Thermal ablation can be used in the treatment of liver, lung or kidney tumours and is usually performed with a curative intent; pain relief may be a by-product of such treatment. This chapter discusses the different types of thermal ablation as well as the choices available for both ablation technique and imaging guidance. The chapter also covers various aspects of the procedure process such as patient selection, post-procedural care, and complications, and ends with some key learning points.


We obtained modified humic acid-based cross-linked composite pre-tuned to the sorbed copper ion. The composite synthesis had three stages. At first, we obtained prepolymerization complex using humic acids iso-lated from Shubarkol deposit oxidized coals and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with template (CuSO4). We used ultrasonic activation for uniform dispersion of multi-walled carbon nanotubes. Second stage comprised copolymerization in the presence of amine and cross-linker; here the prepolymerization composite complex with the template was fixed in certain nodes of polymer network. At the third stage, acid hydrolysis destroyed the bonds of the template with the composite macromolecules, the template was re-moved, and imprints complementary to the template in shape, size, and functionality were formed and re-tained "molecular memory". Such tuning forms adsorption centers in the polymer network of the composite, which can repeatedly and highly specifically interact with the template, and highly selectively extract target molecules from solution, leading to significant increase in sorbent capacity. The reaction was controlled by direct and back titration, and added amine, which was determined using Elementar Unicube elemental ana-lyzer. The crosslinked composite can be used as a selective sorbent tuned to a specific metal ion.


In his fourth novel, Thomas Keneally returns to the setting his first, a Roman Catholic seminary in Sydney. On a first glance simdarities between The Place at Whitton and Three Cheers for the Paraclete would not seem to extend any further than this comparable locale. The Place at Whitton was a forceful thriller - breaking out from the conventions of its genre with some striking grotesqueries, and because of its black masses and ritual killings memorable in a gaudy way; but nonetheless it remained a limited thriller, never more than superficial in its handlings of psychology and society. With Three Cheers for the Paraclete Keneally is attempting the study of a conscience, of a priest in conflict with the authorities and structures of the system he is working in. Keneally clearly intends a serious consideration of his theme - and it is a theme that extends beyond this issue of one man's conscience into an engagement with the debate between tradition and revisionism within the Catholic church. Yet oddly, despite the autobiographical experience available to Keneally, an exseminarian, and despite the ostensible seriousness of the theme, there is little more inwardness, little more personal pressure behind his handling of the incidents, than there had been in the undisguisedly superficial Place at Whitton. That pressure of felt experience, of personal involvement, that was present in The Fear, is not conspicuous here.


PURPOSE: A method for processing a soft buffer for carrier aggregation and a related communication device are provided to reduce each partition size of the soft buffer by dividing the soft buffer into partitions which store an HARQ(hybrid automatic request) process. CONSTITUTION: A process starts(700). A plurality of weighted values corresponding to a plurality of CC(Component Carrier)s is determined for the soft buffer according to instructions(702). A plurality of sizes of a plurality of sub blocks is determined according to the plurality of weighted values(704). The soft buffer is divided into the plurality of sub blocks according to the plurality of sizes of the plurality of sub blocks. A plurality of HARQ processes with respect to the plurality of CCs is prepared in the plurality of sub blocks(706). The process is completed(708). [Reference numerals] (700) Start; (702) Determination of a plurality of weighted values corresponding to a plurality of CCs for a soft buffer according to instructions; (704) Determination of a plurality of sizes of a plurality of sub blocks according to the plurality of weighted values; (706) Preparation of a plurality of HARQ processes for the plurality of CCs in the plurality of sub blocks by dividing the soft buffer into the plurality of sub blocks according to the plurality of sizes of the plurality of sub blocks; (708) End


Few studies have examined the association between multivitamin use and the risk of stroke incidence and mortality, and the results remain inconclusive as to whether multivitamins are beneficial.


Fractures play a leading role in gas well productivity and rate maintenance capability in the development process of low and ultra-low permeability gas reservoirs.Special experimental study has been conducted with fractured cores of different sedimentary microfacies from a low permeability gas field.Stress sensitivity of semi-filled fractures and unfilled fractures has been analyzed in detail,and the change of fracture width with effective stress and its contribution difference to productivity have been evaluated.The experiment results indicate that unfilled fractures have strong stress sensitivity and contribute more to initial productivity of gas wells,while semi-filled fractures have weak stress sensitivity and contribute more to gas well productivity at middle or later stage.The production of ultra-low permeability gas reservoirs depends to a great extent on the ratio of unfilled to filled fractures.


This work investigates the effect of negative dielectrophoresis (DEP) on polystyrene particles inside an evaporating DI water droplet on a PDMS surface. Deposition patterns of actuated droplets transitioned from a scalloped rings to a striped deposition pattern as the particle diameter increased from 20 nm to 1 μm. Increased particle size dramatically increases the negative DEP force on particles that push them toward the lower field gradient expected in fluid between active electrodes. Interestingly, deposition patterns became more uniform when particle diameter was increased to 5 μm. This uniform pattern appears to be due to interfacial trapping as the diffusion rate of the large particles was significantly slower than the velocity of the descending interface. This work suggests that DEP can be used to control deposition patterns left by evaporating colloidal droplets, but further work examining the electric field gradient inside the droplet is required to determine if this technique can be applied to a wider range of particle sizes.


In their report "Energy transduction on the nanosecond time scale: Early structural events in a xanthopsin photocycle" (20 Mar., p. 1946), Benjamin Perman et al . discuss how proteins change when light energy is converted into a chemical signal in a halophilic phototrophic bacterium ([1][1]). It


The snake belief is one of the main contents of the Min cultural range,including the capital of Min area.Judging from the two symbols of the totem belief,it is obvious that the snake belief belongs to the phyletic belief.Therefore,its cultural connotation mainly consists of the following two types of image,"life initiating" and "escape of the disasters and rain producing",both of which are the natural result of the ancient people's apotheosis of snake.


Research objective: To discuss the relation between corporate philanthropy (CP) and territorial development approach to CP in Brazil from the corporate social managers perspectives. eoretical framework: Corporate philanthropy and corporate community relations. Methodology: Narrative approach based on a two-fold data collection strategy: semi-structured 13 interviews and a focus group with 13 social managers with corporate social managers of large companies, foundations and institutes from different Brazilian regions. Results: ree main perspectives of corporate social managers make sense of the role of corporate social investment in fostering territorial development: (i) institutional capabilities and social participation; (ii) and aligning of corporate social investment to public policies; and (iii) shared value and social license to operate. Originality: A comprehensive understanding of the territorial approach for development projects implemented by corporate social managers in Brazil. eoretical and practical contributions: Contributions to the literature about corporate philanthropy, corporate community relations and, about the territorial development agenda in Brazil. Practical implications on the roles and responsibilities of businesses and its impacts on territorial development and, on the other hand, of the corporate social manager and its contribution to the development of the localities where a company operates.


We propose a novel framework to simultaneously and accurately measure the three-dimensional (3-D) shape and 3-D motion of a dynamic deformable surface from a calibrated stereo image sequence. The framework mainly aims at the problems of error accumulation and local illumination change. It performs the measurement with a random gray triangle pattern marked on the object surface via the following steps: first, the triangles in all images are detected using a method we proposed; second, the matching triangles between the first, left, and right frame in the stereo image sequence are located by the proposed local triangle descriptor and an extension of the epipolar constraint to triangles; third, the spatiotemporal triangle correspondences in the subsequent frames are obtained by triangle tracking, and the tracking errors are detected and recovered by the local 3-D topology. The performance is evaluated in challenging simulated experiments, and the effectiveness is demonstrated by real surfaces. The experimental results show that the proposed framework is effective and robust to cope with error accumulation and the influence of local illumination change.


In this study, the thermal comfort of clothing was subjectively evaluated in cold environmental conditions. Different male business clothing systems, made of standard textiles (wool and wool-mixture), and materials that contain phase-change materials (PCMs), were developed. The research was performed with the help of test subjects in a computer controlled climatic chamber, in artificially created cold environmental conditions, at ambient temperatures of 10 °C, 5 °C and 0 °C, and with physical activity that is as reminiscent as possible of the real life situation of wearing clothes, such as sitting and walking on a treadmill. The impact of particular business clothing systems and varied cold environmental conditions on the wearer's subjective feeling of thermal comfort was determined with a questionnaire and an assessment scale of thermal comfort defined by standard ISO 10551:2004. For this purpose, an analysis of the subjective evaluation of thermal comfort, the desired thermal state, the acceptability of the current situation and their personal tolerance of the environment, was made before, during and after each experiment. The results of the research show that subjective evaluations of thermal comfort directly depend on environmental conditions, as well as clothing systems. From this subjective evaluation it can be seen that in spite of lower mean skin temperatures the test subjects felt comfortable at an ambient temperature of 10 °C . It is also evident that the analysed clothing systems are not suitable for wearing below an ambient temperature of 0 °C, because the test subjects felt uncomfortable.


Aims:  The aim of the study was to evaluate the in vitro antibacterial activity of glucosinolates and their enzymatic hydrolysis product against bacteria isolated from the human intestinal tract.


The article probes into the problems and their solutions in offering research courses and puts forward further steps. It has been proved that it is very important to offer research courses in colleges for professional training,which can be included in the whole course system with an overall design and shares the specific task entrcested by cultivation goals.


The status of several neutrino experiments now being constructed and others under development is reviewed. These experiments have the potential to provide higher statistics, sensitivity to all neutrino types and different energy thresholds than presently available. The results from this next generation of experiments could provide an explanation for the low solar neutrino fluxes observed to date.


The arthropod-borne flaviviruses include tick- and mosquito-borne viruses that are causes of globally significant emerging diseases. These single-stranded RNA viruses are exquisitely sensitive to the antiviral effects of host interferons. However, both the tick- and mosquito-borne flaviviruses are capable of modulating the interferon response. Despite the high degree of similarity among members of the flavivirus genus, the mechanisms employed by individual viruses to modulate interferon responses differ. This review considers the arthropod-borne flaviviruses and the host interferon response as a pair of forces, the action and the reaction. The interaction of these two forces has led to a complex relationship between virus and host. An increased understanding of these interactions will likely facilitate the rational design of novel vaccines and therapeutics.


