This notice provides lists of all areas, population groups, and facilities designated as primary medical care, mental health, and dental health professional shortage areas (HPSAs) as of June 15, 1995. HPSAs are designated or withdrawn by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the authority of section 332 of the Public Health Service (PHS) Act.


Subharmonically synchronous mode-locked and hybrid mode-locked lasers suffer from strong amplitude modulation at frequencies corresponding to injection signal frequency. In this paper, we demonstrate for the first time, significant reduction of amplitude modulation of pulse trains generated by a subharmonic synchronous mode-locked laser at 38 GHz using a nonlinear optical loop mirror. Experimental results as well as a theoretical analysis for the scheme are presented.


Abstract Detailed mapping of a small area has shown that the Eilde Schist undergoes marked variations of facies when traced southwards from Loch Leven. Through the appearance of interbedded quartzite the normal schist of the western outcrop passes into a banded facies, while much of the banded facies of the eastern outcrop is believed to pass into massive quartzite mapped as Elide Quartzite. This sedimentary transition, rather than tectonic causes, probably accounts for the rapid variations in thickness of the two stratigraphical units. An additional factor controlling the thickness of the Elide Schist belonging to the eastern outcrop is the existence of an erosional surface at the base of the succeeding Binnenian Quartzite. The possible significance of these factors in the geology of the country north of Loch Leven is discussed briefly with special reference to some of the minor slides.


As a pediatric type of internist, the reviewer enjoyed reading this book and reviewed it with the greatest pleasure. This is a timely and excellent work on the urgent and important subject of developmental pathology in human medicine. The study of this field is just in its infancy and the recent symposia and monographs 1-7 dealing with congenital anomalies are barely beginning to state the problem, to define its magnitude, to attempt a nosologic classification, and to attain some primordial insight into the causal and formal genesis of some anomalies. Interest in this subject has been intensified recently by several events: the thalidomide disaster, which raised the fearful question about the extent of environmentally produced mutations and developmental anomalies in man; the advent of new cytogenetic methods which are being applied to the problem of congenital anomalies, and the application of sophisticated biochemical techniques to the search for inborn errors


—Inverse heat conduction problem can be found in many engineering fields, and has the characteristics of non-linearity, ill-posedness and massive-computation. In this paper, a parallel Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm is proposed to solve inverse heat conduction problem, after choosing parameters determining condition. The numeric results show that the algorithm has high accuracy and can be used in practice.


We present new Green Bank Telescope (GBT) 21 cm neutral hydrogen (H i) observations of a complete distance-limited sample of 22 Hickson Compact Groups (HCGs) with at least four true members. We detected an average H i mass of 8 × 109 M☉ (median = 6 × 109 M☉), which is significantly larger than previous single-dish measurements. Consequently, the H i deficiencies for these HCGs have been reduced, although not completely eliminated. Spectral comparison of the GBT data with complementary Very Large Array data shows significant H i excess in the GBT spectra. The observed excess is primarily due to the high surface brightness (HSB) sensitivity of the GBT detecting diffuse, low column density H i in these groups. The excess gas forms a faint diffused neutral medium which is an intermediate stage in the evolution of HSB H i tidal debris in the intragroup medium (IGM) before it is fully ionized. The excess gas mass fraction, (M(H i)GBT − M(H i)VLA)/M(H i)GBT, for our complete sample varies from 5% to 81% with an average of 36% (median = 30%). The excess gas mass fraction is highest in slightly H i deficient groups where the tidal debris has had enough time to evolve. We also find the excess gas content increases with the evolutionary phase of the group described in Verdes-Montenegro et al. Theoretical calculations indicate that an H i cloud of radius ⩾ 200 pc would survive in an IGM of 2 × 106 K for more than the typical dynamical lifetime of a group. However, smaller clouds get evaporated and assimilated into the hot IGM in a much shorter timescale.


Communicating scientific topics in state of the art exhibitions frequently involves the creation of impressive visual installations. In the exhibition 'STONEHENGE. A Hidden Landscape.' in the MAMUZ museum for prehistory in Mistelbach, Lower Austria, LBI ArchPro presents recent research results from the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project. A central element of the exhibition which extends over two floors connected with open staircases is an assembly of original-sized replica of several stones of the central trilithon horseshoe which is seen from both floors. In the upper floor, visitors are at eye level with the lintels, and on a huge curved projection screen which extends along the long wall of the hall they can experience the view out over the Sarsen circle into the surrounding landscape. This paper describes the planning and creation of this part of the exhibition, and some first impressions after opening.


Care providers are frequently confronted with complicated questions about decision-making competence. This article offers tools to help them to deal with those questions. We also look closely at the underlying legal aspects of competence, how and when competence should be assessed, who is responsible for this assessment and which tools are available for this process.


Introduction Overexpression and activation of the components of the EGFR/ErbB pathway has a prognostic significance in CRLM. HER2 (ErbB2) and HER3 (ErbB3) have previously been found to be overexpressed in CRLM with ErbB3 overexpression being associated with good prognosis. The ErbB signalling pathway consists of multiple molecular components. These components interact in a complex non-linear manner which makes it challenging to understand how the system functions. For example, the dimerization between ErbB receptors plays a crucial role in downstream signalling activation. Mathematical modelling can help to quantify network properties and understand its behaviour under various conditions. Birtwistle (2007) developed a mathematical model of the EGFR signalling pathway which focused on early pathway response to stimulation of the ErbB receptors. Using this model, we aimed to understand how the ErbB pathway functions in CLRM. Methods Lysates of fresh frozen CRLM samples from 18 patients who were chemonaive for CLRM were analysed using a proteomics-based assay Collaborative Enzyme Enhanced Reactive immunoassay (CEER) to quantify the phosphorylated and non-phosphorylated forms of ErbB family receptors and phosphorylated downstream ErbB pathway factors. We used a model of the EGFR signalling pathway previously developed by Birtwistle (2007) and validated using data from a breast cancer cell line to try and reproduce the activation patterns of HER1, HER2, and HER3. Results CRLM with high levels of both HER2 and HER3 were associated with high levels of phosphorylated HER3 (pHER3) and vice versa (p < 0.001). A similar relationship was observed between pHER3 and HER1, HER2 (p < 0.0001); and HER1, cMET (p = 0.006). Simulations focused on pHER3 for high and low levels of HER1, HER2, and HER3. The simulated relationship between pHER3 and HER1, HER2 was in good agreement with our observed data. High and low levels of both HER1, HER2 and HER1, HER3 also showed good agreement. Some discrepancy between simulation and experiment was found for high values of HER1 and low values of HER2 (and vice versa). Conclusion Simulations were performed to understand the dynamics of the EGFR pathway and showed partial agreement between the Birtwistle model and CEER data.The Birtwistle model which was designed to only capture the early network response to stimulation of ErbB receptors in breast cancer cells may not be directly applicable to resected CRLM. Further refinement of the model is required in the future. Disclosure of Interest None Declared


Steel storage tanks are critical components of an industrial installation due to their high seismic vulnerability and containment of hazardous materials. Failure of a which, may lead to loss of containment (LOC) triggering domino effects such as explosion, environmental pollution, loss of functionality and disruption of business. Past earthquakes have demonstrated different type of failure modes in steel storage tanks. Although there are plenty of studies related to different failure modes like elephant foot buckling or tank uplifting, there are very few efforts on the sliding behavior of tank. Large displacements caused by the tank sliding can lead to pipe detachment and release of hazardous material which might cause damage propagation. Consequently, this damage state is very important for the Quantitative Seismic Risk Assessment of industrial plants.
 In order to enumerate the sliding displacement of unanchored steel storage tanks, a simplified numerical model realized with OpenSees platform is proposed. The friction model used in OpenSees is calibrated with the results obtained from ABAQUS FE model. Sliding response of tanks with different D/H ratio is analyzed using the simplified model. Fragility curves for the tank sliding damage state are analytically evaluated for different D/H ratio of the tank using the "cloud method". Finally, a parametric study is conducted in order to comprehend the influence of different parameters on the sliding behavior such as friction coefficient, tank filling level and the influence of the vertical component of ground motions.


Aims: To describe the occurrence of signet ring cells of stromal origin within the uterine cervix. Methods: Following the identification of prominent signet ring cells in the stroma in a large loop excision of transformation zone (LLETZ) biopsy of cervix (the index case), a series of LLETZ specimens was prospectively examined for this phenomenon. Results: Focal collections of identical signet ring cells in 15% of the specimens were found. The cells were characterised by bland eccentric round or crescentic nuclei with a single cytoplasmic vacuole. The signet ring cells in the index case were vimentin positive, and negative with cytokeratins, epithelial membrane antigen and CD68, in keeping with a stromal derivation. Conclusions: In all cases, the signet ring cells were in areas of thermal damage and they are believed to be an artefact of cauterisation; identical features have been described in transurethral resection of prostate specimens and also attributed to thermal damage. When the change is extensive in the cervix, there is potential for misdiagnosis as a signet ring carcinoma. Other cervical lesions with signet ring cells are discussed.


