The concept of hybrid process of photo-Fenton and photocatalysis, particularly in the fixed mode, has been presented in this study for the degradation of the pesticide isoproturon with reduction at the time of treatment. For fixed-bed studies, spherical beads were prepared by combining definite proportions of clay, foundry sand, and fly ash, which were utilized as iron sources for titanium dioxide (TiO2) immobilization. The optimization of various parameters was performed by utilizing the Box– Behnken design model under response surface methodology. The process of degradation followed first-order kinetics under an optimized condition for the integrated degradation of isoproturon with a 700 mg·L−1 dose of H2O2, 42 spherical beads, and 190 mL of solution for a duration of 176 min at pH 3.7. Approximately 80.96% degradation of isoproturon was observed after inducing the optimized conditions. The integrated treatment was also carried out in a solar batch reactor under optimized conditions to expand its application to industries for treating bio-recalcitrant compounds. The mineralization of isoproturon was confirmed through the generation of nitrate, nitrite, and ammonical nitrogen with a definite chemical oxygen demand reduction. The recyclability of the catalyst was confirmed by recycling the spherical beads characterized by scanning electron microscopy–energy dispersive X-Ray analysis. For confirming the dual effect, that is, the presence of TiO2 along with Fe on the bead's surface, various analyses including UV–diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, scanning electron ∗Corresponding author. ISSN (electronic) : 1878-1543 https://comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/chimie/ 534 Steffi Talwar et al. microscopy–energy-dispersive spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy were carried out. A tentative pathway for isoproturon removal was also predicted based on intermediate analysis through gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy.


Poly-silicon thin films have been obtained by hydrogen plasma heating of n~+-a-Si:H/a-Si:H films prepared by PECVD.The films were characterized and analyzed by Raman,XRD and SEM.The effects of different annealing conditions such as RF power density,substrate temperature and annealing time on crystallization were also investigated.It was shown that the crystallinity increases with the increase in RF power density,substrate temperature or annealing time.


muscles of the calf, there was a permanent elevation of the heel, so that, in walking, he touched the ground only with the anterior part of the sole. Under the use of poidtices, the mortified toe separated, the wound cicatrized, and, by rest and other sedative measures, he felt altogether so much better, that I took my leave, and saw nothing more of him till the middle of August 1847, when I was


The random forest (RF) algorithm has several hyperparameters that have to be set by the user, for example, the number of observations drawn randomly for each tree and whether they are drawn with or without replacement, the number of variables drawn randomly for each split, the splitting rule, the minimum number of samples that a node must contain, and the number of trees. In this paper, we first provide a literature review on the parameters' influence on the prediction performance and on variable importance measures. It is well known that in most cases RF works reasonably well with the default values of the hyperparameters specified in software packages. Nevertheless, tuning the hyperparameters can improve the performance of RF. In the second part of this paper, after a presenting brief overview of tuning strategies, we demonstrate the application of one of the most established tuning strategies, model‐based optimization (MBO). To make it easier to use, we provide the tuneRanger R package that tunes RF with MBO automatically. In a benchmark study on several datasets, we compare the prediction performance and runtime of tuneRanger with other tuning implementations in R and RF with default hyperparameters.


Background: The DUTCH PEERS (TWENTE II) trial (clinicaltrials.gov NCT01331707) is a randomised, multicenter, single-blinded, investigator initiated all-comers trial. All coronary syndromes were permitted with no limit for lesion length, reference size, or number of lesions or diseased vessels to be treated. In total, 1811 patients were 1:1 randomised to cobalt chromium-based zotarolimuseluting stents (ZES) versus platinum chromium-based everolimus-eluting stents (EES). These durable polymer-based drug-eluting stents (DES) were developed to facilitate device deliverability and to improve stent apposition to the vessel wall. Purpose: We assessed the 4-year clinical outcome of the DUTCH PEERS trial in terms of safety and efficacy. Methods: Clinical outcome was assessed by means of follow-up data of the trial participants. The primary endpoint target vessel failure (TVF) is a composite of cardiac death, target vessel-related myocardial infarction (MI) or target vessel revascularization. Secondary endpoints included the individual components of the TVF and the incidence of definite-or-probable stent thrombosis. Endpoints were analyzed by the logrank test by comparing the time to the endpoint, using the Kaplan-Meier method. Independent contract research organizations performed the study monitoring and clinical event adjudication. Results: The 4-year clinical follow-up data were available in 1802 patients (99.5%; 4 patients were lost to follow-up and 5 withdrew consent). The ZES and EES groups showed favourable outcomes with a similar incidence of TVF (12.1% vs. 12.1%; Logrank p=0.95). The rates of the individual components of TVF were also similar for both stent arms: cardiac death (3.9% vs. 3.7%; Logrank p=0.78); target vessel-related MI (3.2% vs. 2.5%; Logrank p=0.38); and target vessel revascularization (6.8% vs. 7.5%; Logrank p=0.55), respectively. In addition, the incidence of definite-or-probable stent thrombosis was similar for patients treated with ZES versus EES (1.5% vs. 1.2%; Logrank p=0.67). Conclusion: At 4-year follow-up, ZES and EES showed similar and sustained results in terms of safety and efficacy for treating all-comer patients.


Edge computing (EC) is now emerging as a key paradigm to handle the increasing Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices connected to the edge of the network. By using the services deployed on the service provisioning system which is made up of edge servers nearby, these IoT devices are enabled to fulfill complex tasks effectively. Nevertheless, it also brings challenges in trustworthiness management. The volatile environment will make it difficult to comply with the service-level agreement (SLA), which is an important index of trustworthiness declared by these IoT services. In this article, by denoting the trustworthiness gain with how well the SLA can comply, we first encode the state of the service provisioning system and the resource allocation scheme and model the adjustment of allocated resources for services as a Markov decision process (MDP). Based on these, we get a trained resource allocating policy with the help of the reinforcement learning (RL) method. The trained policy can always maximize the services' trustworthiness gain by generating appropriate resource allocation schemes dynamically according to the system states. By conducting a series of experiments on the YouTube request dataset, we show that the edge service provisioning system using our approach has 21.72% better performance at least compared to baselines.


This paper examines the role of FDI from the United States in the economic performance of East Asian NICs for 1966–2000. To this end, we draw our argument of the role of FDI from the modernization–dependency debate. Then, we test the economic effects of U.S. direct investment on economic growth in East Asian NICs using a neoclassical production function model that captures the economic impacts of both foreign and domestic investment on economic growth. Our empirical results show that U.S. direct investment has a positive and significant effect on economic growth in East Asian NICs.


Abstract In this paper, Homotopy perturbation method has been used for solving systems of nonlinear integro-differential equations governing on the problem of results reveal that the method is very effective and simple. The results of homotopy perturbation method are of high accuracy. The example is presented to show the ability of the method. Keywords : Homotopy perturbation method, Integro-differential equations, integro-differential equations, Biological species. 1 Introduction Consider two separate species with numbers Xt () and Yt () at time t where first species increases and the second decrease. If they are put together, assuming that the second species will feed on the first, there will be an increase in the rate of the second species dY /dt which depends not only on the present population Xt (), but also on all previous values of the first species. When a steady-state condition is reached between these two species, it is described by the following system of two integro-differential equations:


In this article was given the results of research of electrochemical system on a basis of iron and iron oxide (Fe2O3) which can be used for obtaining of a chemical source of a current (CSC). Use of the given system does not suggest the application of expensive and ecologically harmful active substances. Electromotive force of a source of a current it was investigated in a water solution of iron sulphates, at a room temperature, in absence of external loading.


Teun van Dijk was professor of discourse studies at the University of Amsterdam until 2004, and is at present professor at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. After earlier work on generative poetics, text grammar, and the psychology of text processing, his work since 1980 takes a more critical perspective and deals with discursive racism, news in the press, ideology, knowledge and context. He is the author of several books in most of these areas, and he edited The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (4 vols, 1985) the introductory book Discourse Studies (2 vols., 1997; new one-volume edition, 2011) as well as the reader The Study of Discourse (5 vols., 2007). He founded six international journals, Poetics, Text (now Text & Talk), Discourse & Society, Discourse Studies, Discourse & Communication and the internet journal in Spanish Discurso & Sociedad of which he still edits the latter four. His last monographs in English are Ideology (1998), Racism and discourse in Spain and Latin America (2005), Discourse and Context (2008), Society and Discourse (2009). His last edited books are Racism at the Top (2000, with Ruth Wodak), and Racism and Discourse in Latin America (2009). For more information, please go to http://www.discourses.org.


The shear viscosity of strongly interacting dense heavy-quarks plasma is evaluated analytically using a methodology valid for strongly-correlated nonequilibrium dense matter. The shear viscosity turns out to be directly proportional to the zero-frequency limit of the spectral function. By evaluating the latter using lattice QCD data from the literature, the vanishing of interaction-dominated viscosity contribution of heavy quarks to the QGP plasma is demonstrated.


Zhu as a professional writer with the background of history department graduation and the second generation of immigrants from Mainland China, who wants to stand up or against her special position gradually sketches her special affinity into the books as the way of narratives or history flashback. Zhu always gets a lot of concerns from all over the fields. Lu, yi-jun has already observed the dialectical relation from the theme and form when early summer love was first published in the year. If we only care about the dialect and ignore the messages she wants to express, we will miss the most valuable thing.Therefore, this paper would like from the text dealing with the "middle-aged love" theme of the cut, Chu Tien-hsin talk about narrative technique in fiction and on the inertia characteristics; compared with the previous, his novel not only intensified in the narrative structure of its "historical space "of the deal, and everywhere reflected in its heritage and interpretation of the traces, reveal the nature of its narrative and lyrical ingenuity.From chapter of diary and love affairs, Chu deduces all kind of middle age possibility.The most important is that when she composes or highlights the importance of love she also breaks/pulls apart the value and framework of love. Namely, constructing and demolishing the myth of love are happening at the same time. The way Ms Chu tells the story and restructures the memory/history is her uniqueness that is more exceptional than before. Other than this, it also implies that the life itself should pursue higher level and take challenge more or when the mysterious monster –desire disappears, what the life left behind?


