A central aim of the Regional Policy of the European Union is a regional cohesion. Major instruments are regional policy programs financed via various European funds. The allocation of regional policy funds varies dramatically across regions even when one controls for regional development indicators. Thus, what political economy factors determine the access to financial support of regional policy funds? With this regard, the paper highlights the role of local government performance. Beyond, it is tested for spatial dependencies, e.g. if knowledge spillovers determine the ability to capture regional funds. Pars pro toto empirical analyses focus on the allocation of SAPARD funds in Slovakia using cross-section as well as panel data. The government performance is measured as a technical efficiency of local public good provision and derived within a non-parametric DEA approach. Results show that the government efficiency has a positive significant impact on the structural funding allocation. Furthermore, spatial dependencies occur. With respect to the program duration, it is concluded that knowledge spillovers take place, supporting a successfully program participation.


ABSTRACT Introduction It was aimed to evaluate the efficacy of two tea tree oil (TTO)-based cleansing gels in chronic blepharitis patients. Methods Group-1 (basic gel containing 3%(w/w)-TTO) included 50 eyes of 25 patients and group-2 (advanced gel containing 3%(w/w)-TTO plus essential oils and vitamins) included 48 eyes of 24 patients. Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI), tear breakup time (TBUT), ocular surface staining pattern, Schirmer's test, impression cytology, Demodex presence and TNF-α, IL-6, IL-1β levels were evaluated at the first visit and 1 month after treatment. Results In both groups, the mean OSDI score decreased (p1:0.001, p2:0.001), TBUT increased (p1:0.002, p2:0.004). In group-1, Demodex presence decreased from 42% to 27.8%; in group-2 from 54.2% to 20.6% (p1:0.302, p2:0.004). IL-1β and IL-6 decreased in group-2 (p1:0.002, p2:0.050). TNF-α decreased in both groups (p1:0.001, p2:0.001). Conclusion Both formulations improved ocular surface parameters. Group 2 showed more reduction in tear cytokines and Demodex count.


This book concerns the population biology of vector-borne diseases. Vector-borne diseases of people are a perennial challenge for public health. Although recent decades have enjoyed major declines in the incidence of diseases like malaria and onchocerciasis (river blindness), vector-borne diseases continue to claim the lives of more than 700,000 people per year and exact costs of tens of billions of dollars in expenses for control and through lost productivity (...


The cell surface receptor for the mitogenic peptide epidermal growth factor (EGF) is involved in control of normal cell growth and may play a role in the genesis of human neoplasia such as squamous carcinoma and glioblastoma. Soft-agar growth and focus-formation experiments with NIH 3T3 mouse fibroblasts transfected with an expression plasmid demonstrated the ligand-dependent transforming potential of the human EGF receptor without structural alterations. Activation of overexpressed normal receptor alone appears to be sufficient for transformation of NIH 3T3 cells in vitro.


The paper explores the hypothesis that the dollarization of liabilities in emerging market economies results from the dierent expectations that domestic rms and international investors may have on the stability of the exchange rate. I show that a certain degree of debt dollarization might be observed, if the fundamentals are relatively strong and domestic agents have an informational advantage on the state of the economy. Transparency on the international markets and policy implications of my ndings are briey discussed.


Despite strong recent economic growth, gender inequality remains a major concern for India. This dissertation examines the effectiveness of public policy in improving some important human development outcomes, with a focus on gender issues. The national Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostics Techniques (PNDT) Act of 1994, implemented in 1996, banned sex-selective abortions in the Indian states which hitherto had not legislated such a policy. Using village-level and town-level longitudinal data from the 1991 and 2001 censuses, along with household survey data from other sources, the first essay finds a significantly positive impact of the PNDT Act on the female-to-male juvenile sex ratio (number of females per 1000 males below the age of 6 years). Although researchers frequently mention the futility of the Act, this study is among the first to use a treatment-effect type analysis of the pre-ban and post-ban periods to show that the law hindered any further worsening of the gender imbalance in India. I find that in the possible absence of the PNDT Act, juvenile sex ratio would have declined by another 13-20 points on average. A second study evaluates the `unintended consequences' of the PNDT Act on child quality. Using household survey data from two time periods, and exploiting a natural experiment framework originating from the timing of the PNDT Act, I find a mixed impact of the law on gender-relative child quality outcomes. Since the PNDT Act partially improved the sex ratio but did not uniformly worsen the nutritional and immunization status of girls, it could be regarded as a truly welfare enhancing public policy. Finally, a third study examines the effectiveness of the Indian school feeding program in improving the nutritional and learning outcomes of children. Using a household fixed-effect and a propensity score matching framework, the outcomes of children receiving school meals are compared with that of similar children who are not covered under the program. The results show that the school meal program generally does not have any significant effect on the child nutrition nor learning outcomes, neither does it have any impact on the relative outcomes of the girl children.


"Nonparenteral" transmission of acute viral hepatitis was implicated in 50;5 per cent of 346 patients included in this study and in 67.5 per cent of 1,235 cases reviewed for the period 169-1973. Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBs Ag) was detected in 48.3 per cent of these patients. Of 476 family contacts of HBs Ag carriers 71 per cent had HBs Ag or anti-HBs, this being true for 88.8 per cent of siblings and for 67.7 per cent of offspring. Anti-HBs was detected in 10.4 per cent to 49.3 per cent of the populations tested, its frequency correlating with that of HBs Ag and increasing with age. Significant differences in the patterns of exposure to the hepatitis Bvirus (HBV) were seen between offspring and siblings of HBs Ag carries mainly determined by the observed HBs Ag prevalence in relation to their age. It was calculated that as many as 25 per cent of all Greeks may come into familial contact with HBs Ag carriers and acquire the infection mainly by nonparenteral mechanisms. It is concluded that in Greece there is already a wide exposure to HBV before vaccination programs.


Veblen has been claimed and rejected both by sociologists and economists as being one of theirs. He enriched and attacked both disciplines, as he did so many others: philosophy, history, social psychology, politics, and linguistics. Because he took all knowledge as necessary and relevant to adequate understanding, Veblen was a holistic analyst of the social process. First published in 1904, this classic analysis of the U.S. economy has enduring value today. In it, Veblen posited a theory of business fluctuations and economic growth which included chronic depression and inflation. He predicted the socioeconomic changes that would occur as a result: militarism, imperialism, fascism, consumerism, and the development of the mass media as well as the corporate bureaucracy. Douglas Dowd's introduction places the volume within the traditions of both macroeconomics and microeconomics, tracing Veblen's place among social thinkers, and the place of this volume in the body of his work.


The history of the relationship between Maori (the indigenous minority) and Pakeha (the dominant majority) is one that is encapsulated in processes of mediation. Pakeha resolve issues that favour kawanatanga solutions (article 1 of the Treaty) while Maori recommendations almost always line up with solutions that uphold questions to do with tino rangatiratanga (article 2 of the Treaty). Each takes into account forms of accommodation of the other but these compromise positions are usually the tasks for the public servants who are by definition, working for the government of the day, and therefore, on the side of kawanatanga. The point of articulation is critical in the nature of the relationship between Maori and Pakeha. The legal academic, Alex Frame (2002) describes this position as important for those New Zealanders "who have tried to walk in both worlds, thereby not only honouring and strengthening their own and each other's cultures, but also bringing to life a third and co-existing culture of interaction in Aotearoa". A study of a variety of mediating structures, explores the relationship between Maori and Pakeha and analyses the effects these have on both parties, especially as these pertain to developments in Maori education. An approach to settling the conundrum of prioritising one agenda without creating new grievances for redress is argued throughout the study. It is argued, further, that a major re-think is needed of what an education will mean in order to meet the requirements of a contemporary Polynesian/Western society that both honours the tenets of its foundation document as well as providing a rational basis for meeting commitments in the modern global society.


The use of discriminative models for structured classification tasks, such as speech recognition is becoming increasingly popular. This letter examines the use of structured log-linear models for noise robust speech recognition. An important aspect of log-linear models is the form of the features. By using generative models to derive the features, state-of-the-art model-based compensation schemes can be used to make the system robust to noise. Previous work in this area is extended in two important directions. First, a large margin training of sentence-level log linear models is proposed for automatic speech recognition (ASR). This form of model is shown to be similar to the recently proposed structured Support Vector Machines (SVM). Second, based on the designed joint features, efficient lattice-based training and decoding are performed. This novel model combines generative kernels, discriminative models, efficient lattice-based large margin training and model-based noise compensation. It is evaluated on a noise corrupted continuous digit task: AURORA 2.0.


This research is a survey research. The researcher took observation to collect the data that did in kecamatan sedayu gresik. And the title was the effect of variables of psychologist factor on choosing the cooking oil merk in package (the study of housewife in the kecamatan sedayu gresik). The purpose of this research was to know the effect of variables of psychologist factor
on choosing the cooking oil merk in package and the most variable which had effect on choosing the cooking oil merk in package. Then, regression linear was used in the data analysis by using F-test and T-test. Based on the finding and discussion, it could be concluded that psychological factor has significant effect on choosing cooking oil merk in package. Psychological factors involve motivation, perception, knowledge, belief, and behavior. Motivation variable was the variable which effect on it. After concluding, there were some suggestion that addressed to the company. The company was expected to affect the motivation housewives by giving the guaranty for the product quality, to affect the housewives perception with explanation the benefit through substances on the product, to make sure them that the product is really health. Therefore, the real action that could be done by conducting the promotion of information the composition and quality of substances on the product.


