A steady advance in the onset of spring is one of the most prominent footprints of climate warming and requires organisms, including migratory birds, to adapt their annual routines. As lower trophic levels typically adapt faster than higher trophic levels, observations of reduced fitness due to trophic mismatches are becoming more frequent, especially in long-distance migratory birds. We aimed to identify key phenological events, and quantify potential mismatches and their consequences in a migratory songbird population of the Northern wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe) breeding at high elevations in the European Alps.We used light-level geolocators to track wheatears, and collected information on individual breeding activity and breeding success as well as environmental conditions during the reproductive season. In addition, we used citizen science data and remote sensed images to quantify longer term phenological trends.Snow melt and green-up showed an exceptionally early spring in the study region in 2020, preceded by a relatively average year in 2019. Yet, tracked individuals arrived well before the snowmelt in 2020 and clutch initiation dates across the population were earlier in 2020 compared to 2019. However, this shift lagged behind the advance in environmental conditions. While hatching success was similar in both years, fledging success and overall nest success was significantly reduced in 2020.Our results show that, despite the timely arrival at the breeding grounds, wheatears did not advance breeding activities in synchrony with environmental conditions during the exceptionally early year in 2020. The reduced fledging success suggests a trophic mismatch. However, the underlying mechanisms for hatchling mortality and nest failure remain unknown. Earlier reproductive seasons are expected to become more frequent in the future. We show that the negative effects of changing seasons in Alpine migratory birds might be similar to birds breeding at high latitudes, despite their shorter migratory distance.


Inter-laminar shear strengths (ILSSs) of two types of C/C composites and two types of Tyrannohex were measured as a function of strain rate. Charpy impact test machine can be used to measure ILSS for dynamic tensile loading in double notched configuration. ILSS of the unidirectional C/C composite was nearly constant at the strain rates ranging from 1.6×10-5/s to 617/s, while that of cross-ply C/C composite increased with the rate. On the contrary, ILSSs of the both types of Tyrannohex decreased at the higher strain rates. For the unidirectional C/C composite, the crack propagation velocity could be measured using crack gages. The velocity of a crack which appeared between the double notches increased with the strain rate; 480m/s at 1.6×10-5/s and 1, 400m/s, at 1.6×10-1/s. The propagation veloc-ity of the crack at higher strain rates above 1.6×10-1/s could not be measured, because the crack gages failed to respond to the crack propagation in velocity.


Abstract This study investigated the conflicting interests of the different client groups of Victorian school psychologists. A questionnaire on the role of the school psychologist was constructed and administered to 97 Victorian State school staff from two primary schools and two secondary schools. Fifteen role activities undertaken by psychologists were analysed according to their perceived importance, effectiveness and desirability. Traditional role activities were compared with innovative role activities that were being encouraged by Victorian Government policy. School staff perceived traditional role activities as significantly more important, effectively undertaken and more desired than innovative role activities. Perceptions of the effectiveness of the school psychologist were affected by the position that responding staff held within schools. Furthermore, the more frequently the reported interaction between psychologists and service users occurred, the more school psychologists were perceived as effective. Primary school staff differed from secondary school staff in their perceptions of desired role activities. The paper concludes with a discussion of the management of different client needs, communication with school staff about role discrepancies, and future directions.


In this paper, we analyze the performance in terms of bit error rate and frame error rate of a turbo-coded system over Nakagami frequency-nonselective (flat) fading multipaths channels. First, an efficient method to generate uncorrelated Nakagami-m fading samples is proposed. Through the parameter m, the Nakagami distribution accurately model signal fading conditions that range from severe to moderate. The primary justification for the use of the Nakagami-m distribution is its good fit to empirical fading data. Second, we modify calculation of the channel log likelihood ratios at the input of the decoder in order to take into account the Nakagami distribution of the channel fading. The simulation results show that turbo-codes provide tremendous gain over uncoded transmission in presence of Nakagami fading


The ideological, methodological and authenticity reasons for the exclusion of migrant rock and pop music from research and writing are presented. The use of rock and pop music by certain Italian and Indonesian bands as a means of expressing their ethnic identity is discussed, and the need for its integration in the music of multicultural Australia is emphasised.


This paper lists pteridophytes in Chongqing of 606 species(or varieties) belonging to 119 genera and 47 families after 226 species,10 genera and 4 families of supplement.The families are arranged in the newly revised checklist in accordance with Ching's system of pteridophytes,while the genera,species and varieties are put in the alphabetic order of their(Latin) scienrific names.


Technological knowledge and human capital in the last decades have gathered momentum at world sphere with a significant impact on the sustainable development of the nations through the renewable energies, specifically, with the use of solar energy, which can become useful energy forms such as electricity through a photovoltaic system. Its implementation has increased in places that are located away from the urban areas in which access to the production of electrical energy is difficult. For its implementation, it is important to consider compliance with regulatory standards and access to financing. This is how the Francisco de Paula Santander Ocaña University analyzes the generation of electricity through a photovoltaic installation in the Energy Test Bank located in the 'Plazoleta a la Vida' in the institution, where discussed measures that applies, which energy sources aimed at the consumption of luminaires and energy requirements for the functioning of the electrical system shall be replaced. At the local sphere, the present research is planned for the solar photovoltaic system to analyze the determinant parameters for efficient use in the transformation of electric energy and the population that will benefit by substituting traditional energy sources, which will allow to evaluate the reduction of CO2 emissions in the environment. On the characterization of the physical fundamentals, the energy efficiency can be established, analyzing the sub-systems of capture, storage, regulation and consumption in the photovoltaic installation.


Dry beans are typically consumed as a whole food, and cooking time is one of the most important processing quality attributes. A panel of eight dry bean entries with variability in cooking time was established, grown in three locations, and used to test the hypothesis that carbohydrate components are major underlying contributors to genetic variability in cooking time. The cooking times ranged from 17 to 160 min. In general, faster cooking bean genotypes had higher levels of soluble dietary fiber in both the raw and cooked samples. Resistant starch levels in the raw beans, although not correlated with cooking time, were of interest because of the large genotypic variability, and they ranged from 1.5 to 35%. One genotype in particular, a yellow bean from Africa, Cebo Cela, had low resistant starch levels in the raw seeds of 1.5–2.5%, whereas average resistant starch levels in the entire panel were 26–30%. Resistant starch levels (3.9–4.2%) in the cooked seed of Cebo Cela were comparable to the other genoty...


Microbody is a kind of organelle. There are three kinds of microbody. They are peroxisome, glycosome and glyoxysome. In this paper, the conception and development of microbody, the relation between peroxisome and glyoxysome, the function of peroxisome, glycosome and glyoxysome were reviewed.


During my childhood, televisions became common in middle-class American homes. Some early television shows have become classics and a few commercials, primitive by today's standards, also linger in memory. One starts with a father sitting in his easy chair reading a newspaper. His young daughter then walks over and asks, "Why is the sky blue, Daddy?" The father chuckles and puts down his newspaper. He repeats the naïve, childish question in a mocking tone, then gets about a half sentence into his explanation and hesitates. He starts again, stops again, stammers out another try and gives up, ashamed at his ignorance. The sponsor, a publisher of encyclopedias, counted upon parents' fear that their inability to answer even a simple question would hurt their children's chances for success. I do not know whether the commercial boosted sales, but I am certain that purchasers of that encyclopedia would still not be able to provide the answer. Perhaps it would contain entries on optics, diffraction, the Tyndall effect, Rayleigh scattering, the retina, and the visual cortex, but it could not explain how physical properties enter consciousness in such a way that our minds imbue objects or sensations with the quality of color. Nobody has, and even today's greatest minds still struggle with this "most daunting problem of consciousness." The intriguing and long-overdue systematic review by Kissin et al. likewise begins with a very simple question: what happens when a local anesthetic block is performed to treat a painful neuralgia? Since the dawn of regional anesthesia, it has been recognized that "often the effects of a ... nerve block will long outlast the duration of the actual sensory anesthesia." Erudite explanations of this and the related phenomenon of differential nerve block with incremental concentrations of local anesthetics have been offered on the basis of complex neuronal effects of such agents as well as their distinctive pharmacology. But as has proven to be the case with systemic infusions of low doses of ketamine or local anesthetics, their prolonged benefit for neuropathic pain is now increasingly seen as insufficiently explained simply on a pharmacokinetic basis. Instead, pharmacodynamic explanations have been advanced whose sophistication and complexity have evolved in parallel with accumulating insights into the neurobiology of nerve injury and regional anesthesia. Furthermore, it has become appreciated that the mere insertion of needles during peripheral nerve blocks activates endogenous analgesia. It is tautological to "explain" the persistent widespread effects of local anesthetic nerve blocking as the interruption of a vicious cycle of self-sustaining pain. I myself have described to patients that a local anesthetic block for neuralgia is akin to stopping the rotation of a flywheel, knowing that this description neither explains what the procedure does, how it works, what or where the metaphorical flywheel is, nor when it may restart. Is the everyday phenomenon of pain relief after local anesthetic block for neuralgia so obvious and well understood that further efforts to define it are a naïve waste of time and money? I do not think so, nor do some of the most insightful researchers in the field of pain. When the Arner study was first published in the journal Pain, its editor-inchief Patrick Wall reflected, It is a disgrace for all of us that this procedure [single local anesthetic block] has been done millions of times in the past hundred years and yet this is the first proper study of the effect. It is even more of a disgrace that there are thousands of anecdotal reports that these injections sometimes produce prolonged effects on these otherwise intractable pains and yet there has been no careful study of this potentially useful response.