A spin-orbital superexchange Hamiltonian in a Mott insulator with ${t}_{2g}$ orbital degeneracy is investigated. More specifically, we focus on a spin ferromagnetic state of the model and study a collective behavior of orbital angular momentum. Orbital order in the model occurs in a nontrivial way---it is stabilized exclusively by quantum effects through the order-from-disorder mechanism. Several energetically equivalent orbital orderings are identified. Some of them are specified by a quadrupole ordering and have no unquenched angular momentum at low energy. Other states correspond to a noncollinear ordering of the orbital angular momentum and show the magnetic Bragg peaks at specific positions. Order parameters are unusually small because of strong quantum fluctuations. Orbital contribution to the resonant x-ray scattering is discussed. The dynamical magnetic structure factor in different ordered states is calculated. Predictions made should help to observe elementary excitations of orbitals and also to identify the type of the orbital order in ferromagnetic titanates. Including further a relativistic spin-orbital coupling, we derive an effective low-energy spin Hamiltonian and calculate a spin-wave spectrum, which is in good agreement with recent experimental observations in ${\mathrm{YTiO}}_{3}.$


Dementia in Parkinson's disease (PD) is a serious health issue and a major concern for many patients. In most cases mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is considered a transitional stage between normal cognitive functioning and dementia which is of potential importance in the early identification of patients at risk for dementia. Recently, the Movement Disorder Society (MDS) proposed diagnostic criteria for MCI in PD (PD-MCI). These criteria comprise two operationalizations: Level I (based on an abbreviated assessment) and Level II (based on comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation permitting MCI subtyping). These criteria need to be validated. This paper describes a project aiming to validate the MDS PD-MCI criteria by pooling and analyzing cross-sectional and longitudinal neuropsychological databases comprising ≥5,500 PD patients and ≥1,700 controls. After applying the MDS PD-MCI Level I and Level II criteria, rates of conversion to PD-dementia and predictive variables for conversion to PD-dementia will be established. This study will also assist in identifying whether revisions of the PD-MCI criteria are required.


Two cases of endometrioma occurring in the perineum, associated with episiotomy scars and involving the external anal sphincter are described. Previous similar cases in the literature are reviewed and discussed. Misdiagnosis of this uncommon lesion is the rule when it is seen outside gynaecological practice. If, however, its existence is appreciated then correct diagnosis is simple and treatment is straight forward.


In 1992722 bicyclists were killed in the United States in collisions with motor vehicles,' and an estimated 650,000 people were treated in emergency rooms for bicycle-related injuries.2 It is remarkable that for a traffic safety problem of this magnitude so little research has been conducted to establish the causes of these accidents. Instead, design standards for roadways and bicycle facilities, individual project designs, and laws and policies regarding bicycling are based almost entirely on opinion. The quality of the results is highly variable. This article reports a study of bicy cle/motor vehicle collisions in the city of Palo Alto, Calif. The study compares personal characteristics and bicycling behavior—age, sex, direction of travel (with or against traffic flow) and position on the road (roadway or sidewalk)—of bicyclists involved in accidents with similar data for the general population of bicyclists observed along the same streets. This comparison enables us to identify factors that are correlated with increased risk of bicycle/motor vehicle collisions and to suggest engineering practices that reduce this risk.


In recent years, there have been a large number of proposed approaches to detecting changes in mean. A natural question for an analyst is which method is most appropriate for their applications. Answering this question is difficult because current empirical studies often give conflicting conclusions. This paper aims to show the similarities and differences between different changepoint methods. We highlight that there are two aspects to estimating changepoints: estimating the number of changes and estimating their locations, and that comparisons should separately evaluate these two aspects. We perform an extensive comparison of different methods across a range of simulation scenarios and provide code and full results for an interested practitioner to extend this comparison to more methods or different scenarios.


Introduction We present a series of cases referred to our severe asthma clinic that symptomatically appear like asthma, yet physiology demonstrated one of the more uncommon types of severe Small Airway Disease (SAD), including: Allergic Bronchopulmonary Aspergillosis (ABPA), Obliterative Bronchiolitis (OB), follicular bronchiolitis and Diffuse Idiopathic Pulmonary Neuroendocrine Cell Hyperplasia (DIPNECH). These diseases represent a diagnostic challenge. We have also reviewed cases of tracheomalacia and horseshoe lung, which in our report shared similar physiology to SAD. Methods Our findings in these SAD patients are compared with randomly identified cases of genuine severe asthma. Results ABPA, OB, follicular bronchiolitis and DIPNECH shared similar physiology in this project and are compared together as Non-Asthmatic SAD (NASAD). When compared to asthmatic SAD (ASAD), NASAD demonstrated a lower FEF25–75% (NASAD range 4–26%, median 9%, 7 out of 8 < 18% v. ASAD range 8–32%, median 26.5%, 1 out of 6 < 18%) and a higher RV (NASAD range 74–203%, median 153%, 5 out of 8 > 120% v. ASAD range 66–121%, median 97.5%, 2 out of 6 > 120%). All patients, except one, demonstrated normal gas transfers strongly suggesting an absence of emphysema. HRCT alone did not provide any diagnostic benefit. Only asthma demonstrated significant and consistent bronchodilator reversibility. Tracheomalacia mimicked SAD, demonstrating an inconsistent pattern of FEF25–75% and a small degree of variation of RV around normal. Horseshoe lung demonstrated similar physiology to NASAD. Abstract S40 Figure 1 Conclusions Clinicians need to consider the above mentioned diseases as an alternative diagnosis to emphysema and asthma in those with a characteristically SAD flow volume loop, a high RV and normal gas transfers.


The low conversion efficiency of high-order harmonic generation (HHG) in gases is an insurmountable limitation for many applications, where a considerable photon flux is an instrumental prerequisite. We present a study of the HHG conversion efficiency dependence on the driving laser intensity and analyze the conditions for optimal phase-matching in a loose focusing configuration and long generation medium using a Ti:Sapphire laser. Moreover, by determination of the influence of plasma effects on the driving laser pulse, we observe a correlation between the HHG conversion efficiency and the blueshift of the fundamental pulse. The maximal HHG conversion efficiency is achieved just before the driving laser spectrum is considerably affected by the plasma. Similar behavior is observed in HHG for different noble gases. In this respect, the appearance of a plasma-induced spectral shift in the driving laser might serve as an indication of a substantial loss of HHG conversion efficiency. Consequently, our findings can be exploited to obtain essential information about the laser-plasma interaction process during HHG and can pave the way for a more convenient control of optimal HHG conditions.The low conversion efficiency of high-order harmonic generation (HHG) in gases is an insurmountable limitation for many applications, where a considerable photon flux is an instrumental prerequisite. We present a study of the HHG conversion efficiency dependence on the driving laser intensity and analyze the conditions for optimal phase-matching in a loose focusing configuration and long generation medium using a Ti:Sapphire laser. Moreover, by determination of the influence of plasma effects on the driving laser pulse, we observe a correlation between the HHG conversion efficiency and the blueshift of the fundamental pulse. The maximal HHG conversion efficiency is achieved just before the driving laser spectrum is considerably affected by the plasma. Similar behavior is observed in HHG for different noble gases. In this respect, the appearance of a plasma-induced spectral shift in the driving laser might serve as an indication of a substantial loss of HHG conversion efficiency. Consequently, our findings...


This paper reports on the evaluation of wireless Internet news sites using the WebQual/m instrument. From initial application in the domain of traditional Internet Web sites, the instrument has been adapted for sites delivered using the wireless application protocol (WAP). The WebQual approach is to assess the Web-site quality from the perspective of the 'voice of the customer', an approach adopted in quality function deployment. The WebQual/m instrument is used to assess customer perceptions of information, site and useroriented qualities. In particular, the qualities of three UK-based WAP news sites are assessed via an online questionnaire. The results are reported and analysed and demonstrate considerable variations in the offerings of the news sites. The findings and their implications for mobile commerce are discussed and some conclusions and directions for further research are provided.


The cardiopulmonary effects of two xylazine-morphine sulfate drug combinations (mixtures) given IV were evaluated in horses. In horses given xylazine (0.66 mg/kg of body weight) and morphine sulfate (0.12 mg/kv) IV (experiment 1), there were significant (P less than 0.05) decreases in heart rate, cardiac output, and respiratory rate. Central venous pressure was significantly (P less than 0.05) increased. Arterial and pulmonary arterial blood pressures increased significantly (P less than 0.05) but transiently. Arterial blood gas tensions (PaCO2 and PaO2) and pH remained unchanged. In the horses given xylazine (0.66 mg/kg) and morphine sulfate (0.66 mg/kg) IV (experiment 2), the responses were qualitatively similar to those of experiment 1 horses, excluding lessened heart rate which was not significant). Horses in both experiments remained stationary and did not attempt to kick or strike for the duration of the experiment. Objective (trained personnel) and semiquantitative assessments of the analgesia in the horses during experiment 1 and those during experiment 2 indicated marked improvement in analgesia in the latter experiment.


A challenge facing cultural‐frame institutionalism is to explain how existing institutional logics and role identities are replaced by new logics and role identities. This article depicts identity movements that strive to expand individual autonomy as motors of institutional change. It proposes that the sociopolitical legitimacy of activists, extent of theorization of new roles, prior defections by peers to the new logic, and gains to prior defectors act as identity‐discrepant cues that induce actors to abandon traditional logics and role identities for new logics and role identities. A study of how the nouvelle cuisine movement in France led elite chefs to abandon classical cuisine during the period starting from 1970 and ending in 1997 provides wide‐ranging support for these arguments. Implications for research on institutional change, social movements, and social identity are outlined.


Species of dinophycean Amphidomataceae are producers of phycotoxins classified as azaspiracids. We provide the first records of two of their constituent species, Amphidoma languida and Azadinium dexteroporum, for the Irminger Sea off Iceland. Morphological examination and molecular characterization, including uncorrected mean pairwise distances between sequences of the Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS), doubtlessly assigned the sub-Arctic strain 2A11 to the reference of Amphidoma languida. Strain 2A11 produced AZA-38 and AZA-39, corresponding to the toxin profile described for the type material. The sub-Arctic isolate 1D12 differed significantly in terms of ITS genetic distance (p = 0.04) from a Mediterranean Azadinium dexteroporum strain, but our morphological analysis did not reveal any major or stable diagnostic traits between the reference strain of Azadinium dexteroporum and the new strain described here. In contrast to the Mediterranean strain of Azadinium dexteroporum, the sub-Arctic strain 1D12 did not produce any known azaspiracids. The new records of Amphidoma languida and Azadinium dexteroporum from the Irminger Sea imply an important range extension of the species, formerly known from the northern and eastern Atlantic (Amphidoma languida) and from the Mediterranean area (Azadinium dexteroporum) only. Together with three new species of Azadinium recently described from the same expedition, the results clearly show that the biodiversity of the Amphidomataceae in the sub-Arctic is remarkably large.