As Guest Artist in Drawing at Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Sian Bowen spent two years (2010-12) developing a new body of works; the Nova Zembla collection of prints, which, having lain frozen in the Arctic for three centuries, provided opportunities to explore the materiality of drawing and the ephemeral nature of museum objects on paper. The prints were carried as merchandise on a 1596 failed Dutch expedition to China. An over-wintering refuge on Nova Zembla housed these stacks until their discovery: they had been transformed into papier-mâche blocks. In 1977, methods were devised to reassemble the thousands of fragments.

The works in this exhibition reflect Bowen's own 'journey'
through the project, emphasizing the tactile qualities of her
artworks which, at the same time, employ light, transparency, perforation, reflection and fragility,
and consolidating the often fugitive nature of the materials used in
their making.
 The artist realized the project collaborating with Rijksmuseum's Paper
Conservation Studio to employ 16th century methods and materials to new ends, and also with archaeologists, curators, historians, printmakers and filmmakers. She worked closely with papermaker, Gangolf Ulbricht, to make paper for her drawings sympathetic to that of the Nova Zembla prints. In addition she retraced part of the route of the original expedition and filmed this journey through the fragmented icepack as it was reflected in a replica 'Claude glass'.


Today, the rapid growth of the large-scale applications conduces to a difficult challenge to individuals as well as the commercial organizations due to the limitation of the local computing resources. Meanwhile, the extension of the local computing platforms requires a huge investment about both finance and human power. Therefore, the use of nearly-unlimited resources and on-demand scaling of Cloud computing is considered as a potential solution to address the problems above. However, since Cloud computing is built from a pay-as-you-go model, the novel application scheduling approaches are challenged to guarantee the high efficiency of application execution and the reasonable cost for renting Cloud resources. In this paper, we present a novel framework built from the combination between the computing resources on Cloud computing and the computing components in the local systems. The key component of this framework is the Cost with Finish Time-based scheduling algorithm, which provides the balance between performance of application schedule and the mandatory cost for the use of Cloud resources. The experiments and comparison with the other scheduling approaches demonstrated the potential benefits of our proposed algorithm.


Independent operator networks are called either Autonomous Systems (AS) or domains. Numerous studies based on complex measurement platforms have been carried out for over ten years now in order to discover the Internet topology on domain level. The routing realized by Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is strongly influenced by commercial relationships which exist between domains, because domain operators do not want to make public the routes they know, as announcing certain routes would deprive them of a possible financial benefit. Consequently, routes available in BGP tables are valley-free and they are "spanned" on the inter-domain hierarchy. This property of BGP routes has an impact on the performance of protocols which are proposed to assure the QoS. We examined the existing Internet topologies gathered on the domain level over the six year period in the context of their hierarchy. We used aSHIIP, our random hierarchical topology generator, to induct the hierarchy into the collected topologies. We proposed new methods for detecting the core of a network. Thanks to this analysis we have been able to put forward solid inter-domain hierarchy induction methods which are implemented in our publicly available tool.


We discuss how an orthogonalized fractal decoding algorithm can be used to derive a fractal decomposition of the encoded image into a dc and a set of ac components that characterize the edge information in the image. The dc component can be characterized by its histogram. The ac components provide a model for the texture, and the distribution of each ac component can be well represented by a generalized Gaussian density (GGD), which can be efficiently characterized by two GGD parameters. Such characterization of the ac components is exploited in this work for texture image retrieval, and experimental results show that our proposed indexing technique based on our novel fractal dc and ac signature provides superior retrieval performance compared to current fractal indexing techniques. Moreover, the performance of our approach is comparable to the state of the art wavelet-based method at a fraction of the retrieval time.


Techniques based on linear prediction (LP) and the singular value decomposition (SVD) for the robust estimation of the parameters of closely spaced exponentially damped sinusoidal signals in additive noise are extended and improved. An iterative method of fitting lower-rank least squares approximations subject to a general choice of weights is used. The method is applied to data sequences consisting of one and two signals with impulsive noise or with missing data samples.<<ETX>>


This critical analysis of recent research and evaluations of welfare reform efforts describes how states have increasingly drawn on clinical knowledge in their efforts to move "hard-to-serve" recipients into the labor force. It argues that a clinical perspective is helpful as it brings attention to the mental health needs of low-income women. At the same time, however, this article suggests that states" use of a clinical framework is problematic in so far as it based on limited knowledge, dampens a broad discussion of the relationship between poverty and mental health, contributes to policy ambiguity, and increases recipient oversight. ********** In 1996, the United States federal government passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). PRWORA replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the federal entitlement program for single mothers and their children, with Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF), a time limited welfare-to-work benefits program. In its effort to reduce government "dependency" and promote economic "self-sufficiency," PRWORA gave states extensive flexibility in interpreting and implementing time limits and work participation requirements. Coupled with the unprecedented economic boom of the late 1990s, PRWORA measures contributed to a sweeping caseload decline. Although some states are currently experiencing a caseload rise, between 1996 and March, 2001 the TANF caseload fell 52% nationally (Savner, Strawn & Greenberg, 2002). In the face of this dramatic decline and upcoming TANF reauthorization in 2002, policy makers and researchers have devoted significant attention to recipients who remain on the rolls and have difficulty meeting work requirements. Currently referred to as the "hard-to-serve," many states have progressively looked to individual factors, including mental health problems, to account for recipients' persistent unemployment and welfare use. This article focuses on the implications of welfare reform for the "hard-to-serve" population. In its critical review of recent research and initial evaluations of welfare reform efforts, this examination finds that two phenomena are occurring in several states. First, states increasingly frame difficulty with or failure to meet work requirements as potential clinical problems that mental health professionals must assess and treat. Secondly, "street level bureaucrats," or state and local administrators and line workers, as well as mental health professionals currently exercise growing discretion and oversight in determining clinical diagnosis and, ultimately, continued welfare eligibility. As we argue, these state-level developments hold mixed implications for women receiving welfare. A clinical lens is helpful as it brings attention to the previously ignored mental health needs of low-income women. Yet states' use of clinical knowledge is problematic in so far as it is based on incomplete information and dampens a broad discussion of the complex relationships among poverty, mental health, work, and welfare. Moreover, mental health diagnoses and interventions are not exact sciences and are subject to variation based on the characteristics of the clinician and the client as well as larger social and political influences. Taken together, worker discretion and a clinical framework reinforce one another and result in ambiguous policies that are inconsistently implemented and applied. Finally, we suggest that states' use of clinical diagnoses and interventions produces greater oversight of recipients. Again, this may benefit women and be welcomed by some, but it also adds an additional investigatory layer in which women must prove themselves worthy of financial assistance. TANF and PRWORA The PRWORA of 1996 established TANF, the work-based welfare program for low-income adults with children, that imposes a non-consecutive 60-month lifetime federal time limit on aid receipt. …


The HIV protease inhibitor atazanavir presents a wide inter-individual variability related to an intense hepatic metabolism. Dose-dependent elevations of bilirubin have been frequently reported with atazanavir. Relative to literature, the atazanavir therapeutic drug monitoring can it be proposed? In naïve HIV-infected patients, the probability of achieving an undetectable HIV viral load at W48 was significantly associated with a plasma trough concentration (C(min)) of atazanavir >200 ng/mL. Studies in HIV-infected pre-treated patients reported that the genotypic inhibitory quotient was a predictive factor of the virologic response with a threshold value around 200 ng/mL/mutation. Concerning the exposure-toxicity relationship, the risk of occurrence of grade 3-4 hyperbilirubinemia was more frequently associated with C(min) > 750-800 ng/mL. Non-randomized studies have reported the interest of atazanavir therapeutic drug monitoring to optimize the virologic response and prevent severe bilirubin elevations. Therefore, the level of evidence of the interest of atazanavir therapeutic drug monitoring is recommended.


Hiding data in a medium such that it can not be perceived easily is called Steganography. Two of the most important performance metrics of steganography are the embedding capacity and noticeability. Specific features of a cover image determine the amount of data to be embedded. A novel algorithm utilizing all pixels of a cover image and does not need any other information while decoding is proposed in this paper. The method computes intensity variance of 2times2 non overpapping subimages to decide the number of bits to use while encoding and decoding. Intensity variance of the subimage is computed after the dynamic range of the pixels are reduced by masking off increasing number of LSBpsilas at every iteration. LSBs that result in less than 10 percent of variance change has been assumed to be insignificant in the variance computation and those bits are selected to embed data.


Limb reduction and loss, with reduction of limb and girdle skeletons to a vestigial state, has occurred several times independently within the skink family (Scincidae). The vestigial appendicular skeletons of most limbless skinks have not been described before now. Here we describe those of eight African skink species, all with a burrowing lifestyle: Acontias percivali, Acontias meleagris, Typhlosaurus cregoi, Typhlosaurus lineatus, Typhlacontias gracilis, Sepsina bayonii, Scelotes anguina and Scelotes arenicola. For all but two (A. meleagris and Sc. arenicola) the appendicular skeletons were previously undescribed. Limbs are absent in all specimens except for vestigial hindlimbs in Se. bayonii and vestigial femurs in one specimen of Sc. arenicola. In our sample, the pectoral girdle is reduced to a pair of tiny slivers in A. percivali, Ty. gracilis, Se. bayonii and Sc. anguina. It is absent in the other specimens. The pelvic girdle is absent in Ty. cregoi. In all the rest but Se. bayonii it is vestigial, retaining only the ilium in A. meleagris, Ty. lineatus and one specimen of Sc. arenicola. This study adds to the number of skink species with vestigial appendicular skeletons that have been described. It also adds to the range of documented intraspecific variation in the vestigial appendicular skeletons of A. meleagris, Sc. arenicola and the Australian skinks Lerista stylis and Lerista carpentariae. We observed asymmetry between the left and right sides in the vestigial appendicular skeletons of four of the African skink species: A. meleagris, Sc. anguina, Sc. arenicola and Se. bayonii.