Solar PV technology converts sunlight directly into electricity, is among the fastest growing segments of the renewable energy industry in India. Solar PV already established in many countries including India, and set to become one of the key technologies of the 21st century. Some of the factors driving the growth of this segment are concerns towards carbon emissions, energy security and the rising prices of fossil fuels. Union Cabinet on 15.06.2015, stepped up India's solar power capacity target under the National Solar Mission by five times, reaching 1,00,000 MW by 2022, which will principally comprise of 40 GW Rooftop and 60 GW through Large/Medium Scale Grid Connected Solar Power Projects.


According to the system structure of agricultural mechanization, the index system was set up, and the method of osculating value was applied for evaluating agricultural mechanization sustainable development in various regions, which were divided into three grades based on the evaluation result. Its causation of the differences was analyzed for the agricultural mechanization sustainable development, which is closely linked to regional disparities of economic development level and natural condition. Some suggestions, including preferential policies of state to regions with low level of agricultural mechanization sustainable development, were finally put forward in order to speed up realizing the agricultural mechanization in China.


The ionic conductivity of PEO6:LiXF6 (X = As, Sb) complexes may be raised by over an order of magnitude by forming solid solutions of PEO6:Li(AsF6)1-x(SbF6)x.


lpha transport is a hot topic in the world of institutional investment management these days. Given the difficulty in finding managers who can generate a consistent alpha over time, porting that alpha to beta exposures desired by plan sponsors is appealing. This requires synthetic indices that can replicate these beta exposures with a reasonable level of tracking error and little give up in excess return. Then the cash can be invested in the alpha generating strategy. We begin this issue of The Journal of Fixed Income with an article by Lev Dynkin, Anthony Gould, and Vadim Konstantinovsky on replicating bond indices. They analyze the synthetic replication with liquid derivatives of the Lehman Global Aggregate Index and its components and find remarkable results. In the next article, Professors Choong Tze Chua, Winston T. H. Koh, and Krishna Ramaswamy provide evidence on the value of trading strategies based on mean reversion of the Treasury yield curve. They find several profitable strategies with superior riskadjusted performance to government bond and S&P stock benchmark indices. The next article concerns the valuation of mortgagebacked securities. Ranjit Bhattacharjee and Lakhbir Hayre relax the usual constant spread to a benchmark interest rate for mortgage rates in option-adjusted spread technology. In fact, they provide an empirically superior model that projects mortgage rates by taking into account the optionality embedded in the rate itself. In the next article, Professors Olaf Korn and Christian Koziol employ a multifactor Vasicek term structure model for government bond portfolio optimization. They examine empirically the issues of diversification, number of bonds in the portfolio, maturity effects and complexity of the term structure model. Next, J. Benson Durham explores jump processes for the short rate in the term structure and a variety of distributional assumptions. Finally, Jeroen Kerkhof investigates a bootstrap method to include estimation risk when computing exotic interest rate derivative prices. Hence, price ranges are proposed for setting up reserves on trading desks. We hope you enjoy this issue of The Journal of Fixed Income. Your continued support of the journal is greatly appreciated.


Objective To study the influence of different combinations of CsA, Aza and prednisone on renal graft long-term survival. Methods 497 cases of renal transplant recipients with one-year normal graft function were followed up for 5 years. The patients were divided into 3 groups according to the different combinations of immunosuppressive agents (CsA+Aza+Pred, CsA+Pred or Aza+Pred). The transplant recipients' immunosuppressive agents, rejection episodes and survival were analyzed. The drug variation 12 months before graft rejection was retrospectively studied. Results With cyclosporine-based triple therapy, 5-year survival of patient and renal graft was 88*!% and 78*!%, which was significantly higher than traditional double therapy (74*!%/52*!%, P 0.05 ). The incidence of rejection was significantly reduced ( P 0.05 ) in the patients receiving cyclosporine-based triple therapy ( P 0.05 ). The majority of rejection patients used to have a history of drug cessation and reduction. Conclusions Cyclosporine-based triple therapy have a satisfactory long-term result, which is significantly superior to the traditional double therapy.


Aquilaria sinensis container seedlings were cultivated with 6 kinds of light matrixes,which were composed of two parts,one was the basic raw materials including peat soil and pine bran,the others were added materials including sugarcane bagasse,forage residue and cow dung. The influences of 6 mediums on seedling height,ground diameter,crown width,the ratio of root to shoot,root width and survival rate were studied. The results showed that the influences of 6 formula light substrates on seedling height,crown width,the ratio of root to shoot,root width was significant,and the survival rate of all substrates reached 100%,indicating that all substrates could be used to cultivate container seedlings. But the seedlings grew better on substrates No. 1( peat∶ pine bran∶ forage residues = 3∶ 1∶ 3),No. 2( peat∶ pine bran∶ bagasse = 3∶ 1∶3) and No. 4( peat∶ pine bran∶ forage residue = 1∶ 1∶ 1),these substrates were suitable for popularization in nursery practice. The substrates No. 6 need to be redeployed. The seedlings grew worse on substrates No. 3 and No. 5,these substrates need to be further studied.


The music industry has become one of the central hubs for fame, fortune, and artistic commentary. 2 The success of a musical artist and their work depends heavily on how popular their songs are, or 3 how widely their songs are heard. With the development of modern streaming services like Spotify, 4 YouTube, and more, the ability of songs to go viral has changed. But what makes a song popular? 5 Does the success of a song depend on the lyrics? The artist? Or perhaps the musicality of the song 6 plays a larger role than both? This study aims to use various machine learning methods to discover 7 what components of a song contribute its popularity and success. 8


Consumption of fluke-free fish is the most important factor in controlling Opisthorchis viverrini (OV) infection in endemic areas such as northeast Thailand and thereby reducing the risk of cholangiocarcinoma. Cooking fish is the best way to avoid infection; however, the cultural practice of eating raw or fermented fish is difficult to change. We investigated the food preparation process, using freezing, heating and fermentation to kill OV metacercariae in fish. Uncooked cyprinid fish infected with OV were divided into three groups: refrigerated at 4 °C for 24, 48 or 72 h (control group); frozen at -20 °C for 24, 48 or 72 h; or heated by microwaving (at 400 or 800 W) or boiling at 90 °C for 1, 5 or 10 min. Moreover, pickled (fermented) fish were divided into two groups: refrigerated at 4 °C (control) or frozen at -20 °C for 24 or 48 h. The infectivity of recovered metacercariae was confirmed by infecting hamsters with OV and then evaluating the recovery of adult worms after 1 month. We found that a heating process, by boiling or microwaving at 400 or 800 W for at least 5 min, could kill OV metacercariae, and freezing pickled fish at -20 °C for 48 h could kill OV metacercariae in all sizes of fish. The present study found that heating and freezing processes, as well as the fermentation process under optimal conditions, could kill OV metacercariae in a timely manner. This knowledge is valuable for implementation in endemic areas to control OV infection and cholangiocarcinoma.


A new ultraviolet (UV) Raman spectroscopic system to measure the Raman scattering from materials at high temperatures up to 1500 °C has been designed. This system is based on a CW (continuous-wave) ultraviolet argon-ion laser (363.8 nm), a spatial filter, a single monochromator coupled to a double-grating rejection filter, and a two-dimensional charge-coupled device (CCD) detector. The plasma lines from the laser are almost completely rejected by a Pellin—Broca prism combined with apertures. In situ Raman measurements for a zirconia (ZrO2) specimen at various high temperatures have been performed by using the UV excitation as well as the conventional visible 488.0-nm excitation for comparison. In the case of visible excitation, thermal emission obstructs the observation of the Raman scattering from zirconia even at 900 °C; it becomes rapidly pronounced between 900 and 1100 °C, and finally it is impossible to observe Raman spectra at temperatures higher than 1200 °C. In sharp contrast to the visible excitation, the UV excitation provides good-quality Raman spectra with practically flat backgrounds for the Raman signal of tetragonal zirconia in the spectral region of 20–1100 cm−1 even at 1500 °C, and it enables clear observation of the monoclinic-tetragonal phase transformation of zirconia occurring between 1100 and 1200 °C.


In a rare case, a Federal court ruled that AIDS does not automatically qualify a plaintiff for legal protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). [Name removed], an Illinois Wal-Mart stock clerk, was fired weeks after telling the store's general manager of his HIV status. [Name removed] alleges that the firing was due solely to his disease. Wal-Mart contends that [name removed] was fired for sexually harassing a co-worker, and says that since [name removed] was asymptomatic and asked for no accommodations, he does not qualify for ADA protection. Magistrate Morton Denlow agreed, saying that [name removed] raised no genuine issues about whether the ADA should protect him. A trial is scheduled for May.


ABSTRACT Additive manufacturing technologies utilizing metal parts production with layer by layer printing are of high demand for different fields of science and technology. Analytical chemistry is challenged to provide multielemental quantitative analysis of any metal powders within a few minutes and onsite to fulfil the requirements for high quality metal parts production. Powder materials utilized in additive technologies were quantitatively analyzed by laser induced breakdown spectroscopy for the first time. Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy mapping of loose metal powder attached to the double-sided adhesive tape provided high reproducibility of measurements even for powder mixtures with large difference of particles densities (tungsten carbide particles in nickel alloy powder). Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy analytical capabilities were estimated for tungsten and carbon analysis by calibration curve construction and accuracy estimation by leave-one-out cross-validation procedure. Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy techniques comparison revealed better results for laser induced breakdown spectroscopy analysis. Improved accuracy of analysis and capability to quantify light elements (carbon, etc.) demonstrated the potential of laser induced breakdown spectroscopy as a promising technique for express onsite multielement analysis of powder materials utilized in additive technologies.


