Abstract: In this study, I exploit the recent technology-driven soy boom in Brazil to assess how the diffusion of different technologies, namely the genetically modified soy and biological nitrogen-fixing soy varieties adapted to the Brazilian savanna, change the agricultural supply response function. I use a novel panel dataset combining farm-level data for 1.5 million commercial farms from the 1996 and 2006 Brazilian agricultural census surveys to estimate the price effects on the expansion of the soy acreage. I find that the acreage response functions become increasingly elastic towards the agricultural frontier because of the existence of different technological diffusion processes. The large price effect on the adoption of nitrogen-fixing soy designed to convert marginal savanna pastureland into soy production explains most of the heterogeneity in the acreage supply function in Brazil. The estimated long-run price elasticity of soy acreage is 0.6 in the south and 1.8 in the savanna. On the agricultural frontier close to the savanna-Amazon border, the price elasticity of agricultural land is 0.13, implying that a 10% permanent increase in soy prices would result in the conversion of 1 million hectares of natural vegetation to farmland.


Background The development of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is linked to changes in synovial fibroblasts' (SF) phenotype and local infiltration of immune cells. In addition, hypoxic conditions are detected within the inflamed joints of RA patients. The oxygen level in RA joints is only about 22,5mmHg corresponding to ambient oxygen tensions of 3.2%. Right now there is not much known about the effect of hypoxia on the interaction between fibroblasts and immune cells and its implications on the pathophysiology of RA. Materials and methods SF from synovectomy tissues of patients with osteoarthritis (OA) and RA were cultured in vitro. CD4-positive T cells were isolated from peripheral blood. The interaction between both cell types was examined through in vitro co-cultures both under normoxic and hypoxic (3%O2) conditions. The proliferation of Th cells was detected by PKH26 labelling and flow cytometry. Secretion of cytokines was quantified by ELISA. Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1) expression was measured by real-time PCR and Western Blot. Tryptophan amounts were detected by HPLC. IDO1 activity was blocked by 1-l-methyl-tryprophan (1-L-MT). Results SF strongly inhibit the proliferation of co-cultured Th cells. However, RASF have a significantly weaker T cell suppressive capacity compared to OASF. The inhibition of T cell proliferation – both via OASF and RASF - is diminished through hypoxia. Blockade of IDO1 completely restores Th cell proliferation, indicating that the suppression of Th cell proliferation by SF is mediated by tryptophan metabolism. Accordingly, in the supernatants of co-cultures with OASF, the amount of tryptophan is highly reduced, whereas in co-cultures with RASF more tryptophan is left. Under hypoxic conditions the tryptophan metabolism as well as the mRNA expression and protein levels of IDO1 are reduced. IFNγ levels are decreased, IL-6 and IL-8 expression are unaffected by hypoxia. Conclusions The suppression of activated T cells by SF through tryptophan metabolism may participate in the prevention of inappropriate T cell responses under normal conditions. The inferior efficiency of RASF to restrict T cell proliferation and the reduced tryptophan metabolism under hypoxia likely support the development of synovitis in RA.


In the present work, a multi physics simulation of an innovative safety system for light water nuclear reactor is performed, with the aim to increase the reliability of its main decay heat removal system. The system studied, denoted by the acronym PERSEO (in Pool Energy Removal System for Emergency Operation) is able to remove the decay power from the primary side of the light water nuclear reactor through a heat suppression pool. The experimental facility, located at SIET laboratories (PIACENZA), is an evolution of the Thermal Valve concept where the triggering valve is installed liquid side, on a line connecting two pools at the bottom. During the normal operation, the valve is closed, while in emergency conditions it opens, the heat exchanger is flooded with consequent heat transfer from the primary side to the pool side. In order to verify the correct system behavior during long term accidental transient, two main experimental PERSEO tests are analyzed. For this purpose, a coupling between the mono dimensional system code CATHARE, which reproduces the system scale behavior, with a three-dimensional CFD code NEPTUNE CFD, allowing a full investigation of the pools and the injector, is implemented. The coupling between the two codes is realized through the boundary conditions.
In a first analysis, the facility is simulated by the system code CATHARE V2.5 to validate the results with the experimental data. The comparison of the numerical results obtained shows a different void distribution during the boiling conditions inside the heat suppression pool for the two cases of single nodalization and three volume nodalization scheme of the pool.
Finaly, to improve the investigation capability of the void distribution inside the pool and the temperature stratification phenomena below the injector, a two and three dimensional CFD models with a simplified geometry of the system are adopted.


The thought and work of Anton Mesmer had a great dissemination in the last decades of the XVIII century and all along the XIX, a dissemination that differed in its theoretical and practical valences in line with the peculiar cultural, social and political contexts of the main European countries. On the basis of a new 'science of the mind' social reforms were invoked, ranging from education to ethics and to the treatment of mental disorders, obviously passing through the questioning of the legal and political organization of the various States. A new 'physiology' justified and at the same time required to replace with the 'scientific' knowledge the basic ideological and social assumptions upon which the whole society was based, from schools to prisons and asylums. But does it really was 'scientific' knowledge? And who had the last word on this problem, a problem that was in the first place epistemological but had also enormous social implications? Key words: History of bio-medical and cognitive sciences in the XIXth century - Hypnosis - Psycotherapy - Social and Cultural History of Medicine


The blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) is a suspension feeder which has been used in gut-microbiome surveys. Although raw 16S sequence data are often publicly available, unifying secondary analyses are lacking. The present work analysed raw data from seven projects conducted by one group over 7 years. Although each project had different motivations, experimental designs and conclusions, all selected samples were from the guts of M. edulis collected from a single location in Long Island Sound. The goal of this analysis was to determine which independent factors (e.g., collection date, depuration status) were responsible for governing composition and diversity in the gut microbiomes. Results indicated that whether mussels had undergone depuration, defined here as voidance of faeces in a controlled, no-food period, was the primary factor that governed gut microbiome composition. Gut microbiomes from non-depurated mussels were mixtures of resident and transient communities and were influenced by temporal factors. Resident communities from depurated mussels were influenced by the final food source and length of time host mussels were held under laboratory conditions. These findings reinforce the paradigm that gut microbiota are divided into resident and transient components and suggest that depuration status should be taken into consideration when designing and interpreting future experiments.


Existing scholarship on North Korea's nuclear programme remains overwhelmingly centred around questions of containment or engagement with the North Korean regime-state, amid international calls for denuclearization. Yet, scholarship has rarely interrogated the precise value of nuclear weapons to the regime-state. This article develops a new theoretical framework of nuclear ideology to explore the puzzle of the survival of North Korea. This framework aims to show how the North Korean nuclear programme is deeply entrenched within the state ideology of juche, as one device for continued regime-state survival. Through interviews with elite North Korean defectors and textual analysis of North Korean and international sources, I show that North Korea's nuclear ideology has been constructed according to different frames of meaning, targeting referent actors of international 'enemy' powers and domestic audiences. This article concludes that nuclear ideology functions primarily as a tool to arouse domestic legitimacy for the North Korean regime-state, by targeting elite actors within the highly stratified domestic population. From an international perspective, perception of North Korea's survival remains tied largely to the regime-state's physical possession of nuclear weapons. This article has extremely timely theoretical and policy implications given the current 'dialogue' between US and North Korean leaders. First, it opens up fruitful avenues of inquiry surrounding questions of the legitimacy of rogue states within international relations. Secondly, this article calls for a more robust understanding of the domestic-level politics of North Korea, in order to understand the regime-state's foreign policy decisions vis-à-vis its nuclear programme.


Focused encephalography is a diagnostic procedure performed after computed tomography (CT) that can be specifically focused on diagnostic problems not solved by CT. The authors have used the procedure in 20 cases, and it has proved to be quick, risk-free, and without serious side effects. It provides useful supplementary diagnostic information, and can be especially helpful when CT is not available or when the CT scanner is an early-generation model.


Efficient discrimination between individuals of closely related species is important to maximize reproductive potential. Some studies using males as subjects have indicated that the medial amygdala (MeA) is involved in discrimination between odors of conspecific females and females from distantly related species. The authors investigated the involvement of the MeA in discrimination by females between odors of conspecific males and odors of males of a closely related species. The authors exposed estrous or diestrous female hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) to saline, conspecific male odors, or heterospecific (M. brandti) male odors and quantified the expression of c-fos-related antigens in the anterior and posterior MeA. They found that estrous (but not diestrous) females investigated conspecific male odors longer than heterospecific male odors. Neural activity in both the anterior and the posterior MeA was higher in estrous than in diestrous females. In the anterior MeA, there were no significant differences in response to odors of conspecific and heterospecific males. In the posterior MeA, however, neural activity was higher when estrous females were exposed to conspecific odors than when they were exposed to heterospecific odors. No such difference was observed in diestrous females.


The Advanced Light-Duty Powertrain and Hybrid Analysis (ALPHA) tool was created by EPA to estimate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from light-duty (LD) vehicles [1]. ALPHA is a physics-based, forward-looking, full vehicle computer simulation capable of analyzing various vehicle types combined with different powertrain technologies. The software tool is a MATLAB/Simulink based desktop application. In order to model the behavior of current and future vehicles, an algorithm was developed to dynamically generate transmission shift logic from a set of user-defined parameters, a cost function (e.g., engine fuel consumption) and vehicle performance during simulation. This paper presents ALPHA's shift logic algorithm and compares its predicted shift points to actual shift points from a mid-size light-duty vehicle and to the shift points predicted using a static table-based shift logic as calibrated to the same vehicle during benchmark testing. An explanation of, and a process for tuning, the user defined parameters is presented and example applications of the algorithm in transmission and engine sensitivity studies are described.


