Mixture is described, the mixture, (av) methanesulfonic acid, (bv) one or more of one or more esters of phosphorus oxo acids and (cv) precursor mixture comprising one or more silanes it can be prepared by reacting the. The present invention is, incidentally, as an additive for the polyisocyanate component of the two-component binder system for the production of polyurethane resin, also according to the use of the mixture. The present invention further polyisocyanates containing solution for use as a component of a molding material binder system, as the polyisocyanate component of the two-component binder system for the production of polyurethane resins, the use of polyisocyanates containing solution, and also according to the corresponding two-component binder system for the production of polyurethane resins.


THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF JBottot of ^J)ilo£(opf)p ECONOMICS 1 B Y I VIKAS DIXIT I Under the Supervision of PROFESSOR ASHOK MITTAL rfe^^T DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY ALIGARH (INDIA) 2008 t 'S^*^*


A bionics algorithm for robot path planning in static environment is proposed, in which the environmental models are established with grid method, the foraging behavior of ant colonies is simulated and optimal path search is finished by many ants cooperatively. Furthermore, the strategies of probabilistic search, nearest neighbor search and a goal guiding function are applied to enable the searching to be rapid and efficient. Results of simulation experiments demonstrate that the best path can be found in short time, real-time planning can be achieved, and the effect is very satisfying even if the geographic conditions with obstacles are exceedingly complicated.


This study aims to find out about the facts, causes and impacts of the phubbing phenomenon on adolescents in the cities of Surabaya and Jakarta. This type of research used a qualitative research method with a phenomenological study. The data needed in this study is qualitative data as primary data in the form of images, words and not numbers in a discourse about the phenomenon of phubbing as a degradation of social relations as a result of social media. Based on the results of the study, it was found that 1) Teenagers in the cities of Surabaya and Jakarta have a fairly high intensity of using cellphones with a number of more than 5 hours per day which on average starts when they are students in elementary school; 2) The phenomenon of phubbing carried out by teenagers in the cities of Surabaya and Jakarta is caused by excessive anxiety that information on smartphones will be missed so that they check regularly. In addition, they are also sometimes not aware of their phubbing behavior because they focus on smartphones whether they are used to play games or play social media; 3) The bad impact they receive when doing phubbing activities is reducing the quality of face-to-face communication and also disrupting some of the effectiveness of the activities they are doing.


As printed parts are used in oxygen systems with increased pressures, temperatures, and gas velocity, the risk of ignition by particle impact, the most common direct ignition source of metals in oxygen, substantially increases. The White Sands Test Facility (WSTF), in collaboration with Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), desires to test the ignitability of SLM metals by particle impact in heated oxygen.


Due to global warming, the general circulation, underlying surfaces characteristics, and geophysical and meteorological elements all show evident secular trends. This paper points out that when calculating the correlation of two variables containing their own obvious secular trends, the interannual correlation characteristics between the two variables may be distorted (overestimated or underestimated). Numerical experiments in this paper show that if two variables have opposite secular trends, the correlation coefficient between the two variables is reduced (the positive correlation is underestimated, or the negative correlation is overestimated); and if the two variables have the same sign of secular trends, the correlation coefficient between the two variables is increased (the positive correlation is overestimated, or the negative correlation is underestimated). Numerical experiments also suggest that the effect of secular trends on the interannual correlation of the two variables is interchangeable, that is to say, as long as the values of the two trends are not changed, the two variables interchange their positions, and the effect of the secular trends on the interannual correlation coefficient of the two variables remains the same. If the two variables have the same-(opposite-) sign trends, the effect of secular trends on the interannual correlation coefficient is more (less) distinctive. A meteorological example is given.


Fit volunteers were given three doses of 1.5 μg./kg. of the bases of scopolamine or atropine intravenously over a period of 20 minutes. Heart rates fell at first, then rose greater after scopolamine than atropine. Within 30 minutes after the third dose of scopolamine, a striking secondary bradycardia developed, which lasted for three hours. Secondary bradycardia was not seen after atropine. In one experiment with scopolamine, cardiac output was measured and peripheral vascular resistance was calculated. Output varied directly, and resistance inversely in proportion to heart rate.


Two independent surveys of PhD students in STEM fields at the University of California, Berkeley, indicate that underrepresented minorities (URMs) publish at significantly lower rates than non-URM males, placing the former at a significant disadvantage as they compete for postdoctoral and faculty positions. Differences as a function of gender reveal a similar, though less consistent, pattern. A conspicuous exception is Berkeley's College of Chemistry, where publication rates are tightly clustered as a function of ethnicity and gender, and where PhD students experience a highly structured program that includes early and systematic involvement in research, as well as clear expectations for publishing. Social science research supports the hypothesis that this more structured environment hastens the successful induction of diverse groups into the high-performance STEM academic track.


The utilization of substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) structure has penetrated into numerous applications for radio frequency devices. This paper discusses the development of narrowband bandpass filter (BPF) made of SIW structure for 5 GHz band wireless communication application. The proposed filter is designed on a Duroid 5880 dielectric substrate with the thickness of 1.575 mm and the total dimension of 36.5 mm (length) by 19 mm (width). The characterization is conducted by simulation software to investigate and analyze the effect of different parameters of SIW BPF to the output response. Meanwhile, parametric studies as part of characterization process are applied upon the proposed filter to obtain the optimum design of filter architecture. The results of characterization show that the proposed narrowband SIW BPF with the input/output impedances of 50 Ω has the bandwidth characteristic of 84 MHz in the frequency range of 5.827 GHz to 5.911 GHz with a good frequency selectivity suitable for the desired application.


