The aim of the present study was to assess the effect of lung transplantation (LgTX) on health‐related quality of life (HRQL) in a group of patients with cystic fibrosis (CF), compared to patients with other diagnoses (non‐CF). HRQL was assessed before transplantation in a group of 32 CF patients and 183 non‐CF patients. After LgTX, we conducted a prospective longitudinal study among 10 CF patients and 35 non‐CF patients who survived at least 31 months after LgTX. Measures were the Nottingham Health Profile (NHP), the State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), the Self‐Rating Depression Scale (ZUNG), the Index of Well‐Being (IWB), and the Karnofsky Performance Index. Patients in the CF group were younger, spent more days on the waiting list, and were more likely to be working or going to school than patients with other indications. Before transplantation, CF patients and non‐CF patients experienced restrictions on almost all HRQL measures, compared to the general population. On the NHP dimensions of mobility and energy, CF patients had significantly better scores than non‐CF patients. Between 1–4 months after transplantation, scores on the NHP, ZUNG, and Karnofsky performance indices improved, and STAI and IWB scores even occurred within the reference value in both groups. Significantly better scores in the CF group compared to the non‐CF group were found on the NHP dimension of mobility 4 months after transplantation, and on the dimension of sleep 7 and 13 months after transplantation. Scores remained more or less stable over time in both groups. It may be concluded that patients in both groups experience major restrictions in HRQL before transplantation. However, pretransplant non‐CF patients experience more restrictions than CF patients. After LgTX, both groups of patients showed substantial improvement in HRQL, and this improvement was maintained until 31 months after LgTX. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2004; 37:419–426. © 2004 Wiely‐Liss, Inc.


Security protocols and encryption algorithms are basically based on random number generators. In this paper, a new random number generator architecture is introduced. The produced number word length is equal to 160 bits. The philosophy of the architecture relies on the usage of the SHA hash function. The offered security strength of this hash function ensures the unpredictability of the produced number. Additionally, an efficient VLSI implementation for FPGA devices of the proposed system is described. The proposed architecture is a flexible solution in applications where the original physical sources of random number generators, such as electrical noise, are not available or at least not convenient. This architecture can also be used in any cryptographic algorithm and encryption/decryption system with high-speed performance.


${\rm{Pt}}_n^-$clusters produced by a laser-vaporization source are reacted with CO. The various reaction products${\rm{Pt}}_n ({{\rm{CO}})_m^-$are studied systematically using photoelectron spectroscopy of negatively charged clusters. First results are interpreted in terms of the Blyholder model. The spectra indicate an open electronic shell structure of the unsaturated and a closed shell structure of the saturated Pt carbonyls. For${\rm{Pt}}_3 ({{\rm{CO}})_6^-$emission from the 2π/5d hybrid orbital is directly observed. The assignment is supported by the measured vibrational fine structure.


BACKGROUND
Fabry disease (FD) is an inherited lysosomal storage disorder, leading to multisystemic manifestations and causing significant morbidity and mortality.

OBJECTIVE
The aim of this narrative review is to present the current and novel therapeutic strategies in FD, including symptomatic and specific treatment options.

METHODS
A systematic literature search was conducted to identify relevant studies, including completed and ongoing randomized-controlled clinical trials (RCTs), prospective or retrospective cohort studies, case series and case reports that provided clinical data regarding FD treatment.

RESULTS
A multidisciplinary symptomatic treatment is recommended for FD patients, personalized according to disease manifestations and their severity. During the last two decades, FD-specific treatments, including two enzyme-replacement-therapies (agalsidase alfa and agalsidase beta) and chaperone treatment with migalastat have been approved for use and allowed for symptoms' stabilization or even disease burden reduction. More therapeutic agents are currently under investigation. Substrate reduction therapies, including lucerastat and venglustat, have shown promising results in RCTs and may be used either as monotherapy or as complementary therapy to established enzyme-replacement-therapies. More stable enzyme-replacement-therapy molecules that are associated with less adverse events and lower likelihood of neutralizing antibodies formation have also been developed. Ex-vivo and in-vivo gene therapy is being tested in animal models and pilot human clinical trials, with preliminary results showing a favorable safety and efficacy profile.


Arteriosclerotic lesions in the carotid arteries are the main cause of ischemic cerebral infarction. Only a few studies of the incidence of carotid lesions in patients with chronic peripheral arterial disease (CPAD) and myocardial infarction (MI) have been made. Thus the aim of this study was to investigate the pathoanatomy of the carotid arteries in a representative number of patients suffering from CPAD or MI by using highly sensitive and specific noninvasive methods. Results by other authors are discussed. The authors' own study of cerebrovascular disease (CD), which covers epidemiologic aspects, is presented. Methods: "duplex scanning" and continuous-wave Doppler ultrasound. Patients: myocardial infarction, N = 73; chronic peripheral arterial disease, N =112; cerebrovascular disease, N = 73. Results: MI: stenosis > 50% N = 31 (42.4% of cases) - in the case of recurring infarction 67.8% of cases; CPAD: stenosis > 50% N=54 (48.2%); CD: stenosis > 50% N=35 (48%).


Introduction Reginald Shepherd Hygiene June Jordan Mid-Year Report: For Haruko Luci Tapahonso Pay Up or Else Jonathan Holden Why We Bombed Haiphong David Trinidad The Shower Scene in Psycho Katharyn Howd Machan No, Superman Was Not the Only One Lucille Clifton Note, Passed to Superman Rafael Campo Superman Is Dead Patricia Spears Jones If I Were Rita Hayworth Kathleen de Azevedo Famous Women--Claudette Colbert Bill Kushner Up Susan Swartwout The Gypsy Teaches Her Grandchild Wolfen Ways Connie Deanovich Frankenstein Edward Field The Bride of Frankenstein Barbara Hamby St. Clare's Underwear William Trowbridge Kong Breaks a Leg at the William Morris Agency David Wojahn Francis Ford Coppola and Anthropologist Interpreter Teaching Gartewienna Tribesmen to Sing "Light My Fire," Philippine Jungle, 1978 Diane Mei Lin Mark Suzie Wong Doesn't Live Here Kitty Tsui Suzy Wong's Been Dead a Long Time Chrystos Soap Bubbles Tino Villanueva Scene from the Movie Giant Joseph Like James Dean & the Pig Frank O'Hara Four Little Elegies Jack Myers Mom Did Marilyn, Dad Did Fred Sharon Olds The Death of Marilyn Monroe Judy Grahn [I have come to claim / Marilyn Monroe's body] Leo Romero Marilyn Monroe Indian Sherman Alexie November 22, 1983 Catherine Bowman Jackie in Cambodia Dennis Cooper From "Some Adventures of John Kennedy, Jr." Jim Elledge The Man I Love and I Have a Typical Evening the Night Richard M. Nixon Dies Peter Balakian The End of the Reagan Era William Trowbridge Viet Kong Ai Blue Suede Shoes Maureen Seaton A Story of Stonewall Peter Gizzi Lonely Tylenol Thylias Moss An Anointing David Lehman The Difference Between Pepsi and Coke Martin Espada Coca-Cola and Coco Frio Carlos Cumpian No Deposit No Returns O.F. Diaz-Duque Why DonOt I? John Yau Corpse and Mirror (III) Marge Piercy Barbie Doll Kyoko Mori Barbie Says Math Is Hard Denise Duhamel Barbie's Molester Daniel Mark Epstein Mannequins Carl Phillips Toys David Wojahn My Father's Pornography Rita Dove After Reading Mickey in the Night Kitchen for the Third Time Before Bed Maxine Chernoff Breasts Lori Jakiela A Personal History of Hands Julia Alvarez Against Cinderella Bruce Bennett The True Story of Snow White Olga Broumas Rapunzel Katharyn Howd Machan Hazel Tells LaVerne Philip Dacey Jack, Afterwards Robin Becker Peter Pan in North America Kristy Nielsen Self-Portrait as Nancy Drew, Girl Sleuth Charles H. Webb Rumpelstiltskin Convention Adrian C. Louis Sonny's Purple Heart Thomas Lux One Meat Ball Audre Lorde The Day They Eulogized Mahalia Juan Felipe Herrera Iowa Blues Bar Spiritual Timothy Liu Echoes Jonathan Holden Liberace Joy Harjo We Encounter Nat King Cole as We Invent the Future Marilyn Hacker Mythology Kate Rushin The Black Back-Ups Jessica Hagedorn Motown / Smokey Robinson Gary Soto Dizzy Girls in the Sixties Jan-Mitchell Sherrill Woodstock Pedro Pietri The First Rock and Roll Song of 1970 David Wojahn "ItOs Only Rock and Roll but I Like It": The Fall of Saigon, 1975 Maureen Seaton Blonde Ambition Pamela Stewart Punk Pantoum Paula Gunn Allen Teaching Poetry at Votech High, Santa Fe, the Week John Lennon Was Shot Yusef Komunyakaa Never Land Patricia Spears Jones The Birth of Rhythm and Blues Angela Jackson Billie in Silk James L. White Oshi Bruce Weigl Homage to Elvis, Homage to the Fathers Wasabi Kanastoga El Elvis Mary A. Koncel Come Back, Elvis, Come Back to Holyoke Jane Candia Coleman Soap Connie Deanovich From "Ephemera Today on All My Children" Daniel Hoffman In the Days of Rin-Tin-Tin klipschutz Funicello at 50 Dorothy Barresi When I think About America Sometimes (I Think of Ralph Kramden) Dennis Cooper David Cassidy Then Tim Dlugos Gilligan's Island Joseph Like Postmodern: A Definition Gary Soto TV in Black and White Rodney Jones TV Albert Goldbarth The Talk Show Gale Renee Walden Misguided Angels William Carpenter Ghosts Carol J. Pierman The Apparition Gerald Costanzo Jeane Dixon's America Blythe Nobleman Tabloid News Allen Ginsberg A Supermarket in California G.E. Murray Shopping for Midnight Jim Elledge The Man I Love and I Shop at Jewel William Matthews Mail Order Catalogs Naomi Shihab Nye Catalogue Army Nora Naranjo-Morse Tradition and Change Maureen Owen For Emily (Dickinson) Jennifer M. Pierson Thrift Shop Ladies Duane Niatum The Novelty Shop Baron Wormser Shoplifting Maura Stanton Shoplifters Larry Levis Whitman Rick Bursky The Decisions Susan Swartwout Siamese Twins in Love Louis Phillips My Son Shows Me a Photograph of Michael Jordan Performing a Slam Dunk William Heyen Mantle Denis Johnson The Incognito Lounge Paul Zimmer Romance Mark Doty Days of 1981 David Baker 8-Ball at the Twilite Jim Daniels Ted's Bar and Grill William Matthews A Story Often Told in Bars: The Reader's Digest Version Anita Endrezze Probst The Stripper Thomas Rabbitt The Dancing Sunshine Lounge Robin Becker Dreaming at the Rexall Drug Jason Shinder Waitress Rodney Jones On the Bearing of Waitresses Markham Johnson The All-Night Diner Sharon Bryan Lunch with Girl Scouts Michael Pettit Vanna White's Bread Pudding Thom Tammaro 'mericn fst fd Jim Daniels Short-Order Cook Janet Sylvester Arrowhead Christian Center and No-Smoking Luncheonette Baron Wormser By-Products William Hathaway Why That's Bob Hope Charles Bernstein Of Time and the Line Albert Goldbarth The Counterfeit Earth! Paul Violi Harold and Imogene James Tate The Motorcyclists Catron Grieves Indian Car David Bottoms In the Black Camaro Louise Erdrich The Lady in the Pink Mustang Mark Wunderlich Take Good Care of Yourself Lawrence Ferlinghetti Lost Parents David Starkey Scrabble Garrett Kaoru Hongo Off from Swing Shift Emily Hiestand Moon Winx Motel Lynn Emmanuel Outside Room Six Greg Pape In the Bluemist Hotel Martin Espada Transient Hotel Sky at the Hour of Sleep Paul Allen Tattoo #47, "Happy Dragon" Sandra McPherson Pornography, Nebraska David Bottoms In a U-Haul North of Damascus Alberto Rios The Man She Called Honey, and Married Matthew Roher After the Wedding Party Timothy Liu Ikon Paul Allen Pickup Contributors Author Index Title Index Index to First Lines


