting from a new setpoint, e.g. an event given by external sensors, and an arbitrary state of motion, i.e. with non-zero initial velocity and acceleration values, the proposed method can generate different shapes of jerk profile, including time-optimal and fixed-time jerk-limited trajectories. A new definition of the velocity, acceleration and jerk kinematic limits can be instantaneously taken into account during the motion. Moreover, the very low calculation time (less than 1 microsecond) makes it possible to easily control a multi-DOF system during one control cycle (classically about 1 millisecond), while preserving time for other computer processing. The algorithm is experimentally tested on the new 7-DOF industrial robot KUKA LWR iiwa.


Introduction Surgical Site Infections (SSI) are a common complication which negatively impact on patient quality of life and constitute a financial burden to healthcare providers. The objective of this study is to evaluate whether using warmed, humidified carbon dioxide for peritoneal insufflation decreases the incidence of SSIs, improves patient safety and provides value for money. Method A retrospective cohort study of patients undergoing elective laparoscopic colorectal resection for both benign and malignant disease was performed at a single UK specialist centre from September 2012 to July 2014. The control group (n = 126) received peritoneal insufflation with standard cold, dry carbon dioxide whereas the intervention group (n = 126) received peritoneal insufflation with warmed, humidified carbon dioxide (using HumiGardTM, Fisher&Paykel Healthcare). All patients had standard prophylactic antibiotic therapy on induction. The primary outcome measures were incidence of SSI and costs (standard-of-care costs, intervention costs and SSI treatment costs incurred at an average cost of £2000 per SSI). The intervention was assessed by calculating the Risk Ratio (RR), Odds Ratio (OR) and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) per infection-free patient gained. Results Median age was 68 (20–87). The median BMI was 27 (SD 5.98). The mean operation time was 211 min (SD 92.7), M:F ratio was 1:1. The primary diagnoses were as follows: cancer n = 174, diverticulitis n = 31, Crohn's n = 15, ulcerative colitis n = 10, other n = 22. There was no significant variation in age, BMI, sex, smoking status, operation time or conversion rates between groups. Introduction of warmed, humidified carbon dioxide for peritoneal insufflation reduced the incidence of SSI from 12% to 4.7% (RR = 0.40; p = 0.049; 95% CI: 0.160 – 0.997 and OR = 0.37; p = 0.047; 95% CI = 0.138 – 0.987). Treatment costs including SSI costs for patients in the control group amounted to approximately £31000 compared to £21500 in the intervention group. The ICER for the intervention is -£1226, the negative number indicating a net reduction in costs in addition to decreased SSI incidence. It costs on average £1226 less to generate each additional infection-free patient using the intervention. Conclusion This study indicates that warmed, humidified carbon dioxide is superior to cold, dry carbon dioxide for peritoneal insufflation in laparoscopic colorectal surgery. The intervention appears to be cost-effective whilst decreasing surgical morbidity. Disclosure of interest None Declared.


With the World Health Organization's declaration that 90% of the world breathes hazardous air, there is an increasing need to investigate the effects of ambient pollutants on human respiratory health. This research uses machine learning (ML) to examine asthma in Los Angeles County, an area with substantial pollution, and determine the success of classifiers in predicting future asthma-related hospitalizations. The objectives of applying ML-based solutions into healthcare are trifold. Firstly, it identifies the ML models that most accurately predict asthma hospitalizations. Secondly, it evaluates the significance of the correlation among ambient pollution, weather, and asthma. Ultimately, the model serves as a clinical support system to forewarn health care providers of asthma exacerbations. The hypothesis was that ML classification techniques would be able to predict asthmatic census based on ambient pollution and weather, displaying a positive trend between pollutant levels and asthma hospitalizations. The models revealed that nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ozone (O3) levels were significantly correlated with asthma hospitalizations. A simple decision tree was the least accurate but useful in selecting features for other models. K-nearest neighbors, random forest, gradient boosting, and support vector machine classifiers predicted the asthma quartile with accuracies of 68%, 65%, 64%, and 62%, respectively. Overall, four ML classifiers were promising predictors, all showing consistency in k-fold crossover testing. The seasonal surge in asthma hospitalizations suggests that further research should explore other seasonal variables and ML classifiers to improve the models.


This paper explores the relation between levels of taxation among different types of households in the European Union and the levels of software piracy from 1996 to 2010. It extends previous works introducing a large panel data set for the European Union and it´s different regions. We estimate our model using the fixed effect, comparing results from the Euro Area and the Countries that joined EU in 2004 and 2007. Results show that levels of taxation increase the levels of software piracy losses; moreover these results depend on marital status and number of children. The weight of taxation on GDP, namely the taxes on consumption, have a positive effect on piracy losses while the impact of inflation is negative and marginal. Additional to this we also found that the relative importance of these taxes in relation to total taxation can affect this phenomenon. An increase in the weight of capital taxation would decrease software piracy while this effect was opposite when considering the relative importance of consumption taxes.


