Abstract In view of the rise in child abuse in Singapore, our Family Service Centre developed a child welfare practice model to guide and anchor our practitioners in trauma-informed approaches. This practice model was developed over two years through literature reviews and qualitative interviews with practitioners. Three aspects of the practice model were found to be key in ensuring practitioners were trauma-informed in their practices, these being: the principles and values related to trauma-informed practice; reflection by practitioners on their attachment history and self; and the assessment of caregivers' characteristics. Despite this practice model being largely beneficial for practitioners in our agency, implementation in the local context gives rise to certain challenges due to differences in beliefs about disciplining children.


Detection thresholds for radial deformations of circular contours were measured using a range of radii and contour peak spatial frequencies. For radial frequencies above two cycles, thresholds were found to be a constant fraction of the mean radius across a four-octave range of pattern radii and peak spatial frequencies (mean Weber fraction: 0.003–0.004). At low radial frequencies, thresholds were unaffected by contrast reduction. In 167 ms presentations, subjects were able to identify radial frequencies of six cycles and below with an accuracy of over 90% correct even when phase was randomized. The extreme sensitivity of subjects to these radial deformations (as low as 2–4 s of arc) cannot be explained by local orientation or curvature analysis, and points instead to the global pooling of contour information at intermediate levels of form vision. © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.


For the data of virtual scene, there are often heterogeneous data from different databases. If the same object is not processed in different databases, it will have a great impact on the subsequent data synchronization. After the synchronization of heterogeneous information, the differences between these heterogeneous information will be eliminated, which will bring great convenience to the subsequent data synchronization. Therefore, this paper is based on the synchronization of heterogeneous information data in remote control and unified description. The utilized heterogeneous data synchronization is feature layer synchronization. Feature sets represented by each data are extracted from each database and are synchronized into feature vectors. Then the synchronization of the feature vectors is carried out. The experimental results show that the method in this paper can accurately warn the abnormal behavior between data synchronization and realize the function of remote control stop. Through the research of virtual control problem and according to the result of data synchronization, warning is carried out to remind the remote operators to control the virtual scene position and posture in real time and to reduce the occurrence of collision accidents.


In this paper, a sufficient and necessary condition such that the Ricci form of continuous loop groups is closed is given.


Breast cancer is the commonest form of cancer among women in the developed world. Its incidence has increased slowly since the 1960s. About one women in twelve at some stage in their lives get affected by breast cancer, in 1993, 15000 women died in England of breast cancer. About 90% were aged over 50. Epithelial malignancies of the breast are the most common cause of Cancer in women. In this study sample of one hundred breast carcinoma patients were studied at SKIMS and SMHS hospitals in Kashmir. The data reveals that 42% of patients were in the age group of 40 – 50 years. 90% of the females had no family history of breast carcinoma or carcinoma of any other organ. 58% of the females had never self examined their breasts to check any kind of abnormality. The knowledge about mammography was almost negligible. Only 10% of the females have heard about it from mass media. Due to unawareness about breast screening most patients were in the stage III and IV of the breast carcinoma from where recovery is impossible. It is found that females need to be educated about breast self examination and mammography through mass media, extension programs and awareness camps in schools and colleges. The role of antioxidants and phytochemicals (present in fruits and vegetables) in cancer prevention is also found by many researches. Hence more antioxidant rich food needs to be incorporated in daily diet .


Self incompatibility and variability in the flowering time of different species of kola trees are the major factors that deeply affect the productivity of these plants. It seems absolutely important to conserve the pollen viability in order to create gene banks for Cola spp. breeding programmes. In this study, 3 cultivated Cola species (C. ballayi, C. acuminata and C. anomala) and one wild species (C. lepidota) were used to estimate, using in vitro germination tests, the pollen viability of fresh pollen and dehydrated pollen grains stored during 8 weeks at i€20°C and 10°C. The tube length growth of fresh and stored pollen was also evaluated. Results showed that fresh pollen grains better conserved their germination potential than dehydrated pollen grains for all the four species. Germination capacities were better preserved at i€20°C for non dehydrated pollen of C. ballayi (8 weeks), C. acuminata (7 weeks) and C. lepidota (5 weeks), and at 10°C for C. anomala (7 weeks). The pollen tube lengths decrease as the period of conservation lasts, for all species. These results are basically very important and applicable in breeding programmes to create new hybrids and improve Cola plant species.


In a symposium focused on deception and counter-deception in machines, one might be immediately drawn to a narrow conception of those phenomena which highlight the pernicious ways in which they might be used. On the broader notion of fibbing that we describe in our talk, the social function of being fast and loose with the truth takes center stage as a tool for accomplishing a wide variety of socially centered goals. We briefly review the FIDE framework, described in (Isaac & Bridewell 2014; Bridewell & Bello 2014), including the conceptual resources it requires and the variety of fib-related concepts it supports. FIDE delineates between the aforementioned concepts as ends, and the strategic means by which the fibber might achieve these ends. In doing so, we show that certain types of difficult to conceptualize behavior, most notably bullshitting (Frankfurt 2006) and responses to bullshitting, are instances of a kind of strategy for impression management that serves higher-order social goals.


Abstract This paper presents a pedagogical, analytical and heuristic tool for the critical analysis of texts, the Critical Literacy Frame, developed through a critical textual and discourse analysis of the genre of broadcast adversarial political interviewing, further informed by questionnaires and interviews with key informants. It is grounded in a social-constructionist orientation to language, and is underpinned theoretically by insights from Critical Discourse Analysis and Critical Literacy. The potential for such a frame, in the context of UK secondary education, particularly with reference to A level English Language and Citizenship, is considered and recommendations for pedagogy, curriculum, teacher-education, policy and further complementary research are offered.


Background: The guanylate-binding protein 1 (GBP1) belongs to the member of GTPase dynamin superfamily and plays a major role as tumor suppressor or tumorigen in cancers, such as colon cancer, ovarian cancer, melanoma, and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. However, the relationship between GBP1 and gastric cancer (GC) remains scanty. Methods: GBP1 mRNA expression in different types of tumors and their corresponding adjacent normal tissues were evaluated via exploring Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER) and Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA) database, while the protein expression was detected by The Human Protein Atlas (HPA). The relationship between the clinical characteristics and outcome of gastric cancer patients was examined through Kaplan–Meier plotter tool. The correlations between GBP1 and tumor immune infiltrates were evaluated via TIMER and TISIDB. Additionally, the relationship between GBP1 expression and gene marker sets of immune infiltrates were analyzed by TIMER and GEPIA.Results: GBP1 expression was significantly higher in GC compared with corresponding normal tissues. High GBP1 expression in GC associated with better overall survival (OS HR=0.53, P=5.2e-09) and progression-free survival (PFS HR=0.49, P=1.90e-06). Moreover, its expression level was positively correlated with different clinical characteristics, such as sex, TNM stage, and Lauren classification. With a comprehensive analysis of three immune-related databases, TIMER, GEPIA, and TISIDB, we found GBP1 not only showed a strong correlation with tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T cells, Th1 cells, but also with Tregs, exhausted T cells, M2 macrophage, monocytes. Furthermore, GBP1 was significantly associated with IFN-γ, granzyme B, perforin, FasL and CXCL9, CXCL10, and CXCL11. Conclusion: This study provides the first evidence that GBP1 is a key gene that correlates with the prognosis and associated with various tumor-infiltrated immune cells in gastric cancer patients. In conclusion, GBP1 may act as a potent prognostic biomarker for predicting cancer progression and a sign of tumor-immune infiltration in GC.


Adult chronic idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) is a common hematologic disease worldwide. The pathogenesis involves formation of auto-antibodies against platelet glycoproteins. The mechanism of autoimmunity is not fully understood but may involve binding of antigenic peptides to HLA antigens.1 Therefore, specific HLA alleles may be associated with the occurrence of ITP. However, this association was not found in Caucasians.2-4 Studies in Chinese are not available and it is important to see whether results from the West can be extrapolated to this population. We investigated the frequencies of HLA alleles in Hong Kong Chinese patients with ITP with reference to the database from volunteer bone marrow donors registered with the Hong Kong Marrow Match Foundation (HKMMF).5 The latter reflects the local prevalence of HLA alleles in Hong Kong, in which over 98% of the population are ethnic Chinese and the majority have ancestral origins in the Guangdong Province in southern China. No donors were selected based on gender or the presence of specific HLA alleles. Forty Chinese patients with ITP in a general hematology clinic were recruited. The diagnosis was based on thrombocytopenia with normal or increased megakaryocytopoiesis in the bone marrow. Patients with pre-existing systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), concomitant chronic liver diseases with or without splenomegaly or intake of drugs known to be associated with thrombocytopenia were excluded from the analysis. Class I HLA typing (HLA-A and –B) was performed using standard serological techniques employing antisera standardized for use in a Chinese population. Class II typing was performed using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with sequence specific primers as described previously.5 Twenty-two primer mixes were used to identify 19 HLA-DR alleles. Based on the DR alleles identified by the first set of primers, further DRB1 allelic sub-typing was performed using different primer mixes for various alleles. The first-line treatment of ITP was prednisolone (1 mg/kg/day). Complete remission (CR) was defined as a rise of platelet count to greater than 100× 109/L for at least 6 months (with or without treatment). Partial remission (PR) was defined as a platelet count of 50-100×109/L or platelet count greater than 100×109/L for less than 6 months. Refractory disease (non-remission, NR) was defined as the absence of a platelet count increase or a platelet count of less than 50x109/L during treatment. The response to steroids was assessable in 31 patients. Comparisons of the frequencies of HLA alleles were performed using the Chi-squared test. A p value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. The characteristics of the patients are shown in Table 1. The female to male ratio was 3:1. The median age and platelet count at presentation were 40 (range: 20-82) years and 18×109/L (range: 1-78×109/L), respectively. The median duration of disease was 85 months (range: 12-469 months). Table 2a shows the frequencies of HLA-A, -B and -DR alleles. HLA-A11, A2, A24, B46, B13, B60, DRB1-15, DRB-0901, and DRB1-04 were the most prevalent alleles in patients with ITP. However, none of these alleles showed a significant difference in frequency when compared with controls (χ2 test, p > 0.05, Table 2a). There was also no significant difference when the HLA types of patients with partial or no response to steroids were compared with those in patients who exhibited complete remission (Table 2b). A recent study in Japanese patients showed that DRB1*0410 was more prevalent in ITP patients than in controls and was associated with a poor response to steroids, suggesting that genetic factors were involved in the clinical course of ITP.6 DRB1*0410 is uncommon in Hong Kong Chinese with a phenotypic frequency of only 0.4%5 and none of the 40 patients in this cohort possessed this allele. ITP in Hong Kong Chinese was not associated with specific HLA alleles and no specific alleles could predict the response to steroid therapy. In this respect, ITP may be pathogenetically distinct from other autoimmune diseases which are often associated with specific HLA phenotypes. Alternatively, HLA alleles may be associated with a common but currently unidentified factor that predisposes to ITP. This remains speculative and our results should be confirmed with a larger cohort of patients. Table 1. The clinical characteristics and HLA typing of the patients.