The authors present a high-resolution frame-transfer charge-coupled-device (CCD) suitable for S-VHS camcorders with an additional full-resolution true electronic still picture (ESP) mode of operation. The CCD sensor is composed of an image section, an intermediate readout register, a storage section, and a second readout register. A resolution of 450 TV lines (H) is obtained in color images by applying cyan-green-yellow complementary stripe color filters on the 1187(H)*581(V) pixels. The operation of the sensor in both conventional video and ESP modes is described. Special attention is paid to the 3-D potential calculations required to obtain a design guaranteeing a high-quality picture. Experimental results are presented. >


In the present study, titanium (Ti) samples were surface-modified by titania (TiO2), silica (SiO2) and hydroxyapatite (HA) coatings using a sol-gel process. The bioactivity of the film-coated Ti samples was investigated by cell attachment and morphology study using human osteoblast-like SaOS-2 cells. Results of the cell attachment indicated that the densities of cell attachment on the surfaces of Ti samples were significantly increased by film coatings; the density of cell attachment on HA film-coated surface was higher than those on TiO2 and SiO2 film-coated surfaces. Cell morphology study showed that the cells attached, spread and grew well on the three kinds of film-coated surfaces. It can be concluded that the three kinds of film coatings can bioactivate the surfaces of Ti samples effectively. Overall, Ti sample with HA film-coated surface exhibited the best bioactivity.


Central actions of angiotensin play an important role in cardiovascular control and have been implicated in the pathogenesis of hypertension and heart failure. One feature of centrally or peripherally administered angiotensin is that the bradycardia in response to an acute pressor effect is blunted. It is unknown whether after central angiotensin this is due partly to increased cardiac sympathetic nerve activity (CSNA). We recorded CSNA and arterial pressure in conscious sheep, at least 3 days after electrode implantation. The effects of intracerebroventricular infusions of ANG II (3 nmol/h for 30 min) and artificial cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) (1 ml/h) were determined. The response to intracerebroventricular hypertonic saline (0.6 M NaCl in CSF at 1 ml/h) was examined as there is evidence that hypertonic saline acts via angiotensinergic pathways. Intracerebroventricular angiotensin increased CSNA by 23 +/- 7% (P < 0.001) and mean arterial pressure (MAP) by 7.6 +/- 1.2 mmHg (P < 0.001) but did not significantly change heart rate (n = 5). During intracerebroventricular ANG II the reflex relation between CSNA and diastolic blood pressure was significantly shifted to the right (P < 0.01). Intracerebroventricular hypertonic saline increased CSNA (+9.4 +/- 6.6%, P < 0.05) and MAP but did not alter heart rate. The responses to angiotensin and hypertonic saline were prevented by intracerebroventricular losartan (1 mg/h). In conclusion, in conscious sheep angiotensin acts within the brain to increase CSNA, despite increased MAP. The increase in CSNA may account partly for the lack of bradycardia in response to the increased arterial pressure. The responses to angiotensin and hypertonic saline were losartan sensitive, indicating they were mediated by angiotensin AT-1 receptors.


Even though the poor with a lower income than poverty line though hired to be paid constitute the majority of the whole population in many countries, they have not been researched sufficiently. Working poor people can not reach the sufficient level of income to meet their expenses as a result of familial circumstances like insufficient education, divorce, excessiveness of the number of children, loss of a spouse as well as working for low wage due to the labour market. This research is supposed to be about poor people working as wage earners in informal sector in Denizli. 100 apartment doorkeepers, 100 house cleaners and 100 baby sitters have been included into the research as its samples. This research is concerned with the point of view about poverty of working poor people, their strategies of coping with poverty and their social relations.


Trends in the development of production in the information economic environment indicate the need for its further effective functioning exclusively according to the innovative model. Innovative activity differs from any other activity of the enterprise by the presence of an intellectual component, necessarily secured by the property rights, correctly presented information about which can influence management and investment decisions. Accounting contributes to the formation of complete and reliable information about any activity of a business entity that has a social and economic effect.

The article examines the essence of innovative activity of enterprises and its regulatory and legal regulation. An analysis of the research and development costs in Ukraine by funding sources was carried out. The specific weight of the research and development expenses as a percentage of the GDP of individual countries of the European Union and in Ukraine was analyzed.

On the basis of current Ukrainian legislation and methodical literature, the objects and subjects of innovative activity are defined. The system of information support of the innovative activity of the business entity is given, which will ensure effective management and the adoption of high-quality management decisions regarding the innovative activity of the enterprise.

It has been established that the responsible stage of the accounting support of innovative activity is the substantiation of its objects, during the determining of which it is necessary to take into account the economic nature of innovations, the technological features of their creation and use, the requirements of regulatory and legislative acts regarding monitoring and control over their compliance, the need for information for analysis and evaluation of innovative activity and its forecasting according to relevant indicators.

The current method of organizing the accounting of innovation activities in terms of accounts for accounting for innovations by types of innovation costs has been studied, which will provide an opportunity to receive more complete, operational and reliable information about innovation processes at the enterprise for the purpose of further economic evaluation of the effectiveness of innovative projects and programs


This survey aims to investigate the level of service quality, client satisfaction and the image of Indonesia in particular insurance companies to PT (Limited Liability Company) Insurance Bumiputera Bumida Palembang. Indirectly influence the quality of services to the corporate image through satisfaction. The method used was descriptive. Data obtained through the distribution of questionnaires to 285 unemployment insurance claims losses Bumida Palembang PT Asuransi Bumiputera study. Descriptive analysis that involves frequencies, means and percentages used in this study. The results showed that the effect of simultaneous five dimensions of service quality are tangible, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy are positive and significant on unemployment claims satisfaction of 49.7%. In partial, reliability dimension has an important influence positively the most dominant to the satisfaction of jobless claims, which accounted for 27%, the next dimension significantly, dimensions responsiveness, assurance dimensions and dimensions of empathy has had a major influence positively to the satisfaction of unemployment claims that each by 21.5, 20.6, 18.1 and 19.6% of each other. Five dimensions of service quality has an indirect effect a positive image of the company PT Asuransi Palembang Bumida Bumiputera through satisfaction jobless claims, which are tangibles is 2.3%, dimensional reliability is 2.9%, dimensions responsiveness is 2.2%, dimensions guarantee is 1.9% and empathy dimension it amounted to 2.1%. Although unemployment claims satisfaction in handling insurance claims loss solutions have a positive effect and significant to the company's image is equal to 10.7%.


The role of racial segregation in perpetuating racial prejudice and inequality has been widely investigated by social scientists. Most research has concentrated on the macro-sociological organization of institutions of residence, education and employment. In this paper we suggest that such work may be usefully complemented by research that investigates the so-called 'micro-ecology of segregation' in everyday life spaces -- the dynamic, largely informal network of social practices through which individuals maintain racial isolation within settings where members of other race groups are physically co-present. Developing this argument, we discuss some historical examples of research on the micro-ecological dimension of race segregation in the USA. We also draw examples from an ongoing program of work on everyday practices of contact and segregation in post-apartheid South Africa. The paper concludes by exploring some conceptual and methodological implications of treating racial segregation as a micro-ecological practice.


A streak camera was used to make observations of apparent plasma motion in the interaction space of an A6 relativistic magnetron with an explosive emission cathode. The anode plasma luminosity velocity was measured to be 0.8 cm/ mu s, comparable with the gap closure velocity, which was indirectly measured to be 1.0-1.6 cm/ mu s, depending upon the magnetic field. The gap closure velocity appeared to be independent of the microwave oscillation. Long-pulse operation (hundreds of nanoseconds) as a function of the magnetron-modulator interaction is also presented. At 250 kV the A6 emitted microwave pulses out of a single resonator for up to 250 ns in duration, with peak power up to 90 MW and a characteristic single-spike pulse length of 150 ns. >


: Morphological and physiological peculiarities of the thyroid gland have been studied in the golden hamster (Cricetus auratus W.) exposed to prolonged acclimation at +4 degrees C. These heterothermal rodents, kept constantly under laboratory conditions at +18-+20 degrees, show no distinct seasonal changes in the thyroid activity. As demonstrated by morphological findings, a relatively high activity of the gland persists throughout the whole year. At a prolonged acclimation to cold (up to 3 months, +4 degrees), the thyroid activity increases both in golden hamster, and in homothermal rats. Morphological indices of the hyperactivity are as follows: hypertrophy of the gland occurring by the 20th--30th days of exposure and increasing since then; hyperplasy of the granular tissue; colloid vacuolation; strong vessel hyperemy. However, the size of cells is not increased as are likely to retain a partial activity which is evidenced by the presence of tracks. Intensification of the thyroid function is also expressed by the increase in 131(uptake and output rates as well as by the increase in the protein bound iodine content in the blood of hamsters. Changes of the thyroid gland in acclimated animals occur independently of the season and photoperiod. It is shown that the degree of adaptation to prolonged action of cold, is more pronounced in golden hamsters than in rats. It has been also demonstrated that golden hamsters tend to hibernate after a prolonged cold acclimation.


