Abstract : This Statement articulates the major elements of our Air Force Posture - our strategy for fulfilling our role in defending the Nation and its interests; our contributions to winning the Global War on Terrorism; our most critical efforts and concerns; and our top priority programs. Three overarching Service priorities serve as the organizing principles for all of our efforts: Winning Today's Fight; Taking Care of Our People; and Preparing for Tomorrow's Challenges. The Air Force's top acquisition priorities specifically begin to address our critical recapitalization and modernization needs the new Tanker (KC-X); the new Combat Search and Rescue Helicopter (CSAR-X); modern space systems to provide capabilities vital to our Joint warfighters; the F-35A Lightning II; and a new Bomber we intend to field by 2018. We will continue our efforts to modernize and protect America's vital air, space, and cyberspace capabilities. We strongly recommend extending the existing C-130J production line. We are also concerned with preserving America's aerospace industrial base. Additionally, we seek relief from restrictions on the retirement of aging, worn-out aircraft which are increasingly unsafe, unreliable, and obsolete. The Air Force is highly engaged in national efforts to assure sustainable energy, and we will continue to push the performance envelope on fuel efficiency and renewable energy technologies. We are committed to the Joint Basing initiative and want to work through the transfer of total obligation authority (TOA) and real property control without impacting command authorities, reducing installation service support, or negatively affecting quality of life. Finally, we will continue our practice of recruiting and retaining the world's highest quality Airmen. We will build upon our successes in achieving Total Force Integration of our Regular, Guard, Reserve, and Civilian Airmen.


BACKGROUND
Recall bias remains a concern in case-control studies, although few investigations have found evidence of differential recall. This study examined whether differences in occupational exposure reporting occur in volunteered vs. prompted questionnaire responses.

METHODS
In a large, population-based, case-control study of a childhood cancer, neuroblastoma, we calculated odds ratios for broad occupational exposure groups on the assumption that in the absence of recall bias, risk estimates for such broad groupings should be close to the null value.

RESULTS
Prompted exposures and work activities showed little evidence of differential recall by parents of cases and controls (all OR < 1.2), but case parents were more likely to volunteer information about other exposures or activities (ORs: 1.35-1.71). Case mothers were also more likely than control mothers to report activities involving indirect exposure (OR = 1.41).

CONCLUSIONS
These findings suggest that prompted exposure questions are less likely to be subject to recall bias than open-ended questions.


The lateral carbon export related to mangroves is of great scientific significance and ecological value in the global carbon cycle. The dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), dissolved organic carbon (DOC), particulate organic carbon (POC), and stable isotopes (δ13CPOC) of water samples were quantified in the flood (September 2020) and dry (January 2021) seasons in Zhangjiang Estuary. The results revealed that the carbon compositions in the tidal channel of the Zhangjiang Estuary are as follows: DIC > DOC > POC in both seasons. Except for the POC in the site near the sluice, the contents of all carbon compositions were significantly larger in the flood season than those in the dry season (p< 0.05). In the flood season, the POC and DOC exhibited similar spatial characteristics that all sites from the lower sites to the mouth were significantly larger than the site near the sluice. The DIC had an increasing trend from the upper site to the mouth. In the dry season, DIC and DOC displayed patchy distribution under the influence of mariculture and the sluice, while the POC had a decreasing trend from the upper site to the mouth. The MixSIAR model indicates that the source of the POC is overwhelmingly the mariculture, averagely accounting for 42.7% in the flood season and 52.6% in the dry season, mainly in the form of microalgae. The average contribution of mangrove to POC was 33.1% in the flood season and 39.3% in the dry season. The DIC-δ13CPOC and DOC-POC relationships represent the biogeochemical process of microbial photosynthesis and the physical process of adsorption-desorption of organic carbon by redundancy analysis, respectively. This initial dataset for this region should be included in other studies to improve the mangrove outwelling estimate.


The Internet of Things is finally blooming through diverse applications, from home automation and monitoring to health tracking and quantified-self movement. Consumers deploy more and more low-rate and low-power connected devices that provide complex services. In this scenario, positioning these intelligent objects in their environment is necessary to provide geo-localized services, as well as to optimize the network operation. However, indoor positioning of devices using only their radio interface is still very imprecise. Indoor wireless localization techniques often deduce from the Radio frequency (RF) signal attenuation the distances that separate a mobile node from a set of reference points called landmarks. The received signal strength indicator (RSSI), which reflects this attenuation, is known in the literature to be inaccurate and unreliable when it comes to distance estimation, due to the complexity of indoor radio propagation (shadowing, multi-path fading). However, it is the only metric that will certainly be available in small and inexpensive smart objects. In this thesis, we therefore seek algorithmic solutions to the following problem: is it possible to achieve a fair localization using only the RSSI readings provided by low-quality hardware? To this extent, we first study the behavior of the RSSI, as reported by real hardware like IEEE 802.15.4 sensor nodes, in several indoor environments with different sizes and configurations , including a large scale wireless sensor network. Such experimental results confirm that the relationship between RSSI and distance depends on many factors; even the battery pack attached to the devices increases attenuation. In a second step, we demonstrate that the classical log-normal shadowing propagation model is not well adapted in indoor case, because of the RSSI values dispersion and its lack of obvious correlation with distance. We propose to correct the observed inconsistencies by developing algorithms to filter irrelevant samples. Such correction is performed by biasing the classical log-normal shadowing model to take into account the effects of multipath propagation. These heuristics significantly improved RSSI-based indoor localization accuracy results. We also introduce an RSSI-based positioning approach that uses a maximum likelihood estimator conjointly with a statistical model based on machine learning. In a third step, we propose an accurate distributed and cooperative RSSI-based localization algorithm that refines the set of positions estimated by a wireless node. This algorithm is composed of two on-line steps: a local update of position?s set based on stochastic gradient descent on each new RSSI measurement at each sensor node. Then an asynchronous communication step allowing each sensor node to merge their common local estimates and obtain the agreement of the refined estimated positions. Such consensus approach is based on both a distributed local gradient step and a pairwise gossip protocol. This enables each sensor node to refine its initial estimated position as well as to build a local map of itself and its neighboring nodes. The proposed algorithm is compared to multilateration, Multi Dimensional Scaling (i.e. MDS) with modern majorization problem and classical MDS. Simulation as well as experimental results obtained on real testbeds lead to a centimeter-level accuracy. Both landmarks and blind nodes communicate in the way that the data processing and computation are performed by each sensor node without any central computation point, tedious calibration or intervention from a human.


Existence conditions of optical transfer function for discrete imaging systems with focal plane photodetector arrays and aliasing phenomenon due to insufficient sampling intervals are analyzed. A concept of average discrete point spread function based on the characteristics of photodetectors is proposed. A theory of statistical transfer function for discrete imaging systems is suggested.


Employee retention refers to the ability of an organization to retain its employees. Each research investigation is expected to make a definitive contribution to the existing literature. The contribution of this study would be providing some gap-filling information in the field of Employees attrition and retention in service industry in general and IT Sector in particular. Satisfaction of employees is a major problem and due to this reason service sector have high switching level of jobs. Though, companies are investing a lot on the HR practices to improve attrition rate it is suggested to think from the point of view of the employees. Present study were the employees of the IT sector; especially software engineers of various IT companies in Bangalore city. Respondents were selected randomly. Employees were mainly from TCS, Tech Mahindra, Honeywell, Caterpillar, IBM. The information of this research will be useful to service industry in their HR practices and add new information to literature. It will help the management of the IT Sector to develop their new strategies of retention. The study found the influence of HR policies, compensation and benefits, work pressure and relationship with the superiors on employee retention.


Numerical calculation of submicron silicon MOSFET and CMOS device is performed. Conjugate nature of the thermal and electrical behavior in the device is considered, and the lattice temperature is solved as well as the electron concentration and the electron temperature. Considering both the electron temperature and the lattice temperature is important for the device modeling, for example the electron distribution shows the difference with and without considering the electron temperature. In this research, by comparing the calculation result of n-type and p-type MOSFET and that of CMOS, we examine the interaction mechanism between n-type and p-type MOSFET in CMOS device when the distance between n-type and p-type MOSFET is decreased. From the calculated results, we investigate that the reason of the interaction between two MOSFET in CMOS is the forward bias at the p-n junction of substrate. Furthermore, we can estimate the distance, at the case of interaction, from the results of n-type and p-type MOSFET separately model, not from the results of CMOS model.


"Truth captured loses its glamor; truths long known and widely believed have a way of turning false with time; easy truths are a bore and too many of them become half truths." R, Hofstadter, in "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life," 1962.


This report focuses on the planning of production in the construction sector. The objective of the planning is to manage the building process as time and cost effectively possible. Nevertheless the ...


In recent years, the economic development of China and India and their border confrontations have intensified bilateral strategic competition. This study used the State of Democracy in South Asia survey to identify dual mindsets of competition and contingency that drive how Indians perceive China's influence in Asia. These two mindsets are based on a cognitive schema characterized by a political predisposition against China. However, this negative orientation is moderated as more information is acquired regarding the impact of China on India. The competition mindset does not always manifest itself, and is only cognitively activated when a change is perceived in India's power status. On the other hand, the contingent principle appears whenever competition seems to have abated, or disadvantage seems unavoidable. The mindsets of competition and contingency are not only relevant to the evolution of Sino–Indian relations, but also explain how Indian policymakers behave and respond in international society.