This thesis analyzes the current situation of English listening and speaking class in vocational technical college,introduces the idea of interactive teaching,and expounds the activities of the interactive teaching and its effect in my classes.The author considers that the interactive teaching in the English listening and speaking class for vocational technical college students embodies the thought of quality education,reflects the characteristic of vocational technical college teaching——that is to emphasize the application,and enhances students' learning interests and effect.The interactive teaching is worth studying.


Key Points Question For adults with primary cubital tunnel syndrome, which operation is associated with the best chance of symptomatic cure and lowest risk of complications? Findings This network meta-analysis included 30 studies comparing 8 different operations in 2894 limbs. It found that 87% of patients improve with surgery and that open in situ decompression (with or without a medial epicondylectomy) was associated with the greatest response to treatment and lowest complication risk. Meaning The findings of this study suggest that for adults with primary cubital tunnel syndrome, the most beneficial operation appears to be open in situ decompression.


Uplink/downlink fairness and performance efficiency are both considerable issues in an IEEE 802.11 multi-rate Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN). The IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) provides equal medium access probability to all transmitters that cause the access point (AP) to obtain less bandwidth than that of the wireless mobile stations to download traffic when the number of mobile stations is larger than one. Furthermore, the WLAN with infrastructure mode also has the performance anomaly problem that the system throughput was seriously degraded by the transmissions of lower date rate transmitters in a multi-rate environment. In the past studies, many mechanisms have been proposed to solve the uplink/downlink unfairness problem, such as the transmission opportunity mechanism (TXOP), the multiple backoff timer mechanism (MBT) and the asymmetric access point mechanism (AAP). In order to improve the performance efficiency, contention window differentiation mechanism (CWD), packet size differentiation mechanism (PSD) and interframe gap differentiation mechanism (IFG) have been proposed recently. The proposed mechanisms, however, did not take both uplink/downlink unfairness and performance anomaly problems into consideration at the same time. In fact, the two problems occur simultaneously in practical WLAN environments. In this paper, we propose a dynamic and adaptive transmission scheme (DAT) to deal with the both problems. Each wireless mobile station will consider its data rate to decide the number of packets to transmit when it gets the privilege to access medium. Moreover, the AP has more right to download more packets for the purpose of balancing total uplink traffic. The system throughput of the proposed DAT is discussed and validated by the simulations and analytical results. The simulations also show that the proposed DAT outperforms the previous mechanisms.


Cowpea weevil (Callosobruchus maculatus) and maize weevil (Sitophilus zeamais) are very destructive pests of cowpea and maize respectively. Synthetic chemicals have been used extensively to control these pests. The present study investigated the potential of cypress leaf (Cupressus macropcarpa) powder as a biological agent against these pests. Three doses (g) of cypress leaf powder (2, 5 and 10g) were exposed to 10 adult insects in triplicate and mortality was observed every 24hrs for 3days. A repellency test was also conducted in triplicate using 3 doses (g) (2, 5, and 10g) of cypress leaf powder. The experimental design was Completely Randomised Design (CRD). The experiments were conducted in a laboratory (28 ± 2 o C and 80 ± 10% RH) in the Farm house of the Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, University of Buea, Cameroon The results revealed that, the cypress leaf powder did not cause any significant mortality (p > 0.05) compared to the controlled for both insect pests. The repellency test revealed that the cypress leaf powder showed a very high potential as a repellent agent (p < 0.05) with up to 50 – 60% of both insect pests repelled just after 10mins of exposure to the smallest dose (2g). About 90% repellency was observed for both pests from the highest dose (10g) within 10mins of exposure making 10g a perfectly repellent dose. Our research supports strongly that cypress leaf powder has a strong repellency effect on both pests and little or no potential to cause significant mortality. Thus cypress leaf powder is a good candidate to incorporate in integrated pest management (IPM) programmes for control of cowpea and maize weevil in stored grains by poor-resourced farmers and store keepers in Cameroon and the world at large. Thus, appropriate technology transfer systems should be developed and passed on to poor-resources farmers to promote a direct


The science returns of gravitational wave astronomy will be maximized if electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational-wave sources can be identified. Kilonovae are promising counterparts to compact binary mergers, both because their long timescales and approximately isotropic emission make them relatively easy to observe, and because they offer astronomers a unique opportunity to probe astrophysical heavy-element nucleosynthesis and merger-driven mass ejection. In the following, I review progress in theoretical modeling that underpinned advances in our understanding of kilonovae leading up the first detection of a neutron star merger, GW170817. I then review the important lessons from this event and discuss the challenges and opportunities that await us in the future.


PURPOSE: A bridge construction method using a girder in which a part in the longitudinal direction has a box-shaped cross-section is provided to secure enough bending strength against a load at the support of a bridge and enable efficient and economical construction of a girder bridge. CONSTITUTION: A bridge construction method using a girder in which a part in the longitudinal direction has a box-shaped cross-section is as follows. Two or more steel plate girders(100) are parallely installed at an interval in the traverse direction. A traverse closing member(200) is installed between two steel plate girders so that the adjacent girders form a box-shaped cross-section.