The surgical treatment of tuberculous patients who no longer respond to a medical or hygienic regimen is beginning to be the accepted procedure in this country, to the great satisfaction of those who have long believed in its efficacy and the possibility of thus bringing help to many patients in an advanced stage of disease. It is recognized that these patients should not be obliged to travel many hundreds or thousands of miles in order to find specialists who are able to establish the proper indication for operative intervention, and to carry out the required work intelligently and correctly in all its details during and after the operation. It is therefore to be expected that soon every large city in America will have competent medical men who have seen, examined and studied patients of this type from the medical roentgenologic and operative points of view and who have exchanged views


Pseudomonas syringae pv. glycinea PG4180 produces the polyketide phytotoxin coronatine. The effects of environmental, nutritional, and host factors on growth and coronatine production by PG4180 were examined by varying the components of a defined basal medium which contained the following nutrients per liter: glucose (10 g), NH4Cl (1 g), MgSO4 · 7H2O (0.2 g), KH2PO4 (4.1 g), K2HPO4 · 3H2O (3.6 g), and FeCl3 (2 μM). Bacterial growth was recorded as dry weight, and coronatine production was measured by high-performance liquid chromatography. Both growth and the quantity of coronatine synthesized were significantly affected by carbon source, nutrient levels (glucose, NH4Cl, phosphate, Mg, and SO4), amino acid supplements, and the presence of complex carbon and nitrogen sources. The yield of coronatine generally declined when conditions were varied from those in the basal medium. Coronatine production and growth were not affected when the pH was adjusted from 6.5 to 7.8. Increases in the osmolarity of the basal medium significantly decreased coronatine production without affecting growth. The addition of plant extracts, plant-derived secondary metabolites, or zinc did not affect growth or coronatine production, while the addition of millimolar levels of KNO3 or micromolar levels of FeCl3 significantly enhanced coronatine production. The yield of coronatine was maximized after a 7-day incubation at 18°C and 280 rpm. The results of the present study were used to formulate a medium which allowed for enhanced coronatine production in nearly all strains of P. syringae tested. A rapid method for extracting coronatine from small volumes of culture supernatant was also developed.


The automatic teller machine (ATM) will be for the foreseeable future the dominant mode of access to cash for those living in industrialized societies. In this article we present the ATM as a political site where a multiplicity of relationships—primarily but not exclusively between the customer and the bank—become configured in ways that serve some interests and not others. The article draws on the work of Winner, Haraway, and Latour in discussing the ongoing translation of ATMs as it occurs in the United Kingdom, with further reference to South Africa and the United States. In order to make some of the politics of the ATM more visible, we illustrate the political struggles through four interconnected narratives: (a) the talking ATM, (b) the insecure ATM, (c) the charging ATM, and (d) the cashless ATM. In each of these descriptive accounts we attempt to show how the ATM becomes (or is) a cybernetic actor that is configured and reconfigured through a multiplicity of political translations resulting in a multiplicity of politically significant cybernetic ATM networks. Finally, we briefly discuss how these narratives interrelate to form the political site of the ATM.


In order to investigate the impact of four different anesthetic regimens on the cardiovascular response to endotracheal intubation, 24 patients were anesthetized to approximately the same depth of anesthesia (MAC‐fraction) using one of four supplements to N2O‐O2 (60:40) anesthesia: Group 1 = morphine 0.5 mg/kg i.v., Group 2 = Innovarr̀ 0.1 ml/kg i.v., Group 3 = halothane, 0.4% end‐tidal, Group 4 = enflurane 0.7% end‐tidal. Cardiovascular variables were recorded from radial arterial and thermistor‐tipped pulmonary artery catheters and were determined at the following times: (1) while the patients were awake prior to induction of anesthesia; (2) after a stable level of anesthesia had been induced; and (3) within the first minute after endotracheal intubation. Only the groups receiving morphine and halothane sustained significant increases in heart rate, rate pressure product and pulmonary capillary wedge pressure after intubation. It is concluded that N2O‐O2 anesthesia supplemented with either morphine or halothane at the 1 MAC dose level does not adequately prevent cardiovascular response after endotracheal intubation, and that these techniques require additional anesthetic depth or other adjuvant drugs in order to prevent cardiovascular complications.


Gas turbine engine design requires considerations not only for long-term steady operation, but also for critical transient events. Aircraft engines undergo significant stress during takeoff and landing while power generation turbines must be flexible for hot restarts as renewable energy sources come on and offline. During these transient cycles, engines sustain wear and degradation that can lead to a reduction in the lifespan of their components and more frequent, costly maintenance. Cooling flows are often used to mitigate these effects, but can lead to complex and problematic flow interactions. This study uses high frequency response pressure probes and heat flux gauges in the rim seal cavity of a one-stage research turbine to characterize the properties of large-scale flow structures during transient operation. A continuous-duration turbine testing facility provides the ability to assess the importance of these transients by first reaching steady state operation prior to imposing transient behaviors. Although previous studies have conducted similar measurements for steady purge flows and wheel speeds, varying these parameters to simulate transient effects revealed several unique phenomena not identifiable with discrete steady measurements. The measurement approach connects the varied transient parameter to the behavior of the flow structures to enable a better understanding of the type of instability observed and the root cause of its formation. In particular, a relationship between instability cell formation and rim sealing effectiveness was identified using experimental data and was supported through computational simulations.


The application of nanocrystals as heterogeneous catalysts and plasmonic nanoparticles requires fine control of their shape and chemical composition. A promising idea to achieve synergistic effects is to combine two distinct chemical and/or physical functionalities in bimetallic core@shell nanocrystals. Although techniques for the synthesis of single-component nanocrystals with spherical or anisotropic shape are well-established, new methods are sought to tailor multicomponent nanocrystals. Here, we probe etching in a controlled redox environment as a synthesis technique for multicomponent nanocrystals. Our Monte Carlo computer simulations demonstrate the appearance of characteristic non-equilibrium intermediate microstructures that are further thermodynamically tested and analyzed with molecular dynamics. Convex platelet, concave polyhedron, pod, cage, and strutted-cage shapes are obtained at room temperature with fully coherent structure exposing crystallographic facets and chemical elements along distinct particle crystallographic directions. We observe that structural and dynamic properties are markedly modified compared to the untreated compact nanocrystal.


Hydrogen energy is a clean, zero-carbon, long-term storage, flexible and efficient secondary energy. Accelerating the development of the hydrogen energy industry is a strategic choice to cope with global climate change, achieve the goal of carbon neutrality, and realize high-quality economic and social development. This study aimed to analyze the economic impact of introducing value-added services to the hydrogen energy market on hydrogen energy suppliers. Considering the network effect of value-added services, this study used a two-stage game model to quantitatively analyze the revenue of hydrogen energy suppliers under different scenarios and provided the optimal decision. The results revealed that (1) the revenue of a hydrogen energy supplier increases only if the intrinsic value of value-added services exceeds a certain threshold; (2) the revenue of hydrogen energy suppliers is influenced by a combination of four key factors: the intrinsic value of value-added services, network effects, user scale, and the sales strategies of rivals; (3) the model developed in this paper can provide optimal decisions for hydrogen energy suppliers to improve their economic efficiency and bring more economic investment to hydrogen energy market in the future.


"Peritonitis fibrosa incapsulata", first described in 1907, is a condition characterized by encasement of the bowel with a thick fibrous membrane. This condition was renamed as "abdominal cocoon" in 1978. It presents as small bowel obstruction clinically. 35 cases of abdominal cocoon have been reported in the literature over the last three decades. Abdominal cocoon is more common in adolescent girls from tropical countries. Various etiologies have been described, including tubercular. It is treated surgically by releasing the entrapped bowel. We report a laparoscopic experience of tubercular abdominal cocoon and review the literature.


The purpose of this study was to measure the influence of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) with symbol-supported communication applications (apps) on stimulating kindergarten students to increase expressive language in the general education setting in an elementary school located in Washington, DC. The study sample size was 31 students. The research aimed to identify these tools as an effective strategy to assist kindergarten students in using more verbal language, thereby lowering the risk of communication frustration and increasing the expression of learned knowledge. Language data usage was collected by viewing speech acts as operators in a planning system, then integrating speech acts into plans by comparing the independent variable of the use of the symbol-supported communication app to the dependent variables of knowledge of words and word combinations, knowledge of grammar, supralinguistics (inferencing), pragmatics, and practical use without exposure to the AAC device with a dynamic display and symbolic symbols. The Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language tool measured expressive language growth. A quantitative quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, nonequivalent comparison group design and a multivariate analysis of covariance using the pretests as the covariates measured the outcome. There was a statistically significant difference in the growth of posttest scores in the areas of knowledge of words and word combinations and knowledge of grammar. However, the students' performance in the areas of supralinguistics and pragmatics did not experience any measurable growth. Future research should continue to validate and build upon the results of this investigation.