The latent heat flux (LHF) plays a major role in heat exchanges between air and sea, the understanding of which is critical for studying climate variability. Flux fields may be derived from existing in situ data, but observations are generally too sparse to provide spatial fields with a reasonable time sampling. Fields output from operational meteorological models are not enough accurate in areas where data are not assimilated. Thus, using satellite data is crucial, because many years of data are now available over the world oceans. Calculation of LHF requires knowledge of sea surface temperature (SST), surface wind speed at 10m height, and surface layer air specific humidity (qa). Bourras [2006] highlighted the need for smaller errors for qa to improve retrievals of satellite-derived LHF. Several authors have investigated the estimation of qa from passive microwave instruments. Liu and niiler (1984) described a simple statistical technique to determine marine surface-layer humidity with accuracy of of 0.8g/kg, but in 92-day period, in North Atlantic and tropical Pacific, and at monthly scale. Schlussel and al. (1995) determined a method to retrieve qa from instantaneous measurements of the SSM/I but with an accuracy of 1.1g/kg. entamy and al. found a rms of 1.4g/kg at weekly scale. Jackson and al. investigated the use of another type of sensor, AMSU onboard NOAA platforms, which was never used before for the specific task of estimating surface humidity over the ocean. Firstly, they used linear regression method.The accuracy of their qa estimates is 0.83g/kg (rms),using both AMSU-A and SSM/I sensors, at daily scale. Validation of this method with independent observations indicated similar accuracy with rms differences of 0.96g/kg. Unfortunately, too few observations were accounted for at middle latitudes and in moist regions. They used only one channel of AMSU-A, 52.8GHz, which is not very sensitive to surface humidity, the use of which could be questionable for tropical regions. Next, they used a neural network method for estimating qa. The rms found between estimated and surface qa is 0.57g/kg for training, but only 2.13g/kg for validation data, which could be related to the few number of collocated satellite/ships data used in their study, but also they don't represent sufficiently seasonal variation of the atmosphere in training sets.


The purpose of this research is to develop underwater observatory systems for monitoring ocean ecosystem. It is very important to protect the global ecosystem and to preserve biodiversity in the ocean. Recently, various kinds of underwater vehicles were actively involved in ocean research, i.e., seabed resources exploration, ocean environment monitoring. Underwater glider eSOARER', deep-sea video camera system, the Oceanic Radio-controlled Camera Approacher eORCA2' and an acoustic observatory system were developed for monitoring ocean ecosystem. SOARER has an ocean environmental sensors for monitoring depth, temperature, conductivity, salinity, DO, chlorophyll-a and turbidity. Ecology of marine organism living in a deep sea and marine mammals at sea surface can be recorded by using these devices effectively.


Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/economicsfinance Part of the Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons, Civil Engineering Commons, Construction Engineering Commons, Environmental Design Commons, Environmental Engineering Commons, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment Commons, Environmental Monitoring Commons, Finance and Financial Management Commons, Historic Preservation and Conservation Commons, Natural Resource Economics Commons, Natural Resources and Conservation Commons, Natural Resources Management and Policy Commons, Risk Analysis Commons, Sustainability Commons, Tourism and Travel Commons, Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons, and the Water Resource Management Commons


Background and objective: Child abuse is most often due to the problems besetting families, which can elevate the risks to children. These problems are complex and interconnected, and require coordinated, holistic responses. Child abuse and neglect has begun to demonstrate linkages between maltreatment and long-term adverse effects and other social problems. The purpose of this study was to assess the Primary School Teacher Knowledge's Regarding Child Abuse In Kirkuk City" and find out the relationship between Teacher Knowledge's and some socio-demographic characteristic Material and Method: A descriptive study was carried out from July 2013 to April 2014. Data are collected through using the constructed questionnaire for the purpose of the study with the use of interview technique. Simple probability random sample of (100) science, manger and physical sport teachers is selected from (34) primary schools in Kirkuk city. A questionnaire is designed of (44) items for data collection, Data are analyzed through the application of the descriptive statistical analysis approach and inferential statistical approach. Frequencies, Percentage, men of score and chi-square. Results: The findings of the study indicated that majority of the teachers were between age (40-49 ) years and constitute (44.0% ) , (54 .0%) from teachers were female ,(54.0% )were graduate from Institute and (82.0%) from them were married . Conclusion: The result of the study find that overall depicts assessment are significant difference between teacher's knowledge and their some demographic data. Recommendations: The study recommended educational program should be designed to increase people knowledge and awareness about their child abuse. Striking up the center to solve the child's problem. Providing scientific booklet, publication and journal about child abuse and Providing the special law to protect the child for abuses.


The prior art is by a different configuration, has a high output voltage and a high energy density and also allows the realization of excellent in charge-discharge cycle performance battery. A negative electrode base material for use in lithium-ion secondary battery, the negative electrode base material which comprises forming a metal film on a support having an organic film, the negative electrode substrate, characterized in that the organic film is coated with a surface layer of a metal oxide film, the organic component and composite a support metal negative electrode substrate which comprises forming a film or a photoresist pattern is applied for are formed to form a silica-containing film on the support liquid to having a film containing an inorganic component and formed by a composite film-forming material comprising comprising forming a silica-based coating film, forming a metal film on a substrate to remove the photoresist pattern will be described using a negative electrode which comprises.


This paper proposes a stable and robust method to distinct the color similarity for clothes using the LBG algorithm under various light sources, Since the conventional methods, such as the histogram intersection and the accumulated histogram, are profoundly sensitive to the changing of light environments, the distinction of color similarity for the same cloth can be different due to the complicated light sources. To reduce the effects of the light sources, the properties of hue and saturation which consistently sustain the characteristic of the color under the various changes of light sources are analyzed to define the characteristic of the color distribution. In a two-dimensional space determined by the properties of hue and saturation, the LBG algorithm, a non-parametric clustering approach, is applied to examine the color distribution of images for each clothes. The color similarity of images is defined by the average of Euclidean distance between the mapping clusters which are calculated from the result of clustering of both images. To prove the stability of the proposed method, the results of the color similarity between our method and the traditional histogram analysis based methods are compared using a dozen of cloth examples that obtained under different light environments. Our method successively provides the classification between the same cloth image pair and the different cloth image pair and this classification of color similarity for clothe images obtains the 91.6% of success rate.


This paper reports a spectrophotometric study of the solution equilibria and the kinetics of the substitution reaction of Eriochrom Black T (BT) with nickel(II)-NTA and with nickel (II)-EDTA chelates. In solutions of pH 8.50–9.50 containing a large excess of uncomplexed NTA over BT and nickel (II)-NTA chelate, BT forms only 1-to-1 normal chelate, NiD−, with the nickel(II) ion, the stability constant of which is 1020.8(μ=0.30). Kinetically, the ligand-exchange reaction of BT with the nickel (II)-NTA chelate was found to proceed through the following two simultaneous reaction paths and to be much faster than that with the nickel(II)-EDTA chelate,2i) &  NiX^-+HD^2-\ightleftharpoonsNiD^-+HX^2- ii) & & HD^2-\oversetrapid\ightleftharpoonsD^3-+H^+& rapid\upharpoonleft\downharpoonright& &  NiX^-+D^3-\ightleftharpoonsNiD^-+X^3-&  NiX_2^4- & & rapid\upharpoonleft\downharpoonright& & & NiX_2^4- rate-determining stepwhere NiX−, NiX24−, HD2−, and D3− represent Ni(II)-NTA chelate of 1-to-l composition, Ni(II)-NTA chela...


CHI'90 was the largest CHI-conference yet with 2,300 participants.1 As a matter of fact, the growth of human-computer interaction as a profession was an important theme in itself this year. SIGCHI has been the fastest growing ACM special interest group for several years and continues to retain this distinction.


This paper analyzes technology evolution according to the different characteristic characteristics,by staking industrial technology research institute of USTB(University of Science and Technology Beijing) as an example,it analyzes the risks、resource allocation and distribution of interest in combination process of technology with the capitals,summarizes the technology-risk-interest mode of capital operation in industry-university-institute cooperation.


Support for children and young people who experience violence, both directly and indirectly, is the principal focus of Martin Murphy's and David Stewart's article. Describing the work of the NOVA organisation, they highlight the benefits of close, interagency collaboration, with an emphasis upon therapeutic support and community capacity building.


documentary film producer for Lakeshore Curriculum Materials and Dave Bell Associates. ■ Motivating reluctant readers is always a challenge. Numerous materials try to meet this challenge, but the problem is that by the time a student reaches my class (eighth and ninth grades), he or she has had it with "motivating materials." Innovative teachers usually have something up their sleeves, but they only have two hands. The activity presented here worked well in my innercity eighth and ninth grade reading classes. I collected comedy routines and humorous anecdotes from several


Exploring the problem of dropout in the Judo groups at children and young people sport schools, the author defines the main reasons for ending the sport practice. It is shown that the effectiveness of the training process is increased if the optimal balance of overall, special physical, technical and tactical training is followed. It reduces greatly the dropouts at all stages of training.