Considering some seasonal goods such as Air-condition Products have obvious sales midseason and off-season,a single-period single-item two-stage supply chain consisting of an air-condition manufacturer and a buyer is studied.Some ubiquitous issues of seasonal items manufacturing such as production error in off-season and insufficient capability in midseason is analyzed.Based on practice,an integrated MTO-MTS production mode is proposed.This paper developed a model based on this production mode with stochastic demands.The rule to determine delivery time and optimal production and cost with various parameters is presented.A theoretical reference is thus provided for seasonal production decision to improve delivery responsibility.


A dynamic agricultural vector autoregression econometric model is specified and estimated for the standard supply response model using panel data. The model is estimated using twenty years of district level data for three regions in northern India where in each region there are several districts. The results indicate the importance of the dynamics in agricultural decision making as well as the simultaneity of the allocation of resources and prices of the different crops. The estimation results with respect to the different crops and regions are presented and discussed in detail in the paper.


It is well known that the atmospheric corrosion of steel is accelerated by sea salt particles near seashore environment. However, the mechanism of atmospheric corrosion of steel has not been clarified because of the difficulty in experimental work. We have developed a new atmospheric corrosion test device. By using this device, the atmospheric corrosion tests have been carried out on low alloy steels under high relative humidity conditions with constant deposition rate of sea salt particles. Besides this experiment, certain amount of sea salt particles were attached on low alloy steels and the initiation of atmospheric corrosion was observed both by the super Kelvin force microscope (SKFM) and the colour laser microscope. Test specimens were two types of low alloy steels, SM50B and 3% Ni steel, mechanically polished up to 1μm.roughness. The atmospheric corrosion tests were done at 90% RH with the deposition rate of sea salt particles of 1mdd. The deposition rate of sea salt particles was estimated by using 30MHz of gold-coated quartz crystals. For SKFM and the colour laser microscope observations, sea salt particles were attached by using the new atmospheric corrosion test device under low humidity conditions for preventing the corrosion. The initiation of atmospheric corrosion was observed under humidity control conditions. The relative humidity was controlled by controlling the specimen surface temperature with cooler. The SKFM image was taken every 1 hour. Kelvin force microscope was also used to observe the detail of corrosion. The atmospheric corrosion rate of SM50B was faster than that of 3%Ni steel at the beginning, but total amount of corrosion became the same with time. The in-situ SKFM observation showed that the area of the part where potential is more negative than that of usual sea salt particles attached spread rapidly once corrosion started. The increase of the area of negative potential part is considered due to the spread of thin liquid film of FeCl3. The thickness of this thin layer could not be estimated even by the highly magnified observations. The filiform corrosion that width is much more bigger than the diameter of sea salt particle attached also progressed. After the specimen surface was covered with thin liquid film, Cl ion can move at the corroding part to increase the corrosion rate. The trace of Cl ion movement was alos observed on SKFM images. The mechanism of atmospheric corrosion by sea salt particles under high relative humidity condition was similar on both SM50B and 3%Ni steel. The main difference was the initiation time of corrosion.


ions over reality, but is it appropriate to treat them as 'general laws' about social processes and directions of change? In fact, most paradigms of social science tend to be ideological rather than explanatory systems and most social science theories continue to remain 'normative' and 'metaphysical' rather than analytic. No doubt such theories have their scientific relevance but their limitations are often overlooked at the cost of objectivity.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the intensity of SuperJump® workout as a home-based activity for fulfilling physical activity recommendations during COVID-19 home-confinement. Seventeen (males: n = 10; females: n = 7) college students (age: 25.8 ± 2.7 years; height: 1.7 ± 0.1 m; weight: 66.2 ± 12.1 kg) participated in the study. To assess the intensity of the activity (30-min), heart rate (HR), expressed as percentages of age-predicted maximal HR (%HRmax), and session ratings of perceived exertion (sRPE), collected on a CR10 scale, were used. %HRmax data were categorically separated in five classes of intensity according to the American College of Sport Science's guidelines. Enjoyment was evaluated using the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale (PACES). Repeated measures ANOVA was used to evaluate differences (p < 0.05) in relation to gender and exercise intensity. No gender difference emerged for %HRmax and sRPE. Significantly higher (p < 0.05) %HRmax were found for the moderate intensity (47.1 ± 34.4%) with respect to very light (3.6 ± 6.9%), light (14.5 ± 23.3%) and vigorous (34.6 ± 39.6%) and for the vigorous intensity with respect to very light; no near maximal to maximal values were observed. Subjects perceived SuperJump® as moderate (sRPE = 3.1 ± 1.2) while showing high levels of enjoyability (PACES = 86.6 ± 16.2%). SuperJump® can be classified as moderate-to-vigorous activity, representing an effective alternative and enjoyable home-based activity for preventing the effects of a sedentary lifestyle during home-confinement.


Cloud computing provides services as a type of Internet-based computing using data centers that contain servers, storage and networks. For this reason, the cloud computing its great potentials in low cost and on-demand services. In recent years, the end user is highly increased to utilize the services in cloud computing. However, the faulty of infrastructure, software and application are the major problem in cloud computing. Fault tolerance uses techniques that concerned to guarantee availability, reliability of critical services and application execution. This paper discusses the existing fault tolerance techniques and challenges to minimize failure impact on the system and application execution in cloud computing.


In the era of digital intelligence, the importance of knowledge management capability is highlighted in enterprise management. Product variety requires the combination of knowledge management capability and knowledge resources. To further understand its action mechanism, this paper constructs a structural equation model for its empirical study. The results show that knowledge management capability plays an important intermediary role in the process of developing product variety.


It is pointed out that electrosorption plays a key role in electrocatalysis. Little information is available, however, concerning the chemical nature of the interactions of the adsorbed species with the electrode and even less about the adsorption sites. The role of adsorbed species and surface layers in electrocatalysis is reviewed for several electrode systems. In recent years, some general insights have been achieved into the relationship of hydrogen electrode kinetics to hydrogen adsorption. For a given mechanism the exchange current density is related to the standard free energy of adsorption of the particular type of adsorbed hydrogen upon which the kinetics depend. The oxygen electrode reactions are less well understood than the reactions for the hydrogen electrode. The pronounced irreversibility of the oxygen electrode reactions at moderate temperatures has severely complicated mechanistic studies.


With the in-depth research on translation,the status of translator's subjectivity has attracted more attention than ever before.The translator's subjectivity has become the new subject of the translation studies.From the communication perspective,the influences of different factors in the process of communication on the translator's subjectivity are probed,including the original author's writing motivation,translator's communication motivation,and the translation's effect.


The improved model of input buffer presented is to insert a quasi random memory between input queue and arbitration logic at ATM switching unit. The cells in quasi random memories can randomly complete and be transmit, provided that the sequence of these cells going to same output route in same quasi random memory is not changed. The maximum throughput, the queue size, the cell lost probability and the mean time delay of the improved model is calculated. By comparisons between the improved model and three kinds of typical model, the advantages of the improved model is discussed.


At least two control points (CPs) must be available to determine the position and orientation of a total station (TS). This paper analyzes the optimum horizontal location of the TS with respect to ...


Computer architecture is evolving rapidly, and the trend is moving from a single, fast execution unit with large memory space to several execution units with small local memory. Nowadays, even consumer-level systems commonly possess multi-core processors. These lower power-consuming, high-performing multi-core systems are progressively replacing high energy-consumption desktop computers with great success, and the industry predicts that future computing systems will benefit even more from this scalable technology. This evolution is highly beneficial for data-parallel programs, where independent data processing takes place. An example of a future platform in current use is the massively parallel modern graphics processing unit (GPU), with lots of execution units, small and fast memory for each processing core, and high memory bandwidth. Using this platform for demonstration purposes, we can test algorithmic approaches that would scale well to new generations of desktop computers. It is interesting to devise new algorithmic approaches now in fields that require computational demanding tasks, in order to adapt them to new, and future, platforms. In this proposal, we use this underlying idea to propose a parallel, scalable face detection system based on a novel combination of template tracking, skin color detection and a particle filter tracking method.