RESPECT THE INVENTION DIELECTRIC CERAMIC COMPOSITION OF NATURE FERRO-ELECTRIC. INVENTION, SUCH COMPOSITIONS ARE DISTINGUISHED IN WHICH THEY CONTAIN 90 TO 98.5 IN BARIUM TITANATE WEIGHT AND 1.5 TO 10 IN WEIGHT FLUORIDE LITHIUM SAID TITANATE BARIUM APPLICATION FOR FORMULA BATIO mOLAR WITH REPORT TIOBAO LESS THAN 1. SUCH COMPOSITIONS PARTICULARLY FOR USE IN MAKING CAPACITORS CERAMIC MULTI-LAYER. THEY OBTAIN ALLOW CAPACITORS WITH ENHANCED PROPERTIES VERY APPLICATION:.. CAPACITORS CERAMIC


Abstract: The price of a new car in the industry is fixed by the manufacturer with some additional costs incurred by the Government in the form of taxes. So, customers buying a new car can be assured of the money they invest to be worthy. But due to the increased prices of new cars and the financial incapability of the customers to buy them, Used Car sales are on a global increase. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a Used Car Price Prediction system which effectively determines the worthiness of the car using a variety of features. Existing System includes a process where a seller decides a price randomly and buyer has no idea about the car and its value in the present-day scenario. In fact, seller also has no idea about the car's existing value or the price he should be selling the car at.


The micro- and stereostructures and sequence distribution of methyl methacrylate (MMA)/N-phenylmaleimide (PMI) and styrene (St)–PMI copolymers were studied in detail with NMR spectroscopy. The MMA–PMI copolymer was in a random sequence distribution and the St–PMI copolymer was alternating in structure. Some micro- and stereoinformation of the MMA–PMI copolymers could be obtained from 1H-NMR spectra. The average number sequence length obtained from the copolymer triad by 13C-NMR spectra was in agreement with that calculated from the reactivity ratios measured by an elemental analyzer. From the triad fraction of the copolymer measured by 13C-NMR, the copolymer chain of MMA–PMI was proved to be a one-order Markov chain. More suitable propagation reactions were proposed from the deviation of sequence distribution of the St–PMI copolymer. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 77: 2581–2587, 2000


Four patients with the Stein-Leventhal syndrome showed poor depression of 11-deoxy-17-ketosteroids on adrenal suppression and marked elevation of these steroids on ovarian stimulation with human pituitary FSH, as compared to a normal woman, 2 patients with secondary amenorrhea without hirsutism, 2 hirsute women and 2 other patients with the Stein-Leventhal syndrome. Increased pregnanetriol and Δ5-pregnenetriol excretion was also observed in a few patients, but only following ovarian stimulation. The studies emphasize some of the variants of the Stein-Leventhal syndrome. Sequential administration of human pituitary FSH and HCG has proved to be quite successful in the induction of ovulation.


The article aims to enhance the understanding of the effect of channel conflicts on channel efficiency through a conceptual framework, specifically the moderating effect of the conflict resolution strategies on the channel efficiency, the research on which is largely absent in the channel literature. Taking the behavioral science perspective, the paper provides a conceptual model on channel conflict – channel efficiency relationship for three different types of conflict resolution methods-problem solving, bargaining and politics for asymmetric power relationships, which would enable the organizations to adopt relevant conflict resolution strategies to maximize their channel efficiencies and hence maximizing returns from the channel investments.


Due to their special chemical and physical properties,nanomaterials used in consumer products may cause negative impact on the environmental safety and people's health.The current trends of research upon the safety of nanomaterials are introduced,the international laws and regulations about nanomaterials are enumerated,and the progress for related standards-setting is illuminated.The necessity as well as the urgency to establish the standard system for assessing safety of nanomaterials is finally discussed.


Significance Synchronization among interacting entities is a process that underlies the function of numerous systems, including circadian clocks and laser arrays. It is generally believed that homogeneity among the entities is beneficial for synchronization. This work shows theoretically, numerically, and experimentally that the opposite is not only possible but also common in systems with interaction delays. In such systems, heterogeneity among the entities is shown to promote synchronization, even when the heterogeneity is completely random. This finding advances our understanding of the interplay between order and disorder in the collective behavior of complex systems. We suggest that the phenomenon can be observed for diverse coupling schemes and has implications for real-world systems, where heterogeneity and delays are common and often unavoidable. A widely held assumption on network dynamics is that similar components are more likely to exhibit similar behavior than dissimilar ones and that generic differences among them are necessarily detrimental to synchronization. Here, we show that this assumption does not generally hold in oscillator networks when communication delays are present. We demonstrate, in particular, that random parameter heterogeneity among oscillators can consistently rescue the system from losing synchrony. This finding is supported by electrochemical-oscillator experiments performed on a multielectrode array network. Remarkably, at intermediate levels of heterogeneity, random mismatches are more effective in promoting synchronization than parameter assignments specifically designed to facilitate identical synchronization. Our results suggest that, rather than being eliminated or ignored, intrinsic disorder in technological and biological systems can be harnessed to help maintain coherence required for function.


The invention discloses an intelligent photoelectric curtain isolation belt device comprising a base support, a head portion and a support column connected with the base and the head portion. The head portion comprises a light emission base and an infrared receiving head base, wherein the light emission base is capable of horizontally and vertically rotating, an infrared emission head and a laser emission head are mounted on the light emission base, a buzzer is mounted inside the light emission base, and a system power supply indicator light and a light curtain establishing indicator lamp are mounted on the upper surface of the infrared receiving head base. A controlling device fixedly mounted inside the support column is electrically connected with every functional element on the head portion and used for controlling operations of the functional elements. The intelligent photoelectric curtain isolation belt device has the characters of monitoring isolation effect, monitoring whether illegal infiltration exists or not, sound-light alarming and quickly folding after using, defects of conventional isolation belts are overcome, and high reliability and applicability are provided.


This study investigates the impact of employee participation on management decision- making processes within organizations. By emphasizing the relationship between employee involvement and decision outcomes, the research aims to shed light on the advantages and challenges associated with incorporating employee perspectives. Through a comprehensive review of literature, empirical data collection, and analysis, the study examines how increased employee participation can enhance decision quality, innovation, and organizational commitment. Potential drawbacks and limitations are also considered, including potential conflicts and implementation barriers. Overall, the study contributes to a deeper understanding of the intricate dynamics between employee participation and the decision- making landscape. KEYWORDS: Employee satisfaction, Management decision making, Special reference. Employee involvement, decision outcome.


The struggle for good change: Media narratives in the parliamentary election campaign in 2015 The role of media narratives in politics is particularly important in the time of narrative media, which interpret reality more than they report on the course of events. The article presents the results of research on the content of TV news programs Wiadomości of TVP, Fakty of TVN, and weeklies Polityka, Newsweek and W Sieci from the period preceding the parliamentary campaign in 2015. The aim of the analysis was to determine to what extent the election materials illustrate the activities of the political actors and how many prepared narratives were intended to clearly suggest to the voters who to vote for. The conclusion drawn from the research is that positive and coherent narratives can significantly increase the chance of achieving electoral success.


Copolymers of sodium o-methacryloylaminophenylarsonate (o-MAPHA-Na) 1 and p-methacrylolylaminophenylarsonate (p-MAPHA-Na) 2 with sodium acrylate (AA-Na) 3, sodium methacrylate (AM-Na) 4 and acrylamide (AAD) 5 were prepared by free radical polymerization in aqueous media at 70°C using potassium persulfate (K2S2O8) as the initiator. The total monomer concentration was carried out at 0.5M and the feed ratio (M1 : M2) was varied from 10 : 90 to 90 : 10 mol%. The kinetic study was carried out by dilatometric method. The copolymer compositions were calculated by arsenic content in the copolymers. The As content (ppm) was determined by atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS). The reactivity ratios (r1, r2) were estimated by the Kelen-Tudos linearization method as well as error-in-variables method using the computer program RREVM®. In all cases, r1 1, indicating a tendency to form random copolymers. The values suggest that the copolymers contain a larger proportion of comonomer (i.e., AA-Na, AM-Na, or AAD). Weight-average molar masses (Mw) of copolymers were determined by multi-angle light scattering. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010


Abstract : Military personnel need to develop new requisite competencies to successfully implement the national security strategy. Today, whether military personnel are assigned to staffs in Washington, D.C. or operating in a geographic area of responsibility, they will be routinely involved in interagency operations. The diversity of governmental and nongovernmental agencies involved in interagency operations, each agency having its own culture, makes unity of effort difficult. This problem of diversity between participating organizations, compounded by low technical and procedural commonality together with the absence of concordant interests, create significant obstacles to effective interagency coordination. Military personnel must develop a better understanding of the inherent complexity of interagency operations to be effective. Understanding the culture of governmental and nongovernmental organizations is a key competency for successful interagency operations. With the knowledge of the participating organizational culture comes the empowerment to effect consensus. Consensus building allows personnel to move their represented disparate organizations toward an acceptable strategic concept. The thorough investigation and understanding of organizational cultures coupled with the deliberate methodology of applying that knowledge toward achieving consensus on acceptable multi-agency concepts is the foundation of effective interagency operations. The associated tactics, techniques, and procedures should be incorporated into joint and service doctrine.


From a set of shifted, blurred, and decimated image , super-resolution image reconstruction can get a high-resolution image. So it has become an active research branch in the field of image restoration. . In general, super-resolution image restoration is an ill-posed problem. Prior knowledge about the image can be combined to make the problem well-posed, which contributes to some regularization methods. In the regularization methods at present, however, regularization parameter was selected by experience in some cases and other techniques have too heavy computation cost for computing the parameter. In this paper, we construct a new super-resolution algorithm by transforming the solving of the System A into the solving of the equations 1 X A X A I , and propose an inverse iterative method. Keywords—High-resolution MAP image Reconstruction Image interpolation Motion Estimation Hermitian positive definite solutions


This book presents the results of Wessex Archaeology's 2008–2009 excavation of the Iron Age and late Romano-British site at High Post. It is laid out in a relatively standard format with features discussed by period, material specific chapters, a useful section on dating, and a final concluding chapter which places the site in its wider context. Efforts have, however, been made throughout to integrate the different strands of evidence within the individual sections.