Volumen VI - 2006 ISSN 1870-4654 El DERECHO INTERNACIONAL ANTE LA OCUPACION DE LOS TERRITORIOS PALESTINOS Y EL MURO DE SEPARACION Juan Manuel PORTILLA GOMEZ * The Palestinian territories overtook by Israel in 1967 constitute the major occupation ever, generating a constant suffering of the population of Palestine because of the great deal of mistreatment against them, as a result of Israel´s nonobservance of International Law. Following this, Israel carries out the construction of a wall that separates the whole Palestinian communities and modifies the recognized limits between Palestine and Israel in favor of the latter. With this respect, the International Court of Justice, as a petition made by the UN General Assembly, issued an advisory opinion in which it declares that such wall is illicit, and it points out the consequences that would derive from this unlawful action. This way, the highest international tribunal makes a worthy contribution to the legal regime applicable to Palestine and it makes a significant advance towards the definition of occupation law. * Doctor en derecho internacional. Profesor de carrera de tiempo completo en la Facultad de Estudios Superiores Acatlan de la UNAM. * Nota: Debido que la traduccion es automatica podra ser inexacta o contener errores.


OF THE DISSERTATION ................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................ iv CONTENTS ................................................................................................. vi LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................... xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ......................................................................xv CHAPTER


Abstract Backgrounds Fenpyroximate (FEN) is an acaricide that inhibits the complex I of the mitochondrial respiratory chain. The aim of this work was to explore the hepatotoxic and nephrotoxic effects of FEN on Wistar rats. Methods The study involved five groups: a control group and four groups treated with FEN at 1, 2, 4, and 8 mg/Kg bw for 28 consecutive days. Histological examination and biochemical analysis of hepatic and renal biomarkers were performed. The malondialdehyde (MDA), protein carbonyl levels, and antioxidant enzymes activities were measured. Comet assay was conducted to explore FEN genotoxicity. Results FEN induced a disturbance of the hepatic and renal functions as evidenced by an increase in AST, ALT, ALP, creatinine, and uric acid levels and histopathological modifications in the two examined tissues. FEN increased hepatic and renal lipid peroxidation and protein oxidation. The activities of liver and kidney SOD, CAT, GPX , and GST are increased significantly in FEN-treated rats at doses of 2 and 4 mg/kg bw. However, with the dose of 8 mg/kg bw of FEN, these activities are decreased. Moreover, FEN increased DNA damage in a dose-dependent manner. Conclusion FEN was hepatotoxic and nephrotoxic very likely through induction of oxidative stress.


Receptor-linked reporter systems allow the study of pharmacological properties of known receptors, identification of new receptor subtypes, examination of the specific signal transduction pathways linked to receptor activation, and development of functional assays. Reporter systems provide high-throughput screening methods that allow researchers to expeditiously identify and characterize compounds that modulate the activities of therapeutically relevant receptors or influence events downstream of receptor activation. This unit provides two representative protocols for coupling cell-surface receptors to reporter molecules that signal receptor activation. The first is a luciferase-based assay and the second uses green fluorescent protein (GFP). This unit provides a comparison of several reporter assays as well as reporter systems that rely on chloramphenicol acetyltransferase activity.


Aiming to reveal the influence mechanism of casing treatment on rotor tip flow structure, unsteady numerical method was used to study the effects of slot-type casing treatment (SCT) in a transonic compressor. The results showed that the tip flow field appeared obvious periodic flow characteristics with SCT at smooth casing near stall condition. When the rear edge of slot passed through the rotor pressure surface, the tip leakage flow kinked and was sucked into slots, yet significantly weakened when the rear edge of slot passed through the rotor suction surface. Meanwhile, the flow patterns in the slots change periodically with the variation of the relative position of rotor and slots. Furthermore, with the compressor throttling, obvious vortex structure evolution appeared in rotor tip region. At larger mass flow rate, the tip leakage vortex and corner vortex induced by SCT evolved almost at the same time, resulting in a large range of flow field pulsation in the rotor tip region. However, the interaction between corner vortex and tip leakage vortex happens and dominates at lower mass flow rate. As a result, the SCT gradually loses the ability of stability extension.


The acquisition of a preserved fœtal specimen of the African Elephant has enabled the writer to prepare a series of papers on the anatomy of this interesting Mammal. The present paper forms Part III of the series. Part I (1926) dealt with the anatomy of the head, Part II (1928) with the body muscles. The contents of the thorax and abdomen have now been investigated, and Part III is concerned with a description of them and of the remaining parts of the skeleton. This part is the last of the series.


A partial description of the convex hull of solutions to the economic lot-sizing problem with start-up costs (ELSS) has been derived recently. Here a larger class of valid inequalities is given and it is shown that these inequalities describe the convex hull of ELSS. This in turn proves that a plant location formulation as a linear program solves ELSS. Finally a separation algorithm is given. 2) Supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) under grant no. 611-304-017 3) On leave at the partial financial support of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) is gratefully acknowledged


Objective To evaluate the effect of Alprostsdil combined with Magnesium Isoglycyrrhizinate on hepatocirrhosis at active phase. Method 74 inpatients collected from our hospital were randomly divided into control group(37 cases)and treatment group(37 cases). The patients in control group were given conventional liver protecting treatment. In addition to routine therapy of the control group, the patients in treatment group received intravenous Alprostadil and Magnesium Isoglycyrrhizinate injection once a day for 4 weeks. Results The total effective rate of treatment group was 67. 6%, and that of control group was 40. 5%, and the difference was significant (P < 0. 05).Conclusion Alprostadil combined with Magnesium Isoglycyrrhizinate has good clinical therapeutic effect on hepatocirrhosis at active phase.

Key words:
Alprostadil; Glycyrrhizic acid; Liver cirrhosis


ABSTRACT Twenty years of international statebuilding have made little impact on the 'stateness' of Kosovo. This article puts this failure in the broader context of the shift from the liberal internationalist assumptions of the late 1990s to the pragmatic realism of today. It does this through the lenses of E H Carr's classic work The Twenty Years' Crisis, UN policy thinking on the problematic assumptions of international statebuilding and the diagnoses in David Lake's 2016 book The Statebuilder's Dilemma, which sets out three pragmatic alternatives. The article concludes that all three of these alternatives can be seen in practice in Kosovo.


The present study aims to assess the chemical composition of the NaCl-like salt identified on the lava flows of the Nyiragongo volcanic eruption of May 22, 2021, in Kibati not far from the N02 road, in the Bukumu chiefdom; in order to determine its positive or negative impact on the health of the population (for consumers). Samples of these salts are subjected to organoleptic and chemical analysis at the laboratories of the CEEC (Center of Expertise for the Evaluation and Certification of Mineral Substances,) and the OCC in Goma. The results obtained obtained the presence of major elements whose content is greater than 100ppm (mg / kg) and other trace elements whose contents are below 1000ppm, other than certain radioactive elements. These elements come from the magma in a high temperature molten silicate bath, which has given rise to rock (salt) on the surface by rapid cooling of the lava. The high content of silicon and potassium and sodium alkalis clearly shows the alkalinity of the magma of this volcano. It is not in any way the NaCl consumption salt put rather alkalized silica rich in potassium and sodium.


Cricket is one of the sports where adverse weather can prevent play from actually taking place. Indeed, some jovially believe that the phrase 'rain stopped play' heralds the arrival of the English sporting summer and, depending on the state of the game and one's allegiance to the participants, it can lead to frustration if it prevents a win or conversely bring salvation if it stops your side from losing! A letter from John Walliker of Dadlington (Wanvickshire) to the Daily Telegraph on 4 September 1998 presented a rather tongue-incheek view of the link between cricket and weather forecasting:


The goal of this article is to show the existence of heuristic potential in E. Ilyenkov's philosophical body of work through content comparison of some of his works with acute problems of modern times. According to the results of research the following implications could be made. In works of Ilyenkov the highest level of theoretical thinking is presented comparable with the level of Marxism classics; it opens new opportunities both in examination of history of Philosophy and in theoretical understanding of common civilization process, and formation problems of a complete free personality.


Water management and flood studies are some fields in which a map with all water bodies in a region is useful, especially in scenarios of environmental changes due to anthropogenic factors. Various detection methods of water body surfaces in remotely sensed images are available, from simple methods having a lower accuracy to more sophisticated ones. The objective of this paper is to present a simple, yet accurate method to detect water bodies in RapidEye images. The motivation is the availability of country wide coverage of these images, which makes feasible the generation of a map of all water bodies detectable at that spatial resolution. Our solution is the use the color transformation from Red-Green-Blue to Hue-Saturation-Value and the minimum radiance from all RapidEye bands to classify water bodies in seven classes of water. The water classes are ranked based on the confidence of the classified pixels being water, which accommodates for the differences in illumination and scattering that are present in such a large coverage, composed by more than 15000 scenes. In addition, users of the generated water bodies map can reclassify based on their needs. The methodology was developed on two RapidEye scenes, covering the Jacareí and Foz do Iguaçu municipalities, in Brazil. Results indicate that the classification is better than the traditional ones, with the advantage of providing seven classes with confidence levels.


Population increase of evangelical and pentecostal churches has given rise to the unfolding of new reconfi gurations, in the symbolic-cosmological level and...


Objective: To study the changes in body mass index (BMI) and evaluate feasibility of taking BMI as the standard measure of obesity during childhood. Methods: The skew distribution of BMI was adjusted with Cole's LMS method. Results: There were sex differences in BMI, the changes in BMI were earlier among girls than among boys in the period of growth. Standardized percentile charts of BMI for children, birth~18 years, Xi'an, 1995, were presented in this paper. Conclusion: The obese children could be identified with BMI percentiles, percentile charts of BMI in the paper might be taken as references for assessing obesity of children in clinical practices.