Some of historical textiles were analyzed to identify the imprinted textures on the metal remains of Haengyeup(a horse strap pendant) and Doja (a knife), which were excavated in the ruins of Hwangsung-dong, Kyungju city in the fifth century and textiles imprinted on the human bones that were excavated in the Pungnae 4th Area, Namyangju county in the sixteenth century. The results analyzed arc as follows ; It was confirmed that the imprinted textures of Haengyeup and Doja are white ramie since the structural characteristics of cellulosic bast fibers, partially projected long oval cross sections with large lumens and the imprinted textures of human bones are silk fabrics since the triangular cross sections of fibroin is showed. All of the textiles were designed in plain weaves. In the case of weaving yarns, the warp threads were thicker than the weft threads, that is, the imprinted textures of Haengyeup were measured by 1.35 mm for warp and 1.21 mm for weft, and the Doja by 1.16mm for warp and 1.11 mm for weft. In connection with the direction of the yarn twist, the Z-twist were observed in the imprinted textures of human bones, whereas it presented the S-twist in the case of Haengyeup and Doja. The warp yarns were mostly harder twisted than the weft yarns on the amounts of twist, that is, it was observed that the case of Haengyeup were amounted to 0.33 twists per centimeter for warp yarns and 0.25 twists per centimeter for weft yarns. Also it was showed 0.32 twists per centimeter for warp yarns and 0.26 twists per centimeter in the case of the textures of human bones. On the fabric counts, it was showed that the finer the yarns the higher the densities since it were threads per sqaure centimeters and threads per sqaure centimeters each in the case of Haengyeup and Doja, whereas it was threads per sqaure centimeters in the case of the textures of human bones.


The relation between relative humidity and wet-and-dry-bulb readings, at dry-bulb temperatures between 40° and 100°C., has been studied experimentally. The relative humidity was measured both by absorbing and weighing the moisture in a known volume of air, and by the dew-point method. The results are finally expressed by means of a skeleton table for the wet-and-dry-bulb hygrometer in the temperature range referred to.


Rivers's study of the printed materials disseminated by Protestant dissenters, Methodists, and Church of England evangelicals in the eighteenth century (1720–1800) is an encyclopedic work. This magnificent cornucopia of information on religious print explores with a fine comb and a magnifying glass several generations of British authors' and printers' labors of reaching out to a public whose desire for salvation they hoped to kindle and keep alive through reading matter. The overarching question that holds together the leviathan formed by these laborers in the field of faith stems from the paradox presented in The Pilgrim's Progress. In Bunyan's cultural landmark, which was explicitly intended to convert its audiences through story, the true Christian refuses to be embroiled in commercial transactions. Nevertheless, readers have to enter the marketplace and spend money to buy the book in order for it to communicate its message. Intrigued by this paradox, Rivers is interested in exploring the extent to which dissenting and evangelical print culture struggled with the difficulty of touching hearts while engaging with physical objects of various sizes and paper quality, many of them requiring readers first to touch their purses. The resulting story in three parts ("Books and their Readers," "Sources," and "Literary Kinds") gives a comprehensive account of printers by denomination, publishers, and editorial decisions. What stand out are the moments of tacit acknowledgment of fellowship in an occasionally joint effort, despite denominational differences, to transform diverse audiences (the poor, families, educated individuals prone to grow cold in their faith) into pilgrims ready to pursue the Celestial City. Devotional writers put out abridged and rearranged Bibles with copious commentaries, sermons, prayers (in spite of early dissenters' contempt for scripted prayer and preference for a spontaneous personal address to God), devotional handbooks, collections of lives, letters, diaries and journals, poems and hymns. One learns from Part I, "Books and their Readers," who the major and minor printers were for each denomination, what was their output and how likely they were to engage with the books produced by other denominations. Rivers's precise but charitable glance reveals that such moments of openness


The first thing to be done was to get a reliable list of all the poor in the district. This was supplied by the district visitors of the various congregations, but supplemented by the visits paid by the Secretary and the friendly workers who, apart from the existing agencies, put themselves at the command of the Association. These were supplied with books containing the following questions to be answered:?


The intermittence of solar radiation, due to continuous rainy or cloudy days, is a limitation of simple and small solar dryers. These conditions often make them impossible to use. By including storage systems (thermal accumulation) and/or auxiliary energy sources, drying processes or dehydration can be conducted continuously, even during periods of low insolation. Therefore, the present work simulates and evaluates the thermal and energetic behavior of a hybrid system for heating the air that is directed to the dehydration chamber of a solar food dryer. The software selected for the simulation was TRNSYS. The simulated hybrid system consists of a flat plate solar collector and an arrangement of electrical resistors that guarantee the entry of air, at a constant temperature, into the dehydration chamber. The target temperature selected is 70 o C, and the absence of food products in the chamber is assumed. An arrangement with four electric resistors totaling 1900 W, with three different powers of 1000 W, 500 W, and 200 W proved adequate to guarantee the entrance of air at a constant temperature when considering the climatic conditions of a city in the South of Brazil.