Despite significant advances in the diagnoses and treatment of mental illnesses, it remains shrouded in mystery, myth, and superstition particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. This is often reflected in delayed presentations, frequent relapse and non-treatment, with dire consequences on affected individuals, family, and society. The aim of this study was to evaluate the pattern of presentation and diagnoses of psychiatric illness among attendees of a psychiatric facility in a tertiary hospital in North-Central Nigeria. This was a descriptive, explorative, cross-sectional study. A pro forma was designed to obtain information about patients' socio-demographic variables, diagnoses, duration of untreated illness, GAF Score and other clinical data, from case files, spanning over a three year period. A total of 720 case files were analyzed with 54% of the patients being male. Only 66(9.2%) comprised of children and adolescents with 83% making up the adult population and 7.5% being elderly (60 years and above). While 129(17.9%) were employed (government and self), most (88%) of the patients reside within the state. Only 12.2% were clinically stable at 6 months follow-up assessment even though most (79.3%) of the patients had absconded at 6months follow-up. Mean duration of untreated illness was 117.5 weeks (SD±226.3) (approximately 2.3years) with Psychotic disorders predominating 355(41.8%). Only 13.4% were diagnosed with depression and 0.6 % mental retardation. Mean GAF score at presentation was 43.23(SD±14.87), a reflection of illness severity at presentation. Mental illness is a common occurrence, however, the majority of patients only present when symptoms become severe or when patients become disruptive. Mental disorders of childhood and old age are particularly underrepresented, underscoring the need for more public enlightenment programs that are geared towards detection, early presentation, treatment and stigma reduction.


Research suggests that checklists reduce errors in fields ranging from aviation to medicine. Checklists are effective in part because their content is not randomly selected from available information but strongly sampled from information experts believe is critical. This sampling process supports the inference that unlisted information is unlikely to be important. However, this predicts that checklists might leave learners selectively vulnerable to unlisted sources of error. In Experiment 1, we show that adults in an aviation class detect fewer unlisted sources of error given a checklist than at baseline. In Experiment 2, we show that this inductive bias does not require previous experience with checklists: given a checklist for organizing a room, children (mean: 62 months) selectively overlooked unlisted items relative to baseline, and did so even when told the list might be incomplete.


Defects in RNA splicing have been linked to numerous human disorders, but remain poorly explored in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Here, we report that, in the gut epithelium of patients with ulcerative colitis (UC), the expression of the chromatin and alternative splicing regulator HP1γ is strongly reduced. Accordingly, inactivation of the HP1γ gene in the mouse gut triggered several IBD-like traits, including inflammation and dysbiosis. In parallel, we discovered that its loss of function broadly increased splicing noise, reducing requirement for canonical splicing consensus sequences, and favoring the usage of cryptic splice sites at numerous genes with key functions in gut biology. This notably resulted in the production of progerin, a noncanonical toxic splice variant of prelamin A mRNA, responsible for the Hutchinson Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS) of premature aging. Likewise, production of progerin transcript was found to be a signature of colonic cells from UC patients. Thus, our study identifies HP1γ as a regulator of RNA metabolism in vivo, providing a unique mechanism linking anti-inflammation and accuracy of RNA splicing in the gut epithelium. HP1 defect may confer a general disturbance in RNA splicing precision to scrutinize in IBD and more generally in accelerating aging diseases.


This study presents a development of DeCatS(Detail Design of High Speed Catenary System) which is a software to design high speed catenary system automatically. The program is developed by Korea Railroad Research Institute with the support of KHSR. A process of developing it and a comparison with LEXCAT, in order to demonstrate a preciseness of that, were performed. In the program, decision of H-beam, cantilever fitting, management of materials, automatic drawing and etc. according to input conditions can be accomplished. In this study, especially the program algorithm for the decision of mast was introduced.


There is an increasingly urgent need, expressed by the scientific community and by the end users, to exploit web resources in order to analyse, process, visualize and interact remotely and in real time with 3D high definition models of Cultural Heritage artefacts and monuments. Many sharing platforms are currently developing thanks to user contributions. However this goal has not been yet reached successfully. Complex mesh models cannot be displayed interactively online on consumer computers, without downloading locally the entire model or accepting the compromise solution that the model is blurred and fuzzy during the interaction. Thus a key aspect is the quality with which the content is "distributed", and, at the same time, the certainty of copyright protection. The platform implemented and here presented allows an efficient and effective multi-user online sharing of high quality 3D textured models without the need for the users to download it locally but exploiting the performances of a remote HPC infrastructure.


The purpose of this study was to identify physiological responses through combined exercddise for intellectually disabled people who view obesity as one of their physical characteristics. To achieve the purpose of this study, an eight-week compound exercise was conducted on 28 intellectually disabled middle school students residing in K city and the average and standard deviation for groups (normal BMI groups, obese BMI groups) were calculated. In addition, data processing was performed using two way repeated measured ANOVA using SPSS 18.0, and post-verification was performed if there were significant differences. The results are as follows: First, there was no change in weight for middle school students with intellectual disabilities through eight weeks of combined exercise. However, the lean body mass increased in the standard population, body fat mass and BMI decreased in the standard population, and the bone density factor increased in both the standard population and the obese population. Second, neutral fat decreased in the standard group, and the low-density cholesterol factor decreased in the obesity group. Third, cortisol factors have been shown to decrease in standard groups. In conclusion, the eight-week compound exercise has been shown to have an effect of improvement in the physical composition and blood lipid variables of middle school students with intellectual disabilities.


ABSTRACT This review examines the relationship between rural residence, income, and health status for older women in the U.S. Little published research has focused on the interaction between financial status and the specific health-related needs of these rural women. Both descriptive data from the 1990 U.S. Census and empirical data from the health care literature are analyzed. Gender, rural residence, and poverty are identified as risk factors for reduced access to health care services, lower rates of health care service utilization, and poorer health outcomes.


Frames for R can be thought of as redundant or linearly dependent coordinate systems, and have important applications in such areas as signal processing, data compression, and sampling theory. The word "frame" has a different meaning in the context of differential geometry and topology. A moving frame for the tangent bundle of a smooth manifold is a basis for the tangent space at each point which varies smoothly over the manifold. It is well known that the only spheres with a moving basis for their tangent bundle are S, S, and S. On the other hand, after combining the two separate meanings of the word "frame", we show that the n-dimensional sphere, S, has a moving finite unit tight frame for its tangent bundle if and only if n is odd. We give a procedure for creating vector fields on S2n−1 for all n ∈ N, and we characterize exactly when sets of such vector fields form a moving finite unit tight frame on S2n−1. This gives as well a new method for constructing finite unit tight frames for Hilbert spaces.


[1] Submarine permafrost degradation rates may be determined by a number of interacting processes, including rates of sea level rise and coastal erosion, sea bottom temperature and salinity regimes, geothermal heat flux and heat and mass diffusion within the sediment column. Observations of ice-bearing permafrost in shelf sediments are necessary in order to determine its spatial distribution and to quantify its degradation rate. We tested the use of direct current electrical resistivity to ice-bearing permafrost in Elson Lagoon northeast of Barrow, Alaska (Beaufort Sea). A sharp increase in electrical resistivity was observed in profiles collected perpendicular to and along the coastline and is interpreted to be the boundary between ice-free sediment and underlying ice-bearing submarine permafrost. The depth to the interpreted ice-bearing permafrost increases from <2 m below sea level to over 12 m below sea level with increasing distance from the coastline. The dependence of the saline sediment electrical resistivity on temperature and freezing was measured in the laboratory to provide validation for the field measurements. Electrical resistivity was shown to be effective for detection of shallow ice-bearing permafrost in the coastal zone. Historical coastal retreat rates were combined with the inclination of the top of the ice-bearing permafrost to calculate mean vertical permafrost degradation rates of 1 to 4 cm yr−1.


In this paper, we investigate link adaptation for an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) visible light communication (VLC) system. The proposed adaptive OFDM VLC system supports both repetition coding (RC) and spatial multiplexing (SM) as MIMO modes and allows spatial mode switching based on channel conditions. Regarding to the instantaneous signal-to-noise ratio for both RC and SM modes, the maximum constellation size that can be supported for each MIMO mode on each subcarrier is determined. The MIMO mode that gives the highest spectral efficiency (SE) is then selected. The proposed joint MIMO mode selection and bit loading scheme maximizes the SE while satisfying a target bit error rate. Our numerical results reveal that a peak data rate up to 18.3 Gb/sec can be achieved in a  $16 \times 16$  MIMO setting using light emitting diodes with cut-off frequency of 10 MHz in typical indoor environments.


TWO NOTEWORTHY HISTORICAL CONTROVERSIES have proceeded in parallel fashion since the early 1980s without the protagonists in either debate being aware of the other. One concerns warfare and migration among early-nineteenth-century African societies and their contribution to the ethnic divisions that flowered under South Africa's apartheid regime. The other concerns the role of external barbarians and their migrations in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the founding of enduring European nations. Unquestionably these controversies differ substantially, both in the issues at stake and in their temporal and geographical scale. But they raise similar questions about concepts of tribes, barbarians, and mass migrations formulated by previous generations of historians. Nineteenth-century knowledge about the precolonial societies of Southern Africa was generated by methodologies and assumptions now known to be flawed, with many of them reflecting the legacy of classical studies in the West. Major errors stemmed from the application of inappropriate European models to African societies—models that owed much to the heritage of classical learning about Romans and barbarians. In a parallel development, encounters with exotic peoples on imperial frontiers since the sixteenth century had been reshaping classical scholars' concepts of ancient barbarians. The result was a complicated process of intellectual interchange: modern conquerors viewed their newly acquired subjects and colonial neighbors through the distorting prism of Roman history, while historians of the classical world continually reinterpreted ancient sources in the light of present-day imperial experience. The critique of evidence developed during the debate on the so-called mfecane in South Africa applies with equal validity to the study of barbarian movements and identities in European late antiquity. It is perhaps not surprising that the two controversies developed along similar lines in the late twentieth century, when old certainties about colonial others and the nature of ethnicity were subjected to unprecedented scrutiny. The central points at issue transcend the disciplinary boundaries of both fields of study, bedeviling historical scholarship wherever national or ethnic movements claim connections to long-past migrations, vanished peoples, or defunct polities.


upon transfection of the Fc (cid:103) RIIA receptor. Rho was found to be essential for the accumulation of phosphotyrosine and of F-actin around phagocytic cups and for Fc (cid:103) receptor–mediated Ca 2 (cid:49) signaling. The clustering of receptors in response to opsonin, an essential step in Fc (cid:103) -induced signaling, was the earliest event shown to be inhibited by C3 exotoxin. The effect of the toxin was specific, since clustering and internalization of transferrin receptors were unaffected by microinjection of C3. These data identify a role for small GTPases in Fc (cid:103) receptor–mediated phagocytosis by leukocytes.