The highly perishable nature of mango fruit and its susceptibility to chilling injury (CI) when stored below 13°C limits its international trade. Cold storage of mango at 12-13°C is successful only for 2-3 weeks coupled with substantial losses in fruit quality. Cold storage limits the use of sea freight which is usually more economical and eco-friendly than air freight. Controlled atmosphere (CA) storage usually involves regulating the concentration of oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) using nitrogen, storage temperature, as well as relative humidity in the storage environment. CA in combination with an optimum storage temperature has been reported to prolong the storage life and maintain fruit quality including aroma volatiles in mango fruit depending upon the cultivar. Fruit quality is an important factor in influencing consumer preferences in international and domestic markets. CA storage seems to be promising in extending storage life, maintaining quality of mango fruit consequently offers opportunities to export mangoes to distant markets using sea freight. This overview paper will focus on fundamental and applied aspects of CA storage of mango fruit and its implications in facilitating international trade. Some research work has been reported on optimising CA conditions for different cultivars of mango as the CA requirements of mangoes vary among cultivars and inappropriate CA conditions adversely affect quality of ripe mango fruit. CA comprising of low O2 concentrations (<2%) has been reported to accumulate ethanol and adversely affect fruit quality of 'Tommy Atkins' and 'Delta R2E2' cultivars of mango. My research group has been exploring the effects of CA on extending storage life, maintaining fruit quality including aroma volatiles production in mango fruit for more than a decade. CA storage comprising 3% O2 in combination with 6% CO2 at 13°C proved to be beneficial for extending the storage life of the Australian mango cultivars 'Kensington Pride' and 'R2E2' by up to six weeks, with good fruit quality and maintaining a high concentration of the major volatile compounds responsible for the aroma of ripe mangoes. The applications of CA in preventing CI, postharvest diseases and insect disinfestations will also be discussed. The faster rate of expansion of mango production, its international trade, short shelf life, and higher susceptibility to CI, postharvest diseases, as well as consumer demand for superb quality are major challenges in extending storage life of mango fruit and their implications in international trade. CA storage offers a great potential in extending storage life of mango which enable to employ sea freight for wider distribution of mango fruit in the distant international markets in a very cost effective manner. A specific composition of O2 and CO2 in CA which extends the storage life of mango fruit is cultivar dependent and is yet inconclusive. Moreover, to minimise the negative effects of CA storage in mango such as fruit softening, poor colour development and higher titratable acidity (TA), reduced aroma and flavour are major research gaps yet to be addressed by the research in the future. CA storage offers an attractive alternative for ameliorating CI, controlling of postharvest diseases and pests in combination with preharvest technology. A holistic approach to meet market requirements considering mango production, postharvest handling including CA storage and supply chain is prerequisite for promoting international trade of mango.


The endangered Snow leopard (Panthera uncia) inhabits the high mountain regions through central Asia and is subjected to numerous threats including poaching for traditional Chinese medicine, retribution killing for preying on domestic stock, and habitat fragmentation. However the occurrence and impact of disease on snow leopard populations is unknown. As emerging infectious diseases of wildlife can be an insidious yet important cause of population decline due to mortality or reproductive failure, my study aimed initially to gain knowledge of pathogens circulating among wild and domestic hosts in this region. I used a broad One Health approach to survey a range of species to collect data on disease occurrence that would be useful in improving human and livestock health, as well as snow leopard conservation.

This study is set in the Tost Mountains of the South Gobi Desert of Mongolia and was prompted due to the unexplained deaths of four snow leopards detected within a short timeframe during an ecological study by members of the Snow Leopard Trust. However, investigating disease occurrence in remote, rare and endangered species is a challenge due to inaccessibility of sites, difficulty of capture, and processing samples without facilities.

A One Health approach uses multidisciplinary expertise such as ecological, medical and veterinary, to understand host, pathogen and environmental disease factors. This approach is especially useful for diseases that transfer between people, domestic animals and wildlife. As snow leopards are a rare and elusive species, my surveys were aimed at assessing pathogens circulating in snow leopards as well as in sympatric wild and domestic animals. I collected samples from the following hosts: snow leopards – the target species; rodents which are ubiquitous over the study area and are a suitable sentinel species; ibex which are a native ungulate and natural prey species of the snow leopard; domestic goats which are also a prey species of the snow leopard; free-ranging domestic dogs which interact with the goats. The local indigenous people interact with all these species including snow leopards, mostly via retribution killing. Water samples were also collected from waterholes and wells, which are communal meeting places as drinking sources for all species, hence enabling pathogen exchange. Samples collected included blood samples, faecal samples or rectal swabs and ectoparasites if present. These samples were transported to laboratories in Sweden and Belgium where I conducted diagnostic assays for zoonotic pathogens that are present in other regions of Mongolia and impact the health of humans and animals. I used enzyme- linked immune assay (ELISA), polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and next-generation sequencing (NGS) for pathogens including Coxiella burnetii, Toxoplasma gondii, Leptospira spp., Brucella spp., Yersinia pestis and tick borne encephalitis virus. Serovars of Leptospira were elucidated using microscopic agglutination tests (MAT). The dog blood samples were also tested for canine distemper virus. Ticks, faeces, rectal swabs and water were tested for bacteria, Echinococcus, Giardia and Cryptosporidium using PCR and NGS.

Health records for humans and animals in the region were not available so, in addition to testing animal samples, I used questionnaire surveys to obtain information on perceptions of the herders concerning health of their families, their domestic animals and wildlife. Questions also assessed preventative health management and treatments used.

Over three field trips I caught and sampled twenty snow leopards, 177 rodents (8 species), 41 dogs and 270 goats. I also sampled 11 waterholes/wells, and preserved 18 ticks, hundreds of fleas and collected faecal samples from ibex.

Most animals that were sampled and examined clinically appeared in good health, but the serosurvey revealed a moderate to high level of exposure to serious pathogens: C. burnetii, T. gondii and Leptospira spp. There were no published reports of human infections with these pathogens in the study area, which is likely due to a lack of testing.

Snow leopards had the highest prevalence of C. burnetii antibodies (25%), followed by rodents (16%), dogs (10%) and goats (9.5%). Goats had the highest prevalence of T. gondii antibodies (90%), dogs (66%), snow leopards (20%) and rodents (16%). Rodents had the highest prevalence of Leptospira spp. (34%), followed by snow leopards (20%) and dogs (5%). Serovars interrogans Australis was identified in the rodents and snow leopards and interrogans Ictohaemorrhagiae was identified in the rodents and dogs. Other serovars were also present from the results of the ELISA but did not match those listed in the MAT panel, so could not be identified. Goats were not tested for infection with leptospirosis. Brucella was not identified in the goats even though it occurs at high prevalence in stock in the rest of Mongolia where it is a large health and economic concern. In rodents, the zoonotic Puumala and Seoul hantavirus were identified for the first time in Mongolia. Analysis of data from rodents showed the pathogens detected (C. burnetii, T.gondii, Hanta virus and Leptospira spp.) differed significantly in prevalence, with a strong year effect driven mainly by Leptospira, which increased in prevalence across the three year study period. Toxoplasma gondii differed slightly in prevalence among rodent species. There was no significant difference in prevalence of interaction of pathogens among years or rodent species.

Poor health was detected in goats with 10 out of the 14 goats tested via haematology and biochemistry being anaemic with haematocrits less than 20%. Haematology and biochemistry values for the other animal species appeared normal. I established haematology and biochemistry reference tables for two rodent species - red-cheeked ground squirrels and jerboas.

Water samples were negative for serious pathogens. Fleas were negative for Yersinia pestis. However, ticks were positive for several genera of potential zoonoses, including Anaplasma, Bacillus, Coxiella, Clostridia, Francisella, Rickettsia, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus and Yersinia. Faecal samples were also positive for genera of potentially zoonotic bacteria including those listed above plus Bacteroides, Bordetella, Campylobacter and Enterococcus.

Results from the two questionnaire surveys revealed the main reported illness in people were colds and flu. However, the local doctor also reported hepatitis as common. She also said that the local people contracted brucellosis whereas I did not identify this pathogen in their livestock. The herders thought their main loss of stock was from predation, with wolves identified as the main predator and snow leopards as the second. Other causes of stock loss perceived as important were adverse climatic conditions such as drought or severe winters while infectious disease was not a concern. Results from these surveys also highlighted gaps in health care for humans and livestock, especially around vaccination and parasite treatments.

In summary, I found that snow leopards and other wild and domestic animals within the study area tested positive for previous exposure to several important zoonotic pathogens. These pathogens were likely circulating among species via contamination of pasture and via predation and have potential to cause illness and reproductive loss. However, I detected no adverse effects on the health of the animals due to infection with these pathogens, and observed no related mortality or illness during my field trips. Hence the deaths of the four snow leopards that were the impetus for my study have not been explained, and monitoring and surveillance of this population should continue.

My findings on wildlife and domestic animal pathogens have relative importance to improving productivity of livestock and the health of the nomadic herders. I recommend improving the health of goats through vaccination and anti-parasite programmes, which will improve their fecundity and survival and thus increase herder income. These programmes will also have flow-on effects to improve the health of the native ungulates that share the grazing areas by decreasing the risk of pathogen transfer between them and also to the snow leopards that prey on them. Demonstrating the importance of herd health may also help mitigate herder wildlife conflict as increased productivity could decrease the perceived importance of predation on herd numbers.

