Objective: To ascertain the condition for extracting tetramethylpyrazine from Rhizoma Chuanxiong with alcohol. Methods: With the transferring rate of tetramethylpyrazine as index, the optimum extraction condition for the first time was selected by uniform test, and the times of extraction was studied. Results: Taking 80% alcohol as solvent, Rhizoma Chuanxiong was extracted two times with 8 and 6 times volume of alcohol for 2hr and 1.5hr, respectively. In this condition, tetramethylpyrazine could be effectively extracted. Conclusion: The experimental results provided the basis for the ascertainment of extraction process of Rhizoma Chuanxiong preparation.


The advancement of affective computing and augmented reality (AR) have been growing rapidly in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) domain. Even though the trend of both subresearch domains is increasing however most of the existing AR apps fail to stimulate affective interactions particularly in terms of feeling, thought, emotion, and action which is highly needed by the low vision alpha generation particularly to understand the fraction concept. Therefore, the objective of this study is to develop an Affective Augmented Reality Fraction Apps for Low Vision Alpha Generation (ARFA4LV).The 3-Phases Development Model which consisted of (i) pre-production, (ii) production, and (iii) postproduction has been utilized to develop the ARFA4LV. In addition, User-Centred Design (UCD) approach has been utilized throughout the development phase. The finding of this study is the ARFA4LV. The future work of this study is to provide the heuristic evaluation and user experience testing on ARFA4LV.


We have discovered /sup 262/No, as the electron capture daughter of /sup 262/Lr(t/sub 1/2/ = 216 m). This new isotope of nobelium decays by spontaneous fission with about a 5-ms half-life which is several orders of magnitude longer than recent theoretical estimates. We measured a sharply symmetric fission-fragment mass division and a bimodal total kinetic energy distribution; the high-energy symmetric-fission path was most abundant. /sup 262/No is the first nuclide with 160 neutrons to be discovered and is the closest to the N = 162 neutron subshell for which enhanced stability is predicted. 14 refs., 3 figs.


ALL HEALTHCARE STAFF who come into contact with patients and carers are involved in delivering spiritual care, consciously or unconsciously.


An immunogenic composition comprising at least one recombinant multimeric ectodomain of a protein of influenza virus or part thereof, which has similar immunogenic activity fused to an affinity tag for streptavidin, and a pharmaceutically acceptable diluent, wherein said ectodomain recombinant multimeric protein of influenza virus or part thereof is selected from the group consisting of an ectodomain hemagglutinin recombinant trimeric influenza or part thereof and an ectodomain of neuraminidase recombinant tetrameric influenza or part thereof .


In order to improve the comprehensive informatization level of large hospitals, this paper establishes a management system to monitor the use of hospital medical equipment through IoTs(IoTs) technology. We propose a hierarchical structure of equipment management system based on IoTs, and complete the design of data logic, data structure and data flow of the system. The sensing network composed of RFID tag and reader is constructed, and the specific data transmission scheme is also provided. Then, combined with the specific requirements, the implementation scheme and implementation method of hardware and software are put forwarded. Finally, through the running test of the system, it is verified that the system can correctly handle the user's business logic. Our scheme makes the management of high-value equipment transparent, more dynamic tracking of equipment, and enhances the visibility and controllability of equipment management.


Satellite cells are myogenic stem cells responsible for the postnatal regeneration of skeletal muscle. Here we report the successful in vitro induction of Pax7‐positive satellite‐like cells from mouse embryonic stem (mES) cells. Embryoid bodies were generated from mES cells and cultured on Matrigel‐coated dishes with Dulbecco's modified Eagle medium containing fetal bovine serum and horse serum. Pax7‐positive satellite‐like cells were enriched by fluorescence‐activated cell sorting using a novel anti‐satellite cell antibody, SM/C‐2.6. SM/C‐2.6‐positive cells efficiently differentiate into skeletal muscle fibers both in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, the cells demonstrate satellite cell characteristics such as extensive self‐renewal capacity in subsequent muscle injury model, long‐term engraft‐ment up to 24 wk, and the ability to be secondarily transplanted with remarkably high engraftment efficiency compared to myoblast transplantation. This is the first report of transplantable, functional satellite‐like cells derived from mES cells and will provide a foundation for new therapies for degenerative muscle disor‐ders.—Chang, H.,Yoshimoto, M., Umeda, K., Iwasa, T., Mizuno, Y., Fukada, S., Yamamoto, H., Motohashi, N., Yuko‐Miyagoe‐Suzuki, Takeda, S., Heike, T., Nakahata, T. Generation of transplantable, functional satellite‐like cells from mouse embryonic stem cells. FASEB J. 23, 1907–1919 (2009)


AIM:To explore the mechanism by which ginsenoside Rb1 protects ischemic neurons.METHODS:Whole cell patch-clamp technique was used to examine the effects of different concentrations of ginsenoside Rb1 on persistent sodium current(INaP)in ishemic hippocampal neurons in rats.The amplitudes of INaP after a 5-min ischemia in each group was compared with the control group,which was ischemic without ginsenoside Rb1.RESULTS:The amplitude of INaP increased(94.5±4.4)%after ischemia,but increased only(70.8±4.5)%,(44.6±3.9)%and(49.5±4.2)% respectively when using different consistency of Rb1(20,60 and 100 μmol·L-1).CONCLUSION:These results suggest that ginsenosides Rb1 can partially inhibit the increase of INaP in ischemic hippocampal neurons.This may be the neurophysiological basis of their neuroprotective role.


The 3D flow structure of wind accretion in a binary system is computed numerically using SPH, taking into account binary rotation as well as wind acceleration. In the adiabatic γ=1.5 model, high temperatures are reached in a bow shock close to the accreting star. This region could be responsible for the UV emission observed in such systems. In the isothermal model, the bow shock is no longer detached. Moreover, an accretion disc forms around the star. The disc is inclined with respect to the orbital plane and is in differential rotation. The flow structure is considerably more complicated than in the simple plane-parallel picture that is usually employed to describe these systems


We reveal that the excess timing jitter between the optical pulses and the rising edges of photocurrent pulses reaches tens of attoseconds. To fully exploit the ultralow jitter, we demonstrate a photocurrent pulse shaping method.


The Taylor rule postulates that the Federal Reserve chooses deviations of the federal funds rate from its long-run target level based on the "inflation gap," unemployment (or output) gap, and past funds rate. While such a rule necessarily abstracts from the many complexities that factor into the Fed's actual setting of the federal funds rate target, it can effectively capture the historical evolution of monetary policy. This article explores whether professional forecasters appear to use a Taylor rule when they forecast the future funds rate, and if so, how similar their coefficients are to each other and to those in a Taylor rule that fits historical data.


Interest in the use of somatostatin in the treatment of acute pancreatitis began in the mid 1970s when it was first demonstrated to inhibit pancreatic secretion. Somatostatin relaxes the sphincter of Oddi, allowing free drainage of any pancreatic secretion into the duodenum. Somatostatin reduced pancreatic blood flow in piglets, but no difference in outcome was observed between treated and untreated animals. Somatostatin prevent the early hyperaemia associated with inflammation in early experimental acute pancreatitis but maintain perfusion in the latter stages when necrosis is present.


Aim To study the inhibitory effect of NO donating-aspirin derivative Ⅱ_6 on thrombosis and its mechanism of nitric oxide release. Methods Inferior vena cava thrombosis and cerebral thrombosis model in rats were used to investigate the antithrombotic activities of Ⅱ_6.TXB_2 and 6-Keto-PGF_(1α)in rat serum、rat aortic strip and in ECV304 cells were determined by radioimmunosay.NO content in the serum of rats and extracellular fluid of the ECV304 cells were tested with Griess reagent.Results Ⅱ_6 inhibited the thrombosis in inferior vena cava and brain,and it reduced the concentration of TXB_2.but increased NO production.Conclusion Ⅱ_6 has an inhibitory effect on thrombosis and increases NO content in vivo and vitro.


We studied the state of military-industrial complex enterprises and assessed their actual diversification and the degree of readiness to produce goods that are exportable and/or in demand in the civilian sector. The paper considers both the practical and theoretical problem investigation level and outlines approaches to ensuring a gradual development process concerning production diversification strategies for a mechanical engineering enterprise that belongs to the military-industrial complex. We estimated production flexibility and its diversification potential. We substantiated the difference and assessed the flexibility contribution of various types of economic activity in the enterprise. We looked into the connection between activity types (government order work and work in the open market) and the enterprise production system. We propose a structural model for the information system of the enterprise production system. We investigated a preliminary approach to developing diversification strategies for military-industrial complex enterprises. We propose changes to the Berry Index that specify the position of the enterprise. We considered an approach to estimating diversification readiness using the Berry Index and the altered Berry Index. We constructed a matrix for estimating the enterprise diversification readiness. We highlight the main problems that enterprises should solve to ensure successful production diversification


Background Early viral load decline following pegylated interferon-α2a and ribavirin therapy is an important predictor of the treatment responses in chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients, thus, it is essential to evaluate the influence of host and viral factors on early viral load decline. Methods Clinical and serial virological data were collected from 145 consecutive Asian CHC patients with pegylated interferon-α2a plus ribavirin therapy. A dose of pegylated interferon-α2a was administered at week 1 and then weekly with daily oral ribavirin for 24 or 48 weeks. Genotyping and quantification of hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA were done using molecular methods. Results A total of 81 patients were infected with HCV genotype 1, 61 with genotype 2 and 3 with both genotypes 1 and 2. At the end of follow-up, 110 patients attained sustained virological response (SVR). In multivariate analyses, body mass index (BMI) and genotype were related to viral load decline at day 2, baseline viral load and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels were correlated with viral load decline between days 2 and 28. Genotype, baseline viral load, alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels and BMI independently predicted rapid virological response, whereas only genotype 2, lower baseline viral load and more substantial viral load decline at day 28 predicted a higher SVR. Conclusions HCV genotype, baseline viral load, pretreatment BMI, HDL and ALT levels have a significant effect on early viral load decline of Asian CHC patients with interferon-based therapy. Only HCV genotype, baseline viral load and viral load decline at day 28 can independently predict SVR.