Abstract The known methods for determining penetration depth of consolidation materials are shortly described. Two new methods are presented. Employing these methods it is possible to measure strength profiles non-destructively on cores or core slices. Ultrasonic velocity as well as natural frequency oftheflexural and torsional vibration may be employed for calculating elastic moduli. Both are reproducible methods for the determination of effectiveness and penetration depth of consolidation materials. Experiments were performed using sandstone and brick. The results are the more precise, the more homogeneous the materials.


One of the consequences of the present interest in perinatal biology is a demand for standards of intra-uterine growth as reliable and useful as the standards for weight and height of children after birth. Since the first papers of Lubchenco and her colleagues1, several authors have tried to satisfy this demand, though none to date can be said to have entirely succeeded. However, two recent attempts, Thomson, et al.2 and Sterky2, deserve special appraisal.
 The problems in constructing prenatal standards are generally similar to those in constructing postnatal ones. In some respects they are simpler; since at present fetuses cannot be weighed serially in utero, standards of rate or "velocity" of growth, though in theory more critical than standards of "distance" or weight attained, are not obtainable.


Energy-controlled and mass-selected beam of fluorocarbon ion (CF3+,CF2+) at energies from 50 to 400 eV are directed at Si and SiO2 surfaces, in order to elucidate etch mechanisms and SiO2/Si etch selectivity. During the ion beam injection, the time evolution of neutral radicals desorbed from the etching surface is measured by appearance mass spectrometry. At the same time, in situ surface analysis is also carried out by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The etching rate of a clean Si surface by CF3+ injection is initially high but decreases with time due to the formation of a thin surface layer containing F and C atoms. Finally, a few-nanometers-thick stationary SixCyFz overlayer is formed on the Si surface for ion fluence >3×1016 cm−2, along with saturation of CF2 and SiF2 radical desorption from the surface. Comparison is made with molecular dynamics simulations of CF3+ interactions with Si surfaces. CF2+ injection on the Si surface yields rapid formation of the SixCyFz layer and lower desorption of the...


In Chinese coal petrographic nomenclature, one peculiar component is called "barkinite", because its morphological features suggest an origin from bark tissue. In recent years, this Chinese term appeared in some international journals. However, many coal geologists do not accept the term "barkinite". The author of this paper has summarized and analysed the research progress relating to "barkinite" and bark coal. He points out some unreliable geochemical data and wrong explanation for the "barkinite" definition appeared in English-language papers about "barkinite". However, some petrographic and geochemical characteristics of "barkinite" are indeed different than cutinite, suberinite and sporinite, especialy its morphological characteristics. Before to deciding whether it is a new maceral or not, the petrographic, geochemical and plant predecessor characteristics of this maceral component should be further studied.


This article is a Commentary on Thanawala VJ, Valdez DJ, Joshi R, Forkuo GS, Parra S, Knoll BJ, Bouvier M, Leff P and Bond RA (2015). Beta‐blockers have differential effects on the murine asthma phenotype. Br J Pharmacol 172: 4833–4846. doi: 10.1111/bph.13253. The authors reply in Bond RA (2016). Differences in asthma study models and the effectiveness of β2‐adrenoceptor ligands: response to Lipworth et al. Br J Pharmacol 173: 250–251. doi: 10.1111/bph.13334.


This study attempts to discuss of how Hercule Poirot, a detective in Murder on Orient Express written by Agatha Christie, solves the case that occur on a train. Hercule Poirot in his case in Murder on Orient Express will be the main subject for the writer


ABSTRACT Football is the most popular game and is one of the most dynamically developing sport regarding training means, methods, and use of technologies. We are witnessing constant improvement of sport selection, increasing dynamics in both training process and speed of playing, etc. We find a lot of information regarding body composition of elite football players, but such information for adolescents is fragmentary. The aim of the following study is to reveal real data of youth football players using special equipment (In Body 270) measuring in total 13 indexes. Respondents are players from the youth academy of PCS "Levski" Sofia in U13, U14 and U15 teams. All data is subject to statistical and expert analysis. The total number of respondents is 57 divided by three age groups. The fundamental anthropometric indexes height and weight reveal logical increase as follows: average height increases from 159 cm (U13), 167 cm (U14) to reach 175 cm (U15). The corresponding average weight vary between 45,9 kg (U13) to 62,1 kg (U15). One of the easiest to measure index is BMI have average values for studied teams as follows: 17,9 (U13), 19,0 (U14) and 20,3 (U15). All other indexes as body fat, skeletal and muscle weight are analyzed in detail for the three age groups. Based on received data and the development of evaluation tables we can control objectively body composition of youth football players. This way we can improve sport selection and training process. All experimental data must be used applying the individual approach for assessing the anthropometric and sexual development of the player.


Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations are common in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). EGFR exon 20 insertions (EGFRex20ins), a rare subset of EGFR mutations, are refractory to tyrosine kinase inhibitors. With the development of targeted therapies for EGFRex20ins, such as mobocertinib, molecular testing is required to optimize treatment. A better understanding of real-world EGFR detection patterns is needed to maximize patient outcomes.

 This retrospective study describes EGFR testing and EGFRex20ins detection patterns in patients with NSCLC in the United States. The Flatiron Health electronic health record database was used to identify patients ≥18 years, with advanced NSCLC, and with ≥2 clinic visits between 01/01/2011 and 12/31/2020. Baseline demographics, clinical characteristics, EGFR testing, and EGFRex20ins detection rates by sex, race, and smoking history were summarized.

 A total of 67,281 patients with NSCLC were identified. EGFR testing increased from 44% in 2011 to 77% in 2020. Of all patients, 44,926 (66.8%) were tested: 50.8% female; 3.3% Asian; 16.0% never-smokers. Of all patients, 22,355 (33.2%) were not tested: 41.4% female; 1.2% Asian; 7.5% never-smokers. Of those tested, 6,245 (13.9%) patients had EGFR mutations: 65.9% female; 11.8% Asian; 48.4% never-smokers.
 EGFRex20ins detection rates changed from 0.6% in 2011 to 1.0% in 2019 and 0.7% in 2020. Of those tested, 304 patients had EGFRex20ins: 58.2% female; 8.2% Asian; 50.3% never-smokers. EGFR testing was higher in females (71.2%) than males (62.8%), never-smokers (84.5%) than those with a smoking history (64.6%), and Asian patients (84.2%) than White (66.6%), Black (65.4%), or other patients (69.5%). Of those tested, EGFRex20ins mutations were detected in 0.8% of females (males: 0.6%), 2.2% of never-smokers (with smoking history: 0.4%), and 1.7% of Asians (White: 0.6%, Black: 0.6%, other patients: 0.7%) had EGFRex20ins. A similar trend was observed for EGFR mutations with higher proportions of females, never-smokers, and Asian patients affected.

 EGFR testing and EGFRex20ins detection rates have increased. However, not all patient subgroups were tested at the same rate and undertesting occurred in all subgroups. Further education of specialists diagnosing NSCLC is warranted to ensure all patients receive biomarker testing and benefit from emerging EGFRex20ins- targeted therapies.


Some physicochemical and rheological properties of jackfruit seed flour and starch, isolated from the flour were investigated. The flour had good capacities for water absorption (205%) and oil absorption (93%). Substitution of wheat flour with the seed flour, at the level of 5, 10 and 20% markedly reduced the gluten strength of the mixed dough. The Brabender amylogram (6% concentration, db) of seed starch showed that its pasting temperature was 81 °C and its viscosity was moderate, remained constant during a heating cycle and retrograded slightly on cooling. The starch showed an A-typed X-ray powder diffraction pattern.


Abstract : This manual describes the Form Processor (FP) which is a set of callable execution time routines available to an application program for form processing. The information is addressed to application programmers using the Integrated Information Support System (IISS). The FP routines allow programs and their users to communicate through pre-defined forms on a terminal. The forms can be defined at run-time using FP routines or by using the Form Editor. When the application runs, the FB handles; (1) Retrieval of a pre-defined form; (2) Display of the form; (3) Filling out the form (from the user point of view); (4) Data integrity checking; (5) Providing a help facility; (6) Definition of new forms at run-time; and (7) Modification of existing forms at run-time.


Background The management of renal stones, one of the most prevalent urological issues, can be accomplished using a variety of techniques, including flexible ureteroscopy, laser lithotripsy, extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy, standard percutaneous nephrolithotomy (S-PCNL), and mini and ultramini percutaneous nephrolithotomy (UM-PCNL), Despite the rising stone clearance rates, S-PCNL remains the therapy of choice for managing renal calculi in spite of its higher complication rate. Aim The purpose of this study was to compare the differences between the two procedures in terms of stone-free rate, the length of the procedure, the length of the hospital stay, the cost of the procedure, and any operative complications such as blood loss, the requirement for blood transfusions, and extravasation or urine leakage. Patients and methods This comparative study was conducted in Ain Shams University Hospitals from January 2020 till January 2022 and included 60 patients with renal calyceal stones. Their age ranged from 18 to 60 years. They were divided into two groups, with 30 patients in each group: one of them underwent S-PCNL and the other one underwent UM-PCNL. Results When compared with PCNL, UM-PCNL is a viable alternative for the management of renal stones. In group A (PCNL), the stone-free rate was 96.7%, whereas in group B, the rate was 90%. Only 3.3% of patients in group B experienced postoperative fever, compared with 10% of patients in group A. In group A, the mean operating time was 71.40±24.02 min, but in group B, it was 108.73±41.61 min. In group A, the mean hospital stay was 64.80±20.14 h, but in group B, it was 42.53±13.23 h. The mean cost in group A was 11091±644.64 pounds, whereas it was 14 890±1098.26 pounds in group B. Conclusion The gold standard method for treating renal stones with a high stone-free rate is still S-PCNL. Although S-PCNL can cause serious consequences including bleeding and visceral damage, their frequency is relatively low. An appropriate substitute for S-PCNL in the treatment of renal stones is UM-PCNL. Very low complication rates and a shorter hospital stay make it safer. Surgeons must put into consideration many factors before selection of the procedure (PCNL vs. UM-PCNL), such as stone size, distribution, presence of comorbidity, patient preference, hospital equipment, surgeon experience, and operation cost.