Coxiella burnetii and Leptospires spp are a likely cause of illness in people, despite the lack of reported diagnoses. As rodents had a moderate prevalence of all pathogens tested and inhabit the gers of the local people, it is important to raise awareness of the risk of pathogen transfer to people via rodent excrement contaminating stored food and eating utensils. Risk of human exposure to pathogens during goat slaughter can also be reduced via improved hygiene practices.

By identifying pathogens with broad host ranges in a variety of species in this remote mountainous region, my study provides the basis for understanding health risks to wildlife, domestic animals and humans. Consideration of likely transmission routes for pathogens between species can inform current recommendations to improve health, productivity and hence conservation, of the endangered snow leopard – The Ghost of the Mountain.


Results on the transverse spherocity dependence of light-flavor particle production ($\pi$, K, p, $\phi$, ${\rm K^{*0}}$, ${\rm K}^{0}_{\rm{S}}$, $\Lambda$, $\Xi$) at midrapidity in high-multiplicity pp collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV were obtained with the ALICE apparatus. The transverse spherocity estimator ($S_{{\rm O}}^{{\it p}_{\rm T}=1}$) categorizes events by their azimuthal topology. Utilizing narrow selections on $S_{\text{O}}^{{\it p}_{\rm T}=1}$, it is possible to contrast particle production in collisions dominated by many soft initial interactions with that observed in collisions dominated by one or more hard scatterings. Results are reported for two multiplicity estimators covering different pseudorapidity regions. The $S_{{\rm O}}^{{\it p}_{\rm T}=1}$ estimator is found to effectively constrain the hardness of the events when the midrapidity ($\left | \eta \right |<0.8$) estimator is used. The production rates of strange particles are found to be slightly higher for soft isotropic topologies, and severely suppressed in hard jet-like topologies. These effects are more pronounced for hadrons with larger mass and strangeness content, and observed when the topological selection is done within a narrow multiplicity interval. This demonstrates that an important aspect of the universal scaling of strangeness enhancement with final-state multiplicity is that high-multiplicity collisions are dominated by soft, isotropic processes. On the contrary, strangeness production in events with jet-like processes is significantly reduced. The results presented in this article are compared with several QCD-inspired Monte Carlo event generators. Models that incorporate a two-component phenomenology, either through mechanisms accounting for string density, or thermal production, are able to describe the observed strangeness enhancement as a function of $S_{{\rm O}}^{{\it p}_{\rm T}=1}$.


In 1981 Russell Banks read a newspaper article about a tragic event off the coast of Florida involving the Coast Guard, a smuggler, and a boatload of Haitian refugees. This article inspired him to write his Pulitzer Prize-nominated novel Continental Drift (1985), which climaxes with a similar incident (Maslin). Continental Drift tells two parallel stories between 1979 and 1981 that converge on a boat off the coast of Florida: Bob Dubois migrates south to look for better economic opportunities and eventually takes a job smuggling Haitian immigrants; Vanise Dorsinville flees the political and economic oppression of Haiti with her infant son and nephew Claude, and they become Bob's passengers. When the Coast Guard appears en route, all of the Haitians are tossed overboard and drown. The injustice of these senseless deaths and Bob's role in them is the most compelling part of the narrative because it exposes the structural forces reshaping the economies of both the First and Third World. Much of the novel, however, is more concerned with the diminishing power of white heterosexual men in the US.While Continental Drift is primarily the story of Bob, it tells the stories of both Bob and Vanise in alternating chapters; the juxtaposition of their stories points to the structural forces that compel them to migrate. Reviews of the novel in 1985 often began with commenting on its grandiose narrative that takes on the current condition of the world. In comparing it to Affliction, Josh Rubins says that Continental Drift "tackled global themes in epic style," and Michiko Kakutani says that it has a "mythic dimension."1 In retrospect, these reviewers seem to be alluding to the novel's depiction of globalization - a term that had not yet entered popular discourse. One passage early in the novel makes clear that the drama in this novel is on a global scale. In the chapter introducing Haiti and Vanise's plight there, the narrator begins by comparing human migrations to elemental forces:It's as if the creatures residing on this planet in these years, the human creatures, millions of them traveling singly and in families, in clans and tribes, traveling sometimes as entire nations, were a subsystem inside the larger system of currents and tides, of winds and weather, of drifting continents and shifting, uplifting, grinding, cracking land masses. It's as if the poor forced creatures who walk, sail and ride on donkeys and camels, in trucks, buses and trains from one spot on this earth to another were all responding to unseen natural forces, as if it were gravity and not war, famine or flood that made them move. . . (38)The narrator pushes this analogy further, claiming that people do not notice geological change because it happens too slowly and that they do not notice historical change because it happens too rapidly.Continental Drift is a novel about historical change during the latter half of the twentieth century, when many aspects of globalization intensified. More specifically the novel is about the shift to a neoliberal economy. Neoliberalism is the political and economic philosophy of free markets and free trade that dominated conventional wisdom in the late twentieth century. Writing as this historical change is occurring, Banks draws on both the massive scale of geological change as well as the underlying forces that motivate it to describe this historical shift. Through the novel's larger structure that pairs Bob's story with Vanise's, Continental Drift attempts to portray the larger forces of neoliberalism, but much of the novel is about how Bob understands - or rather fails to understand - neoliberal changes. Unable to see how neoliberalism increases economic disparity on a global scale, Bob only sees these changes as threatening to him as a white man. Continental Drift illustrates how neoliberalism depends upon an oppressed white male persona as compensation for economic inequality.Neoliberalism in the US and HaitiAfter more than three decades of neoliberal policy, the origins and doctrine of neoliberalism can be traced. …


Food policy is high on the public policy agenda, but still suffers from a lack of overview and integration. The paper reviews examples of policy limitations where tighter and more explicit links could usefully be made between environmental, social and public health considerations. The paper proposes a new ecological health approach to public policy. This offers marked advantages over the present "productionist" approach to food policy. With this old policy regime in crisis, the paper reviews current moves towards adoption of the ecological health model in Britain, Europe and globally.


Drug resistant bacteria are a major health problem and the growing resistance to antibiotics in organisms such as Escherichia Coli and Staphylococcus aureus, poses a clinically significant challenge in hospital medicine. Early diagnosis and prompt antibiotic treatment of any such infection is important for clinical recovery and prevention of serious antimicrobial resistance (AMR) - a key objective of the World Health Organization. Current routine empirical antibiotic therapy protocol for diagnosis of such pathogens involves a preliminary laboratory-based bacterial culture testing using agar-plates which can take up to 2-3 days. However, if the specific microbe species causing an infection can be quickly identified earlier on, it will allow doctors to prescribe a specific targeted antimicrobial instead of using a broad spectrum antimicrobial. We present here the use of paper devices patterned via a proprietary laser-based polymerisation technique for detection and susceptibility testing of bacterial pathogens. The technique allows the creation of hydrophobic barriers inside and on the surface of the paper, and therefore the creation of fluidic channels and test zones in many different shapes, sizes and patterns. The laser-based direct-write procedure is non-contact, non-lithographic and mask-less and uses a 405nm diode laser. The laser-structured paper can then be infused with chromogenic agars that allow the growth and detection of different bacteria. As shown in Fig. 1a, antibiotics can be added to the individual test zones therefore allowing for testing of the susceptibility/resistance of the bacteria such as MRSA and MSSA to those antibiotics. Using more complex designs and combinations of the growth media (Fig. 1b), multiplexed detection of different bacteria such as Staphylococcus and E.Coli can also be achieved in a single device. We envisage that these cheap and easy-to-use devices will serve as point-of-care analogues to the agar plates used routinely in pathological labs for detection of bacterial infections.


Nanomedicine, as an interdisciplinary discipline involving the development and application of nanoscale materials and technologies, is rapidly developing under the impetus of bionanotechnology and has attracted a great deal of attention from researchers. Especially, with the global outbreak of COVID-19, the in-depth investigation of the infection mechanism of the viruses has made the study of virus-mimicking nanosystems (VMNs) a popular research topic. In this review, we initiate with a brief historical perspective on the emergence and development of VMNs for providing a comprehensive view of the field. Next, we present emerging design principles and functionalization strategies for fabricating VMNs in light of viral infection mechanisms. Then, we describe recent advances in VMNs in biology, with a major emphasis on representative examples. Finally, we summarize the opportunities and challenges that exist in this field, hoping to provide new insights and inspiration to develop VMNs for disease diagnosis and treatment and to attract the interest of more researchers from different fields.