For q odd, we extend the known construction of Fisher-Thas-Walkerocks via the osculating planes to a twisted cubic (see Fisher, Thas, Math. Z. 169 (1979) 1-11) to monomialocks, provided some restrictions on the characteristic hold. In particular, we get an alternative geometric description of Kantorocks (Kantor, Math. Z. 192 (1986) 65-50) for p =3 . c 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. MSC: Primary 51E20; Secondary 51E12; 51A40


The DEAP-3600 experiment is a single phase dark matter detector using 1000 kg fiducial mass of liquid argon as scintillating target. An array of 255 high quantum efficiency PMTs detect the argon scintillation light. The experiment is located at SNOLAB, 2 km underground in Ontario, Canada. In February 2015 the PMTs were switched on and data were taken with vacuum and N2 in the detector. Optical and gamma calibration data have been collected to commission the data acquisition hardware and software and characterize the optical properties of the detector.


Althougt at first sight the crisis appears as a disturbance of the regular course of economic, social and organizational, this is a necessary step that turns old structures and relations to some superior functional. Under these conditions, hawever, it is absolutely necessary that the situation be properly evaluated by an analysis of developments and labour market structures and be taken right decision for the purposes of proper management of existing and potential recovery so far underused resources: people, values and strategies. The impact of the economic crisis on labour markets displays significant variation from one country to another. Employment rates and unemployment rates will be compared between European countries and for different groups of workers. Some countries have succeeded in keeping employment levels up and unemployment levels down through recourse to employmentpreservation and employment-creation measures combined with an expansion of active labour market policies. Moreover, certain labour market groups or categories have been particularly hard hit by the crisis. These include men, temporary workers, youth and migrant workers. In the EU Member States, crossing the crisis period was marked by changes in the sense orientation flexibleworking time and conservation work, a strategy that ensures rapid and reversible adaptation to the needs ofproduction entities present.


We report the cytogenetic and molecular characterization of a 9.46-Mb terminal deletion of 2q in a 3-year-old girl with a de novo satellited 2q (2qs), corpus callosum dysgenesis, short stature, mental retardation and developmental delay. We speculate that haploinsufficiency of HDAC4 is responsible for short stature, mental retardation and developmental delay, and haploinsufficiency of EFHD1 is most likely responsible for the phenotype of corpus callosum dysgenesis in this patient.


Entrepreneurs with zero startup capital can launch new ventures through kind-financing from input-suppliers by offering higher input-prices at time t+k; and, through kind offering at lower prices at time t+k to output-buyers who make advance payments at time t. Interests of entrepreneurs, input-suppliers, and output-buyers get intertwined through such arrangements. All parties (entrepreneurs, input-suppliers and output-buyers) joined through kind-financing, kind-offering, and advance-payments have vested interests in the success of the new-venture (and they contribute through their expertise). This improves efficiency thereby generating a higher level of output than the one generated under cash financing and spot-selling. The value of outputs generated through kind-financing will be greater than the value of outputs owed to kind-suppliers; and, the quantity of outputs generated through advance-payments will be greater than the quantity of outputs owed to advance payers. All types of ventures (new-ventures, growing-ventures, and advanced ventures) gain through kind-financing and forward-selling.


If fine Si particles within the hypereutectic Al-Si-X (X is minor elements) alloys are dispersed in the matrix, the alloys can be used as an alternative for the ceramic reinforced composites. The advantages of hypereutectic Al-Si composites over the conventional composites are their superb wear resistance, high modulus, ease of shaping, and low production cost. Such properties make these composites suitable for structural applications, where NVH(Noise vibration harshness) is of significance. To judge the feasibility of the composites for the actual industrial application, we have prepared a propeller shaft using spray-formed Al-Si-X composites, which has been extruded into tubes. In the present study, Young's modulus and mechanical properties of the Al-25Si-X composite were investigated. And then, the fracture mechanisms operative in the hypereutectic Al-Si-X composites were also investigated in an attempt to improve (or tailor) the mechanical properties of the composites suitable for structural applications.


Forty‐three 2‐[(benzotriazol‐1/2‐yl)methyl]benzimidazoles, bearing either linear (dialkylamino)alkyl‐ or bulkier (quinolizidin‐1‐yl)alkyl moieties at position 1, were evaluated in cell‐based assays for cytotoxicity and antiviral activity against viruses representative of two of the three genera of the Flaviviridae family, i.e. Flaviviruses (Yellow Fever Virus (YFV)) and Pestiviruses (Bovine Viral Diarrhoea Virus (BVDV)), as Hepaciviruses can hardly be used in routine cell‐based assays. Compounds were also tested against representatives of other virus families. Among ssRNA+ viruses were a retrovirus (Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1 (HIV‐1)), two picornaviruses (Coxsackie Virus type B2 (CVB2), and Poliovirus type‐1, Sabin strain (Sb‐1)); among ssRNA− viruses were a Paramyxoviridae (Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV)) and a Rhabdoviridae (Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV)) representative. Among double‐stranded RNA (dsRNA) viruses was a Reoviridae representative (Reo‐1). Two representatives of DNA virus families were also included: Herpes Simplex type 1, (HSV‐1; Herpesviridae) and Vaccinia Virus (VV; Poxviridae). Most compounds exhibited potent activity against RSV, with EC50 values as low as 20 nM. Moreover, some compounds, in particular when bearing a (quinolizidin‐1‐yl)alkyl residue, were also moderately active against BVDV, YFV, and CVB2.


Leiyomyosarcoma of vascular origin is uncommonly seen but mostly occurring in the inferior vena cava. We report a case of young male who presented with giant retroperitoneal leiyomyosarcoma which extended into the right atrium along Inferior vena cava.


Background Hepatitis A virus (HAV) infection is a leading cause of viral hepatitis in children, yet the HAV vaccine is not included in the national immunization program (NIP) in Mexico. This study addresses an identified evidence gap of the burden of hepatitis A disease, complications, and associated costs in Mexico by analyzing surveillance and healthcare data. Data review included disease morbidity (incidence and hospitalization), mortality, and healthcare resource utilization costs. Methods In this observational, retrospective database study, we conducted a systematic screening, extraction, and analysis of outcome data from the national surveillance system in Mexico from January 2000 to December 2019. Results During the analysis period (2000–2019), the average incidence rate/year of HAV cases was 14.7 (5.4–21.5) per 100,000 inhabitants. Children 1–9 years of age (YoA) had the highest average incidence rate/year with 47.8 (14.7–74.5). The average hospitalization rate/year due to HAV infection was 5.8% (2.9–9.6%). Although the highest burden of HAV continued to be in children (1–9 YoA), an increase in incidence and hospitalizations (with complications) in older age groups (≥ 10–64 YoA) was observed. The annual average fatality rate was estimated to be 0.44% (0.26–0.83%) of which 28.8% of deaths were concentrated in adults ≥ 65 YoA. The total direct costs of medical attention due to HAV and related complications were estimated at $382 million Mexican pesos. Conclusion The overall results suggest an uptrend in HAV infections in adolescents/adults compared to children in Mexico. Therefore, as the overall incidence risk of HAV infection decreases, the mean age of infection increases. This consequently increases the risk of severity and complications in older age groups, thus increasing the demand for healthcare resources. Our findings provide evidence for including the inactivated HAV vaccine in the Mexican NIP.


In Chemical Graph Theory, several degree-based topological indices were introduced and studied since 1972. In this paper, we introduce the Sombor leap index and modified Sombor leap index and compute these indices for some important nanostructures which appeared in nanoscience.


AbstractA model of human skin has been developed in vitro using epidermal keratinocytes, dermal fibroblasts, and type I collagen as starting materials. The bilayered model (Testskin, LSE) consists of a contracted collagen lattice populated with dermal fibroblasts overlaid with keratinocytes that form a multilayered epidermis at the air-liquid interface. Structural, kinetic, biochemical, and functional data suggest that during cultivation the construct undergoes a gradual transition from a "culture" phenotype to an organotypic pheno-type marked by changes in keratin content, cell kinetics, corneocyte shape and size, lipid biosynthesis, morphologic organization, and function. Timing of this transition and final functional characteristics can be manipulated somewhat by culture conditions. Metabolism and biological response are similar to in vivo response at this stage. However, the organotypic culture is as yet not completely developed with respect to a fully functional stratum corneum and continuous basemen...


The paper procedure for determining abuse of dominant position in the competition law of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Competition laws is very important for the functioning of the market, and is in line with the European Union. It is interesting that during the decision-making Competition Council, the purpose of assessment of the case, can be used the practice of the European Court of Justice and the decisions of the European Commission. The main role of the Competition Council is to determine the violation of competition laws, while in the European Union's role entrusted to the Commission. Following the example of the Commission should be strengthened and the capacity of the Competition Council in order to prevent more harm to competition regarding abuse of dominant position. Competition Council decided to initiate the procedure, but it can be at the request of a party or ex officio. When making decisions, we find that the mischaracterization of constituent status, which creates space obstruction, thus the possible ineffectiveness of the Council. Judicial protection provided Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, because it are against the decisions of the Competition Council may declare claim. The specificity of the existence of the extraordinary remedy to review the decision of the Competition Council. The jurisdiction of the Competition Council and the forced execution of decisions.


The invention discloses an extinguishment composition. The extinguishment composition comprises extinguishment powder and water, wherein the weight ratio of the extinguishment powder to the water ranges from 1:0.8 to 1:1.2. The extinguishment powder is composed of, by weight, 3 parts to 7 parts of calcium silicon residues, 1 part to 3 parts of fly ash, 1 part to 3 parts of flue gas desulfurization gypsum, and 0.5 part to 1.5 parts of cement. The invention further discloses an extinguishment method for spontaneous combustion of coal in a goaf. The method includes the first step of mixing and stirring the extinguishment powder with the water according to the weight ratio ranging from 1:0.8 to 1:1.2 to form extinguishment slurry, and the second step of injecting or spraying the extinguishment slurry manufactured in the first step into the goaf with the requirement for extinguishment so as to conduct grouting extinguishment. The invention further provides the purpose of using the extinguishment composition for conducting extinguishment for spontaneous combustion of the coal in the goaf. According to the method, less clay or loess is used, workloads for processing the extinguishment slurry are reduced, and acid gas produced by coal combustion can be solidified.