In the railway network plan for the period of 2021 – 2030, with a vision to 2050, the Vietnamese Government aims to complete the North – South high-speed railway route – the first phase (from 2025 – 2030) and invest in Hanoi – Vinh and Nha Trang – Ho Chi Minh City routes. In order to realize the above goal, the Ministry of Transport has agreed with the Ministry of Planning and Investment to submit the "Project of investment policy on construction of North – South high-speed railway" to the Politburo in 2023. However, in reality, it is extremely difficult to mobilize enough resources to complete the "super project". Choosing the right financing mechanism is critical to the success of the project. The article studies the experience of capital mobilization in a number of countries with developed high-speed railway systems or whose economies and societies have many similarities with Vietnam; analyzes achievements and difficulties. Based on the actual conditions of Vietnam, we can draw important lessons and recommend forms of implementation consistent with actual policies and resources, in order to invest on schedule and achieve the results in accordance with the tasks set forth by the Government.


A central corneal button from one eye of a patient with familial bilateral keratoconus posticus circumscriptus is studied histologically. Thinning of Descemet's membrane with small breaks, proliferation of endothelial cells, and formation of hyaline excrescences as well as splitting of Descemet's membrane and a superficial spot of whirl-like scarring in the thinned stroma are demonstrated in the corneal lesion. This seems to be the first report of successful penetrating keratoplasty and histopathological study of the corneal lesion in this rare corneal entity. Keratoconus posticus circumscriptus is characterized by a normal anterior corneal curvature with a loss of substance in a circumscribed area of the posterior central corneal stroma. This causes an increase of the posterior corneal curvature in a circumscribed central area. In a paper by Butler, 1 a very good description of the condition is cited from a letter of P. L. Stallard: "It looked as though a marble


: Plastics plays important role in industries and in our day to day life. It has wide applications at home, vehicles, hospitals and computer manufacturing industries. In plastic manufacturing industries feeding raw materials to mixing machine is most important, and it is manually fed into the machine in some of the industries. It is decided to provide a solution to feed the raw materials with help of automatic feeding system. This project provides a design diagram to feed the raw materials into the mixing machine in PVC manufacturing industries. In this project we are providing a vacuum conveyor system for transferring plastic raw materials into the mixing machine. The purpose of this project is to replace the manual work by automatic process and to reduce the pollution in the industry due to leaking of fine particles of plastic raw materials from the mixing chamber. The closed transfer of raw materials through vacuum conveyor system reduces the pollution by avoiding leakage of dust particles from the mixing machine since the lid is closed while transfer of raw materials. The raw materials are loaded in the hopper which is located in the ground level instead of loading at top of machine. So it reduces the manual work. Hence the project replaces the manual loading of raw materials into automatic process effectively.


An experiment was performed to assess the productivity, food chain efficiency and nitrogen conversion efficiency of a semi-closed nursery system for bivalve spat held in upwelling columns. Algal blooms were encouraged by nutrient enrichment of onshore tanks and maintained for short periods under grazing pressure from bivalves.


Nowadays, the digital transformation is an intensive subject that refers to all the changes related to a process with the integration of advanced digital technologies such as cloud computing, Internet of Things, three-dimensional printing, artificial intelligence, and transportation in all aspects of human society. Digitalization affects any firm, any sector, any type of job, any function in organizations/institutions. Then it has become ubiquitous in multiple domains such as oil and gas, disease management, finance, banking, transportation, education, healthcare, agriculture, energy, environment, gastronomy, government services, and so forth. Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most-populous continent. Despite a wide range of natural resources, the continent suffers from many problems such as poverty, diseases, illiteracy, weak infrastructure, political instability, and conflicts. The continent features a relatively young population, as well as a diaspora of expatriate African researchers all willing to contribute to its development. Digital communication has spread very fast with improved access to the Internet. All these must enable an African shift to a successful digitalization transformation story with the promotion of technological advancements. The promotion of high education and research in Africa is one of the important keys for achieving digital transformation. This special issue has been launched by five researchers: four from African countries: Algeria, Morocco, Senegal, and Tunisia, and one from the African diaspora, working in France. This issue is dedicated to African young researchers contributing to digitalization efforts. An open call for papers has been organized, where it attracted 25 papers covering topics related to digitalization transformation, more particularly big data analytics, data integration, data mining, social media data exploitation, decision support systems, cloud computing, smart applications, Internet of Things, data security and risk, web services, quality of data transmission, recommendation, and combinatorial optimization methods. All submissions were peer-reviewed by at least two reviewers from our international program committee consisting of academia and industrials from 12 different countries and working on the various topics of our special issues. After two rounds of reviews, we finally accepted 11 papers, making an acceptance rate of 44%. One of the interesting characteristics of our accepted papers is that some of them integrate real case studies involving important domains in Africa such as Algerian mobile telecommunication and transportation services in the Maghreb countries. We congratulate the authors who submitted articles to our special issue. The 11 selected papers are summarized as follows: The first paper, entitled "A RoadSide Unit Deployment Framework for Enhancing Transportation Services in Maghrebian Cities" by Chaabene et al.1 addresses the problem of roadside units (RSUs) deployment in Maghribian cities. Solving this problem contributes to providing Intelligent Transportation Systems. The authors introduce a new spatio-temporal RSU deployment framework composed of three methods: SPaCov, SPaCov+, and HeSPIC. These methods aim at mining mobility patterns extracted from vehicle trajectories to improve the coverage ratio of the framework. Therefore, they propose efficient coverage algorithms to compute the appropriate RSUs locations that cover all the extracted mobility patterns. To evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed methods, an empirical study has been conducted considering different simulation scenarios. This study includes real datasets of trajectories representing three portions of urban areas in Algeria and Tunisia. These methods were compared against the minimal mobility patterns coverage method using specific metrics such as coverage ratio, deployment cost, network latency, and overhead. The second paper, entitled "Graph-based tag recommendations using clusters of patients in Clinical Decision Support System" by Hafidi et al.2 is concentrated on the important problem of tag recommendation for enhancing clinical decision support systems to extract similar patient's pathologies. The authors provide an interesting state-of-art covering Tag recommendation and Community detection. After that, they propose a graph-based tag recommendation approach that suggests relevant tags (diseases and pathologies) by analyzing the tagged medical images. This approach uses graph analytics to generate tags, patients, and image graphs. The proposed solution is evaluated using the dataset ChestX-Ray14. The obtained results are encouraging in assisting doctors in day-to-day tasks. The third paper, entitled "Opinion Leaders Detection in Dynamic Social Networks Communities" by Oueslati et al.3 deals with the problem of detecting influential users in dynamic social network communities. This problem is quite important in various domains such as politics, health care, raising awareness on important issues, advertising and marketing, and so forth. To deal with this problem, the authors propose a detection approach,


The disposal of combustible wastes by incineration is a controversial issue that is strongly debated by both scientists and environmental activists due to the resulting emissions of noxious compoun ...


Joint ventures in China in the auto industry have successfully introduced advanced technology in manufacturing using imported machinery. Various essential aspects of the process of new technology introduction and application in Chinese joint ventures are discussed here, including the decision making process in Chinese joint ventures for technology introduction, planning, technical training, and the normal business procedures and practices associated with machine and equipment import. A detailed case study illustrates the principles discussed in the opening sections of the paper. Some lessons for Chinese as well as foreign firms are identified.


Provided is an organic PTC element fabrication method with which low resistance may be achieved by thin film forming. The method comprises: a step of mixing a conductive powder, a resin, and a solvent, creating a slurry (S1); a step of forming the slurry into a sheet shape, creating a PTC sheet (S2); and steps of sandwiching the PTC sheet with a metal foil and making same self-adhesive (S3, S4). The PTC sheet creation step coats the metal foil with the slurry, forming the slurry into a sheet shape, and creating the PTC sheet. Either the conductive powder content is 40vol% or less of the total mass of the conductive powder and the resin, or the conductive powder content is 30vol% or more of the total mass of the conductive powder and the resin. The conductive powder is carbon black, and the resin is a polycaprolactone resin.


Multi-dipolar plasmas are sustained in large-volume chambers by a network of antennas located at the wall. Each antenna consists of a permanent magnet, trapping electrons in an axisymmetric dipole field, and a microwave applicator, heating the trapped electrons by cyclotron resonance (ECR). This paper presents a two-dimensional self-consistent model of a plasma sustained by one such antenna. The microwave fields and power absorption are calculated from the Maxwell equations coupled with a local electron momentum equation by an adaptation of the finite difference time domain method. The plasma is described by fluid equations for magnetized electrons and inertial ions, where quasi-neutrality is imposed through a semi-implicit numerical method based on Poisson's equation, which also yields the sheath potentials. Steady-state model results for argon show that below the critical plasma density (7.4×1016 m−3) the microwave power is absorbed in a narrow region all along the ECR surface around the end of the antenna; beyond this density the main absorption occurs near the plasma edge. Although the electron temperature varies considerably across the magnetic field lines, the plasma potential is nearly uniform all around the antenna and is controlled by the maximum electron temperature.


Research on psychological contracts is increasingly focusing on the mutual relationship between employee and employer. In an organization several agents act as employers towards their employees and the present study directs the attention to the supervisor"s role in the psychological contract. This study examines the relation between supervisor communication, as reported by both supervisor and employees, and employees" rating of employer inducements. In addition the study tests the effect of employer inducements on team performance. Data were collected from 42 supervisors and 151 employees from a Norwegian hospital. The study found strong support for supervisor communication, as perceived by employees, predicting the employees" rating of employer inducements. There was however no support for supervisor communication as perceived by the supervisor. The effect of employer inducements on team performance was also partially supported. The findings indicate that supervisor communication is an antecedent to psychological contracts, although the results are unclear about how sensitive the supervisor is to individual exchange relationships with employees. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.