We study the human–robot interaction of financial-advising services in peer-to-peer lending (P2P). Many crowdfunding platforms have started using robo-advisors to help lenders augment their intelligence in P2P loan investments. Collaborating with one of the leading P2P companies, we examine how investors use robo-advisors and how the human adjustment of robo-advisor usage affects investment performance. Our analyses show that, somewhat surprisingly, investors who need more help from robo-advisors—that is, those encountered more defaults in their manual investing—are less likely to adopt such services. Investors tend to adjust their usage of the service in reaction to recent robo-advisor performance. However, interestingly, these human-in-the-loop interferences often lead to inferior performance.


Purpose:  To assess the effects of adding dorzolamide to timolol monotherapy on ocular haemodynamics and retinal oxygen saturation in patients with primary open‐angle glaucoma (POAG).


Gate stacks with high-k/metal gate has been a key enabler of the high performance and low power MOSFET device evolution for the past several technology nodes by lending superior electrostatics for short channel control, along with low gate leakage current [1]. There are two major fabrication schemes to construct high-k/metal gate structure; gate-first and gate-last. Each scheme relies on unique mechanism to obtain desirable device parameters such as work function. Each scheme has its own pros and cons but both made their ways to move on to mass production by several manufacturers. Gate-first approach allowed easier migration from Poly/SiON and provided nice Tinv scaling capability [2-4] while gate-last approach is known to utilize eSiGe stress more efficiently by removing poly-Si [5]. Despite the structural differences, the mechanisms governing device reliability are somewhat universal for both high-k/metal gate schemes and Tinv scaling has been severely challenged by the reliability, especially NBTI [6]. Recent introduction of multigate FET devices into production could be partially explained by the limitation of the Tinv scaling originated by the reliability constraints [6]. Multi-gate structure itself can provide superior short channel control so that it can compensate the lack of Tinv scaling. It is projected that the next device scaling is likely to come from operation voltage scaling. High mobility channel materials such as Ge and III-V are considered to be implemented because those materials could provide higher performance at a scaled operation voltage [1]. As the conventional, almost linear gate scaling changes its course to somewhat diverging scaling path, high-k/metal gate should evolve accordingly to fulfill the ever challenging requirements of the new device architectures. In this talk, the evolution of high-k/metal gate stack will be reviewed and the conditions required for the future high-k/metal gate will be discussed.


To cope with the demagnetization risk of permanent magnets used in interior permanent magnet synchronous motor (IPMSM), an accurate thermal analysis of the permanent magnets is very important at the motor design stage. In this paper, an approach to predict the permanent magnet temperature distribution in IPMSM installed on traction drive for hybrid vehicles is presented. To achieve an accurate thermal analysis, the motor losses under PWM -voltage source inverter (VSI) drive are firstly estimated by 3D-FEM using measured current waveform including PWM carrier harmonics. Based on the calculated motor losses, 3D-FEM-based thermal analysis is employed to clarify the temperature distribution of the permanent magnet. Through comparisons of the measured permanent magnet temperature with the calculated one, it is demonstrated that the proposed approach makes it possible to evaluate the temperature distribution of the permanent magnet quantitatively.


Amorphous silicon nano-particles embedded in hydrogenated amorphous silicon nitride (a-SiNx:H) matrix have been prepared using an approach based on the deposition of Si-rich a-SiNx:H thin films by helicon wave plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition (HWP-CVD) technique, which has a characteristic of high plasma density at low working pressure. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis shows that the silicon atom bonds exist in the Si-Si and Si-N configurations and the amorphous silicon regions appear separately in the Si-rich a-SiNx:H films. The existence of amorphous silicon nano-particles without any post annealing in the a-SiNx:H random matrix is confirmed by the image of high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. Through infrared absorption analysis, the formation of the separated amorphous silicon nano-particles structure is closely correlated with the deposition parameters such as low working pressure and Ar dilution in the HWP-CVD process.


Objective To investigate the intestinal absorption of sinapine cyanide sulfonate of Semen Raphani water extract in rats. Methods The concentration of sinapine cyanide sulfonate was analyzed by HPLC and by using rat in-vivo single-pass intestinal perfusion model. The effects of drug concentration and P-glycoprotein(P-gp)inhibitors on the intestinal absorption of sinapine cyanide sulfonate were evaluated by calculating absorption rate constant(Ka)and apparent absorption coefficient(Papp). Results The absorption rate constant(Ka)and the apparent absorption coefficient(Papp) of sinapine cyanide sulfonate were increased firstly and then decreased with the increase of concentration. The apparent absorption coefficient(Papp) was lower than 1.8×10-4cm·min-1. P-gp inhibitors had significant effect on the absorption of sinapine cyanide sulfonate(P 0.01). Conclusion The absorption mechanism of sinapine cyanide sulfonate in rat small intestine may be in active transport or facilitated diffusion. Sinapine cyanide sulfonate has poor intestinal absorption,and sinapine cyanide sulfonate is proved to be a substrate of P-gp.


Summary A protocol was developed for induction, maturation and germination of somatic embryos from the tissues of germinating seeds of black pepper (Piper nigrum L.). Explants were cultured on growth regulator – free solid SH medium maintained in the dark. The first somatic embryos developing directly from the explant tissue were noticed after 60 d of culture. Somatic embryos originated from a ring-like tissue on the micropylar region of the seeds. Sucrose concentration of the medium was found to be crucial for the induction of somatic embryos, and 30 g l–1 was found to be the optimum. Maturation and germination of somatic embryos were achieved on the same medium. Suspension culture enhanced the process of maturation and germination. Regenerated plants were established in soil. Histology confirmed the ontogeny and each stage of development. Growth regulators were found to inhibit the induction of somatic embryogenesis. Cytological analysis of the regenerated plants revealed the normal chromosome number of 2n=52.


It is commonly held that humanitarian agencies must be bound by principles of impartiality and neutrality if they are to enjoy rights and privileges similar to those accorded to the ICRC under the Geneva Conventions. Yet this view relies on a too-simplistic conception of the role that agencies play today. Unlike 'classical' humanitarianism which consisted of relief work during conflicts, the 'new' humanitarianism includes testifying and advocacy, development, and peace building, and its ideology is moving away from the ICRC principles of neutrality and impartiality. This paper challenges the argument that by taking on responsibilities beyond relief-work, and taking political and human rights considerations into account, these new humanitarian agencies have compromised their commitment to humanitarian assistance, and consequently lost claim to the rights and privileges that flow from such commitment. It argues that humanitarian assistance is a fluid concept, and its content must depend upon the situation. What is necessary is to identify the immutable features of the humanitarian enterprise, and allow flexibility in all other aspects. The paper analyzes the Geneva Conventions and the writings of some of the towering figures associated with the ICRC to conclude that of all the principles associated with humanitarianism only the primary commitment to humanity, and to some extent impartiality, carry any degree of immutability. It also studies the link between relief-work and other functions to conclude that the changing nature of involvement is called upon by the changing nature of the conflicts themselves, and is thus a more appropriately humanitarian response. Finally, it offers a few suggestions to develop a framework for determining when an agency's actions can be considered suitably 'humanitarian' to justify the applicability of the Geneva Conventions.


With the popularity of mobile terminal equipment, voice communication is becoming more and more frequent, the application of speech recognition scene is increasing. All these put forward higher requirements on the accuracy of speech recognition, therefore, how to enhance the speech as effectively as possible is becoming more and more important. At present, a lot of research has been done on the preprocessing of speech, especially on how to reduce the noise. Various noise reduction algorithms have been raised, such as wavelet transform denoising, spectral subtraction and other solutions for different scenarios. In the traditional speech enhancement algorithm, only the current frame and the previous frame are used to estimate the speech spectrum of the current frame, which results in variable-level noise and music noise problems. In this paper, we propose a speech enhancement method based on Speex open-source library for improved short-time spectral estimation. This method eliminates the background noise and avoids the white noise, and achieves an ideal balance between the recognition rate and the human audition effect for four different scenes. At the same time, the algorithm can set the threshold freely according to the setting of noise reduction intensity or the human voice enhancement, which enhances the flexibility of preprocessing. Compared with the traditional speech noise reduction method, the accuracy of speech recognition has improved more than 15%.


The battle of women for access to culture becomes a metaphor of courage in the theater of Laura Curino. With Una stanza tutta per me, an adaptation of A room of One's Ownby Virginia Woolf, a famous 1928 text, the actress revisits the text with a personal key.The performance of Curino, with the grace and irony that characterize her, starting from the pamphlet composes a dialogued monologue, divided into six chapters plus a prologue, in which the story of the preparation of the Woolf's conference overlaps and intersects with stories of real or imaginary women who have paved, over the centuries, the way for the possibility of a release. Through and beyond Woolf, Curino intends to represent the courage of women who in history have not renounced their intellectual or artistic vocation to signify, metaphorically, the tenacity of those who, outside of the genre, want to "keep faith in their dreams".This contribution will analyze the show and the narrative drama of Curino, that has populated the scenic space with voices and characters bringing on stage, as always happened in her artistic path, the many faces of contemporary. In her creative process, dramatic writing is intertwined with the actor invention for which the former derives from the orality and the body of who is performing becomes a medium that narrates and also becomes an object (book, pen, paper). In Curino's opinion, what moved Virginia affects us too: the attempt to give examples, because examples comfort you, point to a road; and the intention to not forget, to say "thank you".