This study sheds lights on whether Stimulated Recall (SR) as data collection method can gain accurate information if the recall is not conducted immediately after the task is completed. This study emerges from a research conducted previously about teacher decision making regarding their language use which is a dissertation writing and is not published yet. This paper is to investigate whether it is applicable to recall thought processes of teacher interactive decision making. This study applies interpretative method which uses documents of classroom observation video transcription and post observation interview transcription as data. The result is it is beneficial to use SR as data collection method since it can gain information accurately to recall the thought processes of teacher interactive decision making. It can work well to collect the data if SR is conducted based on the recommendations proposed by Gass and Mackay (2000) which are time, strong stimulus, good training for the research participants, and consistency with research questions.


Isolation and species identification of the rhizosphere parasitic nematodes were carried out from 80 roots and soil samples,which were collected from Pinus massoniana,P.thunbergii,P.elliottii,P.densiflora from Nanjing,Zhenjiang,Huai'an,Lianyungang and Yangzhou cities in Jiangsu province.The results were as follows:Helicotylenchus dihystera and Paratylenchus pini were isolated from the rhizosphere of healthy P.massoniana grown in Mount Zijin of Nanjing City;Gracilacus steineri,G.epacris and G.straeleni were found in the rhizosphere of weak P.massoniana in Jiangning district of Nanjing City;Tylenchorhynchus malinus were observed in the rhizosphere of healthy P.massoniana in Yangzhou City;P.minutus were from healthy P.thunbergii in Zhenjiang City.P.massoniana was a new host of T.malinus,P.bukowinensis,G.straeleni,G.epacris and G.steineri,while P.thunbergii was a new host of P.minutus.Moreover,P.bukowinensis,G.steineri,G.epacris and G.straeleni were the new record species in Jiangsu province.


A total of 32 lactating Holstein cows with mean body weight of 622 kg (s.e. = 24) were allotted, at week 25 of lactation, to eight groups of four cows blocked for similar days in milk. The objective of the experiment was to determine the effect of feeding four dietary concentrations (0, 50, 100 or 150 g/kg of dry matter) of whole flaxseed, which contains the plant lignan precursor secoisolariciresinol diglucoside (SDG), on concentrations of two mammalian lignans (enterodiol and enterolactone) in milk. The effects of the four diets on feed intake, milk production, milk composition and digestion were also studied. Cows within each block were assigned to one of the four isonitrogenous and isoenergetic total mixed diets and the experiment was carried out from week 25 to 29 of lactation. Diets were fed for ad libitum intake. Enterolactone was the mammalian lignan, of the two metabolites studied, detected in the milk of cows and its concentration in milk tended (P = 0.08) to increase linearly with higher intake of SDG in the diet. Feed intake, milk yield and milk composition were similar among diets. Milk fatty acid profile was slightly improved by feeding flaxseed, as shown by higher concentrations of fatty acids (e.g. n-3) recognized as being beneficial for human health. Those results suggest that feeding of whole flaxseed may result in changes in milk fatty acid composition and enterolactone content, which offer benefits for consumers.


Practitioners tend to employ cultural referral categories when classifying what has motivated clients to enter employee assistance programs (EAPs). These categories are rooted in ideology and used in ways that often conceal the diverse factors leading troubled employees to seek help. In particular, application of the term "self-referral" has grown dramatically while application of the term "supervisory referral" has declined, which may reflect practitioners' underlying beliefs about how employees ought to use EAPs. The article discusses some studies of alcohol treatment efforts for which the use of cultural referral categories made interpretation of the findings difficult. Following a review of the medical and psychiatric literaure on seeking help, the authors call for construction of a grounded theory based on qualitative research, and recommend that EAPs develop more accurate classifications for labeling cases.


Urbanization process in the Langat Basin, Malaysia, grow rapidly for the past three decades. The land use change urban
areas of the basin increased from 2.3% in 1974 to 32% in 2010. While the population experiencing rapid growth from
665,395 in 1991 and increase to 1,492,422 in 2015. The vibrancy of economic activities with increasing of population,
leads to increasing generation of solid waste in the basin. Solid waste generation increased from 332.7 ton/day in 1991
and increased to 1,641 ton/day in 2015. The current practice of waste management in the Langat Basin still focus on
disposals to landfill. Previously there are nine landfill supporting the needs of the basin, however there are only three
landfill left. The landfills closed were due to pressure from the development of residential, commercial and industrial
areas. The demand for new landfill will compete for space with other economic activities and security of ecosystem
services. Land are so precious, thus priorities will not be given for landfill in the Langat Basin. Hence there is a need
for change of waste management. Priority should be given to resource recovery with waste recycling, waste reduction
and waste reuse as the main approach, with support of other strategic plan such as designing product and system as
well as using incinerator to ensure reduction of solid waste flow to landfill. These approaches and strategies will able
to reduce dependency of space for new landfill in the Langat Basin in the future.


ABSTRACT An algebraic reaction rate closure involving filtered scalar dissipation rate of reaction progress variable is studied. The filtered scalar dissipation rate closure requires a model for sub-grid scale velocity, , which is estimated using four algebraic models and transported sub-grid scale kinetic energy. A priori analyses using direct numerical simulation (DNS) data show that the filtered dissipation rate, and thus the reaction rate closure, has some sensitivity to the model. The sensitivity of various statistics obtained from large eddy simulation (LES) of three piloted Bunsen flames of stoichiometric methane-air mixture to the modeling of is observed to be weaker compared to that for the DNS analysis. Moreover, analysis using transported sub-grid scale kinetic energy does not indicate a necessity to include flame-generated turbulence in the modeling of for the Bunsen flames in the thin reaction zones regime. The measured and computed flame brush structures are compared and studied and the algebraic closure for the filtered reaction rate is found to be quite good.


This report will contribute to the global narrative about maternal health and rights by examining the current state in Uganda in regional (Sub-Saharan Africa) and global context. The report will focus on indicators of maternal health and rights in Uganda and the complex social, political, legal, and sociocultural factors that influence maternal health in a developing nation. This report will contribute to understanding of the current issues impacting maternal health, and will culminate with recommendations for appropriate policies and advised programmatic response to improve maternal health in Uganda, with implications for the Sub-Saharan African region and


The essay focuses on the transformation of the concept of care resulting from transnational mothers' migration; migration that helped to change traditional family relationships and, more than anything else, to change the relationships between genders, and generations. At the same time, the migration process contributes to transform the concept of care and of the principles the system of welfare is based on, that, now, seem to be unable to respond to the social needs and care demands of the so-called "dependency workers". The vulnerable condition of these women calls into question the social and educational institutions, which must commit themselves to promoting reflection on the link between power, emotion, and responsibility.


ABSTRACT This article explores the significance of the café in Wyndham Lewis's first published novel, Tarr (1918). Charting the importance of the space upon Lewis's formative life as a student in Europe and later among his literary peers, it proposes that Lewis has an idealised conception of the café, which stems from the legacy of the coffeehouses of the seventeenth and eighteenth century and the Russian tavern from Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (1880). By comparing these ideals against the contemporary milieu in which Lewis found himself, we gain greater insight into the rhetorical intentions for the novel, such as the assault on bourgeois-bohemian café culture, as well as ultimately discovering that Lewis's conception of the café has a fundamental role in the construction and form of the novel itself.


The performance of burst-by-burst adaptive modulation is studied in conjunction with reduced complexity turbo equalization over a wideband multi-path Rayleigh fading channel. By employing the reduced complexity turbo equalizer, higher-order modulation modes such as 64-level Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (64-QAM) can be invoked, than upon using the conventional turbo equalizer. The structure of the reduced complexity turbo equalizer was also exploited in order to invoke an iterative least mean square channel estimator. Finally, the performance of the adaptive modulation scheme was compared to that of its constituent modulation modes and a signal-to-noise ratio gain of 1.0dB to 1.5dB was recorded for the throughput range of 0.5 to 2.0 bits/symbol.


The future and development of children would be really depends on experience they have got, include the education and different kinds of parents care pattern that consist of democratic, permissive, and authoritarian care pattern. The social ability is not just intelligences and capabilities but also social adaptabilities, social skills, and social acceptance. The mistakes in social adaptation have a consequence that the children could not adapt well, even in social way or personal way. The aim of this research is to know the correlation of parent's care pattern with social ability preschool children in Pertiwi Kindergarten North Purwokerto.The method was analytic correlation with cross sectional approximation. The population in this research was 324 people include every parent and every student in Pertiwi Kindergarten North Purwokerto. The sample of this research was 76 respondents as long as the research from October until November 2008, inclusion and exclusion qualified. Data analysis method with Chi Square. The univariate analysis showed 25 % with authoritarian care pattern, 30,3 % with permissive care pattern, and 44,7% parents with democratic care pattern. The analysis in children social ability showed 42,1 % substantial, 26,3 % moderate, and 31,6 % have limited social ability. The children with authoritarian care pattern have 5,3 % children with substantial social ability, 36,8 % moderate, and 57,9 % children with limited social ability. The children with permissive care pattern have 17,4 % substantial, 43,5 % moderate, and 39,1 % children with limited social ability. The children with democratic care pattern have 79,4 % children with substantial social ability, 8,8 % moderate, and 11, 8 % children with limited social ability. The bivariat analysis of correlation between the parents care pattern to social ability in preschool children with p < 0,05 show that there is significant correlation the parent's care pattern with social ability preschool children in Pertiwi Kindergarten North Purwokerto with p = 0,000. There is significant correlation between the parent's care pattern with social ability preschool children in Pertiwi Kindergarten North Purwokerto (p = 0,000).