Studies of hexachlorocyclohexane-isomers (HCHs) and selected triazine herbicides in solution and suspension were carried out in the Pomeranian Bight in 1995. The concentrations of HCHs and triazines were determined by gas-liquid chromatography (GC) or by GC in connection with quadrupole mass spectrometry(GC/MS). Particulate and dissolved material were separated by means of an in-situ filtration/extraction system. The seasonal variability and regional distribution of the various components were investigated in January, April, July and September 1995. Their distribution in the western Pomeranian Bight is described. The concentrations of individual hexachlorocyclohexane-isomers were in the range of 100–1 000 pg l–1 in solution and 20 to 60 pg l–1 in suspension. The levels of the triazines in solution showed pronounced differences between the individual components (atrazine (2–20 ng l–1), simazine (5–30 ng l–1), terbuthylazine (< 5 ng l–1)), but they were one order of magnitude higher compared with
the hexachlorocyclohexane-isomers. The concentration of triazines in suspension was low, often below the limit of detection (25 pg l–1).


Ethnic residential segregation is usually investigated using a constrained-choice approach. This study explains the variation in post-war Afro-Caribbean segregation in fifteen British cities by means of historical patterns of economic opportunity. Its dependent variable is newly available census data on residential segregation. It finds that the observed variation in segregation levels cannot be explained in terms of council housing policies or the passage of civil rights legislation from the mid-1960s, but rather by the interaction of New Commonwealth immigration and local labour and housing market conditions during the critical period 1951-1966.


The synthesis of multilayer membranes for solid oxide fuel cells by means of co-firing requires choice of compatible materials as well as a precise balance between densification rates of the various layers throughout the densification process. One attractive practical objective is the formation of dense electrolyte films on invariant, preformed electrode substrates, such as porous electrodes of either ceramic or metal conductors. The formation of dense 10-20 micrometer thick Ceria-based membranes on invariant substrates has been achieved by adjusting of the film sintering properties trough selection of particle size, initial density, and novel sintering additives. The accompanying theory pertaining to constrained sintering is examined, to determine the conditions under which fully dense electrolyte layers can be produced on invariant or minimally variant substrates.


Interest in air breakdown phenomena has recently been rekindled with the advent of advanced virtual prototyping of radio frequency (RF) sources for use in high power microwave (HPM) weapons technology. Air breakdown phenomena are of interest because the formation of a plasma layer at the aperture of an RF source decreases the transmitted power to the target, and in some cases can cause significant reflection of RF radiation. Understanding the mechanisms behind the formation of such plasma layers aid in the development of maximally effective sources. This paper begins with some of the basic theory behind air breakdown, and describes two independent approaches to modeling the formation of plasmas, the dielectric fluid model and the particle in cell (PIC) approach. Finally we present the results of preliminary studies in numerical modeling and simulation of breakdown.


A bacteriophage of a certain Staphylococcus (a strain of Staphylococcus lactis) employed in the manufacture of dry sausage has been characterized. The host range of this bacteriophage is wide. In addition to the original host, 15 other strains (out of 40 strains tested) were found to support reproduction of the phage. The sensitive strains represented Staphylococcus saprophyticus and different types of S. lactis. The growth rate of the bacterial host did not influence the rates of phage adsorption, nor the maximal reproduction rate of new particles. With increasing bacterial growth rate, the "lag" observed before phage reproduction started was distinctly decreased. This phase was shorter with the original host strain than with other sensitive strains.Resistant cultures of the original host strain were easily obtained. These cultures grew as rapidly and gave as good yields of cell mass as the original phage-sensitive host. However, phage resistance was frequently lost.


Illegal immigration and border enforcement in the United States have increased concomitantly for over thirty years. One interpretation is that U.S. border policies have been ineffective. We offer an alternative view, extending the current immigration-enforcement literature by incorporating both the practice of people smuggling and a role for non-wage income into a two-country, dynamic general equilibrium model. We state conditions under which two steady state equilibria exist: one with a low level of capital and high amount of illegal immigration and the other with a high level of capital, but relatively little migration. We then analyze two shocks: a positive technology shock to smuggling services and an increase in border enforcement. In the low-capital steady state, the capital-labor ratio declines with technological progress in smuggling, while illegal immigration increases. In the high-capital steady state, a technology shock causes the capital-labor ratio to rise while the effect on migration is indeterminate. We show that an increase in border enforcement is qualitatively equivalent to a negative technology shock to smuggling. Finally we show that a developed country would never choose small levels of border enforcement over an open border. Moreover, a high level of border enforcement is optimal only if it significantly decreases capital accumulation. In addition, we provide conditions under which an increase in smuggler technology will lead to a decline in the optimal level of enforcement.


Coastal flooding drives considerable risks to many communities, but projections of future flood risks are deeply uncertain. The paucity of observations of extreme events often motivates the use of statistical approaches to model the distribution of extreme storm surge events. One key deep uncertainty that is often overlooked is model structural uncertainty. There is currently no strong consensus among experts regarding which class of statistical model to use as a 'best practice'. Robust management of coastal flooding risks requires coastal managers to consider the distinct possibility of non-stationarity in storm surges. This increases the complexity of the potential models to use, which tends to increase the data required to constrain the model. Here, we use a Bayesian model averaging approach to analyze the balance between (i) model complexity sufficient to capture decision-relevant risks and (ii) data availability to constrain complex model structures. We characterize deep model structural uncertainty through a set of calibration experiments. Specifically, we calibrate a set of models ranging in complexity using long-term tide gauge observations from the Netherlands and the United States. We find that in both considered cases, roughly half of the model weight is associated with the non-stationary models. Our approach provides a formal framework to integrate information across model structures, in light of the potentially sizable modeling uncertainties. By combining information from multiple models, our inference sharpens for the projected storm surge 100 year return levels, and estimated return levels increase by several centimeters. We assess the impacts of data availability through a set of experiments with temporal subsets and model comparison metrics. Our analysis suggests that about 70 years of data are required to stabilize estimates of the 100 year return level, for the locations and methods considered here.


Study Design. The effect of cetuximab on the development of epidural fibrosis (EF) was assessed using immunohistochemical methods as well as antibodies for CD105 and osteopontin (OPN). Objective. The goal of this study was to assess of EGFR inhibition for the postoperative treatment of fibrosis. Summary of Background Data. EF is one of most common causes of failed back surgery syndrome, which occurs after laminectomy. Numerous causes and mechanisms have been proposed to explain its development after laminectomy. Many agents have been tested to prevent the development of EF. EGFR, a multi-functional transmembrane glycoprotein, causes cell growth, proliferation, and EF by interacting with epidermal growth factor and TGF-&bgr;1. The inhibition of postoperative fibrosis using cetuximab, an epidermal growth factor receptor blocker, is theoretically possible. However, this has not been tested to date. Methods. Sixteen Wistar-Albino rats were divided into two groups, namely, control and cetuximab groups. L1-2 laminectomy alone was performed in both groups, and topical cetuximab was applied to the treatment group. After 6 weeks, rats were sacrificed and examined histopathologically and immunohistochemically; EF tissue was also graded. Statistical significance was accepted at P < 0.05. Results. Fibroblast counts and fibrosis density, determined by histopathologic examination, and EF, according to immunohistochemical assessment based on CD105, were found to be higher in the treatment group than in the control group, and this was statistically significant (P < 0.001). Based on OPN staining, the results were consistent with classical methods, and no significant difference was detected among the groups (P = 0.358). Conclusion. Our study revealed that cetuximab inhibits the development of EF and that CD105, and not OPN, is a reliable marker for grading EF. In addition, cetuximab did not result in toxic, systemic side effects in surrounding tissues. Level of Evidence: N/A


A wedged load test method is used to evaluate the adhesion strength of high-strength coatings, which have been processed with various sintering parameters. In this test, for stress concentration at cut tip, cracks are always induced and expanded rapidly cross the interface between coating and substrate. Macro-fracture and SEM image of coating interface of high-strength coating are characterized using optical microscope and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), respectively. In order to evaluate the bonding properties between coating and substrate effectively, corresponding finite element (FE) analysis has been conducted to evaluate the adhesion strength of high-strength coating. And stress distributions cross the interface of high-strength coating are obtained. The stress analysis can help to evaluate the bond strength of high-strength coating. Because of small specimen and contact relationship between wedged pressure head and wedged cuts, complex stress state is affected by many factors resulting from interface, and also by the thickness of coating.


This article presents a mathematical model to assess and optimize the separation performance of an enantioselective inclusion complexation-organic solvent nanofiltration process. Enantiomer solubilities, feed concentrations, solvent compositions, permeate solvent volumes, and numbers of nanofiltrations were identified as key factors for process efficiency. The model was first tested by comparing calculated and experimental results for a nonoptimized process, and then, calculations were carried out to select the best operating conditions. An important finding was that the optimal configuration varied with the objective function selected, e.g., resolvability versus yield, with a boundary on product optical purity. The model also suggested that the process efficiency could benefit from diafiltration of the distomer and from the use of higher feed concentrations. However, the latter strategy would result in higher losses of eutomer. To address this drawback, a multistage process was evaluated using the verified process model.


The Gibbs phenomenon refers to the lack of uniform convergence which occurs in many orthogonal basis approximations to piecewise smooth functions. This lack of uniform convergence manifests itself in spurious oscillations near the points of discontinuity and a low order of convergence away from the discontinuities. Here we describe a numerical procedure for overcoming the Gibbs phenomenon called the inverse wavelet reconstruction method. The method takes the Fourier coefficients of an oscillatory partial sum and uses them to construct the wavelet coefficients of a non-oscillatory wavelet series.