Network actions takes place within processes in which management technology is configured to a new work-value, immaterial, that makes indistinguishable in practice previously clearly separable fields such as leisure-work, activism-business or academic-practitioners, among others. The objective of this article is to present a narrative of the construction of a technopolitical network that acted in the relations between technologies, culture and science in Brazil. The methodological approach draws on the social construction of technology - SCOT, participant observation and manipulation of linguistic corpus. As a result the narrative characterizes the groups involved in the process, their interpretations and a structure of meanings that makes sense of the network. The conclusion proposes reflections on the conditions of possibility of life in front of the ubiquity of the management technology practically invisible and not perceived by the network actors.


The method of production of low-energy (1-20 keV), dense (up to 100 kA/cm2) pulsed electron beam in Channel Spark based on intensive pre-ionization inside the channel and further applying the acceleration voltage is proposed and studied. Such a method allows one to increase significantly the beam current rise rate and its amplitude. The results obtained give an opportunity to improve the parameters of electron guns used for ablation.


Objective To evaluate the changes of pulmonary gas exchange and intrapulmonary shunt during orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) Methods Eleven ASA Ⅲ Ⅳ patients (male 8, female 3) with end stage liver diseases were studied Age ranged from 17 67 yr Anesthesia was induced with midazolam 0 1 mg·kg -1 , fentanyl 5μg·kg -1 and pipecuronium 0 1 mg·kg -1 and maintained with isoflurane inhalation and intermittent iv boluses of fentanyl and pipecuronium combined with epidural anesthesia (T 8 9 ) The patients were mechanically ventilated with 100% O 2 during operation After induction of anesthesia Swan Ganz catheter was inserted via right internal jugular or subclavian vein Cardiac output (CO),mixed venous oxygen saturation and core venous temperature were continuously monitored with continuous cardiac output monitor (Baxter,Vigilance) ECG, CVP, SpO 2 and P ET CO 2 were also continuously monitored during operation Radial artery was cannulated for continuous direct blood pressure monitoring Arterial and mixed venous blood samples were taken at the beginning of operation, 120 min during preanhepatic stage, 30 and 60 min during anhepatic stage, 5 and 60 min during neohepatic stage and at the end of operation Alveolar arterial oxygen partial pressure difference (A aDO 2) , intrapulmonary shunt (Qs/Qt) , oxygen delivery index (DO 2I) and oxygen consumption (VO 2 I ) were calculated During operation body temperature was maintained above 35 5℃ Veno venous bypass (VVB) was performed during anhepatic stage Results At the beginning of operation, when FiO 2 was 100%, PaO 2 was only (376±141) mmHg, A aDO 2 and Qs/Qt were all higher than normal values There were no significant changes in all parameters 120 min during preanhepatic stage as compared with those at the beginning of operation PaO 2 increased and A aDO 2 and VO 2I decreased significantly during anhepatic stage Qs/Qt, A aDO 2 and PaCO 2 increased and PaO 2 decreased significantly, but there were no significant changes in cardiac index, DO 2I and VO 2I during early neohepatic stage Cardiac index, DO 2I and VO 2I increased at 60 min during neohepatic stage and at the end of operation Conclusions There are severe changes of pulmonary gas exchange during OLT


This paper provides an overview of the science and technology capability in Shaanxi higher education institutions,briefly analyzes the application situation,quantity and quality during 2001 to 2006.On this statistical basis,it represents the problems existing in patent application and administration system in Shaanxi,and hereby proposes preliminary countermeasures for developing patent system in colleges and universities in Shaanxi province.


The diet of larval and post-larval (n = 95 and 307), and juvenile (n = 489 and 508) king (Scomberomorus cava/fa) and Spanish mackerel (S. macu/atus) from the Gulf of Mexico and southeastern Atlantic coastal waters of the U.S. consisted principally of fishes. Carangids, clupeids, and engraulids occurred in 23, 7 and 9% of larval and post-larval king mackerel stomachs and in 20, 40 and 7% of larval and post-larval Spanish mackerel stomachs, respectively. Sciaenids were also common in king mackerel, occurring in 21% of the stomachs. Prey fishes included the genera Cynoscion, Caranx, and Anchoa, and the species Opisthonema oglinum. Invertebrates, principally small crustaceans and nudibranch larvae, occurred infrequently in the diets of both species, but more so in Spanish mackerel than king mackerel. The dominant prey items for juvenile mackerels from the Atlantic were engraulids, clupeids, balistids, and squids, collectively accounting for 73.3% by volume of the diet of king mackerel and 88.8% of Spanish mackerel. More invertebrates occurred in the diet of juvenile Spanish mackerel than king mackerel, but they accounted for a smaller volume, i.e., 2.1% as compared to 5.4% for the Atlantic fish. Chi·square tests indicated significant differences between the diets of juvenile mackerel from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic coast. [Kevwords: diets; king mackerel; Spanish mackerel] King mackerel (Scomberomorus Galveston Bay, Texas. Jenkins et a/. caval/a) and Spanish mackerel (S. macul(1984) studied the food habits of three atus) are widely distributed throughout species of Scomberomorus larvae from the western Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexthe waters off the Great Barrier Reef in ico. King mackerel occur from the Gulf Australia. Hunter and Kimbrell (1980) of Maine to Brazil, while Spanish macbriefly described the foods of Pacific kerel range from Cape Cod to Yucatan, mackerel, Scomber japonicus, and Last Mexico with centers of abundance off (1980) and Peterson and Ausubel (1984) Florida (Collette and Nauen 1983). Both presented the diet of Atlantic mackerel, species support important commercial Scomber scombrus, from the westand recreational fisheries in the southcentral North Sea and U.S. Middle Atlaneastern United States and Mexico. tic waters, respectively. The diet and feeding ecology of larKnowledge of the feeding ecology val and juvenile mackerels are poorly of young mackerels is necessary to known. Naughton and Saloman (1981) understand the role of diet and food reported on the stomach contents of availability in regulating growth, survival, juvenile king mackerel and Spanish macand ultimate recruitment. In addition, kerel from Cape Canaveral, Florida and knowledge of the diets of young king and 145 1 Finucane et al.: Diets of Young King and Spanish Mackerel Off the Southeast United Published by The Aquila Digital Community, 1990 146 Finucane, J.H., C.B. Grimes, and S.P. Naughton Spanish mackerel will be useful in understanding trophic interactions of mackerel and their associated species. In this paper we present the results of our diet studies on larval and juvenile king and Spanish mackerel from the Gulf of Mexico and southeastern Atlantic coastal waters of the U.S.