Color difference between views of a stereo pair is a challenging problem. Applications such as compression of stereo image demands the compensation of color differences which is typically done by methods called color mapping. Color mapping is based on feature correspondences. From these feature correspondences, color correspondences are generated which is ultimately used for the color mapping model. This paper focuses on detection of outliers in the feature correspondences. We propose novel iterative outlier removal method which exploits the neighborhood color information of the feature correspondences. From the analysis of our experimental results and comparing with existing methods we conclude by arguing that spatial color neighborhood information around the feature correspondences along with an iterative color mapping can detect outliers in general and can bring a robust color correction.


to the intuition of software engineers; and (c) only 30% of our study's subjects (i.e., experienced software engineers) have been able to rank the metrics in a way that was statistically significant correlated with the actual metric ordering—the large majority of software engineers would perform inadequate metric selection, in terms of fluctuation, without the use of SMF.


Rice seeds coated with calcium peroxide can emerge under anaerobic condition such as in the soil of submerged paddy field. The seedling elongates the coleoptile first and then develops a seminal root and foliage leaves. The same feature of elongation was observed with a hulled rice seedling that grew in the agar medium (Fig. 1). In this paper, we report the anatomy of vascular bundle network distributed in the various organs at the early stage of emergence when mesocotyl achieved to grow. 1. On the transection of mesocotyl, there are two central cylinders, distinguished to large and small ones, and the former is located at the central part and the latter with the scutellum is at the dorsal side. The small central cylinder is a collateral vascular bundle composed of protoxylem and protophloem. In the vascular system of large central cylinder, we observed that both the vessels of protoxylem and the sieve tubes of protophloem lost their cytoplasmic content and these cells changed to pipe-like structure, whereas the cells of metaxylem and metaphloem were not matured enough to lack their content (Fig. 2). The observation indicates that only active conductive tissue consists of protoxylem and protophloem. Protoxylem and protophloem failed to acquire a characteristic arrangement as collateral vascular bundle, and scattered randomly, and this fact has not been reported hitherto. 2. Therefore, we traced the orientation of the protoxylem and protophloem strands in the various organs, mainly mesocotyl (Figs. 5-16), and thus obtained a schematic figure of the whole structure of network as shown in Fig. 3. The protoxylems and protophloems of radial vascular bundle in the seminal root were gathered in a block at the node with their characteristic orientation. Just above the gathering point, protophloems were separated into two directions, one on the dorsal side and the other on the ventral side, while protoxylems remained unseparated. The protoxylems and protophloems were distributed independently in the large central cylinder of mesocotyl. At the coleoptile node, the protoxylems and protophloems ran separately in several directions and then formed collateral bundles which were not found in the lower part of large central cylinder. One of them ran in the reverse direction and then into the scutellum, while the others formed coleoptile and foliage leaf bundles. 3. From these observations, the authors conclude that the large central cylinder of mesocotyl is a transitional tissue system before the radial vascular bundle of seminal root shifts to the collateral vascular bundle of the stem and leaf. Thus, the mesocotyl is an organ that functions as hypocotyl of dicotyledon.


Objectives: To determine the relative prevalence of odontogenic cysts and to identify the clinicopathological features among patients from the archives of Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, V S Dental College, Bangalore, during a period of five-years. Study design: A retrospective observational study was made of odontogenic cysts diagnosed among 809 biopsy reports analyzed from October 2006 to July 2010. Patients with radicular cysts, dentigerous cysts, odontogenic keratocysts and residual cysts were further analyzed. The following variables were recorded: gender, age, clinical characteristics of the lesions like the size, location and radiological features and a descriptive analysis was made of the study variables. Results: Out of the 809 biopsy reports analyzed, we found 100 cases of odontogenic cysts (12.36%).The mean patient age of the appearance of the lesion was 42 years (range 8-75). The cysts were slightly more prevalent in females (52%). The lesion size ranged from 5-60 mm; with a mean size of 18mm.Unilocular lesions were more common than the multilocular lesions. The most common location of the odontogenic cysts was in the maxilla (n=59) than mandible. (n=41) The most frequent diagnosis was radicular cyst (n=52). Odontogenic keratocysts constituted 20 cases (20%), 19 cases (19%) were dentigerous cysts and 9 cases (9%) were residual cysts. Conclusions: The most frequently occurring lesion was radicular cyst and the site was the anterior region of the maxilla. The keratocystic odontogenic tumor (KOT) and dentigerous cyst were the next most common lesions and the preferred site was in the ramus and angular region of


Motivated by the eXciting dark matter model of Finkbeiner and Weiner, hypothesized to explain the 511 keV signal in the center of the Milky Way, we consider the cosmic microwave background and 21-cm signatures of models of dark matter with collisional long-lived excited states. We compute the relic excitation fraction from the early Universe for a variety of assumptions about the collisional de-excitation cross section and thermal decoupling. The relic excitation fraction can be as high as 1% for natural regions of parameter space, but could be orders of magnitude smaller. Since the lifetime of the excited state is naturally greater than 10{sup 13} s, we discuss the signatures of such relic excitation on cosmic microwave background and high-z 21-cm observations. Such models have potentially richer astrophysical signals than the traditional weakly interacting massive particle annihilations and decays, and may have observable consequences for future generations of experiments.


Health state assessment is a key technology for system Prognostic and Health Management (PHM) and an important basis for remaining useful life prediction and maintenance decision-making. Rolling bearings are key components of rotating machinery equipment and also one of the most vulnerable components. It has important theoretical and practical significance to evaluate the health state of rolling bearings. In this paper, the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) method is used to extract the vibration signal characteristics of rolling bearings, the dimension of the features is reduced by Mahalanobis-Taguchi system (MTS), and a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) is combined with Mahalanobis distance (MD) to complete health state assessment of rolling bearings. The experimental bearing life cycle data set provided by the Intelligent Maintenance Center of the University of Cincinnati is selected to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The experimental results show that the method can detect an early failure and has good sensitivity.


At present,China has become the coun try to attract the most foreign investment in developing countries.Due to the related laws and regulatio ns of China lag in phase,and the government couldn' t make effective management on the negative profit of the full foreign -owned enterprises.Through the a nalysis on the present situation of o ur country' s taxation management for transfer pr icing,this paper puts forward some s uggestions for improving our countr y' s taxation management for transfer pricing.


The universal and language-specific features of word-memory processes were investigated. In Exp. 1, word lists in Japanese Kanji, Chinese, and English and two types of nonsense words (CV–CV and CVC–CVC) were presented auditorily or visually to native speakers of those languages for immediate recall, with or without suppression of the phonological loop by secondary digit memory tasks. English words were also presented to Japanese subjects. We found that phonological loop suppression in all the languages was associated with significant reduction in recall in every condition. When recalling meaningful words, English and Chinese subjects had superior recall with auditory presentation; however, Japanese subjects showed no significant differences between the two modalities and showed higher recall with visual presentation when English words were presented. When recalling nonsense words, all groups of subjects showed either higher recall with visual presentation or no differences between the modalities. Moreover, as the differences between the syllable structures of the subjects' native languages and the stimuli to be remembered increased, they were likely to rely on visual memory. In Exp. 2, lists of Kanji and Kana words were presented in the two modalities only to Japanese speakers. Auditory presentation was superior to visual presentation only for Kana words.


Patients: A total of 236 patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease underwent primary antireflux procedures. Sixty-five patients were suspected of having a short esophagus and underwent a transthoracic approach. In 37 patients, a lengthening procedure was necessary to avoid tension on the repair. The remaining 28 patients were thought—after complete esophageal mobilization—to have sufficient length for a repair without needing a gastroplasty. An abdominal approach (laparoscopic Nissen fundoplication) was performed on 171 patients judged to have normal esophageal length.


OBJECTIVE
To examine multiple risk factors for medical injury using administrative data.

DESIGN
This cross-sectional study used logistic regression models to examine associations among patient characteristics such as age, sex, and insurance payer status and hospital characteristics such as ownership, teaching status and trauma level, and comorbidities and presence of a medical injury diagnosis. Data were from the Bureau of Health Information: Wisconsin hospital in-patient discharge records and hospital characteristics for the year 2001.

SETTING
All Wisconsin non-federal, acute-care hospitals.

PARTICIPANTS
A total of 556 899 patients discharged from 132 Wisconsin hospitals, excluding newborns, participated.

INTERVENTION
None. Main outcome measure. Medical injury, defined as untoward harm to a patient as a result of a medical intervention, was determined using discharge diagnosis criteria.

RESULTS
Medical injuries were found in 13.3% of 556 899 hospital discharge records. Covariates associated with increased risk of a recorded medical injury code included age 45-84 years, female sex, comorbidities, non-profit religious order ownership, proportion of cardiac intensive care in-patient days to total in-patient days, percent of board-certified medical staff, and community trauma center or regional trauma resource.

CONCLUSION
This article describes an innovative analysis of risk factors for medical injury that controlled for numerous potential confounding factors, including hospital coding characteristics. The associations we found, such as increased risk of medical injury in women, can be used to generate hypotheses for further testing through other methods and suggest intervention points for patient safety efforts.


C++ programmers who make intensive use of templates for developing applications get poor support from the compilers they use. Typical error reporting associated with template analysis ranges from long, nested, and therefore complex expressions, to short but cryptic messages. This poster introduces a graphical notation that can be used as an intermediate abstract medium on which the result of template analysis can be expressed. The motivation of our approach is to make template analysis and error reporting two orthogonal activities. If compiler implementors adopt a standard notation to express the result of template analysis, tools to help programmers visualize/understand errors can be independently developed, and used as compiler "plug-ins", which will hopefully have a positive impact on issues such as programmer's productivity and product quality. We have used this notation to manually parse examples taken from the STL, and less known powerful uses of templates, such as expression templates, and template meta-programming. The preliminary stage we are reporting on has helped us to (a) identify elements that are needed in the notation, (b) identify limitations that are due to the instantiation model inherently associated with the language, and (d) have a sense of how useful the notation can be to pinpoint errors associated with the analysis of non-trivial cases such as expression templates.