Allium shahinii, a new species of Allium sect. Scorodon, is described and illustrated from Erzincan Province, Eastern Turkey. It is a narrowly distributed geophyte growing on siliceous screes of warm exposure in mountain ranges of the nemoral and thermophilous deciduous woodland zone, showing close morphological relationships mainly with A. moschatum, A. stocksianum, A. spirophyllum, A. circumflexum but it is clearly differentiated due to perigon, outer tunic, indumentum, leaf and scape characteristics. In this study, diagnostic characters, description, taxonomic comments, photographs, distribution map, detailed illustration, the conservation status of A. shahinii and identification key are provided for A. shahinii and related taxa. According to IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria, A. shahinii is assessed here as a Critically Endangered (CR) species.


Transferability of adversarial examples is of central importance for attacking an unknown model, which facilitates adversarial attacks in more practical scenarios, e.g., black-box attacks. Existing transferable attacks tend to craft adversarial examples by indiscriminately distorting features to degrade prediction accuracy in a source model without aware of intrinsic features of objects in the images. We argue that such brute-force degradation would introduce model-specific local optimum into adversarial examples, thus limiting the transferability. By contrast, we propose the Feature Importance-aware Attack (FIA), which disrupts important object-aware features that dominate model decisions consistently. More specifically, we obtain feature importance by introducing the aggregate gradient, which averages the gradients with respect to feature maps of the source model, computed on a batch of random transforms of the original clean image. The gradients will be highly correlated to objects of interest, and such correlation presents invariance across different models. Besides, the random transforms will preserve intrinsic features of objects and suppress model-specific information. Finally, the feature importance guides to search for adversarial examples to-wards disrupting critical features, achieving stronger transferability. Extensive experimental evaluation demonstrates the effectiveness and superior performance of the proposed FIA, i.e., improving the success rate by 9.5% against normally trained models and 12.8% against defense models as compared to the state-of-the-art transferable attacks. Code is available at: https://github.com/hcguoO0/FIA


On the November 2004 ballot, citizens of Florida will have the opportunity to vote on a proposal to raise the statewide minimum wage to $6.15 per hour. The measure also calls for tipped workers getting a raise from the current federal mandate of $2.13 to $3.13. The measure includes an automatic cost-of-living adjustment, by which further raises in the statewide minimum wage would occur automatically at the national inflation rate. If Florida voters approve this measure, Florida will become the 13th state in the country to operate with a minimum wage above the federal minimum. Economic Analysis of the Florida Minimum Wage Proposal analyzes the costs and benefits to businesses and workers as well as the fiscal impact of the proposal.


It is important to build overlays for topic-based publish/subscribe (pub/sub) under resource constraints. In a topic-connected overlay (TCO), each topic t induces a connected sub-overlay among all nodes interested in t. Existing work merely consider how to optimize a complete TCO and implicitly commit the unrealistic assumption of unlimited resources. In contrast, we make maximum use of restricted node degree budgets to build a partial TCO. We formalize the notion of TCO support to capture the quality of the pub/sub overlay. Furthermore, we demonstrate that partial TCOs usually exhibit significantly better cost-effectiveness in practice. We propose two problems of maximizing TCO support in a partial TCO: (1) PTCOA with a bounded average node degree and (2) PTCOM under the maximum node degree constraint. We design two greedy algorithms, which achieve the constant approximation ratios of (1-e-1) for PTCOA and (1-e-1/6) for PTCOM, respectively. Empirical evaluation demonstrates the scalability of our algorithms under a variety of pub/sub workloads. Given practical data sets extracted from Facebook and Twitter, our algorithms produce an 80% TCO with fewer than 20% of the node degree budget as a complete TCO. We also show experimentally that it is promising to design decentralized protocols to compute a partial TCO for pub/sub.


This case study is one of 26 cases developed as part of the Reflecting on Peace Practice Project (RPP). The RPP cases were not written as evaluations; rather, they were written to allow for the identification of cross-cutting issues and themes across the range of cases. Each case represents the views and perspectives of a variety of people—the case writer, agencies, project participants, and observers—at the point it was written. RPP would like to acknowledge the generosity of the agencies involved in donating their time and experience for these case studies, as well as their willingness to share their experience with the worldwide community of peace practitioners.


Network neutrality and the role of regulation on the Internet have been heavily debated in recent times. Among the various definitions of network neutrality, we focus on the one that prohibits paid prioritization of content. We develop a model of the Internet ecosystem in terms of three primary players: consumers, ISPs, and content providers. We analyze this issue from the point of view of the consumer and target the desired system state that maximizes consumer utility. By analyzing various structures of an ISP market, we obtain different conclusions on the desirability of regulation. We also introduce the notion of a Public Option ISP, an ISP that carries traffic in a network-neutral manner. We find: in a monopolistic scenario, network-neutral regulations might benefit consumers, however the introduction of a Public Option ISP is even better as it aligns the interests of the monopolistic ISP with the consumer utility; and in an oligopolistic scenario, the presence of a Public Option ISP is again preferable to network-neutral regulations, although the presence of competing nonneutral ISPs provides the most desirable situation for the consumers.


The Cassini spacecraft, launched in October 1997 to reach Saturn in 2004, carries two magnetometer experiments on a 10-meter boom, one at the mid-section of the boom and the other at the end of the boom. In order to gather valid scientific magnetic field data and avoid electromagnetic interference, the spacecraft had to comply with stringent magnetostatic cleanliness requirements. Amidst the strongest magnetic field perturbations were three radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), which provide power to the spacecraft's engineering subsystems and science instruments. The RTGs have been compensated efficiently. This paper describes the field-mapping technique, the numerical modeling and the compensation approach used for the RTGs with the goal of minimizing its magnetic field interference with Cassini's DC magnetic field science instruments. A short synthesis of the total spacecraft cleanliness level is also given.


Background and Aims: A positive resection margin is considered to be a factor associated with poor prognosis after pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma resection. However, analysis of the resection margin is dependent on the pathological slicing technique. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to study the impact of resection margin on the survival of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma patients whose specimens were analyzed using the axial slicing technique. Material and Methods: A systematic search in the PubMed, Cochrane, and Embase datasets covering the time period from November 2006 to January 2019 was performed. Only studies with axial slicing technique (Leeds Pathology Protocol or Royal College of Pathology Protocol) were included in the final database. Meta-analysis between the marginal distance and survival was performed with the Inverse Variance Method in RevMan. Results: The systematic search resulted in nine studies meeting the inclusion criteria. The median survival for a resection margin 0 mm ranged from 12.3 to 23.4 months, for resection margin <0.5 mm 16 months, for resection margin <1 mm ranged from 11 to 27.5 months, for resection margin <1.5 mm ranged from 16.9 to 21.2 months, and for resection margin >2 mm ranged from 53.9 to 63.1 months. Five studies were eligible for meta-analysis. The pooled multivariable hazard ratio favored resection margin ⩾1 mm (hazard ratio: 1.32 and 95% confidence interval: 1.03–1.68, p = 0.03). Conclusion: Resection margins ⩾1 mm seem to lead to better survival in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma patients than resection margin <1 mm. However, there is not enough data to evaluate the effect of oncologic therapy or to analyze the impact of other resection margin distances on survival.


Reliable and agile spectrum sensing as well as secure communication are key requirements of a cognitive radio system. In this paper, secrecy throughput of a cognitive radio is maximized in order to determine the sensing threshold, the sensing time, and the transmission power. Constraints of the problem are defined as a lower-bound on the detection probability, an upper-bound on the average energy consumption per time-frame, and the maximum transmission power of the cognitive radio. We show that the problem can be solved by an on-off strategy where the cognitive radio only performs sensing and transmits data if the cognitive channel gain is greater than the average eavesdropper channel gain. The problem is then solved by a line-search over sensing time. Eventually, the secrecy throughput of the cognitive radio is evaluated employing the IEEE 802.15.4/Zig-Bee standard.


Abstract In a homogeneous good, Cournot duopoly model, entry may occur even when the potential entrant has no cost advantage and no independent access to distribution. By sinking its costs of production before negotiating with the incumbents, the entrant creates an externality that induces the incumbents to bid more aggressively for the distribution rights to its output. Each incumbent is willing to pay up to the incremental profit earned from the additional output plus the incremental loss avoided by keeping the output away from its rival. This implies that the incumbents are willing to pay up to the market price for each unit of available output. A sequential game in which the incumbents produce first is analyzed, and the conditions under which entry is deterred by incumbents' preemptive capacity expansions are derived.


Objective To determine whether an induction-maintenance strategy of combined therapy (methotrexate (MTX)+tumour necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitor (TNFi)) followed by withdrawal of TNFi could yield better long-term results than a strategy with MTX monotherapy, since it is unclear if the benefits from an induction phase with combined therapy are sustained if TNFi is withdrawn. Methods We performed a meta-analysis of trials using the initial combination of MTX+TNFi in conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drug-naïve patients with early rheumatoid arthritis (RA). A systematic literature search was performed for induction-maintenance randomised controlled trials (RCTs) where initial combination therapy was compared with MTX monotherapy in patients with clinically active early RA. Our primary outcome was the proportion of patients who achieved low disease activity (LDA; Disease Activity Score (DAS)28<3.2) and/or remission (DAS28<2.6) at 12–76 weeks of follow-up. A random-effects model was used to pool the risk ratio (RR) for LDA and remission and heterogeneity was explored by subgroup analyses. Results We identified 6 published RCTs, 4 of them where MTX+adalimumab was given as initial therapy and where adalimumab was withdrawn in a subset of patients after LDA/remission had been achieved. 2 additional trials used MTX+infliximab as combination therapy. The pooled RRs for achieving LDA and clinical remission at follow-up after withdrawal of TNFi were 1.41 (95% CI 1.05 to 1.89) and 1.34 (95% CI 0.95 to 1.89), respectively. There was significant heterogeneity between trials due to different treatment strategies, which was a limitation to this study. Conclusions Initial therapy with MTX+TNFi is associated with a higher chance of retaining LDA and/or remission even after discontinuation of TNFi.