: All neoplasms observed in association with the fetal alcohol and hydantoin syndromes are reviewed. Combined teratogenesis and presumed fetal oncogenesis are discussed in addition to the known adult oncogenic potential of alcohol and hydantoin. Both the types of neoplasms and the organ systems affected are different in adults exposed to alcohol and hydantoin than in children exposed to the same presumed oncogens prenatally. Thus, dissimilar biologic processes are implicated, the presumed fetal oncogenic effects differing from the adult oncogenic effects. Further studies are needed to firmly establish the relationship between the fetal alcohol and hydantoin syndromes on the one hand and childhood neoplasia on the other.


As a near ideal biometric, iris authentication is widely used and mobile acquisition techniques are known. But iris acquisition on handheld imaging devices, such as smartphones, poses multiple, unique challenges. In this paper, a range of factors that affect the quality of iris images are reviewed. Iris size, image quality and acquisition wavelength are found to be key factors. Experimental results are presented confirming the lower limits of iris size for useful authentication performance. The authentication workflow for handheld devices is described. A case study on a current smartphone model is presented, including calculation of the pixel resolution that can be achieved with a visible-only optical system. Based on these analyses, system requirements for unconstrained acquisition in smartphones are discussed. Several design strategies are presented and key research challenges are outlined together with potential solutions.


Objective To clone and express the actin gene of Toxoplasma gondii, and analyze the immunoreactivity of the recombinant protein. Methods Total RNA was extracted from tachyzoites of RH strain of T. gondii. The open reading frame of TgACT gene was amplified with a pair of specific primers which were designed according to the coding sequence of TgACT gene(Accession No. XM_002369622.1). The RT-PCR product was cloned into the prokaryotic expression pET-30a(+) vector. The recombinant pET30a-TgACT plasmid was transformed into E. coli DH5α. The positive clones were selected through the colony-PCR and confirmed by the double restrict enzyme digestion and sequencing. The correct pET30a-TgACT plasmid was transformed into E. coli BL21(DE3) and induced by IPTG. The expressed proteins were analyzed by SDS-PAGE. Western blotting assay was performed with anti-poly-histidine tag(anti-His) antibody or rabbit anti-T. gondii serum. Results The product of RT-PCR was with 1 100 bp. The recombinant plasmid pET30aTgACT was confirmed by colony-PCR, double restriction enzyme digestion and sequencing. SDS-PAGE results showed that the target protein was expressed in E. coli BL21(DE3) in the form of inclusion bodies with a rough molecular weight of49 000. The purified soluble protein was obtained by using denaturation, renaturation and purification. Western blotting revealed that rTgACT can be recognized by anti-His antibody and rabbit anti-T. gondii serum. Conclusion The recombinant plasmid pET30a-TgACT has been successfully constructed, and the recombinant protein TgACT is produced in E. coli and maintains specific immunoreactivity.


Abstract: The discovery and functional characterization of Sp1 as a GC‐rich binding zinc finger protein provided a useful paradigm for understanding mechanisms mediating transcriptional activation in eukaryotic cells. This early paradigm suggested that promoters carrying GC‐rich sequences are activated by Sp1 through its interaction with proteins from the basal transcriptional machinery to upregulate gene expression. Since the time of this seminal work, studies from several laboratories have led to the discovery of many Sp1‐like transcription factors containing highly homologous DNA binding motifs that bind to similar sequences. Consequently, this knowledge poses many important questions regarding whether these related proteins have similar or antagonistic biochemical and functional properties to Sp1. The goal of this article is to use available database information and recent experimental evidence to describe the current repertoire of Sp1‐like zinc finger transcription factors in mammalian cells. Furthermore, we discuss structural and functional studies that reveal that these proteins may share a role in morphogenetic pathways. Altogether, this information is aimed at better understanding how this growing family of transcription factors work to regulate gene expression and morphogenesis.


In this paper, we present a new speech enhancement approach, that is based on exploiting the intra-frame dependency of discrete cosine transform (DCT) domain coefficients. It can be noted that the existing enhancement techniques treat the transform domain coefficients independently. Instead of this traditional approach of independently processing the scalars, we split the DCT domain noisy speech vector into sub-vectors and each sub-vector is enhanced independently. Through this sub-vector based approach, the higher dimensional enhancement advantage, viz. non-linear dependency, is exploited. In the developed method, each clean speech sub-vector is modeled using a Gaussian mixture (GM) density. We show that the proposed Gaussian mixture model (GMM) based DCT domain method, using sub-vector processing approach, provides better performance than the conventional approach of enhancing the transform domain scalar components independently. Performance improvement over the recently proposed GMM based time domain approach is also shown.


Background Muscle injuries constitute a large percentage of all injuries in football. Objective The aim of this study was to investigate the incidence and nature of muscle injuries in male professional footballers. Design Prospective cohort study design. Setting Teams from the first division of a professional football league. Patients (or Participants) Seven football teams, comprising 152 players, were followed prospectively. Main Outcome Measurements Team medical staff recorded individual player exposure and time-loss injuries. A muscle injury was defined as ''a traumatic distraction or overuse injury to the muscle leading to a player being unable to participate fully in training or match play.'' Results In total, 114 muscle injuries were registered. On average, a player sustained 0.75 muscle injuries per season. A squad of 25 players can thus expect about 19 muscle injuries per season. Muscle injuries constituted 38.5% of all injuries. Sixty-eight percent of all muscle injuries were muscle strain injuries. The four most commonly strained muscle groups were adductors/groin (40%), hamstring (35%), calf muscles (16%) and quadriceps (9%). Sixteen percent of the muscle injuries were reinjuries. The incidence of muscle injury is increased with age. Conclusions Muscle injuries are a substantial problem for players and their clubs. They constitute more than one-third of all time-loss injuries in men's professional football and affect the four big muscle groups in the lower limbs.


The aim of the study was to assess the factors associated with the anticoagulation treatment in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). A total of 2242 consecutive patients who had been admitted with AF on their electrocardiogram were included in the study. After excluding valvular AF, 1745 patients with nonvalvular AF were analyzed. Mean CHA2DS2-VASc score [cardiac failure, hypertension, age ≥ 75 (doubled), diabetes, stroke (doubled), vascular disease, age 65 -74 and sex category (female)], frequency of persistent/permanent AF, hypertension, diabetes mellitus (DM), stroke history, body mass index, and left atrial diameter were significantly higher in patients receiving anticoagulant therapy. Stroke history, persistent/permanent AF, hypertension, DM, age, heart failure, and left atrial diameter were independent predictors of warfarin prescription. Labile international normalized ratio was the only independent negative predictor of effective treatment with warfarin. In this study, we demonstrated that stroke history, persistent/permanent AF, hypertension, DM, and left atrial diameter were positive predictors, whereas advanced age and heart failure were negative predictors of oral anticoagulant use in patients with nonvalvular AF.


Robert Brandom famously attempts to provide an account of norms that are grounded in intersubjective practices, so dealing with problems raised by Wittgenstein's regress arguments. This relies upon providing an explanation of the correctness of those practices in terms of our dispositions to treat each other's practices as correct or incorrect. The view faces a number of hurdles, however, particularly when it comes to providing a non-circular account of the norms of practice, from within those practices themselves. This essay argues that Brandom's attempt to ground norms in intersubjective practices is circular, and requires communal stability. I go on to suggest that, by taking practices of interaction as foundational, we can ground norms in action coordination. Norms, on this view, become sedimented through our interactions, and explicit normative talk is required to keep our interactions coherent with each other.


Abstract The calculation of the friction factor involved in the Darcy-Weisbach equation has a key role in the accurate assessment of distributed head losses. For the turbulent flow regime, this friction factor was mathematically expressed in the form of the Colebrook-White (C-W) equation, widely accepted by engineers and scientists. Nevertheless, the C-W equation is an implicit one and must be solved using numerical methods. This is a major disadvantage for the average engineer, who always prefers an explicit equation which could be easily integrated into his familiar spreadsheet environment. The present paper is investigating some of the most used explicit alternatives to the C-W equation, with respect to several case scenarios taken from typical Building Services hydraulic calculations.


Growing of orchids (Cymbidiums) in Darjeeling district of West Bengal started as hobby a few decades ago and it is now a subsidiary income generation activity of many farmers in the district. The district has immense potential in terms of favorable climatic conditions and skilled man power for converting it to a full time commercial venture to meet ever expanding demand of cut flowers in domestic and export markets. The paper provides background information on current status of Cymbidium orchid cultivation in the district and problems facing growers. The major problems confronted by the growers were lack of knowledge about management of disease and pests, post harvest handling of cut flowers, lack of infrastructural facilities, high cost of planting material and marketing outlets. Majority of farmers suggested that quality planting material of orchids should be made available at subsidized rate, trainings for identification and management of diseases and pests should be organised, credit through banks and infrastructure should be developed for proper development of orchid industry in the region.