Refraction is a common physical phenomenon and has long been researched in computer vision. Objects imaged through a refractive object appear distorted in the image as a function of the shape of the interface between the media. This hinders many computer vision applications, but can be utilized for obtaining the geometry of the refractive interface. Previous approaches for refractive surface recovery largely relied on various priors or additional information like multiple images of the analyzed surface. In contrast, we claim that a simple energy function based on Snell's law enables the reconstruction of an arbitrary refractive surface geometry using just a single image and known background texture and geometry. In the case of a single point, Snell's law has two degrees of freedom, therefore to estimate a surface depth, we need additional information. We show that solving for an entire surface at once introduces implicit parameter-free spatial regularization and yields convincing results when an intelligent initial guess is provided. We demonstrate our approach through simulations and real-world experiments, where the reconstruction shows encouraging results in the single-frame monocular setting.


Amphiphilic diblock copolymers are prepared by ring opening metathesis polymerization, with one block containing hydrophobic Toll‐like receptor 7 (TLR7) agonists and one block containing hydrophilic peptides as substrates for matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs). A fluorescent label is incorporated into the polymer chains for in vivo imaging. Upon dialysis against aqueous solution, polymers form 15 nm spherical micelles. Subsequent exposure to MMP‐9 elicits a morphological change to yield immunostimulatory microscale assemblies. The intravenous (IV) administration of the formulation to mice bearing 4T1 breast cancer tumors results in nanoparticle accumulation in tumors, reduction in primary tumor growth, and inhibition of lung metastases, as compared to saline‐treated animals. Mice administered the parent immunotherapeutic small molecule (1V209) experience significantly increased plasma levels of proinflammatory cytokines IL‐6, IP‐10, and MCP‐1 at 2 h following IV administration, whereas the nanomaterial shows no increase over saline‐treated controls. These data suggest that covalently packaging low molecular weight immunotherapeutics at high weight percent loadings in enzyme‐responsive nanoparticles maintains drug efficacy while decreasing immunotoxicity, providing a platform for cancer immunotherapeutic delivery.


Energy saving accuracy estimates are important for development of energy efficient projects and for demonstrating their cost-effectiveness. Increasingly, commercial buildings have an advanced measurement infrastructure, which has led to the availability of high-frequency interval data. These data can be used in a number of energy efficiency tasks, including anomaly detection, control and optimization of heating, ventilation, and air cooling systems. All it makes possible the application of artificial intellect methods and therefore leads to more accurate estimates of energy savings. In this paper, we proposed the method for modeling the consumers energy profile based on the clustering analysis, exactly, modified K-means algorithm. Extended computer simulations have been shown that it improves the accuracy of energy consumption forecasts considerably.


This study aims to determine the level of physical fitness of recreational runners in the city of Semarang. The variable of this research is the level of physical fitness. The subjects in this study were recreational runners in the city of Semarang, totaling 54 people. Data collection in the study was carried out using research instruments in the form of physical fitness test, namely the 2400 meter running test. The results of this study indicate that out of fifty four samples of recreational runners in Semarang City, as many as ten people or 18.50% fall into the very good category, nineteen people or 35.20% fall into the good category and twenty five people or 46.30 % is in the sufficient category, based on the results of this study it can be concluded that the physical fitness of runners in the city of Semarang is mostly in the sufficient category, and there are no samples in the less category, if you want to improve physical fitness, more programmed training is needed based on sports science and trainers who are experts in the field of physical fitness to exercise more effectively and get maximum results.


According to the requirements of foreign language database unite searches of science and technology information center,firstly,searches gain all data in the form of text file using existing database searches software;then,establish a new database,extract data from text files and input into the new database;lastly,access the new database with ASP technique,and realize database unite interface searches by the way of B/S.


The effect of replacing Mn for Fe in the ferrimagnetic perovskite CaCu3Mn4O12 has been studied in the series of nominal composition CaCu3(Mn4−xFex)O12 (x = 0, 0.5, 1.0). These materials have been prepared in polycrystalline form under moderate pressure conditions of 2 GPa, in the presence of KClO4 as oxidizing agent. The x = 1.0 sample has been studied by neutron powder diffraction and Mössbauer spectroscopy to unravel some structural peculiarities. These oxides crystallize in the cubic space group (No. 204) and contain Ca2+ and (Cu2+, Mn3+) at the A sublattice of the ABO3 perovskite, arranged in a 1:3 ordered array. Neutron diffraction suggests that Mn4+ and Fe3+ occupy at random the octahedral B positions of the perovskite structure, whereas the Mössbauer study adds a singular feature: 89% of Fe3+ is, effectively, in an octahedral environment, whereas 11% of Fe3+ is located at square-planar positions together with Cu2+. The materials have also been characterized by magnetic and magnetotransport measurements. All the samples are ferromagnetic and show a progressive decrease of TC as the Fe contents increases. Also the saturation magnetization and Weiss temperatures diminish in the Fe-doped oxides, which suggest an increment of the antiferromagnetic interactions at the (Mn, Fe) octahedral sublattice. The magnetoresistance also decreases upon Fe doping, although a sharp low-field response is observed below TC.


Abstract This study reports on the evolution of particle size distributions (PSDs) and habits as measured during slow, Lagrangian-type spiral descents through deep subtropical and tropical cloud layers in Florida, Brazil, and Kwajalein, Marshall Islands, most of which were precipitating. The objective of the flight patterns was to learn more about how the PSDs evolved in the vertical and to obtain information of the vertical structure of microphysical properties. New instrumentation yielding better information on the concentrations of particles in the size (D) range between 0.2 and 2 cm, as well as improved particle imagery, produced more comprehensive observations for tropical stratiform precipitation regions and anvils than have been available previously. Collocated radar observations provided additional information on the vertical structure of the cloud layers sampled. Most of the spirals began at cloud top, with temperatures (T) as low as −50°C, and ended at cloud base or below the melting layer (ML)....


Transducers based on the phenomenon of localised surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) are fabricated using silver nanoparticles (NPs) imbedded into thin poly (methyl methacrylate) films. The particles are produced by magnetron sputtering, size selected with a precision ≤ 10% of the diameter and deposited on the films in vacuum. Immersion of NPs is controlled by post-deposition thermal annealing providing very good adhesion, in particular, resistance against following wet chemical procedures. LSPR properties of silver NPs are exploited for protein detection using a classical antibody-antigen scheme through covalent attachment of antibody molecules to the particles, followed by incubation with antigen (chicken egg albumin). Atomic force microscopy studies reveal that antibodies are predominantly attached to NPs providing binding sites for the antigens of interest. Specific changes in the LSPR band are observed for each step of protein incubation on NPs. Thus, the transducers demonstrate good sensitivity and selectivity in detection. Flexibility of polymer substrates paves a way for making devices of required configuration.


The equations that describe the chemical reaction system are strongly nonlinear.Normally there are many solutions of the nonlinear problem.In this paper an extended homotopy-continuation algorithm was proposed,based on which the steady state multiplicity characteristics of an ideal reacting system was studied.In order to deeply understand the essential characteristics of the reacting system,an investigation of how the steady state solutions changed when one single parameter varied continuously was performed.Finally a spatial image of steady state solutions in the parameter plane was given to show the multiplicity characteristics of the reacting system.


The catalytic action of three as synthesized SnS nanomaterials viz nanoparticles, nanowhiskers and nano- ribbons was studied on cellulose pyrolysis. The SnS in three nanoforms were synthesized by chemical solution method. Prior to use as catalyst in cellulose pyrolysis, all the three as synthesized SnS nanomaterials were charac- terized for stoichiometry, crystal structure and morphol- ogy. Before the study as catalyst in cellulose pyrolysis, all the three SnS nanomaterials were characterized by thermal analysis. The thermal analysis of SnS nanoparticles, nanowhiskers and nanoribbons including their catalytic properties on cellulose pyrolysis was studied employing thermogravimetric (TG), differential thermogravimetric and differential thermal analysis techniques. The three SnS nanomaterials thermal analysis was done in inert nitrogen atmosphere in the temperature range of ambient to 950 C. All the thermocurves were recorded for four heating rates of 2, 5, 10 and 20 C min -1 . The TG curves showed three steps thermal decomposition for all the samples and for all heating rates. The kinetic parameters of three nanomateri- als were evaluated from the thermocurves employing Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose (KAS) method. The catalytic action of three as synthesized SnS nanomaterials on pure microcrystalline cellulose pyrolysis was done for two concentrations of 2 and 10 %. The analysis of thermocur- ves and kinetic parameters evaluated using KAS method showed that SnS nanoribbons (2 and 10 %) work as best catalyst compared with SnS nanoparticles and nanowhis- kers for cellulose pyrolysis. All the obtained results are deliberated in details.


The aim of the study is to determine the problem of purchase taxation of passenger cars in an enterprise in the Visegrad Group countries. The Czech Republic and Poland are taken as examples. On the basis of these two neighboring countries, there are major differences in the value-added tax and excise tax treatment. The article describes the specificity of taxation on purchase transaction in each of the listed countries and the settlement of this transaction. The hypothesis put forward in the study is formulated as follows: preferential taxation of car purchase transactions for corporate purposes in the Czech Republic may be a part of the tax strategy of enterprises in other countries, in particular in neighboring ones.