The selection of chemical composition of ferrite nodular iron used under low temperature,the control plan of nodularization,inoculation technology and heat treatment technique were studied.The reasonable plan for manufacturing ferrite ndular iron used under low temperature was determined.


Detailed calculations of isotope rate factors, k.k', for representative reactions, e.g., dissociation, displacement, elimination, and addition are presented. Various approximations for three-center, reactant-like, product- like, and complete models of the activated complex were tested. At 27° , some results are as follows: for methyl iodide in SN1 reaction, k12 k13 = 1.05, kHkD = 1.53; for methyl iodide with iodide ion in SN2 reaction, k12 k13 = 1.17, kHkD = 0.70; for sym-tetrachloroethane with iodide in dechlorination (E2), kHKD approx equal 1.6; for chlorine addition to 1,2-dichloroethene, k/sub H/k/D ≅ 0.8.


In this paper, robust control strategies are explored to solve the problem of rendezvous maneuver for rigid spacecraft exposed to the external disturbance, actuator faults and unknown inertial parameters. To pursue the control objective, two adaptive controllers are constructed via the sliding mode control (SMC) technology. Firstly, a basic control scheme is designed in the event of unknown inertial parameters and external disturbance, where the Minimum-learning-parameter (MLP) algorithm is adopted for approximating the unknown system dynamics. Though effective, the basic controller is not applicable in the actuator fault scenarios. Considering this drawback, adaptive laws are designed in the second controller to tackling the actuator faults. It is illustrated that the proposed controllers will endow tracking errors with asymptotic stability and strong robustness to actuator faults. Finally, the effectiveness of the control strategies is verified by numerical simulations.


Objective: To develop rating scale for patient reported outcomes of posthepatitic B cirrhosis(PHBC-PRO) under the guidance of TCM theory,and offer scientific,objective and quantifiable tool for clinical efficacy evaluation of posthepatitic B cirrhosis in TCM.Methods: The Pre-Scale which included 64 entries was extracted out and the entry pool was established basing on research ideas of disease combined syndrome and result of clinical pre-investigation.Investigation method of entries distribution,t-test,discrete trend method,resolution coefficient method,correlation coefficient,cronbach's coefficient were used for screening and optimizing the entries of PHBC-PRO on the basis of 147 patients' informations.Results: Deleted simultaneously by at least 4 methods was the screening criteria.57 entries what constituted PHBC-PRO with TCM characteristics had covered 3 domains.PHBC-PRO tested by cronbach's coefficient had good reliability(α=0.955).Conclusion: PHBC-PRO,which based on international research principle and method,and accorded with TCM theroy and specifications,has good operability and applicability and evaluate objectively clinical syndrome and treatment of posthepatitic B cirrhosis.


This experimental research aims to explore the effects of a specific form of social thinking called nexus on an individual's personal involvement with regard to a social object. This study (n = 109) focuses on the influence of affective and socially salient items on the three dimensions of personal involvement with regard to a social object, when it's labelling is associated vs. non-associated with an image. The independent variables are (1) the type of label presented to participants ("natural catastrophe", "tsunami", or no label at all) and (2) the type of lexical activation (label only, vs. image added to label). Participants' personal involvement is a dependent variable. Results show that personal involvement increases when participants view an image in addition to label. This increase concerns significantly two of the dimensions of personal involvement, namely participants' perceived possibility of action and their object's valuation. Moreover, the label "tsunami" increases participants' personal involvement significantly more than the label "natural catastrophe" does. This result is explained by reference to the affective charge of the term "tsunami".


Since the Global Financial Crisis, competition in the banking sector has significantly decreased to the detriment of consumers. Abacus - Australian Mutuals has launched a campaign to restore the balance.


In this papers we study a new concept namely Mixed cofibration (M- cofibration) and Mixed Hurewicz cofibration (M- Hurewicz cofibration).Most of theorem which are valid for cofibrationwill bealso valid for (M- cofibration) the others will be valid if we add extra condition . Among the result we obtain are: 1-A product of two Mixed Cofibration(Mixed Hurewicz cofibration) is also a Mixed Cofibration(Mixed Hurewicz cofibration)2- The M-pullback of Mixed Cofibration(Mixed Hurewicz cofibration)is also Mixed Cofibration(Mixed Hurewicz cofibration)


The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that in the coming decades the United States' natural gas (NG) demand for electricity generation will increase. Estimates also suggest that NG supply will increasingly come from imported liquefied natural gas (LNG). Additional supplies of NG could come domestically from the production of synthetic natural gas (SNG) via coal gasification−methanation. The objective of this study is to compare greenhouse gas (GHG), SOx, and NOx life-cycle emissions of electricity generated with NG/LNG/SNG and coal. This life-cycle comparison of air emissions from different fuels can help us better understand the advantages and disadvantages of using coal versus globally sourced NG for electricity generation. Our estimates suggest that with the current fleet of power plants, a mix of domestic NG, LNG, and SNG would have lower GHG emissions than coal. If advanced technologies with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) are used, however, coal and a mix of domestic NG, LNG, and SNG ...


Logic is a method or technique that was created to examine the accuracy of reasoning and study the principles of correct reasoning and conclusion. Logic is also called "the calculus of computer science" because logic plays an important role in the field of computer science. Not only that, the role of calculus. (mathematics) is equally important for the sciences in the fields of science, economics and also in everyday life. In this study is to provide rules for making decisions on the problem of the number of imported goods entering Indonesia. The method used by the author to complete the research This is using the truth table of the problems to be solved, calculus of propositions, problems to be solved, Studying things from research in general and various methods of solving, the writer also looks for written sources. The definition of a proposition or statement is a declarative sentence that has exactly one truth value. namely: "True" (T) or u "False" (F). Proposition calculus is a method for calculating using propositions / sentences. In proposition calculus reviewed is the value of a declarative sentence (TRUE / FALSE). Logical operations contain a collection of operations that include negation, conjunction disjunction, implication, and bi implication.


The southern part of the Indian peninsula is an area of outstanding archaeological interest. While its historic cities and temples have long attracted the interest of both scholars and tourists, however, south India's equally remarkable prehistoric period remains have only rarely received the attention they deserve. A new joint Cambridge-Karnatak University research project was thus initiated in 2002 to study the unique Neolithic and Iron Age remains of the southern Deccan. This 2-month pilot project focused its efforts on the Bellary District of Karnataka, where prehistoric megaliths and 'ashmounds' (large mounds of burnt cattle dung) occupy a stunning landscape of naturally sculpted granitic rock formations (FIGURE 1). The aim of the project was to explore, survey and record visible archaeological and landscape features in order to acquire insights into the indigenous processes of neolithization and megalithism that led to the formation of these unique and still enigmatic monuments of ash and stone. The Bellary project incorporated a range of approaches at different scales of analysis. One particular cluster of sites, known as SanganakalluKupgal, was selected for intensive exploration and survey. This included surface exploration and study of a variety of activity areas, including permanent and temporary habitation sites, stonequarrying and tool-production areas, rock-art sites, rock-shelters, ashmounds and megaliths. In addition, systematic fieldwalking was undertaken on the plain that surrounds the large granitic outcrops upon which most prehistoric activity seems to have focused. Fieldwalking tended to confirm this general south Deccan land-use pattern, since finds off the granitic tors were predominantly of the Early Historic and later periods. Nevertheless, several small rock-art sites and a rock-shelter rich in microliths and containing a partially exposed human burial were also discovered during this phase of the project. Exploration of sites in the region surrounding Sanganakallu-Kupgal was also undertaken in order to investigate the relationships between archaeological and landscape features. This aspect of the project made use of theoretical concepts and methodological approaches that have not previously been applied in studies of south Indian prehistory, including symbolic and phenomenological approaches to understanding the perception and use of landscapes in the past. This research demonstrated that the location of sites, and particularly ashmound sites, was influenced by patterns of visibility and movement, the presence of visually dramatic landscape features and the east-west movement of the sun across the sky. It suggests that the evocative landscape of the southern Deccan was not just a backdrop for Neolithic activities, but rather a mythical and possibly sacred 'force' that permeated many aspects of Neolithic (and subsequent Megalithicllron Age) life. Some preliminary efforts were also made to analyse the rock art found at Sanganakallu-Kupgal and other sites in the Bellary district. Rock-art motifs, predominantly in the form of pictographs, are found in remarkable quantities at SanganakalluKupgal. These are dominated by depictions of the long-horned, humped cattle that were domesticated during the southern Neolithic, but also include ithyphallic and dancing figures, and hunting, bull-capturing and sexual scenes, as well as apparently abstract motifs. The presence of remarkable 'ringing rocks' at Sanganakallu and other sites with large concentrations of rock-art motifs was also noted for the first time (see FIGURE 2). Combined with the fact that many motifs are visible only to the physically able (viewing them involves climbing rocks) and to small groups or individuals, these ringing rocks suggest that rock-art production andlor viewing was part of an overall ritualized sensory experience available only to a particular sector of society or even individual. Several specifically targeted micro-scale investigations were also carried out at a number of sites in order to shed light on particular aspects of landscape use and perception. For example, micromorphological and bulk geoarchaeological sampling of exposed ashmound sections at three different sites was carried out with the aim of


The purpose of this article is to explore the concept of flexpatriates and international business travellers (FIBT) and related issues of FIBTs. Finally, the outcome of the article is enriched by presenting a policy oriented conceptual model for managerial concern to resolve such issues of FIBSs. A literature-based data compilation was done to develop this model. The model mainly outlines the necessity of giving strategic policy orientation on managing FIBTs by considering several supportive channels: organizational support and social support for both assignees and families. Key Terms: Non-traditional assignments, Flexpatriates, International Business Travellers


In this paper, test ready core design techniques for SSP1820, a hard core compatible with the OakDSPCore, are presented. The basic strategy is to implement a serial test access structure with test isolation capability around the hard core so that the pre-developed functional test vectors can be applied serially. To provide multiple integration choices, two serial test access schemes of JTAG and isolation rings with different number of scan chains are considered. Compared to the original core, the test ready cores implemented offer the advantage of test access and test isolation with less pin overhead. Especially, several integration choices available for the core can enable efficient core test integration to meet various design-specific test requirements.