Ingestion and inhalation of phosphine are 2 forms of toxicity and their clinical manifestation is extremely wide. A 22-year-old girl was admitted with complaints of nausea, vomiting and epigastric pain after eating lunch. She had a history of celiac disease. On arrival, she was alert and hemodynamically stable. There was not any abdominal tenderness or guarding. Food poisoning treatment initiated but after 1 hour her condition deteriorated with hypotension, tachycardia, and epigastric pain. Venous blood gas (VBG) showed severe metabolic acidosis. She denied any drug ingestion again. New Electrocardiogram (ECG) showed extensive inferolateral ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). Bicarbonate plus dopamine was initiated. After 8 hours of admission, rhythm became ventricular fibrillation (VF) and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) began. Peritoneal dialysis was performed. Next morning frequent VF occurred again but CPR was unsuccessful. Family found aluminum phosphide (AIP) tablets in her purse. Early diagnosis and supportive treatment may be effective but the most important factor is the dose of ingestion.


Image denoising has been a well studied problem in the field of image processing. Yet researchers continue to focus attention on it to better the current state-of-the-art. Recently proposed methods take different approaches to the problem and yet their denoising performances are comparable. A pertinent question then to ask is whether there is a theoretical limit to denoising performance and, more importantly, are we there yet? As camera manufacturers continue to pack increasing numbers of pixels per unit area, an increase in noise sensitivity manifests itself in the form of a noisier image. We study the performance bounds for the image denoising problem. Our work in this paper estimates a lower bound on the mean squared error of the denoised result and compares the performance of current state-of-the-art denoising methods with this bound. We show that despite the phenomenal recent progress in the quality of denoising algorithms, some room for improvement still remains for a wide class of general images, and at certain signal-to-noise levels. Therefore, image denoising is not dead - yet.


This paper analyses fifty years of sociology of development in the Revue Tiers Monde. The main evolutions are identified : first the progressive view of development in the sixty's, then the structural adjustment era, lastly the post-cold war period with its sectorial approach. The sociology of development is a branch of sociology, not a specific discipline, and its history shows a growing autonomy from its initial dependency upon Economics.


This thesis consists of a book chapter and a series of published and unpublished articles that deal with open justice, the courts and the media, framed by an introduction and a conclusion. The thesis begins with an introduction which identifies its aims and provides an overview of the issues that are addressed therein. It explains that it proceeds on the premise that open justice, while of seminal importance to our legal system, is not an inflexible rule but a malleable principle. This is critical, because it is this tractability which enables courts to assign differing strengths to the principle, depending on the context, and to subjugate it, on appropriate occasions, to other valued principles that pull in an opposite direction. Chapter one describes the nature of the principle, outlines its aims, examines its primary applications and recounts the principal common law and statutory exceptions. Considerable time is devoted to explaining how the principle and the exceptions impact on the work of the media. It also considers some of the practical difficulties that media organisations experience when courts make suppression orders. Chapter two investigates the nature of the relationship between the courts and the media, and the media and the public, and considers the extent to which media reporting of the work of the courts furthers the aims of open justice. It suggests that these relationships are not always conducive to achieving the aims of open justice. Accordingly, it argues that courts should assume greater responsibility for cultivating a more direct relationship with the public in an attempt to ensure that their work is better understood. Chapters three, four and five consider the extent to which the principle of open justice does, and should, operate in three disparate contexts. Chapter three compares the response of Australian and. Canadian courts when asked to make orders suppressing publication in the mass media of evidence given in open court concerning particular police methods used to solve cold cases and the identities of undercover police officers involved. Chapter four attempts to formulate an appropriate response to the issue of child identification in criminal contexts. It explores the policy considerations for and against identifying child victims and offenders, concludes that the arguments in favour of suppressing a child's identity generally outweigh the arguments in favour of revealing a child's identity and critically examines the options for a national standard. Chapter five considers the extent to which the media should be able to report judicial proceedings in which Victorian courts are asked to make supervision or detention orders in respect of sex offenders who have completed their custodial sentence, but who are regarded as posing an unacceptable risk of re-offending. It concludes that insufficient regard has been paid to the principle of open justice in this context. A conclusion addresses some of the opportunities and challenges that the principle of open justice is currently facing, or is likely to face in the future.


The Niah Caves complex in northwest Borneo is best known for its early Homo sapiens remains, but the various Niah entrances and nearby caves also contain a wealth of archaeological deposits from later time periods. The rich metal-age record (from c. 2000 years ago) of Niah is nearly exclusively represented by burials, and while some attention has been directed to understanding the West Mouth cemetery zone (e.g. B. Harrisson 1967; Zuraina 1982), other deposits have received less attention. Kain Hitam was one of the last sites in the Niah area to be excavated by Tom and Barbara Harrisson, and only received brief or popular treatment in the published literature (e.g. T. Harrisson 1958, 1960, 1964). Nevertheless, it has been regarded as a remarkable expression of metal-age mortuary ritual and the Kain Hitam rock art has been mentioned numerous times in press (e.g. Ballard et al. 2004; Lape et al. 2007). Based on a study of the field archive and curated materials, we present here details of the Kain Hitam mortuary site. We further assess claims about cultural affinities for the site (e.g. Chêng 1969) and situate Kain Hitam within the larger realm of commentary on Southeast Asian 'ship-of-the-dead' rites.


Nowadays, some companies have become an essential element of high importance, not only for the growth of a society, but also for the country. If the companies face difficulties, such as situations of failure, they would take to an economic uncertainty in their influence area. This investigation is aimed to identify the financial characteristics of the liquidated companies in Ecuador, which correspond to Wholesale and Retail Trade. This study was made using a database that was elaborated from the published information by the Superintendence of Companies, Values and Insurances of Ecuador. Companies are classified in two groups: healthy and bankrupt. Afterwards, financial ratios are analyzed according to financial statements during the years 2016 and 2017. Finally, in the results, it can be observed that the healthy companies maintained a lower liquidity level in comparison with the ones that went bankrupt. However, the healthy companies have been able to manage, in an efficient way, their cash allowing them to fund their commercial processes, and thus, to keep themselves afloat in the market. The healthy companies present an average liquidity of 2.66 and an average yield of the total active and patrimony of 3.71% and 11.82% respectively. The bankrupt companies showed a liquidity of 3.84 and an average yield of the total active and patrimony of 1.22% and 5.80%. A difference in the yield is also observed; the bankrupt companies presented a 2.59%, whereas the healthy ones reached a 31.15%. Therefore, even the bankrupt companies presented higher levels of liquidity; their profitability is inferior compared to the healthy ones.


This document summarizes the results of an investigation into 52 companies of the children's clothing industry in Bucaramanga. The study was descriptive and the objective was aimed at establishing the relationships between production processes, costing systems and strategies; cost, price and utility, in the dynamics of financial performance. The findings show the weakness in the costs structure and means of production. The prices are fixed in functions of cost and competition; seeking to optimize with investment in technology, training and association, the increase of utility are supported in productivity strategies, how increase production levels and redefine the cost structure to achieve leadership low cost.


The design, fabrication techniques and characterization of an on-chip flow-cytometer device as well as the packaging approach is described. The device consists of planar microelectrodes situated on one or both sides of a micro-channel connected to an electronic detection circuitry. Simulations of the cells effect on the channel impedance are presented and compared with real measurements. Efforts have particularly been focused on realizing an interconnecting setup to provide easy electrical and fluidic connections, to allow good monitoring and easy handling of the chip. The authors' cell analyzer is aimed at diagnostic applications for cell counting and separation in hematology (blood cells, leukocytes and reticulocytes). Another possible application is a micro-cell sorter that can be used to separate abnormal cell types that are present in samples at very low number such as cancer cells (cancer cytology).


Orthopaedic Surgery in Infancy and Childhood. By Albert Barnett Ferguson, jun., BA., M.D. (Pp. 508 + xii; illustrated. £6.) Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins. London: Bailliere, Tindall and Cox Ltd. 1957. The editor and five contributors have included in one volume most of the subject-matter of orthopaedic surgery required in childhood. The acute phase of fractures is omitted, but a number of complications are mentioned. Reference is made to the observations and writings of British surgeons. There is a regional arrangement of the greater part of the text, but some studies, such as plastic surgery of the hand, are not in sequence. Affections of special tissues, such as bone and muscle, are collected in separate chapters. There is an up-to-date and clear description of the clinical and therapeutic features of most congenital and acquired conditions of childhood. Information on tuberculosis of the knee, hip, and spine will be found. The conception of metabolic disease is overshadowed by regional conditions, so that there is little evidence of the importance of studying a child's general health when spine, knees, or feet are brought to the doctor's notice by the parent. However, the description of each condition is exactly what the general practitioner or aspiring graduate requires, and it is noticeable that the more recently recognized lesions appear to be regarded as of somewhat greater importance than wellestablished syndromes, such as birth palsy. The chapter on affections of bone, which is lavishly illustrated, will attract the reader's attention in that the defective formation of bone from cartilage is a feature; and Robert Klein writes well on rickets and scurvy. Recommendations for treatment of congenital dislocation of the hip are made according to the child's age. The article on scoliosis is of some length and amply illustrated. The surgery of cerebral palsy, poliomyelitis, and progressive muscular atrophy is described. Readers may consider that the reproductions of a number of radiographs are insufficiently clear to exemplify the author's text. The book has a place in any surgical library, but it should be appreciated that it is not a complete textbook of orthopaedic surgery of children. ST. J. D. BuxroN.