This study discusses health care in psychosocial care focusing on medication management. The theoretical axis articulates the psychiatric reform with daily lives of individuals in mental health service. The research was carried out at a Psychosocial Care Center (Caps) in Fortaleza, State of Ceará (CE), Brazil. The participants of the research were five professionals, ten users and nine family members. The research techniques used were: semi-structured interview, systematic observation, and focus group. The dialectical hermeneutic analysis followed the premises of Minayo. In the field, there was a lost subject-user in confrontation with an institutionalizing reality, highlighting the hegemony of the biomedical clinic, represented by the prescriptive practice of medicaments and the fragmented care management.


An embodiment of the invention discloses a method for managing multiple windows. The method includes displaying at least two windows in a display interface according to window attribute information of the windows; receiving a window edit instruction, which is transmitted from a user, for a target window; and executing edit operation corresponding to the window edit instruction for the target window according to the window edit instruction and keeping a display position level of the target window on the display interface unchanged. The window attribute information contains a window identity and window level attributes. The window edit instruction contains the window identity of the target window. The embodiment of the invention further discloses a terminal. The method and the terminal have the advantages that the multiple windows can be displayed on the display interface according to window attribute information, when the target window is edited, the display position level of the target window on the display interface is unchanged, a level relation among the multiple windows can be effectively managed, and clear display position levels of the various windows on the display interface are kept.


Sustainable development is the need to integrate social, environmental, and economic concerns so as to arrive at development paths which meet the needs of present generations, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Education for sustainable development is a vision of education that seeks to balance human and economic well-being with cultural traditions and respect for the Earth's natural resources. It emphasizes aspects of learning that enhance the transition towards sustainability including future education; citizenship education; education for a culture of peace; gender equality and respect for human rights; health education; population education; education for protecting and managing natural resources; and education for sustainable consumption. Education for sustainable development has come to be seen as a process of learning how to make decisions that consider the long term future of the economy, ecology and social well-being of all communities. Building the capacity for such futures-oriented thinking is a key task of education. Education for sustainable development must explore the economic, political and social implications of sustainability by encouraging learners to reflect critically on their own areas of the world, to identify non-viable elements in their own lives and to explore the tensions among conflicting aims. Development strategies suited to the particular circumstances of various cultures in the pursuit of shared development goals will be crucial. Educational approaches must take into account the experiences of indigenous cultures and minorities, acknowledging and facilitating their original and important contributions to the process of sustainable development.


Abstract The robust stability criteria for linear uncertain time-delay systems via a feedback controller, a dynamic controller and, an observer controller, respectively, are introduced. The results obtained can be used to estimate the size of the delay time. The algorithms for finding controller matrices are provided as well. The results are demonstrated by illustrative examples.


GRO J1655-40 was discovered as a new, bright X-ray source with the BATSE detector of the Gamma Ray Observatory (GRO) on July 27, 1994.


This work considers a pursuit-evasion model

<disp-formula><tex-math id="FE1000">\begin{document}$\begin{equation} \left\{ \begin{split} &u_t = \Delta u-\chi\nabla\cdot(u\nabla w)+u(\mu-u+av),\\ &v_t = \Delta v+\xi\nabla\cdot(v\nabla z)+v(\lambda-v-bu),\\ &w_t = \Delta w-w+v,\\ &z_t = \Delta z-z+u\\ \end{split} \right. \ \ \ \ \ (1) \end{equation}$\end{document}</tex-math></disp-formula>