The invention belongs to the field of manufacturing of automobiles, and particularly discloses a machining process for a longitudinal beam of a heavy truck. The machining process for the longitudinal beam of the heavy truck is characterized by comprising the following steps: marking; punching; cutting; shot blasting; bending. The machining process has high universality and high efficiency; coding of an intelligent coding machine, numerical control punching, cutting of a robot plasma cutter and shot blasting are all controlled through programs, so that the specification and the length of a section of the longitudinal beam in a certain range, the size and the position of the hole and the machining of the contour of the longitudinal beam can be realized. Trail production and large-scale and multi-species continuous production can be realized. The precision is high; the positioning is consistent; the positioning at all the punching, cutting and bending processes is realized by the front end of the longitudinal beam; the machining is controlled through the program; a three-dimensional numerical control punching machine is adopted as the punching machine, and wing surface holes and ventral surface holes are finished in sequence to reduce the positioning frequency; the shot blasting is performed to remove scales and rust before bending so as to eliminate the influence of the scales on bending.


The experiments, carried on AIRBUS systems, show that testability analysis can ease system formal detailed specifications validation activities. Indeed, testability information can highlight testing efforts, guide functional tests definition, facilitate detailed specification coverage analysis against system requirements, and support tests coverage analysis against formal detailed specification.


We have isolated eight polymorphic loci for the caddisfly, Polycentropus flavomaculatus. The application of these markers will allow us to define the genetic population structure of this species and, with complementary ecological work, will enable quantification of its dispersal ability and colonization potential.


Abstract Monogalactosyldiacylglycerol (MGDG) has been isolated from Vicia faba leaves and distearoyl derivatives have been prepared by catalytic hydrogenation of the unsaturated galactolipid. The structure and the phase behaviour of 1,2-distearoyl MGDG in an excess of water were studied using a time-resolved X-ray diffraction method. The crystalline to liquid crystalline (Lc1→α) transition observed calorimetrically at 86° C was found to correspond to a lamellar crystalline to non-lamellar inverted hexagonal (H2) phase transformation. This transition appeared to be a two state process with no detectable intermediate states. In contrast cooling H2 gives first Lα and then Lβ before reverting to Lc1. The transitions from the metastable lamellar gel (Lβ) phase to the lamellar liquid crystalline (Lα) state and from Lα to H2 were reversible on cooling and reheating with a hysteresis of 4–5°C. A scheme consistent with the structural and calorimetric data obtained from MGDG is proposed. The similarities in the the...


Background: Clinical studies have demonstrated that targeted immunotherapy using PD-1/PD-L1 antibodies induces tumor regression and prolongs disease stabilization in advanced solid cancers. Data on the clinical efficacy in hematological malignancies is largely missing, even though PD-L1/PD-1 interactions have been described as major mediators of immune dysfunction in several leukemias and lymphomas. They are therefore ideal to study if PD-L1/PD-1 blockade has the potential to control disease by restoring anti-tumor immune responses. Several groups showed that chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) provokes immune evasion via PD-L1/PD-1 inhibitory signaling, and that this is very closely mirrored in the Eµ-TCL1 (TCL1) murine model for CLL. Our recent data suggest that in this model, aberrant PD-L1 expression in myeloid cells contributes to the immune defect in CLL. We further demonstrated that the T cell and myeloid cell immune defects in ageing leukemic mice can be induced in young wild-type (WT) mice by adoptive transfer (AT) of murine CLL. In the current study, we used the AT model to test if in vivo PD-L1 blockade corrects leukemia-induced cellular immune dysfunction in myeloid and T cells and enhances anti-tumor immunity.

Methods: WT mice transplanted with 4x107 TCL1 splenocytes were randomized to treatment with 10 mg/kg α-murine-PD-L1 (n=15) or isotype antibody (n=10), which was administered i.p. every 3 days starting 1 day after AT, and sacrificed 31 days later. Matched non-transplanted WT mice (n=6) served as additional controls. Immune cell subsets, expression of immune checkpoint markers and T cell effector functions were analyzed by multicolor flow cytometry using cells isolated form spleen, peripheral blood (PB), bone marrow (BM) and peritoneal cavity (PC). C ell proliferation was measured by EdU incorporation in vivo . Immune synapse (IS) formation was assessed by confocal microscopy. Serum cytokines were quantified by multiplex bead arrays.

Results: We first confirmed successful engraftment and presence of disease by immunohistochemistry. Compared to isotype controls, α-PD-L1 treated mice had significantly lower spleen weights (median 0.2 g vs 0.9 g, p<0.0001) and a highly significant lower relative frequency of CD19+CD5+ CLL lymphocytes in spleen (1.55% vs 71.69%), PB (10.5% vs 63.53%) and BM (0.26% vs 2.74%) demonstrating very effective tumor control. Compared to non-transplanted animals, α-PD-L1 treated mice showed alterations in almost all phenotypical and functional immune cell parameters, especially in regards to immune cell activation, indicating encounter with and immunological challenge by CLL cells. Along with disease control, α-PD-L1 treated mice had improved immune status as multiple inflammatory cytokines in the serum, including IL-10, TNF-α, CCL2 and GM-CSF were decreased and splenic infiltration of monocytes was reduced. While CLL development skewed monocytes towards Ly6Clow patrolling monocytes, α-PD-L1 treatment restored the presence of Ly6Chi inflammatory monocytes and decreased the expression of adhesion molecules ICAM-1 and PECAM-1. These monocytes regained their differentiation capacity as shown by increased numbers of macrophages and mature MHC-IIhi dendritic cells in the spleens of treated mice. In the T cell compartment, in vivo PD-L1 blockade prevented the CLL-induced CD4/CD8 ratio inversion, the loss of naive CD8 T cells and the shift towards antigen-experienced and terminally differentiated T cells in spleen, BM and PB. Aberrant expression of immune checkpoint markers PD-1, KLRG-1, LAG-3, and 2B4 was also significantly reduced. The CLL-associated loss of intracellular IL-2 and the increased secretion of IL-4 and IFN-γ in CD4 T cells were prevented in α-PD-L1 treated mice. Respective cytokine patterns were observed in the serum. Functionally, PD-L1 blockade restored CD8 degranulation and IS formation to the level of healthy T cells, and significantly improved both ex vivo and in vivo T cell proliferation.

Conclusion: Our in vivo data demonstrate that early PD-L1 blockade very effectively controls CLL development and enables complex effector function of myeloid and T cells, thus restoring anti-tumor immune responses. Targeting PD-L1/PD-1 interactions should therefore be further explored in clinical studies, potentially in combination with novel substances.

BH/FM and MS/JGG contributed equally to first and last authorship.

Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


BACKGROUND The lymphoma of the mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) is predominantly found in the stomach. The few cases reported in the literature of MALT lymphomas affecting the ileum are in patients who are already symptomatic and with clear advanced endoscopic findings. We present the first case of an asymptomatic female patient who underwent colonoscopy as a routine examination with the findings of an ulcer in the distal ileum region, which histopathological examination and associated immunohistochemistry revealed the diagnosis of MALT lymphoma. an atypical diffuse lymphocytic infiltrate of with a characteristic cytoplasmic halo of marginal The performed and the results demonstrated a negative neoplastic infiltrate for the expression of cyclin D1 and cytokeratin AE1/AE3 and a positive for BCL60 in the germinal center. The test also revealed CD10 positivity in the glandular epithelium and germinal center of a reactive follicle with dual-labeling of CD20 and CD3 demonstrating the B lymphocyte nature of the neoplastic infiltrate. In BCL2 protein labeling, the neoplastic infiltrate is strongly positive with a negative germinal center. The findings are consistent with immunophenotype B non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, better classified as extranodal MALT. The patient was treated with chemotherapy and showed complete regression of the disease, as evidenced by colonoscopy performed after treatment.


Thank you very much for reading methodological aspects of single photon emission computed tomography of the regional cerebral blood flow. As you may know, people have look hundreds times for their favorite readings like this methodological aspects of single photon emission computed tomography of the regional cerebral blood flow, but end up in infectious downloads. Rather than reading a good book with a cup of coffee in the afternoon, instead they cope with some malicious virus inside their laptop.


A machine for drilling and routing of printed circuit boards comprises a support mechanism for supporting a stack of superimposed boards in a support plane and for moving the stack of boards in a first predetermined direction parallel to the support plane. A tool spindle is disposed above the stack of boards and is movable in a second direction parallel to the support plane and perpendicular to the first direction, so that the positions of the holes to be drilled in the PC-boards can be determined in a coordinate system having the first and second directions as its X-axis and Y-axis respectively. For holding the stack of PC-boards pressed together during the drilling or routing operation, the machine comprises press rollers, which exert a pressure force upon the stack of PC-boards towards the support mechanism. The press rollers are arranged on both sides of the tool spindle with their axes of rotation parallel to the direction in which the tool spindle can be moved, i.e. the Y-direction.


A field experiment was performed in Southwest Germany to examine the effects of long-term reduced tillage (2000–2012). Tillage treatments were deep moldboard plow: DP, 25 cm; double-layer plow; DLP, 15 + 10 cm, shallow moldboard plow: SP, 15 cm and chisel plow: CP, 15 cm, each of them with or without preceding stubble tillage. The mean yields of a typical eight-year crop rotation were 22% lower with CP compared to DP, and 3% lower with SP and DLP. Stubble tillage increased yields by 11% across all treatments. Soil nutrients were high with all tillage strategies and amounted for 34–57 mg kg −1 P and 48–113 mg kg −1 K (0–60 cm soil depth). Humus budgets showed a high carbon input via crops but this was not reflected in the actual C org content of the soil. C org decreased as soil depth increased from 13.7 g kg −1 (0–20 cm) to 4.3 g kg −1 (40–60 cm) across all treatments. After 12 years of experiment, SP and CP resulted in significantly higher C org content in 0–20 cm soil depth, compared to DP and DLP. Stubble tillage had no significant effect on C org . Stubble tillage combined with reduced primary tillage can sustain yield levels without compromising beneficial effects from reduced tillage on C org and available nutrient content.