Experimentally, the bacteriostatic effectiveness of sulfathiazole (2-[paraaminobenzenesulfonamido]-thiazole) in vitro is equal to, 1 and in many instances greater than, 2 that of sulfanilamide and other derivatives against infections produced by such organisms as Staphylococcus aureus, 3 Bacillus proteus, 1a Streptococcus (hemolytic), 4 Pneumococcus 5 (types I, II and III) 5 and Gonococcus. 2a It is reasonable to expect satisfactory clinical results in ophthalmology if an adequate concentration of the drug can be introduced into the ocular fluids and tissues. The experiments of Bellows and Chinn and others 6 have shown that oral therapy is inadequate. As far as is known, the local application of sulfathiazole has not been investigated experimentally. 7 The local application of other compounds of the group has met with limited experimental success. Except in the case of sulfanilamide, the concentrations obtained in the eye were too low to be of clinical value. Mengel 7a obtained a


Hydrophobic nano-silica filled PDMS composite pervaporation membranes were prepared and their sorption and diffusion properties were investigated.The solubility parameter(δM) and permeability coefficient(PE) for ethanol in the composite membrane were calculated.The addition of SiO2 increased the solubility of ethanol in the membranes(SE).When the content of SiO2 in PDMS increased from zero to 10 %,PE at 60 ℃ of the membrane increased from 1.42×10-13 m2,the SE at 30 ℃increased from 0.0026 to 0.0064.Further increasing SiO2,PE increased first and then decreased.High temperatures would be beneficial to the permeation of ethanol.The pervaporation properties of PDMS composite membranes were studied with ethanol/water system and the results showed that it was very similar to its permeability coefficient.


Let x: C -* PnC be a holomorphic curve of finite lower order t, and let A = {c>} be an arbitrary finite family of holomorphic curves c>: C -* (PnC) * satisfying T(r, a) = o(T(r, x)) (r -* oo). Suppose x is nondegenerate with respect to A, and A is in general position. We show the following general defect relations: (1) x has at most n deficient curves in A if , = 0. (2) ZEA&(A 6(a) < n if 0 < / < 1/2. (3) ccA 6(ca) < [2np] + 1 if 1/2 < t < +X.


The principle of luminescence dating is based on the fact that a crystal (phosphor) can accumulate radiation energy in natural environment with a stable radiation field, and then can emit photons when stimulated by other forms of energy. There are different efficiencies of absorbing energy and luminescence responses to different radiation for various phosphors. Therefore, much knowledge originating from different fields has been used in the luminescence dating even if there is no idea itself in the field. The author has developed BG2003 luminescent spectrograph and a selective frequency luminescent technique to improve the luminescence dating in last few years. The history of luminescence dating is reviewed and the reason for developing this new technique is described in detail.


Antagonism of the CD154/CD40 pathway is a highly effective means of inducing long‐term graft survival in preclinical models. Using a fully allogeneic murine transplant model, we found that CD154 blockade was more effective in prolonging graft survival than was CD40 blockade, raising the possibility that CD154 binds a second receptor. To test this, we queried the impact of CD154 antagonism in the absence of CD40. Data indicated that anti‐CD154 functioned to reduce graft‐infiltrating CD8+ T cells in both WT and CD40−/− hosts. Because it has recently been reported that CD154 can ligate CD11b, we addressed the impact of blocking CD154‐CD11b interactions during transplantation. We utilized a specific peptide antagonist that prevents CD154 binding of CD11b but has no effect on CD154‐CD40 interactions. CD154:CD11b antagonism significantly increased the efficacy of anti‐CD40 in prolonging allograft survival as compared to anti‐CD40 plus control peptide. Mechanistically, CD154:CD11b antagonism functioned to reduce the frequency of graft‐infiltrating CD8+ T cells and innate immune cells. These data therefore demonstrate that blocking CD154 interactions with both CD40 and CD11b is required for optimal inhibition of alloimmunity and provide an explanation for why CD40 blockers may be less efficacious than anti‐CD154 reagents for the inhibition of allograft rejection.


Objective To study the porcelain-fused-to-mental crown. Methods Choose PFM crown cases randomly,following up 238 cases with 309 teeth in 2 months-2years.Results Loosing 5,ginginval9,no loosing root fracture. Conclusion To save the tissue of tooth and restore the defect with cast post-core.


High pressure behaviour of liquid GeO2 is investigated by means of molecular dynamics simulations in the pressure range 0-20 GPa and at various temperatures. In agreement with the recent experiments (PRL, 92, 155506, 2004), Ge-O coordination increases under compression. For 1650 K, at ~11.5 GPa the structure becomes 6 coordinated with a discontinuous change in the density. The transition from the low density liquid (LDL) to high density liquid (HDL) is found to be reversible and the transition pressure increases with the temperature. At lower temperatures, the low density to high density transition is found to be continuous, but with the coexistence of two structures.


In the isolated or in situ myocardium the positive inotropic effect of ouabain was associated with an increased or unchanged K + concentration while Na + was not significantly changed. Higher concentrations of ouabain decreased tension in the isolated heart and produced irregularities in the ECG of the intact rabbit. Intracellular K + was unchanged in the intact rabbit myocardium and decreased only after the negative inotropic effect appeared in the isolated myocardium. These results suggest that changes in contractility produced by ouabain are not related to changes in intracellular K + or Na + concentrations. The Hajdu hypothesis of a causal relationship between intracellular K + , Na + and contractility is not supported by our experiments because alterations in intracellular K + follow rather than precede the inotropic effects of ouabain. A relationship between K + loss and the uncoupling of oxidative phosphorylation may be indicated since Lee and co-workers (1960) have reported that increased oxygen uptake also follows rather than precedes the "toxic" effects of ouabain on contractility.


In the automotive industry, embedded control processes determine the most important characteristics of the developed embedded systems. In this paper we present the "windshield wiper" case study, which is an application of process family engineering [1], an approach to software product line engineering that takes into account the importance of control processes in the development of embedded control systems. High-grade automation as provided by the tool chain described in this article leads to a high reliability and performance of the produced applications.


FRASSINETTI'S Fabula Atellana (1953) was mainly concerned with the larger problems of this obscure and interesting form of drama; though he then had the present work in hand, and there and elsewhere he has already published suggestions on the text and interpretation of particular fragments. This critical edition is designed to replace the relevant part of Ribbeck's Comicorum Romanorum Fragmenta* (1898), the obsolete standard text, for which the Atellana Fabula of D. Romano (1953) provided no acceptable substitute (see the review by O. Skutsch, Gnomon 1954, 57 ff.). All our texts are brief quotations—the overwhelming majority by Nonius Marcellus; and Lindsay's Nonius, which appeared in 1903, is 'fundamentum et quasi columen huiusce editionis' (p. viii). Frassinetti adds a little to Lindsay's app. crit., and not always wisely, from Onions's reports of readings (in his Nonius i-iii and in Ribbeck); outside Nonius, he has modernized Ribbeck from the present standard editions, for instance Lindsay's two editions of Festus and Barwick's of Charisius; and he has sifted the writings of modern scholars for new conjectures and interpretations; but the gain, as he says, is not large, and it is offset by his own abridgements and inaccuracies in reporting his sources. Pp. xvii-xx give some obvious examples: why, for instance, contract 'Voss. lat. fol. 73' to 'Voss. lat. 73' and '4*°. 116' to '4. 116'; why cite the sigla for Festus without F(!), or those for Priscian without ALK, which are all to be quoted later; why credit poor Passerat with a book of comedies instead of a book of conjectures ? In the text (I choose examples from Pomponius): 21-22 R (20 F), the 'Mue.' (bis) is G. F. W. Miiller, not L. Miiller as the abbreviation suggests; 26 (25 F) and 87-89 (83-85 F) have apparently lost their critical notes; 67-68 (63 F), 'puella scripsi' is untrue, as we learn from Ribbeck; 160, inquit codd.—hence the attempts by some editors to preserve it; 179-80 (cf. Novius 16 (17 F)), Lindsay's note has been woefully misunderstood, and in the former case misleadingly conflated with Ribbeck's. A palmary misprint on p. 80 credits Sulla with writing aarvpiKal Kco/ncoStat 'rfj irwrpia) ^ovrj". What a pity it was not to persevere and get these things right: we have quite enough to think about in the fragments, without doing our editor's job for him.


The goal of this article is to provide an explicit algorithmic construction of formal $F$-manifold structures, formal Frobenius manifold structures, and higher residue pairings on the primitive middle-dimensional cohomology $\mathbb{H}$ of a smooth projective Calabi-Yau complete intersection variety $X$ defined by homogeneous polynomials $G_1(\underline x), \dots, G_k(\underline x)$. Our main method is to analyze a certain dGBV (differential Gerstenhaber-Batalin-Vilkovisky) algebra $\mathcal{A}$ obtained from the twisted de Rham complex which computes $\mathbb{H}$. More explicitly, we introduce a notion of \textit{a weak primitive form} associated to a solution of the Maurer-Cartan equation of $\mathcal{A}$ and the Gauss-Manin connection, which is a weakened version of Saito's primitive form (\cite{Saito}). In addition, we provide an explicit algorithm for a weak primitive form based on the Grobner basis in order to achieve our goal. Our approach through the weak primitive form can be viewed as a unifying link (based on Witten's gauged linear sigma model, \cite{W93}) between the Barannikov-Kontsevich's approach to Frobenius manifolds via dGBV algebras (non-linear topological sigma model, \cite{BK}) and Saito's approach to Frobenius manifolds via primitive forms and higher residue pairings (Landau-Ginzburg model, \cite{ST}).


he aim of this research is to determine if there is a significant difference between the socio-demographic population groups in relation to financial literacy in Mexican adults, between 18 and 70 years old. It is assumed that there is a significant difference in financial literacy levels according to age, gender, educational level, residence, region, marital status, household position, economic dependents, work conditions, job position, income, material and financial wealth, and financial experience. The method is derived from the approaches of Lusardi and Mitchell (2011a), OECD (2018), OECD (2017) and Atkinson and Messy (2012). Data from the Mexican survey ENIF (2018) are used. The methodology and the use of microeconomic data provide originality on the research of financial literacy for Mexico. The results of the Probit econometric model show sociodemographic variables that help to predict the probability that Mexican adults will answer the financial literacy questions correctly and provide evidence on specific groups of the Mexican population that present significant differences in financial literacy. Particularly this refers to those with low educational level, women, the disabled, retirees, low-income people, those who are not included in the financial system, as well as those who lack training in financial education issues. The findings can be useful for the design of public policies on financial literacy, the basic financial knowledge that the population should acquire in order to make informed decisions.