Bacteriophages/Phages are viruses that infect and replicate within bacteria and archaea. Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health. The therapeutic use of bacteriophages provides another potential solution for solving antibiotic resistance. To develop phage therapies, the identification of phages from metagenome sequences is the fundamental step. Currently, several methods have been developed for identifying phages. These methods can be categorized into two types: database-based methods and alignment-free methods. The database-based approach, such as VIBRANT, utilizes existing databases and compares sequence similarity between candidates and those in the databases. The alignment-free method, such as Seeker and DeepVirFinder, uses deep learning models to directly predict phages based on nucleotide sequences. Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages.In this work, we propose using a deep representation learning model with pre-training to integrate the database-based and non-alignment-based methods (we call it INHERIT). The pre-training is used as an alternative way for acquiring knowledge representations from existing databases, while the BERT-style deep learning framework retains the advantage of alignment-free methods. We compared the proposed method with VIBRANT and Seeker on a third-party benchmark dataset. Our experiments show that INHERIT achieves better performance than the database-based approach and the alignment-free method, with the best F1-score of 0.9868. Meanwhile, we demonstrated that using pre-trained models helps to improve the non-alignment deep learning model further.


Previous research on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) has typically adopted the perspective of the acquirer (incumbent firm). We focus instead on the young, small technology ventures that are the tar...


During August and September 1993 a laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) instrument was used to observe OH and HO2 as part of the Tropospheric OH Photochemistry Experiment (TOHPE) in the mountains west of Boulder, Colorado. A prototype version of this instrument has been described previously. Modifications were made to the instrument for TOHPE, including the integration of a new dye laser. The instrument was calibrated by producing known amounts of OH and HO2 above the instrument inlet. HO2 was measured on 19 days during TOHPE, while OH was measured on 5 days. Although poor laser performance limited the detection limit to 1 to 2×l06 cm−3 for an integration time of 300 s and a signal-to-noise ratio of 1, OH concentrations were observed to reach 3 to 7×l06 cm−3 near midday. HO2 typically peaked near 1×108 cm−3. HO2 consistently reached its maximum near local noon. Observations made with the LIF instrument are compared with observations made with an ion-assisted technique.


COVID-19 causes burdens to the ICU. Evidence-based planning and optimal allocation of the scarce ICU resources is urgently needed but remains unaddressed. This study aims to identify variables and test the accuracy to predict the need for ICU admission, death despite ICU care, and among survivors, length of ICU stay, before patients were admitted to ICU. Retrospective data from 733 in-patients confirmed with COVD-19 in Wuhan, China, as of March 18, 2020. Demographic, clinical and laboratory were collected and analyzed using machine learning to build the predictive models. The built machine learning model can accurately assess ICU admission, length of ICU stay, and mortality in COVID-19 patients toward optimal allocation of ICU resources. The prediction can be done by using the clinical data collected within 1-15 days before the actual ICU admission. Lymphocyte absolute value involved in all prediction tasks with a higher AUC. The online predictive system is freely available to the public (http://22.214.171.124:8000/).


The trade name is the name used by the merchant while carrying out one's business transactions. The trade name mainly functions as a commercial promotion and differentiate a merchant from the other merchants. The trade name has material and moral value for the business and the merchant. Due to the significance of the trade name, it is very important to protect it. As a matter of fact, third parties may want to take advantage of the trade name. In this case, it is important for the merchant to know by which legal means he will protect his trade name. Although trade name and trademark are different concepts, there are functional similarities between these two concepts. Due to this similarity, violations of rights and violations may occur between the two signs. For this reason, the current study briefly focuses on the concepts of trade name and trademark and the protection of the trade name is examined within the scope of the Turkish Commercial Code and Industrial Property Law. Objective:The objective of this study is to explain the relationship between the trade name and similar concepts and to examine the relevant provisions of the Turkish Commercial Code and Industrial Property Law in terms of the protection of the trade name. Method: The current study, which is based on the literature research method, was carried out by scanning databases and written sources. Findings:Trade name is an important value for businesses, but it is prone to encountering violations. With the Turkish Commercial Code numbered 6102, the possibilities of protecting the trade name have been increased. On the other hand, due to the similarity of the trade name with the trademark, it has been seen that there are frequent conflicts between these two signs. Turkish Commercial Code contains some regulations in terms of protecting the trade name and settling disputes. Originality: The original aspect of this study is the examination of the regulations on the protection of trade names by considering the new legislation and current jurisdictional decisions. The current developments and the problems experienced in practice were scrutinized by including the views of the doctrine.


(75) Inventors: Vishwa Gupta, Brossard (CA); (51) E", 7/30 (2006.01) Gilles Boulianne, Saint-Pie (CA); Patrick Cardinal, Verdun RS ) (52) U.S. Cl. ................................. 707/769; 707/E17.101 (57) ABSTRACT (73) Assignee: CRIM Centre de Recherche Informatique de Montreal, Montreal (CA) A method for performing audio copy detection, comprising, providing a query audio data, the query audio data having a Succession of frames and also providing a plurality of test audio data units, each test audio data unit including a succes sion of frames. For each test audio data unit the method generates a test fingerprint set. The generation of the test fingerprint test including computing similarity measurements between at least one frame of the test audio data and a plu rality of frames of the query audio data. A test audio data unit (60) Provisional application No. 61/247,728, filed on Oct. is then selected as a match for the query audio data at least in 1, 2009. part on the basis of the fingerprint sets. (21) Appl. No.: 12/896,582


Incidents occurring on a highway decrease the number of lanes available to the through traffic, and cause congested situations, big delays, excess energy consumption and high air pollution. Non-recurring congestion becomes more pronounced during peak hour traffic. The main objective of this paper is to simulate the incident restoration operations and analyse their effects on the traffic flow in terms of travel delay and energy consumption. Various policies are tested, assuming different number of traffic restoring units, dispatching policies, and priority for service schemes. These policies are evaluated and a comparative analysis is incorporated to indicate the sensitivity of the various components against the selected restoration system.<<ETX>>


The problem of dynamically synchronous feed between two position loops within a linear servo system is researched. Integeralproportion (IP) method is used to design the speed and position controller of the subsystem. After analyzing the reasons for nonsynchronous phenomenon of the dual linear motors sysnchrofeed servo system, a sysnchronous feed sliding mode compensation controller is designed based on variable structure control theory to eliminate the influence to synchronous feed precision caused by the machine coupling on the output extremity of the dual position loop system and other disturbances and uncertainties. Simulation results verify that the proposed control strategy has strong robustness and can realize dynamic synchronization,even under the condition of asymmetrical load.


Cold mill planing has been used for some time to reclaim asphalt pavement materials for recycling. Today we are faced with staying within restricted budgets more than ever before, so ways and means have to be developed to try to prolong the usefulness of our existing pavements. This report will deal with one method that has been tried and proven to some success, namely, by combining the use of a cold mill planer along with an asphalt repair crew to repair severe longitudinal and transverse cracking resulting in a faster repair process which enables a free flow of traffic and continued use of highways which would otherwise be slated for a major construction and rebuilding job. (Author/TRRL)


Background: currently, Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) in children is characterized by excellent treatment outcomes due to the use of modern risk-adapted treatment strategies. Overall survival rate for HL is more than 90%, therefore, further development of therapeutic protocols should be focused on minimizing toxicity and late adverse reactions.Aim: to improve HL treatment outcomes in children by intensive risk-adapted chemotherapy and personalized approach to radiotherapy.Patients and Methods: 134 children with HL stage II (with large tumor mass) to IV diagnosed for the first time were enrolled in the study. Morphological immunological verification of the diagnosis was performed in all children. HL was staged using imaging techniques (i.e., gallium-67 or technetium-99 imaging, computed tomography, positron-emission tomography). HL-2007 SRC POH protocol based on escBEACOPP regimen was applied. To assess treatment efficacy, overall, relapse-free, and event-free survival rates were calculated. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS19.0 software.Results: risk-adapted treatment based on the terms of complete remission achievement has provided high survival rates even in advanced HL stages. Thus, 14-year overall survival rate was 97.7±1.3%, relapse-free survival rate 92.2±2.4%, and event-free survival rate 90.7±2.6%. Among late adverse reactions, secondary tumors (i.e., breast cancer after mediastinal radiotherapy) were reported. In girls with early (after 4 chemotherapy courses) complete response, we were able to avoid radiotherapy which was not associated with poorer treatment outcomes (overall survival rate was 98.5±1.5%).Conclusion: personalized HL treatment using HL-2007 SRC POH regimen provides high survival rate in most children and the avoidance of radiotherapy in girls with early complete response without negative impact on treatment outcomes. Our findings demonstrate that this therapeutic regimen can be recommended for children with advanced HL and large tumor mass at baseline.Keywords: Hodgkin lymphoma, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, children, survival.For citation: Belyaeva E.S., Susuleva N.A., Valiev T.T. The importance of intensive chemotherapy for advanced Hodgkin lymphoma in children. Russian Journal of Woman and Child Health. 2020;3(2):149–154. DOI: 10.32364/2618-8430-2020-3-2-149-154.


The present experiment aims to recreate and analyze known behavior of high-voltage gaps in a near vacuum with low-cost equipment. It has been previously observed that the application of high voltages in rarified gas results in electrical breakdown and corona discharge, characterized by the production of observable plasma in the experimental area. The current study aims to identify and document a do-it-yourself (DIY) method for producing and containing electrical discharge. Further, the requirements of electrical phenomena were recorded in terms of voltage and pressure to be compared to previous models, namely Paschen's Law, as a measure of accuracy (Berzak et al., 2006). The operating experimental apparatus was demonstrated to exhibit the same discharge phenomena as previously recorded (Peek, 1929). New models for voltage and pressure requirements for electrical breakdown and corona discharge were produced. Literature comparison was available for the voltage model of electrical breakdown, where significant difference was identified between Paschen's model and current data. The present study may contribute further evidence to the inadequacy of Paschen's law in describing breakdown voltages at high pressure-distance configurations.