SUMMARY: We present the results of new high resolution ATCA observations of SNR J0519{6926. We found that this SNR exhibits a typical "horseshoe" appearance with fi={0.55§0.08 and D=28§1 pc. No polarization (or magnetic flelds) were detected to a level of 1%. This is probably due to a relatively poor sampling of the uv plane caused be observing in "snap-shot" mode.


An attempt is made to investigate the problem of an oscillatory MHD free convective flow through a porous medium with mass transfer, Soret effect and chemical reaction when the temperature as well as concentration at the plate varies periodically with time about a steady mean. Analytical solutions to the coupled non-linear equations governing the flow and heat and mass transfer are obtained by using regular perturbation technique. The influence of the different parameters entering in to the problem viz. the Hartmann number M, the Grashof number for heat transfer G r , the Grashof number for mass transfer G m , Soret number S 0 , the plate velocity U , chemical reaction C h etc. on temperature distribution, species concentration, velocity distribution, skin-friction and the rates of heat and mass transfer at the plate are discussed graphically.


AIMS
We aimed to evaluate the elastographic features of Achilles tendon with Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse in patients with and without diabetic neuropathy.

METHODS
According to the presence of peripheral neuropathy, 45 patients with type 2 diabetes were divided into 2 subgroups. Those with peripheral neuropathy were defined as group I (22 patients) and those without peripheral neuropathy were defined as group II (23 patients). A total of thirty age-, gender-, and body mass index-matched healthy individuals were selected as controls. All participants underwent both ultrasonographic and Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse elastographic examination in order to evaluate Achilles Tendon thickness and stiffness.

RESULTS
Achilles tendon thicknesses were similar between groups (p=0.991). Achilles tendon thicknesses of both patient groups were significantly higher than the control group (group I vs control p=0.01; group II vs control p=0.006). Stiffness values of Achilles tendons were similar between the control group and group II (p=0.993). Shear Wave Velocity was significantly lower in group I than group IIand control group (p<0.001).

CONCLUSION
Diabetic patients with neuropathy have thicker and softer Achilles tendon while the elasticity of Achilles tendon in diabetic patients without neuropathy is similar to the healthy controls. Softening of the Achilles tendon may be an early sign of diabetic foot and reveal the patients with a risk of diabetic foot.


Titanium-doped indium oxide (ITiO) films were deposited on glass substrates by RF magnetron sputtering. The effects of RF power were investigated. This shows the optical transmittance of 75% and low resistivity of 1.2×10 -4 Ω-cm. The high hall mobility of 47.03 ㎠/Vs and the relatively low carrier concentration of 1.15E+21cm -3 are also obtained based on our thin films. The titanium-doped indium oxide (ITiO) is a good candidate for transparent conductive thin film.


The problem of fully developed laminar mixed convection flow in a vertical wavy channel filled with two immiscible viscous fluids is studied analytically. Non-linear equations governing the motion have been solved by linearization technique, wherein the flow is assumed to be in two parts; a mean part and a perturbed part. Exact solutions are obtained for the mean part and a perturbed part is solved using long wave approximation. Separate solutions are matched at the interface using suitable matching conditions. Numerical results are presented graphically for the distribution of velocity and temperature fields for varying physical parameters such as Grashof number, viscosity ratio, width ratio, and conductivity ratio. The effect of these parameters on the physical characteristics such as Nusselt number and skin friction at the walls is studied. It is found that Grashof number, viscosity ratio, width ratio, and conductivity ratio enhance the velocity parallel to the flow direction. Reversal effect is observed on the velocity which is perpendicular to the flow direction. The Nusselt number remains invariant on Grashof number. As the width ratio decreases, the Nusselt number decreases at the right wall and increases at the left wall and reversal effect is observed for variations of conductivity ratio. The skin friction increases at the left wavy wall and decreases at the right wavy wall as the Grashof number increases. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res; Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/htj). DOI 10.1002/htj.20379


In this paper the latest development on lightweight technology of car engine cylinder block is introduced.The rapid increasing of engine specific power results in a power-weight ratio approaching to 1 kg/kW and the peak value of the cylinder pressure reaching 20 MPa.Under such a background it is indeed not easy to reduce the engine block weight.But several famous automobile manufacturers such as Audi,Mercedes-Benz,Daimler-Chrysler,have taken measures on the structure and materials,even for diesel engines equipped with aluminium engine blocks in batch volume production.


The present research is an empirical effort made to study how the family environmental factors' influence on the interpersonal problems of adults. The sample-size is 350 (comprises of 200 teachers and 150 nurses). The stratified random sampling method is adopted. The age ranges from 22 to 56 (Mean Age= 31.87).The research is executed with non-clinical samples. The tools adopted are: (1) the Family Environment Scale and (2) Inventory of the Interpersonal Problems IIP-32. The participants are contacted individually by the researcher and data is obtained with the help of the above mentioned tools. The descriptive statistics and correlation are used for the statistical analyses. Results indicates that the dimensions of the family environment which are cohesion, conflict, acceptance and caring, organization, expression and control significantly influence the dimensions of interpersonal problems such as domineering, intrusive, non-assertive and self-sacrifice at the 0.01 percent level of significance, and they are negatively correlated with each other. This finding supports the understanding and the development of effective strategies in psychotherapy.


Environmental microbiology is wrought with difficult to sample environments, not least of which is soil. Soil is a dynamic environment, ripe with changing viral, prokaryotic, and eukaryotic populations, all awaiting assay. Soil sampling, depending on the assay, experiment, or project can vary from simple probes, deep cores, to soil slurry collections. Atop of this, soils must be collected from a statistically sound perspective as well as considerations made for physiological, cultivation, or molecular analysis. This chapter will focus on the use of soil sampling equipment, schemes, assays, and case studies aimed at introducing the reader to the various caveats and potential pitfalls associated with soil sampling. No one chapter can attempt to cover all potential characteristics of a specific soil sampling situation; therefore, this chapter will focus on general trends in microbial soil sampling.


This contribution aims to highlight the relevance of the concept of brain gain for intra-EU migration. For this purpose, I contrast brain gain and brain circulation as the two poles of a scale, aiming to explain disparities in the migration strategies of highly skilled intra-EU migrants that are related to their countries of origin. I apply this conceptualisation in the analysis of an original representative survey of non-German EU physicians working in Germany – one of the favourite EU destination countries of physicians. Intra-EU migrants working in the medical profession constitute a relevant case study, as this profession is the most mobile highly skilled profession within the EU and is characterised by an acute EU labour shortage. The analysis of the original migration motives and intended length of stay in Germany of the EU physicians surveyed confirms the relevance of the brain gain and brain circulation framework for understanding disparities related to the countries of origin in the migration patterns of highly skilled intra-EU migrants. Indeed, differences related to the EU physicians' regions of origin in respect of the importance of economic migration reasons and the intention to immigrate on a permanent basis correlate with the magnitude of the economic differentials between Germany and the regions of origin.