In this paper, we propose a speech enhancement method based on non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) techniques. NMF techniques allow us to approximate the power spectral density (PSD) of the noisy signal as a weighted linear combination of trained speech and noise basis vectors arranged as the columns of a matrix. In this work, we propose to use basis vectors that are parameterised by autoregressive (AR) coefficients. Parametric representation of the spectral basis is beneficial as it can encompass the signal characteristics like, e.g. the speech production model. It is observed that the parametric representation of basis vectors is beneficial while performing online speech enhancement in low delay scenarios.


Starting from the connotation of safety culture construction in coal enterprises,the paper describes the relationship between the ideological and political work and the safety culture construction in coal enterprises,and how to make an effective use of the ideological and political work to promote the construction of safety culture in enterprises.


Through searching CBMdics and SCI databases, this paper makes the bibliometric analysis on the publishing years, authors and periodicals of the sci-tech papers published by the staffs of Shenzhen Peoples Hospital.


This paper represents the process of fabrication of individual nanotube and nanowire electrical devices exploiting the technique of microfabrication.We realized the fabrication of nanodevices with several nanometer intervals between the electrodes,which provides the probability of performing the electron transport measurements of nanodevices of individual nanotubes and nanowires.


This paper summarizes the effort to improve the operation of the ∼1. A surface‐production H− ion source developed by K.W. Ehlers and K.N. Leung. The plasma chamber consists of a large magnetic bucket of oval cross section (Fig. 1). A concave cylindrical ''converter'' surface is suspended in the plasma chamber to direct any surface‐produced negative ions through the exit aperture. The ion source has been mated to a tetrode accelerator for the ''proof‐of‐principle'' tests. Most of the problems discovered in the tests were associated with difficulties in controlling the production process. This paper describes the plasma chamber in greater detail and illustrates the quality of the present ion production. The acceleration difficulties have been deferred until a better test‐stand is completed.


The removal of Saddam's dictatorship from its all-pervasive seat of power in Baghdad proved to be a quick and reasonably "clean' affair for the Coalition of the Willing.~ However, the clinical removal of Saddam's insidious regime has not been followed by an equally efficient transition of authority and the creation of institutions capable of adequately governing Iraq in an interim period of an undetermined length. Indeed, far from matching the quick and clean "Part I' of regime change (removing Saddam), "Part II' (replacing Saddam) promises to be a rather slow affair, punctuated by moments of potentially perilous instability.. It would appear that there are contradictory forces in play with regard to the future development of Iraq. On the one hand, there is a US-initiated desire to see political reconstruction, implying that the political structures and mechanics of the Iraqi state are to be created anew. Conversely, an indigenous dynamic has emerged which is characterized by the political resurrection of old socio-political forces, whereby the enduring political and social features of the state are being re-assembled to form a new Iraq. z If the multitude of papers and analyses produced by the US government and associated think-tanks are considered, in addition to the edifice of academic and media speculation that has been generated regarding 'the future of Iraq" it can be seen that 'reconstruction' in its truest form i.e. starting anew was, and remains, a fundamental policy aim of the neo-


The present invention relates to an intumescent fire retardant, in particular to a set carbon source, an acid source, a boron-containing gas from one of the new "Three" intumescent flame retardant, the boron-containing intumescent flame retardant is melamine acid phosphates, the boron-containing intumescent flame retardant of the formula C3N6H6 (H3BO3) m (H3PO4) n, wherein, 2≥n≥1,4≥m≥3. Acid obtained by reacting melamine with a melamine borate, melamine borate by reaction with phosphoric acid is made according to the present invention, the boron-containing "Three" Preparation intumescent flame retardant efficiency, simplicity, lower production costs and ease of industrial implementation.


Xylan extraction from corncob was done using alkaline as a solvent. Xylan extraction from corncob yielded 10.9%. One percent of corncob xylan was used as a substrate to produce the xylanase, as comparison, oatspelt xylan was used. Immobilization of xylanase was performed using 1% Eudragit TM S100 solution (w/v), with 5:1 volume ratio of xylanase. Activity of the immobilized xylanase decreased to 23.97% compared with free xylanase. Immobilized xylanase had optimum pH of 6.0, and temperature at 40


The aims of the research are to find out whether the requirement in Act No 5 Year 1999
concerning Exclusion of Monopoly Practice and Unhealthy Business Rivalry has protected minor business, and effort can be carried out in law protection for minor business subject toward retail modern market growth especially in Sleman District of Yogyakarta.
This research is normative juridical, means that this research based on secondary data,
primary data, and tertiary data. Secondary data obtained through literature research while primary data found from field research. Field research is conducted by interview while to get secondary data carried out by documentary study. Then this research result analyzed qualitatively that is the data found from respondent by written or verbal notices and also the real behavior and researched and learned as the complete work.
This research finding shows that requirement in Act No 5 Year 1999 concerning
Exclusion of Monopoly Practice and Unhealthy Business Rivalry is not found the direct
requirement which aim to minor business protection, however several requirements which support the minor business protection are: a. consideration, in line with Chapter 33 of 1945 constitution, that is economical democratic and No 5 Year 1999 which in essential


The main route for copper excretion in mammals is via the bile, little exiting through urine. In Wilson disease, biliary excretion is prevented by lack of an active form of ATP7B, which permits copper entry into bile. This leads to copper accumulation and severe liver toxicosis. Dogs tend to have the same problem, with much higher liver copper levels than other mammals. Many die of liver copper toxicosis. As in Wilson disease, Atp7b‐/‐ mice excrete high levels of copper in urine. Excretion is in the form of a 1.5 kDa SCC. We now have evidence that the same SCC exists in the blood plasma of humans, mice and dogs. Normally, it is bound to larger proteins, but large amounts of free SCC occur in the plasma of Atp7b‐/‐ mice, and in some dogs. SCC can be released from larger proteins by EDTA and accounts for ~10% of the total copper in human plasma. SCC is also released by EDTA in plasma from dogs and mice, including those with "free" SCC. FPLC‐SEC preliminary data suggest SCC is riding on proteins >200kDa. Dog ceruloplasmin is also unusual, eluting as a much larger protein, although of normal size in SDS‐PAGE. We conclude that SCC may offer an alternative route for copper excretion that can be mobilized in some mammals in response to liver copper accumulation, and that the study of dog plasma may reveal additional information about copper metabolism not detected as easily in other species.


This paper focuses on a comparison between displacement-based and force-based elements for static and dynamic response sensitivity analysis of frame type structures. Previous research has shown that force-based frame elements are superior to classical displacement-based elements enabling, at no significant additional computational costs, a drastic reduction in the number of elements required for a given level of accuracy in the simulated response. The present work shows that this advantage of force-based over displacement-based elements is even more conspicu-ous in the context of gradient-based optimization methods, which are used in several structural engineering sub-fields (e.g., structural optimization, structural reliability analysis, finite element model updating) and which require accurate and efficient computation of structural response and response sensitivities to material and loading parameters. The two methodologies for displacement-based and force-based element sensitivity computations are compared. Three application examples are presented to illustrate the conclusions. Material-only nonlinearity is considered. Significant benefits are found in using force-based frame element models for both response and response sensitivity analysis in terms of trade-off between accuracy and computational cost.


User-centric dynamic base station (BS) clustering can efficiently avoid cell edge effect, which results in overlapped clusters and introduces the tremendous complexity in beamforming optimizations. However, existing works mainly focus on addressing the problem in a centralized manner with the assumption that channel state information (CSI) is perfectly known at the central controller, which is not practical in real-world systems. In this paper, a distributed user-centric clustering and beamforming design for sum-rate maximization is proposed, where the optimization problem is split by introducing interference pricing and solved subsequently in the anchor of each cluster. In particular, based on interference pricing, the problem is decomposed into parallel subproblems by decoupling interference constraints and power constraints, where beamforming matrices are optimized by standard iterative minimization of mean square error; moreover, in case that beamforming matrices calculated at the anchor could be outdated before delivered to the cooperating BSs, a novel solution of joint transmission (JT) is proposed to avoid the degradation of performance. Simulation results demonstrate the performance gain in terms of sum rate and 5%-tile user throughput compared to BS-centric and centralized schemes; besides, the impacts of rate constraints are also studied in this paper.


Recent paleobotanical studies on petrified woods revealed valuable information about the Miocene-period trees of Turkey. The purpose of this study is to present new descriptions from the Pliocene of central Anatolia. The materials were collected from a new fossil site of Pliocene age in the village of Yiprak (Cerkes, Cankiri, Turkey) in central northern Turkey. With this study, a new fossil genus, Cercioxylon U. Akkemik, related to modern Cercis L., and a new fossil species of Cupressinoxylon were described, and a long presence of taxodioid type trees from the late Oligocene to Pliocene of Turkey were discussed. The wood composition showed that the area had a lowland riparian forest type composed of Taxodioxylon, with lowland semidry vegetation composed of Cercioxylon and Cupressinoxylon. This type of vegetation, excluding the presence of Taxodioxylon, is rather similar to modern vegetation in the Mediterranean region.