This article contains 3 news items from England: the report of the Lane Committee which reviewed the 1967 Abortion Act, the announcement that the National Health Service would provide free contraception to all, and the ultimatum presented by the Royal College of Nurses to the Department of Health. The Lane Committee was assigned to review how the liberalized Abortion Act was functioning in the light of recent complaints and to make recommendations. The report opened with a historical account of abortion since the Middle Assyrian Code and included anthropologic studies. The most influential events on the British law were: the Canon Law of the thirteenth century forbidding abortion; the Infant Life Preservation Act of 1929, permitting abortion only to save the mother's life; and the trial of Dr. Bourne, a gynecologist who aborted a 14-year-old rape victim. The 1967 law allows abortion for physical or mental health of the woman or her children or for possible abnormal fetus. The Lane Committee did not support the complaints of some that physicians' status was lessened or that geographical distribution of abortion was unfair, since the only alternative would be illegal abortion or unwanted children. They recommended stricter licensing of pregnancy referral agencies to prevent some doctors from making fortunes, strengthened certification of abortions, and more financial support by the National Health Service. The National Health Service will offer free contraception after April 1 to all regardless of age or marital status. Family doctors, hospital gynecologists, and those who believe that this policy encourages irresponsible sex have objected. The Royal College of Nursing has advised the National Health Service that their members would resign if salaries were not increased in 3 weeks, but after an inquiry was instituted in Parliament, they withdrew their immediate resignation threat.


Oxygen release from the roots of submersed vascular plants influences redox (oxidation- reduction)-related solute dynamics in lake sediments. In a northern Michigan lake we found significant differences in pH, redox potential (Eh), and phosphorus and iron fractions among sediments, depending on whether they supported no vegetation, the vascular macrophytes Isoetes braunii and Myriophyllum tenellum, or the moss Drepanocladus exannulatus. Eh and total P were significantly higher, and filterable P was significantly lower, at vascular plant sites than at bare or moss-covered sites. An in situ transplant experiment of the three macrophyte species into three different sediment types showed that the vascular plants raised sediment Eh, lowered pH and filterable Fe and P percentages, and enhanced sediment P retention. Sediments with moss transplants remained reduced and high in filterable Fe and P, and released more P to overlying water than sediments with vascular transplants. Vegetation changes from tracheophytes to bryophytes, such as occur during lake acidification, could lower Eh and increase Fe and P mobility in sediments.


Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is a new evolutionary computation technique. The advantage of the PSO over many of the other optimization algorithms is its relative simplicity and quick convergence. But those particles collapse so quickly that it exits a potentially dangerous property: stagnation, which state would make it impossible to arrive at the global optimum, even a local optimum. Under this consideration, a modified particle swarm optimization (MPSO) with differential evolution operator mutations is introduced to eliminate stagnation and avoid premature in this paper. The Probability of trapping at the local optimum during the searching process can be reduced using MPSO. The testing of two multimodal optimization problems shows that MPSO is effective.


POISONED SPINES OF WEEVER FISH. [M TMH BITJoISH5t 73 to some authorities, the presence of a fair number of esosinophiles, are favourable signs. With this last point I do not altogether agree, as I have seen numerous eosinophiles shortly before death in a good many cases. A constantly raised temperature, even though it be comparatively slight in degree, is unfavourable, especially if no definite cause can be found for it. When a case has got over the first attack, and has begun to improve, one hopes to see the colour index become low, if possible below 1.0, for these cases usually have a long Temission. Cases whose colour index remains high are -pt to go downhill again rapidly, and on slight cause. To sum up, then, what I want specially to impress upon you is that pernicious anaemia is by no means an uncommon disease, thatmany cases are undiagnosed because of the unusual way in which they commence or in which they run their course, and that there is no means of diagnosis except the examination of the blood. If blood ,examination were made more of a routine matter in ordinary practice, as it might quite well be, we should attain a much greater accuracy in diagnosis, not only of pernicious anaemia but of the most diverse conditions; and if we practise it constantly we shall not only save -ourselves many unpleasant surprises, but shall attain a more comfortable certainty about cases which now trouble ns unduly.


Colloids of II-VI semiconductors can be prepared by arrested precipitation techniques. The average diameter in the ~15-100-A range can be controlled by synthetic manipulation. Electron microscopic examination shows that these crystallites have the same crystal structure as the bulk material.1 Optical absorption spectra shows that these crystallites have discrete molecular orbitals rather than a continuous band structure.


Though, African continent has the highest number of state parties to the Rome Statute, recently several criticisms and allegations have been leveled against ICC interventions in Africa. AU and African higher official apparently call for non-cooperation of ICC. They believed that, ICC is unfairly targeting Africa and Africans, and it is a neo-colonial plaything and that Africa has been a place to experiment with their ideas. Such allegation begs question that is really the ICC unfairly focusing Africa and Africans? Therefore, it needs evaluating these accusations by considering the whole process and function of ICC. Accordingly, when we evaluate the allegations, it seems too far from trues. Because, on one hand, many of allegation and criticism itself is not representative of African peoples rather it is the allegation of some African political leaders of authoritarian nature of power those who fears the prosecution for the commission of mass crime and atrocities in their respective countries. On other hand the composition of the court by itself is Africans. It is a global court with historically strong African support. It would not be the court it is today without the valuable input, involvement and support of the majority of African states. The court seeks justice for victims of grave crimes, including African victims; it needs the ongoing support of African government, civil society and public in order to achieve justice. It was intended to be a credible, independent judicial body, able to adjudicate the most serious of international crimes fairly and impartially, where National judicial systems have failed and fight against impunity all over the world.


Objective To study the value of arterial infusion and embolization therapy on treating advanced large intestine carcinoma.Methods Twenty-six cases of advanced large intestine carcimoma's blood supply were measured by Seldinger angiography technology.Infusion and embolization therapy was carried through super-selective intubation to the supply artery of tumor.Results The symptoms of patients were improved. All tumors' diameter decreased and symptom of incomplete obstruction disappeared. Short-term effect was obvious.Conclusion The therapy of arterial infusion and embolization is an effective treatment of advanced large intestine carcinoma especially to the hepatic metastatic cases.There is important value of interventional therapy for primary and metastatic malignancies at the same time.


To obtain titanium alloy implant with porous coatings,porous pure titanium/titanium alloy coatings brazed on titanium alloy were investigated.Brazing filler metals contain no elements with potential toxicity such as Cu,Ni.The results indicated that after brazing at 950℃ for 30 minutes,the pore size of the coating made of pure titanium of titanium alloy powders with size more than 0.2mm was greater than 100μm,and the porosity was about 6.0%-8.8%.Bonding-strengths between substrates and porous coating were greater than 20MPa.Pore size,porosity and bonding strength could meet the demand of implant.The microstructure and the tensile strength of the substrates was influenced scarcely by the brazing thermal process and were coincidental with those requirements in the standard YY 0117.1.The result of biomedical evaluation indicated that porous coating had excellent biocompatibility.


There are several ways of using a full chassis dynamometer to determine emissions from a vehicle. One method is to use a dynamometer to simulate a predefined drive cycle. The method described in this paper uses the dynamometer to derive an engine map of a vehicle. The engine map is a three-dimensional graph with manifold pressure(x-axis) and engine speed (y-axis) in the two dimensional plane, with emissions levels on the z-axis. These maps are then applied to on-road vehicle data to derive emissions models for the vehicle. The models can then be used to quantify vehicle emissions for any given speed-time profile. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E212640.


In "The Psychogenesis of a Case of Female Homosexuality," Freud (1920) describes how a 18 year old teenage girl patient misled him with some "misleading deference dreams." This particular case underlines the problem of the appearance of lying during the treatment. The authors investigate Freud's clinical material and meticulously transcribe his comments to understand the latent aspects of such a situation. By analyzing the details of this atypical therapy through the chaotic history of the teenager's family, the authors show how she shared her pain with Freud while lying to him. This article analyzes the meanings of an until then unknown attitude.


Solution cadmium (Cd) concentrations and sorption and desorption of native and added Cd were studied in a range of New Zealand soils. The concentration of Cd in solution and the concentrations and patterns of native soil Cd desorbed and added Cd sorbed and desorbed varied greatly between the 29 soils studied. Correlation analysis revealed that pH was the most dominant soil variable affecting solution Cd concentration and sorption and desorption of native and added Cd in these soils. However, organic matter, cation exchange capacity (CEC) and total soil Cd were also found to be important. Multiple regression analysis showed that the log concentration of Cd in solution was strongly related to soil pH, organic matter and total Cd, which in combination explained 76% of the variation between soils. When data from the present study were combined into a single multiple regression with soil data from a previously published study, the equation generated could explain 81% of the variation in log Cd solution concentration. This reinforces the importance of pH, organic matter and total Cd in controlling solution Cd concentrations. Simple linear regression analysis could at best explain 53% of the total variation in Cd sorption or desorption for the soils studied. Multiple regression analysis showed that native Cd desorption was related to pH, organic matter and total Cd, which in combination explained 85% of the variation between soils. For sorption of Cd (from 2 μg Cd g–1 soil added), pH and organic matter in combination explained 75% of the variation between soils. However, for added Cd desorption (%), pH and CEC explained 77%. It is clear that the combined effects of a range of soil properties control the concentration of Cd in solution, and of sorption and desorption of Cd in soils. The fraction of potentially desorbable added Cd in soils could also be predicted from a soil's Kd value. This could have value for assessing both the mobility of Cd in soil and its likely availability to plants.