Miloš Urban, a Czech writer, is mostly associated with postmodernist playing with the convention of the metaphysical thriller. In 2001 he published Hastrman, a novel representing so-called green literature, for which he received the prestigious Magnesia Litera award. His concerns about progressive degradation of the natural environment of northern Czechia inspired him to develop a creative method which allows him to highlight threats related to the ecological crisis without excessively lecturing the reader. By reaching for genological models of the nineteenth-century ethnographic novel, combining them with elements of horror and contemporary political fiction and – first and foremost – adding the vodyanoy (i.e., a figure that is not only deeply rooted in Czech cultural memory, but also characterized by an animalistic-or demonic-human ontological duality), Urban achieved a particular ethical undecidability of the protagonist's actions. The titular hastrman acts for "a good – ecological – cause", but in order to fulfill his mission, he uses criminal, strictly terrorist methods. As a result, the novel asks questions instead of offering definitive answers, forcing the reader to rethink their own attitude and propose tools for salvation of the gradually, but inevitably disappearing traditional order based on the harmonious cooperation between man and surrounding nature. kryzys ekologiczny ENVIRONMENTAL ET HICS


The following work advances a new concept for a hermetically sealed squeeze film damper (HSFD), which does not require an open-flow lubrication system. The hermetically sealed concept utilizes a submersed plunger within a contained fluidic cavity filled with incompressible fluid and carefully controlled end plate clearances to generate high levels of viscous damping. Although the application space for a hermetic damper can be envisioned to be quite broad, the context here will target the use of this device as a rotordynamic bearing support damper in flexibly mounted gas bearing systems. The effort focused on identifying the stiffness and damping behavior of the damper while varying test parameters such as excitation frequency, vibration amplitude, and end plate clearance. To gain further insight to the damper behavior, key dynamic pressure measurements in the damper land were used for identifying the onset conditions for squeeze film cavitation. The HSFD performance is compared to existing gas bearing support dampers and a conventional open-flow squeeze film dampers (SFD) used in turbomachinery. The damper concept yields high viscous damping coefficients an order of magnitude larger than existing oil-free gas bearing supports dampers and shows comparable damping levels to current state of the art open-flow SFD. The force coefficients were shown to contribute frequency-dependent stiffness and damping coefficients while exhibiting amplitude independent behavior within operating regimes without cavitation. Finally, using experimentally based force density calculations, the data revealed threshold cavitation velocities, approximated for the three end seal clearance cases. To complement the experimental work, a Reynolds-based fluid flow model was developed and is compared to the HSFD damping and stiffness results.


and more familiar case or mood on the domain of the less common, though the more precise and correct. So one English dialect uses ' us ' and ' her' for the nominative, another ' I ' and ' we' for the accusative. Dr. Sonnenschein has some wise words (§§ 8-12) on the significance of the term 'case ' and (§§ 77-86) on that of the terms ' mood' and ' tense,' holding as regards the first that ' case' can be expressed by agencies other than that 01 ' form,' such as ' order of words,' 'context,' •'phrasing and intonation.' On a point of detail, in § 28 the accusative diem quartum in ante diem quartum Nonas Ianuarias is treated as ' adverbial': it is difficult to avoid the feeling that it is really drawn into the accusative by ante. In his treatment of the subjunctive the most controversial point is the origin of the ' if clause in conditional sentences: this he regards as ' postulative,' akin to the subjunctive of command or wish: e.g. in English, ' Be England what she will, With all her faults she is my country still': English if, Latin, French and Spanish si, and Greek el, being demonstrative adverbs meaning ' so,' and having come to function as subordinating conjunctions. The book makes excellent reading and is very convincing, admirably set out in the matter of type and arrangement, and apparently quite free from misprints. H. WILLIAMSON.


The purpose of this study was to explore the role of an electronic training program on developing some technological skills of the student teacher to use technology in learning via web. The participants were 60 third-year students at the Faculty of Kindergarten, Cairo University. The quasi-experimental design was used. To answer the questions of the study, the researcher developed a list of technological skills that are essential for the student teacher and an electronic achievement test to assess the cognitive and technical skills of using technology for kindergarten teachers. The results of the study showed significant differences between the control group and the experimental group in the achievement test in favor of the experimental group (p = 0.01). The experimental-group students achieved gains as they received training on technological skills such as perceiving details of machines and programs, the observation skill, the technological design technology, and the sensitivity to problems skill due to the electronic program offered in the current study.


Many teachers who have been trained to teach reading do not seem to transfer these skills to the other areas of the curriculum. It is suggested that teachers should approach the content areas using a total lesson approach. This approach adapts the directed reading activity method to content area instruction. This article includes a brief discussion of the adaptation of the directed reading activity method. Included is an explanation of each of the six steps as they might apply to the content area. The goals of the directed reading activity and those of the content areas have much in common. These include vocabulary building, various levels of comprehension, as well as "skimming and scanning." Encouraging teachers to apply this method can help to "close the gap" in methodology.


1. A study is presented of the mitochondrial NADH content during controlled (state 4) and active (state 3) pyruvate oxidation by blowfly flight-muscle mitochondria. The results confirm and extend those of an earlier study (Hansford, 1972), which indicated an increased reduction in state 3. Nicotinamide nucleotide is normally highly oxidized during state 4; however, there can be substantial reduction in the presence of carnitine or high concentrations of proline, or on lengthy incubation in the presence of either of the systems used to generate intramitochondrial tricarboxylate-cycle intermediate. 2. Omission of phosphate leads to substantial reduction and this can be reversed by adding phosphate or acetate. 3. Estimations of NAD-+ and NADH in fly thoraces show a marked increase in NADH on flight, tending to corroborate the results of mitochondrial experiments and testifying to the importance of dehydrogenase activation in this tissue. 4. Determination of intramitochondrial adenine nucleotides reveals a total of 4-5 nmol/mg of protein, and an ADP content of less than 0.1 nmol/mg during state 4 oxidation of pyruvate and proline. ATP content is found to increase slowly during state 4 and this is attributed to the net phosphorylation of AMP. 5. The uncoupling agent carbonyl cyanide p=trifluoromethoxyphenylhydrazone leads to hydrolysis of some, but not all, of the mitochondrial ATP. Studies of mitochondrial ATPase (adenosine triphosphatase), measured by external pH change, show that it is inactive unless the mitochondria are allowed to respire for several minutes in state 4 in the presence of phosphate before the addition of carbonyl cyanide p-trifluoromethoxyphenylhydrazone. It is suggested that phosphate uptake is essential for maximal ATPase activity. 6. Studies of the fluorescence of the fluorochrome 8-anilino-1-naphthalensulphonic acid suggest that the energy status of the mitochondrion is high during state 4-pyruvate oxidattion, and decrease slightly in state 3. The implications of these findings are discussed.


Table-driven routing algorithms in flat networks have the scalability problem due to the need for global topology updates. To reduce update cost, networks are hierarchically organized. Clustering algorithms organize flat networks into hierarchical networks. One important problem, which has not been adequately addressed so far, is to evaluate how good a clustering algorithm is. In other words, it is useful to know what the desired properties of hierarchical networks are. In this paper, we address this issue by considering the routing update cost, which can be measured by the total routing table size and the variance of cluster size distribution. We provide a set of desired properties of clustering algorithms. Applying these properties to the cluster structure generated by an algorithm, we can determine how good a clustering algorithm is. Specifically, we discuss how to choose appropriate number of hierarchy levels, number of clusters, and cluster size distribution, such that the topology update cost is minimized. The desired properties obtained from the analysis can be used as guidelines in the design of clustering algorithms for table-driven hierarchical networks. We apply the idea developed in this paper to evaluate three routing algorithms, namely the lowest ID algorithm, the maximum degree algorithm, and the variable degree clustering algorithm. We show how the variable degree clustering algorithm, which takes into account these desired properties, improves routing performance.


Author(s): Omori, Marisa Kei | Advisor(s): Lynch, Mona | Abstract: Past research has demonstrated that those arrested for drug crimes is not representative of drug use, suggesting that drug policy and enforcement is highly racialized and unequal. We know much less about where and how racial inequality is reproduced within the criminal justice system, however. Focusing on racial inequality as both a total effect and as a process, I examine where and how racial inequality is cumulatively produced in the criminal justice system for drug defendants. Using data from state and federal courts, I examine this question through three primary analyses. First, I develop a measure of cumulative racial inequality for the court process and for sentencing outcomes to better understand the total effects of inequality. I also analyze the mechanisms of cumulative racial inequality in the state and federal court systems by examining disparities in court processing and outcome decisions while accounting for the effects of previous stages in later stages of the court process. Finally, I focus on a single city to examine how cumulative racial inequality operates in drug arrest patterns, court processes, and alternative to incarceration programs.I find that racial inequality may be difficult to detect by only examining outcomes at single stages of the process because disparities are often small at any individual stage, and because they occur mostly at early, less visible stages of the criminal justice process. Proactive policing drives much of the initial racial inequality through the use of geographically targeted arrests that focuses on nonwhite neighborhoods. Even before sentencing outcomes, the court process acts as a stratification mechanism in itself, where many mechanisms of inequality, including bail and pretrial detention decisions, occur in pre-sentencing stages. They also occur indirectly through factors such as criminal history which in itself is partially a function of previous criminal justice system contact.