In one of the long straight sections of SOLEIL is installed a pair of canted in-vacuum undulators for the ANATOMIX and NANOSCOPIUM beamlines. Since the upstream undulator radiation can potentially damage the downstream undulator magnets, an accurate survey of the respective alignment of the two devices is mandatory. An XBPM has been initially installed for this purpose in the beamline frontend. For redundancy and further analysis, an X-ray imager was then designed and added just downstream the XBPM. It is made of a diamond plate that can be inserted into the upstream beamline frontend at low current. We present the commissioning of this new device together with its first results in operation.


This paper is aimed to open the black box of the relationships between appropriability strategies and patenting motivations by the Community Innovation Survey (CIS) data of Taiwan. Different from the current literature, we derive patenting motivations by factor analysis and employ regression models to pin down the relationships between appropriability conditions and patenting motivations. The results can explain why some firms apply for patents even though they do not depend on patent to protect their innovation. We find that appropriability conditions include vertical scope of firm, nature of innovation, and appropriation mechanisms. If the vertical scope of an innovative firm includes more manufacturing capacities, the firm will have higher propensity to apply patents for defensive motivation. For process innovation, the innovative firms apply patents only for exclusive motivation; while firms with product innovation are inclined to apply patents for self defense. Finally, firms will apply patents for m...


Anode‐free Li metal batteries (AFLMBs) are highly advantageous due to their high energy density, low cost, and simple fabrication. However, severe challenges, such as uncontrolled dendrite formation and low coulombic efficiency, restrict their practical application. Herein, this work introduces a silver nanoparticles incorporated p‐doped conjugated polymer (Ag‐PCP) wetting agent on the copper current collector, which promotes both uniform Li nucleation and rapid formation of a LiF‐rich solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) at the early stage, resulting in interfacial stabilization and high Li utilization efficiency. Moreover, this work verifies the interfacial fluorinated mechanism of the Ag‐PCP to efficiently achieve a favorable SEI chemistry, which serves as an intermediate process for promoting LiF formation. Benefiting from the synergistic effect of Ag–Li alloying and F‐doping chemistry of the Ag‐PCP chains, the deposited Li exhibits a compact column‐like structure with dendrite‐free morphology, and the anode‐free cells display superior cycling stability with long lifespan even under harsh conditions, with the LFP//Ag‐PCP│Cu full cell having a high capacity retention of 72% (Li inventory retention rate, 99.8%) at 1 C‐rate after 200 cycles.


In these experiments we tested the hypothesis that constitutive activation of polyamine(PA) biosynthesis may contribute to mammary carcinogenesis. Spontaneously immortalized normal human MCF‐10A breast epithelial cells were infected with the retroviral vector pLOSN containing a cDNA which codes for a truncated and more stable ornithine decarboxylase (ODC), the rate‐limiting enzyme in PA synthesis. Upon chronic selective pressure with α‐difluoromethyl‐ornithine (DFMO) (an irreversible inhibitor of ODC), infected MCF‐10A cells exhibited an approximately 250‐fold increase in ODC activity, which persisted despite discontinuation of DFMO. ODC‐over‐expressing MCF‐10A cells showed a modest decrease in S‐adenosylmethionine decarboxylase and an increase in spermidine/spermine N1‐acetyltransferase. Analysis of cellular PA profile revealed a selective accumulation of putrescine without alterations in spermidine and spermine contents. Lesser degrees of increased ODC activity were obtained reproducibly by re‐exposing the cells to incremental small doses of DFMO. We observed a bell‐shaped dose‐related positive effect of ODC activity on clonogenicity in soft agar of MCF‐10A cells. Since anchorage‐dependent growth was actually reduced, such positive influence on this feature of transformation was not a non‐specific consequence of a growth advantage provided by ODC over‐expression. In addition, we observed a close parallelism between the dose‐dependent effects of ODC expression on clonogenicity and activity of the ERK‐2 kinase, a central element of the MAPK cascade. Our data demonstrate an interaction between PA and the MAPK signalling pathway and suggest that the latter may be involved in ODC‐induced transformation of mammary epithelial cells. Int. J. Cancer, 70:175–182, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


We tackle the community detection problem in the Stochastic Block Model (SBM) when the communities of the nodes of the graph are assigned with a Markovian dynamic. To recover the partition of the nodes, we adapt the relaxed K-means SDP program presented in [11]. We identify the relevant signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in our framework and we prove that the misclassification error decays exponentially fast with respect to this SNR. We provide infinity norm consistent estimation of the parameters of our model and we discuss our results through the prism of classical degree regimes of the SBMs' literature. MSC 2010 subject classifications: Primary 68Q32; secondary 68R10, 90C35.


This paper studies the condition for the emergence of sequential mergers in a partially privatized oligopoly with differentiated goods. The purpose of this study is to examine (i) the optimal merger strategies by potential merging firms and (ii) the optimal merger policy and (iii) privatization policy for the policymaker. First, under the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium, sequential mergers either completely emerge or do not emerge at all. The parameter range that leads to complete sequential mergers becomes larger as the market is more privatized. Second, the policymaker is better off to at least partially privatize the public firm, unless the goods are perfect substitutes or independents. Third, the policymaker can halt privatization, diminishing the private incentive for further sequential mergers, leading to a higher level of welfare. Furthermore, given that some mergers have already taken place, there may be a case such that further mergers would actually improve welfare. These welfare-improving mergers may not be privately profitable, implying there may be room for merger-friendly policies. Our results are applicable to Japanese life insurance industry and the partial privatization of Japan Posting Insurance. JEL classification: G34; H42; L13; L41


BACKGROUND
 Cardiovascular disease risk increases with sedentary behavior. The availability of wearable devices continues to expand, and despite devices being marketed to improve physical activity among wearers, no comprehensive assessment exists to evaluate the ability of such devices to decrease sedentary behavior and cardiovascular disease risk.

 OBJECTIVE
 To examine the effect of interventions incorporating digital wearable devices on populations at increased risk of cardiovascular disease – those not meeting World Health Organization recommendations for physical activity.

 METHODS
 MEDLINE was searched (January 1995 to February 2016) for English-language peer-reviewed publications or systematic reviews evaluating the impact of interventions incorporating digital wearable devices among the physically inactive. Two investigators extracted data independently on study design, intervention, duration, eligibility criteria, and clinical outcomes. The research design of each study was assessed using the Cochrane Collaboration's Risk of Bias tool.

 RESULTS
 Thirty-six studies met inclusion criterial, and of those 40 to 53% reported a significant positive intervention effect on physical activity on sedentary individuals. Of included studies, nine compared sedentary cohorts to more physically active groups. Five of these found that sedentary participants responded more favorably to interventions than more physically active participants.

 CONCLUSIONS
 For sedentary individuals at high-risk of cardiovascular disease, evidence suggests that interventions utilizing digital wearable health devices may improve physical activity, and in some cases sedentary individuals may benefit more than those previously physically active. Further study and application of such interventions to decrease cardiovascular disease risk is warranted.


In search of the prototype of Taoist thought, this article aims to propose an observation that the argument on the "practice of mind" (hsin shu) in the Hsin shu Ⅰ Chapter of the Kuang Tzu includes the oldest element of the Taoist philosophy. The author also tries to show that this element was incorporated into the thought of the Chuang Tzu. This study observes that the argument on the practice of mind in the Kuang Tzu has been incorporated into the parable on the "mental fast" (hsin chai) in the Jen chien shi Chapter of the Chuang Tzu and the parable on the butcher Ting in the Yang sheng chu Chapter. The similar ideas are also found in other parables in the Chuang Tzu, eg., those in the Jen chien shi Chapter, the Ta tsung shi Chapter, the Yu yan Chapter. The arguments in the parable on "sitting and forgetting", and "solitariness" in the Ta tsung shi Chapter and the parable on "the Great wonderfulness" in Yu yan Chapter demonstrate the culmination of Taoist thought, and such a completeness of the thought leads us to assume that these parables have been taken into form at the almost same period as the Nei ye Chapter of the Kuang Tzu was composed. On the other hand, ideas found in the Tsai you Chapter, Tien tao Chapter, and Tian ti Chapter insinuate the "declination" of Taoist tenet, and this phenomenon implies that these parables are presumably composed latter than the Nei ye Chapter. These facts suggest that the ideas and arguments in the so-called the "Four chapters" of the Kuang Tzu went under long span of the evolutionary process of its thought. In sum, this study attempts to show the thought of the Chuang Tzu has been taken into form under the influence of the idea and argument in the Hsin shu Ⅰ Chapter as well as the Hsin shu Ⅱ Chapter. It is in such an influential relationship that we can find a clue to understand the developmental process of the pre-Qin Taoist theory. This article also provides a picture which illustrates aforementioned influential relationship of ideas and arguments between the Kuang Tzu and the Chuang Tzu.