Language changes continuously to adapt the changes of eco-linguistic environment. Language variation and change is also a dynamic process. Language and linguistic ecological environment rely each other,interact each other and influence each other. The diverse elements in the linguistic ecology environment cause language variation. In the interaction between language variation and linguistic ecological environment,language variation keeps the"linguistic ecology",maintains the linguistic vitality and contributes to the ecologization of linguistic ecological environment. But some variants will cause the pollution and influence the development and health of linguistic ecological environment.


One hundred and thirty-nine women who underwent closed mitral valvuloplasty and subsequently became pregnant have been followed up for 1 to 17 years (mean, 10 years) following surgery. The overall postoperative course of these women was not altered by childbearing, when compared with the courses of the other patients in the series of which they are a part, and when a subgroup of 113 of the 139 women was compared with a matched control group. A review of five deaths which occurred in relation to pregnancy revealed that in at least three cardiac management was inadequate. Physicians as well as patients often wrongly consider surgery for valvular disease curative and do not apply the usual careful treatment that all patients with cardiac disease should receive.


The invention relates to a measuring system for thermal parameters of a spatial flow field. The measuring system comprises a plurality of thermal measuring units (1). Each thermal measuring unit (1) is hung on a measuring point position of the spatial flow field through a suspending wire (2), and the suspending wires (2) are controlled by a lumped suspending wire controller (6) arranged on the top of a fixed boundary (5) of the spatial flow field. According to the measuring system for the thermal parameters, the thermal parameters of any point in space can be efficiently and accurately recorded in the large-space thermal experiment process, the thermal parameters of spatial points in a spatial specific plane can be measured, and the thermal parameters of spatial points on a spatial specific curve can be scanned. Each thermal measuring unit is self-contained and can measure and record the thermal parameters independently in the whole experiment process.


We briefly present the relationships between the acoustic velocity v and attenuation α in their exact form, while retaining the ambiguity in the magnitude of the response function. We show that some recent experimental measurements of v and α in polymers satisfy the Kramers–Kronig relations very well, while others are not as satisfactory. We demonstrate that the nearly local approximation obtained by dropping terms in (αv/ω)2 is quite inappropriate for these materials, and we point out the importance of these measurements for the experimental analysis of space charge in insulators.


Last November, the House of Representatives Standing Com mit tee on Agriculture, Resources, Fisheries and Forestry tabled their report, Seeing the Forest Through the Trees1, that inquired into the future of the Australian forestry industry. This easy-to-read slender paperback (132 pages plus appendices, distilled from 121 submissions, 23 exhibits and 91 oral submissions) deals elegantly with several important forestry issues, some of which were previously articulated by Ross Florence2 in this journal. Amongst 19 recommendations, the report seeks a formal assessment of demand and supply scenarios (Rec. 1), actions to promote better understanding of carbon embodied in wood (Recs 3 and 4), renewal of the Regional Forest Agreements (Recs 6–8), and an evaluation of forest stewardship (Rec. 9) and plantation management incentives (Recs 10–11). The report concludes by calling on the Australian Government to lead discussion on three topics: on forests and climate change, on farm forestry and on future supply and demand scenarios (Rec. 19). On the whole, the report is optimistic about opportunities, particularly about the integration of forestry with other land uses (Section 8.5). It also draws attention, however, to several potential problems, including the need to strengthen research and development (Section 8.21), a view backed up recently by FWPA3. Notwithstanding the obvious enthusiasm of the committee chair Dick Adams, the ultimate impact of the report remains uncertain, and precedents suggest that the impact may be modest unless foresters, individually and collectively, help to advance these issues.


NEW ORLEANS MARCH 12-15, 2015 Under the theme of "Atmospheres: Climate, Equity and Community in Photography," this year's annual conference of the Society for Photographic Education was held in New Orleans, a city that has seen more than its share of climatological events. In the opening keynote, author Rebecca Solnit set the stage for this theme, focusing on the local geography and storm history, presenting a talk entitled "Devils In the Details: Photographs, Maps, Words, Truths and Adventures from Yosemite to New Orleans." Noting that photography has an indexical relationship to the world, Solnit shared excerpts from Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas (2013), an alternative mapping project she produced with writer Rebecca Snedeker, and in particular its content related to Hurricane Katrina. Solnit began with tales of the storm and more broadly outlined disaster sociology. Unfathomable City includes maps overlaid with textual misrepresentations about New Orleans, beginning with its founding, and Solnit pointed out that disaster sociologists argue there are no "natural disasters" and thus Katrina was not one. She offered that disaster writ large is partly a disaster of representation, a crisis of representation, noting the many lies told by politicians and the media. As the earth has continued into the anthropocene, the era of climate change, Hurricane Katrina paved the way out of the Bush era and into the Obama administration. Turning her discussion back to the room of well over one thousand photographers and educators, Solnit asked how we make visible patterns, how we have people see. We can "change the story to change the practical possibilities," she argued, adding, "The truth is political. There are no neutral positions left." She posited that "being an artist doesn't mean you get to check out as a citizen," probing the audience: "What would it take to have all of you [photographers] working on climate change next year?" Solnit opined that "Beauty has an important role; pleasure makes it possible to go on and do the important work," and Chris Jordan, the second keynote speaker, is well known for his large-scale photographs of the large-scale detritus of consumerism, which also aestheticize problematic evidence of consumption. Positioning himself as an activist, Jordan shared his realization that it is impossible to experience with our senses our collective effect on the world. Jordan briefly touched on his conceptual series Running the Numbers (2006--present), for which he created photoworks and mosaic pieces whose parts (photographs of bees, pieces of plastic retrieved from the Pacific Ocean) reflect larger statistics about consumption and waste. As he is currently working toward comprehension of the enormous global phenomenon of pollution and pesticides, Jordan focused his talk on several pieces of footage from his film project on Midway Atoll, a remote island and marine sanctuary located in the Pacific Ocean, about equidistant from North America and Asia. Soon to be a feature documentary, the project, which Jordan began in 2009, explores the effects of ocean-borne pollution on wildlife, even that inhabiting an island two thousand miles from any other land. Jordan's solemn and sincere demeanor, and statements such as "life is still a miracle" and "grief is a feeling of love," coupled with myriad images of the decaying bodies of albatross chicks choked with plastic fragments, brought several in the audience to tears. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As with the first two plenaries, several sessions followed the conference theme, addressing issues of climate change. John Ganis showed his vibrant color photographs of coastal sites before and after momentous storm events. In "Earth Now: The Autobiography of An Exhibition," Katherine Ware revealed the curatorial process behind the 2011 show Earth Now: American Photographers and the Environment at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe. …


A plasmonic band-pass filter with symmetric dual side-coupled nanodisk resonators in metal-insulator-metal system is proposed. Compared with the single side-coupled nanodisk resonator structure, the new structure has better transmission response due to the superposition of the outgoing-wave fields' amplitudes of the two resonators. The accurate transmission expression is provided based on the temporal coupled mode theory, and the dynamic transmission response is studied by finite difference time domain method. It is indicated that the transmission characteristics of the symmetric dual nanodisk resonator structure is sensitive to the refractive index of the nanodisk resonators and geometrical parameters. Moreover, the optimum transmission at the wavelengths of 1310 nm and 1550 nm can reach up to 90.8% and 86.2%, with the relative full width at half-maximum of 35 nm and 42 nm, which are better than the results reported in recent literatures. The filter we proposed has important potential applications on pla...


Does electromagnetic field (EMF) effect sperm motility through CatSper calcium channels in rat?

 2100 MHz EMF may reduce sperm motility by acting on CatSper calcium channels.

 EMF exposure has become a serious concern in infertility patients. The effects of EMF through by using mobile phone and laptop have been explored previously, mostly focusing on sperm motility and DNA fragmentation. EMF activates the voltage gated calcium channels and increases calcium concentration. As a result of the EMA exposure, the sperm motility may increase. However, if this happens while sperms are in non-progressive motile phase in the epididymis, it may result with the depletion of limited energy stores. Sperms may become immotile and they can't move forward in the progressive motile phase in the female reproductive system.

 This basic research study was an in vivo experimental approach involving the use of 50 male rats. Wistar-Albino rats (n = 10) weighing ∼320 –350g were included in each groups. The duration of EMF exposure was 1 hour per day for 28 days. Amlodipine (1 mg/kg, 28 days) was used as a calcium channel blocker. The experiment was held between July to December in 2020. 20 female rats were recruited for mating test.

 50 rats were divided into five groups. Group 1; Pure control. Group 2; Sham. Group 3; EMF exposure, Group 4: EMF+Amlodipine, Group 5: Amlodipine positive control. After four weeks of exposure, rats were sacrificed and sperm were collected from cauda epididymis. Sperm motility parameters were analyzed. Intracellular calcium levels were determined with two different method, fluorescence spectrophotometer and laser scanning confocal microscope. Before sacrifice, rats were mated with female rats to evaluate mating ratios.

 The mating score and live birth rates did not vary significantly among the groups (p > 0.05). The sperm motility (A+B, 47.62±16.92 versus 34.19±14.62) and intracellular calcium levels (2.46±0.20 versus 1.85±0.18) were significantly decreased in the EMF group (p < 0.05). The results of fluorescence spectrophotometer and laser scanning confocal microscopy with fluorescent attachment were consistent with each other. There were no significant differences found among the other groups in terms of investigated parameters. Statistical analysis was performed with Kruskal-Wallis test followed by the Dunn-Bonferroni's test.