PURPOSE: To provide a diaphragm which is higher in waterproof property than a conventional diaphragm, excellent in flexibility, improved in consistency in mass production, long in durability, excellent in versatility and tensile strength, inexpensive in assembly and manufacture, and simple in design. CONSTITUTION: A cloth sheet of warp-knitted synthetic fibers having interstices between the fibers is manufactured, the strong tension is applied to the sheet, an elastic polymer coated layer is applied only to one side of the sheet, the coated sheet is placed in a die, the coated sheet is heated and pressurized in the die to press the elastic polymer into the interstices between fibers, an elastomer 88 is cured, and finally, a diaphragm 40 is individually taken out of the die from a formed diaphragm sheet 108'.


The presence of sucrase‐isomaltase (SI), a glycoprotein hydrolase normally restricted to the brush border membrane of the enterocytes of the small intestine, was investigated in tumours which developed in nude mice inoculated with six human colon carcinoma cell lines (HT‐29, Caco‐2, HRT‐18, HCT‐8R, SW‐480, and CO‐115). Foetal and normal adult human small intestines and colons were used as controls. SI was studied by (I) immunofluores‐cence with rabbit antibodies raised against purified human small intestine SI; (2) polyacrylamide gel elec‐trophoresis and immunoblotting; and (3) determination of the enzyme activity. SI was antigenically present, and enzymatically active, in all the tumours derived from Caco‐2 and HT‐29 cells. The presence of the enzyme was associated with that of typical brush borders at transmission electron microscopy examination. SI was absent from the tumours developed with the other four cell lines, as well as from the normal adult colon mucosa. SI was also present and active in the colons of mid‐gestation foetuses, ranging in ages between 20 and 28 weeks; it was absent from the colons of late‐gestation foetuses. The presence of SI in tumours derived from two cell lines suggests that this enzyme is a marker, so far unsuspected, of certain human colon cancers, and that the differentiation pattern of these particular cancers closely resembles that of the foetal colon.


Tension piles are widely used for resisting uplift loads of underground structures such as deep basements and underground transformer substation,and as foundations for tall buildings subjected to high bending moments.Based on the axial Winkler foundation model,both elastic closed form solutions and elasto-plastic solutions using a unified ultimate skin friction along pile shaft in conjunction with finite difference methods are presented in this paper.Accordingly,a spreadsheet program is developed.Using these solutions and the program,displacement and ultimate uplift capacity of tension piles are examined in detail;effects of modulus of subgrade reaction k_s for the Winkler model, unified ultimate skin friction coefficients N_c,α_s,n and excavation depth on pile displacement and ultimate uplift capacity are investigated. It indicates that the values of N_c and k_s have significant influence on the displacement,while uplift capacity of tension piles is dominated by value of N_c and overburden stress.


Synthesis gas (syngas) can be produced by several of industrial processes such as steam reforming of hydrocarbons or partial oxidation. An attractive route is carbon dioxide (CO2) reforming of methane (CH4), also known as dry reforming (DR). This reaction is highly endothermic, however, it offers the advantage of utilizing the green house gases CH4 and CO2 it offers to generate an equimolar ratio of CO and H2 in the syngas product. Group VIII metals are often applied as catalysts in DR despite the drawback of activity losses due to carbon deposition and metal sintering [2] . In the present study, the incorporation of Ni into an Al2O3 network to form a spinel was applied to suppress metal sintering. Different catalysts with a bimodal, hierarchical pore structure and varying composition were synthesized via a sol-gel process and investigated in DR at ambient pressure under conditions of n(CH4)/n(CO2) = 1, T = 1023 – 1123 K and GHSV = 6000 h -1 . To confirm the positive effect of the bimodal pore structure of the spinel on catalyst stability, several compositions including different metals (Ni, Co, Rh) and loadings were synthesized and catalytically tested. The spinels are highly active in DR. After 15 h on-stream, the bimodal Ni and Ni-Rh catalysts show CH4 and CO2 conversions near the thermodynamic equilibrium and a syngas composition of > 0.95, indicating only limited influence of carbon deposition. To evaluate the catalytic potential of the hierarchically structured materials, the activity and stability of the spinel containing 4 mol-% Ni was studied under a broad range of pretreatment and reaction conditions. The pretreatment and reaction temperature have the most significant effect on the catalytic performance. Reducing the catalyst prior to reaction in a stream of 5 vol.-% H2 in Ar (total flow rate: 100 ml min -1 ) leads to a high in CH4 conversion of up to 89% whereas the reduction temperature (1023 K vs. 1123 K) has only a small influence. As expected, increasing the reaction temperature to 1123 K strongly affects the endothermic reaction resulting in the highest observed CH4 and CO2 conversion (90 %). However, the molar ratio n(H2)/n(CO) was lower at 1023 K indicating the importance of unwanted side reactions as also supported by the larger amounts of deposited carbon. The present contribution, thus, demonstrates that the introduction of Ni into a bimodal alumina network is an attractive approach towards highly active and stable DR catalysts. These spinel-based catalysts provide a promising alternative to the widely applied supported (noble) metal catalysts in reforming reactions.


The testimony of witnesses is a kind of very important evidence.The true or false of the testimony of witnesses must be judged by special procedure.The pattern of inquiring witnesses of cross-examination is used by Common Law Legal System.In the Common Law Legal System countries,the client or his lawyer only can inquire witnesses,and the judge don′t inquire witnesses initiatively.In Continent Law Legal System countries,providing testimony is the citizen obligation for witnesses to his country.So inquiring witnesses is the duty of the judge.The judge and the client both can inquire witnesses in China.But The Civil Procedure Law Of China don′t prescribe the systems of inquiring witnesses.China should learn the other counties′successful experiences and try to build the pattern of inquire witnesses suiting to herself.


Aim: The objective of this study was to point out pupils ' knowledge level about the contraindications of cardiovascular diseases of the heart like Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM), Hypertensive Heart Disease (HHD) and Pulmona ry Heart Disease (PHD) as health education strategy in preventive health cased at Un iversity Secondary School, Njala. Method: The researcher interviewed mainly high school pupil s with a sampled number of one hundred and twenty (n=120). 46% (n=55) female a nd 54% (n=65) male; 67% (n=80) Christians; 33% (n=40) Muslims; were selected using the stratified random sampling. Also stratified were58% (n=70) from the option Pure Scie n e-to-General Science;42% (n=50) from the option Social Science-to-Applied Art; 29.2 % (n=35) from SSS(One-to-Two); 70.8% (n=85) from SSS(Three-to-Four);62.8% (n=75) w ithin the age circle of (13-to17);37.5% (n=45) within the age circle of (18-to-25 +) in years. Results: The variables of the finding were tested@ level of significance p < 0.05 through a statistical instrument of T-test. Analysis from the study objective, shows ne gative skewedness in all three variables as placed in tabulated values (t-scores of-0.802, 0 .529 and 2.129) of 2, 4 and 6 when tested@p < 0.05. Conclusion: In summing up due to the negative skewedness in all of the variables tested, the finding has demonstrated majo rity view of high school pupils' low level of knowledge about the contraindications of c ardiovascular diseases of the heart as health education strategy in preventive health case d at University Secondary School.The researchers recommend that health education as a te aching subject be included in the schools' curriculum to help in the teaching of prev entive health to school pupils. Bebeley Samuel Joseph Ph.D. Scholar Shanghai University of Sport, China Email: firstname.lastname@example.com ; firstname.lastname@example.com Laggao Sam Augustine HOD Human Kinetics and Health Education Njala University, Sierra Leone Tucker Henry Joe Lecturer Human Kinetics and Health Education Njala University, Sierra Leone


Based on the investigation of village sewage quality and quantity around Guilin,a pilot study site at Shiziyan village,is chosen and build the contact oxidation-constructed wetland system to treat village sewage from the plant species Ligustrum quihoni Carr,Schefflera octophylla,Ficus microcarpa cv.Golden Leaves and Canna indica L.The research shows that the Indica Canna wetland has the best purification efficiency after 1 year operation,with the mean value of 90.2% for COD_(Cr),95.8% for SS,71.1% for NH_(3)-N,73.7% for TN,and 69.5% for TP.The quality of the treated sewage can meet the "Quality standard for reclaimed wastewater reused as scenic water"(CJ/T 95-2000).The system works steady and effectively,and no more sludge treatment.


The intense demand for fluorescence-based point of care (POC) DNA diagnostics is driving developments to reduce the size of instrumentation, imposing limitations on the optical hardware that can be included. Here we describe a combination of instrumentation and fluorogenic probes to detect three fluorophores using two excitation and two detection channels.