Introduction Visiting the design section of a bookstore is a simple way to inventory traditional objects of the design discipline: you will find books on the design of everyday objects, furniture, houses, gardens, books, cars, clothes, posters, textiles, glass, type, ceramics, literature, logos, and, more recently, software interfaces and websites. In many ways, design seems to center around the creation of tangible artifacts, with the notable, but recent, exception of "interaction design." By doing so, design as a discipline currently has almost no participation in the services sector, more than half of the world economy. Service design is simply the application of human-centric ideas and methods of design to services. Its importance, needs, and methods have been addressed by a small group of researchers,1 some design institutions such as the British Design Council,2 and an even smaller group of practitioners such as some groups in the design houses Live|Work, 31Volts, and IDEO.3 Which types of services can be designed? Healthcare systems, government services, entertainment experiences, transportation services, retail experiences, maintenance and support systems, education, travel and tourism, telecommunication services, utilities, information services, and much more. In many ways, most of our service-related daily experiences are devoid of thoughtful design, except in their tangible aspects. Cars are designed, but not the transportation experience, seen as the interaction of people, cars, and public transportation systems; or the experience of buying cars and maintaining them. There is, however, some anecdotal evidence that the impact of good design in services can be tremendous. One of the most famous is the case of the Shouldice Hospital & Hernia Center in Toronto, Canada, where the redesign of the hospitalization services decreased patient stays in the hospital from an average of four to fifteen days, with reported gains in productivity, healthcare quality, and patient and family satisfaction.4 This realization of the need of systematic understanding of services is not limited to the design field. Similar shortcomings have led to calls for the establishment of science, management, and engineering disciplines specific to services in the so-called Service Science, Management, and Engineering (SSME) initiative.5 Footnotes for this article begin on page 12.


The time delay of automatic bus transfer device increases due to the connection of DG(Distributed Generation).With a 110 kV terminal substation with DG connected as an example,the impact of DG on time delay is analyzed in case of the inlet feeder with and without automatic reclose,which shows that the inlet feeder should not equipped with an automatic reclose.Two solutions are proposed:1.change the original inlet feeder line protection into an instant fiber pilot protection;2.install a monitoring device to monitor the voltage,current and power direction of the inlet feeder switch.The implementation of solution 2 is illustrated,showing the improved action veracity of the automatic bus transfer device.


Poverty is the inability of someone from an economic perspective to fulfill a need that refers to someone who is classified in the class, but actively seeks a certain level of wages. The tool used in this study is multiple regression using panel data.
The results of the analysis showed that the population had a significant positive effect on poverty in the district / city of Bakorwil IV in East Java Province with a coefficient of 28 percent, and open unemployment had a significant positive effect on poverty in the District / City of Bakorwil IV East Java Province by 43 percent with a coefficient of determination (R-Squared) by 45 percent.


The onset of the Semantic Web has brought manyinnovations for enabling assisted interactions on the WorldWide Web through document annotation. Many efforts haveemerged throughout the past years, including RDF, OWL,OWL-S and WSMO, all seeking to improve the currentweb from a static one into a more dynamic one. SemanticWeb Services are an effective way to facilitate the discovery,selection and composition of services and to integrate theminto workflows. Presently, however, not many tools offer thefunctionality to facilitate the annotations of such services toontology frameworks such as OWL-S or WSMO. Presentedhere is an Editing Suite for such a scenario. The aim of thiswork is to provide a tool that provides two core features. Thefirst is a generic framework that allows the extraction of datafrom an SAWSDL document, as well as having an integratedvisual editor for building composite business processes. Thesecond is a set of hooking mechanisms, able to extend theabove framework so as to provide mappings from SAWSDL toany other ontology framework.


A LITERATURE SEARCH AND CANVASS WAS CONDUCTED TO PROVIDE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EXISTING LAND USE CONTROLS AND OTHER TECHNIQUES ON THE CONTINUING UTILITY OF TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS. THE STUDY INCLUDED A REVIEW OF URBAN STRUCTURE, AN ANALYSIS OF EXISTING LAND USE CONTROLS, THEIR OBJECTIVES, LIMITATIONS, AND STABILITY, AN ANALYSIS OF HIGHWAY SYSTEM FUNCTIONS, ACCESS CONTROL AND DESIGN CONTROL IN RELATION TO LAND USE, AND A REVIEW OF TRAFFIC GENERATION CHARACTERISTICS. THE STUDY CONCLUDED THAT MANY EXISTING LAND USE CONTROLS ARE DYNAMIC AND CHANGING, AND FURTHER EVALUATION OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THESE CHANGES ON TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES IS NEEDED. RECENT PLANNING PROGRAMS INDICATE THAT FUTURE COMMUNITY PLANS AND LAND USE CONTROLS MAY BE MORE REALISTIC AND STABLE THAN IN THE PAST. LAND USE DECISIONS SHOULD BE ACCOMPANIED BY AN ASSESSMENT OF THE TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENTS NEEDED TO PROVIDE THE REQUIRED SERVICE. LAND USE CONTROLS COULD BE USED TO ACHIEVE A MIX OF LAND USES WITH COMPLEMENTARY TRAFFIC GENERATION CHARACTERISTICS AND ALSO TO DISTRIBUTE MAJOR GENERATORS TO MINIMIZE TRAFFIC CONCENTRATIONS. THE MAJOR PROBLEMS WITH MOST EXISTING HIGHWAYS CAN OFTEN BE TRACED DIRECTLY TO THE LACK OF ACCESS CONTROL. THE EXPANDED USE OF LAND ACCESS CONTROLS AND GEOMETRIC DESIGN CONTROLS CAN PROVIDE INTRINSIC PROTECTION FOR THE HIGHWAY. IN THE VICINITY OF FREEWAY INTERCHANGES, ACCESS AND DESIGN CONTROLS AND SPECIAL INTERCHANGE DESIGN COULD MINIMIZE CURRENT OPERATIONAL PROBLEMS.


An analysis of the incipience of nucleate boiling is developed as a modification and extension of previous analyses. The results are compared with data for subcooled boiling of water in forced convection flow. Apparent anomalies in the data for the onset of boiling in two-phase gas-liquid flow are shown to be a result of a limited size range of cavities on the heater surfaces. Measurements of the surface characteristics of a copper heating tube were made and compared with incipient boiling heat transfer data taken in that tube. The results predicted from the theoretical analysis are consistent with the experimental heat transfer data.


Fault on substation will disrupt the continuity of power transfer from utility to the customer. One case of this phenomenon was occurred on substation A, which is the source of the backbone transmission for large system. This fault broke the circuit breaker chamber and cause 137MW load outage with 73.1 MWh of energy is not supplied. Also, the fault characteristic showed that it has a same phase angle for the all phases which has never been found in Indonesia. Therefore, it is necessary to perform a study to determine the root cause of this fault and enrich the knowledge about substation fault characteristic. Then, this paper presents the fault analysis through field data analysis, modeling, and simulation. This study found that the cause of in phase current waveform for all three phases is single phase (phase T) to ground fault that is caused by circuit breaker internal failure. Also, the current transformer position relative to the fault point will affect the phase angle of the current wave that recorded by Digital Fault Recorder (DFR).


The purpose of this study was to identify the effects of the application of elastic compression stockings and lower extremities exercise on edema and pain of lower extremities in hospital nurses. The participants were 30 hospital nurses working at a general hospital. The participants were categorized into three groups such as, 10 for an experimental group of the application of the elastic compression stocking, 10 for another experimental group of the application of Lower extremities exercise and 10 for a control group. Edema of the lower extremities were measured in terms of the girths of ankles and calves. And pain of the lower extremities were measured in terms of the score by NRS(Numerical Rating Scale). The data were analyzed with Frequency, Percentage, Mean, Standard Deviation, -test and ANOVA to identify the participants' characteristics, SPSS Win 21.0 program was used for analysing. There are significant differences in lower extremity edema among the experimental group of lower extremities exercise, experimental group of elastic compression stocking and control group was supported(Rt Calf F=0.645, p=.000, Lt Calf F=21.941, p=.000). There are significant differences in lower extremity pain the experimental group of lower extremities exercise, experimental group of elastic compression stocking and control group was supported(Rt: F==7.320, p=.000 Lt: F=10.623, p=.000). In conclusion, in has been appeared that the lower extremities exercise and wearing elastic compression stocking have effedted in relieving low extremity edema and pain scale for nurses.


A methodology for generating bipartite graphs for LDPC codes which both exhibit good performance under message passing decoding and are amenable to direct hardware implementation is described. To this end, we define a novel quantitative measure of the "loopiness" of a graph, as well as a quantitative measure of the cost of direct hardware implementation, and use the well-known simulated annealing algorithm to simultaneously minimize both quantities. Finally, we simulate the decoding of several rather short codes to show that the performance is indeed predicted by our loopiness measure.


The application of vacuum preloading to prefabricated vertical drains (PVDs) with different lengths is widely used in practical engineering to investigate their consolidation at the same depths of even and multilayer subsoils from the seabed. In a laboratory, model experiment was conducted using even subsoil and embedded PVDs with lengths of 0.6 and 1.2 m. The obtained results showed that in the even subsoil, the 1.2 m PVDs maintained a higher vacuum pressure in the shallow layer and demonstrated better consolidation behavior as compared to those of the 0.6 m PVDs. In the upper subsoil layer, the average vane shear strengths of these two systems increased to 18.2 and 22.6 kPa, respectively. The degree of consolidation of the upper subsoil layers in the two model experiments calculated from the pore water pressures under boundary drainage conditions were 51% and 68%, respectively. For practical verification purposes, similar experiments were conducted for multilayer subsoil by inserting PVDs with lengths of 6 and 15 m into different test sites. As a result, the vane shear strengths of the upper 6 m subsoil layers increased to 26.3 and 33 kPa, while the degree of consolidation were 72.1% and 80.9%, respectively, although some irregularities were observed at different depths.


Dimethyl ether (DME) is a new clean fuel as an environmentally-benign energy resource. DME can be manufactured from various energy sources including natural gas, coal, and biomass. In addition to its environmentally friendly properties, DME has similar characteristics to those of LPG. The aim of this article is to represent the development of new DME process with KOGAS`s own technologies. KOGAS has investigated and developed new innovative DME synthesis process from synthesis gas in gaseous phase fixed bed reactor. DME has been traditionally produced by the dehydration of methanol which is produced from syngas, a product of natural gas reforming. This traditional process is thus called the two-step method of preparing DME. However, DME can also be manufactured directly from syngas (single-step). The single-step method needs only one reactor for the synthesis of DME, instead of two for the two-step process. It can also alleviate the thermodynamic limitations associated with the synthesis of methanol, by converting the produced methanol into DME, thereby potentially enhancing the overall conversion of syngas into DME. KOGAS had launched the 10 ton/day DME demonstration plant project in 2004 at Incheon KOGAS LNG terminal. In the mid of 2008, KOGAS had finished the construction of this plant and has successively finished the demonstration plant operation. And since 2008, we have established the basic design of commercial plant which can produce 3,000 ton/day DME.