 The Catsper 1, 2, 3, 4 gene expression levels are still under analyses. These gene expression levels will be helpful to understand possible changes of the sperm motility. The determination of other motility related gene expressions may strength the results.
 Wider implications of the findings: EMF exposure may have a significant effect on sperm motility parameters. Mobile phones carried very close to the reproductive organs may adversely affect the motility of sperm cells due to its emitted radiation levels

 Not applicable


Contemporary college students,facing social changes and competitive pressures,have got many psychological problems.The students of higher and vocational colleges,being a special group among them,bear problems which are even more prominent.Based on the students' current psychological health situation,and analyzing the main causes of their problems,this paper proposes the way to reinforce the mental health education of the higher and vocational college students.


Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a chronic liver disease affecting millions of people worldwide with potentially serious complications that may lead to mortality and constitute a significant socioeconomic burden. Although modern lifestyle, obesity and insulin resistance play leading roles in the pathophysiology of the disease, various metabolic aberrations, as well as genetic predisposition participate in the development and progression of NAFLD. The diagnosis of NAFLD, especially the early recognition of NASH and fibrosis, is vital for the early management of the disease. Many diagnostic methods have been developed for the disease, ranging from liver biopsy to imaging techniques and serum biomarkers, each one followed by advantages and disadvantages. Despite the extensive research in this field, there is to-date no licensed pharmacological treatment. However, several medications have been investigated and provided promising results; in this regard, the results of some phase III clinical trials in NASH patients are expected. Until the approval of specific for the disease medications, the cornerstone of its management remains lifestyle modifications, i.e. dietary changes and increase in physical activity.


Hints of violation of lepton flavor universality in semileptonic $B$ decays have prompted a renewed interest in leptoquarks at the low TeV scale. Among the different scenarios suggested, some happen to violate also lepton number, yet not much attention has been paid to the expected size of the associated lepton number violating processes. In this note we examine this issue. We find that there is a single leptoquark scenario compatible with the current size of the anomalies which also violates lepton number. In this scenario (Majorana) neutrino masses are radiatively generated. With the leptoquark parameters extracted from fitting the flavor anomalies, one actually gets the right order of magnitude for neutrino masses. We examine the associated effective field theories both at the electroweak scale and at the hadronic scale and estimate the size of the most relevant lepton number violating processes.


AIM
To study the effect of photon scattering on the quantification of relative changes of 18F-FDG uptake in longitudinal brain PET studies.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Two studies from a numerical Zubal phantom were simulated. One of these was a basal reference study and the other was an activated study showing an increase or decrease in the uptake in a region of the anterior cingulated cortex. SimSET Monte Carlo code was used to simulate PET sinograms. Primary photons, which did not undergo interactions, and scattered photons, which underwent one or more interactions, were stored in separate files to assess the effect of scattering. Reconstruction was carried out using an iterative algorithm based on ordered subsets of projections (OSEM-2D). The relative changes in uptake were calculated from images reconstructed with all the photons (primary and scattered) and from images reconstructed with only primary photons.

RESULTS
A linear relationship between the calculated and theoretical values was obtained both for the images reconstructed with all the photons and for those reconstructed with primary photons. Our findings show a relative change recovery of 79% +/- 0.4% for all photons and 91% +/- 0.5% for primary photons only.

CONCLUSIONS
Our results highlight subestimation of relative changes of 12% +/- 0.7% when scattered photons are used. Thus the importance of correcting this degradation in order to improve quantification is shown.


The new technology of classical Duken's operation which allows to lower traumatization, lymphorroe, and improve of ablastic level. The modified variant of operation differs by use sonolipodestruction, dissociation of a outflow link, collateral link dump and inflow link. The authors results allow to continue researches on practical realization of this operation.


Electrical Engineering students must learn the fundamentals of electricity in a very short time, due to the increasing number and size of areas addressed on EE courses. While some students have been exposed to those fundamentals during secondary level education, others have not. These circumstances increase the complexity of devising a good approach to motivate all students for learning. One example occurs when teaching the analysis methods for DC Linear Electrical Circuits, where the number of all possible arbitrary choices grows exponentially with the number of circuit branches. While first-time-exposed students are required to learn first how to apply the different analysis methods, the remaining students are required to calculate the total number of possible set of equations that solve the circuit. To serve both student groups, we developed an application that helps understanding the way arbitrary choices affect the set of equations generated for solving a customizable circuit.


Summarisation of long financial documents is a challenging task due to the lack of large-scale datasets and the need for domain knowledge experts to create human-written summaries. Traditional summarisation approaches that generate a summary based on the content cannot produce summaries comparable to human-written ones and thus are rarely used in practice. In this work, we use the Longformer-Encoder-Decoder (LED) model to handle long financial reports. We describe our experiments and participating systems in the financial narrative summarisation shared task. Multi-stage fine-tuning helps the model generalise better on niche domains and avoids the problem of catastrophic forgetting. We further investigate the effect of the staged fine-tuning approach on the FNS dataset. Our systems achieved promising results in terms of ROUGE scores on the validation dataset.


I made one late credit card payment recently--my first ever--and now I'm worried about how it will affect my credit score. What can I do to prevent damage?


Abstract We present continuous estimates of snow and firn density, layer depth and accumulation from a multi-channel, multi-offset, ground-penetrating radar traverse. Our method uses the electromagnetic velocity, estimated from waveform travel-times measured at common-midpoints between sources and receivers. Previously, common-midpoint radar experiments on ice sheets have been limited to point observations. We completed radar velocity analysis in the upper ~2 m to estimate the surface and average snow density of the Greenland Ice Sheet. We parameterized the Herron and Langway (1980) firn density and age model using the radar-derived snow density, radar-derived surface mass balance (2015–2017) and reanalysis-derived temperature data. We applied structure-oriented filtering to the radar image along constant age horizons and increased the depth at which horizons could be reliably interpreted. We reconstructed the historical instantaneous surface mass balance, which we averaged into annual and multidecadal products along a 78 km traverse for the period 1984–2017. We found good agreement between our physically constrained parameterization and a firn core collected from the dry snow accumulation zone, and gained insights into the spatial correlation of surface snow density.


High throughput DNA sequencing has revolutionised the analysis of complex communities of microorganisms (microbiota). In humans, this paradigm shift, allowing analysis of the membership of microbial communities without the need to culture individual organisms, has spawned an avalanche of research and a number of important collaborative programs characterising not only the catalogue of species comprising the microbiota associated with different ecological niches in the body in states of both health and disease (Group et al. 2009) but also their genetic potential (Qin et al. 2010). Nowhere in the human body are the microbes more numerous or the microbiota more complex than in the colon of the gastrointestinal tract (Savage 1977). With its trillions of bacteria, comprising over one thousand individual microbial species present in varying abundances, the microbiota of the human gut and the genes they carry (collectively the microbiome) provides the host with a vast metabolic potential over and above that afforded by the 20,000–25,000 protein coding genes of the human genome. The composition of the human colonic microbiota is remarkably diverse between individuals with each person's microbiota being unique (Qin et al. 2010; Yatsunenko et al. 2012). Despite this diversity at the taxonomic level, when analysed for functional potential by whole genome analysis at the gene level, conservation of bacterial genes between individuals was high suggesting that


Introduction. Let us consider redundant systems with one main unit and m − 1 stand-by units operating in "warm" conditions, i.e. under lower stress than the main one. We shall use notation S(1,m− 1) for such systems. The problem is to obtain confidence intervals for the cumulative distribution functions of redundant systems using failure data of two groups of units, the first group functioning in "hot" and second – in "warm" conditions. We suppose that switching from "warm" to "hot" conditions does not do any damage to units. Bagdonavicius, Masiulaityte and Nikulin (2008) give mathematical formulation of "fluent switch on" and propose tests for verification of this hypothesis. The formulation is based on the "principle of Sedyakin" (Sedyakin (1966), Bagdonavicius and Nikoulina (1997), Bagdonavicius and Nikulin (2002)). Denote by T1, F1 and f1 the failure time, the c.d.f. and the probability density function of the main unit. The failure times of the stand-by units denote by T2, . . . , Tm. In "hot" conditions their distribution functions are also F1. In "warm" conditions the c.d.f. of Ti is F2 and the p.d.f. is f2, i = 2, . . . , m. If a stand-by unit is switched to "hot" conditions, its c.d.f. is different from F1 and F2. For i = 1, 2 denote by Si = 1 − Fi, λi = fi/Si and Λi = − ln Si the survival function, hazard rate and cumulative hazard, respectively. The failure time of the system S(1,m− 1) is T (m) = T1 ∨ T2 ∨ . . .∨ Tm. Denote by Kj and kj the c.d.f. and the p.d.f. of T , respectively, (j = 2, . . . ,m), K1 = F1, k1 = f1. The c.d.f Kj can be written in terms of the c.d.f. Kj−1 and F1:


ABSTRACT The mechanism of renin release was studied in 8 hypertensive patients following the administration of diazoxide. Plasma renin activity, urinary sodium excretion (Una V), plasma electrolytes, plasma volume, the change in extracellular fluid (ECF) volume and blood pressure were measured. Renin release was found to be independent of any measured change in plasma or ECF volume. The signal to release renin in this situation appears related to the fall in blood pressure, the fall in plasma Na concentration or to the fall in UNaV. Three patients failed to increase renin following diazoxide administration.


Learning about the cognitive state of the brain has always been a popular topic. Based on the fact that fluctuations of brain signals and functional connectome (FC) relate to specific human behaviors, deep learning based methods have shown promising results on the prediction of such behaviors by analyzing biological signals. Existing methods either model from static perspectives or apply spatial-temporal graph convolution to extract dynamic properties. However, the static information and dynamic information can reflect global brain activities and local brain activities respectively. Thus, we propose BrainNetFormer to incorporate both static and dynamic properties for human behavior prediction. To be specific, a spatial cross attention module and a temporal cross attention module are introduced for information fusion. In addition, since a specific behavior of subjects can be decomposed into a series of subtasks, we introduce a sub-task regularization loss to assist in training and empower the model to recognize subtasks at each moment. Experiments on the HCP-Task dataset demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed model.