This study aims to know the role of Village-Owned Enterprises (BUMDES) in society economic empowerment at Mas-mas Village, Batukliang Utara District, and Central Lombok Regency. This study was descriptive qualitative approach. The study was conducted from June to July at Mas-Mas Village, Batukliang Utara, and Central Lombok. The data collection techniques used interview, documentation, and observation with study subjects, namely the Head of Village, BUMDES management and some society of Mas-mas. The researcher used techniques of source triangulation. Data analysis in this study uses an interactive analysis model that is analysis using data reduction, data presentation, and verification and conclusions. The results of this study indicated that the role of BUMDES Lintang Mas had not been maximized in society economic empowerment at society of Mas-mas Village; it can be seen from the types of businesses run by BUMDES. In addition, the level of society participation was still low.


Walking training is one of the most important rehabilitation processes with paralysis patient. Walking training by using an orthosis can help advancing a patient's independent level. However, existing orthoses have some serious demerit of mechanical problem that the knee joint is locked in the state where it is completely extended, which increases energy consumption and fatigue. For this reason, it is suggested, for more practical orthosis, that the knee joint should be placed and it should have capability of suspending patient's weight. In this paper, 1-DOF walking orthosis which compensates the demerit of the existing orthosis and secures patient's mobility has been proposed. New orthosis has been designed under the following two premises. First, the knee joint of the orthosis was designed fold in order for the orthosis to move in a walking pattern similar to that of a normal person. Second, the knee joint was designed to extend during the swing phase and lock safely during the stance phase.


Partial differential equation (PDE) based surfaces own a lot of advantages, compared to other types of 3D representation. For instance, fewer variables are required to represent the same 3D shape; the position, tangent, and even curvature continuity between PDE surface patches can be naturally maintained when certain conditions are satisfied, and the physics-based nature is also kept. Although some works applied implicit PDEs to 3D surface reconstruction from images, there is little work on exploiting the explicit solutions of PDE to this topic, which is more efficient and accurate. In this paper, we propose a new method to apply the explicit solutions of a fourth-order partial differential equation to surface reconstruction from multi-view images. The method includes two stages: point clouds data are extracted from multi-view images in the first stage, which is followed by PDE-based surface reconstruction from the obtained point clouds data. Our computational experiments show that the reconstructed PDE surfaces exhibit good quality and can recover the ground truth with high accuracy. A comparison between various solutions with different complexity to the fourth-order PDE is also made to demonstrate the power and flexibility of our proposed explicit PDE for surface reconstruction from images.


Closed loop transmit diversity has already been adopted by 3GPP for MIMO HSDPA in the form of TxAA and its dual stream counterpart, D-TxAA. While both these transmission techniques provide performance gains for single user (SU) scenarios, they both introduce multi-user interference in the downlink in multi-user(MU) scenarios. In this paper, we study the extension of these transmission techniques to the multi-user case which entail minimal changes to the existing standard. To this end, we consider the classical MMSE chip equalizer receivers that feed back beamforming weights so as to maximize the receive SINR at each user equipment (UE). Given that the base station (BS) has to use these weights to transmit data to the UEs, we compare practical and realistic strategies that BS can employ in order to maximize downlink capacity. We derive the SINR expression for MMSE chip equalizer receivers for the general case of MU-TxAA which is used at the receivers to select optimum feedback weights. We investigate different multiuser schemes for HSDPA in the downlink (DL), compare their performance and suggest optimal strategies for single and dual stream transmission for both single and multi-antenna receivers and corroborate our arguments with simulation results. We show that for the case of single antenna receivers, scheduling users with same beamforming weights maximizes downlink capacity in TxAA. For the D-TxAA with multiple antennas at receivers (MIMO) we show that SDMA outperforms spatial multiplexing in terms of maximizing DL capacity.


A multiobjective genetic algorithm(GA) has been developed by introducing Pareto ranking and fitness-sharing techniques.Performance of the cascade airfoils was evaluated based on the two dimensional Navier-Stokes equations.To demonstrate the feasibility of the algorithm,a multiobjective design optimization of cascade airfoils was performed for minimizing the total pressure loss coefficient and maximizing the high pressure ratio at the same time.The optimization results show that the present method is effective and efficient in multiobjective aerodynamic design optimization.


Text-based passwords are the most common mechanism for authenticating humans to computer systems. To prevent users from picking passwords that are too easy for an adversary to guess, system administrators adopt password-composition policies (e.g., requiring passwords to contain symbols and numbers). Unfortunately, little is known about the relationship between password-composition policies and the strength of the resulting passwords, or about the behavior of users (e.g., writing down passwords) in response to different policies. We present a large-scale study that investigates password strength, user behavior, and user sentiment across four password-composition policies. We characterize the predictability of passwords by calculating their entropy, and find that a number of commonly held beliefs about password composition and strength are inaccurate. We correlate our results with user behavior and sentiment to produce several recommendations for password-composition policies that result in strong passwords without unduly burdening users.


Two supramolecular complexes, [Cd(bimb)2Cl2] (1) and [Cd(bimb)(DMF)Cl2]·DMF (2) [bimb=4,4′-bis(imidazol-1-ylmethyl)biphenyl], were synthesized by reactions of CdCl2·2.5H2O with bimb ligand in ethanol and N,N′-dimethylformamide (DMF), respectively, and their structures were determined by X-ray crystallography. Complex 1 is an infinite 2D grid network bridged by bimb ligands, and the 2D sheets were further linked by C–H ⃛Cl hydrogen bonds to form a polycatenated 3D framework. Complex 2 has dicadmium(II) di-μ-chloride units which are connected by bimb bridging ligands to form an infinite non-interpenetrating 2D network. The results provide a nice example of the solvent system exerting a great effect on the construction of supramolecular frameworks.


IN Francis Nicholson's day, "strange" meant "added or introduced from outside, adventitious, external." For the English colonist viewing Nicholson as an "outside" force obtruded into local politics and society, as "adventitious" in his representation of a royal authority whose scope was questioned by some American political leaders, as concerned with the "external" functions of defense, diplomacy, and intercolonial co-operation, Nicholson's career in America was indeed "strange." During Nicholson's years in public life, from i678 to I728, the royal governors were the tools of the Crown when the Crown symbolized authority to the English, notoriously the most rebellious people of the western world. To preserve social order the Crown turned to the only disciplined force available, the army, and installed army officers as governors and soldiers as garrisons for the strategic places of the realm, whether English towns, African ports, or American colonies. The Revolution of i688 neither blunted this drive of the executive to impose social order nor removed the army as the ready instrument for its purpose. During much of the remaining forty years of Nicholson's career, the Crown progressively tightened its control of the colonies through imperial administrators who conceived of government as an army duty and whose political and social ideas were largely formed by military posts. These posts included a variety of governorships in England, on the continent, and in every area of the empire, governorships which were viewed as paramilitary positions by the Crown and treated as such by the officers in government. Army commissioners inaugurated the imperial service of most royal governors, more than 6o per cent of whom, in Nicholson's lifetime (i655-I728), were career army officers.1 Officers who served in the same


A novel technique of integrating resonant-tunneling diodes (RTDs) with pseudomorphic high-electron-mobility transistors (pHEMTs) is demonstrated. A proton was implanted through the pHEMT layers to convert the RTD structure underneath to a high-resistivity buffer without degrading the performance of the pHEMT. The cutoff frequency is 16 GHz for a 1.5-/spl mu/m-gate-length pHEMT on such an implanted buffer. Substituting the conventional deep mesa etch with ion implantation maintains a highly planar surface. Such a monolithically integrated RTD/pHEMT oscillator is described.


Tendon-pulley based motion/force transmission has been widely used in surgical robots. Such mechanisms, however, exhibit substantially nonlinear behavior due to tendon compliance and tendon-pulley friction. Although the power loss due to tendon-pulley friction has been broadly studied in belt-drive systems in automation and automotive industry, the concept seems to be largely unknown outside these disciplines. A tendon-pulley transmission modeling scheme was recently developed by the authors based on concepts from tendon elastic creep theory. This paper focuses on the experimental validation of the model in tendon-driven robots. Motion transmission of the first three joints of the RAVEN II® surgical robot is analyzed, and backlash-like hysteresis within the transmission systems is modeled using the proposed scheme. The modeling accuracy is experimentally evaluated, showing more than 50% improvement in comparison with the conventional friction/compliance-free models.


Researches has revealed that, aeroacoustic problems require special designs on numerical schemes, such as developing low dissipation, low dispersion schemes, to get high short wave resolution. For this purpose, optimized schemes were developed, represented by dispersion-relation-preserving (DRP) [1]. And compact schemes [2, 3] has the nature of low dispersion and low dissipation in wave-number space and high order with small stencil. On the other hand, to obtain oscillation-free numerical solutions in the practical non-linear shock-acoustic wave interaction problems, high-order shock-capturing schemes, such as ENO, WENO schemes should be implemented. In order to unite the advantages of both the optimized DRP schemes and WENO scheme, optimized WENO schemes were developed [4]. Fig. 1 shows the wave-number dispersive errors of relevant schemes. However, the accuracy of the above mentioned optimized schemes are degraded several orders, with respect to the corresponding original high-oder schemes. Furthermore, the optimized schemes have another disadvantage, that is, the optimized wave-number range is specified and narrow, which can not capture the unknown broadband acoustic wave, which exists generally in practical problems, especially for direct noise computation or noise source computation in hybrid method [5]. Fig. 2 shows the analysis property of optimized WENO scheme and the original WENO scheme. The practical computation gets the similar figure. Optimization works only in PPW is between around 4 to 10.


Some series of 1,3-thiazolidin-4-ones and indoles incorporating furoxan moiety were synthesized from anethole, a main component of star anise oil. The structure of these compounds and the intermediates was examined by elemental and spectral data. Ten compounds were screened against some bacteria and fungi.