Every three-connected simple planar graph is a polyhedral graph and a cubic polyhedral graph with pentagonal and hexagonal faces is called as a classical fullerene. The aim of this paper is to survey some results about the symmetry group of cubic polyhedral graphs. We show that the order of symmetry group of such graphs divides 240.


Objective To observe the clinical effect of Shuxuetong injection on cerebral infarction. Methods From January 2009 to March 2013,200 patients with cerebral infarction in Department of Internal Medicine in our hospital were chosen,and they were randomly divided into control group and treatment group,each of 100 cases. Control group given conventional treatment,treatment group given Shuxuetong injection based on conventional treatment,both groups treated for 14 days. Scores of nerve function defect,clinical effect and adverse reactions during treatment of the two groups were observed. Results After treatment,the scores of nerve function defect of treatment group was(16. 38 ± 7. 73),was lower than that of control group of(20. 25 ±7.36)(P 0.05). The total effective rate of treatment group was90%,was higher than that of control group of79%(P 0. 05). During treatment,6 cases in control group,5 cases in treatment occurred mild dizziness and palpitation,the difference was not significantly different(P 0. 05). Conclusion Shuxuetong injection has a certain clinical effect on cerebral infarction,is worthy of promotion.


N OT many years ago, planned retirement from active work was a purely academic consideration. The individual's struggle to make a living normally continued until death or disability wrote an end to his working life. Not until industrialization multiplied individual productivity did society face the dual problem: should a man retire before the disabilities of old age force him to, and, if so, at what age should he retire?


The Anonnaceae family has 2,500 species and 135 genera, which has about 14 representatives of species in Brazil, including Pseudoxandra cuspidata. The objective of this research was to study the aqueous-acid extract of P. cuspidata, evaluating its antioxidant, larvicidal, antimicrobial and cytotoxic potential. In the preliminary phytochemical analysis, there were positivity to organicacids and alkaloids. Inhibitory Activity of EAA was 65% against DPPH. The AAE presented to A. Salina nauplii at LC50% of 600.79 μg/mL for a periodof 24 hours. In relation to larvicidal activity to Aedes aegypti intermediates, AAE presented the LC50% in 24 Hours of 475.91 ppm and 290.73 ppm in 48 Hours. Regarding the antimicrobial action, the EAA presented 50 mg/mL MIC for P. Aeruginosa and MBC at 100 mg/mL, and for S. aureus it presented MIC of 50 mg/mL and did not present MBC. This research characterized the presence of alkaloids and organicacids present in the aqueousacid extract of P. cuspidata. The extract presented lowtoxicity in relation to the microcrustacean A. salina. It also had a relevant antioxidant potential (65% of Inhibition), larvicidalaction considered effective, antimicrobialaction for both P. Aeruginosa and S. Aureus even did not present bacterici dalaction.


Small intestine neuroendocrine tumours (SI-NETs) are the most common small bowel tumours. A particularly challenging subset of these tumours are those that involve the superior mesenteric artery (SMA) or vein (SMV) for which the role and feasibility of surgery is often questioned. This review aimed to identify and evaluate the management strategies used for these complex SI-NETs.

 Primary studies concerning SI-NETs with SMA and/or SMV involvement were identified from PubMed and Embase review and data abstraction was performed.

 Initial literature search identified 155 potentially eligible studies, from which nine non-randomised primary retrospective studies met inclusion criteria. Treatments identified include stenting the SMV, debulking and resection, auto-transplantation, and endovascular occlusion and tumour excision (EVOTE) procedures. The level of involvement of the SMA and SMV was associated with resectability such that more proximal involvement yielded a lower likelihood of successful resection. Auto-transplantation strategies may show promise in more proximal mesenteric root involvement. To date, one study reported a case of a patient with SMV encasement who was successfully treated with auto-transplantation of ileocolic and ileojejunal segments after resection of the affected structures.

 The present study highlights a role for aggressive surgical and multimodal management in cases of SI-NETs with vascular involvement of the mesenteric root. The use of classification systems to stratify mesenteric masses by level of vascular involvement can help identify patients who could benefit from resection. Large scale prospective studies are needed to better elucidate the effectiveness of surgical management strategies in these challenging SI-NETs.


UNTIL fairly recently, the neotropical Masked Duck (Oxyura dominica) had been reported within the continental United States only a few times. Between 1857 and 1905 single accidental records of the species were made in Vermont, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Maryland (Bent, 1925). Only the Rio Grande area of Cameron County, Texas, where Fisher (1895) first reported the sighting of several Masked Ducks and the collection of a female specimen near Brownsville in July 1891, has been considered a potential breeding locality. Griscom and Crosby (1925) mention a male specimen, taken in the same place at the same time, and Lawrence (1927) reports a specimen killed in Brazoria County, Texas. A female Masked Duck was shot in Louisiana during December of 1933 (Lowery, 1955), one was reported near Harlingen (Cameron County), Texas in December of 1936 (Bird-Lore, 39': 65, 1937), and a flock of 24 was reported at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge (Aransas County), Texas in December of 1948 (Audubon Field Notes, 3: 177, 1949). As Masked Ducks are not known ever to have been kept in captivity in the United States (Delacour, 1959), it is unlikely that these early records represent escaped birds. In September 1937 Lo-etscher (1956) observed a group of eight Masked Ducks near Brownsville, including two males in nuptial plumage. Loetscher presumed that the five female-like birds may have included young of both sexes. Prior to 1941 L. I. Davis repeatedly observed single Masked Ducks near Harlingen, and, although no nest was located, he believed (1966) that they attempted to breed there in 1941, when five possible immatures were seen. These two cases apparently represent the only reported instances of possible breeding by Masked Ducks in the United States prior to 1967. During the 195Os three Masked Ducks were reported from Florida, including a bird found dead at Key West in 1955 (Hames, 1956), one shot during the 1956-57 hunting season in Glades County, and one shot during 1957 in Palm Beach County (Owre, 1962). Texas reports include a female seen near Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge (Hidalgo County) during March of 1957 (A.F.N., 11: 362, 1957) and a female observed on Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge (Cameron County) in October of 1959 (A.F.N., 14: 53, 1960). The early 1960s brought about a surprising number of new Masked Duck reports, often shortly after the passage of Caribbean hurricanes. These included the sighting of a male on Brigantine National Wildlife Refuge, New Jersey, in December 1960 (A.F.N., 15: 315, 1961), a bird


This paper gives an overview of Internet Mapping and discusses its use for Geographical Mediation. Internet Mapping summarizes a variety of tools, ranging from geodata and map servers up to online Geographic Information Systems (GIS). First, a classification is proposed, according to the services offered and to the techniques used. Then, the requirements of Collaborative Spatial Decision-Making (CSDM) for online maps are discussed in more detail with reference to the European Union research project "Geographical Mediation System" (GeoMed).


Reservoir Management and remaining oil distribution research are important basis of potential trapping during high water cut stage in fields development. It is especially important for low pore and low permeability fields. The Wen-Mi field has the characteristic of in "low pore, low permeability, and low salinity" which water flooding in forepart. At present, it has been on high water cut stage. It developed structure adjusting increment technology during high water cut stage, which adapt to the fields geologic character and remaining oil distribution trait of "low pore, low permeability, and low salinity". The technology studied on oil-gas-water's movement method through deepening the geological characteristic of oil field, fine reservoir management and combining numerical simulation technology and further researches on remaining oil distribution. The technology of improving potential exploitation resource which was based on this research has acquired remarkable effect. It may be benefit for other low pore and low permeability fields.


This paper presents a new two dimentional(2D) sparse array called the augmented L-shaped nested array based on the concept of fourth-order difference co-array. By properly choosing the relative positions of two L-shaped nested arrays, one could obtain a virtual planar array containing a large-scale hole-free uniform rectangular co-array. As a result, the degree of freedom could be greatly enhanced. Many theoretical properties are derived and simulations are included by considering the fourth-order cumulants of quasi-stationary signal to validate the superior performance of the proposed array in comparison with other 2D sparse arrays.


The characteristics of many mature processes of nitrogen and phosphorus removal for municipal wastewater were analyzed,the factors of selecting of processes of nitrogen and phosphorus removal were pointed out,which provided reference for wastewater treatment plant selecting and design processes of nitrogen and phosphorus removal.


Thyroid disease is among the most prevalent endocrinopathies worldwide. As the thyroid gland controls human metabolism, thyroid illness is a matter of concern for human health. To save time and reduce error rates, an automatic, reliable, and accurate thyroid identification machine-learning (ML) system is essential. The proposed model aims to address existing work limitations such as the lack of detailed feature analysis, visualization, improvement in prediction accuracy, and reliability. Here, a public thyroid illness dataset containing 29 clinical features from the University of California, Irvine ML repository was used. The clinical features helped us to build an ML model that can predict thyroid illness by analyzing early symptoms and replacing the manual analysis of these attributes. Feature analysis and visualization facilitate an understanding of the role of features in thyroid prediction tasks. In addition, the overfitting problem was eliminated by 5-fold cross-validation and data balancing using the synthetic minority oversampling technique (SMOTE). Ensemble learning ensures prediction model reliability owing to the involvement of multiple classifiers in the prediction decisions. The proposed model achieved 99.5% accuracy, 99.39% sensitivity, and 99.59% specificity with the boosting method which is applicable to real-time computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems to ease diagnosis and promote early treatment.


Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is an important element in the development of an organization. Leaders play an important role in ensuring effective application of ICT in the organization, particularly in schools. Review of previous studies more engaged to the level of technology leadership and the characteristics of technological leadership practiced by leaders in the school, while the factors of a more comprehensive which include facilities for ICT, competence and commitment of teachers in the practices of applying ICT in the management which contribute a grant impact on the management duties of teachers in schools has not been studied in Malaysia. The purpose of this study is to identify whether there is a positive relationship between technology leadership, ICT facilities, competence, commitment and practice of applying ICT teachers with effective management duties of teachers in schools using ICT. This quantitative study involves 370 teachers in secondary schools in the Kedah state which were selected randomly. The findings show that there is a positive relationship between technology leadership, ICT facilities, competence and commitment of teachers to use ICT and the effectiveness of management duties of teachers using ICT in school. Data were analyzed using the software Smart-PLS where value oft> 1.96, while R²<0.50. The role of teacher practices using ICT to be used as a moderator has positive correlation with ICT facilities. Based on the findings, the factor of technology leadership, ICT facilities, competence and commitment to apply ICT has important relationship with the effectiveness of management duties of teachers using ICT in schools. Further studies can be conducted using larger samples and other methods to test and strengthen the findings.


Cerium-doped lutetium orthophosphate (LuPO 4 :Ce) is one of the most promising new scintillator materials. In this paper we report on the effects of total or partial replacement of Lu by Yb. When not doped with Ce, crystals of Yb x Lu 1-x PO 4 scintillate rather poorly, the emission being due to the Yb charge transfer transition. Activation with Ce reduces the light output from Yb even further, while correspondingly the addition of Yb to LuPO 4 :Ce also degrades that material's scintillation performance. We suggest that the nonradiative decay of the (Yb 2+ -Ce 4+ ) charge transfer state is responsible for the mutual quenching of these ions. The differences in performance of LuPO 4 :Yb and LuPO 4 :Ce indicate that energy transfer mechanisms ordinarily associated with materials containing molecular anionic groups may not be quite sufficient to explain the results. Suggestions are presented that under γ-excitation the lattice-to-ion energy transfer in orthophosphates is accomplished by sequential capture of charge carriers rather than the more conventional mechanism of exciton hopping between molecular groups.


Abstract Using permafrost boreholes, Lachenbruch and Marshall recently reported evidence for a 2°–4°C warming in North Alaska occurring at some undetermined time during the last century. Popular accounts suggest their findings are evidence for anthropogenic warming caused by trace gases. Analyses of North Alaskan 1000-500 mb thickness onwards back to 1948 indicate that the warming was prior to that date. Relatively sparse thermometric data for the early twentieth century from Jones et al. are too noisy to support any trend since the data record begins in 1910, or to apply to any subperiod of climatic significance. Any warming detected from the permafrost record therefore occurred before the major emissions of thermally active trace gases.


Retail districts are key elements of the urban experience, reflecting and reinforcing the economic, social, political and physical attributes of their environments. Vibrant cities and neighborhoods depend on similarly vibrant retail cores and districts, and vice versa. Furthermore, retail districts strongly influence the urban experience by facilitating the exchange of goods and culture, encouraging social capital, and enabling entrepreneurship. It is therefore surprising how peripherally urban retail districts are discussed in the academic literature, as few geographers, economists, urbanists and sociologists study them as interconnected economic, social, political and physical systems. In many Western countries, urban retail districts have struggled to keep pace with trends toward efficiency, consolidation, and decentralization of retailers, and academic research has similarly moved on. While urban retail districts represent uniquely fine-grained physical settings and conditions, the majority of contemporary retail research has shifted its focus toward macro-scale or operational processes of marketing, consumer behavior, and distribution. As a result, many relevant works on urban retail are rather dated, with any recent works written in countries where retailers have remained urbanized. In this English-language bibliography, many works are therefore British, although many foreign works exist. Over recent decades, a revival of research interest in urban vitality at the scale of the retail district has prompted advances in qualitative and quantitative insights. Analytical methods to study the external and internal structure of retail districts are similarly evolving. Contemporary scholarly debates on urban retail focus on the role of retail districts as social hubs, with authors confirming their positive effect on economic vitality and cultural transfer, while acknowledging the threat of gentrification and homogenization. An increasing number of studies focus on the withdrawal of retailers from underprivileged urban districts, resulting in a dearth of affordable access to healthy food options for their residents—coined "food deserts." As government involvement in urban retail has diminished in many countries in the late 20th century, an increasing number of retail districts have adopted the self-taxed and governed Business Improvement District model, which has prompted significant academic inquiry and debate over the past decades. The globalization of retail corporations has prompted growing academic interest in retailing in the Global South, connecting the typically local condition of retail districts to global flows of capital and culture. This bibliography presents overview works on the current condition and evolution of urban retail, common analytical models of retail distribution and consumer behavior, and current scholarly debates.


Between the household income and expenditure on education has in quantity related.the paper adopted by 500 families sampling survey in 50 villages of the 34 County of Zhejiang Province who have children in school-home.And analyzed in family's income and expenditure on education in 2006,The burden of education,income and expenditure relevance,flexibility in education spending and conclusions drawn.


Light field density operator and hamiltion operator is analyzed and the matrix combination rules of q-mode light field density operator and Hamiltion operator illustrated in the paper. Product-sum, continued product-sum, and symbol of continued multiplication direct sum are defined.


Load stability and the optimization problem is important for efficient parallel processing computer. A smart task allocation algorithm that intelligently select the node status and startup strategies, the total load assigned to the appropriate node to enable communication and processing minimal overhead, load balancing, parallel processing system so that the overall performance of the best, lowest cost; The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed model.


The world has experienced a tremendous impact over the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the impacts is the change in the learning system from offline classes to online classes. Not a few studies say that online learning impacts students' psychology, one of which is academic stress. This study examines the effect of academic stress on positive mental health in college students during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 76 psychology students in Central Java, Indonesia, participated in this study. The results show a significant effect of academic stress on positive mental health in students during online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The implications of the results of this study are discussed in detail


Diabetes mellitus is an increasingly prevalent complication of cystic fibrosis (CF) as a result of the increased life expectancy resulting from advances in CF treatment. The management of cystic fibrosis related diabetes (CFRD) has previously focused on symptomatic relief under the assumption that, with limited life expectancy, aggressive treatment was unnecessary. However, there is now evidence of a clear association between CFRD and increased morbidity and mortality.1,2 Lung function and clinical status deteriorate up to 2–4 years before a diagnosis of CFRD based on the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT),2,3 suggesting that insulin deficiency may have adverse clinical effects prior to the development of sufficient hyperglycaemia to make a diagnosis of diabetes on conventional OGTT criteria. The introduction of insulin treatment can produce clinical improvement in weight and lung function as well as glycaemia.4,5

We noticed that in CF patients with diabetes the initiation of insulin treatment was associated with a notable clinical improvement that could not be explained by the treatment of their relatively mild hyperglycaemia. In addition glucose values on home or ward monitoring were often higher than those seen during the OGTT. We therefore gave insulin treatment to four patients with long standing CF, who had weight loss and deteriorating lung function without a clear cause, and had high random glucose values even when their OGTT showed normal glucose tolerance. We report improvement in all four patients in objective markers of clinical status.

Case 1 was a 20 year old male, homozygous for DF508, diagnosed at 6 years of age with failure to thrive and a positive sweat test, with …


One of the major problems in the theory of maximal monotone operators is to find a point in the solution set Zer( ), set of zeros of maximal monotone mapping . The problem of finding a zero of a maximal monotone in real Hilbert space has been investigated by many researchers. Rockafellar considered the proximal point algorithm and proved the weak convergence of this algorithm with the maximal monotone operator. Güler gave an example showing that Rockafellar's proximal point algorithm does not converge strongly in an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space. In this paper, we consider an explicit method that is strong convergence in an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space and a simple variant of the hybrid steepest-descent method, introduced by Yamada. The strong convergence of this method is proved under some mild conditions. Finally, we give an application for the optimization problem and present some numerical experiments to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.


During the last five years, the global area of transgenic crop (GM-genetically modified) cultivation increased 25-fold. About 98% of GM crops are grown in the USA, Argentina and Canada from where they are sent to many importers of soyabean and maize. The results of feeding experiments indicate that soyabean meal obtained from herbicide-tolerant lines and insect-resistant maize are substantially and nutritionally equivalent to their conventional lines. A higher content of insecticidal a-amylase inhibitors (as well as lectins and alkaloids) may increase plants' resistance to insect attack, as well as the decrease nutritional value of seeds. Evaluation of the concordance of the chemical composition of transgenic and conventional crops (i.e., verification of substantial equivalence) is not sufficient for proving the safety of transgenic food. Sub-chronic in vivo experiments as well as comparison of nutritional equivalence of transgenic and conventional crops are advisable. Such actions are justified not only by the possibility of undesirable transgenic effects, but also by the consumer's right to explicit information on food safety. Without evaluation of nutritional equivalence, information on GM-food safety is much more deficient than existing knowledge on the quality of feeds used in animal nutrition.