Congenital neuromuscular transmission defects are uncommon but challenging diseases for the clinical neurologist. Some of these disorders entail severe or even life-threatening disability; some are treatable, but effective therapy requires precise diagnosis, and the precise diagnosis is often difficult to make. The diagnosis rests on the combination of clinical data, the electromyogram (EMG), and additional studies that may include microelectrode analysis of neuromuscular transniission, ultrastructural and cytochemical studies of the neuromuscular junction (NMJ), and biochemical studies on muscle specimens. Understandably, these studies often depend on the collaboration of several investigators. In each congenital myasthenic disorder, a genetically determined primary abnormality affects neuromuscular transmission directly or causes secondary derangements that eventually affect transmission. In either case, the safety margin of neuromuscular transmission is eventually compromised by one or more specific mechanisms. Therefore a clear grasp of the factors that affect the safety margin is essential for understanding these disorders.


Phase I of a 2-phase project funded by the NSF-National Science Digital Library Project used focus groups to determine how undergraduate science students perceive journal literature and how they use digital library resources. Their perceptions and use are contrasted with faculty and graduate teaching assistants in engineering, chemistry, and physics. Undergraduates have difficulties understanding journal articles. Although they consider themselves experts on the web, they rarely use online indexes or e-journals unless required to for class. E-Journals should be incrementally introduced to students starting at the time they declare a major. E-Modules developed by the library and faculty could introduce the structure and content of articles, including links to glossaries and encyclopedias, tutorials about the publishing process, and study of the structure of articles.


According to Engineer and Shi (1998, 2001) and Berentsen and Rocheteau (2003), the double coincidence of wants problem seems to be not essential to rationalize the use of money in a search theoretic framework. This paper analyzes an endogenous price search model of money where there is universal double coincidence of wants. The existence of a monetary equilibrium depends, essentially, on the asymmetry in the role played by economic agents in the exchange and production processes. In particular, entrepreneurs are assumed to produce a …xed amount of a divisible consumption good by means of labour services provided by workers. Entrepreneurs can o¤er a co-operative (barter) contract or a monetary contract to workers. Under the co-operative contract real wages are determined in the labour exchange sector, while in the monetary regime real wages are determined in the commodity exchange sector. The monetary contract is proved to be an equilibrium strategy provided that: (i) the workers' labour disutility is su¢ ciently high and/or (ii) the entrepreneurs' bargaining power in the commodity market is su¢ ciently large relative to their bargaining power in the labour market. The rationale for money comes from the fact that entrepreneurs use it as an instrument to maximize their output share. JEL code: D 78, E 40


This article discussed the study of Chinese calligraphy texts/characters at the Tjong A Fie Mansion museum as covered in philological scholarship. The notion of philology in this paper is not limited to the root words but is broader along with the development of this science from time to time, in studying the cultural treasures of the past from the object of study which is called a manuscript. The research method was paradigmatic in order to create a form of research report that has been done. Presented starting from the descriptive, analytical and comparative stages. Utilizing the theory of philological explanation from Henri Chambert-Loir. The results of this study were the reconstruction of text/characters as the content of the manuscript which was abstract and essential, to be precise the calligraphy characters found at the main entrance, front door and back of the left-wing of the Tjong A Fie Mansion museum building.


This study aims to determine the toxic effect for different concentrations of supercyren pesticide on some physiological and histological features of the sixty male mice by oral administration. The experimental mice took oral administration of 5mg and 10mg/Kg every day to every mice for two weeks in group 2 and 3 respectively and for four weeks for group 5 and 6 respectively. After 2 or 4 weeks AST, ALT and ALP enzymes, urea  , creatinine and testosterone hormone were estimated. The following organs were taken for histological studies (Liver, Kidney, testes). The results of this physiological study showed that the oral administration of supercyren pesticide affect these organs (Kidney, liver, testes). Then histological changes in kidney, liver and testes proved the physiological effect. On the other hand, the high concentration of the pesticide had a significant impact on users as well as the greater duration effect was greater physiological and histologically.


The fast development in the field of optoelectronics necessitates the search for new and efficient NLO crystal materials, which can be used for optoelectronics applications, such as optical computing, optical data storage, optical communication and electro optic shutters. For the fulfilment of these applications, crystals of calcium tartrate were grown by a simple gel technique using single diffusion method. The optimum growth conditions were established by various parameters such as pH of gel solution, gel concentration, gel setting time, concentration of reactants etc. Crystals having different morphologies and habits were obtained. The crystal size is about 5 x 4 x 3 mm. Calcium tartrate crystals are found to be orthorhombic with lattice parameters: a = 9.45900 A, b = 6.46400A, c = 5.39600A. The crystals were characterized by using XRD, TGA and DTA techniques.