Physical activity (PA) is a factor that may have an influence on the symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD). The aim of this study was to identify the potential determinants of spontaneous PA in a PD patient group. A total of 134 PD patients aged 65.2 ± 9.2 years with a Hoehn–Yahr scale score ≤4 and a Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) score ≥24 were examined. For the study's purposes, the authors analyzed age, sex, education, history of PD, dopaminergic treatment, the severity of PD symptoms using Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), and Hoehn–Yahr scale. Additionally, all participants were evaluated through a set of scales for specific neuropsychiatric symptoms including depression, anxiety, apathy, fatigue, and sleep disorders. A linear regression analysis was used with backward elimination. In the total explanatory model, for 12% of the variability in activity (R2 = 0.125; F(16.133) = 2.185; p < 0.01), the significant predictor was starting therapy with the dopamine agonist (DA) (β= 0.420; t= 4.068; p = 0.000), which was associated with a longer duration of moderate PA. In the total explanatory model, for more than 13% of the variance in time spent sitting (R2 = 0.135; F(16.130) = 2.267; p < 0.01), the significant predictors were secondary education and the results of the UPDRS. The patients with secondary and vocational education, those starting treatment with DA and those with a less severe degree of Parkinson's symptoms (UPDRS), spent less time sitting in a day. It is possible to identify determinants of spontaneous PA. It may elucidate consequences in terms of influence on modifiable conditions of PA and the proper approach to patients with unmodifiable PA factors.


1. To determine kinetic parameters (Vrnax, Km) for cytochrome P450 (CYP) mediated metabolic pathways, nonlinear least squares regression is commonly used to fit a model equation (e.g. Michaelis Menten [MM]) to sets of data points (reaction velocity vs substrate concentration). This method can also be utilized to determine the parameters for more complex mechanisms involving allosteric or multi-enzyme systems. Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC), or an estimation of improvement of fit as successive parameters are introduced in the model (F-test), can be used to determine whether application of more comple models is helpful. To evaluate these approaches, we have examined the complex enzyme kinetics of amitriptyline (AMI) Ndemethylation in vitro by human liver microsomes. 2. For a 15-point nortriptyline (NT) formation rate vs substrate (AMI) concentration curve, a two enzyme model, consisting of one enzyme with MM kinetics ( Vmax=1.2 nmol min-1 mg-1, Km= 24 j1M) together with a sigmoidal component (described by an equation equivalent to the Hill equation for cooperative substrate binding; Vrnax=2.1 nmol min-1 mg-1, K'=70 j1M; Hill exponent n=2.34), was favoured according to AIC and the F-test. 3. Data generated by incubating AMI under the same conditions but in the presence of 10 am ketoconazole (KET), a CYP3A3/4 inhibitor, were consistent with a single enzyme model with substrate inhibition ( Vmax=0· 74 nmol min-1 mg-1, Km=186 j1M K1=0.0028 j1M-1). 4. Sulphaphenazole (SPA), a CYP2C9 inhibitor, decreased the rate of NT formation in a concentration dependent manner, whereas a polyclonal rat liver CYP2C11 antibody, inhibitory for S-mephenytoin 4'-hydroxylation in humans, had no important effect on this reaction. 5. Incubation of AMI with 50 /.~M SPA resulted in a curve consistent with a two enzyme model, one with MM kinetics (Vma,,=0.72 nmol min-' mg-1, Km= 54 j1M) the other with 'Hill-kinetics' (V~x=2.1 nmol min-1 mg-1, K'=195 j1M; n=2.38). 6. A fourth data-set was generated by incubating AMI with 10 ,uM KET and 50 ,uM SPA. The proposed model of best fit describes two activities, one obeying MM-kinetics (Vrnax=0.048 nmol min-' mg-1, Km= 7 j1M) and the other obeying MM kinetics but with substrate inhibition (Vmax-0·8 nmol min-' mg-1, Km=443 j1M, K,=0.0041 j1M-i). 7. The combination of kinetic modelling tools and biological data has permitted the discrimination of at least three CYP enzymes involved in AMI Ndemethylation. Two are identified as CYP3A3/4 and CYP2C9, although further work in several more livers is required to confirm that participation of the latter.


In this paper,by using the NCEP's objective analysis data and the every day rainfall pattern data of Hubei's different regions, the re-division standard about the onset and the ending of Meiyu season in Hubei is compared with the previous division standard got from 1980 to 2007, and the contradictions or differences between them are discussed. Considering the weather features, meteorological characteristics and forecasting service needs, the new division standard of Meiyu season is supplemented with the following: (1) The date when the ridge line of subtropical high at 150 hPa at 120°E moves north crossing 20°N,and keeps stably and rain in the east of Hubei in the next 3days and more, rainfall coding is over 9 in the east of Hubei and Jianghan plain is onset date of Meiyu. If the concatenation overcast and rainy days is over 3 days and the rainy day keeps in the next days, the begin date of the overcast and rainy is the onset of Meiyu. (2) The date when the ridge line of subtropical high at 150 hPa at 120°E moves to the north of 26°N and keeps stably in the next 3 days and more, and the rainfall coding is × or less than 1 in the east of Hubei and Jianghan plain is the ending date of Meiyu, or the date that rainfall ended before the subtropical high controlling this area continuously is the ending date of Meiyu.


Chronic disease and elderly health management issues existed in the technology,human resource,policy measures,systems and financing,etc.And suggestions from those above aspects were given to solve those issues,which included improving the technology,ensuring human resource,improving policy measures and health systems,and increasing financing.The research showed that the community health management for chronic disease and elderly had achieved effectiveness,but it was in a sub-optimal stage.


Even as he lay dying at Jarrow in 735, the Venerable Bede (see p. 69) was working and teaching, according to an account of the great scholar's last days given in a letter written by a pupil of his, Cuthbert. During this time, Bede, who was 'well versed in our [i.e. English] poetry', recited a poem 'in our own language' about death, for he was 'skilled in the art of poetry in his own language'. Cuthbert gives us only a Latin paraphrase of the poem, but from at least the ninth century onwards copies of his letter were accompanied by an OE version too. More than thirty such copies survive, some made as late as the sixteenth century. A third of them (all apparently in manuscripts made on the Continent) have a text in the Northumbrian dialect; the rest are in a WS recension. It is nice to think that Bede actually composed the song just before his death, but there can be no proof that he did not simply recite a poem already known to him. The theme is that favourite one of Christian writers, and one which Bede seems to have treated at length in a Latin poem, too – Judgement Day and the fate of the individual soul when it shall be called to account for its owner's conduct on earth.


Objective To study the relationship between sleeping disorder and anxiety of nursing undergraduate students.Methods Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) and Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAMA) were adopted to investigate 120 nursing undergraduate students randomly chosen from Nursing School of Jilin University to discuss the relationship between sleeping disorder and anxiety.Results An analysis of correlation and regression indicated that : PSQI and the total average scores of scores of HAMA were in a notably positive correlation, also anxiety could lead to sleeping disorder.Conclusions The nursing undergraduate students should pay more attention to their own sleep quality, reduce or eliminate the anxiety syndrome, thereby becoming a nurse with a sound mental and physical health.

Key words:
Sleeping disorder; Anxiety; Nursing undergraduate students


E. coli is most common host for recombinant protein production. Majority of the expression systems based on it depend on attendance of at least one pl


Abstract In this paper, passivity based stability conditions that are widely used in bilateral teleoperation context, are derived via Integral Quadratic Constraints (IQCs). It is shown that the results can be carried over to robust control setting in a lossless fashion. With slight modifications, many important results in the particular engineering domains can be collected under this framework.


This paper describes the acoustic survey carried out in a hospital school as part of the London South Bank University open plan classroom acoustics research project. The overall project aims to investigate compliance of open plan learning spaces with current acoustic standards, legislation and guidance by addressing classroom organisation and management in addition to the acoustic design of the classroom. Acoustic survey work includes collection of noise data and room acoustic parameters (reverberation time, speech transmission index etc). The hospital school provides classroom-based education for children who are mostly inpatients. A large proportion of children have special educational needs, including children with English as an additional language. The school has an open plan layout and is situated within a large glass fronted atrium. The design results in very poor conditions for speaking and listening in any classroom situation and the specialist pupil profile of the school exacerbates the situation. The specialist pupil profile of the school exacerbates the situation. This case study illustrates implications of extreme acoustic conditions in a school where extreme and difficult learning conditions are already part of daily life for teachers and children. The need for a performance standard for schools of this nature is addressed. UK STANDARDS AND GUIDANCE Building Bulletin 93: Acoustic design of schools Design advice on school acoustics has long been available in the form of Department for Education and Skills Building Bulletins, but since 2003 schools in England and Wales have been included within the Building Regulations and as such are subject to the acoustic performance standards set out in Building Bulletin 93 (BB93). This document aims to facilitate good speech intelligibility and prevent interference from noise in other areas of the school. These include criteria for ambient noise level, reverberation time and sound insulation, appropriate to enclosed classrooms. Speech intelligibility in open plan classrooms cannot be assured from the usual criteria, due to the complex layout of the room and the extent of multiple activities. Therefore in addition, BB93 requires the speech transmission index (STI) in the classroom to be assessed between teacher and student, and student to student, based on a specific open plan layout and activity plan. BB93 Acoustic criteria are summarised in Table 1. It should be noted that at the time the hospital used in the case study was built, schools were not subject to the Building Regulations and therefore the BB93 criteria were not adopted as design targets.


Biomedical technology companies believe people should be healthy, live well, and enjoy life. Striving to deliver on this promise as well as undertaking to solve the world's toughest healthcare chal...


The article is dedicated to reviewing the most effective scales used to assess the communication skills of medical workers in the training process. The scales were studied by comparative analysis, depending on their use in different professional medical groups. Determination of the effectiveness of the most frequently used scales was carried out by studying the measurement and evaluation of validity and reliability of the techniques in the conducted studies. Moreover, the assessment of research findings was examined by the effectiveness of interpersonal and communication skills training in the education process.