The role of informative external factors at interaction of the interfaced geophysical fields of technogenic and natural character is analyzed. Results of the analysis are confirmed by numerical and natural experiments.


In the registration of two dimensional images that are obtained from two different sensors and from geometrically different locations there are distortions. These distortions can cause errors in the navigational systems that use them. In this paper a lower bound on the registration error is derived by using a model that treats the sensed and reference images as the two ends of a communication channel. Then rate distortion theory is applied to obtain a relationship between the registration error and the statistical properties of the images. The resulting bound can be used to predict the registration error, in the selection of the proper reference images, and in comparing the performance of the image registration systems.


The production process,the weave design and color arrange in figured jean are discussed.One of the new colored figured jians developed and produced successfully.


The availability of the element of nature in Arabic literature did not appear with the Arab conquest in Andalusia, but rather it is as old as Arabic poetry.
The artistic feature in which speech transforms from its real reality (the general reality) to another unreal (the private reality) is what scholars called it (poetics).
The research relied on a collection of sources of literature, language, and history, and the study was divided into an introduction, an introduction, and two chapters.


Abstract Adsorption and electronic properties in tetramethylbenzidine-intercalated tetrasilicicfluormica were investigated by powder X-ray diffraction, ESR, TG, and DC-electric conductivity measurements.


This paper fits in the lines of research of the conservation and restoration of historical heritage technology, pathology building, specifically the study of map representations of damage, a fundamental stage of an intervention project in architectural heritage. This damage code incorporates Cronidas database and is available on the collaborative website done and managed by a Content Management System for viewing and download.


The use of oxygenates as components of fuels in recent years widespread. In order to determine the feasibility of using hydrogenate the production of butyl alcohols as a component of commercial gasoline in the laboratory of the Department «Technology of Oil and Gas» was conducted to study the composition and properties hydrogenate of GOST R 51105 97. The test results showed that gidrogenizat production of butyl alcohols can be used as a component of gasoline.


Zalabardo develops a novel tracking account of knowledge which appears to be immune to counterexamples and can withstand at least some of the most pressing skep- tical challenges without compromising the closure principle. On his view, sensitivity without method-relativity is a sufficient but not necessary condition on non-inferential knowledge. Beliefs that are insensitive can nevertheless amount to inferential knowledge when adequately evidentially supported. Zalabardo needs inference as an independent source of knowledge as an alternative to method-relativizing, but we argue that prob- lems about lottery propositions, epistemic bootstrapping and higher-order beliefs seem to evaporate once we follow Zalabardo in paying attention to the role played by inference in knowledge acquisition. Zalabardo's motivation for introducing competent infer- ence as an additional sufficient condition on knowledge is thus undermined.


Layered media have waveguide properties - waves can propagate without sources in such structures. For the most part, such media are anisotropic ones. The simplest case of anisotropy is a transversely isotropic medium. The properties of such media are characterized by the fact that its elastic modules are the same in a plane perpendicular to the axis of symmetry, but they are different from the modules in the direction of the axis. As studies show, many sedimentary rocks are transversely isotropic. Besides, such structures are used in the production of composites. For example, if fibers parallel to each other are used as a reinforcing material, then the composite has a unidirectional structure and is transversely isotropic material in the planes perpendicular to the direction of reinforcement. Sheet metals are often non-isotropic ones, and have normal (transversal) anisotropy. Reinforced concrete is also considered as transversely isotropic after the appearance of cracks. Similar structures appear during the production of glued wood. Waveguide structures formed by a transversely isotropic layer conjugated to an isotropic half-plane are considered. Two waveguides are studied: one with a fixed wall, the other one with a free surface. The characteristic equations are constructed for them. The discrete and continuous spectra of these waveguide structures are singled out.


Toll-like receptors(TLRs) are pattern recognition receptors(PRRs) that recognize pathogen-associated molecular patterns(PAMPs) and regulate the activation of innate immunity. All TLR signaling pathways culminate in the activation of NF-κB, leading to the induction of inflammatory gene products such as COX-2. Licorice (Glycyrrhiza uralensis) has been used for centuries as an herbal medicine. Isoliquiritigenin(ILG), a simple chalcone-type flavonoid, is an active component present in licorice and has been used to treat many chronic diseases. However, the mechanism as to how ILG mediates health effects is still largely unknown. In the present report, we present biochemical evidence that ILG inhibits the NF-κB activation induced by TLR agonists and the overexpression of downstream signaling components of TLRs, MyD88, IKKβ, and p65. ILG also inhibits TLR agonists-induced COX-2 expression. These results suggest that anti-inflammatory effects of ILG are caused by modulation of the immune responses regulated by TLR signaling pathways.


To investigate the features of the surface topographic microstructure and to perform elemental distribution on cervical cells, Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy and Energy Dispersive X-Ray (FE-SEM/EDX) were employed to capture and scan the cells. After capturing the specific cervical cells image, the scanning of specific cells surface area was conducted. The FE-SEM/EDX was set to 10 kV for capturing the image and then element scanning was conducted for 60 seconds. To re-identify the chemical composition of the samples, Attenuated Total Reflection and Fourier Transform Infrared (ATR/FTIR) spectroscopy was used to validate the FE-SEM/EDX results. The detected elemental distribution of the cervical cell area exhibited higher amounts of Carbon (C), Oxygen (O), and Sodium (Na), Calcium (Ca) elements as well as traces of amounts of Nitrogen (N), Magnesium (Mg), and Aluminium (Al). The observed elements appeared in different amounts as well as different cell classes in 350 cervical cells areas. The element results were observed to check their similarity with the FTIR results. FE-SEM/EDX and FTIR results, respectively, were used as features to differentiate normal, Low-grade Intra-Epithelial Squamous Lesion (LSIL), and High-grade Intra-Epithelial Squamous Lesion (HSIL) classes. The FE-SEM/EDX achieved good classification results which were similar to the FTIR classification results. The FE-SEM/EDX provided useful information on the microstructural characteristics and spatial distribution of elements on the surface of human cervical cancer cells.


The invention relates to the technical field of deep processing of vegetable products, in particular to a method for processing and producing pickle products by circularly utilizing bifida ferment lysate. The method is characterized by comprising the following steps of: (1) processing fresh vegetable into parts with proper size; (2) drying via hot air to remove partial water; (3) transferring the processed vegetables into ozone water to clean and sterilize and remove resident pesticide; (4) by taking the residual bifida ferment lysate, which has viable bacteria count not less than 10 pieces per milliliter and is produced by fermenting pickle, as mother liquor, properly adding water, table salt and glucose to prepare into lactobacillus fermenting water; (5) transferring the primarily sterilized vegetables into a fermenting tank, introducing the lactobacillus fermenting water, and dipping for fermenting; and (6) taking the fermented vegetables; spinning to remove partial water, mixing with ingredients, packing in a vacuum condition, and pasteuring to obtain the finished product of the pickle. The method for processing and producing the pickle products by circularly utilizing the bifida ferment lysate has the advantages that: the time for fermenting the pickle is reduced; the pollution due to miscellaneous bacteria is reduced; the fermenting water can be repeatedly utilized; the inoculating rate is reduced; the fermenting cost is reduced; and resource waste and environment pollution are reduced.


Blockchain offers a decentralized, immutable, transparent system of records. It offers a peer-to-peer network of nodes with no centralised governing entity making it unhackable and therefore, more secure than the traditional paper-based or centralised system of records like banks etc. While there are certain advantages to the paper-based recording approach, it does not work well with digital relationships where the data is in constant flux. Unlike traditional channels, governed by centralized entities, blockchain offers its users a certain level of anonymity by providing capabilities to interact without disclosing their personal identities and allows them to build trust without a third-party governing entity. Due to the aforementioned characteristics of blockchain, more and more users around the globe are inclined towards making a digital transaction via blockchain than via rudimentary channels. Therefore, there is a dire need for us to gain insight on how these transactions are processed by the blockchain and how much time it may take for a peer to confirm a transaction and add it to the blockchain network. This paper presents a novel approach that would allow one to estimate the time, in block time or otherwise, it would take for a mining node to accept and confirm a transaction to a block using machine learning. The paper also aims to compare the predictive accuracy of two machine learning regression models- Random Forest Regressor and Multilayer Perceptron against previously proposed statistical regression model under a set evaluation criterion. The objective is to determine whether machine learning offers a more accurate predictive model than conventional statistical models. The proposed model results in improved accuracy in prediction.


The various types of data are being created in large quantities resulting from the spread of social media and the mobile popularization. Many companies want to obtain valuable business information through the analysis of these large data. As a result, it is a trend to integrate the big data technologies into the company work. Especially, Hadoop is regarded as the most representative big data technology due to its terabytes of storage capacity, inexpensive construction cost, and fast data processing speed. However, the authentication token system of Hadoop Distributed File System(HDFS) for the user authentication is currently vulnerable to the replay attack and the datanode hacking attack. This can cause that the company secrets or the personal information of customers on HDFS are exposed. In this paper, we analyze the possible security threats to HDFS when tokens or datanodes are exposed to the attackers. Finally, we propose the secure authentication protocol in HDFS based on hash chain.


Creeping diseases can reduce driving comfort and endanger structural safety, so it is necessary to analyze the causes of creeping. Based on existing research, the factors of the creeping phenomenon using TianNingSi overpass as an example related to the features of radial displacement under dead load, live load, concrete shrinkage and creep, temperature, prestress, etc., were analyzed. The study shows that centrifugal force is the main cause of creeping in curved bridges, which have heavy traffic and large curvature radii. The deficiencies in infrastructure and bearing form should be the main cause of creeping disease. Bearing form optimization can prevent creeping diseases.