Abstract It is thought that morphologies of bacterial carbonates can be used to identify microbial fossils and/or precipitates in sediments and rocks. This study shows that calcite and vaterite formed in a gel medium in the presence of Myxococcus xanthus display a range of morphologies that depend on whether the bacteria are live or dead. Metabolic activity of the bacteria induced: (1) aggregates of calcified bacteria formed at maximum supersaturation; (2) vaterite spheres (final growth stage of dumbbell fibrous-radiated aggregates); and (3) dipyramid- and disphenoid-like calcite crystals (combination of {011} and {0001} forms). Morphologies (2) and (3) developed at a lower supersaturation and are typically found in gel-like media. Dipyrimidal-like calcite crystals were also obtained abiotically in gel medium. Dead M. xanthus cells induced heterogeneous precipitation of calcite with rhombohedral morphologies at low supersaturation. A growth mechanism resulting from self-assembly of calcium carbonate nanocrystals may account for the observed morphologies, crystal microstructure, and crystallite size measurements. All of the above-mentioned morphologies of bacterial carbonate have been observed in other laboratory experiments and in continental and marine environments. However, all of them have also been produced abiotically, with the exception of calcified bacterial cells. This may make it more difficult to identify bacterial activity in the rock record. Nonetheless, bacterially induced alkalinization appears to be a prerequisite for the development of spherulitic and dipyramid- or disphenoid-like forms in natural mucilaginous biofilms and microbial mats. The morphologies reported here may facilitate the recognition of early and recent marine and continental microcrystalline bacterial carbonates and cements.


Sequence analysis of cloned plant disease-resistance genes reveals a number of conserved domains. Researchers have used these domains to amplify analogous sequences, resistance gene analogs (RGAs), from soybean and other crops. Many of these RGAs map in close proximity to known resistance genes. While this technique is useful in identifying potential disease resistance loci, identifying the functional resistance gene from a cluster of homologs requires sequence information from outside of these conserved domains. To study RGA expression and to determine the extent of their similarity to other plant resistance genes, two soybean cDNA libraries (root and epicotyl) were screened by hybridization with RGA class-specific probes. cDNAs hybridizing to RGA probes were detected in each library. Two types of cDNAs were identified. One type was full-length and contained several disease-resistance gene (R-gene) signatures. The other type contained several deletions within these signatures. Sequence analyses of the cDNA clones placed them in the Toll-Interleukin-1 receptor, nucleotide binding domain, and leucine-rich repeat family of disease-resistance genes. Using clone-specific primers from within the 3' end of the LRRs, we were able to map two cDNA clones (LM6 and MG13) to a BAC contig that is known to span a cluster of disease-resistance genes.


Taguchi methods represent the effort quality improvement which known as off-line quality control  method because the method design quality into every appropriate process and product. Taguchi methods is represent quality repair with attempt "new" methods, its meaning do dissimilar approach giving same belief storey by SPC ( Statistical Proces Control ), very effective in quality improvement as well as lessening expense of same. Fractional factorial design represent base from Taguchi method by fraction from factorial design. Fractional factorial with  4 factors and defining relations p = 2 is or 81 run become or 9 blocks with each blocks there are 9 run just eligible one block. The block name that is Orthogonal Array which lessen time and attemp fare. Orthogonal Array used to device of factorial attemp 3 level by 4 factors that is Orthogonal Array L 9. Optimalitation product of factorial design  can be determinate with tables of anova, table of response and tables of Signal to Noise Ratio. Keywords : Taguchi Methods, Signal to Noise Ratio, Orthogonal Array


Two dogs were examined for clinical signs of chronic gastrointestinal disease. Duodenal mucosal biopsy specimens, obtained endoscopically, revealed histologic lesions of adherent gram-positive cocci on the villus epithelium of both dogs. The positive gram stain and morphologic features of the adherent cocci were suggestive of Streptococcus organisms. Indirect tests for intestinal bacterial overgrowth were not diagnostic, suggesting that the adherent cocci were a primary lesion. Rapid clinical response following dietary manipulation and the initiation of medical management was observed in both dogs. The dogs of this report draw similarities to Streptococcus durans infection previously reported in pigs, foals, and a single pup. The pathogenesis of enteric disease associated with adherent gram-positive cocci in dogs remains ill-defined.


A growing body of evidence demonstrates that adverse events early in development, and particularly during intrauterine life, may program risks for diseases in adult life. Increasing evidence has been accumulated indicating the important role of epigenetic regulation including DNA methylation, histone modifications and miRNAs in developmental programming. Among the environmental factors which play an important role in programming of chronic pathologies, the endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) that have estrogenic, anti-estrogenic, and anti-androgenic activity are of specific concern because the developing organism is extremely sensitive to perturbation by substances with hormone-like activity. Among EDCs, there are many substances that are constantly present in the modern human environment or are in widespread use, including dioxin and dioxin-like compounds, phthalates, agricultural pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls, industrial solvents, pharmaceuticals, and heavy metals. Apart from their common endocrine active properties, several EDCs have been shown to disrupt developmental epigenomic programming. The purpose of this review is to provide a summary of recent research findings which indicate that exposure to EDCs during in-utero and/or neonatal development can cause long-term health outcomes via mechanisms of epigenetic memory.


Genetic code expansion and orthogonal translation machinery are used to generate live, attenuated viral vaccines. Protecting by changing the code Live attenuated vaccines can be very potent, but their potential to revert to their pathogenic form limits their use. In an attempt to get around this, Si et al. expanded the genetic code of influenza A viruses. They propagated viruses that were mutated to encode premature termination codons (PTCs) in a cell line engineered to be able to express these flu proteins. Despite not being able to replicate in conventional cells, PTC-containing viruses were highly immunogenic and protected mice, guinea pigs, and ferrets against influenza challenge. Science, this issue p. 1170 The conversion of life-threatening viruses into live but avirulent vaccines represents a revolution in vaccinology. In a proof-of-principle study, we expanded the genetic code of the genome of influenza A virus via a transgenic cell line containing orthogonal translation machinery. This generated premature termination codon (PTC)–harboring viruses that exerted full infectivity but were replication-incompetent in conventional cells. Genome-wide optimization of the sites for incorporation of multiple PTCs resulted in highly reproductive and genetically stable progeny viruses in transgenic cells. In mouse, ferret, and guinea pig models, vaccination with PTC viruses elicited robust humoral, mucosal, and T cell–mediated immunity against antigenically distinct influenza viruses and even neutralized existing infecting strains. The methods presented here may become a general approach for generating live virus vaccines that can be adapted to almost any virus.


Dr P. A. Sabine enquired about the relationship of the spectacular long narrow inlets of the Shetland cliffs, the geos. Many appeared to be excavated along joints, but did they also occur along the faults; why was there no comparable topographic effect with the main faults, and did this indicate the conditions under which the faulting occurred? In reply Dr Flinn remarked that geos are narrow inlets in the cliffs formed by preferential marine erosion along faults or joints where these form narrow zones of shattering. The preferential erosion within a geo probably arises as much from the way its narrow form intensifies the erosive power of the sea as from the presence of a zone of weakness in the rocks. The main faults are associated with broad zones of shattering so that the zone of preferential erosion is much too wide to give rise to geos. Their absence indicates nothing about the conditions under which faulting occurred but much about the conditions under which geo formation takes place.


Cyperus rotundus L. has been widely distributed in China. In the exploration of Cyperi Rhizoma to pat attention on its geoherbalism is very necessary. The current index of quality control for Cyperi Rhizoma and Cyperus rotundus-volatile oil is the α- Cyperone contained in the Cyperus rotundus-volatile oil, different processing methods influence the content of their α- Cyperone. On the basis of the traditional formulations, to develop the production of dropping pill of volatile oil from Cyperus Rotundus has broad application prospects


Heat treatment process, which is widely used in the wood industry, has shown some negative effects on the mechanical strength of wood. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of catalysts on the modulus of rupture (MOR), mass loss and chemical structure of heat–treated Scotch pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) samples. For this purpose, some catalysts (50 % NaOH and 47 % KOH solutions, solid KOH) were added to the heat treatment process. Heat treatment experiments were performed under the nitrogen atmosphere at the temperature of 212 °C for 2 h. The MOR and chemical changes monitored by FT-IR spectra were then examined for the test groups. According to the results of this study, the use of commercial solid potassium hydroxide (KOH) in heat treatment decreased the degree of strength loss and mass loss of heat-treated wood. The strength (MOR) loss of samples heat-treated in the presence of potassium hydroxide was found to be only 5.4 %, while the strength loss in non-catalytic treatment was found to be 12.5 %.


The dynamics of the renin and angiotensin converting ferment activity and of the aldosterone concentration in the plasma of blood by healthy newborn full-term in the first week of the life after the birth was determined. The normative values of the studied indexes were obtained. The researches have shown the considerable functional tension of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, that has a very important signification for optimal course of adaptation and anabolic processes by the children at the very beginning of the postnatal development.