Journalism has long been a major factor in defining the opinions of Russia's literate classes. Although women participated in nearly every aspect of the journalistic process during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, female editors, publishers, and writers have been consistently omitted from the history of journalism in Imperial Russia. An Improper Profession offers a more complete and accurate picture of this history by examining the work of these under-appreciated professionals and showing how their involvement helped to formulate public opinion.

In this collection, contributors explore how early women journalists contributed to changing cultural understandings of women's roles, as well as how class and gender politics meshed in the work of particular individuals. They also examine how female journalists adapted to—or challenged—censorship as political structures in Russia shifted. Over the course of this volume, contributors discuss the attitudes of female Russian journalists toward socialism, Russian nationalism, anti-Semitism, women's rights, and suffrage. Covering the period from the early 1800s to 1917, this collection includes essays that draw from archival as well as published materials and that range from biography to literary and historical analysis of journalistic diaries.

By disrupting conventional ideas about journalism and gender in late Imperial Russia, An Improper Profession should be of vital interest to scholars of women's history, journalism, and Russian history.

Contributors. Linda Harriet Edmondson, June Pachuta Farris, Jehanne M Gheith, Adele Lindenmeyr, Carolyn Marks, Barbara T. Norton, Miranda Beaven Remnek, Christine Ruane, Rochelle Ruthchild, Mary Zirin


This paper describes recollections of my personal experiences in Israel and their interplay with my decisions as an art educator. These stories are examples of how the borders between the professional, the personal, and the institutional are blurred. Becoming and being an art educator in a country which is deeply affected by a long-standing, deep-rooted, stubborn, and violent conflict, I struggle to find ways to teach art in a meaningful way and to react to the culture of conflict through critical art pedagogy.


We present a system for detection, tracking and representation of tubular objects in images. The uniqueness of the proposed system is twofold: at the macro level, the novelty of the system lies in the integration of object localization and tracking using geometric properties; at the micro level, is the use of high and low level constraints to model the detection and tracking subsystem. The underlying philosophy for object detection is to extract perceptually significant features from the pixel level image, and then use these high level cues to refine the precise boundaries. In the case of tubular objects, the perceptually significant features are anti-parallel line segments or, equivalently, their axis of symmetries. The axis of symmetry infers a coarse description of the object in terms of a bounding polygon. The polygon then provides the necessary boundary condition for the refinement process, which is based on dynamic programming. For tracking the object in a time sequence of images, the refined contour is then projected onto each consecutive frame. In addition, the system provides an axis of symmetry representation of object for subsequent scientific analysis.<<ETX>>


Seeds from over 9,000 lines in the world sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] collection were classified for endosperm phenotype to identify floury endosperm lines and evaluate each for potential increases in lysine concentration. Sixty-two floury endosperm lines were selected and analyzed for protein and lysine composition. Two floury lines of Ethiopian origin, IS 11167 and IS 11758, were exceptionally high in lysine at relatively high levels of protein.

The average whole grain lysine concentration of high lysine lines IS 11167 and IS 11758 was 3.34 and 3.13 (g/lOOg protein) at 15.7 and 17.2% protein, respectively. Both lines were also high in percent oil. Carbohydrate analyses of whole grain samples of the two high lysine lines were similar to that of normal sorghum grain except for a twofold increase in sucrose concentration.

The high lysine gene altered the amino acid pattern in hl hl hl endosperm tissue relative to normal endosperm checks. The major changes were increased lysine, arginine, aspartic acid, glycine, and tryptophan concentrations and decreased amounts of glutamic acid, proline, alanine, and leucine in the hl hl hl endosperm.

Inheritance studies suggest that the increased lysine concentration of each line is controlled by a single recessive gene, although it is not known whether the genes from both lines are allelic. The high lysine gene(s) present in IS 11167 and IS 11758 from Ethiopia is (are) herein designated as hl. The endosperm of kernels homozygous for the hl gene is partially dented.

The biological value of the high lysine lines was much higher than that of average sorghum lines. In a 28-day isonitrogenous feeding experiment the weight gain of weanling rats was three times higher on an IS 11758 ration and twice as high on an IS 11167 ration as weight gains on rations prepared from normal sorghum lines. When fed rations without any dilution except the usual 2% vitamin and 4% mineral supplementation, rats gained 94 g on high lysine sorghum (IS 11758) and 28.5 g on our current best nutritional quality sorghum line (IS 2319), versus 91.5 g on opaque-2 corn (Zea mays L.) and 30.2 g on normal corn in a 28-day feeding trial. Feed efficiency ratios for this trial were 3.0 for high lysine sorghum, 6.8 for IS 2319, 3.4 for opaque-2 corn, and 7.4 for normal corn.


A FRAMEWORK FOR GUIDING TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENTS TO SUPPORT DESIRED LAND USE by Jiruttichut Leoviriyakit There is a growing recognition that transportation and land use policies cannot succeed independently of one another. The interactions between them must be understood, analyzed, and accounted for in order for land use and transportation plans and policies to be effective and successful. A methodological framework is presented that can help urban planners determine what outcomes can be expected in terms of change in land use patterns within the targeted communities and within the county should a transportation project be undertaken. The framework is based on an interaction between travel demand model TRANSIMS and land use model TELUM that enables complete regional transportation and land use analysis. The framework is applied on a real world case study in New Jersey. The study evaluates the value and impact of the transportation improvement project and ascertains if it brings a desired impact on land use and transportation infrastructure. This integrated model provides an understanding of the future network conditions which will consequently lead to a better assessment of transportation improvement alternatives and land use planning. The framework provides answers to research questions in terms of what changes in land use patterns within the targeted communities and within the county can be expected if an improvement project of a transportation facility is undertaken. The framework also identifies changes in roadway network performance (travel time, speed, volume, delay) as well. The framework fully captures and incorporates induced travel demand into a regional transportation and land use analysis. This dissertation describes in detail how MPOs, state DOTs, and other planning agencies can create an integrated transportation-land use model from the ground up or create it as an extension to their existing analytical tools to bridge the gap between the two models. The dissertation identifies shortcomings of current methodology used by MPO in analyzing the impacts of a reconstruction project. It provides guidelines which enable MPOs to achieve compliance with federal mandates. It also provides step-by-step guidance of how to develop a framework which integrates transportation system and land use. The results show that the interactions between the transportation system and land use are complex and highlight the fact that the interrelationship between the two systems changes constantly and continues to evolve over time. The dissertation also explains how the integration between the two systems can be achieved through the use of multiple regression models which are built upon regional socioeconomic factors. The contributions of this dissertation to the field of transportation policy and planning are as follows: • A framework allows planning agencies to utilize transportation improvement projects to guide future development patterns, densities and intensities of land use as well as encourage infill developments in an area of particular interest. • A framework allows planning agencies to trace anomalies in land use patterns and identify crucial factors influencing such developments. • It provides guidelines which enable planning agencies to achieve compliance with federal mandates. This dissertation discusses in detail how to create an integrated transportation-land use model from data that is readily available to planning agencies. • It provides technical information in regards to TRANSIMS model development, the feedback process, and the convergence statistics. • The developed model can assist urban planners to identify which transportation improvement projects should be undertaken, and at what location, in order to bring about desired outcomes. The dissertation concludes with a methodology used to calculate the economic viability of a transportation improvement project. The methodology compares the costs of construction to the estimated benefits (or savings) in various user cost categories, including travel time, fuel consumption, and vehicle emissions. A FRAMEWORK FOR GUIDING TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENTS TO SUPPORT DESIRED LAND USE by Jiruttichut Leoviriyakit A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of New Jersey Institute of Technology In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Transportation Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering


We propose a real-time system for blur estimation using wavelet decomposition. The system is based on an emerging multi-core microprocessor architecture (Cell Broadband Engine, Cell BE) known to outperform any available general purpose or DSP processor in the domain of real-time advanced video processing solutions. We start from a recent wavelet domain blur estimation algorithm which uses histograms of a local regularity measure called average cone ratio (ACR). This approach has shown a very good potential for assessing the level of blur in the image yet some important aspects remain to be addressed in order for the method to become a practically working one. Some of these aspects are explored in our work. Furthermore, we develop an efficient real-time implementation of the novelty metric and integrate it into a system that captures live video. The proposed system estimates blur extent and renders the results to the remote user in real-time.


The design of a water treatment plant and its outfall should respect receptors' environmental quality standards as well as physicochemical parameters of the discharge itself. Moreover, in order to avoid polluting the outfall, because of the natural processes of dilution and self-depuration, coastal outfall pipes are used to issue the depurated water at a sufficiently long distance from the preserved shoreline. Once recognising that sea currents play a pivotal role on physical and microbiological effects, the following study aims at describing the results of somemonitoring surveys carried out in the Italy's Southern coastal area of Bari. The target area is close to the Eastern wastewater sea outfall system of the city, thus, its analysis is necessary for investigating the process of diffusion and transport of the wastewater outfall and to validate predictive hydrodynamic models.Firstly, monitoring surveys were carried out during the period from summer to autumn 2001 and successively, they were repeated in the following winter 2003 and spring 2003. A Vessel Mounted Acoustic Doppler Profiler was used to measure the components' speed at different depths. Also, salinity and water temperature data were collected by means of a CTD recorder system while wind intensity and air temperature were recordedwith an anemometer and a thermometer respectively, for each station's measurement.