Classification is a very important task in data mining and pattern analysis, which have been widely used to solve various real-world problems. To obtain better classification performance, in this paper, we propose a novel classification framework based on multiple weighted class association rules (C-MWCAR), whose key idea is to transform the association among features into a set of class association rules (CARs), then classify unknown instances based on the CARs obtained. Concretely, C-MWCAR consists of a dictionary order-based CAR mining algorithm (DOCMA), a branch-based CAR selection algorithm (BCSA), and a multiple weighted CARs-based classifier (MWCC). Specifically, DOCMA mines the complete set of CARs, from which BCSA further selects a representative and concise set of CARs based on the distribution, coverage, and redundancy of the mined CARs. When classifying an unknown instance, MWCC picks out a set of CARs that are most similar to the given instance and computes the weighted importance of those CARs. Finally, the class label of the given instance will be determined by the similarities between the instance and the CARs and the weighted importance of the CARs. Furthermore, we apply the proposed C-MWCAR to a real-world classification task, i.e., hypertension diagnosis, based on a real dataset of 128 subjects. Experimental results indicate that C-MWCAR outperforms four baseline methods and achieves 93.3%, 93.8%, and 92.7% in terms of accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity, respectively.


Samuels / Infrastructural Optimism Infrastructure reconstruction is often the first and most obvious response to catastrophe. Following the 1995 Northridge, California, earthquake, the rebuilding of highways ahead of schedule and under budget not only expedited but also symbolized a return to normal and a restabilization of daily life. The same could be said for the restoration of public transit in Lower Manhattan after the attacks of 9/11, where the near immediate resumption of bus and subway service served as a symbol of resilience. Throughout American history, large-scale public works have served as symbolic unifiers and representations of collective optimism. The mobility of the populace, in particular, has been a core tenet of cultural identity. Thus, the Interstate highways unify the country not only by stringing it together with concrete but also by elevating speed and mobility to the status of national entitlement. Concurrently, we expect our street networks, the freeway's slower, older brother, to serve us functionally, formally, and symbolically. In addition to providing access, streets establish a sense of order and hierarchy, orient us within urban networks, and, at the neighborhood scale, operate as spaces for social connection. Freeways and streets together bookend our understanding of roads in the production and reproduction of public space. The restoration of mobility infrastructure can also play a significant role in the wake of catastrophe. It can serve first as part of the recovery narrative, and next as a symbol of restoration and reconnection. More powerfully, it can be an instigator of transformation and reinvention. In this fuller role, infrastructure has the opportunity to link the collective and the individual through built form, becoming a formidable component of urban reimagining.


From the early part of this decade, the construction industry has been flooded with discussion about collaborative approaches to the design and construction of projects. It is clear that building information modeling (BIM) will change aspects of construction. This paper introduces basic contract terms involved in the use of BIM, the form contract documents, and the broad issues that should be of concern. This paper also presents a new and related delivery method called integrated project delivery.


PURPOSE: A ground delay time matched CMOS microwave frequency multiplier is provided to adjust a phase error between two input signals of an XOR gate by controlling a group delay time with voltage controlled delay line. CONSTITUTION: In a ground delay time matched CMOS microwave frequency multiplier, a hysteresis comparator(100) receives an input signal and converts a sinusoidal wave into a square wave. The hysteresis comparator controls a duty cycle of the square wave according to a change of a control voltage constant. A delay element(200) is installed at an output terminal of the hysteresis comparator. The delay element delays the square wave inputted through the hysteresis comparator by 90°, and a voltage controlled delay line(300) is installed in parallel with the delay element. The voltage controlled delay line compensates the group delay time of the delay signal outputted through the delay element according to the change of the control voltage. An XOR gate(400) outputs a desired amplified signal through two signals inputted from the delay element and the voltage controlled delay line.


This study examined the role of 3 sources of support in facilitating expatriate adjustment and performance. A model was developed that examined the effects of perceived organizational support (POS), leader-member exchange (LMX), and spousal support on expatriates' adjustment to work, the country, and interacting with foreign nationals. In turn, it was expected that expatriate adjustment would influence expatriate task performance and contextual performance. The model was tested using a sample of 213 expatriate-supervisor dyads via structural equation modeling. The results indicated that POS had direct effects on expatriate adjustment, which in turn had direct effects on both dimensions of performance. Although LMX did not influence adjustment, it did have direct effects on expatriate task and contextual performance. Spousal support did not relate to adjustment or performance. Practical implications for facilitating expatriate adjustment and performance are discussed.


The utility model discloses a horizontal profile five-axis machining center which comprises a machine tool body, an XYZ three-axis system which drives a tool bit, and a worktable which drives a workpiece, wherein a clamping system used for clamping the workpiece is arranged on the worktable and comprises a support, a C-axis rotating disc, an A-axis index plate and a clamping device; the support is fixedly arranged on the worktable; the C-axis rotating disc is arranged on the support in a mode of rotating +/-90 degrees; the A-axis index plate is arranged on the C-axis rotating disc in a mode of rotating 360 degrees; and the clamping device is arranged on the A-axis index plate. According to the utility model, the workpiece is driven to rotate 360 degrees around the axis A and rotate +/-90 degrees around the axis C by utilizing the A-axis index plate and the C-axis rotating disc; and moreover, the workpiece is clamped and limited by utilizing the clamping device, one-step workpiece clamping is realized, the workpiece is not needed to be manually replaced in the process of machining different surfaces, the labor intensity is reduced, the same workpiece is not needed to be repeatedly positioned, the machining efficiency and quality are greatly improved, and the aim of guaranteeing the machining precision is achieved.


We apply the efficient inverse Cholesky factorization to Alamouti matrices in Groupwise Space-time Block Code (G-STBC) and Alamouti-like matrices in Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (OMP) for the sub-Nyquist sampling system. By utilizing some good properties of Alamouti or Alamouti-like matrices, we save about half the complexity. Then we propose the whole square-root algorithms for G-STBC and OMP, respectively. The proposed square-root G-STBC algorithm has an average speedup of 2.96~3.6 with respect to the sub-optimal G-STBC algorithm. On the other hand, when comparing the complexities of all the steps except the projection step, the complexity for the proposed square-root OMP algorithm is about 30% of that for the fast OMP algorithm by matrix inverse update.


The Chediak Higashi Syndrome (CHS) is a rare autosomal recessive disease characterized by partial oculo-cutaneous albinism, frequent pyogenic infections, presence of giant granules in leucocytes and other granule containing cells. Associated findings include silvery hair, photophobia, horizontal and rotatory nystagmus, hepatosplenomegaly and peripheral neuropathy. Mutation of the LYST gene defines the syndrome.
 The first case of Chediak Higashi Syndrome was reported by Bequez-cesar in 1943. Since its first description, around 170 cases have been reported in the literature till date and 10 cases have been reported from India.


Natural gas engines have widely been developed in the world due to the decrease of oil resources and the strictness of exhaust regulations. This paper introduces the main processes of designing diesel engines fuelled by natural gas and ignited by spark plug, and analyzes a number of problems considered in processes of designing the engines. As an example, the characteristics of a natural gas engine converted from a 4125 diesel engine are introduced,and the performances of the prototype engine are discussed based on the results of engine bed testing.The effect of the engine is satisfying.


The world is recovering from Covid-19, and along with that it has brought the zeal to use the digital media, concepts like work from home, connecting the whole world using applications and social media. However, with good things follow bad and we observe a lot of people being affected by social engineering attack via multiple means be it as elementary as an unfamiliar person calling us to ask us about our day or complicated and puzzling as someone acting like the victim's senior. In some cases, people are aware of the process but are unaware of the terms they are victimized with others do not know many kinds of social engineering attacks. Therefore, it is imperative for an organization and an individual that they are aware of how Social Engineering is carried out. In this paper, we represent the survey filled by more than 100 people from diverse age groups and work profiles seeking their views on the attack and knowledge about social engineering.


239 February 2013 G eneral anesthesia is a neurophysiologic state defined by numerous therapeutic endpoints, including unconsciousness, amnesia, immobility, and analgesia. Despite the fact that the nervous system is the target for all these effects, there is currently no standard intraoperative monitor of neural function. This is due, in part, to the diversity of anesthetic actions throughout the brain and spinal cord. although there has been significant focus on neurophysiologic techniques to ensure unconsciousness and amnesia, identifying the neural signatures of effective analgesia has received less attention. In this issue of anesthesiology, Untergehrer et al.1 explore the neurophysiologic measure of nociception as a potential method for guiding pharmacologic interventions. It is first important to distinguish nociception from pain: nociception denotes the neural encoding and processing of noxious or potentially noxious stimuli,2 whereas pain refers to an accompanying subjective experience. as such, ongoing nociceptive processes cannot be interpreted or reported as "pain" by an anesthetized patient during surgery, leaving the provider searching for objective indices of nociception and its attenuation by analgesics. The indices most commonly used in the anesthetized patient relate to respiratory rate (if the patient is breathing spontaneously) or hemodynamic variables (if paralyzed). However, there is a broad differential for intraoperative changes such as tachycardia or hypertension, and these measures are therefore unreliable. Past studies of nociception have examined numerous parameters, including heart rate variability,3 heartbeat intervals and plethysmographic pulse wave amplitude,4 skin conductance,5,6 pupillary response,7 and processed electroencephalographic measures.8,9 recently, Mathews et al.10 demonstrated that a composite variability index incorporating electroencephalographic and electromyographic variability was superior to conventional hemodynamic measures in predicting an endpoint posited to reflect the balance of nociception and antinociception. However, most of these approaches rely on surrogate measures of nociception and analgesia. Untergehrer et al. took a more direct approach by studying nociception-related evoked potentials. The investigators studied 60 healthy male volunteers, divided into four groups of 15 receiving increasing (but subanesthetic) concentrations of propofol, sevoflurane, remifentanil, and (s)-ketamine. In the baseline state and during two levels of drug exposure, three different neurophysiologic potentials were recorded: mid-latency auditory-evoked potentials (to assess levels of consciousness), visceral pain-evoked potentials (VPeP), and contact heat-evoked potentials (CHeP). VPeP stimulation is generated by a bipolar electrode positioned in the distal esophagus, whereas CHeP stimulation is generated by a contact heat probe applied to the skin. The study found that auditory-evoked potential amplitudes did not decrease and latencies did not increase due to either concentration of the four drugs. These data suggest that there was no global suppression of cortical activity. In contrast, VPeP amplitudes decreased as drug concentrations increased Neurophysiology and Intraoperative Nociception


Does the existence of these networks can facilitate employee? And whether to use this network sta can also easily perform exchange of data that has been processed without removing or discon- necting the hard disk for transfer of data and facilitate in the search data via the Internet. Now purpose of this study was to analyze the use of computer networks by employees in government oces BKKBN to conduct the survey every bureau in the oce of BKKBN. The result is a result of the survey data is already nished and can be seen whether this network systems used or unused, as its function as usual.