In spite of considerable research algebra remains a difficult subject for many students. Classroom teaching approaches still often rely on presentation of one or two procedures based in a single representation for solving a given problem type, often the symbolic algebra domain. The aim of this study was to investigate the value of using a multiplerepresentational environment in which students interact conceptually with graphic calculators (GCs) while solving quadratic equations. While students gained overall from using the GCs, it has been difficult to show specific representational benefits. However, the study has enabled us to describe and exemplify more clearly the nature of some representational interactions. Acquisition of knowledge is a process that involves constant interaction between the learner and his environment. In mathematics this environment comprises different ways of presenting corresponding ideas or concepts. These may make use of metaphor (e.g., Nunez, 2000) or in other ways represent concepts which are mathematical processes, objects or statements, etc. While the word representation has had various interpretations, sometimes due to differing contexts or theoretical perspectives, Kaput (1987, p. 23) describes a representation as involving "two related but functionally separate entities…the representing world and the represented world" and describes four broad types of representation that this idea accommodates, namely cognitive and perceptual; explanatory, involving models; within mathematics; and external symbolic. In later papers, Kaput (1989, 1998) refers to a representation system as a correspondence between two notation systems (for example equations, graphs and tables of ordered pairs) and uses the terms representation system and notation system interchangeably. In the present study we align ourselves with this view of representation proposed by Kaput. It is reasonably clear that the cognitive structure of the individual will strongly influence the person's interaction with an external representation. Kaput (1989) draws a distinction between the way in which students interact with notation systems, describing how some are used mainly to display information and relationships (display notations) while others support a variety of transformations and other actions on their objects (action notations). Thomas & Hong (2001) also describe how this interaction can take several different forms, including surface and deep observation of representations, and actions performed on them, suggesting that the purpose of a representation is student initiated rather than inherent. They define the idea of a conceptual representation tool and describe two possible student perspectives of the concept giving rise to a conceptual process representation tool (CPRT) or a conceptual object representation tool (CORT). Janvier (1998) has also discussed how students' discrete, point-wise interpretation of function graphs is deeply anchored in students' schemas, preventing them from moving to more powerful global perspectives. According to Thomas & Hong (2001) it will also constrain the interaction they can have with a representation. Flexibility in interactions with quadratic function representations was the focus of Even's (1998) study, but she found


The key issue of the environmental public interest litigation is the qualifications of the plaintiff.Facing the severe rural environmental situation,questions are raised about both the necessity and feasibility of taking the village committee as the qualified plaintiff of the environmental public interest litigation.The qualification for the village committee to participate in the environmental public interest litigation shall be ensured by the mode of establishing and operating a legal system.


Because of its high solubility, nitrate is considered the most common contaminant of groundwater throughout the world: a contaminant that causes cancer and methemoglobinemia in infants. This research intended to study removal of nitrate from the effluent of the Wood and Paper Factory in Sari with the help of a polypyrrole composite on the natural zeolite perlite. This study, which was carried out under laboratory conditions on the effluent of from the Wood and Paper Factory in Sari, considered the effects of the empirical parameters pH, contact duration, adsorbent dose, and temperature on adsorption. FTIR and SEM were used to identify the structure of the synthesized composites. The optimum conditions for nitrate adsorption by polypyrrole coated on perlite (ppy/perlite) were pH = 5, contact time = 20 min, and adsorbent dose = 0.6 g/100 mL of the effluent. The kinetic data for nitrate adsorption matched the pseudo second-order equation and the Freundlich isotherm, and increases in temperature had a positive effect on removal efficiency. Study of the thermodynamics related to the process indicated that it was a spontaneous and endothermic one. The ppy/perlite composite could be used as an effective adsorbent to remove nitrate from aqueous solutions. © 2018 Desalination Publications. All rights reserved.


The strategic service quality approach has without a doubt improved the operational productivity of service-oriented businesses across several industries. While its implementation remains vital to maintaining sustainability and competitive edge in the automotive service sector, the principal approach is to concentrate on the factors which have the highest impact on customers and the interpretation of their experience. This paper identifies the various critical factors driving the quality of after-sales services in the Nigerian automotive industry. From the two hundred (200) valid questionnaire returned from vehicle repair customers located in Lagos Nigeria, data analysis was carried out using the mean item score and exploratory factor analysis. The findings revealed that the tangible quality attributes of car repair services were the most influential among the three critical factors of service quality identified (reliability, tangibles, empathy), based on customers experience and perceptions. The study suggests that the quality perception of auto services should improve if car repairers improve the physical appearance of their business area, facility, equipment, and mechanics as well. The outcome of the investigation is expected to ignite more discussions that address the present state and appearances of automobile service centres, workshops or the mechanic villages found in Nigeria.


Understanding the hegemonic quality of legal discourse requires us to view hegemony as unfolding in multiple sights of discursive practice. Thus, we must begin to analyze not only hegemonic legal discourse but hegemony in social sights of legal practice in order to see that legal practice is essential in processes of domination and social ordering. In this article, I explore the processes of political subjection and resistance as they manifest in witness testimony and judicial decisions from late nineteenth century defamation trials in Ontario. I argue that slander and libel suits were integral in constructing particular legitimate knowledges about class and gender as categories of social identity.


The wireless monitoring and positioning system for smart car is designed in the paper. It can master and control the operational parameter and positioning parameter of smart car in real-time. The system is composed of smart car system and monitoring system and positioning system. The experiments show that the system can collect the operational parameter and positioning parameter of smart car in real-time using connection technology and Zigbee technology. And the smart car can be positioned accurately.


In this thesis, I conduct field experiments in schools and focus on two possibilities out of many which could change pupils' motivation in school: (i) non-monetary incentives and (ii) framing manipulations. Extrinsic financial incentives are a "natural" resource of economists to solve problems in motivation. However, this type of incentives can be very costly, not feasible for policy makers and teachers along with parents are mostly critical about "cash for grades". Chapter 2 entitled "Peers or Parents? On the Signaling Value of Rewards in School" (co-authored with Gerhard Riener) therefore aims at identifying to whom pupils want to signal their academic achievement to be able to better tailor and to increase the effectiveness of non-monetary incentives. To do so, we conducted a field experiment in high- and low-achieving schools in Germany with more than 2.000 pupils. Incentives were provided for self-improvement in a mathematical test and were either predetermined or self-selected. In the latter (the Choice Treatment), pupils could choose one out of four incentives. These non-monetary incentives were selected based on a survey conducted prior to the experiment and differed with respect to the principal target audience---peers or parents. In particular, pupils could choose between a medal, a parent-letter, a homework voucher or a surprise. To test the effectiveness of rewards on pupils' performance, academic achievements in the Choice Treatment are then compared to two predetermined treatment conditions (the Fixed-Medal and Fixed-Letter Treatments) and to pupils who were not eligible to receive a reward (the Control Group). We find that pupils with lower maths grades choose a reward with a higher signaling value to their parents while high-achieving pupils tend to choose to signal their academic achievements to their peers. We find no differences in the signaling decision by gender or school type (Vocational vs. High Schools). However, the effectiveness of the predetermined incentives on test performance differs by school type. Test performance decreases significantly for pupils in High Schools but not for pupils in Vocational Schools. In contrast, when allowing for choice over the incentive, we do not observe a decrease in pupils' performance in High Schools and moreover, an increase in pupils' willingness to prepare for the test. Insights from behavioral economics and its value for applications in policymaking have been increasingly recognized by governments in recent years. In 2010, the European Commission set up the "Framework Contract for the Provision of Behavioral Studies (FCPBS)", in 2014 the US government assembled the "Social and Behavioral Sciences Team", the World Bank officially launched its "Global Insights Initiative (GINI)" in 2015 and a number of European countries (i.e. UK, Netherlands, Germany, France and Denmark) installed specialized behavioral insights teams. Despite the increasing application in policy-making, behavioral concepts have been rarely applied to the educational sector although they constitute a promising source for motivating pupils. Chapter 3 entitled "Seeking Risk or Answering Smart? Framing in Elementary Schools" therefore tests the motivational power of framing effects on pupils' decision making in a multiple-choice test, in particular, how loss and gain framing affects the quantity and quality of decision. In a field experiment in elementary schools, 1.377 pupils were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: (i) gain frame (Control Group), (ii) loss frame (Loss Treatment) and (iii) gain frame with a downward shift of the point scale (Negative Treatment). According to prospect theory (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979), individuals evaluate a loss approximately twice as much as an equal gain if they are loss averse and therefore pupils should increase their performance if they are endowed with the maximum score. On average, I find that pupils in both treatment groups answer significantly more questions correctly compared to the "traditional grading". This increase is driven by two different mechanisms. While pupils in the Loss Treatment increase significantly the quantity of answered questions---seek more risk---pupils in the Negative Treatment seem to increase the quality of answers---answer more accurately. Moreover, differentiating pupils by their initial ability shows that a downward shift of the point scale is superior to loss framing. High-performers increase performance in both treatment groups but motivation is significantly crowded out for low-performers in the Loss Treatment. Performance in a test depends on pupils' motivation but could also be influenced by the testing format. Testing formats can be broadly divided into open-ended questions and multiple-choice questions. Multiple-choice university entrance exams determine access to higher education in many countries, which is one important prerequisite for later employment possibilities. The application of this testing format is problematic if it favors answering strategies of certain groups in the population. Recent experiments have identified guessing as one reason for gender diferences in performance (Pekkarinen, 2015; Baldiga, 2014), but as promotion within the educational system should depend on actual knowledge and not on how knowledge is assessed, this poses a challenge for general multiple-choice tests. Chapter 4 entitled "Answering Strategies in Multiple-Choice Tests - Differences by School Types and Gender?" (co-authored with Gerhard Riener) investigates whether answering strategies in multiple-choice tests differ between school types, gender and school grades. We address three questions: First, whether pupils in different school types apply different answering strategies? Second, whether the gender gap in guessing---boys are typically found to guess more often than girls---exists across social strata? Third, whether the gender gap exists over all school grades? To answer the first two questions, we exploit data from the randomized field experiment in Chapter 2. Pupils in secondary schools in Germany can be differentiated by social background and intellectual ability as measured by the school type (Vocational and High Schools). Our experimental data are complemented by using aggregate data of a nationwide test with more than 780.000 participants of grades 3 to 12 to shed light on the third question. We find that pupils in High School skip more answers than their counterparts in Vocational School but that they obtain higher test scores by answering more accurately. Results on gender differences reveal a gender gap in skipping math tasks only for pupils from higher socio-economic families and only if questions are difficult. However, this gap can be closed by providing extrinsic rewards for performance suggesting that the gender gap in skipping test items could be in line with a stereotype-threat explanation. Moreover, gender differences are found in all school grades and tend to increase over the years.