This dissertation describes the development and assessment of a
new model for the analysis and design of healthcare systems. Motivated
by a need to better address the challenges still facing the provision of
adequate healthcare services, it offers a model that can explain how
healthcare functions as a whole system, and supports predicting the
outcomes of policy interventions.
Determining what model would satisfy the requirements of such
a system is decomposed as (i) a design question asking how to construct
the model,(ii) a theoretic question asking how healthcare functions as a
system, and (iii) an evaluative question asking how well the implemented
model answers the first two.
Support in the literature is found in (i) existing models, in
both healthcare and broader areas of economics; (ii) model theory providing clarity on representation of explanation and prediction; (iii) systems science providing constructs, a taxonomy and a dedicated language
with which to describe healthcare systemically; (iv) a broad corpus of
publications in the healthcare literature providing a data set of qualitative and theoretical observations for content analysis.
The methodology applies Model Based Systems Engineering to
the construction of a model, using a template adapted from model theory. Three versions of the model are developed to satisfy theoretic,
systemic and epistemic requirements respectively. The results are reported as three related versions of a core representation of healthcare
as a system; as a system composed of three familiar global systems:
(i) the LifeCourse system captures how people live lives in which their
health status is occasionally impaired by illness for which they may receive treatment to offset that impairment; (ii) the Provision Network,
in which individuals and organizations with clinical skills and resources
collectively and separately provide treatments needed in the population;
(iii) in the Payment Exchange, where funds are exchanged to compensate those providers for the services they provide.
Assessed against the original criteria, that the model represent healthcare as a dynamic causal system, the systems model that
emerges satisfies the requirements of a scientific model. Boundary conditions qualify the scope of each evaluation. The prototype simulation
comparing the model's predicted outputs under three scenarios to historical trends of selected indicators observed in the healthcare system of
the Netherlands is qualitatively comparable to the findings reported in
the literature. This research extends healthcare knowledge, provides a
reproducible methodology and creates an exploratory instrument to conduct simulated experiments in healthcare economics and health policy.
Incorporation of boundary conditions points the way to future enhancements aimed at reducing those limitations and expanding the predictive
capabilities of the model.


Recent falls in poverty amongst those aged 65 and over are unlikely to continue after 2007-08, even after the implementation of the proposals outlined in the Government's Pensions White Paper.

This report looks at the prospects for pensioner poverty in England over the next decade. The authors find that that the proportion of those aged 65 and over living in poverty is set to remain at its current level - around one-in-five - between 2007-08 and 2017-18. This is despite the overall increase in the generosity of state pensions arising from the Pensions White Paper, and the fact that younger cohorts are expected to have more private pension income and higher employment rates at older ages than those preceding them.


The variation discipline of turbulence motion locus during the process of bearing's strengthening grinding is a difficult point in the research fields of fluid theory. For the purpose of obtaining accurate discipline of turbulence motion, the fitting curve's characteristics of turbulence motion locus based on image projection transformation and light stream vector is investigated. Through tracing particles be equally-distributed scattered into flow field, they reflect turbulence's motion discipline accurately. After each particle's movement has been shot from different orientations in continuous time-points, thus sequential conjugate images have been obtained. Relationship of image projecting transformation is established for determining these particles' absolute three-dimensional coordinates. Combining with light stream vector, these particles' motion vectors in each instantaneous moment can be deducted and mathematical models of motion locus can be gotten. Then correlative mathematical characteristics are built, their variation tendency is analyzed in different flow velocities. This experiment provides theoretical foundation and technical preparation for research of complicated turbulence and selection of fluid signal sampling's condition.


How does civil war affect citizen engagement with democracy? Civilians who live through warfare face numerous disruptions to everyday life that can have permanent effects on political engagement even after peace is achieved. This article analyzes the role of depressed living standards resulting from education loss during the Liberia Civil War as a case study of war-related deprivation. I argue that the negative effects of war on education and economic outcomes clash with the expectations that citizens have for postwar democracy, with adverse consequences for political participation. I demonstrate support for this argument using a mixed methods approach, combining qualitative interviews with census, voting, and Afrobarometer survey data. I leverage a difference-in-differences identification strategy to causally identify the negative impact of conflict on human capital for a generation of young adults, and on the downstream consequences of disruptions in education on political participation. Results indicate that children who were of school age during the civil war are differentially less likely to have any formal schooling by the end of the war. I further find that educational deficiencies disproportionately decrease postwar job prospects, breeding resentment against the newly elected government. This extends to political participation: those who lost out on educational opportunities due to war exhibit lower political engagement and less desire to engage with democratic processes.


Emission by the H3 + molecular ion may be important in determining the energy balance in astrophysical situations, such as in (exo)planetary atmospheres. Here we report the calculation of a new cooling function, based on refitted partition functions and a recalculation of the total energy emitted by the molecule. This new function gives significantly increased cooling at higher temperatures, typical of those found in the atmospheres of gas giants. It is shown that nonthermal effects also need to be considered. A link to a web-based code to calculate radiative cooling in H2/H3 + gas mixtures, including the effects of departures from equilibrium, is provided.


Alkaloids that target nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChR) are of great interest because of the critical role they play in mood and anxiety. However, understanding of the neuropharmacological effects of nicotinic alkaloids, such as cotinine and anatabine, is very limited. In this study, we investigated the neuropharmacological effects of three naturally occurring alkaloids—nicotine, cotinine, and anatabine—in vitro and in vivo. A single injection of nicotine induced anxiolytic-like behavioral features in mice by using the SmartCube® behavioral profiling system, while cotinine and anatabine had no detectable effect. The results were corroborated by using the zebrafish novel tank test (NTT), which showed a profound anxiolytic-like effect induced by multiple doses of nicotine after a single 20-min treatment. When the regulation of dopamine and norepinephrine release—the neurotransmitter systems relevant for anxiety—were examined in vitro, we found that nicotine stimulated the release of both norepinephrine and dopamine, while cotinine and anatabine mainly stimulated the dopamine release. The molecular targets of nicotine were confirmed to be nAChRs with its most potent activities against α4β2 and α6/3β2β3 subtypes in vitro. Anatabine was a weaker agonist for these receptors than nicotine. Cotinine was the least potent nAChR compound, only being able to activate α4β2 and α6/3β2β3 subtypes at high doses and no detectable activities against α3β4 and α7 subtypes at the concentrations tested. The observed effects were unlikely due to the off-target effect, because these alkaloids did not bind or regulate >160 other molecular targets in vitro. Thus, the present results suggest that natural nicotinic alkaloids can induce an anxiolytic-like behavior in nonclinical animal models, potency of which may depend on the activation of various nAChRs and regulation of various neurotransmitter systems. Further investigations would help understand their effects on humans, because non-clinical studies should not be taken as a direct indication for human behavior and nicotine is not risk free.


Fluorescence detection of pesticide contamination enables timely control of food safety. This study aims to construct novel and facile microfluidic paper-based analytical devices for the ratiometric fluorescence determination of pesticides. Through fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) of nitrobenzoxadiazole (NBD) and CdTe quantum dots (QDs), the new microfluidic paper chips allowed the rapid and selective visual detection of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D). The performance changes of the fluorescent material on solid matrix material were studied in detail. The sensor products exhibited visual observability and fluorescence characteristics. Under optimized conditions, the sensors showed satisfactory linearity in the range of 0.56-80 μM, and achieved detection limits as low as 90 nM. The sensors were successfully applied for soybean sprouts and lake water samples. Four levels of spiked-in 2,4-D concentrations were obtained with high recovery rates ranging from 86.2% to 109.5% and the RSD less than 4.19%. Thus, the present work described the integration of surface imprinted grafts on cellulose paper and ratiometric fluorescence techniques for highly sensitive separation and detection of pesticides in real food and environmental samples. Ultimately, this study paved the way for the development of novel ratiometric fluorescence detection to address food safety and environmental issues.


Robots acting in human-scale environments must plan under uncertainty in large state–action spaces and face constantly changing reward functions as requirements and goals change. Planning under uncertainty in large state–action spaces requires hierarchical abstraction for efficient computation. We introduce a new hierarchical planning framework called Abstract Markov Decision Processes (AMDPs) that can plan in a fraction of the time needed for complex decision making in ordinary MDPs. AMDPs provide abstract states, actions, and transition dynamics in multiple layers above a base-level "flat" MDP. AMDPs decompose problems into a series of subtasks with both local reward and local transition functions used to create policies for subtasks. The resulting hierarchical planning method is independently optimal at each level of abstraction, and is recursively optimal when the local reward and transition functions are correct. We present empirical results showing significantly improved planning speed, while maintaining solution quality, in the Taxi domain and in a mobile-manipulation robotics problem. Furthermore, our approach allows specification of a decision-making model for a mobile-manipulation problem on a Turtlebot, spanning from low-level control actions operating on continuous variables all the way up through high-level object manipulation tasks.


Abstract In the context of gas transportation, analytical solutions are helpful for the understanding of the underlying dynamics governed by a system of partial differential equations. We derive traveling wave solutions for the one-dimensional isothermal Euler equations, where an affine linear compressibility factor is used to describe the correlation between density and pressure. We show that, for this compressibility factor model, traveling wave solutions blow up in finite time. We then extend our analysis to networks under appropriate coupling conditions and derive compatibility conditions for the network nodes such that the traveling waves can travel through the nodes. Our result allows us to obtain an explicit solution for a certain optimal boundary control problem for the pipeline flow.


The effect of dietary β-1.3-glucan, vitamin E, and β-carotene supplements in juvenile brown shrimp, Farfantepenaeus californiensis, inoculated with white spot syndrome virus (WSSV) was evaluated. Groups of 30 organisms (weighing 1 ± 0.5 g) were cultured in 60 L fiberglass tanks and fed daily with β-1.3- glucan (0.1%), vitamin E (0.01%), and β-carotene (0.01%) for 23 days; the specimens were then inoculated with WSSV. The antioxidant activity of the enzymes superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) were determined in the hepatopancreas and muscle at 0, 1, 6, 12, 24, and 48 h after inoculation. Shrimp fed with β1.3-glucan, vitamin E, and β-carotene significantly increased SOD activity in the hepatopancreas and muscle at 12 and 24 h post-infection, respectively. Shrimp fed with vitamin E and β-1.3-glucan registered an increment in SOD activity from 12 to 48 h post-infection. Shrimp fed with β-carotene increased SOD activity before infection with WSSV, and shrimp fed with β-1.3-glucan and vitamin E increased CAT activity, also before infection. The CAT activity response in shrimp muscle increased with respect to the control group for all treatments tested from 1 to 6 h after inoculation with WSSV. The highest antioxidant response was registered in shrimp fed with vitamin E. Juvenile shrimp fed with vitamin E and later inoculated with WSSV registered 100% mortality at 72 h, but shrimp fed with β-1.3-glucan and β-carotene showed greater resistance to WSSV, with mortality at 144 h post-infection. This study demonstrated the capacity of juvenile Farfantepenaeus californiensis fed β-1.3-glucan, vitamin E, or β-carotene to increase the antioxidant response before and after viral infection.