Medication adherence practices are becoming an important concern for healthcare professionals and patients. Globally, medication non-adherence is quite prevalent and affecting the healthcare of patients leading to inadequate response to treatment and augmented healthcare cost. With the advent of improvised practices in clinical care, patient-related problems mainly non-adherence have been conquered to a greater extent. Clinical practice is changing over a period contributing more towards patient care. Expansion of clinical pharmacy activities with a focused approach towards patient care especially optimized pharmaceutical care has seen a tremendous revolution in modern era. According to a study, 50% of patients with chronic conditions are not adherent to their medications with an estimated adherence range of 17% to 80%. Drugs used for asymptomatic chronic conditions have been shown to have low adherence rates. Risk of non-adherence has been shown to be rapidly increasing with the initiation of chronic medication especially in the first year of its commencement. Medication nonadherence is one of the most significant reason for inadequate response to drug therapy, initial hospitalization, frequent hospital visits and Adverse Drug Events (ADEs) leading to inappropriate therapeutic outcome and in turn, raised healthcare cost. Due to lack of sufficient support or appropriate channel, there is a growing concern for healthcare professionals to take initiative and strengthen the medication adherence practices. Clinical pharmacist's initiatives in this direction has been appreciated and documented with clinically proven evidence of better impact on patient's health-related quality of life. Patient tools such as pill reminders, alarming system, dose indicator, standard day-wise schedule, colorful pills etc. have brought pill revolution with the intention of improvising medication adherence practices worldwide. The current requirement is to monitor such patients in clinical practice and encourage them to comply with medication-related instructions and adhere to their medication schedule at the most.


Abstract Dexterous object manipulation is a hallmark of human evolution and a critical skill for everyday activities. A previous work has used a grasping context that predominantly elicits memory-based control of digit forces by constraining where the object should be grasped. For this "constrained" grasping context, the primary motor cortex (M1) is involved in storage and retrieval of digit forces used in previous manipulations. In contrast, when choice of digit contact points is allowed ("unconstrained" grasping), behavioral studies revealed that forces are adjusted, on a trial-to-trial basis, as a function of digit position. This suggests a role of online feedback of digit position for force control. However, despite the ubiquitous nature of unconstrained hand–object interactions in activities of daily living, the underlying neural mechanisms are unknown. Using noninvasive brain stimulation, we found the role of primary motor cortex (M1) and somatosensory cortex (S1) to be sensitive to grasping context. In constrained grasping, M1 but not S1 is involved in storing and retrieving learned digit forces and position. In contrast, in unconstrained grasping, M1 and S1 are involved in modulating digit forces to position. Our findings suggest that the relative contribution of memory and online feedback modulates sensorimotor cortical interactions for dexterous manipulation.


The final report from the Productivity Commission into executive remuneration does not recommend any far-reaching changes that will address the excessiveness of executive pay in Australia. However, various policy options are available to rein in executive pay, including: removing the tax concession on capital gains; increasing the top marginal rate of income tax; and, establishing an acceptable level of remuneration for executives and excluding amounts above this from qualifying as a legitimate company expense and therefore tax deductible.


Early Career Psychiatrists (ECP) section of World Psychiatric Association (WPA) was officially launched in 2014, while this global organization had been developing the collaboration of ECPs in different activities, more specifically, by inviting several fellows to attend world congresses of psychiatry since 1999 (1).Fortunately, I joined the section in the 17th World Congress of Psychiatry, where I could attend as one of the ECPs fellowship awardees in Berlin, Germany. After a while, the section provided collaborative platforms as Google and WhatsApp group which have been developed by participation of more young psychiatrists and psychiatric trainees all around the world for 3 years. It should be noted that social gathering of members during the last three annual World Congresses of Psychiatry which were held in Berlin, Lisbon and Mexico City have had a substantial role in developing relationships and collaborations.


In this doctoral thesis we consider various property testing problems for structured distributions. A distribution is said to be structured if it belongs to a certain class which can be simply described in approximation terms. Such distributions often arise in practice, e.g. log-concave distributions, easily approximated by polynomials (see [Bir87a]), often appear in econometric research. For structured distributions, testing a property often requires far less samples than for general unrestricted distributions. In this thesis we prove that this is indeed the case for several distance-related properties. Namely, we give explicit sub-linear time algorithms for L1 and L2 distance testing between two structured distributions for the cases when either one or both of them are available as a "black box". We also prove that the given algorithms have the best possible asymptotic complexity by proving matching lower bounds in the form of explicit problem instances (albeit constructed using randomized techniques) demanding at least a specified amount of data to be tested successfully. As the main numerical result, we prove that testing that total variation distance to an explicitly given distribution is at least ε requires O (√ k ε2 ) samples, where k is an approximation parameter, dependent on the class of distribution being tested and independent of the support size. Testing that the total variation distance between two "black box" distributions is at least ε requires O ( k4/5 ε6/5 ) . In some cases, when k ∼ n, this result may be worse than using an unrestricted testing algorithm (which requires O(n 2/3 ε2 ) samples where n is the domain size). To address this issue, we develop a third algorithm, which requires O ( k2/3 ε4/3 log (k ) log log( n k ) ) and serves as a bridge between the cases of small and large domain sizes.


Purpose
Offering unskilled people training in engineering and vocational skills helps to decrease unemployment rate. The purpose of this paper is to augment actual hands-on conventional vocational training methods with virtual haptic simulations as part of computer-based vocational education and training.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper discusses the design of a bi-manual virtual multi-modal training interface for learning basic skills in surface mount device hand soldering. This research aims to analyze human hand dexterity of novices and experts at micro level skill knowledge capture by simulating and tracking the users' actions in the manual soldering process through a multi-modal user interface.

Findings
Haptic feedback can enhance the experience of a virtual training environment for the end user and can provide a supplementary modality for imparting tangible principles to increase effectiveness. This will improve the teaching and learning of engineering and vocational skills with touch-based haptics technology, targeted toward teachers and students of various disciplines in engineering. Compared with the traditional training methods for learning soldering skills, the proposed method shows more efficiency in faster skill acquisition and skill learning.

Originality/value
In this study, the authors proposed a novel bi-manual virtual training simulator model for teaching soldering skills for surface mount technology and inspection. This research aims to investigate the acquisition of soldering skills through virtual environment, with and without haptic feedback. This acts as a basic-level training simulator that provides introductory training in soldering skills and can help initially unskilled people find educational opportunities and job offers in the electronics industry.


While plasmas using mixtures of SF6, C4F8, and Ar are widely used in deep silicon etching, very few studies have linked the discharge parameters to etching results. The authors form such linkages in this report. The authors measured the optical emission intensities of lines from Ar, F, S, SFx, CF2, C2, C3, and CS as a function of the percentage C4F8 in the gas flow, the total gas flow rate, and the bias power. In addition, the ion current density and electron temperature were measured using a floating Langmuir probe. For comparison, trenches were etched of various widths and the trench profiles (etch depth, undercut) were measured. The addition of C4F8 to an SF6/Ar plasma acts to reduce the availability of F as well as increase the deposition of passivation film. Sulfur combines with carbon in the plasma efficiently to create a large optical emission of CS and suppress optical emissions from C2 and C3. At low fractional flows of C4F8, the etch process appears to be controlled by the ion flux more so than by the F density. At large C4F8 fractional flows, the etch process appears to be controlled more by the F density than by the ion flux or deposition rate of passivation film. CF2 and C2 do not appear to cause deposition from the plasma, but CS and other carbon containing molecules as well as ions do.


We present two novel microfluidic flow cells developed to provide reliable control of flow distributions and chemical gradients in biofilm studies. We developed a single‐inlet microfluidic flow cell to support biofilm growth under a uniform velocity field, and a double‐inlet flow cell to provide a very smooth transverse concentration gradient. Both flow cells consist of a layer of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) bonded to glass cover slips and were fabricated using the replica molding technique. We demonstrate the capabilities of the flow cells by quantifying flow patterns before and after growth of Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms through particle imaging velocimetry, and by evaluating concentration gradients within the double‐inlet microfluidic flow cell. Biofilm growth substantially increased flow complexity by diverting flow around biomass, creating high‐ and low‐velocity regions and surface friction. Under a glucose gradient in the double‐inlet flow cell, P. aeruginosa biofilms grew in proportion to the local glucose concentration, producing distinct spatial patterns in biofilm biomass relative to the imposed glucose gradient. When biofilms were subjected to a ciprofloxacin gradient, spatial patterns of fractions of dead cells were also in proportion to the local antibiotic concentration. These results demonstrate that the microfluidic flow cells are suitable for quantifying flow complexities resulting from flow–biofilm interactions and investigating spatial patterns of biofilm growth under chemical gradients. These novel microfluidic flow cells will facilitate biofilm research that requires flow control and in situ imaging, particularly investigations of biofilm–environment interactions. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2014;111: 597–607. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


How might an understanding of the temporal help us to engage with the visual? To what extent is this mediated by a sense of location – in this case within (or about) Ireland? This thesis takes the form of an enquiry into the meanings of time in relation to Irish art over a period of approximately one hundred years from 1910 onwards. Rather than a focus on the production of meaning within artworks themselves, however, the thesis is concerned with art historiography – an investigation into the wider discursive content of a selection of my published work between 2013-2018. In doing so it establishes a critical and distinctive position for the importance of time and temporality not just in relation to the broader field of art history, but within a wider understanding of the historical formations of Irish visualities. To achieve this, I focus on the deconstruction of selected notions of temporality within the discourses of art history (the role of linear histories, canons and contemporaneity) in conjunction with an analysis of the specificity of Irish temporalities. This takes two forms: evidencing the uneven experience of modernity and the active presences of traumatic memory, both legacies of colonialism, as a means of undoing the progressive drive of linear history, and an accompanying analysis of the complex temporalities of post-conflict Northern Ireland, as a means of more specifically situating how art historical writing can produce the meanings of its artworks in both locations. Finally, in conjunction with a return to the written work submitted to accompany this thesis, I map out further directions this can take, as a means of understanding the crucial role of past modes of temporalities in an engagement with the present and an attempt to shape the future.