The Gelidiales is an important group of red algae that serves as a source of commercial agar and agarose. This order comprises three families and ten genera, of which Gelidium, Pterocladia, Pterocladiella and Gelidiella are the main sources of high quality agar and agarose. The Gelidiales is a very complicated order and the traditional classification of the order has been changed considerably based on modern molecular studies. Peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia with extended coastlines in the Indo-Malayan ecozone have considerable potential of seaweed resources with 396 species reported in the latest checklist of the Malaysian seaweeds. Only eight species of Gelidiales have been reported for Malaysia. High morphological plasticity in the order Gelidiales attributed to the diverse ecological conditions, has resulted in many misidentifications using traditional taxonomy based on morphology. Molecular studies using modern tools have provided much basic molecular data to overcome the taxonomical complication of the order Gelidiales. In this study we hope to have a better understanding of the taxonomy of Malaysian Gelidiales. A combination of morphological study, as the traditional method, and molecular analyses as the modern method, was conducted to answer the question: Can the combination of molecular and morphological studies increase the number of Malaysian Gelidiales species or not?" Extensive collection of Gelidiales from the coastlines of Malaysia including Pulau Pinang, Pulau Langkawi, Pulau Pangkor, Pulau Besar, Port Dickson, Morib, Johor Baharu, Sabah and Sarawak has provided many specimens of Gelidiales for this study. In molecular studies after extraction of total genomic DNA of specimens collected in this study, partial sequences of three molecular markers including, rbcL, coxI and LSU were amplified and resulted in 98 sequences of these three genes. Phylogenetic analyses of the resulting sequences based on three methods, Maximum-likelihood, Maximum-
parsimony and Bayesian inference, resulted in identification of thirteen morphospecies of Gelidiales from Malaysia. Four species were proposed as new species, including two new species in the genus Pterocladiella and two new species in the genus Gelidium. Two new records, Pterocladiella beachiae Freshwater, Pterocladiella bartlettii (W. R. Taylor) Santelices, one species of the genus Aphanta and three morphological forms of the genus Parviphycus, were the other new revelations of this study. Two previously reported species, Pterocladiella caerulescens (Kutzing) Santelices & Hommersand and Gelidiella acerosa (Forsskal) Feldmann & G. Hamel were also verified based on both molecular and morphological studies. Two new records Pterocladiella bartlettii and Pterocladiella beachiae, which have already been reported from Caribbean Sea, southern and Central America, represent the first reports of these species from Southeast Asia and the Indo-Malayan ecozone. This study increased the number of Gelidiales in Malaysia from eight to 17 species and also provided detailed morphological data as well as molecular data on partial rbcL, coxI and LSU genes of the identified and studied species. These molecular markers can successfully differentiate the species of the Gelidiales at intraspecific, interspecific, intergeneric and family levels and additional studies based on these three markers may be able to resolve the problems of heterogenetic lineages such as Capreolia, Ptilophora and distant genera such as Pterocladia, Aphanta and Parviphycus.


In this paper, a new spatiotemporal filtering scheme is described for noise reduction in video sequences. For this purpose, the scheme processes each group of three consecutive sequence frames in two steps: 1) estimate motion between frames and 2) use motion vectors to get the final denoised current frame. A family of adaptive spatiotemporal L-filters is applied. A recursive implementation of these filters is used and compared with its nonrecursive counterpart. The motion trajectories are obtained recursively by a region-recursive estimation method. Both motion parameters and filter weights are computed by minimizing the kurtosis of error instead of mean squared error. Using the kurtosis in the algorithms adaptation is appropriate in the presence of mixed and impulsive noises. The filter performance is evaluated by considering different types of video sequences. Simulations show marked improvement in visual quality and SNRI measures cost as well as compared to those reported in literature.


A critical challenge of federated learning is data heterogeneity and imbalance across clients, which leads to inconsistency between local networks and unstable convergence of global models. To alleviate the limitations, we propose a novel architectural regularization technique that constructs multiple auxiliary branches in each local model by grafting local and global subnetworks at several different levels and that learns the representations of the main pathway in the local model congruent to the auxiliary hybrid pathways via online knowledge distillation. The proposed technique is effective to robustify the global model even in the non-iid setting and is applicable to various federated learning frameworks conveniently without incurring extra communication costs. We perform comprehensive empirical studies and demonstrate remarkable performance gains in terms of accuracy and efficiency compared to existing methods. The source code is available at our project page.


[Abstract]: Continuous processing lines are used in various manufacturing industries including aluminium, paper and steel. Common processes include annealing, pickling, metal
coating, hot dip galvanizing, and painting. A standard design feature incorporated by continuous processing line manufacturers is the inclusion of an accumulator at the entry and exits points of the processing section to ensure its continuous operation.

Continuous processing of strip and product quality are key performance targets for operating continuous processing lines. Uncontrolled tension transients in the strip will
normally result in poor product quality which can be attributed to poor performance from an accumulator control system. Thus, the optimal method of controlling an accumulator in a continuous processing line is a significant and important issue.

This dissertation presents an analysis of methods for controlling an accumulator to minimise potential sources of disturbance. The analysis included modelling the accumulator dynamics and simulation with popular industrial control methods. Initially a base case was established using a proportional + integral + derivative controller
(PID), which is the current standard for industrial control. The base case was used as the benchmark prior to simulation and analysis of alternative or less conventional
industrial controllers.

A key emphasis of this dissertation is an association to a real world problem. The project results suggest that the classical PID controller is more suited to this application
than the alternatives included in the analysis.


Mobile contactless payments (MCP) technology brings an important dual use dilemma where consumer adoption can be halted if consumer is not fully persuaded that the security risk behind the technology use is very low. Currently, although many projects on the implementation of MCP solutions have commenced, MCP is still not picking up. Why? To fill this research gap and better understand how security is affecting MCP implementation, we employ triangulation approach to understand if security is the main obstacle to further adoption and extension of MCP solution. The results reveal that consumer security is the crucial factor in a successful MCP implementation. Our result offers important and new insights for practitioners as it provides a security dimension to consider in the entire contactless payment ecosystem.


In 1595, French anatomist Andre du Laurens first described the structure of a rope-like tail of fibers at the caudal end of the spinal cord. This bundle of numerous axons was termed the cauda equina, from the Latin translation meaning "horse's tail," and it contains nerves which innervate both sensory and motor targets within lumbar, sacral, and coccygeal spinal cord levels. Epidemiologic assessments regard lesions to the cauda equina as uncommon, with a prevalence of 1 to 3 per 100,000 subjects. Typically caused by a herniated intervertebral disc at the L5-S1 levels, such lesions affect females as often as males and manifest as a number of urogenital and neuromuscular symptoms in the namesake "cauda equina syndrome."


The accelerating pace of CMOS scaling is rapidly approaching the fundamental limits of MOSFET performance, even as the projected size of a high-performance and manufacturable MOSFET technology is currently being extended with growing confidence to the 22-nm node (featuring a 9-nm physical gate length). The new 2001 International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors currently projects the industry to reach this node in 2016. However, this forecast assumes the traditional industry node-cycle cadence of a quadrupling of the number of transistors every three years for DRAMS and a return to the three-year cycle in 2004 for MPUs and ASICs. During the past several years the node cycles for MPUs have been accelerated to occur within two-year periods. This pace will bring the microelectronics industry to the end of silicon CMOS technology scaling sometime not later than 2016, and maybe as soon as 2010. The new Emerging Technologies section of the 2001 ITRS offers guidance on both sides of this problem: nanoelectronics for memory, logic, and information-processing architectures could possibly extend the time frame of the ITRS beyond CMOS.


DESPERATE TO REPLACE or resuscitate the Oslo "peace process during the miniwar last fall and winter with the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak reiterated his call for separation. If seven years of Israeli withdrawals from one national security "red line" after another had not bought peace, then at least separation -- unilateral and quick -- of Jews and Arabs, of Israel from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, would bring quiet. To stimulate cabinet discussion of separation, Barak distributed copies of Haifa University Professor Dan Schueftan's manifesto, Disengagement, to his ministers. By late December a poll showed 75 percent of Israelis (no doubt the figure would have been higher if it reflected only Jewish Israeli sentiment) favoring separation in some form or another. That meant the idea behind Barak's winning slogan in the 1999 campaign, "Us here, them there," remained popular, if Barak himself did not. Shortly before ousting Barak in February's election for prime minister, Ariel Sharon restated his own proposal for unilateral separation (though only as a response to a future unilateral declaration of statehood by the Palestinians). Despite the renewed interest in the subject -- which survives Barak's defeat -- separation along the pre-1967 "green line" neither divides nor conquers. That is because, as the "al-Aksa intifada" confirmed by enlisting the participation of many Israeli Arabs and the vociferous support of even more, the Israeli-Palestinian struggle already has penetrated to within "Israel proper." This expansion feeds on the rapid growth of Israel's Arab population and the deepening of that population's Palestinian national identification. Separation, as discussed by Israeli officials and academics, fails to deal realistically with this changed, but hardly new, paradigm. Last fall, not only were Israelis and Palestinians killing each other across the pre-1967 green line in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and eastern Jerusalem, but Israeli Arabs and Jews also did likewise inside the 1948 boundaries. Although the numbers were small -- 13 Israeli Arabs killed by Israeli police, one by a Jewish mob, and five Israeli Jews murdered by Israeli Arabs -- the significance was great. The struggle that Israeli Jews had long imagined was between their superior state and an inferior Palestinian Arab movement over a West Bank/Gaza Strip entity has relapsed into its essential pre-1948 condition. Then the Arab and Jewish inhabitants of British Mandatory Palestine west of the Jordan River (Britain unilaterally separated eastern Palestine -- Transjordan -- in 1922) waged an intercommunal fight for dominance. Today, they do so again, the Oslo process and favorable demographic trends having stimulated Arab appetites and solidarity on both sides of the green line. Arafat rejected Barak's unprecedented offer of 95 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and de facto control over eastern Jerusalem at Camp David last summer because he would have had to share Jerusalem, drop the Arab "right of return" to pre-'67 Israel, and declare the conflict over. Simultaneously, the Arabs of Israel, by supporting those of the West Bank and Gaza last fall, also reaffirmed that Jewish claims inside '48 lines are still up for grabs. Smaller majority, larger minority DESPITE ITS MANY successes, Israel 53 years after independence remains a Jewish beachhead in the Near East. Three-fourths of Israel's infrastructure and Jewish population lie within an L-shaped strip 75 miles from Haifa's northern suburbs to Tel Aviv's southern ones and 35 miles west to east, from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This Jewish heartland rarely exceeds nine miles in width. As a result of Jewish immigration and Arab emigration during the first five years of Israel's founding, Jews constituted roughly 87 percent of Israel's population from 1953 through 1967. But then the consistently much higher Arab Israeli fertility rates -- supplemented by a high level of Jewish emigration -- began to close the gap. …