Conventional macroscopic jet theory relies heavily on experimental correlations which cannot be easily extended to the nanoscale regime. Moreover, the fluid dynamic effects at small length scales and their contribution to the development of nanoscale liquid structures are fundamentally different from their macroscopic counterparts. This coupled with the high spatial and temporal resolution requirements at nanoscale domains make molecular dynamics (MD) an excellent tool for studying such structures. In this study, the formation and breakup of nanojets (NJs) developing from high pressure into vacuum is investigated using MD based on non-Hamiltonian formulations. By ejecting the equilibrated argon atoms through various nozzle geometries and diameters, nanoscale jet flows were generated. The dependence of the jet structure on nozzle geometry and diameter is studied. The influence of geometry on NJ formation is also studied along with issues involved in the equilibration and thermostat coupling parameter. Various thermostats are compared to understand the role they play in MD simulations of liquid nanostructures. Tuning of the thermostat coupling parameter has also been discussed. The jet breakup phenomenon is analysed and a comparative study, vis-à-vis, well-established continuum and stochastic models, is attempted.


A heat-transfer investigation was conducted with air flowing through an electrically heated Inconel tube having either a long-approach or a right-angle-edge entrance, an inside diameter of 0.402 inch, and a length of 24 inches over a range of Reynolds numbers up to 375,000 and average inside-tube-wall temperatures up to 2000 degrees R. Good correlation of heat-transfer data was obtained for both entrances, which substantiates work previously reported. A fair correlation of friction data was obtained for both entrances. The entrance configuration had little effect on the average heat-transfer and friction coefficients.


CO2 emission from soils is one of the most important elements of the global carbon cycle, thus it has crucial rule in climate change. Each soil cultivation operation intervenes in the microbiological life of the soil, hence tillage is a factor through that the processes taking place in soil can be controlled. During the last decades, the organic material content of agricultural soils decreased to the half due to the intensive management resulting in the degradation of natural soil fertility. While intensive, plough-based tillage can cause soil degradation and erosion, the physical, chemical and biological status of the soil can be significantly improved through the application of conservation tillage methods. The results of long-term experiments prove that soil protective tillage enhances the  enrichment of organic matter in the top layer of the soil. In order to reveal the role of tillage systems in CO2 emission from the soil,  regular measurements were carried out in the plots with conventional and reduced tillage of the soil cultivation experiment of Research Institute of Karcag. Anagas CD 98 and Gas Alert Micro 5w infrared gas analysers were used to measure CO2-concentrations, and a specially developed method (consisting of a frame and a bowl) was applied to delimitate the measuring area. Most of the  measurements were done on stubbles after harvest in order to exclude root respiration. The weather conditions of the examined 10 years were very changeable providing a good chance to compare them to each other. We found the tillage operations resulting in  higher emission values in both tillage systems. On stubbles higher and more even emission was characteristic to reduced tillage due to the lower degree of soil disturbance and higher soil moisture content.


Wireless Sensor Networks have attracted many researchers all over the world. Wireless sensor networks have become a kind of sub field including data fusion, data aggregation, remote environmental monitoring, sensing (temperature, pressure speed) and a variety of military applications. The Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) is used for distance measurement between sensor nodes. This paper proposes both average and adaptive fuzzy logic algorithms to compute monitoring area temperature. The main advantages of these methods are simplicity and accuracy in area temperature monitoring. We compare the mean square of error of these two methods. Using the RMSE results, it is shown that the adaptive fuzzy logical algorithm with RSSI is better than the average fuzzy logical algorithm at computing monitoring area temperature.


Abstract Solar radiation transmission data taken at Mauna Loa exhibit a seasonal variation with the minimum in summer. On the basis of Barrett's model for the depletion of solar radiation by aerosols, it is suggested that these variations are due to the seasonal generation of organic aerosols by the biosphere. It is suggested that the naturally produced atmospheric background aerosol of organic origin causes the typical seasonal turbidity variations. Furthermore, changes in the amplitude or phase of transmission data could be used to indicate whether aerosols from anthropogenic sources would influence the earth's albedo. Precipitable water calculations suggest that humidity data above Mauna Loa are not accurate enough to make a quantitative estimate of the effect of atmospheric water vapor on Mauna Loa radiation data. However, water vapor apparently cannot account for these variations on the basis of phase angle considerations.


This paper proposes an accurate inspection technique of fabric defects in an electromagnetic wave shield mesh of the plasma display panel (PDP-mesh) for automatic detection. The proposed method utilizes two-dimensional discrete Fourier transform (DFT) and a Gabor filter for accurate detection. The DFT of the whole image enables the user to detect global defects, such as yarn density and yarn orientation, of the manufactured PDP-mesh. The determined global features can be utilized to design the optimum Gabor filter to detect the local defects such as clogging, yarn lack, and yarn slippage. Defective areas can be extracted from the output of the Gabor filter by using a variable threshold method. Experimental results show that the proposed method can accurately detect the defects from scanned PDP-mesh images


Methods: The 2757 validation patients collected at 21 centers were used. These comprised 312 patients from IOTA phase 1 used to test LR1, 507 patients from an intermediate IOTA phase used for an initial temporal validation, and 1938 patients from IOTA phase 2 used for an extensive temporal and external validation. The adnexal masses were divided into 20 histological categories. The performance of LR1 was assessed using the mean predicted risk of malignancy (MPR, in %) and the percentage correctly classified cases (PC) when using the previously suggested threshold of 10% risk of malignancy to predict malignancy. Results: Fibroma was the most difficult histology to characterize correctly (MPR 35%, PC 32%). Rare benign tumors and abscesses were also difficult (MPR 24% and 18%, PC 49% and 50%). The predicted risk of malignancy for the three stage II borderline tumors in our dataset was at most 19.3%. MPR was relatively low for the other borderline tumors as well, but PC was above 80%. For primary invasive tumors, including stage I cancers, PC exceeded 95%. Conclusions: Not all types of adnexal masses are easily classified by prediction models. Fibromas, abscesses, rare benign tumors and stage II borderline tumors are the most difficult groups to assess. Future research should aim to find predictor variables that can help in the correct classification of these masses.


Inhibitory control, the ability to stop inappropriate actions, is an important cognitive function often investigated via the stopsignal task, in which an infrequent stop signal instructs the subject to stop a default go response. Previously, we proposed a rational decision-making model for stopping, suggesting the observer makes a repeated Go versus Wait choice at each instant, so that a Stop response is realized by repeatedly choosing to Wait. We propose an alternative model here that incorporates a third choice, Stop. Critically, unlike the Wait action, choosing the Stop action not only blocks a Go response at the current moment but also for the remainder of the trial – the disadvantage of losing this flexibility is balanced by the benefit of not having to pay attention anymore. We show that this new model both reproduces known behavioral effects and has internal dynamics resembling presumed Go neural activations in the brain.


The MDM2 protein regulates the tumour suppressor protein p53, acting as its chaperone, regulating its translation and targeting p53 for degradation by the 26s proteasome via its E3 ligase activity. The E3 ligase activity of MDM2 is dependent on its C-terminal RING domain. E3 ligases containing a RING domain are traditionally thought to catalyse the transfer of ubiquitin from their conjugating enzyme (E2) partner to the target protein, in the final step of the ubiquitination cascade. Various E2 enzymes have been shown to interact with their partner E3 ligases, yet evidence for the interaction between MDM2 and its partner E2, UbcH5α has not yet been shown. It has been reported that the reason for this lack of evidence is that the interaction between the two is highly unstable. Here I show that MDM2 forms a stable isolatable interaction with UbcH5α, the C-terminal tail of MDM2 is not necessary for this interaction. Although RING E3 ligases were not previously thought to interact with ubiquitin, preliminary evidence is emerging that suggests that this interaction is possible indeed I show that MDM2 and ubiquitin form a stable complex. I demonstrate that UbcH5α and ubiquitin both interact with the RING of MDM2, specifically the 20 most C-terminal amino acids of MDM2. My results show that both these proteins can bind this region of the RING simultaneously. I also highlight specific residues including tyrosine 489 and arginine 479 important for UbcH5α and ubiquitin binding respectively and the negative affect that these mutations have on the E3 ligase activity of MDM2 towards p53. Furthermore I show by limited proteolysis and hydrogen deuterium exchange that UbcH5α can be allosterically activated by MDM2. A novel peptide phage display technique linked to next generation sequencing was developed to further confirm an allosteric change and demonstrates that UbcH5α has different binding specificity for peptides when in a free or ligand bound conformation. MDM2 is a popular target for cancer therapeutics due to its dysregulation throughout many cancer types, including 30% of soft tissue sarcomas. Dissecting the mechanism of MDM2 function is an important step in identifying specific drugable interfaces on MDM2 and its interacting partners so that effective therapeutics can be designed.