The article presents SME restructuring management solutions aimed at divergent and sustained competitive performance, specifying measures for rationalizing management functions, also SME product characteristics with regard to the SME strategy efficiency, as well as controlling restructuring process and assessing influence of its results on SME competitiveness. Based on the outcome of empirical investigations of SME restructuring in the EU over the last decade, underlining its specifics and complexity, the paper reveals the benefit of use of the proposed measures specifying relevant techniques and actions. Results of their application in practice also confirm the prevailing flexibility when applying the solutions in question whereas the latter can be adjusted to the specifics of SME and its business environment. While leading to greater possibilities to rationalize restructuring process, the measures proposed by the author also provides an SME with prerequisites to improve the use and development of human, material and financial potentials with pivotal contribution to its sustained competitiveness even in a changing business environment.


Objective To investigate and compare the therapeutic effect of burst mode and continuous mode in the phacoemulsification of hard nucleus cataract..Methods Sixty cases of hard nuclear cataract(69 eyes) were randomly divided into continuous energy mode group(31 cases) and burst mode group(38 cases).The actual time and average energy of phacoemulsification in both groups were recorded.The best correction vision of operated eyes,edema level of cornea and surgery complications was compared on 1,3 and 7 days after operation.Results The time and average energy in the burst mode group were much less than that in the continuous mode group,and the difference had statistics significance(P0.05);The difference in the rate of posterior capsule rupture in the operation was not significant between the two groups(P0.05);The postoperative best corrected visual acuity on day 1 and 3 in the burst mode group was better than that in the continuous energy mode group(P0.05);The incidence of corneal edema in the burst mode group was obvious lower than that in the continuous mode group(P0.05).Conclusion The burst mode group in phacoemulsification of hard nucleus cataract can obviously decrease the energy and time,reduce the incidence of corneal edema,is more safe and effective in clinical use.


In this communication, we report experimental dissociation conditions for clathrate hydrates of methane + carbon dioxide + hydrogen sulfide in liquid water—hydrate-vapor equilibrium. The dissociation temperatures and pressures are in the ranges of 273.9–288.25 K and 0.316–1.94 MPa, respectively. Concentrations of methane, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen sulfide in the feed gas also varied. To perform the measurements, an isochoric pressure-search method was used. The dissociation data obtained in the present work are compared with the predictions of a thermodynamic model (HWHYD version 1.1). A discussion on the deviations between the experimental and predicted data is made. It is argued that the model parameters should be re-adjusted for the systems containing carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide.


The tessellated darter (Etheostoma olmstedi) and the green-sided darter (Etheostoma blennioides) are native to North America east of the Rocky Mountains. The darters usually live on the bottoms of fast-flowing streams and feed on small animals and fish eggs. The darters under study were collected in the Juniata River in Huntingdon, PA. We tested whether niche partitioning occurs between these closely related sympatric species. Significant differences in substrate preference were observed between these two species. Tessellated darters (Etheostoma olmstedi) appear to prefer small gravel and the green-sided darters (Etheostoma blennioides) appear to prefer large, flat rocks. The data demonstrates that niche partitioning occurs within the genus Etheostoma.


In large sample observational studies, the control population often greatly outnumbers the treatment population. Typical practice is to match several control observations to a single treated observation, with the goal of reducing variability of the resulting treatment effect estimate. However, increasing the control to treated ratio yields diminishing returns in terms of variance reduction and in practice leads to poorer quality matches. In line with Rosenbaum's argument on the importance of reducing heterogeneity to strengthen causal inference against unobserved bias, we suggest first expending some of the controls to fit a prognostic model, then matching with the resulting prognostic score to produce matched sets with lower heterogeneity. We propose methodological alternatives for fitting the prognostic model that help avoid concerns of overfitting and extrapolation, then we demonstrate in a simulation setting how this alternative use of the control observations can lead to gains in terms of both treatment effect estimation and design sensitivity.


An 18-month-old boy suffering from pain and swelling of the right leg and fever, all of which developed following chickenpox infection, was referred to our hospital. His peripheral blood white blood cell count and CRP were elevated to 19,630 /μl and 9.87 mg/dl, respectively. Streptococcal antigen was detected on the throat swab. T2-weighted magnetic resonance images demonstrated high intensity signal in the fascia on his right leg, suggesting a diagnosis of necrotizing fasciitis(NF). Upon exploratory incision, surgical debridement and fasciotomy were performed on his leg. After surgery, pain and swelling of the leg and fever disappeared swiftly following antibiotics infusion. Two months postoperatively, he could walk without any impediment. Although NF is generally characterized by rapidly spreading necrosis and a high mortality rate, early diagnosis of NF with MRI followed by timely surgical intervention led to quick recovery of our patient without any major complications.


Methods of usual and thin preparation, disbundling and cross -cuts, had been studied the morphological features of the structure and topography of the sympathetic trunk at the mink. The interrelation of sympathetic ganglia with spinal and vagus nerves are established.


A method for fermentation of lactic acid from a sugar containing fermentation liquid in a fermentor by means of lactic acid-forming bacteria; in Which Whey protein is present or is added as a nutrient substrate for the lactic acid-forming bacteria; Wherein at least one protease is added to the fermentor during the fermentation; so that hydrolysis of protein to amino acids takes place simultaneously With the fermentation of sugar into organic acid; and Wherein lactic acid resulting from the fermentation is isolated from the fermentation liquid. Ammonia is preferably added to result in the formation of ammonium lactate; and lactic acid is preferably isolated by a process comprising ultra ?ltration; ion exchange; conventional electrodialysis and electrodialy sis With bipolar membranes.


Maps, Tables, and Photos Preface 1. Introduction 2. Hartford: The City and Its Politics 3. Puerto Ricans in Hartford: From Settlement to Collective Behavior 4. From Collective Behavior to Brokered Representation 5. From Brokered Representation to Political Mobilization 6. Identity Politics: The Puerto Rican Political Action Committee of Connecticut 7. Identity and Power 8. Puerto Rican Politics and the Challenge of Ethnicity Notes Select Bibliography Index


Abstract Home-school partnerships for adolescents should extend beyond a focus on school performance issues to a broader set of common concerns for parents and teachers, including helping students forge a positive, constructive identity. After providing an overview of key elements in adolescent identity development, we highlight five critical development needs that comprise essential aspects of positive identities: appreciation, belonging, confidence, competencies, and contribution. Then we describe four co-occurring processes-love and caring, laughter, limits, and linkages-that must be kept in balance in order for these outcomes to be achieved. Families and school personnel can keep these processes in balance when both sets of partners work together, each from their own vantage points and strengths. Specific examples of contexts that lend themselves to home-school partnerships include: academics, routine parent-school interactions, everyday parent-child interactions at home, and lifestyle habits. We offer recommendations about ways educators and parents can collaborate with each other in these contexts to benefit young people. As each group reaches out effectively to the other, new contexts for partnership are likely to be forged, and the challenge to find new and lasting pathways for home-school partnership is likely to be met. Key Words: school family partnerships, home school relations, parent involvement, adolescents, adolescence, identity formation Introduction In a thoughtful compendium, Christenson and Conoley (1992) compiled advice and information about home-school collaboration that is as relevant today as when it was published. Among the findings were some that are relevant to understanding what happens as children move into adolescence, a critical developmental period. Christenson, Rounds, and Franklin (1992) reaffirmed the long-standing observation that parents' involvement falls off dramatically when students enter secondary school; the decline actually seems to begin around fourth grade. This occurs in spite of the fact that students are moving toward coursework and schoollinked experiences that are relevant to their career paths, future educational plans, and health risk behaviors such as smoking, substance use, dangerous driving, and poor eating, sleeping, and other lifestyle patterns. Although parents are less involved in their adolescents' education, they remain generally positive about the job secondary schools are doing. While many parents would like to have better and more frequent communication, and more personalized, less "business-oriented" contact with teachers and other educators, they also recognize that, especially in middle and high schools, the numbers work against that. Most parents trust that schools are doing a good job and that teachers know what they are doing. Thus, one reading of the data would be that reduced parent involvement is not necessarily a cause for concern. Christenson and Conoley (1992) provided chapters that addressed numerous areas with which schools need to be concerned. These included improvements in the following: problem behaviors; homework completion; overall school discipline; divorce and bereavement; child sexual abuse; parents' relationships with school professionals; and the adaptations necessary as schools address various mixtures and changes in culture, race, ethnicity, diverse family structures, and socioeconomic levels. This list was created before the recent focus on school violence and the complex sequel of September 11, 2001, including continuing concerns and actions related to national security and anti-terrorism abroad. In a concluding chapter, Epstein (1992) pointed out that studies of how parents and schools might work better together in each of these challenging areas, while helpful, are misleading. Programs and efforts may be directed at any one of them, but they occur in multiples in schools. Epstein issued a call for reconceptualization of how schools are organized, especially with regard to school services, communications, contacts, and relationships with parents. …


The paper aims to trace some features of Psychedelic art, as a form of visual art in Judith Thompson's play Lion in the Street (1990). These characteristics are explored against the backdrop of C. G. Jung's theory of Individuation.Psychedelic art corresponds to the analysis of the play as it explores the thoughts about personalized perceptions and tries to reflect them. In other words, it is a way to externalize the internal feelings stored in the unconscious.The core of Jungian theory is "to experience the unconscious with its vital imagery, affective power and strong spiritual quality" (Martin, p. 257). The purpose of Jung's Individuation process is to increase the individual's consciousness to heal the splits between the conscious and the unconscious, bringing them to wholeness to overcome the trauma of the individual's psyche. The three stages of Individuation: Personal Unconscious, Shadow (Anima/Animus), and Self, are employed to analyze the characters process of moving from the unconscious to the conscious to reach a new realm of consciousness that boosts wholeness and freedom.Judith Thompson (1954- ) is a renow


From its birth to the present day, American English has gone through a period of nearly four hundred years, its growth being mainly characterized by the process from small to big, weak to strong. American English is now fast becoming a world language. The current paper, based on adequate facts and evidence, expounds and studies the past, the present and the future of American English. The thesis is made up of four parts, dealing mainly with the origin, rise, growth, popularity and the future of American English. It is good and useful for us to understand and study American English.