This case history is presented because of. a report made by Dr. Foster Kennedy of a number of cases of lesions of the frontal lobe which presented a definite syndrome, consisting of optic atrophy, loss of the sense of smell on the side of the lesion, and papilledema in the opposite optic disk. Cushing recently reported several cases of meningioma in his MacEwen memorial lecture in Glasgow, some of which presented the syndrome described by Kennedy in 1911. He showed one case with unilateral symptoms : especially loss of smell


Malaysia" (12). Ng offers an especially helpful reading of the ethno-religiously ambiguous, charismatic, messianic figure Tok Said and the multiracial rape of the equally culturally indefinite prostitute Sally Salmah in Fernando's fragmented, multi-perspective narrative, Scorpion Orchid. While Tok Said illustrates the possibilities and dangers of charismatic religious-political leaders, Sally operates as a problematically gendered metaphor for nation amidst the turmoil and betrayal of inchoate postcolonial Malaysia and also reflects women's continuing marginal status post-independence. After an overlong chapter on K.S. Maniam and an unduly harsh one on Shirley Lim, Ng makes a lamentably brief attempt to extend the Malaysian canon by giving a final chapter to Che Husna Azhari and Karim Raslan, two groundbreaking Malay writers of the mid-1990s. For Azhari and Karim, English signifies a licence to embrace modernity, connect with a global audience and explore "taboo" Malay issues, such as female sexuality and homosexuality. Ng's revealing explorations of intercultural tensions (as well as those between Malaysian Islam and modernity) are complemented by his readings of possibilities of resolution and healing through unity in otherness. This is especially apparent in Ng's discussion in chapter 2 of one of Malaysia's most fascinating writers, Lee Kok Liang, whose masterly deployment of ambivalence and irony fuses religion with race, gender and sexuality in exploring the sacred. Towards the end of his introduction Ng suggests that, "as Malaysia continues to struggle with issues of racial unity and religious intolerance, perhaps the solution for consolidating them lies in something as simple and yet meaningful as reading good literature" (23). On finishing Ng's thought-provoking study of once arrested, now "fast maturing" Malaysian anglophone writing (212), such a proposition certainly seems slightly less whimsical than it appeared on first encountering it.


Secondary hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS) is currently defined in the absence of genetic defects in complement genes (primary or atypical HUS, aHUS) or Shiga-toxin producing E. Coli infection (STEC-HUS). However, the role of complement genes abnormalities in secondary HUS is still a matter of debate as results coming from studies performed in adults are controversial. Moreover, genetic defects of complement regulation have been recently described in children with STEC-HUS, thus challenging the current HUS classification. The identification of a role of complement genes abnormalities in these patients could have important clinical implications for diagnosis and treatment. In this study, we assessed the presence of complement genes abnormalities in children with secondary HUS.

 We describe a case series of pediatric patients diagnosed with secondary HUS. All patients were screened for the presence of ADAMTS13 auto-antibody and ADAMTS13 deficiency. We performed next-generation sequencing for a panel of complement genes reported in association with aHUS (CFH, CFI, MCP, C3, FB, and THBD). Copy number variations and hybrid genes assessment were included in the analysis.

 Four patients aged 1-4 years with a diagnosis of sporadic secondary HUS were included in the study. HUS was secondary to glomerulopathy, cobalamin deficiency, bone marrow transplantation, and pneumococcal pneumoniae. Two out of four patients showed hypocomplementaemia (both C3 and C4). Diarrhea was a common clinical feature in all patients at onset, and none of these patients showed neurologic involvement. Renal replacement therapy was required in two patients at onset. Only one patient did not recover kidney function, and subsequently underwent kidney transplantation. Next-generation sequencing showed genetic abnormalities in all the patients (Table 1). All but one genetic variants have already been described in association with atypical HUS. Interestingly, haplotypes in CHF and MCP were present in three patients, all of Caucasian ethnicity.

 According to the current HUS classification, complement abnormalities are diagnostic of aHUS. However, results coming from pediatric cohorts of STEC-HUS patients already claimed a role for genetic background also outside the aHUS spectrum, suggesting that the current terminology lacks both specificity and suggestion of cause. In this case series, complement genes abnormalities were present in all patients. Whether confirmed in larger cohorts, these findings would support the role of genetic background even in secondary HUS, suggesting the need for a revision of the current HUS classification, in agreement with the pathogenic mechanisms, in order to tailor the optimal treatment.


3,5-Dinitro-4-chlorotrifluoromethane reacted with amines produced 2,6-dinitro-4-trifluoromethylanilines. N-Nitro-2,6-dinitro-4-trifluoromethylanilines were prepared by nitration of 2,6-dinitro-4-trifluoromethylaniline in concentrated sulfuric acid with acetyl nitrate instead of directly using nitric acid as nitrating agent.Their structures were confirmed by IR, 1 H NMR,MS spectra and elemental analyses.The biological test results showed that the target compounds have some regulating effects on rice and rape.


When during the first trimester is it valuable to measure levels of this hormone and when is it a waste of time? Will giving your patients progesterone supplements help prevent miscarriage? Are they safe?


Due to increase in demand for low power electronic systems in recent years, significant research and development work is happening in the low power domain. This is especially true for Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), which dissipate significantly more power than fixed-logic implementations. Power is a critical issue when FPGA applications are considered. In spite of the significant improvements in the recent past, power dissipation in FPGAs is significant. With the scaling down of CMOS process technology, factors like higher total interconnect capacitance per chip, higher operating frequencies, and increase in leakage will continue to increase the power density. All these factors will increase the operating temperature of the device which leads to the production of heat inside the chip. The final implementation is affected by the problems associated with the increase in heat produced. Some critical issues associated with temperature rise are the system reliability, the packaging of the chip and the life cycle of the final product. The dominance of the heat problem is one of the key design issues, which needs to be addressed. It is observed that in FPGAs the central portion of the device gets heated up due to the concentration of active Configurable Logic Blocks (CLBs) at the centre. Effect of arranging the unused CLBs at different places across the FPGA and the thermal distribution is examined in the present work. This paper aims at minimizing the total power consumption and also to redistribute it across the entire FPGA. A temperature-aware placement and routing is considered, by placing the unused CLBs across different locations of the FPGA so as to obtain uniform temperature profile across the entire cross section of FPGA. Since temperature is dependent on the switching activity of the hardware resources of FPGA, the proposed methodology aims at redistributing the switching activity over the FPGA resources.


Lithium air batteries have now received increasing attention owing to the much higher theoretical energy density than the current state-ofthe- art lithium ion technology. Hence, lithium air batteries are considered as possible power sources for the next generation range-anxiety-free electric vehicles. However, recent tremendous research activities clearly revealed that there are many issues to be overcome such as high charge overpotential, fast capacity fading, low oxygen efficiency, etc. Since these critical problems are closely related with the nature of the used electrolytes, identification of stable electrolytes is the most important task for true rechargeable lithium air battery. Li-air battery is typically composed of lithium metal anode, organic solvent dissolved with lithium salt, and porous carbon cathode. During operation in the discharge and charge cycle, the reactive superoxide ion and lithium peroxide may attack the susceptible organic electrolyte, yielding several by-products such as lithium carbonate, lithium carboxylate, and lithium alkyl carboxylates. The side-products caused evolution of carbon dioxide and hydrogen rather than oxygen in charge as well as loss of capacity and cell failure. Many research groups all around world have tried to develop a stable electrolyte to suppress the side reaction and hence to enhance cycle performance in the cell. In the early stage, the carbonates such as propylene carbonate were used for the electrolytes. In-situ DEMS analysis and other spectroscopic tools have elucidated that the carbonates are susceptible to the nucleophilic attack by superoxide ion and are unsuitable for lithium air battery. After that, attention was shifted to many other solvents. Among them, so far ether-based solvents including TEGDME and DME, amide-based solvent such as DMA, and sulfoxide solvents such as DMSO are considered relatively stable against the harsh environment in lithium air battery operation. Our group also makes intense effort to develop desirable electrolytes by means of in-situ quantitative DEMS as well as other analytical instruments. In this talk, I will present and discuss the current research state on stability and cycle performance of the lithium air battery electrolytes.


Ensuring software quality is important, especially for control system applications. Writing tests for such applications requires replacing the real hardware with a virtual implementation in software. Also the rest of the control system which interacts with the application must be replaced with a mock. In addition, time must be controlled precisely. We present the VirtualLab framework as part of the Chimera Tool Kit (formerly named MTCA4U). It has been designed to help implementing such tests by introducing the concept of virtual time, and combining it with an implementation basis for virtual devices and plant models. The virtual devices are transparently plugged into the application in place of real devices. Also tools are provided to simplify the simu-lated interaction with other parts of the control system. The framework is designed modularly so that virtual devices and model components can be reused to test different parts of the control system software. It interacts seamlessly with the other libraries of the Chimera Tool Kit such as DeviceAccess and the control system adapter.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the effect of coronal microleakage of cemented cast posts and cores after different interval time preparation.

METHODS
Cast posts and cores were fabricated for 60 of 66 extracted single-root mandibular premolars which randomly divided into 6 groups and cemented with zinc phosphate cement. The other 6 specimens acted as negative control group and positive control group. After 2, 10, 30 minutes interval time, preparation would do for preparation groups and three control groups without preparation. After dying and making transparent, the assessment of the coronal microleakage was done.

RESULTS
The results showed significant differences between each prepared group and unprepared group. No differences were defected in 3 unprepared groups. But significant differences were recorded between after 2, 10 minutes preparation groups and 30 minutes group.

CONCLUSION
High-speed preparation had a significant negative effect on the coronal microleakage of posts. The interval time of preparation after cemented cast posts and cores was at least between 10 and 30 minutes.


Workflow nets (WF-nets) as a class of Petri nets are widely used to model and analyze workflow systems. Soundness is an important property of WF-nets, which guarantees that the systems are deadlock- and livelock-free and each task has a chance to be performed. Van der Aalst has proven that the soundness problem is decidable for WF-nets and we have also shown that it is PSPACE-complete for bounded ones. Since the definition of soundness is based on reachability and Van der Aalst has proven that a sound WF-net must be bounded, the soundness detection can be carried out via the reachability graph analysis. However, the state explosion problem is a big obstacle to this technique. The unfolding technique of Petri nets can effectively avoid/alleviate this problem. This paper proposes an algorithm to generate a finite prefix of the unfolding of a WF-net, called basic unfolding. Furthermore, a necessary and sufficient condition is proposed to decide soundness based on basic unfolding. In addition, some examples illustrate that the unfolding technique can save the storage space effectively.