The paper claims that Brazilian Portuguese past imperfective morphology, represented by / -ia /, in epistemic modal verbs, tinha que / devia / podia EPISTEMIC, is underdetermined, in particular it allows a "past perspective". However, the past perspective is not a temporal projection that scopes over the epistemic modal (Rullmann & Matthewson, 2018 ), nor a covert belive that (Hacquard, 2006, Viana Mendes, 2019), but an effect of the semantics of modal verbs and the past imperfective morphology. Modal verbs search for an anchor (KRATZER, 2018). The semantics of past imperfective allows two anchor situations: the past situation, s<s0, and the speech situation, s0; present imperfective - deve/pode/temque - has only one anchor situation: the speech situation,s0. The paper explores the double reading of the past imperfective morphology. It is is an exercise into Kratzer' lecture (2018). The anchor in the past situation shifts the context of evaluation to the past. It seems to be a monster. The orientation is present with respect to the shifted context. If s0, the actual situation,  is targeted by the modal, the perspective is present and the orientation is past (in line with Ferreira, 2018). There are contexts where it is possible to distinguish the two readings. Evidential contexts support the proposal.


Adolescents who run away face high rates of sexual and physical assault, yet there are no established brief screening tools that police can use to determine adolescents' safety or that help police refer such youth to needed services when they are located. We developed the 10-Question Tool for law enforcement officers to screen runaway youth about issues related to their safety. We reviewed 300 10-Question forms completed by law enforcement officers in St. Paul, Minnesota. Our analyses explored demographic characteristics of runaway youth, including their reasons for leaving home, disclosure of injury, sexual assault, and their need for health care. This novel approach to screening by law enforcement officers appears to identify, locate, and refer runaway teens needing services as a result of myriad harms, including sexual assault. Conclusions This is a novel intersectoral approach to brief screening of runaway youth by law enforcement that identifies youth at risk and connects them to needed resources. Police officers' use of the 10-Question Tool appears to locate significant numbers of newly assaulted runaways and connects them to needed health care. Partnerships with local Child Advocacy Centers and other services can help to ensure that such screening and referral meets the myriad needs of runaway youth. Keywords: runaway youth, juvenile justice Language: en


This paper engages with literatures on democratic policing in established and emerging democracies and argues for disaggregating democratic policing into two more precise terms: policing for democracy and democratically responsive policing. The first term captures the contribution of police to securing and maintaining wider democratic forms of government, while the second draws on political theory to emphasize arrangements for governing police actors based on responsiveness. Applying two distinct terms helps to highlight limitations to external police assistance. The terms are applied in an exploratory case study of 15 years of police reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The paper highlights early work securing the necessary conditions for political democracy in BiH but argues that subsequent interventions dominated by the European Union undermine responsiveness. A recent United Nations Development Programme project suggests that external actors can succeed in supporting democratically responsive policing where they do not have immediate security interests at stake.


In this paper we discuss the results of a modelling study which quantifies differences in the number of potential recruits produced from a range of age-structured populations over a spawning season with temporally varying survival rates. We include investigations into the effects that variation in female condition and egg quality (as a function of female characteristics) may have on overall production. We also quantify the effects on production of potential recruits via changes in the overall duration of spawning seasons due to environmental influences. The population stock structure (the proportion of females in different age classes) has the most effect on overall potential recruitment. The effects of egg quality dramatically increases larger fish's output of viable offspring whilst decreasing that of smaller fish. Fish condition has a very large effect on potential recruitment, but the effects are felt by all age classes equally. The present model outputs dealing with the interactions of temporally varying survival vs. stock structure and condition suggest that the middle of the spawning period consistently produces the most potential recruits but that the relative production of recruits over the spawning season is heavily influenced by both condition and stock structure.


For large-scale public shower facilities which open up at a specified time, (such as those in schools, barracks, and natatoriums), a great deal of heat is wasted. If this exhaust heat can be recovered and recycled, it will have significant impact in saving energy and environmental protection, with significant economic benefits. In this paper, two different kinds of heat pumps, an electric and an absorption heat pump, used in heat recovery systems are proposed. Specifically, the used shower water is drained through a pipe and first collected in a gray water pool. After a period of time, as the wastewater accumulates volume, the heat pump system can begin heat recovery and recycling. The wastewater is filtered through a filter and piped to a heat exchanger to heat the tap water. Therefore, the tap water temperature can be heated from 12°C to 25°C, and the wastewater temperature will drop from 30°C to 17 °C. Afterwards, the wastewater is piped to the heat pump evaporator and the tap water piped to the condenser for additional heating. At the same time, according to the different characteristics of the electric heat pump and absorption heat pump, different heat recovery system processes and control are detailed. On this basis, the paper analyses the economic and environmental benefit of three schemes for retrofitting based on a practical example: "exhaust heat recovery using electric heat pump", "exhaust heat recovery using electric heat pump + gas boiler" and "exhaust heat recovery using direct-fired heat pump", then finds that direct-fired absorption heat pump heat recovery have lower energy consumption, less pollution, lower operating costs, payback period is shorter and has a promising practical application.© 2010 ASME


We present a comparison of the performance of four miniature portable Raman spectrometers for the discrimination of carotenoids in samples of carotene-producing microorganisms. Two spectrometers using a green laser allowing to obtain Resonance Raman (or pre-Resonance Raman) signals, one instrument with a 785 nm laser, and a recently developed Portable Sequentially Shifted Excitation Raman spectrometer (PSSERS) were used for identifying major pigments of different halophilic (genera Halobacterium, Halorubrum, Haloarcula, Salinibacter, Ectothiorhodospira, Dunaliella) and non-halophilic microorganisms (Micrococcus luteus, Corynebacterium glutamicum). Using all the tested instruments including the PSSERS, strong carotenoids signals corresponding to the stretching vibrations in the polyene chain and in-plane rocking modes of the attached CH3 groups were found at the correct positions. Raman spectra of carotenoids can be obtained from different types of microbiological samples (wet pellets, lyophilized culture biomass and pigment extracts in organic solvents), and can be collected fast and without time-consuming procedures.


Product configuration management (PCM) is an important issue for complex products with long life cycles. In this paper a unified-modelling-language (UML)-based approach is introduced to define a PCM process model developed, as part of the Framework V DIECoM project, for use in the aerospace and automotive industries. This paper presents an integrated modelling methodology that extends the semantics of UML to support the automated generation of workflow management coalition (WfMC) XML process definition language (XPDL) workflow templates from XML metadata interchange (XMI) definitions. As a result workflow definition is achieved by transforming the XMI file, representing the serialized UML model, into XPDL by the application of a customized extensible stylesheet language (XSL) stylesheet. The modelling methodology is illustrated using the change configuration management process. The process model is defined using Rational Rose and transformed into XPDL for workflow enactment using ENOVIA LCA.


ABSTRACT Actions needed to mitigate and adapt to climate change have often synergies and trade-offs with sectoral and sustainable development priorities, and the recent focus on SDGs and sustainable transitions highlights the need to integrate climate action into other policy spheres. This process is known as climate policy integration (CPI) or climate mainstreaming. Enhancing its understanding as a public policy making process can provide insights for its operationalization, which becomes relevant in the context of the implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions in the global South. This paper aims to enhance the understanding of the how windows of opportunity for CPI are formed by drawing on elements from the multiple streams framework (MSF) developed by John Kingdon. This paper analyses grey literature regarding two cases of climate mainstreaming initiatives implemented by international cooperation organizations. The results show that relevant elements from the MSF, such as, attachment to other high-profile national issues, timing the integration with routine institutional procedures, and the presence of policy entrepreneurs, have been catalysing factors for CPI in the context of such initiatives. However, we can only assess the value of this analytical framework for CPI by testing it systematically through case studies in a variety of contexts.


The recent surge of interest in Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) has led to increasingly complex networks that tax computational and memory resources. Many DNNs presently use 16-bit or 32-bit floating point operations. Significant performance and power gains can be obtained when DNN accelerators support low-precision numerical formats. Despite considerable research, there is still a knowledge gap on how low-precision operations can be realized for both DNN training and inference. In this work, we propose a DNN architecture, Deep Positron, with posit numerical format operating successfully at ≤8 bits for inference. We propose a precision-adaptable FPGA soft core for exact multiply-and-accumulate for uniform comparison across three numerical formats, fixed, floating-point and posit. Preliminary results demonstrate that 8-bit posit has better accuracy than 8-bit fixed or floating-point for three different low-dimensional datasets. Moreover, the accuracy is comparable to 32-bit floating-point on a Xilinx Virtex-7 FPGA device. The trade-offs between DNN performance and hardware resources, i.e. latency, power, and resource utilization, show that posit outperforms in accuracy and latency at 8-bit and below.


In this paper, alumina (Al2O3) slurry properties and spraying drying conditions were optimized by orthogonal experiment for preparing the dense and spherical alumina feedstock. The feedstock was carried in a moving gas stream and deposited on the stainless substrate by atmospheric plasma spray (APS).The phase composition and microstructure of feedstock and as-sprayed coatings were studied by XRD, SEM and TEM. In addition, the porosity, surface roughness and micro hardness of as-sprayed coatings were also investigated. The results showed that Al2O3 powder content in slurry was the most influential factor for the particle size and morphology of feedstock and most of α-Al2O3 existing in the starting feedstock transformed into γ-Al2O3 during APS. Moreover, it was found that, using the feedstock prepared by optimized parameters, the as-sprayed coating had an average grain size of about 250 nm, with lower porosity of about 4 %, surface roughness Ra of about 1.94 μm, micro hardness HV0.3 of about 1000 under applied load 300 g.