In this laboratory study, the effects of different factors on the properties of foamed asphalt mixtures were investigated. This laboratory study was also concerned with the development of a design procedure for foamed asphalt mixtures and the feasibility of stabilizing three typical Indiana Aggregates using foamed asphalt. The variables studied were three levels of foamed asphalt content, three levels of moisture content, three curing periods, two levels of test temperature and three levels of mixing temperature. The foamed asphalt mixtures investigated in this study produced satisfactory cured strength but were susceptible to water damage. It appears that foamed asphalt can be used as a stabilization agent when adequate drainage and sealing are provided. A design procedure for foamed asphalt mixtures was recommended from the findings of this laboratory investigation. (FHWA)


The aim of this study was to establish a cell culture system with identified classes of locust neurons (interneu- rons, motorneurons and sensory neurons). The cells belonging to the different classes were distinguished in cell culture by vital dyes, which had been applied to the neurons in situ. From the various dyes tested fluorescent marked dextrans (10.000MW) gave the best results. The cells survived for up to 28 days in culture and approx. half of the cells grew proc- esses, except of the sensory neurons, which never formed any processes. The different neurons were comparatively inves- tigated, e.g. with immunhistochemistry: 86% of motorneuron were glutamate immunoreactive and 50% of the interneu- rons exhibited GABA-like immunoreactivity. The cells had resting potentials between -20 and -60mV and did not show spontanous action potentials. Action potentials could be elicited by current injection in 8% of interneurons and 26% of motorneurons, but not in sensory neurons. The vital marking of cells allowed to study distinct neurons in cell culture and to compare their morphology and physiology.


Iso-amyl acetate is synthesized from acetic acid and iso-amyl alcohol,using KAl(SO4)2 as the catalyst.The influences of reaction conditions on the esterification rate are investigated by means of the orthogonal experiment designing.The optimum reaction condition is obtained as follows: 0.1mol acetic acid,molar ratio of acetic acid to iso-amyl alcohol,1:1;and KAl(SO4)2 is 16.7% of the weight of acetic acid;the reaction time,90min.The esterification rate of over 97.6% is attained.


Aim:  Haemodiafiltration (HDF) is the most efficient blood purification method and can remove a wide spectrum of solutes of different molecular weights (MW). The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the removed amounts of solutes, especially the larger molecules, could be increased by changing the HDF filtration procedure.


FIELD: handheld devices with display; information viewing. SUBSTANCE: in response to changes of tilt angle of device part of page containing information is changed. The named page lies on a virtual surface in co-ordinates system and every page point has a certain location in co-ordinates system. Initially display surface is oriented against virtual surface so that line of support perpendicular to monument point on display surface and starting from some monument point touches the page containing information in defined point. Part of page around defined point is displayed and in response to handheld device tilt mirror line is created by mirror reflection of support line against line perpendicular to display surface and passing through monumental point. Mirror line virtual surface contact point is defined and a part around contact point is displayed. Also handheld device for viewing information is declared. EFFECT: improved image adjustment. 24 cl, 20 dwg


This article arises from a counseling process to an investigation of socio-cultural practice that just took place in Bogota Spain with the support of the local mayor of Martyrs and ALEPH research group composed of Luis Ernesto Corredor Hatch; Katherine Alvarado Contreras; Luis Carlos Almeida and Angela Montenegro Sierra Maria Botero. A vision of broad and diverse public, through the participation and analysis when looking pedagogical solutions from cultural processes was obtained. The community of ragpickers in the Plaza Spain have a tradition in the history of the Colombian capital of more than 60 years, which is nourished not only of the landmarks, the events that unfolded here, or film records documentaries about these, but feeds on the experience and the experiences that are narrated by its own protagonists, who with their lives and from the daily build history, the main objective is to understand and demonstrate cultural practices performed by ropavejeros to keep time a commercial activity for the most vulnerable, such as the sale of used clothing in good quality.


Full name.................................................................................................................... Age/Sex .......................... bearing Citizenship ID /Passport /Voter card No. ....................................................... on (date).................................... who is employed as .......................................... ...........................in .......................................................................................................................... (Agency)


Scheduling tasks on a multi-processor system involves making a choice as to the order in which several tasks can be executed and assigned to processors. The problem is to find a schedule that will minimize the execution time of a program. Because task scheduling on a multi-processor system is known to be an NP-complete problem, many heuristics have been developed, each of which may find optimal or near optimal schedulings under different circumstances. List Scheduling, in particular, employs heuristics to choose among all tasks that are ready to be executed, the combination of tasks that should be scheduled in the next cycle. It does this by keeping a list of "ready" tasks which is prioritized based on a particular heuristic. In this paper, we present four common heuristics used by List Scheduling and compare their performance with that of our multi-heuristic based solution.The proposed solution is to use a genetic algorithm to find a combination of the four heuristics that, for a particular instance of the task scheduling problem, outperforms a scheduling based on only one of the four heuristics. We believe that, by using a mixture of the four heuristics, the size of the subset of all possible schedulings that we search increases and thus we have a higher chance of finding a better scheduling. The results of our experiments show that schedulings found with the proposed multi-heuristic list scheduling genetic algorithm outperforms those found with each one of the four list scheduling heuristics alone.


Hydrogen permeability of polymer electrolyte membranes is of great importance since hydrogen cross-leak plays a major role in degradation of the membrane and/or catalyst layers in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). In this study, the hydrogen cross-leak mechanism was investigated using direct gas mass spectroscopy (DGMS) to monitor hydrogen in the cathode exhaust and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique to monitor membrane water content. The DGMS measurement revealed that hydrogen permeability increased with humidity, temperature and hydrogen partial pressure in the anode. MRI visualization verified that hydrogen permeability was strongly affected by membrane hydration. Influence of hydrogen partial pressure was a key factor influencing permeation rates over a wide range of relative humidity. Reduced hydrogen permeation was observed under fuel cell operating conditions presumably due to hydrogen consumption in the anode. These observations suggest that dissolution and diffusion of hydrogen in the membrane play an important roll in hydrogen cross-leak in the PEMFC.


This study asks the research question: How do corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives contribute to change in the lives of individuals who have graduated from The Clothing Bank based in Durban? Given the main research question, the purpose of this qualitative case study is to assess the social impact of corporate social responsibility initiatives by using the most significant change (Dart and Davis 2005) as an evaluation technique. The study is framed by Amartya Sen's (1999) capability approach and uses and adapts its five instrumental freedoms as guiding domains to measure the impact of CSR initiatives. These identified five freedoms are social participation, economic well-being, social opportunities, access to knowledge and protective security. This study addresses issues of human development and social change by highlighting development relations between corporates in the clothing sector and community. The initiative between the Durban-based Clothing Bank project and its corporate retail partners is used as an example to achieve the aim of this study. The most significant change evaluation technique is used to collect data through a four-step process to elicit stories of significant change and most significant change story to evaluate social impact. The sampling strategy used is the non-probability, criterion sampling technique in which 10 individuals who have graduated from the TCB project are purposively selected. This study uses the thematic analysis method to analyse data. The findings from the study reveal that the joint willingness of the study participants, as beneficiaries of CSR initiatives together with the Durban-based Clothing Bank project and its corporate retail partners have the potential to contribute to the emergence of positive changes in the lives of the project beneficiaries. It is advised that corporate entities identify, assess, and manage the significant social impact that such entities have on community-based projects such as TCB project. It was established that this partnership encourages empowerment and the creation of sustainable livelihoods and communities.


Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a new technology considered to have the potential to decarbonise economies. However, nationally and internationally the use of CCS has also been raising concerns about its potential global risks and adverse impacts on the environment. CCS was part of the discussions at the 4th United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) in March 2019 and in side-events in the 26th UN Climate Change Conference which took place in Glasgow in November 2021. The UK Government aims to deploy CCS at scale during the 2030s, subject to cost reduction. At the same time the UK Government has recently enacted the Environment Act 2021 which provides a set of five environmental principles: the integration principle, the principle of preventative action, the precautionary principle, the rectification at source principle and the polluter pays principle. This work seeks to analyse the application of the UK environmental law principles to carbon capture and storage policies in the UK and its balance with other considerations. Given the concerns surrounding the use of CCS, the debate about its legality may arise in the UK and in other countries. To this end, this paper initially carries out a systematic review of CCS policy documents to discover the policy considerations which support the development of CCS. It then examines the application of the UK environmental law principles to CCS initiatives and its balance with other considerations, such as reduction of carbon emissions, security of energy supply, economic growth and technological leadership. In doing so, this paper aims at contributing to the debate surrounding recent technological developments which have been utilised to help address climate change and some of the legal challenges emerging through the use of CCS under UK environmental law.


The medium and low speed maglev vehicles driven by short-sta tor linear induction motor is prop er for urban mass transit.This article analyses briefly the pantograph-contact line relation of feeding system.


INTRODUCTION Despite advances in standard-of-care treatment for prostate cancer, including pelvic radiotherapy and radical prostatectomy with lymph node dissection, biochemical recurrence remains a problem with some studies reporting up to 30% of patients with biochemical recurrence at 10-years following treatment. Upon detection of a rise in serum prostate-specific antigen following treatment, clinicians are left with the dilemma of how best to treat these patients. Frequently, these patients are restaged with CT of the abdomen and pelvis or MRI of the pelvis in addition to a nuclear medicine bone scan. However, detection of recurrent disease both within the prostate gland/prostatectomy bed and in the region of pelvic lymph nodes remains challenging and is limited by size criteria per RECIST 1.1. [F]Fluciclovine PET imaging has improved detection of these previously occult metastases and helped guide treatment planning. In some select patients, a targeted lymphadenectomy may be the treatment of choice if the PET-avid disease is limited to a solitary lymph node site of spread. However, this concept has not been well described in the literature and here we provide 3 cases and short-term outcomes of patients that underwent [F]fluciclovine PET guided surgical excision of their biochemically recurrent prostate cancer.