with positive parameters <inline-formula><tex-math id="M1">\begin{document}$ \chi $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>, <inline-formula><tex-math id="M2">\begin{document}$ \xi $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>, <inline-formula><tex-math id="M3">\begin{document}$ \mu $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>, <inline-formula><tex-math id="M4">\begin{document}$ \lambda $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>, <inline-formula><tex-math id="M5">\begin{document}$ a $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula><tex-math id="M6">\begin{document}$ b $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> in a bounded domain <inline-formula><tex-math id="M7">\begin{document}$ \Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^N $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> (<inline-formula><tex-math id="M8">\begin{document}$ N $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> is the dimension of the space) with smooth boundary. We prove that if <inline-formula><tex-math id="M9">\begin{document}$ a<2 $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula><tex-math id="M10">\begin{document}$ \frac{N(2-a)}{2(C_{\frac{N}{2}+1})^{\frac{1}{\frac{N}{2}+1}}(N-2)_+}>\max\{\chi,\xi\} $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>, (1) possesses a global bounded classical solution with a positive constant <inline-formula><tex-math id="M11">\begin{document}$ C_{\frac{N}{2}+1} $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> corresponding to the maximal Sobolev regularity. Moreover, it is shown that if <inline-formula><tex-math id="M12">\begin{document}$ b\mu<\lambda $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>, the solution (<inline-formula><tex-math id="M13">\begin{document}$ u,v,w,z $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>) converges to a spatially homogeneous coexistence state with respect to the norm in <inline-formula><tex-math id="M14">\begin{document}$ L^\infty(\Omega) $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> in the large time limit under some exact smallness conditions on <inline-formula><tex-math id="M15">\begin{document}$ \chi $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula><tex-math id="M16">\begin{document}$ \xi $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>. If <inline-formula><tex-math id="M17">\begin{document}$ b\mu>\lambda $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>, the solution converges to (<inline-formula><tex-math id="M18">\begin{document}$ \mu,0,0,\mu $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>) with respect to the norm in <inline-formula><tex-math id="M19">\begin{document}$ L^\infty(\Omega) $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> as <inline-formula><tex-math id="M20">\begin{document}$ t\rightarrow \infty $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> under some smallness assumption on <inline-formula><tex-math id="M21">\begin{document}$ \chi $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> with arbitrary <inline-formula><tex-math id="M22">\begin{document}$ \xi $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>.


Soil degradation is an ecological disturbance, usually human‐caused, that negatively affects the vegetation and climate of an ecosystem, particularly arid and semiarid environments. These degraded soils can be restored by using native perennial plants inoculated with specific microorganisms. We studied the changes in root growth and the rhizosphere bacterial community of mesquite seedlings (Prosopis articulata) after inoculation with the endophytic bacteria Bacillus pumilus ES4, over 3 cycles of growth in the same soil under desert climatic conditions, and found that inoculation significantly enhanced root biomass during the growth cycles but not shoot biomass or root and shoot lengths. Fluorescent in situ hybridization analysis demonstrated that B. pumilus colonized the root cap, apical meristem, and elongation zone, forming small colonies, on roots from soil‐grown mesquite. Inoculation also significantly changed the bacterial community structure of rhizophere and nonrhizosphere (without plants) soils based on denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis profiles. The changes were highly stable, and the bacterial community structure was maintained throughout the experimental period and not affected by plant replacement. The 16S rRNA pyrosequencing confirmed the changes on structure of bacterial community and revealed an impact on the top taxonomic levels analyzed. The rhizospheres of inoculated plants showed a significant increase in the abundance of Proteobacteria and Acidobacteria coupled with a concomitant decrease in Actinobacteria, whereas an opposite response was observed in nonrhizospheric degraded soils. Overall, inoculation with B. pumilus reduced bacterial diversity but increased the Rhizobium population in the soil. The class Bacilli, despite B. pumilus inoculum, showed minimal variation.


Distal radius fractures are the most common fractures of the human skeleton, accounting for one sixth of all fractures. For his treatment, there are several surgical techniques and synthesizing materials that can be used, however, the use of a volar plate has been proven effective and haspresented few complications. Objective: Here was to make a retrospective study of thefunctionality of patients with distal radius fracture after internal fixation with an LCP volar plate that went through a rehabilitation program. Method: The sample consisted of 14 patients with unilateral distal radius fracture who underwent internal fixation with a 2.4 mm or 3.5 mm LCP volar plate who completed 1 year after surgery in 2010. The subjects were divided into two groups: affected group (n = 14), composed of fractured wrists; control group (n = 14) composed of the contralateral wrists. Measurements were made of active and passive range of motion (ROM) of the wrist, grip strength, pinch grip strength, and a questionnaire of disabilities of the arm, shoulder, and hand (DASH). The data was analyzed to compare the affected and controlgroups, through tests of significance of two independent samples for means. Results: The average for the DASH questionnaire was 10.63 points (± 12.23). For measures of grip strength, pinch grip strength, and ROM, there were no significant differences in comparison groups (p > 0.05). Conclusion: We concluded that after one year post-surgery, patients showed similar results when comparing the wrists, which shows a satisfactory recovery of functional status.


Objective To explore the application of laparoscopy for non-traumaic acute abdomen. Methods 92 cases of emergency laparoscopy were analyzed retrospectively. Results All patients were diagnosed during operation. Laparoscopic operations were successful in 82 cases, the achievement ratio was 90% (82/92). The other 10 patients converted to laparotomy. Conclusions Emergency laparoscopic exploration not only can affirmed the diagnosis for acute abdomen with unknown causes but also offer a therapeutic method in 90% of patients at least.