Dedication, Acknowledgements and References. Introduction. A Short History of Agglomeration. Agglomeration as a Generic, Independent, and Interdisciplinary Field of Science. Glossary of Agglomeration Terms. Agglomeration Theories. Agglomeration Technologies. Tumble/Growth Agglomeration. Pressure Agglomeration. Agglomeration by Heat/Sintering. Special Technologies Using the Binding Mechanisms of Agglomeration. Engineering Criteria, Development, and Plant Designn. Outlook. Bibliography. Indexes.


Rapid revolutionary advances in Information and Communication Technologies and their immense capabilities such as dramatic decrease in the cost of computers coupled with the tremendous increase in the fast processing power and digital storage media, affordable high bandwidth networks, explosive growth of web based information resources, sophisticated search engines, high resolution capture devices and ever growing electronic publications have made it possible for the development of digital libraries. Digital Libraries build information resources predominantly in digital form. Development of a digital library is expensive and involvers consideration of several issues like technological infrastructure, building digital content, adopting standards and software, copyright policies, user interface etc., The present paper defines the concept of digital library and discusses the various issues, advantages and basic components of digital library.


With the development of the Internet of Things (IoT), spatio-temporal crowdsourcing (mobile crowdsourcing) has become an emerging paradigm for addressing location-based sensing tasks. However, the delay caused by network transmission has led to low data processing efficiency. Fortunately, edge computing can solve this problem, effectively reduce the delay of data transmission, and improve data processing capacity, so that the crowdsourcing platform can make better decisions faster. Therefore, this paper combines spatio-temporal crowdsourcing and edge computing to study the Multi-Objective Optimization Task Assignment (MOO-TA) problem in the edge computing environment. The proposed online incentive mechanism considers the task difficulty attribute to motivate crowd workers to perform sensing tasks in the unpopular area. In this paper, the Weighted and Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Combination (WAMOPSC) algorithm is proposed to maximize both platform's and crowd workers' utility, so as to maximize social welfare. The algorithm combines the traditional Linear Weighted Summation (LWS) algorithm and Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO) algorithm to find pareto optimal solutions of multi-objective optimization task assignment problem as much as possible for crowdsourcing platform to choose. Through comparison experiments on real data sets, the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method are evaluated.


The aim of this inquiry is to investigate which ideals of democracy that three proposals for strengtening the democracy in the European Union consists of and to judge if the desired effects of the ...


Pallister–Hall syndrome (PHS) is a rare, autosomal dominant genetic disorder. The phenotypic features of the syndrome include hypothalamic hamartoma, polydactyly, craniofacial anomalies, and other malformations. This case report describes a 5-year-old girl with Central precocious puberty (CPP) due to the presence of suprasellar hypothalamic hamartoma. With a history of polydactyl, suspicion of PHS was made, and the genetic test showed a novel GLI3 gene mutation. CPP is treated with gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist. In addition to CPP, an extensive endocrine evaluation revealed central hypothyroidism while other pituitary functions were intact. The variable clinical phenotype of PHS makes it challenging to diagnose early, especially in the sporadic form. However, suspicion of these cases and early diagnosis leads to a better outcome as many endocrine features may evolve during follow-up, which necessitates interventions.


PURPOSE
Microwave ablation (MWA) is a clinically established modality for treatment of lung tumors. A challenge with existing application of MWA, however, is local tumor progression, potentially due to failure to establish an adequate treatment margin. This study presents a robust simulation-based treatment planning methodology to assist operators in comparatively assessing thermal profiles and likelihood of achieving a specified minimum margin as a function of candidate applied energy parameters.

METHODS
We employed a biophysical simulation-based probabilistic treatment planning methodology to evaluate the likelihood of achieving a specified minimum margin for candidate treatment parameters (i.e. applied power and ablation duration for a given applicator position within a tumor). A set of simulations with varying tissue properties was evaluated for each considered combination of power and ablation duration, and for four different scenarios of contrast in tissue biophysical properties between tumor and normal lung. A treatment planning graph was then assembled, where distributions of achieved minimum ablation zone margins and collateral damage volumes can be assessed for candidate applied power and treatment duration combinations. For each chosen power and time combination, the operator can also visualize the histogram of ablation zone boundaries overlaid on the tumor and target volumes. We assembled treatment planning graphs for generic 1, 2 and 2.5 cm diameter spherically-shaped tumors and also illustrated the impact of tissue heterogeneity on delivered treatment plans and resulting ablation histograms. Finally, we illustrated the treatment planning methodology on two example patient-specific cases of tumors with irregular shapes.

RESULTS
The assembled treatment planning graphs indicate 30 W, 6 min ablations achieve a 5 mm minimum margin across all simulated cases for 1 cm diameter spherical tumors, and 70 W, 10 min ablations achieve a 3 mm minimum margin across 90% of simulations for a 2.5 cm diameter spherical tumor. Different scenarios of tissue heterogeneity between tumor and lung tissue revealed 2 min overall difference in ablation duration, in order to reliably achieve 4 mm minimum margin or larger each time for 2 cm diameter spherical tumor.

CONCLUSIONS
An approach for simulation-based treatment planning for microwave ablation of lung tumors is illustrated to account for the impact of specific geometry of the treatment site, tissue property uncertainty, and heterogeneity between the tumor and normal lung.


Pension financing is a solution for someone who has stopped working to be able to meet all consumptive needs and other economic needs. PT Bank Syariah Mandiri Branch Office Bojonegoro Sumberrejo is one of the Sharia banks that offers pension financing products so that they have to compete with neighboring banks, especially conventional banks, which first offer pension financing products. The population in this study were all retired customers of PT Bank Syariah Mandiri Branch Office Bojonegoro Sumberrejo, as many as 480 customers. By using purposive sampling technique, the number of samples used is 267 retired customers who have met the criteria determined by the researcher. From the analysis, it is found that partially the factors that influence customer decisions in choosing pension financing at PT Bank Syariah Mandiri Branch Office Bojonegoro Sumberrejo are product quality (X1), service quality (X2), price (X3), emotional (X4), convenience ( X5), promotions (X8) and costs (X9). While simultaneously product quality (X1), service quality (X2), price (X3), emotional (X4), convenience (X5), personal experience (X6), other people's experiences (X7), promotion (X8) and costs ( X9) affects the customer's decision to take pension financing at PT Bank Syariah Mandiri Branch Office Bojonegoro Sumberrejo. The nine factors influence the customer's decision in choosing pension financing by only 66.9 percent, while the remaining 33.1 percent is influenced by other factors. Of the various factors that influence customer decisions in choosing pension financing at PT Bank Syariah Mandiri Branch Office Bojonegoro Sumberrejo, the most significant influence is the price factor (X3). Keywords: Pension financing, customer decisions, multiple linear regression analysis


State-space representations provide detailed descriptions of the internal behavior of a system, whereas input–output descriptions of systems emphasize external behavior and a system's interaction with this behavior. In this chapter we address the state-space description of systems, which is an internal description of systems, and the input–output description of systems, also called the external description of systems. We will address continuous-time systems described by ordinary differential equations and discrete-time systems described by ordinary difference equations. We will emphasize linear systems. For such systems, the input–output descriptions involve the convolution integral for the continuous-time case and the convolution sum for the discrete-time case. This chapter is organized into three parts. In the first of these (Section 2.2), we develop the state-space description of continuous-time systems, whereas in the second part (Section 2.3), we present the state-space representation of discrete-time systems. In the third part (Section 2.4), we address the input– output description of both continuous-time and discrete-time systems. Required background material for this chapter includes certain essentials in ordinary differential equations and linear algebra. This material can be found in Chapter 1 and the appendix, respectively.


Background . Subclinical hypothyroidism during pregnancy and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is known to be associated with maternal and child morbidity. The concept of subclinical dysfunction of the thyroid gland in pregnant women depends on the population-specific and trimester-specific reference values so fixed universal cutoff concentrations for thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) that were recommended earlier now are put under the question. Population-specific and trimester-specific reference values have not been defined for pregnant women residing in Saint Petersburg. The data concerning the association of maternal thyroid status with GDM development are controversial. Aims . The aim of the study was to determine the reference values of TSH and free thyroxin (fT4) in the first trimester of pregnancy in women living in St. Petersburg, and to assess the relationship between thyroid status and the risk of subsequent development of GDM. Materials and methods . The levels of TSH, fT4 and thyroid peroxidase antibodies (TPO-Ab) were analyzed in 503 pregnant women before the 14th week of gestation. The women underwent oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) at 24–28 weeks to find out those with GDM. The association between thyroid function, thyroid autoimmunity and the risk of GDM we estimated. Results . The reference values for TSH were 0.07 – 4.40 mU /L, and for fT4 11.7 – 20.3 pmol/L. The prevalence of subclinical hypothyroidism in the 503 pregnant women was 16.9% according to the diagnostic criteria of TSH> 2.5 mIU / L and 3.8% using our calculated reference interval. Hypothyroxinemia was registered in 5,3% using reference values recommended by diagnostic tests manufacturer and in 2,8% according to our calculated reference interval for fT4. GDM was diagnosed in 23% of women. Logistic regression analysis showed associations of hypothyroxinemia and TPO-Ab-positivity with the increased risk of GDM that remained significant after adjustments on age and body mass index (BMI) [adjusted OR (95% CI) = 7.39 (1.27–42.93) for hypothyroxinemia, p=0.026; and adjusted OR (95% CI) = 2.02 (1.01–4.04) for TPO-Ab-positivity, p=0.047). Conclusions . Reference intervals for first trimester TSH and fT4 have been established for pregnant women living in St. Petersburg. Hypothyroxinemia and TPO-Ab-positivity were associated with the increased risk of GDM.