We describe results of measurements of the diffraction efficiency of KTa1−
 x
 Nb
 x
 O3:Cu,V in the cubic phase using the quadratic electrooptic effect. Diffraction efficiencies of over 50% in a 3mm thick sample were measured. In addition, by making use of the quadratic electrooptic effect, it is possible to couple the amplitude of the index grating directly to an applied electric field, thus enabling amplitude modulation and switching of the diffracted beam. Control of the photorefractive gain by an external electric field was demonstrated at modulation rates up to 30 kHz.


One cell culture line was obtained from ascites fluid of a case diagnosed as reticulosarcomatosis. After about 50 days lag period, we were able to obtain a cell line which could grow continuously in vitro. This cell line has grown only in a floating state. At the present time, the doubling time of the culture is within 30 hours and the cells can multiply actively. Chromosomal analysis showed that the modal number of this line was 46, but the karyotype was not the same as that of the normal human cells. So far this pseudo-diploidal character has not changed in its successive culture.


In the article, within the framework of intellectualization of the Lean Production technology, it is proposed to optimize the costs arising from the insufficient efficiency of placing goods in the warehouse by creating an optimization method based on the immune metaheuristics of the T-cell model, which allows solving the knapsack constrained optimization problem. The proposed metaheuristic method does not require specifying the probability of mutation, the number of mutations, the number of selected new cells and allows using only binary potential solutions, which makes discrete optimization possible and reduces computational complexity by preventing permanent transformations of real potential solutions into intermediate binary ones and vice versa. An immune metaheuristic algorithm based on the T-cell model has been created, intended for implementation on the GPU using the CUDA parallel information processing technology. The proposed optimization method based on immune metaheuristics can be used to intellectualize the Lean Production technology. The prospects for further researches are to test the proposed methods on a wider set of test databases.


Abstract : Two related methods of assessing the cost-effectiveness of civil defense program elements in reducing casualties are presented, one a hand calculation procedure and the other a computer routine adapted to the current DCPA casualty assessment program. The methods employ a defense scenario that accounts for changes in population vulnerability brought about by emergency operations and human behavior. Demonstration results are provided. Recommendations are made for further development. (Author)


We consider the mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking of a bulk vector field tostudy signatures of bulk dimensions invisibleto the standard model confined to the brane.By assigning a non-vanishing vacuum expectation value to the vector field, a direction issingled out in the bulk vacuum, thus breaking the bulk Lorentz symmetry. We present thecondition for induced Lorentz symmetry on the brane, as phenomenologically required,noting that it is related to the value of the observed cosmological constant.


This research attemps to use hybrid algorithm which integrates the genetic algorithm and the ant colony algorithm to solve the guillotine rectangular optimal layout problem.There are shortcomings in the traditional mixed strategy and the current mixed strategy for the two algorithms.In order to overcome these shortcomings,this research improves the mixed strategy.Whether the evolution of population is stagnant can be confirmed by the fitness of the population's chromosome.Best algorithm fusion time is determined through the research.It is verified by example analysis that the improved hybrid strategy can effectively reduce algorithm redundancy iterations and improve search speed.The result shows that this algorithm is effective.


INTRODUCTION: Diabetes is a disease that can develop several complications such as muscle problems. Often, individuals with obesity develop diabetes, and when combined they can maximize the damage to both peripheral and respiratory muscle function. OBJECTIVE: To compare respiratory muscle strength in diabetic and nondiabetic obese women. METHODS: It was evaluated 38 morbidly obese women (BMI> 40 kg/m2), aged between 20 and 50 years, sedentary, nonsmokers without respiratory disease, and of these, 18 were diabetic and the other 20 were nondiabetic. It was recorded age, weight, height and waist and hip circunference. Respiratory muscle strength was evaluated by measuring the maximal static respiratory pressures - maximal inspiratory pressure (MIP) and maximal expiratory pressure (MEP) - expressed by absolute values and percentage values predicted. RESULTS: The diabetic and nondiabetic obese women were similar with respect to age (39.55 ± 9.69 vs 35.15 ± 5:39 years), BMI (43.45 ± 2.56 vs 43.26 ± 2:44 kg/m2) and waist / hip ratio (0.92 ± 0.07 vs 0.91 ± 12:08).). Respiratory muscle strength, represented by the MIP and MEP, was lower in patients with diabetes, for absolute values (MIP = 77.77 ± 22.89 vs 92.51 ± 19.96 cmH2O and MEP = 92.22 ± 22.11 vs 111.51 ± 36.16 cm H2O, p CONCLUSIONS: According to the results, the diabetic obese women have respiratory muscle strength, MIP and MEP, lower than nondiabetic obese women, demonstrating that diabetes is a condition that also contributes to the impairment of respiratory muscle strength in obese women.


A lot of concern is shifted nowadays toward human activity recognition for developing powerful systems that assist numerous humans such as patients and elder people. Such smart systems automatically recognize human activities by learning the Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) and then making a suitable decision. Activity recognition systems are currently employed in developing many smart technologies (e.g., smart homes) and their uses have been dramatically increased with availability of Internet of Things (IoT) technology. Researchers have used various machine learning techniques for developing activity recognition systems. Nevertheless, there are some techniques have not been sufficiently exploited in this research direction. In this work, we present a framework to evaluate performance of one of these techniques. The presented technique is based on employing semi-supervised clustering and feature selection for grouping data collected by sensors located in smart homes. Employing semi-supervised clustering technique decreases the need for preparing a huge amount of labelled data that is required for learning activity recognition systems. Additionally, the presented technique improves performance of data clustering by decreasing a risk of grouping data into clusters that do not correspond to targeted activities. Moreover, we take into consideration importance of decreasing computational time complexity for making the presented technique applicable to smart systems located in homes. We conducted various experiments to evaluate performance of employing semi-supervised clustering and feature selection for human activity recognition by using partially labelled data. Experiment results have shown that the presented technique provides remarkable accuracy.


In the human skin, reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced continuously during oxidative metabolic processes (cellular respiration, oxidative burst) are essential for various cellular processes such as defense against infection, cellular signaling and apoptosis. On the other hand, when the formation of ROS exceeds a capacity of the non‐enzymatic and the enzymatic antioxidant defense system, ROS cause the damage to the human skin known to initiate premature skin aging and skin cancer. In this study, two‐dimensional spontaneous ultra‐weak photon emission from the human skin has been measured using a highly sensitive charged coupled device (CCD) camera. It is demonstrated here that two‐dimensional ultra‐weak photon emission from the human skin increases with the topical application of exogenous ROS in the following order: hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) < superoxide anion radical (O2•–) < hydroxyl radical (HO•). We propose here that the two‐dimensional ultra‐weak photon emission can be used as a non‐invasive tool for the spatial and temporal monitoring of oxidative stress in the human skin. (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)


The modern concept of the development of atherosclerosis implies that the
 underlying pathogenesis of this disease is vascular remodeling as a response
 of the vessel wall to hypertension associated with hyperlipidemia and
 subsequent inflammation. However, even though this disease has been
 investigated for decades, both from a basic and clinical research aspect,
 there are still many doubts as to what the initial phase of the disease is.
 In contemporary literature there are an increasing number of papers that
 stress the importance of the extracellular matrix (ECM) of the blood vessels
 connective tissue, particularly proteoglycans, in the formation of early
 atherosclerotic lesions of human coronary arteries.


The coastal and continental parts of the Pays d'Auge plateau (Normandy, N-W France) are highly affected by slope instabilities. The landslides are one of the most important issues regarding to the regional natural hazards and associated risk management. This communication proposes a synthetic assessment of the landslide triggering thresholds at regional scale combining monitoring based and regional statistical time series analysis. The assessment of the potential evolution of these thresholds is based on modelled rainfall data integrating climate change tendencies for two different scenarios. Along the Pays d'Auge coasts, four landslides are active since decades. The "Cirque des Graves" landslide (municipality of Villerville) which is the most active and largest landslide in this region (47 ha in 2012) is characterized by seasonal very slow velocity (1-10 cm.yr 1) regularly disturbed by brutal accelerations with several meters of displacements (January 1982, February 1988, March 1995 and March 2001). To understand the mechanisms of the kinematics, this landslide is monitored since decades. In the continental part of the region (about 2.500 km2), a landslide inventory based on the incident database, field geomorphological investigations and diachronic analysis of areal images was constituted between 2010 and 2013. 392 landslides were mapped whom 62 were identified with the exact date of failure and/or reactivation. Hyro-climatic time series reveal similarities regarding to the landslides triggering and conditions of reactivation. The landslides are essentially controlled by continental processes due to exceptional hydro-meteorological conditions. Deep-seated phenomena are affected by acceleration phases during exceptional and prolonged (winter) rainfall episodes inducing several meters groundwater rising.(1) major landsliding events associated to long-lasting rainfall periods (several month) with groundwater water elevation of more than two meters above the mean annual level observed for the period 1976-2013 (return period of over 6/7 years); and (2) moderate landsliding events associated to low intensity rainfall periods with a limited groundwater rise responsible for a moderate seasonal kinematic (return period of every years).Consequently, preliminary conditions are a key parameter in the reaching of a critical groundwater level. Shallow landslides (mainly observed on the continental part of the region) are controlled by two types of weather conditions: (1) prolonged rainfall episodes in International Conference Analysis and Management of Changing Risks for Natural Hazards 18-19 November 2014 l Padua, Italy winter season (more than 15 days of consecutive rainfall with an accumulation of more than 100mm) or; (2) heavy rainfall episodes in spring and summer (up to 30mm/day). The spatial analysis of the triggering thresholds for the region area shows that the North-East part is more subject to exceed these triggering thresholds, while the statistical modelling based on logistic regression shows a homogenous distribution of the landslide susceptibility. This can explain the higher frequency of landslides observed in this part of the region. Finally, the combination of the groundwater levels and rainfall data modelling provided assessment of potential evolution of these thresholds according to 2 different climate changes scenarios (AB-1 and B-1). The results show that the prolonged episodes of rainfall in winter season, (triggering deep seated landslides) should slightly decrease, while brutal heavy rainfall episodes in spring and summer (triggering shallow landslides) should largely increase.