AIM To construct expression vector bearing anti vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) hairpin ribozyme (RZ) gene and to assay the cleavage activity of the ribozyme in vitro . METHODS Anti VEGF hairpin RZ gene was synthesized and inserted to the eukar yotic expression vector pcDNA3. Then pcDNA3 RZ was transcripted in vitro and the cleavage activity of the RZ was measured. RESULTS Fregment of the RZ gene was confirimed by the digestion of pcDNA3 RZ with Eco RI and Bam HI. The expression product the RZ gene had cleavage activity. CONCLUSION We have successfully constructed pcDNA3 RZ expression vector and laid a basis for further study of gene therapy.


A 75-year-old woman presented to the emergency department with exacerbation of dyspnea, wheezing, and swelling of the legs that had begun 24 hours earlier. The patient had been treated for lung disease for many years and her usual symptoms were dyspnea on very little exertion, a chronic nonproductive cough, and episodic wheezing. She had smoked cigarettes for 55 years but had stopped five years ago. Her medications included meprobamate, chlorothiazide- triamterene, loratadine, clonazepam, oxaprozin, montelukast, ipratropium, and home oxygen.The patient appeared thin and dyspneic. Her temperature was 37.2°C; radial pulse, 125 bpm; respirations, 36 per min; blood pressure, 105/55 mm Hg; and oxygen saturation, 98% while receiving 3 L per minute by nasal canula. Jugular venous pressure was slightly elevated. Breath sounds were diffusely faint, with prolonged expiration but no crackles or wheezes. Cardiac rhythm was irregular at 135 beats per minute with normal heart sounds. Mild edema of the ankles was presen...


The present invention relates to a pharmaceutical composition comprising F (ab) 2 antibody are preferably free from albumin and of whole antibodies and also substantially free of pyrogens, and an effective amount of a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier. It also relates to a method for preparing a pharmaceutical composition comprising F (ab) 2 antibody using serum or blood plasma of a mammal previously immunized, as a source of antibodies. The serum or blood plasma is digested with an enzyme, pepsin, followed by separation and purification until the pharmaceutical composition of F (ab) 2 are free of albumin and complete antibodies, and substantially pyrogen free.


In recent years, more and more record-breaking extreme weather/climate events have been reported from the Asian monsoon region, which have caused tremendous loss of property and lives. In this paper, we analyzed the Asian summer monsoon (ASM) variability during the Holocene and evaluated future climate extremes in monsoonal China from a paleoclimatic view. We found a significant regime transition to more chaotic fluctuations, with enhanced decadal variability of the ASM since 6.6 ka BP. We suggested the gradual intensification of ENSO was responsible for enhancing the ASM variability since the late mid-Holocene. If the observed relationship of monsoon mean intensity, ENSO and decadal variability of the ASM in the past 11.2 ka continue to exist, enhanced decadal variability of ASM in the future warming world will be expected. As a result, the intensification of daily precipitation extremes, superimposed on enhanced decadal variability of ASM, might make the record-breaking extremes more frequent in the future, increasing the risk of climate-related disasters in China.


With the development of social networks, the mechanism of crowdsourcing is not limited to commercial application. In the event of disaster, information disseminated through social networks, and the mechanism of crowdsourcing thus is established. However, it is worth discussing whether the accuracy of the disaster information through the virtual community can be referred to the government agencies. This research extracted and analyzed the data from " the most serious disaster information in the major disaster information social network " of 2009 Taiwan Morakot typhoon. It also discussed the relevance and trust of crowdsourcing disaster information through extracting, comparing and analyzing. The result indicated that the disaster information extracted from the developed disaster information virtual community of the crowdsourcing mechanism was significant in its trust and relevance. It is recommended that the Federal Emergency Management Agency not only needs to pay attention on the information management of professional disaster prevention and protection along with the development and application of decision support system, bus also establishes virtual communities to manage professional social networks in peacetime. Thus, it can improve the efficiency on dealing with contingency or emergency through the diversification of information channels during calamity. The future studies of this research will focus on organizing the extracted database, introducing a complete evaluation model for trust analysis of disaster crowdsourcing information.


Interoperability is the basis of the maintenance support capability under the condition of information combined operations. It plays an important role in improving the effectiveness of maintenance support. The paper discusses the maintenance support information system interoperability and sums up the existing level of interoperability evaluation model.According to the characteristics of the maintenance support tasks, maintenance support information system interoperability evaluation model is constructed by technical dimensions, functional dimensions and semantic dimensions. It has a guiding significance for the construction of maintenance support information system in the future.


The religious landscape study in cities is an important part of religious and cultural geography.Church,as the core of religion cultural landscape studying,is also the focus of religious geography researches,and its time and space distribution and changes can often reveal the formation and diffusion mechanism of urban religious landscapes.The paper,by extracting geographical information on religious cultural landscape such as basic spatial data of different historical periods and churches from historical literature,establishes a historical GIS database for Fuzhou.Based on it,the paper takes the Protestant churches as a clue in the interpretation of important spatial meanings connoted in the temporal-spatial changes occurred in religious cultural landscape in a port city by the means of spatial analysis and historical analysis.The results show that,before 1860,there was a small number of Protestant churches in Fuzhou and they were mainly distributed in the Minjiang River estuary and along the river sides,that is,Chating and Cangqian areas;after 1860,the churches in Fuzhou was located in along the two sides of the Minjiang River and in the old town(Gulou District);after the period of the Republic of China,along with the improvement of traffic condition,the newly-built Protestant churches began to spread quickly outward;after the founding of the People's Republic of China(PRC),the distribution of churches in Fu-zhou showed a shrinking trend.The way of Protestant missions in Fuzhou was constantly changing from the tra-ditional way of preaching to the way of using modern media,complemented by publishing religious books and newspapers and establishing schools and hospitals.These schools and hospitals promoted the development of modern health care and education in Fuzhou.


Cationic copolymerizations of anethole were carried out under various conditions in order to confirm the relative reactivities of its geometric isomers. trans-Anethole was more reactive than cis-anethole in copolymerizations with p-methoxystyrene or styrene, but less reactive in the mutual copolymerization of cis- and trans-anethole; i.e., the trans isomer was more reactive to a growing chain end with little steric hindrance. Thus the intrinsic reactivity of an olefinic double bond to carbonium ion is greater for the trans isomer than for the cis isomer. This idea is supported by 13C NMR spectra, since the signal of the olefinic β-carbon of the trans isomer is at higher field than that of the cis isomer. The behavior of anethole was compared with the results observed in vinyl ethers, where the cis isomer was always more reactive irrrspective of the structure of the growing chain end. In addition, the dependence of monomer reactivity ratios on polymerization conditions is discussed.


This study was conducted at Poultry Farm of Animal Resources Dept. College of Agriculture ,University of Baghdad to investigate the effects of probiotic fermented supplementation on egg quality in Cotornix Japonica (No. 160 female, 24 wk old, period 1/1/2014 to 31/3/2014). The effect of four treatments (0, 25, 50 and75 % probioptic fermented ) , were evenly distributed to 4 groups with two replicates containing (20 birds in each replicate). Increase of egg yolk weight was not significant (P>0.05) in first , second and third week, had significant effect on egg yolk weight from fourth week to eight week (P<0.05). Although addition of probiotic had significant effect (P<0.05) on egg yolk high in 1 , 2 , 4 , 5 , 7 and 8 week, had no significant effect (P>0.05) in 3 , 4 and 6 week, although addition of probiotic had significant effect (P<0.05) on egg albumin weight, the increase of egg albumin weight with increase of probiotic, these were expected which have already been reported. Although addition of probiotic had significant effect (P<0.05) on egg albumin high, the increase of egg albumin high with increase of probiotic. Statistically not significant effect (P>0.05) addition of probiotic on shell weight. Although addition of probiotic had significant effect (P<0.05) on Haugh unit, the increase of Haugh unit with increase of probiotic. Supplementation of probiotic fermented to the diet of quail breeders improved egg quality (yolk , albumin and haugh unit). --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Inactivating agents which affect the toxicity and potency of pertussis component in adsorbed diphtheria - tetanus -pertussis (DTP) vaccine were examined. Pertussis mix pools prepared from three internationally accepted strains of Bordetella pertussis were inactivated by heat (56°C for 10 and 30 min) and formalin (0.1, 0.075 and 0.05%) for making DTP vaccihe. Pertussis mix pools as well as DTP vaccines were tested for toxicity and potency as recommended by Indian pharmacopoeia and WHO. All pertussis mix pools and DTP vaccines passed toxicity (mouse weight gain):with no statistically significant difference. Leucocytosis promoting factor (LPF) was found to be increased with decrease in formalin concentration in DTP vaccine. Heat inactivation for 10 min at 56°C showed more LPF than for 30 min at the same temperature. Potency of both formalin inactivated vaccine at 0.05% concentration and heat inactivated vaccine at 56°C for 10 min were found better than the vaccines inactivated by other methods. However, formalin inactivation was much simpler and a better option than heat inactivation for large scale production of a potent and safe DTP vaccine.