-- The present work is a field study with descriptive level, documentary, no experimental that has
like object of study the design of a model of Financial Management, aimed at improving the
current economic situation – financial of the social programs of the Integral Program National
for the Familiar Welfare INABIF. His deficient politics of financial administration has caused
that this state institution of the Ministry of the Woman and Social Development MIMDES,
shows an unfavorable situation in his levels of liquidity, solvency and autonomy, that joined to
his indexes and indicators of results, denotes a low coverage and quality of the social services
that awards to the boys and teenagers in state of abandonment and people in situation of social
risk.
Starts with a proper and objective financial and technical diagnostic, realized to the four (04)
social programs: Integral Protection, Integral Development of the Family and Promotion of the
Volunteering, Protection Investigation and Development of the Population in Risk of the period
2004 to the 2008.
The model of financial management proposed, constitutes an important contribution in the
institutional management; mainly when modifying the financing structure by increase and
administrate the financial resources of the International Cooperation and of the Public Treasure
under the approach of Budget by Results; and to the impact in more of 30,550 average direct
beneficiaries of monthly attention; when comprehensive care coverage and improve the quality
of social services through the 176 units providing services situated in 19 departments of the
country, without including the Societies of Charity Public that are autonomous in the
administration of his resources.


Although injury to the rectus femoris is a very common occurrence, resultant fibrosis of the muscle is rare. The pathogenesis of the injury is in effect a third-degree tear of the muscle with retraction of the muscle and hemorrhage with a resultant fibrotic mass. Of five patients with traumatic fibrosis of the rectus femoris muscle, three patients had surgical extirpation of the fibrotic mass with good return of quadriceps function, and one had acute partial rupture of the rectus femoris muscle with spontaneous recovery.


This article is about tourist activity of the selected students of the Khmelnytskyi Humanitarian-Pedagogical Academy in Khmelnytskyi (Ukraine). The article discusses topics concerning tourist activity among young people. The empirical research presented in the article has been conducted among selected students of the Khmelnytskyi Humanitarian-Pedagogical Academy in Khmelnytskyi in Ukraine at the Department of the Preschool Pedagogy, specialization 014 "Teacher of English and foreign literature".
Tourism is a phenomenon of universal culture, a measure of self-fulfilment of a human being. Almost all of us undertake tourist activity. Increasingly, it is becoming an important and inalienable part of spending free time in contemporary society, influencing the quality, level and lifestyle of the society. The level of this activity depends on numerous factors, including socio-demographic, cultural and economic ones.
In the research, the author focused on getting to know the motives for travelling by students, their main purpose of travel, the amount of money they spend on travelling, a company they travel with, means of transport most frequently used for their journeys and whether they use the services of travel agencies while organizing trips. In the conducted research, a survey questionnaire has been applied as one of the marketing research methods.
As the conducted research has confirmed, the research group selected by the authors is very active taking into account tourism. The respondents are willing to travel several times a year, organize trips with designated goals (rest, adventure, willingness to learn about culture) and their main motivation for travelling is a desire to relax, experience the adventure and practice sports during the trip.
Key word: students, tourist activities, tourism, Ukraine, questionnaire.


"The British Interactive Broadcasting Decision and the application of competition rules to the new digital interactive television services"* I. Introduction The Commission exempted on 15…


In this study, we perform PS-OCT imaging of discarded human rotator cuff tendon. Imaging at the surgical cut and torn end were preformed and compared with histopathology.


Background.Mung bean (Vigna radiata(L.) R. Wilczek) is a nontraditional crop for Russia. The crop's main areas of cultivation are situated in the subtropical zone of the planet. However, positive experience with mung bean cultivation in a number of regions – the South of the European part and the Far East of Russia – implies the expediency of a search for source materials suitable for the development of cultivars adapted to these conditions.Materials and methods.The results of the field phenotyping of 76 mung bean landraces from VIR have been analyzed. The experiments were performed in 1949–1956 in Uzbekistan (former Central Asian Branch of VIR), and in 2009, 2018 and 2019 in Astrakhan Province, where VIR's collection had been reproduced from the early 1990s. The data on the variability of phenological and agronomic characters and their relationships were compared for both areas and analyzed using the methods of multidimensional statistics.Results and discussion.A strong variability of all studied characters and their dependence on the environment were observed in both locations. According to the averaged longterm data, differences were found in the duration of interphase periods and the entire growing season, seed yield, plant height, and 1000 seed weight in both sites. Significant differences were shown in the strength of correlations between the studied characters. In Astrakhan Province and in the years with less favorable conditions in Uzbekistan, the level of correlations between most traits was higher. Therefore, an increase in the strength of the relationships between crop characters may be regarded as an indicator of unfavorable growing conditions. The genotypes with short periods from sprouting to flowering and from sprouting to maturation were the most resistant to environmental changes. It is these traits that should first of all be transferred to mung bean cultivars when promoting its production to the north, beyond its traditional area.


Blackberry micropropagation (Rubus spp.) and effects of substrates in plants acclimatization. The objective of the present study was to achieve the improved techniques in in vitro propagation and to determine a better substrate for the blackberry. The first experiment consisted of nodal segments of plants with ±2 cm of length obtained from in vitro culture cv. Ebano, excised and inoculated in MS culture medium, supplemented with five activated charcoal concentrations and five BAP concentrations. Both experiments were entirely performed in a design randomized complete block, using in vitro 3 explants by repetition and 4 replications for treatment and in greenhouse, a factorial 4x4. The pH of the culture medium was adjusted to 5.8 before the addition of 6 g L -1 of agar and the sterilization to 121oC and 1 atm for 20 minutes. After 70 days, several parameters in the explants were evaluated. A greater number of leaves and roots were obtained with 0.5 mg L -1 of BAP. The number of roots and their length were larger in the presence of 3 g L -1 of activated charcoal. A larger weight of the fresh matter was obtained in the absence of activated charcoal. The second experiment consisted of plants cv. Cherokee maintained in in vitro conditions and transplanted to plastic trays, containing the substrates and kept in greenhouse. Four types of substrates were tested. After 100 days of acclimatization, the leaf number, root length and aerial part, cool and dry root weight and cool and dry aerial part weight had been evaluated. It was concluded that the acclimatization can be successfully performed using Plantmax  followed by the Plantmax  + vermiculita + rind rice carbonized mixture. There was a 92% rate of the plants' survival in all substrates.


Microwave Tomography (MWT) is being developed as an accurate detection of hemorrhagic strokes using microwaves. A transmission line technique is used to measure the relative permittivity of blood as a function of frequency and is presented to provide insight on an appropriate operating frequency for MWT. A response calibration method is used on a coaxial sample holder to accurately measure the scattering parameters of and characterization of liquid samples. This paper demonstrates the ability to accurately measure liquid samples by replacing the coaxial line dielectric with liquid. Experimental results from water and 99% isopropyl alcohol are compared against known values to provide verification of the coaxial airline to accurately measure blood samples in the microwave region.


Abscisic acid (ABA) is critical in drought tolerance and plant growth. Group A protein type 2C phosphatases (PP2Cs) are negative regulators of ABA signaling and plant adaptation to stress. However, our knowledge about the functions of potato group A PP2Cs is limited. Here, we report that potato group A PP2C StHAB1 is broadly expressed in potato plants and strongly induced by ABA and drought. Suppression of StHAB1 enhanced potato ABA sensitivity and drought tolerance, whereas overexpression of the dominant mutant StHAB1G276D compromised ABA sensitivity and drought tolerance. StHAB1 interacts with almost all ABA receptors and the Snf1-Related Kinase OST1. Suppressing StHAB1 and overexpressing StHAB1G276D alter potato growth morphology; notably, overexpression of StHAB1G276D causes excessive shoot branching in potato. RNA-seq analyses identified that auxin efflux carrier genes, StPIN3, StPIN5, and StPIN8, were upregulated in StHAB1G276D-overexpressed axillary buds. Correspondingly, auxin concentration was reduced in StHAB1G276D-overexpressed axillary buds, consistent with the repressing role of auxin in lateral branch outgrowth. The expression of BRANCHED1s (StBRC1a and StBRC1b) does not change in StHAB1G276D-overexpressed axillary buds, suggesting that overexpression of StHAB1G276D caused axillary bud outgrowth is not due to regulating BRC1 expression. Our findings demonstrate that StHAB1 is vital in potato drought tolerance and shoot branching.