Psoriasis is a chronic, recurring inflammatory disease affecting the skin, joints and nails that has a significant negative impact on the quality of life.Highly sensitive c reactive protein ( hsCRP) could be useful as biomarker for assessing the psoriasis severity(1).

 Assess the changes in high-sensitive C-reactive protein serum level in patients with chronic plaque psoriasis before and after treatment with narrow band ultraviolet B therapy and Methotrexate.

 Our Prospective clinical study included 40 patients of both sex, aged 20-60 years old with psoriasis vulgaris recruited from dermatology outpatient clinic of Ain Shams University Hospital from January 2018 to December 2018. The study was approved by Ain Shams University ethical committee. Informed consents were taken from each Patient after full description of the study aims and procedures

 Both methotrexate and nb-uvb showed significant decrease in serum level hscrp ,PASI score and DLQI after 12 weeks of treatment ,although there were statistically significant lower PASI , DLQI scores and serum level hscrp after 12 weeks of treatment in methotrexate group of patient compared to nb-uvb group of patients

 Highly sensitive C reactive protein(hscrp) is a promising inflammatory marker for monitoring psoriasis severity and efficacy of treatment respectively .Methotrexate treatment showed significant effect on psoriasis severity regarding lowering hscrp serum level ,PASI and DLQI in compared to Nb_UVB therapy .


ABSTRACT Integrating data driven decision making into teacher preparation programs has been called for by several researchers in order to help lessen the barriers teachers face in using data in their teaching. This mixed methods study examined the perceptions of data use in education by pre-service teachers (N = 112) and perceived knowledge and skills required for successful use from both pre-service teachers (N = 6) and the faculty who educate them (N = 5). Results have implications for teacher preparation programs considering data literacy integration and for researchers aiming to understand the best ways to encourage data driven decision-making skills and knowledge in pre-service teachers.


A detailed study of the new method's ceramic spinel powder was carried out in the paper. A thorough analysis of the oligomer pyrolysis temperature effect on the kinetics and sintering mechanism was carried out in this work. The dependence of the change in the shrinkage and the shrinkage rate of spinel samples during non-isothermal sintering at three heating rates-5, 10, 20 °C/min were obtained. Analyzing the obtained dependencies can be concluded that an increase in the pyrolysis temperature leads to a shift in the spinel shrinkage curves towards higher values of the sintering start temperature. The data obtained were used to determine the sintering parameter of spinel powder, which corresponds to the change in the dominant sintering mechanism from viscous flow to bulk diffusion, increasing the pyrolysis temperature.


It is selected cationic metal from a metal, and mixtures of these Group I-IV, the anionic group is a phosphate, silicate, sulfate, carbonate, hydroxide, in the preparation process of a metal salt selected from fluoride, and mixtures thereof, the method comprising at least one metal source is a metal carboxylate having at least three average carbon number per one hydroxylate groups, to form a mixture of at least one anion source to the droplet, the droplet temperature environment advantageously characterized by oxidation in the frame, the process for the preparation of metal salts. This method is particularly and are preferred for the production of the calcium phosphate biomaterial exhibits excellent biocompatibility and bone conductivity, such as hydroxyapatite and tricalcium phosphate, bone deficiency or periodontal deficiency repair, metal implants widely used in the coatings and bone void part filler.


The fluoridation of drinking water in South Africa is called for under the Dental Technicians Act 1997 (Act 43 of 1997) promulgated in August 2000. This follows an International trend in other countries where the Fluoridation of drinking has been done for a number of years. It is the intent that drinking water in South Africa should contain around 0.7 ppm Fluoride. In some areas of South Africa there is a high background level of Fluoride in the water, which will require deFluorination, while in the majority cases Fluoride must be added to drinking water. Through this requirement a need is created for suitable chemicals to be used in the fluoridation of drinking water in South Africa.


Multi line transmission (MLT) and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) are techniques that have been individually applied to increase ultrasound imaging data acquisition rate. For both modalities, generating multiple beams in the transmit phase comes at the cost of image quality. In particular, interbeam cross-talk results in imaging artifacts, the intensity of which increases with the number of beams transmitted in parallel. In this study, we investigated experimentally whether and how the combination of MLT and OFDM could be used to achieve a high number of parallel beams with reduced cross-talk with respect to their individual use. Ultrasound images of wire targets and of a tissue-mimicking phantom have been acquired and analyzed for different configurations, i.e., with 2 to 6 beams transmitted in parallel. Imaging features such as the contrast ratio, contrast to noise ratio, axial resolution, and interbeam cross-talk have been evaluated. In conclusion, combining MLT and OFDM is effective to achieve a high data acquisition rate with limited cross-talk and higher CNR, with the drawback of reduced axial resolution and slightly diminished CR.


The tomb-guard beast of pig's ear shape in the Tang Sancai is the inheritance and development of the traditional pig worship,they can frighten ghosts and monsters, and are also the symbol of water god and big dipper, has a very important faith function. With the rise of geomancy idea, the cultural function was replaced by iron cow and iron pig, the tomb-guard beast of Tang Sancai sharply declined. Therefore, investigating the cultural meaning of the pig's ear shape has very important significance for reconstructing the concept world and the decline reason of Tang Sancai.


Science and technology (S&T) is a broad term that i s in a continual process of reinvention. Many of the S&T breakthroughs of 20 or 30 years ago are p t of everyday life today. Rural women in most parts of the world have also benefitted, espec ially through greater access to information. Science and technology offers solutions to many cha llenges faced by rural women including labour-saving technologies related to domestic and pro uctive work such as water pumps and community water schemes, improved cooking technolog ies, transport of water, wood and crops, post-harvest and food processing. However, because of women's lower education levels, their lesser access to credit, their lack of land tenure and other discriminatory practices, men are most frequently the beneficiaries of new and improved ag ricultural technologies. 2 The poorest women continue to use labour-intensive traditional techno logies or use no technologies at all.


In Canada, there are three natural groupings of personal property security systems. These are the Common law systems of nine provinces and two territories, the Civil law system of Québec and the Canadian federal legislation relevant to secured lending. The Common law jurisdictions subdivide into two groups consisting of those which have adopted or are about to adopt unitary personal property security legislation modelled upon Article 9 of the U.C.C. of the United States, and those which have not and are not about to adopt such legislation.
 The purpose of this paper is to describe the common and disparate features of the systems for security on personal or moveable property in Canada. The descriptive exercise indicates that it is impossible to characterize the law in this domain as either completely divergent or homogeneous and that, despite similarities and differences, there is a substantial degree of commensurability among Canadian systems of security on personal property.


A 1.8-V, 1-Gb NAND flash memory is fabricated with 0.12-/spl mu/m CMOS STI process technology. For higher integration, a 32-cell NAND structure, which enables row decoder layout in one block pitch, is applied for the first time. Resulting cell and die sizes are 0.076 /spl mu/m/sup 2/ and 129.6 mm/sup 2/, respectively. A pseudo-4-phase charge pump circuit can generate up to 20 V even under the supply voltage of 1.6 V. A newly applied cache program function and expanded page size of (2 k + 64) byte lead to program throughput of 7 MB/s. The page copy-back function is provided for on-chip garbage collection. The read throughput of 27 MB/s is achieved by simply expanding I/O width and page size. A measured disturbance free-window of 3.5 V at 1.5 V-V/sub DD/ is obtained.


In this paper we present a method for creating messagingbased integration solutions. Input of this method consists of an abstract specification of control and data dependencies between components, specification of non-functional requirements, design goals, and target platform properties. The method produces a solution that meets specified requirements, tailored for the given platform (if such a solution exists). The output is in the form of a design as well as executable code. The evaluation has been carried out using a method prototype implementation, solving a set of integration problems taken from the literature as well as from real-life software projects.


In work solubility of phosphates of the calcium received from a modeling solution synovial a liquid of a liquid of the person is studied. Kinetic characteristics of dissolution are defined. It is established that carbonathydroxya-patite it is characterized by more solubility in comparison with hydroxyapatite.


Ternier, S. (2012, 13 June). The ARLearn toolkit for mobile serious games and field-trips. Presentation at Koblenz eLearning Tage (KELT 2012), Koblenz, Germany.


The goal of the paper is to build a framework that can assess the contribution of di¤erent determinants of ...rms' activity to the U-shaped evolution of export concentration found in the data by Imbs and Wacziarg (2003) and Cadot et al. (2011), among others. Our main focus is on the importance of quality upgrading at the sectoral level; however, we also consider the e¤ects of trade costs, input costs, and market size. Figure 1 presents the patterns that drive the paper. The left hand side panel shows the theil index of export concentration for nations that possess di¤erent GDP per capita levels. There we see that, on average, this level of concentration falls with income, and when real GDP reaches about 25.000 dollars this tendency is reversed. The right hand side panel, in turn, shows that product unit values – which are mainly driven by product quality – increase as nations become richer in per capita terms, more rapidly at the beginning. In order to achieve the above goal, we build a model of international trade; which is later calibrated, and its predictions compared to the data.


Texas Transportation Institute researchers are developing comprehensive geometric design guidelines that address special considerations such as highway intersections near highway-railroad intersections (HRIs). HRIs are more difficult to design because of factors brought on by the interaction of trains and vehicles within a small area. The guidelines are one way of making design engineers aware of all the components and situations that can affect the safety and efficiency of the operation of an HRI. Components that affect the design of HRIs include approach grades, turn lanes, lane capacity, illumination, traffic signal operation, appropriate signage, highway speeds, train speeds, and traffic diversion around HRIs. Situations include designing new HRIs, retrofitting older HRIs to function more safely and efficiently, widening highways, and repairing railroad tracks.