Several studies have suggested that nongonadotrophic pituitary secretions influence growth and function of the rat ventral prostate; the basis for this hypophysial effect is unclear. In order to investigate whether hypophysectomy would alter the previously demonstrated special avidity of rat ventral prostatic tissue for testosterone from that seen in intact animals, ventral prostate uptake and discharge of radioactivity after intravenous injection of testosterone-4-14C was studied in intact, castrate and hypophysectomized adult rats. Following intravenous injection of testosterone-4-14C to normal rats, only the excretory organs, the liver, kidney and lung and the adrenal and ventral prostate yielded significantly high levels of radioactivity. Timed studies revealed rapid decrease in radioactivity in all tissues over the first 30-60 min in control rats, whereas decline in radioactivity was less in hypophysectomized animals, presumably because of impaired hepatic excretion of the isotope resulting in higher...


Chemical vapor deposited diamond films thermochemically polished on cylindrical steel plates are subjected to Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) and scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (SEM-EDX). A diamond film polished for 25 h at 950°C is etched in chromic acid (K 2 Cr 2 O 7 + H 2 SO 4 + H 2 O) prior to RBS measurement while two other films also polished at 950°C for 8 and 25 h, respectively, are analyzed as polished. The RBS spectra of as-polished diamond films contain peaks of iron contaminant while the surface of the etched film is devoid of iron. Moreover, the concentration/magnitude of the contaminant on the film polished for 25 h is about twofold that of the film polished for 8 h. SEM-EDX spectra taken from dark and bright spots indicate the presence of iron contaminant in as-polished films but its absence in the etched film regardless of the surface topology. Thus, the depth measured by the RBS is assumed to represent the characteristic thickness of the nondiamond carbon layer in which the iron contaminant originating from the polishing plate is embedded. The presence of silicon and oxygen hands in the SEM-EDX spectra of both as-polished and etched diamond films is attributed to their inclusion during film deposition.


Objective:To investigate the effect of a low calcium diet on the distal and proximal tibial metaphysis in male rats using bone histomorphometrical techniques. Methods:Forty 3-month-old male Sprague-Dawley(SD) rats, with a mean weight of 280±22g, were randomized into five groups. Group one and group two were fed a normal diet (Ca 1.0%) and a very low calcium diet (VLCD ,Ca 0.1%) respectively for one month,and the rest three groups were fed a normal diet (Ca 1.0%), a very low calcium diet (VLCD, Ca 0.1%) and a low calcium diet (LCD , Ca 0.3%) respectively for three months. All animals received double bone fluorochrome labeling prior to sacrifice. At the end of experiment, the left tibiae were harvested for bone histomorphometrical evaluations. Results:After one month, compared to control group, distal tibial metaphysis(DTM) of VLCD did not change significantly but proximal tibial metaphysis(PTM) was decreased significantly whose percent trabecular area (%Tb.Ar) was decreased to 38% (P0.05) and osteoclast number per mm (N.Oc/Tb.Pm) increased 98% (P0.01). After three months, compared to control the bone volume of VLCD in DTM was significantly reduced to 44%(P0.001)and PTM lost much more bone mass. Dynamic data of DTM and PTM in VLCD showed bone formation indices such as percent labeled perimeter (L.Pm%) , mineral apposition rate (MAR) and bone formation rate (BFR/BV) increased without significance and N.Oc/Tb.Pm increased to different extent . The changes of static and dynamic data in LCD were similar to and less than those in VLCD. Conclusion:Low calcium exerted its effect on DTM and PTM differently. PTM with high bone turnover lost much more bone mass than DTM with low bone turnover which were related to the speed of body moving skeletal calcium in different site.


Abstract The authors describe the design of a sealed rotation point suitable for use under a nitrogen pressure of 8000 bar. Several metallic and plastic materials forming the seal were tested using the same geometry. The characteristics of the seal friction torques are described. Certain plastic materials are of particular interest as they ensure good sealing and display a low, stable average friction torque.


Because of the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, changes in the mentoring process of immigrant youths were needed to maintain contact and educational continuity and prevent learning loss. The research question was: How do mentors working with immigrant youths in a time of crisis, in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, describe their experiences with the mentoring process, feelings of empowerment, difficulty, and satisfaction? And how do they perceive the mentor's role and support for the youths in various areas? This was a quantitative study involving 119 mentors. The study was conducted in Israel in 2021. The results show that mentors who reported high self-efficacy felt that they helped the youths to a great extent, both personally and professionally, and that they managed difficulties when they arose. For mentors who expressed low self-efficacy had trouble, the means of all parameters checked were significantly lower. The mentors' sense of self-efficacy influenced the type of support they offered their students.


PURPOSE: A refrigerator for cosmetics is provided to increase the cooling efficiency while restraining bacteria and mold by naturally dropping condensed water generated at a keeping container. CONSTITUTION: An external case(20) has partially opened front and upper parts, and has side walls(22) filled with a heat insulating material(29). A cover opens and shuts the external case. A cooling plate(24) is installed inside the external case in a horizontal direction, having condensed water discharge holes(28) passing a lower part of the cooling plate. A keeping space(27) and an installation space(37) are defined centering on the cooling plate. A thermal conductor(31) contacts with a bottom part of the cooling plate. A thermoelectric element(32) is combined with a bottom part of the thermal conductor. A heat sink(34) is separated from the thermoelectric element. A metal network(33) is installed between the thermal conductor and the heat sink. A heat dissipating fan(35) is formed at a bottom of the heat sink. A plurality of vent holes(38) are formed at a bottom surface.


Sodium chloride accelerated rancidity in blended cod muscle at 0 C. This salt-induced rancidity was retarded by commercial antioxidants and chelating compounds. The active agent appeared to be the Na+ rather than the whole salt or the Cl−.Other metal salts had similar pro-oxidant action on the cod muscle when used in relatively high concentrations (0.1 N and above). The relative activity, using metal chlorides, was as follows: Fe > Co > Cd > Li > Ni > Mg > Zn > Na > K. Ca and Ba had no effect.Many of these "pro-oxidant" salts also had a strong antioxidant effect on the development of copper-induced rancidity in the muscle.The relationship between TBA values and the type and intensity of odours is not the same for sodium chloride-induced and copper-induced rancidities. Some of the reasons for this have been discussed.It has been suggested that one mechanism by which sodium chloride influences the rate of lipid oxidation in the fish muscle is by the changes it produces in the accompanying proteins.


Published data from an organic geochemical study of Recent oolites from the Bahamas and the Persian Gulf suggest that petroleum-bearing oolites may be the source, as well as the reservoir, of the hydrocarbons they contain. This paper advances a scheme for the generation and accumulation of hydrocarbons in oolite reservoirs. It is proposed that, with the exception of leached oolites with oomoldic porosity, petroleum-bearing oolites could be viewed as integrated source-reservoir rocks.


This paper is structured in the definition and characteristics of corporate social responsibility along with a comparison of Colombian entities that exercise and the impacts of these practices in society, followed by the definition of advertising, the use of it as corporate image , and its importance in CSR, as a second part of the paper defines the concept and principles of good governance, and good governance practices in Colombian entities, for the third and last point raises an approach that integrates the two concepts : CSR and Corporate Governance.


While the cost of sequencing genomes has decreased dramatically in recent years, this expense often remains non-trivial. Under a fixed budget, scientists face a natural trade-off between quantity and quality: spending resources to sequence a greater number of genomes or spending resources to sequence genomes with increased accuracy. Our goal is to find the optimal allocation of resources between quantity and quality. Optimizing resource allocation promises to reveal as many new variations in the genome as possible. In this paper, we introduce a Bayesian nonparametric methodology to predict the number of new variants in a follow-up study based on a pilot study. When experimental conditions are kept constant between the pilot and follow-up, we find that our prediction is competitive with the best existing methods. Unlike current methods, though, our new method allows practitioners to change experimental conditions between the pilot and the follow-up. We demonstrate how this distinction allows our method to be used for more realistic predictions and for optimal allocation of a fixed budget between quality and quantity.