NOAO is building a large format (8K×8K pixels) camera using a mosaic of eight 2048×4096 CCDs with eight amplifier readouts initially, and eventually up to 16. This paper outlines the data format and keyword definition methodology for data from this instrument. The software system is described in other papers (see Tody 1997; Valdes 1997). 1. The Data File Structure NOAO CCD Mosaic data is stored as a single FITS file for each observation. The FITS file contains a primary header with no associated data and a number of extensions. The primary header describes the file contents, and contains global keyword information applicable to all extensions. The extensions include the image data from each amplifier, pixel masks, uncertainty arrays, exposure maps, auxiliary tables, etc. The image data extensions are always present, and other information is added during the reductions. Figure 1 shows the data file structure, and illustrates how the inheritance convention (Zarate & Greenfield 1995) defines the header for each image extension as the combination of the global and individual header keywords.


This paper examined the effects of public sector reforms in entities and how the reforms promote accountability and transparency. The purpose is to examine public sector reforms between 2015 - 2020 that support transparency and accountability. We further examine to what extent the objectives have been attained and factors or challenges militating against efficient public sector reforms in Nigeria. We focus on a three specific proxies and their dimension of transparency and Accountability-Ease of doing business, Open Budget Initiative and Corruption Index using World Bank's Indicators and Transparency International Rankings. We carry out a thematic survey and find that in the Nigeria context, several public sector reform initiatives have been implemented over the years covering all sectors and different levels. The reform measures vary depending on the priority of the political leadership, however, it all anchored on the principles of economy, efficiency and effectiveness, transparency, social growth, innovation, and good governance. In the end we discovered that some of the reforms initiatives yielded moderate result why other have little or no impact on transparency and accountability. We concluded that, though, Nigeria has developed general guidelines and evolve initiatives to improve the ease of doing business and its budgeting processes, corruption is a widespread problem and is responsible for poor socioeconomic growth and development. We recommend that government take a more direct and frontal route, like imposition of death penalty in the fight against corruption. This will create an environment in which graft and fraud are less likely to proliferate. Additionally, it will ensure government operate seamlessly to the benefit of the general public, the emergence of strong public institutions and finally, a nation where the rule of law actually rules.


The city of Villahermosa, considered the gateway to southern Mexico, has experienced growth due to the economic activities of the region. This growth has not been based on an urban development plan where a suitable system of streets and avenues is contemplated, which impacts the service of the public transportation system, which consists of the mass transit system urban (vans), the rental car service (taxis), Transbus system (with routes within the city) and Transmetropolitano system (covering the metropolitan area of the city). According to the above, it is necessary to have an application support to determine the transfer of a part of the city to another in an efficient and intuitive way. The proposed tool (in the first phase only Transbus system) makes use of the PRM (Probabilistic Road Map) and Dijkstra algorithm to find a path Shuttle routes Transbus using interfaces in his version of HTML 5, jQuery, CSS and GoogleMaps, having the ability to adapt to different screen sizes of devices, thus enhancing the ways in which the user can have the tool.


Abstract: Hajj (Islamic pilgrimage) is not only the world's largest transnational religious movement, but also the only one in the world explicitly listed as one of the religious pillars of the Islamic faith. Viewing hajj within the context of Islam's continued global territorial expansion of the faith from the perspective of international relations is of great benefit to a better understanding of Islam and its participation in international relations. The total institution of hajj is composed of basic institutions and different countries' management institutions. The two holy cities are the cornerstones in Saudi Arabia's construction of an Islamic international system. Hajj also has impacts on many specific areas of international relations. In the long run, realizing the interaction of hajj and international relations is very important for China's national security.


Breast cancer is the second most common source of brain metastasis. Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) can be an effective treatment for some patients with brain metastasis (BM). Necrosis is a common feature of many brain tumors, including BM; however, the influence of tumor necrosis on treatment efficacy of SRS in women with breast cancer metastatic to the brain is unknown.


La version espanola de este articulo se puede encontrar en: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2364605. This essay reviews the situation of social security in Mexico, as well as options for reform. A guideline is the concept of social protection floor defined by the International Labour Organization and the World Health Organization. More general issues are analyzed under the main headings of family, pension, health and employment programs, and financing issues are also considered. Establishing a framework of service to the citizen is seen as indispensable to deliver the benefits of universal social security.