Data integrity is a basic requirement of Relational database.It elaborate how to make it come true by using a score management system in VFP programming environment as an example.


A novel method to prepare spherical cellulose nanoparticles has been developed using imidazolium ionic liquid processing and regeneration from controlled acetonitrile nonsolvent addition and drying. Nanoparticles ranging from 100 to 400 nm have been prepared with high uniformity. Minimisation of moisture via solvent exchange drying led to discrete nanoparticles, whereas the presence of ambient moisture during regeneration contributed to aggregated morphologies. Chemical analyses of the spherical cellulose nanoparticles reveal a high-amorphous cellulose content. Furthermore, the range of particle sizes achieved with acetonitrile nonsolvent fractionation and solvent exchange drying suggest the size and uniformity of nanoparticle distributions reflect the fractionated cellulose weight fractions. This ionic liquid method is simple, energy efficient, and likely to have wide applicability across other biopolymers as well as potential to prepare surface functionalized spherical cellulose nanoparticles.


Background: Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are regarded as one of the most widely prescribed medications for pain relief, treatment of rheumatic diseases and even available as over-thecounter medicine. Aims: Compared to the well-recognized adverse effects in upper gastrointestinal tract, the effect of such medication in colon, so called NSAID-colopathy, is increasingly described. The aim of the case series is to describe clinical presentation of NSAID-induced colopathy. Methods: Here, we present six cases with NSAID colopathy to highlight the clinical presentation and importance. Results: Our six cases of NSAIDinduced colopathy presented different symptoms. Two patients consulted our clinic for abdominal pain, two because of diarrhea, one because of blood in stool, and one presented with anemia. Conclusion: NSAIDinduced colopathy is an important entity of which gastroenterologists should be well aware. Based on the fact that the clinical presentations vary strongly, the diagnosis is done with a delay.


Many dynamic revenue management models divide the sale period into a finite number of periods T and assume, invoking a fine-enough grid of time, that each period sees at most one booking request. These Poisson-type assumptions restrict the variability of the demand in the model, but researchers and practitioners were willing to overlook this for the benefit of tractability of the models. In this paper, we criticize this model from another angle. Estimating the discrete finite-period model poses problems of indeterminacy and non-robustness: Arbitrarily fixing T leads to arbitrary control values and on the other hand estimating T from data adds an additional layer of indeterminacy. To counter this, we first propose an alternate finite-population model that avoids this problem of fixing T and allows a wider range of demand distributions, while retaining the useful marginal-value properties of the finite-period model. The finite-population model still requires jointly estimating market size and the parameters of the customer purchase model without observing no-purchases. Estimation of market-size when no-purchases are unobservable has rarely been attempted in the marketing or revenue management literature. Indeed, we point out that it is akin to the classical statistical problem of estimating the parameters of a binomial distribution with unknown population size and success probability, and hence likely to be challenging. However, when the purchase probabilities are given by a functional form such as a multinomial-logit model, we propose an estimation heuristic that exploits the specification of the functional form, the variety of the offer sets in a typical RM setting, and qualitative knowledge of arrival rates. Finally we perform simulations to show that the estimator is very promising in obtaining unbiased estimates of population size and the model parameters.


EPA's TEAM Study has measured exposures to 20 volatile organic compounds in personal air, outdoor air, drinking water, and breath of 600 residents of New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, and California. All participants were selected by a probability sampling scheme to represent a total of 700,000 inhabitants of seven cities. Participants carried a personal monitor to collect two 12‐hour air samples and gave a breath sample at the end of the day. Two consecutive 12‐hour outdoor air samples were also collected on identical Tenax cartridges in the backyards of some of the participants. About 7500 samples were collected, of which 2000 were quality control samples. Eleven compounds were often present in air. Personal exposures were consistently higher than outdoor concentrations. Indoor sources appeared responsible for much of the difference. Breath concentrations also usually exceeded outdoor concentrations, and correlated more strongly with personal exposures than with outdoor concentrations. Some acti...


Ordering configurations of a director field on a curved membrane induce stress. In this work, we present a theoretical framework to calculate the stress tensor and the torque as a consequence of the nematic ordering; we use the variational principle and invariance of the energy under Euclidean motions. Euler-Lagrange equations of the membrane as well as the corresponding boundary conditions also appear as natural results. The stress tensor found includes forces of attraction-repulsion between defects; likewise, defects are attracted(repelled) to patches with the same sign (opposite) of gaussian curvature. These forces are mediated by the Green function of Laplace-Beltrami operator of the surface. In addition, we find non-isotropic forces that involve derivatives of the Green function and the gaussian curvature, even in the normal direction to the membrane. We examine the case of axial membranes to analyse the spherical one. For the sphere, we find the Young-Laplace law and how the nematic texture, with $+1$ defect at the poles, modifies the surface tension respect to soap bubbles. In the case of spherical cap with defect at the north pole, we find that the force is repulsive respect to the north pole, indicating that it is an unstable equilibrium point.


Relevance analysis of volume of passengers transported by public transit is of great significance for analysing quantitatively each relevant function, making the public transit planning, improving management level and service quality of public transit enterprise, and solving "the bus-riding difficulty" in China's large cities. With the relevance analysis, we know the first three factors affecting passengers transported by public transit in China's cities are the total mileages travelled by buses yearly, the total number of buses and ships, and the total length of bus routes.


Summary form only given. Spatially-resolved and spatially-integrated X-ray spectral data and time-integrated and time-resolved pinhole X-ray images accumulated from Cu wire arrays and X-pinch experiments on the "Zebra" generator have been analyzed. In particular, Cu wire arrays were investigated with different number of wires and load sizes, and Cu X-pinches implemented with two and four wires with several diameters have been considered. Cu wire arrays were composed from both pure Cu wires and Cu alloys with 4% of Ni. Non-LTE kinetic models of Cu and Ni have been applied to account for the L-shell and K-shell radiation from the Cu and Ni ions. The advantage of using Cu alloys with a small percentage of Ni for diagnostics of Cu wire arrays will be illustrated. The resulting plasma parameters from modeling the Cu wire arrays and X-pinches will be discussed


The spin relaxation process of acceptor-bound excitons in wurtzite GaN is observed by spin-dependent pump and probe reflectance measurement with subpicosecond time resolution. The time evolutions measured at 15–50K have a single exponential component corresponding to the electron spin relaxation time of 1.40–1.14ps. The spin relaxation time is found to be proportional to T−0.175, where T is the temperature. This weak temperature dependence indicates that the main spin relaxation mechanism is the Bir-Aronov-Pikus process [Sov. Phys. JETP 42, 705 (1976)].


The invention relates to a block chain trading based authority control method and system. The block chain trading based authority control method comprises the steps of establishing an authority processing system for each node of a block chain network and deploying an intelligent agreement; if an issuing party has encrypted to-be-trade information for decrypting and authorizing at least an authorized party, obtaining public encryption and decryption parameters corresponding to each authorized party by the authority processing system on the issuing node, encrypting a key of the encrypted to-be-traded information through confidential parameters corresponding to the authorized party, and issuing the public encryption and decryption parameters and the confidential parameters in the block chain network by utilizing the intelligent agreement; issuing the to-be-traded information to each node of the block chain network through the intelligent agreement by the authority processing system of the issuing node; and after the authorized node receives the to-be-traded information, decrypting the key of the to-be-traded information by utilizing the decryption parameters by the authority processing system, and decrypting the to-be-traded information based on the decrypted key and the public encryption and decryption parameters. The block chain trading based authority control method and system can efficiently control affair processing authority in the block chain network.


Buenoa penta sp. n. and Buenoa analoga sp. n., are described from Tumaco municipality on the Pacific coast of the Department of Narino. A key to species of Buenoa in Colombia is given.


Atmospheric CO2 measurements are important in understanding the global carbon cycle and in studying local sources and sinks. Ground and satellite-based measurements provide information on different temporal and spatial scales. However, the compatibility of such measurements at single sites is still underexplored, and the applicability of consistent data processing routines remains a challenge. In this study, we present an inter-comparison among representative surface and column-averaged CO2 records derived from continuous in-situ measurements, ground-based Fourier transform infrared measurements, satellite measurements, and modeled results over the Mount Zugspitze region of Germany. The mean annual growth rates agree well with around 2.2 ppm yr−1 over a 17-year period (2002–2018), while the mean seasonal amplitudes show distinct differences (surface: 11.7 ppm/column-averaged: 6.6 ppm) due to differing air masses. We were able to demonstrate that, by using consistent data processing routines with proper data retrieval and gap interpolation algorithms, the trend and seasonality can be well extracted from all measurement data sets.


The use of literary texts in the EFL/ESL classroom is, now-a-days, a very common and popular issue. The EFL/ESL teachers use literary texts in the classroom for various reasons and purposes. For example, literary texts serve as authentic materials that not only give the students the opportunity to deal with the authentic language use, but also help teachers to construct authentic language activities. They also encourage and motivate students to participate in the classroom activities by providing interesting content. In addition, literary texts offer varieties of language use, different types of language patterns and structures, and multiple layers of meaning along with a wide range of vocabulary. Unlike the texts of the course-books that use referential languagea language that 'communicates on only one level, usually in terms of information being sought or given' (McRae, 1991) [1] , literary texts use representational language that occupies the learners' imagination, and develops their ability to think in the target language which is considered to be a very important skill for language learning. The importance of using literary texts in the classroom can also be perceived in the following quote: "By constructing with the literary text a reality different from that of texts of information, students are given access to a world of attitudes, and values, collective imaginings and historical frames of reference that constitute the memory of a people or speech community" (Kramsch, 1993 quoted by Gray, 2005) [2] .