The origin of tragedy, the way the play was staged, the social context involving the play itself, as well as the specific technique used by every tragedian has been deeply analysed by different scholars. In particular, there is an issue involving Greek tragedy examined from various standpoints: the tragic hero. A considerable amount of studies concerning the heroes and heroines of Greek tragedy on stage based on the primary characters per se has been published. As an example of such studies authors as Aelion, Alsina, Calvo, Carriere, De Romilly, Festugiere, Hall, Irigoin, Lasso de la Vega, Lesky, Macintosh, Miralles, Murray, Rodriguez Adrados, Taplin, Willamowitz, Zimmermann can be quoted, as well as more recent studies by Calderon, Di Benedetto, Fernandez-Galiano, Garcia Gual, Gil Fernandez, Guzman Guerra, Lucas de Dios, Melero, Quijada, Rodriguez Monescillo, Ruiz de Elvira, Sommerstein, and all scholars of GRATUV (Research Group of the University of Valencia) and scholars collaborating with them that annually publish their research about Greek and Roman Theatre and its reception: Banuls, Bernal, Fialho, Lopez Lopez, Morenilla, Monros, Munster, Pocina, and Silva. Such studies show the tragic mistakes committed by the hero, the motivations and the inner traits of the character of the hero and how the tragic hero is shaped by himself. Traditionally it has been settled that, partly because of the strong evolution experimented by the tragic genre itself, the heroes appearing on Aeschylus' plays differ from the Euripides' heroes. Thus, the progression of the consciousness of his physis and the consequences of his action depicts the tragic hero in Aeschylus' plays, moreover the strong influence of his lineage over himself modifies the degree of consciousness, as a result of such an influence, he does not believe that he is committing any mistake, whereas the hero in Sophocles' plays is portrayed by his extreme pathos. Relating to Euripides' plays, major part of the studies is focussed in heroines as Medea, Phaedra, Alcestis and Hecuba. According to these studies it can be assumed that Euripides changes the traits of the main characters according to the social context of the performance. However the intrinsic evolution of the tragic genre allowed Greek playwrights to use more characters in the plot. Greek tragedians could put on stage more characters establishing various kind of relationship between them and the primary character. The multiplicity in the number of characters leads primary (characters) to interact with secondary (characters), and as a result of such an interaction both characters are being shaped. Hence, the increasing relationship between main and secondary characters in Greek tragedy has leaded me to analyse primary characters from a new standpoint: the point of view of secondary characters, in particular, this thesis focuses on nurses and on characters that act as nurses such as the Pythia in Euripides' Ion, as it can be inferred that nurses provide a wider understanding about the tragic heroine who is their dramatic counterpart. Having in mind, thus, that nurses from New Comedy have not any special relationship with comic hero, this thesis attempts to show how the special bond between nurse and tragic hero is exploited by tragedians to portray the main character. As a result, this thesis seeks to show new traits about tragic heroes or heroines inferred from the point of view of nurses. ? THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGY: It can be settled that Eurycleia, Odysseus' Nurse in Odyssey, is the archetype of nurses from tragedy. She is commanded to assist Odysseus and later to attend Telemachus, Odysseus' son. Eurycleia is presented as a servant in the palace of Odysseus with special responsibilities which she could easily deal with as she has spent most part of her life serving in the oikos of Odysseus. Especially relevant is that the lineage of Eurycleia is quoted in the Homeric poem (Odyssey 19.357), and she is accurately portrayed as a loyal and diligent Nurse, trait also used by tragedians to shape tragic nurses. The role assumed by this Nurse is not to become the antithesis of Penelope, but to be her reflect, in fact she is showed acting as Penelope would do. Having said this, it could be inferred that the loyalty of Penelope is strengthen by the loyalty showed by Eurycleia: both women are waiting for Odysseus arrival, and both women showed their fidelity towards the authority of Odysseus, even though he is not present in the oikos. This fact is clearly pointed in the Homeric poems as posterior authors have taken Penelope as a model of the fidelity of a good wife towards her husband. Additionally, the loyalty and respect of Eurycleia towards her master Odysseus is largely highlighted through the Odyssey. Eurycleia, hence, is the archetype of nurses in tragic genre. She is depicted as an elderly woman whose age enables her to act with wide knowledge and to become the confident of her mistress Penelope. The relationship that both women maintain points out Penelope's loyalty towards her husband. This trait is also present as a characteristic in the nurses from tragedy that in this thesis are largely analysed. Regarding nurses on stage in Greek theatre it has to be emphasised that nurses from tragedy differ from nurses from comedy, as both genres are clearly different and as consequence the characters from tragedy diverge largely from characters in comedy. Aristophanes does not use the character of the nurse in his plays, partly because his interest was to put on stage the polis and the polites. Most of the times, even, the servants on stage in Aristophanes' plays act insolently and lazily and are shaped with the aim of making the audience to laugh. Thus, it can be assumed that Aristophanes exploit the comic traits of the servant in order to satirise the character of the slave. In contrast, it can be assumed that in Menander Comedy nurses are on stage quite often partly because of the aim of the New Comedy, which is to put on stage the oikos not the polis. At this point it has to be highlighted that while there has been much research into Menander's plays, there has been little research into the relationship between characters in his plays. Nevertheless, it can be maintained that Menander's plays are mainly influenced by Euripides' plays, as a result of such an influence, nurses are on stage repeatedly, as it is stressed in chapter six. Having this idea on mind, I focussed my thesis on the nurses from Aeschylus' Choephoroi (458 B.C.), Euripides' Medea (431 B.C.), Hippolytus (428 B.C.), Andromache (ca. 425 B.C.), Ion (ca. 413 B.C.); and Sophocles' Trachiniae. I analysed in-depth the character of the Nurse in each tragedy as well as the relationship she has with the tragic hero or heroine. Consequently, the evidence suggests that Greek playwrights exploit nurses with the aim of providing a more precise and reliable knowledge of the hero than any character in the play. In every chapter of this thesis, prior to undertaking the analysis of passages of the play in which Nurse is on stage, both on her own or interacting with the main character, a summary of the plot of the tragedy considered is showed, and the theme of the play described. Secondly, a study of the main sources that the tragedian might use is offered. Having in mind that translating from Greek to Spanish could lead me to further understand and reflect about the deep meaning of Greek text, I present my own translation to Spanish. All the passages in which either the nurse talks or interacts with the hero or heroine are been selected. Once every passage is deeply analysed, a discussion about the findings is showed. The conclusions of the chapters two, three and four, highlight that it seems that the character of the nurse is gradually portrayed and that becomes progressively relevant for the plot as the relationship that she maintains with the hero is gradually strengthen. Such a relationship enables nurses to develop and maintain an emotional attachment with the tragic hero, and to be aware of his inner motivations. As a consequence, nurses gain a more precise and reliable knowledge of the hero than any character in the play. They are used by Greek playwrights to provide to the chorus and to the audience such a specific knowledge about the inner motivations of the main character. Thus, the audience could shape accurately the character of the hero. All the tragedies analysed are presented according to chronological criteria. Hence, firstly Orestes' nurse, Cilissa, from Aeschylus' Choephoroi (458 B.C.) it is been analysed. Secondly, Medea's Nurse from homonymous Euripides' play (431 B.C.); thirdly, Phaedras' nurse from Euripides' Hippolytus (428 B.C.); fourthly, Hermiones' Nurse in Euripides' Andromache (ca. 425 B.C.) are studied. Fifthly, the Pythia in Euripides' Ion (ca. 413-412 B.C.) is considered in this thesis because she acts as a nurse of Ion urged by Apollo, Ion's real father. Finally, considering that it can be suggested that chronologically is near to Euripides' Woman of Troy, I also provide in this thesis a study of the character which is traditionally considered as Deianiera's Nurse from Sophocles' Trachiniae.


Ruling the country by virtue is one of the important strategies of administering a country. Ruling the police by virtue has been taken into practice for ten years since it is the specific requirement and embodiment of the general plan of managing state affairs in the public security department. Our society is experiencing the tendency of diversification and marketization in social change phase. There are many phenomenons which deviate from ruling the police by virtue in the public security troops. This paper discusses the essence,connotation and the practical significance in construction of public security troops of ruling the police by virtue from two aspects. The first one is that ruling the police by virtue is the objective requirement and inevitable choice on constructing harmonious police—people relations. The other one is that ruling the police by virtue is the foundation and important guarantee of improving police public credibility of law enforcement.


The purpose of this work was to investigate the effect of hydrothermal modification conditions on the preparation of flame retardant Mg(OH)_2 synthesized via MgCl_2-NaOH route in a large-scale experimental set-up designed by the authors.Hydrothermal modification temperature, hydrothermal modification time, concentration of aqueous CaCl_2 solution and solids holdup of Mg(OH)_2 particles showed important effect on the morphology, crystalline structure and dispersion properties of the hydrothermal products. Based on optimal hydrothermal modification conditions, the regular hexagonal plates of Mg(OH)_(2) with uniform size and smaller BET surface area were formed after the hydrothermal treatment.


Aims: Human corticotrophin releasing hormone (hCRH) stimulation test was used: (i) to determine the relation between pituitary-adrenal response and systemic blood pressure in very low birth weight (VLBW) infants, and (ii) to characterise the endocrinological features of 'Tran-sient Adrenocortical insufficiency of Prematurity (TAP)'. Study design: hCRH tests were performed on 137 VLBW infants at day 7 and 14 of life in a tertiary neonatal centre. Results: Basal and peak serum cortisol at day 7 were associated significantly with the lowest blood pressures recorded during the first two weeks of postnatal age (r > 0.38, p < 0.0001 and r > 0.41, p < 0.0001 for basal and peak levels, respectively). These cortisol levels were also correlated significantly but negatively, with the maximum and total cumulative dose of inotropes (r > −0.22, p < 0.02), total volume of crystalloid (r > −0.22, p < 0.02), and duration of inotropic treatment (r > −0.25, p < 0.006). Although the hypotensive infants (Group 2) were significantly less mature and more sick than infants with normal blood pressure (Group 1), their basal plasma ACTH at day 14 and the peak levels at day 7 and 14 were significantly higher than infants of Group 1 (p = 0.03, p = 0.001 and p = 0.01, respectively). In contrast, both basal and peak serum cortisol at day 7 were significantly lower in Group 2 than in Group 1 infants (p = 0.004 and p = 0.001, respectively). There was, however, no significant difference in serum cortisol between the groups at day 14. Conclusions: This study characterises the fundamental endocrino-logical features of TAP, namely: (i) normal or exaggerated pituitary response, (ii) adrenocortical insufficiency, and (iii) good recovery of adrenal function by day 14 of postnatal life. Neonatal clinicians may consider early corticosteroids replacement in preterm hypotensive infants with low serum cortisol level.


Communicative approach is an innovation in English teaching, aiming at improving students' communicative competence. This essay is mainly focused on how this approach functions in practice. The exchange of roles the teachers and students, their individual work and co-operation as well as the significance of this approach will be elaborated in the essay.


WISPER and WISPERX are standardised variable-amplitude test loading histories for use in the fatigue design of horizontal axis wind turbine blades. They are based on flap load service measurements on 9 different horizontal axis wind turbines, covering a wide range of materials, rotor diameters and geographical locations.
The present report is the third and final publication on the development work by the WISPER working group and is a compilation of all relevant information that was used to establish WISPER and WISPERX. It gives backgrounds, describes basic data and associated data handling procedures
and presents quantitative data analysis results and statistical information on both standards. The information is this document will enable fatigue specialists to judge whether the standard will suit their
test objectives and to check for correct application of the load sequences on their test equipment