: Many modern vaccines include adjuvants that activate the immune system and provide an enhanced humoral or cellular response. Current approved adjuvants are unable to provide desired responses against some pathogens (e.g. HIV or dengue). Many new adjuvants 15 have been developed and demonstrate promising results, but side effects from the inflammatory response induced by these adjuvants have resulted in limited FDA approvals. No adjuvants yet possess the capability to independently modulate inflammation and protection. Here we demonstrate a method to limit inflammation and side effects associated with vaccination while retaining the protective responses using a variety of promising adjuvants. To accomplish this, we 20 combined a selective NF-kB inhibitor with the immune adjuvant. The resulting vaccines reduce systemic inflammation and boost antibody responses. In an influenza challenge model, we demonstrate that this approach enhances protection. This method is generalizable across a broad range of adjuvants and antigens. We anticipate these studies will lead to a novel approach to vaccine formulation design that may prove general across a wide range of adjuvants, enabling 25 their greater use in the public realm.


We develop a model in which collateral serves to protect creditors from the claims of competing creditors. We find that borrowers rely most on collateral when cash flow pledgeability is high, because this is when it is easy to take on new debt, diluting existing creditors. Creditors thus require collateral for protection against being diluted. This causes a collateral rat race that results in all borrowing being collateralized. But collateralized borrowing has a cost: it encumbers assets, constraining future borrowing and investment, i.e. there is a collateral overhang. Our results suggest that the absolute priority rule, by which secured creditors are senior to unsecured creditors, may have an adverse effect — it may trigger the collateral rat race.


Background: Otomycosis is an acute, subacute or chronic fungal infection of the external auditory meatus. It is worldwide in distribution with a higher prevalence in the hot, humid, and dusty areas of the tropics and subtropics. A wide variety of fungi can cause Otomycosis. Objectives: In this study, we aimed at determining the most common mode of presentation, predisposing factors, and the spectrum of fungi involved in Otomycosis. Materials & Methods: A total of 100 patients clinically suspected of Otomycosis were studied during the study period. All the specimens collected from patients were subjected to standard microbiological procedures for the identification of fungi involved in Otomycosis. Results: In the present study, Otomycosis was found to be more common among females (58.54%) and majority in the age-group 21-30 years (35.36%). Pruritis was the most commonly presenting symptom seen in 77% of the otomycotic patients. Instillation of coconut oil was found to be predominating predisposing factor for Otomycosis (36.59%), followed by self cleaning (32.93%). Aspergillus niger 39(47.56%) was the predominant species isolated. second most common species isolated was Aspergillus flavus 25(30.49%). Aspergillus fumigatus 9(10.97%), Candida species 7(8.54%), Mucor 1(1.22%) and Penicillium species 1(1.22%) were other species isolated. Conclusion: High incidence of Otomycosis has been encountered in tropical countries. In our study, Aspergillus species was found to be the commonest fungi involved in Otomycosis. Laboratory diagnosis is important to know the exact etiology of Otomycosis to institute appropriate antifungal therapy. Key words: Aspergillus, Candida, Clinical features, Predisposing factors


Until recently, photo electric devices have mostly been used in stellar polarimetry. They usually involve a rotatable modulator, such as either a polaroid or a half-waveplate with fixed polaroid in the beam of light. This modulator is either positioned at different angles and exposures are taken (at least 3 exposures at different positions are necessary, to compute the normalized Stokes parameters q and u) or it is rotated continuously. The second method has the advantage, that fluctuations in sky-transparency are averaged out. But a major drawback of photo electric devices is that they are essentially single pixel devices, so that only one object at a time can be observed. Another handicap are dead-time problems. If bright objects are to be observed, neutral density filters have to be used to reduce the photon flux to acceptable counting rates which is rather painful since it is the number of counted photons that determines the final accuracy. With the advent of CCD technology these detectors are now more and more applied in stellar polarimetry. CCDs, being imaging devices, allow the observation of whole sky areas or several objects at a time. The method which is usually applied involves taking several exposures with a modulator at different angles. Once again, changes in sky transparency have to be taken into account. Also the total photon count per exposure is limited, this time by the full-well capacity of the pixels and the number of pixels used. In this Thesis a new design for a CCD-Polarimeter is presented which is a hybrid between the traditional photo electric instruments and modern CCD-imaging. Analo-gous to photomultiplier devices, the modulator is rotated continuously. A co-rotating glass wedge in the light path deviates the beam and the eventual image is recorded by a CCD camera. The rotation together with the deviation converts the point-like images of the stars into rings. These rings contain, encoded as intensity modulation along their circumference, all the information necessary to determine the normalized Stokes parameters. By choosing suitable deviation angles, either a group of stars can be observed simultaneously, or a single star, slightly out of focus, can be observed with high accuracy, since a high photon count can be achieved by spreading the light into many pixels along the ring. Theoretically with the presented instrument an accuracy for p of about +/-7 x 10e-5 could be achieved with one single exposure. Variations in sky transparency do not cause any problems since they are averaged out. This design has been explored by means of a simple prototype and new data reduction techniques have been developed to reduce and analyze the obtained data. In particular, finding the circles and extracting the information from the intensity modulation along the circumference of the circle. Experiments with the prototype have been carried out, both in the laboratory using artificial 'stars' and at the Cochno observatory, this time involving real stars. Different modulators and deviators have been tested. During the tests various problems were encountered, the instrument was returned to the workshop and modifications were made. This cycle of testing and improving was quite time consuming and the main problem, the motor inducing vibrations and not rotating uniformly could not really be overcome in the current design. The obtained frames were used to check the data reduction and analyzing software. The presented algorithms fulfilled their tasks satisfactorily. The experiments with the prototype CCD-Polarimeter have shown that in principle it is a very potent technique but with some, mostly mechanical, obstacles to overcome. Based on the experiences in the described test runs, improvements for a further second prototype are proposed. It is self evident that this Thesis has been prepared using ITEX. 26 and its appropriate packages. One of the niceties of this is the possibility of inventing special fonts. It turns out that the stellar images containing the polarimetric information are so beautiful in concept and appearance that it was impossible to resist making one special character which has been incorporated in the title page.


With the increase in the crisis, not only have awareness been created but an active participation of clinical psychologist in the various fields have been observed which may be beneficial to the people but can also be burdensome for the personnel working in the field. To investigate the association between hardiness, coping strategies and professional quality of life among practicing clinical psychologists. Correlational Research design was employed on 80 clinical psychologist selected through purposive sampling between the ages of 26 to 40 years. Participants were assessed using Hardiness Resilience Gauge Scale, Brief Cope Inventory and Professional Quality of Life scale. The data was analyzed using SPSS version 22. The data analyzed showed an association between the study variables. Multiple hierarchal regression analysis revealed that prediction exists between variables. The findings were further discussed in the light of existing literature and theory.


Purpose of review Recent advances in the clinical, epidemiological, genetic, and therapeutic aspects of celiac disease have made this condition a superb model of autoimmunity. This review will outline the most significant work that contributed to our current knowledge of the disease. Recent findings Celiac disease is not confined to the Caucasian population as previously believed; rather its prevalence is approximately 1% worldwide. In addition to the HLA genes, many other genes involved in innate and adaptive immunity, intestinal barrier regulation, and autoimmunity have been identified as integral genetic components of the disease. Based on this information and on a better understanding of celiac disease pathogenesis, novel therapies alternative to the gluten-free diet are currently in advanced phase of development. Summary The outcome of these new findings will most likely have a significant impact in clinical practice, including diagnosis and management of the disease. Furthermore, celiac disease can be used as a unique model to gain more insights on the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases.


Bioleaching has been proven to be a promising technology for removing heavy metals from the sewage sludge over many years. The main objective of this research is to evaluate the bioleaching process for the simultaneous reduction of three heavy metals - copper(Cu), cadmium(Cd), zinc(Zn) and total coliform from the sewage sludge of the Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant (ABTP). Bioleaching was carried out with adapted activated sludge containing high concentration of iron oxidizing bacteria T. ferrooxidans using ferrous sulphate as a substrate without adjusting the sludge initial pH to about 4 with acid. The results demonstreated that simultaneous metal removal efficiencies of Cu, Zn were 70% and 74% for Cd respectively after 10 days of bioleaching. The final pH and ORP were found 2.44 and 533 respectively. After this research, it was also observed that the process of bioleaching by T. ferrooxidans is very efficient for the reduction of total coliform from the sludge. This proces allows a considerable reduction in total coliform (3-4 log removal) for the activated sludge examined over a 10 day period.


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The present research work is based on the detailed experimental observations on the performance characteristics of ECDM set-up during channel cutting operation. The electrochemical discharge machining (ECDM) process have been applied successfully for micro-channel cutting on electrically non-conducting material like glass irrespective of its chemical and mechanical properties and also the tool geometry. It has been found that the MRR and Width are increase with the increase of applied voltage at fixed electrolyte concentration. Also it is observed that the MRR and Width varies with respective to the nature of the tool. The least WOC is observed at applied voltage of 50 V with 15 wt% concentration of NaOH salt solution using curved tool.


Mobility model plays a crucial role in performance evaluation of mobile wireless networks. However, the majority of existing mobility models either does not exhibit realistic movement characteristics or modeling methods are too complex. In this paper, inspired from the trend that users usually move between several popular areas in daily movement, a new mobility model based on Geographic Community (GCMM) is proposed. We concern with the topology construct of geographic environment and the destination selection scheme for user moving in GCMM. Simulation result shown that GCMM better depict the mobility patterns of human. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eee.18.9.2815