In this paper, a green wireless communication system in which base stations are powered by renewable energy sources is considered. This system consists of a capacity-constrained renewable power supplier (RPS) and a base station (BS) that faces a predictable random connection demand from mobile user equipments (UEs). In this model, the BS, which is powered via a combination of a renewable power source and the conventional electric grid, seeks to specify the renewable power inventory policy, i.e., the power storage level. On the other hand, the RPS must strategically choose the energy amount that is supplied to the BS. An M/M/1 make-to-stock queuing model is proposed to investigate the decentralized decisions when the two parties optimize their individual costs in a noncooperative manner. The problem is formulated as a noncooperative game whose Nash equilibrium (NE) strategies are characterized to identify the causes of inefficiency in the decentralized operation. A set of simple linear contracts are introduced to coordinate the system so as to achieve an optimal system performance. The proposed approach is then extended to a setting with one monopolistic RPS and N BSs that are privately informed of their optimal energy inventory levels. In this scenario, we show that the widely used proportional allocation mechanism is no longer socially optimal. To make the BSs truthfully report their energy demand, an incentive compatible (IC) mechanism is proposed for our model. Simulation results show that using the green energy can present significant traditional energy savings for the BS when the connection demand is not heavy. Moreover, the proposed scheme provides valuable energy cost savings by allowing the BSs to smartly use a combination of renewable and traditional energy, even when the BS has a heavy traffic of connections. Also, the results show that performance of the proposed IC mechanism will be close to the social optimal when the green energy production capacity increases.


Information overload is one of the biggest problems currently omnipresent in the word largest network, the Internet. No general solution exists therefore it is important to handle this problem at least in certain areas. Large collections of articles are available to the users of the Internet. Since technology is very easy to handle for information providers, literally every person who has access to a computer, which is connected to the internet, is able to provide articles for other users. Unfortunately, all these collections generate additional information overload. Once people are aware of a new service-provider, it is impossible for users to read all the articles provided to them. This article is divided in two parts: First, we discuss the concept of finding the right collection of articles and the right articles in this collection. Second, we discuss mechanisms for finding the right parts to read in an article.


The objective of this study was to objectively assess the physical activity of daily living in chronic pain patients treated with spinal cord stimulation (SCS). Changes in pain and spontaneous physical activity following SCS were evaluated under real life conditions. Five series of measurements were performed before the implant (baseline) and at one, three, six, and 12 months after the implantation of an SCS system. Compared to baseline values, physical activity increased consistently during the entire follow‐up period. The time spent walking and standing was statistically increased after six months (p < 0.01) and the time spent lying decreased significantly (p < 0.001) at the same time. The average total walking distance increased up to 389% at 12 months, reaching statistical significance (p < 0.05) after three months. The stride length and the speed increased (p < 0.01) at all times. We conclude that the reduction in pain intensity due to SCS is associated with a progressive and sustained improvement in physical activity. j


Transformer oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons which can tolerate high temperature and is a excellent insulator. This not only serves as insulator but also as a coolant. Besides this suppresses sparking, arching and corona. Variation in transformer performance will ultimately affect on power supplying company's revenue and consumers. Hence, to prevent the transformer failure, oil analysis is very essential and there are several methods to diagnose the health of the oil. Various tests like Dissolved Gas Analysis (DGA), Electrical Diagnostics etc. can evaluate the transformer health but this method is very vast, dangerous during oil transaction and lengthy. Image processing based analysis is a quick software based analysis which inputs images of transformer oil, processes it based on suitable image processing techniques and determines the prominent characteristic features of transformer oil i.e. acidity, power factor, NN (Neutralization Number), dissipation factor etc. due to ageing color of transformer oil changes and also these factors also deteriorated. These factors and transformer oil color are very closely interrelated. Also the presence of different gases like H2,C2H6,C2H4,C2H2,CH4, CO2, CO, O2, N2 etc. are very important to be detected in order to detect the kind of fault occurred and about transformer history. Thus in this project the presence of oil in ppm level is detected using linear regression method. Also by using the quantity of these gases the kind of fault in transformer is found out using two methods: key gas method and iec method and GUI models are built for easy graphical interface.


An encompassing goal of contemporary scientific computing is to provide quantitatively accurate predictions that can help society make important decisions. The span of this intended influence includes such widely different fields as astrophysics, weather and climate forecasting, quantitative economic policy, environmental regulation, and performance certification of complex engineered systems such as nuclear power plants. To the degree that we believe accurate computational science and engineering (CSE) will have an increasingly greater impact on problems of societal importance, we must also be concerned about the consequences of inaccurate or wrong CSE. Human life need not necessarily be at risk, but it is highly likely that money, time, environmental quality, and other factors will be.


Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common cause of progressive dementia in the elderly, is a chronic neurodegenerative disorder that leads to disturbances of cognitive functions. The effects and benefits of Acacia auriculiformis (AA) on health are not well established. Aim of the study: This study was planned to evaluate the protective effect of ethanolic extract of Acacia auriculiformis leaves against scopolamine-induced memory loss using learning and memory model in rats. Materials and Methods: Twenty four adult male albino rats were divided into 4 equal groups. Memory retention performance of rats was evaluated using Morris' water maze after oral
administration of two different doses (200 mg/kg and 400 mg/kg) of ethanolic extract of Acacia auriculiformis with rivastigmine 5 mg/kg as positive control and 1% Tween-80 p.o. to the normal control group for 45 successive days. On the last day of treatment, a single i.p injection of scopolamine 3 mg/kg was administered one hour after the test agent administration and 20 minutes prior to water maze test. Post behavioral testing, the animals were sacrificed and brain cholinesterase activity was estimated to substantiate the findings of behavioral test. Data was analyzed using one way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) followed by Tukey's post-hoc test using GraphPad Prism software, version 6.01. Results: The AA extract exhibited a dose-dependent improvement in memory retention performance in rats with scopolamine-induced dementia tested on water maze model. Dose dependent inhibition of brain cholinesterase activity (P < 0.001) was also noted in extract-treated groups. 400 mg/kg AAE group showed much superior results than rivastigmine in all four parameters of water maze like target quadrant entry (P < 0.001), island entry, escape latency and total time spent in target quadrant (P< 0.05), and also in AChE inhibitory activity (P< 0.001).There was no significant difference between 200 mg/kg AAE and rivastigmine groups in both behavioral and biochemical tests. Conclusion: It is evident that acetylcholinesterase inhibiting property of Acacia auriculiformis is the most likely contributor for its anti-amnesic activity. Further well-designed large scale studies are required to clearly elucidate its benefits as well as safety in humans. In future this may offer a promising novel option for the treatment of dementia disorders.


We present the general framework of elapsed-time statistics of successive breakdown (BD) events in application to multiple-spot BD in the presence of variability. We show that the elapsed-times between successive BD events due to multiple BD spots (or filaments) are statistically distributed and contribute significantly to total post-BD margins in the case of multiple-spot progressive BD. Unlike the first BD events following Weibull statistics without variability, we demonstrate that elapsed-time distributions are fundamentally non-Weibull with much broader distributions as compared to the first BD statistics. The elapsed-times between successive BD events can be longer or shorter than the first BD time, depending on the Weibull slopes of the first BD distribution. Our simulation results of elapsed-time statistics are shown in good agreement with experimental data of FEOL and BEOL dielectrics with and without variability. This methodology paves the way for the correct implementation of multiple-spot progressive BD methodology for BEOL dielectrics in the presence of variability.


An experiment was carried out with the objective of determining the bioavailability of calcium phosphate nanoparticles by supplementing calcium phosphate nanoparticles at graded levels from 50 to 100% of phosphorus content to the standard source (Dicalcium phosphate - coarse particle) at 10 per cent increment. Tibial bone morphometry, bone and serum mineral profile and carcass characters in broiler chicken were studied with mash form of feed in 70 male broiler chicks (Cobb 400) from day 1 to 28 indicated that the there was no significant variation in the parameters studied. The tibial bone ash, calcium and phosphorus content are unison for both the control and 50% calcium phosphate nanoparticles supplemented groups. The results indicated that the bioavailability of phosphorus in calcium phosphate nanoparticles was 200 per cent when compared to dicalcium phosphate. This finding may help the poultry managers to minimize the feed transport cost and also minimize the mineral wastages.


A new formulation is presented for the computation of an -point discrete Hartley transform (DHT) from two pairs of [(N/2-1)/2]-point cyclic convolutions, and further used to obtain modular structures consisting of simple and regular memory-based systolic arrays for concurrent pipelined realization of the DHT. The proposed structures for direct-memory-based implementation is found to involve nearly the same hardware complexity as those of the existing structures, but offers two to four times more throughput and two to four times less latency compared with others. The distributed-arithmetic (DA)-based implementation is also found to offer very less memory-complexity and considerably low area-delay complexity compared with the existing DA-based structures.