Taking the strategy of concentrating enterprise goals in enterprise policy-decision of management benefits enterprise's obtaining competitive superiority and the utilization efficiency of enterprise resources.Promoting the strategy requires for accepting or rejecting the industry to be entered,the product and the clients to be served after objectively analyzing them,thus concentrating limited enterprise resources on the most promising industry,the product with the most competitiveness and the excellent clients.


It is interesting to come upon a history of the Middle Ages written with no pedagogical purpose but prompted solely by the author's interest in the period, an interest first aroused, as he confesses, by reading Professor Kerr's volume on the &dquo; Dark Ages&dquo; in the &dquo;Periods of European Literature.&dquo; That &dquo;mere idleness&dquo; should have prompted him thereafter to set down such ideas as he had been able to collect from his readings, might lead one to suspect that only a disjointed and cursory survey would be the result, but this would be a mistake. Mr. Fletcher


Lidar altimeter observations of vegetated landscapes provide a time-resolved measure of laser pulse backscatter energy from canopy surfaces and the underlying ground. Airborne lidar altimeter data was acquired using the Scanning Lidar Imager of Canopies by Echo Recovery (SLICER) for a successional sequence of four, closed-canopy, deciduous forest stands in eastern Maryland. The four stands were selected so as to include a range of canopy structures of importance to forest ecosystem function, including variation in the height and roughness of the outer-most canopy surface and the vertical organization of canopy stories and gaps. The character of the SLICER backscatter signal is described and a method is developed that accounts for occlusion of the laser energy by canopy surfaces, transforming the backscatter signal to a canopy height profile (CHP) that quantitatively represents the relative vertical distribution of canopy surface area. The transformation applies an increased weighting to the backscatter amplitude as a function of closure through the canopy and assumes a horizontally random distribution of the canopy components. SLICER CHPs, averaged over areas of overlap where lidar ground tracks intersect, are shown to be highly reproducible. CHP transects across the four stands reveal spatial variations in vegetation, at the scale of the individual 10 m diameter laser footprints, within and between stands. Averaged SLICER CHPs are compared to analogous height profile results derived from ground-based sightings to plant intercepts measured on plots within the four stands. Tbe plots were located on the segments of the lidar ground tracks from which averaged SLICER CHPs were derived, and the ground observations were acquired within two weeks of the SLICER data acquisition to minimize temporal change. The differences in canopy structure between the four stands is similarly described by the SLICER and ground-based CHP results, however a Chi-square test of similarity documents differences that are statistically significant. The differences are discussed in terms of measurement properties that define the smoothness of the resulting CHPs and Lidar Altimeter Measurements of Canopy Structure - Harding et al. canopy properties that may vertically bias the CHP representations of canopy structure. The statistical differences are most likely due to the more noisy character of the ground-based CHPs, especially high in the canopy where ground-based sightings are rare resulting in an underestimate of canopy surface area and height, and to departures from the assumption of horizontal randomness which bias the CHPs toward the observer (upward for SLICER and downward for ground-based CHPs). The results demonstrate that the SLICER observations reliably provide a measure of canopy structure that reveals ecologically interesting structural variations such as those characterizing a successional sequence of closed-canopy, broadleaf forest stands.


Melanosis coli is a common condition characterized by the deposit of brown-black pigment called lipofuscin in the lamina propria of the colon. The condition is in association with persistent ingestion of anthraquinone laxatives and can mimic other diseases such as ulcerative colitis or ischemic bowel. We herein describe two cases of melanosis coli, both with long-standing constipation and chronic laxative use. This first case required subtotal colectomy due to unresolved pseudo-obstruction. In the second case, a colonoscopy suggested ulcerative colitis, but the final diagnosis was melanosis coli. In conclusion, caution should be taken with the long-term liberal use of laxatives, as functional changes may only partially resolve even if the laxatives are discontinued. Otherwise, progression to diffuse involvement of the entire colon by melanosis coli may lead to pseudo-obstruction.


Layer laminated material handling vehicle for a buffer, the buffer comprising such a laminated material handling vehicle. The laminated buffer provides durability and reduced energy transmissibility, and comprising at least a first buffer layer and second buffer layer, such buffer layer allows the first and second laminated structure in the buffer when the buffer is in contact with the object at least one of two translation buffer layer.


The effects of operating parameters on the steady-state heat flux and surface temperature at several locations on the cylinder head of a single-cylinder spark-ignition engine were investigated. The local heat flux was found to be strongly affected by engine speed and volumetric efficiency. Air-fuel ratio and spark timing had comparatively smaller effects. Coolant temperature, in the range of this study (300-380 K), had no effect on the average heat flux. Both the heat flux and the surface temperature varied considerably with the location of measurement. Except at very rich mixtures, the average heat flux was found to vary as the 0.65 power of the rate of fuel consumption.


Abstract The superoxide dismutase (SOD EC 22.214.171.124) activity in Scots pine {Pinus sylvestris) and Norwayspruce {Picea abies L. Karst.) needles in urban and rural trees of northern Finnish populations wasstudied. Enzyme activity was higher in pine than in spruce needles. Urban forest site trees with SOTpollution had highest enzyme activity in both pine and spruce needles. Two pine clones from easternFinland and Lapland revealed great differences in specific SOD enzyme activity. 1 Introduction Superoxide dismutase (SOD ;EC 220.127.116.11.) is a metalloprotein catalyzing the dismutationof superoxide radicals (O^.) to molecular oxygen and H2O2. SOD has been found in awide range of aerobic organisms (FRIDOVICH 1974), in bovine erythrocytes (MCCORD and FRIDOVICH 1969), in bacteria (KEELE et al. 1970) and in plant cells (GIANNOPOLITIS and RiES 1977a; GIANNOPOLITIS and RIES 1977b; RABINOWITCH et al. 1982; FEDERICO etal. 1985).At least two pathways of superoxide generation involving chloroplasts have been de-termined


An adaptive under-frequency load shedding scheme for an island power system is presented. This scheme monitors the frequency at the each generation bus in the system and employs a modified swing equation to estimate the power imbalance in the system following a disturbance and shed load accordingly at the feeder level. A reduced order system frequency response model was also developed and used to study the transient performance of the proposed scheme. The results presented illustrate this adaptive scheme is predictable and effective at curtailing the frequency deviation following the loss of the largest infeed on the Trinidad & Tobago power system. In all the cases studied, the power imbalance was found to be within 2% of the actual and the frequency recovered to within 99.5% of nominal in less than 8 seconds.


In this note we take into consideration of Temple's systems, a class of quasilinear hyperbolic systems of conservation laws which enjoy a remarkable property that the shock and rarefaction curves coincide. We give a criterion of how to verify a system to be of Temple's type, state and construct some new examples of such systems and show that this kind of exceptional systems has infinite convex entropies.


Sparse code multiple access (SCMA) is a promising technique to meet the requirements for massive capacity in 5G communications. In this paper, a nonbinary LDPC- coded SCMA system with a turbo receiver is proposed. We also provide a heuristic approach based on Cartesian product and Euclidean distance to construct the SCMA codebook, which greatly reduces the detection complexity and can be easily extended to large-size constellations. Furthermore, the codebook design for large SCMA systems is presented, and the sparse structure is optimized via the construction of matrices with optimized cycle distribution. Simulation results show that the nonbinary LDPC-coded SCMA system is much more compatible with high-order modulation than its binary counterpart, and the proposed design outperforms the original SCMA codebook design in both the error probability and complexity even in large loading situations.


This field study investigates the influence of task and conflict on interpersonal trust. Our focus on the multiple levels at which conflict resides shifts the focus from team conflict to dyadic con...


Recent evidence suggests that lifetime experiences play an important role in determining households' investment choices. I incorporate these findings and the fact that household portfolios are underdiversified into an otherwise standard life-cycle model and examine to what extent they can help resolve long-standing puzzles in the literature regarding stock market participation and the fraction of financial wealth invested in risky assets. I show that experience-based learning about returns creates a positive correlation between a household's position in the wealth distribution and its optimism about future returns. The wealthy consequently increase their investment in risky assets, while participation is limited among poor households. I find that in a reasonably calibrated quantitative model, this mechanism is able to close approximately half of the gap between participation rates observed in the data and the predictions from standard models. On the other hand, the average conditional risky share remains mostly unaffected.


ABSTRACT Performance of Nili-Ravi buffaloes was evaluated on different stimulations during machine milking. Eighteen buffaloesin 2 nd to 3 rd lactation were subjected to six different pre-milking stimulation practices each for eight successive milkingaccording to switch over design. Three days adjustment interval was provided before each treatment. Stimulationpractices (P) i.e. parlor milking (PM) with no manual stimulation (MS), PM with 1 minute MS, PM with 2 minute MS,out-parlor milking (OM) with no MS, OM with 1 minute MS, and OM with 2 minute MS designated as P1, P2, P3, P4,P5 and P6, respectively. The buffaloes were given free access to green Berseem (Trifolium alexandrinum) andconcentrate was offered @ 1 kg/ 2.5 kg of milk produced. The data on milk ejection time, machine on time, total milkingtime, average milk flow rate, and milk yield were analyzed. Shorter milk ejection time (3.11 ± 0.28 minute) and shortermachine on time (12.42 ± 0.35 minute) was recorded in buffaloes on P3. P2 caused shortest total milking time (13.43 ±0.37 minutes). Milk yield in P4 was lowest (P<0.05). It is concluded that manual pre-milking stimulation along withconcentrate feeding improved the milking performance of buffaloes in terms of milk ejection time, machine on time,milk flow rate and total milking time. It is suggested that at least one minute manual stimulation and in parlorconcentrate feeding should be done to promote machine milking in buffaloes.Key words: machine milking, buffaloes, manual stimulation, milking performance.