The purpose of this paper is to estimate and analysis the effective elements on the process of the relative comparative advantage changes appeared from the subsections of the textiles industry of Iran and to determine its universal place from. The criteria for identifying the relative comparative advantage in this paper include the index of relative comparative advantage (RCA), the index of employ end location quotation (LQ) BMP), the index of value added location quotation. The necessary information was obtained of the large numbers of the country through the management and planning organization of Pars province , the sciences and technology library, Pars General Customhouse, Pars General Business Office, The Center of Iran Statistics, The Business Studies and Researches Agency, the internal and external economic web sites such as WTO, Undo, Google, Yahoo, Msn, AltaVista, and, etc. referring to some of master's theses, some of international economic books, statistical yearbooks of the country custom exports. The outline of the obtained results is as follow: The country textile export (xl) has a positive effect on the index of relative comparative advantage (RCA). The country industrial export (x2) also improves the index of relative comparative advantage (RCA). The world textile export (x3) has a negative effect on the index of relative comparative advantage (RCA). The country textile investment (x5) improves the index of relative comparative advantage (RCA). The total industrial investment (x6) has a negative effect on the index of relative comparative advantage (RCA). The total industrial value added (x8) has a negative effect on the index of relative comparative advantage (RCA). The country textile value added (x7) has a negative effect on the index of relative comparative advantage (RCA). The unavoidable costs or data values (x9) decreases the index of relative comparative advantage (RCA), but the real exchange rate (xlO) improves the index of relative comparative advantage (RCA). Revolutions variable (that is a Dummy Variable) has a negative effect on the index of relative comparative advantage (RCA). The trend variable increases the index of relative comparative advantage (RCA). This analysis is eluded based on the normalized numbers of vectors.


The present invention relates to a connection device for a shield cable. An objective of the present invention is to provide the connection device for a shield cable capable of reducing the number of components and the number of assembly processes, improving workability, and reducing the size of a connector by improving a shield structure of a connector, particularly, a shield structure with respect to a high voltage shield cable and a shield clamping structure, and a connector waterproof structure. In order to accomplish the above objective, the connection device for a shield cable includes a terminal coupled with a center line of a shield cable; an inner housing having an inside in which the terminal is inserted; an outer housing having an inside in which the inner housing is inserted; a shield barrel installed to press an outer surface of a shield layer of the shied cable; a shield clamp installed to adhere to an outer side of the shied barrel; a shield contact interposed between a first diameter portion of the shield clamp and the outer housing to electrically connect the shield clamp to the outer housing. The shield clamp has a first diameter portion adhering at an outer side of the shield barrel and a second diameter portion interposed therein with a first cable seal between the second diameter portion and an outer shell of the shield cable inward.


During 1986–1989, the seasonal maturation and gonad index (gonad weight/body weight × 100) of adult Loxechinus albus were examined at nine sites, and the appearance of fourarmed echinopluteus larvae was investigated at three sites off the eastern coast of Chiloé Island, Chile. Spawning occurred during November–January when the gonad indices fell to a minimum, the number of mature specimens decreased and four-armed larvae appeared, corresponding to the rise in water temperature. The number of four-armed larvae appearing at the northern site was markedly less than that at the southern site. The sea urchins matured in January and February immediately after spawning at many sites and a high percentage of maturation lasted for a long period at some sites. These findings are considered to be associated with high food availability and annual narrow ranges of water temperature.


—Massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) regime reaps the benefits of spatial diversity and multiplexing gains, subject to precise channel state information (CSI) acqui- sition. In the current communication architecture, the downlink CSI is estimated by the user equipment (UE) via dedicated pilots and then fed back to the gNodeB (gNB). The feedback information is compressed with the goal of reducing over-the-air overhead. This compression increases the inaccuracy of acquired CSI, thus degrading the overall spectral efficiency. This paper proposes a computationally inexpensive machine learning (ML)-based CSI feedback algorithm, which exploits twin channel pre- dictors. The proposed approach can work for both time-division duplex (TDD) and frequency-division duplex (FDD) systems, and it allows to reduce feedback overhead and improves the acquired CSI's accuracy. To observe real benefits, we demonstrate the performance of the proposed approach using the empirical data recorded at the Nokia campus in Stuttgart, Germany. Numerical results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach in terms of reducing overhead, minimizing quantization errors, increasing spectral efficiency, cosine similarity, and precoding gain compared to the traditional CSI feedback mechanism.


To evaluate the occurrence of avian influenza viruses (AIV) infections in southern Pakistan, an enzyme-linkedimmunosorbent assay was initially used to screen sera from broiler, layer and broiler breeder flocks for thepresence of antibodies to type A influenza viruses. Data from this survey showed high levels of AIV antibodies,indicating unrecognized AIV infection occurring in these flocks. Based on this information a secondinvestigation was undertaken in selected broiler-breeder, broiler and layer flocks. In this investigation, nineH9N2 AIV isolates were recovered. Serological data from this investigation indicated that chickens in flockswith a previous history of respiratory tract infection and some without overt clinical respiratory signs hadseroconverted to H9N2 AIV.


In e-commerce, information asymmetry between operators and consumers causes a more serious problem of consumer rights and interests protection. Through signaling games of incomplete information, the problem of consumer rights and interests protection in e-commerce is analyzed deeply.In order to reducing information asymmetry between operators and consumers in commerce and to protect consumer rights and interests in e-commerce,some corresponding measurements must be formulated.


Aim To investigate the cognitive function of epileptic patients and the factors that affect it.Methods sixty-one epilepsy patients and one hundred age,gender and education matched healthy controls were evaluated by means of Mini-Mental State Examination(MMSE).Correlation between the cognitive,dysfunction and its related factors were analyzed.Results Among the patients who had cognitive deficit,the scores with all the sub rest were significantly lower than these in the control group.The factors related to the cognitive function of epileptic patients were the onset age of illness,duration of the discase,frequency of seizures attack before medication.Conclusion The epileptic patients had cognitive function deficit.The factors contributing to the cognitive function of the disease may include the age of onset of illness,duration of the disease,frequency of seizures attack before medication.In order to improve their quality of life,we should pay attention to the cognitive function of epileptic patient and eliminate the risk factors related to cognitive dysfunction.


Because of the high variability of size features and their random nature made observations on fifty four pregnant women from the second to the ninth months of the pregnancy. The main objective of the article is to determine the changes in the diagnostic parameter "waist" in the pregnancy and to do a mathematical model based on the regression analysis.


BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Leukemia considered a top-listed ailment, according to WHO, which contributes to the death of a major population of the world every year. Paris Saponin VII (PS), a saponin which was isolated from the roots of Trillium kamtschaticum, from our group, was reported to provide hemostatic, cytotoxic and antimicrobial activities. However, its molecular mechanism underlying the anti-proliferative effects remains unclear. Thus, this study hypothesized to assess that mechanism in PS treated HEL cells.

METHODS
The MTT assay used to analyze the PS inhibited cell viability in the HEL cells. We further found that PS could induce S phase cell cycle arrest through flow cytometry as well as the western blot analysis of intrinsic and extrinsic apoptotic molecules.

RESULTS
The MTT assay showed the IC50 concentration of PS as 0.667μM. The study revealed that PS treatment inhibits cell proliferation dose-dependently. It further caused mitochondrial membrane potential changes by PS treatment. Mechanistic protein expression revealed a dose-dependent upsurge for Bid and Bim molecules, while Bcl2 and PARP expression levels were significantly (P< 0.05) down-regulated in PS treated HEL cells resulting in caspase -3 release and increased the Bim levels upon 24h of incubation.

CONCLUSIONS
These findings indicate that PS possesses an excellent anti-leukemic activity via regulation of the mitochondrial pathway, leading to S phase cell cycle arrest and caspase-dependent apoptosis suggesting it as a potential alternative chemotherapeutic agent for leukemia patients.


Review(s) of: Digital Information and Knowledge Management: New Opportunities for Research Libraries, ed. by Sul H. Lee, Binghamton, NY: Haworth Information Press, 2007. 117 pp. US$50.00 soft cover ISBN 13: 9780789035660 (also published as Journal of Library Administration 46, 1).


ABSTRACT  Many members of the LuxR family of acyl-homoserine lactone (acyl-HSL)-dependent quorum-sensing transcriptional activators are thought to have the unusual characteristics of requiring the signal ligand during polypeptide synthesis to fold into an active conformation and of binding signal extraordinarily tightly. This is the case for the N-3-oxo-dodecanoyl-HSL-dependent Pseudomonas aeruginosa virulence regulator LasR. We present evidence that LasR can fold into an active conformation in vivo in the absence of the acyl-HSL ligand. We also present evidence indicating that in the cellular environment, LasR and N-3-oxo-dodecanoyl-HSL readily dissociate. After dissociation, LasR can remain in a properly folded conformation capable of reassociating with signal. We present a new model for the folding and signal binding of LasR and other members of the family of transcription factors to which LasR belongs. Our findings have important implications concerning the cellular responses to decreased environmental concentrations of signals and have implications about potential quorum-sensing inhibition strategies. IMPORTANCE The opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa causes difficult to treat and incurable diseases. Quorum sensing controls expression of many virulence factors in this bacterium, and the quorum-sensing signal receptor LasR has been targeted for anti-quorum-sensing therapeutic development. The work described here changes the current view about how LasR interacts with the quorum-sensing signal to which it responds. This is of importance for therapeutic development. The experiments also address a poorly studied aspect of quorum sensing: the response to decreases in quorum-sensing signals. This has importance with respect to understanding the ecology and evolution of quorum sensing. The opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa causes difficult to treat and incurable diseases. Quorum sensing controls expression of many virulence factors in this bacterium, and the quorum-sensing signal receptor LasR has been targeted for anti-quorum-sensing therapeutic development. The work described here changes the current view about how LasR interacts with the quorum-sensing signal to which it responds. This is of importance for therapeutic development. The experiments also address a poorly studied aspect of quorum sensing: the response to decreases in quorum-sensing signals. This has importance with respect to understanding the ecology and evolution of quorum sensing.


In this paper we propose a new method for estimating the ambiguity function (AF) of a random process with limited spreading support. The observed process is modelled as the aggregation of a non-stationary signal of interest and noise. As the AF has limited spreading, thresholding is a suitable estimation procedure. Some key stochastic properties of the empirical ambiguity function are derived to obtain a suitable threshold. Based on a median absolute deviation estimator for the variance, we derive a suitable threshold, which forms the basis for our proposed estimator. The estimator is tested on both artificial and real signals, and our results demonstrate a remarkably high resolution and reduced variance.