Perhaps nothing in the recent past has stirred so much euphoria among the Indian taxonomists and scientists working on biodiversity as have the few reports on the dramatic discovery of new speciesof frogs from the two regions, the Western Ghats in India and Sri Lanka (see ref. 1 for more details). While one group from the Sri Lankan region reported 200 new species2 (but only 100 species in their recent report)3, another study in the
Western Ghats region of India reported 115 species mostly from the genus Philautus – all new to science!4 Accordingly, it has been argued that the Western Ghats along with Sri Lanka could represent the global hotspot of amphibian radiation and that there could be many more species waiting to be discovered by herpetologists
working in these regions. A recent discovery of a Gondwanaland relic frog family Nasikabatrachidae5,6 has only reinforced this notion.


Concentrations of Cd and Pb were determined in the various tissues of Posidonia oceanica, epibiota, and adhering sediments collected at two locations that represent distinct degrees of anthropogenic influence. The distribution of metals in the components of the sea grass meadow depended on the specific component and the metal species analysed. Cadmium concentrations in the tissues of Posidonia were similar or higher in comparison to the adhering sediment. In contrast, a greater fraction of Pb was bound to the bottom sediment. Photosynthetic parts of leaves accumulated more cadmium than other tissues, while lead concentrations in the underground parts on both stations were higher in comparison to the aboveground parts. The results suggested that Posidonia accumulates lead mainly from the sediment, while cadmium is accumulated mainly from the surrounding water. Lead concentration in the tissues of Posidonia was higher at the more contaminated site, thus confirming the validity of this plant as a biological indicator of lead.


: This study seeks to examine the representation of gender in a popular series of Chinese secondary school EFL textbooks and investigate whether the Chinese government"s promotion of the "gender-equal" society is reflected through the patterns of gender representation in these textbooks. The present study analyzed one popular series of EFL textbooks published in 2012 for Chinese secondary school students with corpus linguistic techniques (e.g. concordances, collocate-Lancs Box). While some of the findings (e.g


Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) patients experience an elevated risk for cerebrovascular disease and neurocognitive dysfunction. One mechanism that may contribute to this heightened risk is an impairment in dynamic cerebral autoregulation; the ability of cerebral vessels to stabilize changes in cerebral blood flow during fluctuations in arterial pressure. We compared dynamic cerebral autoregulation between patients with CKD stages III‐IV, and controls (CON) without CKD matched for age, race, sex, and anti‐hypertensive medication use. We hypothesized that dynamic cerebral autoregulation would be impaired in CKD compared to CON.


It is hard to benefit fully from lean manufacturing without having an efficient distribution centre. Applying lean distribution concept helps to reduce distribution centres waste while maintains customer service level high. The purpose of this study is to develop a lean assessment model that enables distribution managers to measure and improve the leanness levels of their companies. A data driven analytical approach (i.e. factor analysis) is used to assess leanness quantitatively. A lean index score is calculated to benchmark the leanness level of four distribution companies based in Ireland and UK. Results recommend that special attention should be taken on simplifying distribution network structure, establishing long term suppliers' collaboration, managing customer demand, improving storage space utilisation, and managing distribution operations more efficiently.


Heat transfer applications such as heat pipes, boilers and refrigerators use evaporation and condensation to evacuate the energy dissipated or stored in the system. To this end, pure liquids are primarily used as the use of mixtures leads to concentration gradients which generally lower the heat transfer coefficient. On the other hand, recent work (Y. Abe, 2007) has shown that well-chosen mixtures can have special properties which can delay the onset of burn-out of heat pipes, leading to an important enhancement of the maximum achievable heat transfer rate. Studying the evaporation of mixtures in micro-channels and thin films therefore appears crucial both on the fundamental and applied points of view.


In the high gain strong pump regime, the radiation field amplitude and phase can vary substantially over a wiggler period. Also, due to the periodic transverse motion, the longitudinal electron energy suffers large variations over the same distance. Because of these considerations, the spatial average that leads to the classical one‐dimensional free‐electron laser equations is not applicable here. Thus the rederived equations suitable for the high gain strong pump regime contain 2π/kw periodic terms. Comparisons with the Electron Laser Facility (ELF) experiments of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory [Phys. Rev. Lett. 54, 889 (1985); 57, 2172 (1986); Phys. Rev. A 35, 2184 (1987)] on the operational characteristics including the relative phase of the radiation field are made.


Synthesizing a wide variety of single-atom catalysts (SACs) on different supports via a universal strategy is still challenging because of the high surface energy of single atoms which leads to serious aggregation. Here we report a general graphene quantum dot-tethering design strategy to synthesize SACs. The strategy is applicable to different metals (Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu and Zn) and supports (0D carbon nanosphere, 1D carbon nanotube, 2D graphene nanosheet, and 3D graphite foam) with the metal loading of 3.0-4.5 wt%. The direct transmission electron microscopy imaging and X-ray absorption spectra analyses confirm the atomic dispersed metal in carbon supports. Our study reveals that the abundant oxygenated groups for complexing metal ions and the rich defective sites for incorporating nitrogen are essential to realize the synthesis of SACs. Furthermore, the carbon nanotube supported Ni SACs exhibit high electrocatalytic activity for CO2 reduction with nearly 100% CO selectivity. This universal strategy is expected to open up new research avenues to produce SACs for diverse electrocatalytic applications.


Aim This study demonstrated the immunohistochemical expression of secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine (SPARC) in oral epithelial dysplasia, carcinoma in situ and different grades of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Materials and methods This study used 28 OSCC; 11 well differentiated OSCC, 10 moderate differentiated OSCC and seven poorly differentiated OSCC that simultaneously contained dysplastic epithelium and carcinoma in situ were subjected to immunohistochemical staining for SPARC. Results All cases of OSCC showed positivity to SPARC. There was a significant correlation between SPARC expression and grades of OSCC (P < 0.01). The high expression was noted in poorly differentiated OSCC in addition to the expression of some stromal cells. No SPARC expression was noted in normal oral epithelium. Conclusion The results of this study showed that SPARC may be useful in early stages of cancerization and may be used as a marker for predicting the progression of OSCC. In addition, stromal SPARC expression is an effective indicator for targeted stromal therapy.


© Hershey This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and redistribution in any medium, provided that the original author and source are credited. When the business objective is entice retailers to pre-order a winter product despite promises of a warm winter, how do you overcome their reluctance due to risks associated with uncertain sales? As a result of climate change, this challenge is an increasingly common one, as retailers face going into seasons fearing "unseasonal weather", whether that may be an unusually dry spring, cool summer, warm autumn, or any other weather condition or event considered adverse, unexpected, or unfavourable.


Aminoazobenzene sulfate salt reacts with the crystals of KBr in solid-state under high pressure yielding corresponding bromide salt. The reactant and product differ also in the position of protonation, amino group,and azo group, respectively. Since protonation of azo-group destroys the coplanarity of two benzene rings and
diminishes π-conjugation, the product differs from the reactant also in color, from orange to violet. Hence, the
reaction is the example of the piezochromic effect. This solid-state process is studied by kinetic measurements,and the structures of the compounds were analyzed by X-ray chrystallography.


The theoretical design and experimental characterization of 1480 nm superfluorescent erbium-doped fibre sources are reported in this paper. Different configurations and three erbium doped fibres with different concentrations are used. In double pass configurations a Faraday rotator mirror is used. The comparison of the characteristics of these SFSs in terms of the output power, mean wavelength, spectral width and stability is carried out.


Among recent collections of Lauraceae and older collections received on loan from various herbaria, several undescribed species were found. Six of those, Aiouea inconspicua van der Werff, Licaria bracteata van der Werif, Phoebe glabra van der Werif, Pleurothyrium costanense van der Werif, P. grandiflorum van der Werff, and P. westphalii van der Werff, are described. Difficulties with the generic placements of these new species are discussed. Lauraceae, comprising about 40 predominantly tropical genera, are rich in species in the Neotropics. The majority of the species have small, inconspicuous flowers. Genera are often hard to recognize and nearly all are in need of modem treatments. During identification of the large number of unidentified Lauraceae in MO and among the various loans I received, several undescribed species were found. Of those, the following six are here described as new.


This article discusses the connection between language and thought processes and its implication towards social consciousness and attitudes. The framework is developed from various concepts of linguistic relativity particularly temporal and spatial deictic systems. Data were introspectively collected from the Bima native speakers selected based on dialectal variation, topography, and political geography and descriptively analyzed by identifying, classifying, describing and explaining the connection between various linguistic forms and spatio-temporal dimensions and social consciousness. The study finds that the concept of time in the language is not only semantically realized in adverbs of time but also morphologically represented in linguistic markers of present, past and future. Space is realized through the choice of three-dimensional locative markers: 'ake' speaker proximity, 'ede' hearer proximity, and 'aka' speaker-hearer distant detachment. Location is also marked by other factors: topography, geography, trans-communication pathways, and socio-political vitality of referred area. The study shows a strong relationship in both expert and commoner speakers' understanding of spatial and temporal concepts although explicit reference to space and time as required in the language does not significantly materialize in different attitudes toward them. Key Words: language, thought, social awareness, deictic systems


A new nursing specialism has emerged over the last 10 years, that of the continence adviser. Many posts, however, were set up without adequate planning and resources and the service grew without central coordination or guidance. As a result, the continence advisory role is interpreted differently from post to post. Incontinence is regarded as a stigmatizing condition which is denied the status of true 'illness' and its management is traditionally relegated to the responsibility of low-status and junior staff. In attempting to gain professional recognition, continence advisers have adopted a variety of strategies to overcome these prejudices. In this paper a number of tensions in the role are identified. It is suggested that the service needs to present a more coherent profile both in the interests of its own survival and those of its client group.