Based on the character of the physical temperature field,even if the dynamic temperature field underground ,the lower temperature leads to the higher temperature and gradually shrink to tend to the thermal path or thermal origin as well.So,temperature field reflects the form of geothermal fields undergrond. Taking the shallow temperature logging of Yangbajing geothermal power station in tibet as a example,a method setting up the model of geothermal field is described in this paper by selecting suitable profiles,analyzing the plan characters and profile characters,reversing temperature logging curves among wells.Meanwhile,the paper discusses the meaning of hydrogeology of Yangbajing geothermal fields and points out that studying the forms of temperature logging curves is a good help to analyze geological structures,back to the trails of hot flow, and provode scientific basics to distribute trill holes reasonably.


One of the well-kept secrets of the Subic Naval Base is the identity and extent of the spread of AIDS among the women sex workers rendering services to the military men. Since 1986 50 women in Subic were identified as HIV-positive. Moreover a group of 8 HIV-positive women were singled out but the rest of the local women who were HIV-positive seemed to be out of the vision. The problem of measuring the extent of HIV/AIDS among women and the military has been compounded by the fact that some local establishments are employing a large number of unregistered sex workers. Despite this pervasive problem the US military the authorities of Olongapo City as well as the Corazon Aquino administration are hesitant to discuss the issue. In addition health education on AIDS was never given priority. HIV-positive women are just informed on the result of the test but they never given an information on the prognosis or ramifications of the disease. Furthermore pregnant women who are HIV-positive receive no counseling medication or any form of special assistance. The government seemed to be disinterested of the issue and this lack of concern towards the spread of HIV/AIDS has increased the opposition to the establishment of the naval base in the Philippines.


IntroductionEvoking Andrew Holleran's observation that "every new friendship in the gay life entailed an explanation of How I Got Here," Patrick Merla concludes that "coming out" has become a central event in a gay man's life, and "the way in which the man comes out reverberates throughout his life" (Merla, 1996). Coming out, that is, the act of enunciation of an individual's non-heteronormative sexuality, is key to the social narrative of being gay in America. This "event" is central also to a lesbian's life and within lesbian identity. As in Weiss's discussion, the coming-out narrative is reflected in lesbian independent films (Weiss, 2004) as well as other cultural contexts. In the genre of lesbian feminist fiction, moreover, the coming-out narrative has been the paradigmatic model of writing since the 1970s (Wilson, 1996; Jolly, 2001). To broaden the scope still, those who are bisexual, transsexual, and even those with disabilities and cancer, those who are rape victims, straight spouses of homosexual partners, and non-racially marked ethnicities all need to come out (Field, 1993; Buxton, 1994; Carbado, 2000; Arnold, 2000; Lesbian and Breast Cancer Project Team, 2004; Lo, 2006). Indeed, the "coming out" narrative is pervasive and central in the conceptualization of non-heteronormative identity formation and community development and has been adopted in different venues and contexts that are not directly related to sexuality. There is something about the coming out experience that is conformatory, that confers an acceptable identity onto someone, that assures the subject group support and inclusion.Yet, "coming out" is not a definitive or fixed event or process as the term itself might imply, but rather an individually variable experience(s) whose meaning is contextually and historically dependent. By demonstrating the heterogeneous use of the term "coming out," I hope to problematicize the naturalization of "coming out" as an inevitable process in identity formation and a narrative in identity expression. Contrary to its "naturalness," the term "coming out" has been deployed as a trope to frame our conceptualization of nonheteronormative identity and expression. The exact time when sexuality becomes, if at all, a constitutive part of one's identity may vary across culture and history. Foucault notes, in the Western culture, the discursive explosion of the eighteenth and nineteenth century caused a centrifugal movement with respect to heterosexual monogamy and scrutiny of the sexuality of those who did not like the opposite sex and for these people to make the difficult confession of what they were (Foucault, 1990, 38-39).Adoption and Transformation of the Coming Out Metaphor in Post-Stonewall U.S. History"Coming out" of non-heteronormative individuals is a relatively recent phenomenon in Western culture. In fact, research on the historical discourse of gay culture indicates that "coming out" gained its social significance as a strategic practice and a rhetoric after the 1969 Stonewall riots and the subsequent Gay Liberation movement in the 1970s and 1980s (Merla, 1996; Warren, 1997). As a political activist movement, the Gay Liberation Front mobilized many individuals to claim a certain "collective identity" on the basis of their sexualities. And the rest is history; for over three decades, the trope of "coming out" has enjoyed a status in cultural capitalism. Because of the rapid and increased media circulation and gay liberationists' political strategy, this phrase, "coming out of the closet," was thus coined for the discussions of personal experience and social/cultural/political identity. In pre-Stonewall years, according to Delany, queer subjects deployed the term "coming out" to describe their same-sex sexual experience as coming out into a queer culture and community. Post-Stonewall, however, the new meaning of the "coming out" metaphor redefines the coming-out subjects from the perspective of the heterosexist majority, and thus structures our conceptualization not only of sexualities and identities, but also of power relations between normative and non-normative. …


Even though banks are playing the role of financial intermediaries, their main objective is to obtain profit. The most commonly used indicator of the profitability assessment, according to the shareholder vision is represented by the return on equity. This study has focused on achieving a factor analysis on financial profitability obtained by the top three commercial banks by using the Du Pont. The purpose of this analysis was to identify the causes rate developments. The analysis was done over a period of eight years, respectively from 2007 since 2014. Data were taken from the financial statements published by the three credit institutions. The results have demonstrated that banks in order to improve the indicator need to maintain the leverage ratio fixed either to reduce capital costs. The decrease in profitability rate determined the downward trend registered by the return on equity.


OBJECTIVE
Relatives of persons with schizophrenia have an essential role in informal caregiving. This may result in a high level of burden. Aim of the study was to investigate, if the frequency of unmet needs among relatives caring for schizophrenia patients increases the risk for burden among these relatives.

METHODS
135 relatives of patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder were investigated by means of the "Involvement Evaluation Questionnaire" (IEQ) and the "Carer's Needs Assessment for Schizophrenia" (CNA-S).

RESULTS
Multiple linear regression analyses showed positive associations between the frequency of caregivers' unmet needs and the IEQ-subscores "tension" and "worrying". Further, the IEQ-subscore "worrying" was significantly lower among caregivers of outpatients than among caregivers of inpatients or day hospital patients. The IEQ-subscore "urging" was significantly associated with patient's negative symptoms.

CONCLUSION
Unmet needs among caring relatives have negative effects on their burden. Further, the patients' type of treatment setting (inpatient, outpatient, day hospital) seems to predict caregivers' burden.


Father Marco Adinolfi, an Italian Friar Minor (1919-2005) has been a Professor of Sacred Scripture for many years in the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum of Jerusalem and in the Theological Faculty of the Pontificia Universitas Antonianum of Rome. The author remembers though briefly the life, the curriculum of studies, and the special rapport Fr. Adinolfi had with the SBF and with the Custody of the Holy Land. All his publications are shown in chronological order. The vast bibliography of Fr. Adinolfi centers around some arguments which he particularly developed in depth in his teaching and research: History and Historiography, Mary of Nazaret, the Holy Places, the Twelve Apostles and St. Paul, the Common Priesthood of the Faithful, Feminism of the Bible, and the relationship between Hellenistic Culture and the Bible. Lastly, Fr. Adinolfi has shown himself to be an untiring servant of the Word of God in his biblical apostolate in the Church.


This contribution proposes a novel chaotic hyperjerk circuit with the new phenomenon of mixed-mode bursting oscillations (MMBOs). The bifurcation analysis of this specific oscillator reveals a relatively rare and complex phenomenon of various coexisting two full Feigenbaum remerging trees. Common nonlinear dynamic systems analysis tools such as bifurcation diagram, phase portraits, time series and Lyapunov exponent are used to uncover the complex behaviours of the circuit with respect to its parameters and initial conditions as well. As one of the major contributions of this work, we introduce a novel hyperjerk circuit with rare phenomena such as the coexistence of a new phenomenon named bubbles of bifurcation (referred as BsB hereafter), the coexistence of two or three asymmetric mixed-mode bursting oscillations, just to name a few. All these phenomena are found simultaneously in a single circuit and thus diverse dissemination. Experimental results support the theoretical analysis.


In the Taboo City Challenge, artificial agents should guess the names of cities from simple textual hints and are evaluated with games played by humans. Thus, playing the games successfully requires mimicking associations that humans have with geographical locations. In this paper, an architecture is proposed that calculates the associative similarity between a city and a hint from a semantic vector space. The semantic vector space is created using the Skip-gram hierarchical softmax model, from a tailored corpus about travel destinations. We investigate the effect of varying training parameters and introduce a targeted corpus annotation method that significantly improves performance. The results on a dataset of 149 games indicate that the proposed architecture can guess the target city with up to 22.45% accuracy — a substantial improvement over the 4.11% accuracy achieved by the baseline architecture.


ABSTRACT The Biomedical Freshman Research Initiative (BFRI) is a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), a hispanic-serving institution. Our analysis showed that BFRI participation was associated with retention in the BS in Biomedical Science program and at UTRGV. No significant difference in academic achievement and graduation in 4 years was observed. The results from this study suggest that BFRI is a promising avenue to provide more opportunities for students to be exposed to and participate in research early on and retain them in the science pipeline at a lower cost and manpower.


Based on manikin according to the data of the "Huanghai Jinma 1204"type tractor cab,the paper built 3D model of the improved tractor cab in Pro/E,established Chinese population document program,and built Chinese tractor drivers' manikin with the tool "Human Builder" in CATIA.This paper mainly studies the tractor cab design based on ergonomics in CATIA with the created Chinese tractor driver manikin,and which can provide a reference for the further study in this area.