In this chapter, the author argues that CASS leaders have used the status of CASS as a state institution to co-opt CASS academics into refraining from openly violating state policies. Since the beginning of the first decade of the twenty-first century, major changes in academic policies and ideology have come about mainly through the gradual ideological change of the Party organization in CASS. Changes in political ideology at CASS occur slowly, and they happen by means of changes in academic and ideological symbolism, which are tied to Party propaganda and government policy-making and Cases of dissidence at CASS occur mainly as a by-product of this mode of change: among well-reputed, established scholars who change their course mid-career or inadvertedly become entangled in sensitive political issues. He concluded the chapter with an elaboration of the meaning of research freedom in the context of developments in CASS over the last decade.Keywords: academic policies; CASS; Ideology; Political Issues


With the prevalence of credit system, the stipulation of "academic warning" is written into the teaching management constitution by more colleges and universities. However, the establishment of this stipulation hasn't formed unified and scientific standards at present. This paper aims at studying the credit setting of academic warning through the method of Monte Carlo simulation, and at applying multivariate normal distribution and variance reduction techniques to calculate relatively reasonable academic warning credit line, which provides a new train of thought and a universal method for colleges and universities to set specific standards.


The research deals with the possibility to use up-to-date methods of 3D-modeling for diagnostics of piercing-cutting objects causing injuries with bilateral blade grinding. A virtual element of the wound channel is shown to be printed on 3D-printer and given to investigating bodies in order to increase the effective and objective search of a traumatic instrument.
Aim of the work. To apply the method of photogrammetry with further 3D-modeling of the wound channel formed by a piercing-cutting object with bilateral blade grinding for further examination of its morphological peculiarities and receiving its linear size with high accuracy in the space of graphics editor «3DsMax».
Materials and methods. Fifteen experimental wound channels were made by means of alginate impression mass with rubber-like effect «Hydrogum 5» (firm «Zhermack», Italy), which becomes hard rapidly, remains elastic after polymerization, allows impresses to be obtained with an extremely smooth surface, most accurately preserves and reproduces characteristics of an immersed blade of the knife examined. To make experimental injury a piercing-cutting object was used – a knife with bilateral grinding of the blade 6,16 cm long, 2,6 cm wide in the base of the blade, and the blade in its middle part 0,3 cm thick. These sizes of the piercing-cutting instrument were obtained by means of sliding calipers with the error ±0,03-0,15 cm. The wound channel obtained was divided into fragments with a pitch about 3,5 cm. Every fragment of the wound channel was contrasted with a dye using 1 % brilliant green alcohol solution.
All the fragments of the wound channel were opened parallel to its length and were placed on a rotary table located in a light cube to provide adequate illumination and photos were taken.  The digital camera SONY RX 10 II was used for shooting. The object of shooting was labeled with a number, a fragment of a plotting scale 1,0 cm long was placed on it to calibrate the scale and control the sizes of the object examined in computer programs. The photos obtained in JPEG format were loaded into the computer program «Agisoft Photoscan», and 3D-textured models of a wound channel fragment were created in it. The model obtained and the texture was exported in «OBJ» format. The next stage of the work was to transfer 3D-models obtained into the graphic space of «3DsMax» program, where the scale of the model was calibrated. After that the wound channel was reconstructed in the graphics editor by means of 3D models of the wound channel fragments.
Results. To compare differences between classical and new methods of examination at first linear dimensions of injuries were measured by means of a ruler. The depth of the wound channel was obtained consisting of two fragments according to the method of measuring the wound channel depth in the dead body by means of joining of its separate parts due to immersion and passing the blade in the victim's body (in the skin, subcutaneous tissue with muscles, in the wall of the cavity and inside of it, in the internal organ and other anatomical structures). The width and length of the wound channel on various levels of immersion were registered in the similar way, which is an important diagnostic component during forensic expertise in case of piercing-cutting injuries.
The next stage in our research was to examine and get linear dimensions of injuries by means of up-to-date technologies using 3D-models with the help of the graphics editor «3DsMax». In this case the computer program enabled to get the above results with a higher accuracy to 0.001 cm.
Conclusions. The results obtained are indicative of high information value of the three dimensional methods to identify a traumatic piercing-cutting object by means of a spatial reconstruction of the wound channel fragments, which provides high accuracy in solving applied tasks in modern forensic practice and criminal law science. The method with the use of the graphics editor «3ds max» allows retrospective diagnostics of the wound channel fragments to be obtained followed by further comparison with an expected traumatic object.


Abstract This paper examines comparability of descriptive grammars across typologically different languages. Focusing on the Nepal Himalayas, which has high language diversity that extends beyond areal, genetic, and historical categorization, the paper examines similarities across grammars and the influences motivating these. It reports on the construction and use of a database comprising materials from 18 descriptive grammars of Tibeto-Burman languages of Nepal written over a 30-year period. This includes a small sub-database of metadata noting grammarian linguistic training, career affiliations, and dissertation supervisors and a larger sub-database of fully tagged tables of contents for each of the grammars. The overarching relational database links sections containing similar content, enabling search functions to explore the locations of similar information and feature labels across grammars in the database. While some grammar-features in the corpus reflect broader structural properties across grammars, findings indicate strong local influences. We find evidence of three foundational linguistic "schools" connecting the structural organization of the grammars across multiple generations of linguists, correspondences across chapter titles, sections, as well as school-influenced organization of verbal paradigms, treatment of marginal topics, and terminological choices.


We show here how to prove several results which make it possible to deduce whether or not many common FET circuits can possess more than one, or only one, dc operating point, as a consequence of their topological structure alone. These results extend to FET circuits some similar results which have recently been proved for circuits containing bipolar transistors.


The paper studies the classification of incentive form and its importance for keeping teacher group stable, then points out the way of establishing perfect recessive incentive mechanism in colleges and universities.


The surfaces of aqueous HNO3 solutions and liquid HNO3 are examined using sum frequency generation (SFG). A molecular-level picture of these atmospherically relevant systems is developed. Consisten...


When a blood-sucking insect 'bites' a sensitized host it must, if it is to survive, depart before the host is alerted by the irritation that accompanies or precedes the 'immediate' reaction. There is a safety period between initial salivary injection by the insect and onset of irritation in the host during which the insect's meal must be completed; immunity from attack by the host must, therefore, depend partly on the speed at which the insect can tap the blood supply and complete its meal, and partly on an adequate delay in the onset of irritation in the host. In mosquitoes, and other insects that depend on a blood meal for egg production, only those that complete the meal within the safety period can lay a full complement of eggs; the others will either be killed or injured by the host before egg development begins, or they will be disturbed before completion of the meal and so lay fewer eggs. Thus, fast feeders and those producing a delay in the onset of irritation will tend to lay more eggs, and these two properties will be maintained by natural selection, with the onset of irritation in the host acting as the main selection force. Experiments were made comparing a population of wild mosquitoes (Aëdes africanus) with that of a colonized species (A. aegypti), which had been protected from retaliatory action by the host during the previous 3 years. They showed that while the period between salivary injection and the onset of irritation was the same in both species (ca. 3 min), feeding was usually fast in the wild species, which had presumably been subjected to rigorous selection against slow feeding, but variable and often slow in the captive species, which had been reared for generations in the absence of this pressure. The results also indicated a slight compensatory delay in the onset of irritation following slow feeding in the wild mosquitoes; presumably a difference in antigenic properties of the saliva affects the speed at which the insect can take up blood, and provides what appears to be a remarkable alternative path way to successful feeding, and so to maximum egg output and thus to survival.


Background: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is an early neurodevelopmental disorder that accompanies the individual throughout life. There is a significant clinical overlap of ASD with other psychiatric disorders including personality disorders, psychotic disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression. Additionally, the presence of high rates of psychiatric comorbidity, often with atypical presentations, delays the ASD diagnosis and makes it more difficult to manage.Aims: To illustrate the complexity of ASD diagnosis and approach in adults.Methods: Report of a clinical case and review of the literature.Results and Conclusion: This paper presents the case of a 46-year-old patient, with ASD, with a long history of interpersonal difficulties and psychiatric symptomatology. Over the years, different diagnoses have been made, particularly schizoid and schizotypal personality disorders, psychosis not otherwise specified and paranoid schizophrenia, which led to poor adherence to treatment, and prevented a full understanding of the patient's clinical presentation and lifelong struggles.


Aggressive trends in higher throughput and QoS demands along with the increasing constraints on resources-at- hand (available bandwidth, peak emission power, processing delay etc.) require efficient and fast algorithms for resource allocation with no compromise in performance. For more than a decade, huge amount of research-work has been dedicated to improve the convergence time of discrete bit-loading algorithms for optimal allocation of bits to different sub-carriers of a multi- carrier system with respect to the channel response. Recently we proposed by Mahmood, A. and Jaffrot, E., (2006) the 3-dB Subgroup based allocation methodology which gives us the first insight into an underlying pattern of allocation, based upon which an algorithm can be devised for optimal discrete bit allocation using the Gap approximation factor for practical systems. In this work, we reduce further the complexity incurred by the 3-dB subgroup algorithm with no compromise on performance. The exact number of execution cycles of our improved algorithm over a simple scalar processor is compared to that of a recently proposed by Papandreou, N. and Antonakopoulos, T., (2005) algorithm for optimal discrete bit-loading to verify the fast convergence of our algorithm.


Some sensitive applications such as volcanic monitoring, fire detection data should be transmitted within a specified delay to the base station. Multipath-GT (Multipath Generalized Topology) model uses an on-demand approach to estimate a delay based on processing time, packet loss rate between two neighbouring nodes. In existing work, if a node or link failure occurs multipath routing didn't spread traffic over alternate paths. This paper take a view that, when certain nodes and links become over-utilized and cause congestion, proposed work can spread traffic over alternate paths to balance the load over those paths and increase the degree of fault tolerance. The simulation results show that reduces the probability of communication disruption and data loss during link failures.