Background: Lectures are still the main stay of teaching, particularly in medical colleges in view of the fact that the sizes of the classes are increasing day by day, and there is a dearth of teachers to care them in small batches. Therefore, new researches are necessary to improve lecture outcome and to make the lectures more useful. A new method of improving lecture outcome in the Physiology Department of MGM Medical College, Bihar, India, has been studied. In this method, a short questionnaire is given before and after the lecture on the lecture topic.

Objective: To identify effective teaching methods for the large class environment.

Materials and Methods: The whole class of first-year students was divided into two equal batches randomly. In the first batch, a short multiple choice questionnaire was given at the beginning of the lecture covering the lecture topic. The same questionnaire was given to both the batches at the end of the lecture. Then, the results were compared.

Results: The result showed that there was a significant improvement in lecture outcome in the batch that was given a prelecture test. The difference was statistically significant. The average marks obtained by the students in initial examination of all the 6 days of the first batch were only 4.87 � 1.48 of 20. At the end of the class, the marks improved notably in that batch, which was, on average, 15.40 � 2.50 of 20. However, the second batch, which received only one final examination, received average marks 10.10 � 2.12 of 20, which was higher than the initial examination of the first batch but significantly lower than the final examination results of the first batch (p < 0.005).

Conclusion: This small experiment within the limited background proves that a short pretest on the lecture topic before lecture improves the lecture outcome. However, more elaborate experiments on a greater number of people with more convincing randomization are required to achieve a definite conclusion.


Background To identify the differential tuberculosis (TB) characteristics within the immigrant population with respect to natives in Spain. Methodology/Principal Findings A prospective cohort study design was implemented to examine the TB cases diagnosed and starting standard antituberculous treatment in Spain, between January 1st 2006 and March 31st 2007. A logistic regression analysis was performed to determine differential characteristics. 1,490 patients were included in the study population, 1,048 natives and 442 (29.7%) immigrants. According to the multivariate analysis, the following variables were significantly associated with immigrant TB cases: younger age (OR = 3.79; CI:2.16–6.62), living in group situation (OR = 7.61; CI:3.38–12.12), lower frequency of disabled (OR:0.08; CI:0.02–0.26) and retired (OR:0.21; CI:0.09–0.48) employment status, lower frequency of pulmonary disease presentation (OR = 0.47; CI:0.24–0.92), primary or emergency care admission (OR = 1.80; CI:1.05–3.06 and OR = 2.16; CI:1.36–3.45), drug resistance (OR = 1.86; CI:1.01–3.46), treatment default (OR:2.12; CI:1.18–3.81), lower frequency of alcohol and cigarette consumption (OR = 2.10; CI:1.42–3.11 and OR = 2.85; CI:2.10–3.87 respectively), more directly observed treatment (OR = 1.68; CI:1.04–2.69), and poor understanding of TB disease and its treatment (OR = 3.11; CI:1.86–5.20). The low percentage of primary MDR-TB in the native population (0.1% vs. 2.2% of immigrants) should be noted. Conclusions/Significance The differences show the need to introduce specific strategies in the management of TB within the immigrant population, including the improvement of social and work conditions.


A variety of studies have shown that the lateral hypothalamus (LH) participates in controlling breathing. The LH also contains many neurons that each produce one of two peptides that modulate homeostasis and emotional states: orexin and melanin concentrating hormone (MCH). The present study tested the hypothesis that hypothalamic neurons that influence diaphragm activity contain either orexin or MCH. For this purpose, rabies virus was injected into the diaphragm of cats to transneuronally infect hypothalamic neurons with multisynaptic connections to phrenic motoneurons; immunohistochemistry was performed to dual‐localize rabies and either orexin or MCH. In animals with early rabies infection of LH, a large fraction of the infected hypothalamic neurons contained orexin: 19–75%, median of 30%. However, in animals with advanced infections where rabies had passed through additional synapses, only 8–10% of the infected cells were orexinergic. In contrast, just 6–33% (median 11%) of the early‐infected LH neurons were immunopositive for both MCH and rabies. These data show that an appreciable number of LH neurons with the most direct influences on diaphragm activity contain either orexin or MCH, although most of these cells are orexinergic. These findings therefore suggest that orexins play a central role in conveying signals from the diencephalon to brainstem and spinal regions that regulate breathing.


The article reviews quantitative as well as qualitative research on grammatical learning at school in the context of L1 education in German-speaking regions. One of the specifics of this research is that its focus has been not on the effects of grammar learning on reading and writing outcomes but instead on the quality of the knowledge which is gained. Research results are reported with respect to five areas: (1) interventions aimed at promoting grammar knowledge; (2) interventions aimed at fostering linguistic skills; (3) observational studies; (4) large-scale studies; and (5) classroom discourse in grammar lessons. In its conclusion, the article points to issues pertinent to future research. They include measuring the extent to which students access syntactic features directly, without having them explain these features verbally, as well as conceiving of instructional methods to make sure that students gain continued access to syntactic information.


The fundamental thermodynamic relations governing the behavior of a fluid phase residing within the interstices of a porous solid phase are reviewed. The relationships are applied to the problem of electrolyte distribution among the components of the molten carbonate fuel cell. This distribution is of paramount importance in determining cell electrochemical performance. In addition, the function of the electrolyte structure, or ''tile,'' as a gas impermeable partition between the anode and cathode environment is considered. 6 refs.


We consider a market with concentrated domestic buyers and concentrated foreign sellers and explore the extent to which domestic regulation helps to increase the buyers' countervailing power against the foreign sellers. We use the Shapley value to describe the distribution of the trade surplus and market power in this bilateral oligopoly. With the EU natural gas market in mind, we consider how a regulator (the EU) can use import quotas and encourage supply diversification to strengthen the buyers' power and increase their surplus. We find that buyers can benefit from bilateral but not aggregate trade restrictions. Those who invest in supply diversification gain, with other buyers enjoying positive externalities; sellers lose profits and power. Thus we provide a rationale for the current EU support for importers' investment plans.


Immobilisation of spent clinoptilolite was carried out in a monolithic glass composite wasteform (GCM) produced by pressureless sintering at 750°Cfor 2 h. Different loadings of simulated spent clinoptilolite (Cs-clino) were studied with glass to Cs-clino volume) ratios ranging from 1:1 to 1: 10 (37-88 mass% waste loading). The GCMs produced were characterised using the scanning electron microscopy (SEM), x-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) analysis. The wasteform durability was assessed by leaching in deionised water at 40°Cfor 7 days. The microstructure of GCMs with up to 73 mass% loading consists of clinoptilolite particles and other crystalline phases (wollastonite, sodalite caesium aluminium silicate and caesium chloride) encapsulated in a glass matrix. The glass matrix also acts as a host capturing the mobile Cs radionuclide. This ensures that the GCM has good leach resistance with a normalied leaching rate for Cs of below 6·35x10 -6 g/cm 2 day. At a high waste loading of >80 mass% Cs-clino, there is insufficient glass matrix to fully encapsulate the clinoptilolite particles. This reduces the GCM leach resistance giving a normalised leaching rate for Cs greater than 9·06x10 -4 g/cm 2 day.


IntroductionBusiness process offshoring has been growing worldwide in the last few years (Tamayo, Huergo, 2015) and the rapid development of this industry has been visible in Poland and other Central European countries (ABSL, 2016). It has impacted the regional economy's spatial organization which has drastically changed in recent decades (Ledyaeva et al., 2015). Every foreign direct investment (FDI) has significant impact on the economic geography of global political and financial networks (Haberly, Wojcik, 2015). The rapid growth of foreign investments in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Shared Services Centres (SSC), Research and Development (RD public support; EU standards and stable economy (PAIiIZ, PwC, 2012). Arising from the growing organizational and technological ability to coordinate a relocated set of operational tasks, offshore service transfers enabled many firms to integrate their business processes into a global web of activities (Levy, 2005). There are various factors that can facilitate such multinational corporate transformations, through which many companies can achieve lower cost structure that may bring new revenue opportunities, so as other business advantages (Farrell, 2005; Lisin and Strielkowski, 2014). Among such factors, we can mention cost reduction, service optimization, so as the search for workforce capabilities or better technology (Winkler, 2009, p. 68).Modern economic and social studies encourage seeking for transdisciplinary insights derived from specialized disciplines, to aid various societies in finding solutions to contemporary problems. Managerial community involved in offshore operations is constantly struggling with various challenges and tries to find quick and successful solutions to reoccurring problems at different stages of organizational changes (Strielkowski and Weyskrabova, 2014; Kedziora et al., 2016). The core aim of this work is to provide the review of selected legal issues identified as most challenging for the service offshoring managerial community at the pre-transition stage (during the assessment and preparation for the strategic decision of transferring services to a different EU country), in the light of economic and social aspects. A need for strengthening this area of knowledge was identified from the insights expressed by the interviewees, emphasizing lack of such easily available study, presenting topic in a consistent and understandable way, not merely for law professionals. In this paper, the following research questions shall be addressed:1. How can we identify and classify potential challenges that might present themselves before the start of a service offshoring transition project?2. How can we present the legal regulations important for the business offshoring managerial community in a straightforward and cohesive way?3. What impact may these issues have on the economies and societies of the EU member states involved?1.Theoretical backgroundService offshoring should be understood as "the transnational relocation or dispersion of service activities", previously performed by companies in their home country, including captive (internal) and outsourced (external) operational models (Doh et al. …