This trial was conducted to assess the efficacy and safety of sorafenib in patients with metastatic breast cancer. In this multinational, open-label phase II study, patients with metastatic breast cancer that had progressed after at least one prior chemotherapy regimen were continuously treated with oral sorafenib, 400 mg twice daily. The primary endpoint was overall best response; a secondary endpoint was percentage of patients with stable disease for ≥16 weeks. Biomarker analyses were also performed. Of the 56 patients enrolled into the study, 54 were treated with at least one dose of sorafenib. Partial response was observed in one patient (2%) and stable disease in 20 patients (37%); no complete responses were observed. Disease stabilization for ≥16 weeks was seen in 12 patients (22%); stabilization for ≥6 months in seven patients (13%). The most common drug-related grade 3 adverse events were rash/desquamation (6%), hand–foot skin reaction (4%), and fatigue (4%). Baseline vascular endothelial growth factor levels, levels of soluble epidermal growth factor receptor during treatment and both baseline and changes in soluble human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 levels correlated significantly with clinical outcomes. Although the primary endpoint of overall response rate showed minimal improvement on sorafenib 400 mg twice-daily treatment, the rate of disease stabilization was encouraging in patients treated with one or more lines of chemotherapy. The treatment had a clinically manageable toxicity profile. Further investigation of single-agent sorafenib in this patient population is not recommended; however, studies investigating combinations of sorafenib with chemotherapeutic agents are warranted and ongoing.


Most children do not meet physical activity guidelines, and school-based programs often fail to increase physical activity levels. However, there has been no intervention pairing college mentors with elementary students to date. The purpose of this paper is to report the feasibility and acceptability, both quantitative and qualitative, of an undergraduate-mentored running program designed to increase physical activity in elementary students. A convergent parallel mixed methods design was used to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the physical activity intervention for elementary students. Running W.I.S.E. [with Interscholastic Student Engagement] paired college mentors with individual fifth grade elementary school students for bi-weekly running sessions during the school day in early 2020. Quantitative recruitment and retention data were collected and analysed to determine feasibility and acceptability, respectively. Qualitative data comprising letters written by undergraduate mentors to their mentees after the intervention were analysed. Both feasibility and acceptability were achieved. Recruitment and retention rates [100% each] exceeded the pre-defined feasibility and acceptability criteria. Undergraduate mentors were driven to participate by prosocial, passion-driven, and utility motives. Psychosocial mentor/mentee benefits, as well as observed physiological changes among mentees, were cited as outcomes of participation. Undergraduate-mentored running programs a feasible and acceptable means of increasing physical activity in elementary students. Benefits to both mentors and mentees exist and extend beyond physical health into social and mental health, as well.


The present work reported the preparation of mesoporous activated carbon spheres (MCS) based on potato starch through the activation of CO 2 . N 2 adsorption strategy was employed to investigate the influences of activation time and temperature on the MCS properties. On the other hand, the galvanostatic charge–discharge and cyclic voltammetry (CV) were applied to analyze the influence of the porosity on its electrochemical behaviors. The electrochemical experiment results confirmed that MCS was distinctive in its capacitive property and only has slight internal resistance. This corresponded to the maximal specific capacitance value.


How to extract river nets effectively is of great significance for water resources investigation,flood forecasting and environmental monitoring,etc.In the paper,combining with ant colony algorithm,a new approach of extracting river nets on moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer(MODIS)remote sensing images was proposed through analyzing two general extraction methods of river nets.The experiment results show that river nets can be optimized by ant colony algorithm efficiently,and difference ratio between the experimental vectorgraph and the data of National Fundamental Geographic Information System is down to 8.7%.The proposed algorithm can work for extracting river nets on MODIS remote sensing images effectively.


The concentration of delinquency in certain neighborhoods represents a pervasive social inequality in the United States. Today, the distribution of urban delinquency is perhaps best described as "pockets of crime," largely confined to urban blocks with unique characteristics (Jean 2007). An expansive amount of scholarship has addressed neighborhood responses to this persistent social issue, including collective neighborhood efforts to control rates of delinquency. It is generally accepted that to fully achieve social control of public space, neighborhoods must not only intervene in problem behavior, but must also socialize youth to avoid deviance (Bursick 1988). We currently have a strong body of research on neighborhood supervision and monitoring of delinquent behavior. Yet, we are left with a paucity of work on the association between delinquency rates and pro-social investment in youth at the neighborhood level. The purpose of this study is to begin to address these gaps in the literature by simultaneously investigating collective supervision of and pro-social investment in youth. The data for the analyses focus on one urban area in Indianapolis spanning 92 census block groups. The dataset combines census and county court data with 603 interviews of local residents. The results of the analysis indicate that the meaning of collective supervision and investment seems to be context specific. Areas with high levels of supervision over youth have fewer incidents of relatively moderate forms of delinquency such as truancy, underage drinking, curfew violations, etc. However, this same connection between supervision and slightly more serious offenses (i.e. misdemeanors) is only evident in neighborhoods with strong collective pro-social investment in youth. Areas with high levels of this prosocial investment also experience fewer juvenile felony charges, but these same areas are weaker in the supervision of youth behavior. Overall, the analyses indicate that neighborhoods dealing with minor delinquency among youth may be able to deal with the problem by monitoring and intervening in adolescent behavior. However, investment in youth organizations, positive intergenerational relationships, and informal mentoring may be a more effective option for neighborhoods facing more serious forms of juvenile delinquency.


The security and stability of the HVDC system is ensured by the well influence of the controller. Active-disturbance-rejection controller (ADRC) has the adaptability for time-varying and uncertain disturbance. But it is complex and difficult to tune the parameter of the ADRC. An improved genetic algorithm is used to tune of the parameter of the ADRC in this dissertation. Both the controller's dynamic performance and control constraints are taken into account in the tuning of the ADRC. And the ADRC is used in the inverter control of the HVDC system to improve the robustness of the HVDC system. The results of the simulation of the HVDC suggest that the controllers have a good adaptability to the external disturbance and the model changes.


The VH domains of two human monoclonal antibodies, designated Mcg IgG1(λ) and Yvo IgM(κ), were particularly intractable to standard protein sequencing protocols. Peptides liberated from the VH domains of these proteins, using standard enzymatic or chemical cleavages, invariably precipitated during the procedures. Boiling in SDS containing buffers dissolved precipitates and the peptides were separated using SDS–PAGE. Fully overlapped VH sequences were obtained with a series of 'in‐gel' cleavages, followed by passive/differential transfers of peptides onto PVDF membranes. Both the in‐gel cleavages and passive transfers could be applied to 'wet' or 'dry' gels so that gels could be archived and used at a later date to obtain additional sequence information from a fragment of interest. Repetitive yields of even the most insoluble peptides were such that the sequences of various peptides from relatively complex mixtures of peptides could be assigned with confidence. Despite the overall success of the sequencing, we occasionally referred to electron density maps, calculated for crystals of the Fab of Yvo IgM, to resolve particular sequences and confirm ambiguous amino acid assignments. Methods we describe in this report should be generally useful for obtaining sequences of proteins with intractable cores and may find many applications in the 'post genomic era'. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Henry IV of Castile (1454-1474) kept a great part of the treasure of his royal chamber in the castle of Segovia. Between 1475 and 1480, by order of his succcesor Isabel I, many of the objets were moved to other places or were given to some officials of the royal household: a lot of pieces from the chapel, jewels, coins and gold and silver objets, arms and riding equipment, as well as tapestry and books that had been part of the domestic equipment of Henry IV.


The purposed of this study are to analyse reduction of students' misconceptions after getting ECIRR with virtual simulation. The design of research is the pre-experimental design with One Group Pretest-Posttest Design. Subjects of this research were 36 students of class XI MIA-5 SMAN 1 Driyorejo Gresik 2015/2016 school year. Students misconceptions was determined by Three-tier Diagnostic Test. The result shows that the average percentage of misconceptions reduced on topics of ideal gas law, equation of ideal gases and kinetic theory of gases respectively are 38%, 34% and 38%.


Named Entity Recognition (NER) is the most fundamental task in information extraction (IE). However, in many domains like social media text e.g., tweets) and online user-generated content (e.g., web forum, reviews), only a limited amount of labeled data are available for training neural models (and are expensive and slow to create). Such neural models require a significant amount of training examples to learn simple rules and facts about real world (e.g., actor is artist and artist is person), which is cost-inefficient in consuming human annotation efforts. Moreover, the existing approaches can hardly deal with cases that need deep understanding of hidden semantics. Our goal is thus to explicitly impose the simple rules and patterns from domain experts as a part of model architecture, and construct neural networks for fusing model structures with prior structures. In this way, simple domain-specific rules and patterns need no data to learn from data, and massive knowledge facts can directly provide additional signals for hidden semantics. Thus, the data can be used more efficiently and tracking the priors in the model can interpret predictions. In the following sections, we will present some previous related works.


Literature has shown that stress of high severity predisposes to psychiatric/psychological condition. Some persons in the course of experiencing traumatic stress react in a way that manifest the feature of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In the past seven to eight years and now, Northern Nigeria has been a beehive of violence hence subjugating the population to much traumatic stress. This situation/condition is reviewed in this Work. Managing/helping children, adolescents and adults with this condition and coping are enshrined in this work. Also, the role of parents and public health workers with regards to the management of PTSD was addressed.


The Bengal Delta is a place of many migrations, cultural transformations, invasions and religious revolutions since prehistoric time. With the help of archaeological and historical records, this essay present the hypothesis that, albeit there were multiple waves of large and small scale socio-cultural assimilations, every socio-political change did not brought equal formidable outcome in the Delta. The study further illustrates that, the majority of cultural components were formulated by IndigenousAryan-Buddhist assimilations in early phase, whereas the Buddhist-Aryan-Islamic admixtures in relatively forbearing and gracious socio-political background of medieval period contributed the final part in the formation of Bengal Civilization.