"Structural racism in the COVID-19 pandemic: moving forward" (Sabatello et al. 2021) offers a nuanced and important critique of racial and ethnic health disparities starkly illuminated by COVID-19. The authors express strong concerns about how existing health inequities are playing out across detection, treatment, and long-term impacts of viral infection and disease. They propose the devastating impact of this pandemic as a catalyst to address systemic and institutionalized issues that contribute to the disproportionate burden of disease on racial and ethnic minority communities. A compelling case is made to establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) for the U.S. healthcare system, to develop an action plan for addressing health disparities through meaningful engagement with diverse community stakeholders. Proposed solutions provide a roadmap for recognition and reconciliation of social inequity, including measures such as universal access to healthcare, widespread availability of affordable healthy food, and a reinvention of medical and scientific priorities to reflect common morality and sociobiological solidarity, themes raised by Sabatello et al. that will be further discussed in this commentary. Common morality is invoked as a motivation for people to participate in biomedical research and offer their clinical data for future scientific inquiry. While an individual may not personally benefit from such participation and data sharing, there may be a collective future benefit. Sabatello et al. suggest there should also be a common morality for benefit sharing in biomedical research. For example, drug companies profiting from participation of diverse research cohorts should offer products they develop at affordable prices and ensure access to members of those communities. Sociobiological solidarity is the notion that all human beings are equal and united as a species, which cannot be divided by genetics or socio-cultural constructs such as "race," "ethnicity" or "ancestry." Therefore, a sense of sociobiological solidarity in research might support all humans sharing equally in its risks and benefits. Sabatello et al. argue that race is not biological; that genomic differences are greater within traditional racial and ethnic groups than between them, and this scientific truth should naturally lend itself to a sense of sociobiological solidarity among all humans. However, the fact that race is neither determined nor defined on the basis of DNA does not negate the biological impact of racism. This is an important distinction that allows us to consider that "biology may provide some of the strongest evidence for the persistence of race and racism as socio-cultural phenomena" (Gravlee 2009, 47–48). Indeed, the embodiment of race and racism, as pointed out by Sabatello et al., is quite real in the sense that disproportionate impacts of chronic illness such as hypertension, obesity, diabetes, cardiac diseases and asthma are felt among populations with more barriers to routine preventive and high-quality care. These are the same conditions that appear to increase risk for COVID-19 infection and poor outcomes, and their prevalence is higher in communities that are systemically disadvantaged in the U.S. (Gold et al. 2020). At first glance, the association with underlying health conditions among racial and ethnic minorities may seem the most parsimonious explanation for racial and ethnic disparities in COVID-19, but reality


This paper aims to draw attention to the ways in which China's political authorities and intellectual elites have been using 'dress' either to imperialise or to nationalise the ethnic minorities of Southwestern frontiers since the late qing. it argues that the intensely politicised nature of costumed body and embodied dress of the Southwestern minorities is a stage for debates about civilisation, diversity, Darwinist evolution and the uniqueness of China's modernity. it suggests that the body of the Southwestern ethnic and the dress as its vestimentary representation form a mutually reinforcing semiotic system, functioning as a visual means to shape China's power structure.


Investigation was carried out to study the effect of mold oscillation frequency and amplitude on slab quality of LCAK and middle carbon steels. It was found that the hook type oscillation marks of slabs can be reduced significantly by increasing frequency and reducing amplitude. It was also found that, when the oscillation amplitude is reduced from 3.5 mm to 2.9 mm and the frequency increased to 120~140 min -1, the amount of large size non-metallic inclusions in slab subsurface is decreased by 42 %~77 %.


Public speaking has become an increasingly sought-after skill, which is why more and more people choose to get professionally trained. But is it possible for a public speaking program to have other effects, in addition to improved performance? The aim of this study is to discover the effects of a public speaking program on reducing social anxiety, public speaking anxiety and shame, and also on increasing self-efficacy. The sample (high-school and university students) consisted of 164 participants aged between 15 and 47 years, M = 19.93, SD = 4.70. There were 82 participants in the experimental group and 82 participants in the control group, and the instruments used were: Liebowitz's Scale for Social Anxiety (Liebowitz, 1987), Personal Report on Public Speaking Anxiety (McCroskey, 1970), General scale of self-efficacy (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995), Cognitive Schema Questionnaire (Young, 2005). A test-retest design was approached, the participants completing the questionnaires one week apart from the others. The results indicate that a public speaking program is useful for reducing social anxiety and public speaking anxiety, with significant differences between the experimental and control groups. However, in terms of self-efficacy and shame, the results were not conclusive. Thus, even if there has been a decrease in shame and an increase in self-efficacy, it is not clear whether these changes can be attributed to the proposed program. This study can serve as the beginning of a program that can contribute to reducing the level of social anxiety and public speaking anxiety..


We consider certain convolution inequalities for positive Radon measures on a locally compact group G, also assumed σ-compact. These appear naturally in connection with Bessel or frame inequalities for certain unitary systems U t , t, ∈ G, of operators acting on a Hilbert space ℋ and associated with a positive Radon measure μ on G and an analyzing vector ψ ∈ ℋ. Using this approach, we obtain some general results in the form of inequalities relating the Bessel or frame constants to other constants defined in terms of the measure μ and the analyzing vector ψ. Specific examples are considered in the case where G is the Euclidean space ℝ d for the windowed exponentials and Gabor systems as well as in the case where G is the ax + b group for the wavelet systems. In particular, we construct examples of non-admissible wavelets generating (irregular) Parseval frame wavelet systems for L 2(ℝ).


Resource-saving technology for grain crops cultivation is considered. Tractor-drawn wide-cut combined sowing unit has been developed and manufactured. Its structure and operation are described.


Research on Nutria Mansa archaeological locality has yielded important data for the study of Pampean hunt-er-gatherers that inhabited the maritime coast of Buenos Aires Province during the Late Holocene. This paper presents the current state of studies in this archaeological locality. New results on faunal analysis (taxonomic and anatomical determinations) and lithic analysis (mineral pigments, refitting, and raw material identification) are pre-sented. Ground stone tools (grinding tools, bola stones, hammerstones, anvils, abraders, and composite tools) are analyzed with particular emphasis. This assemblage was mainly made of local raw materials. Rocks from immedi-ate or long distance sources were also exploited. Most of the grinding tools and all bolas stones were modified by manufacture. The use of unmodified blanks was frequent between the hammerstones. Multiple used surfaces were frequently registered. Maintenance tasks were identified, as well as the presence of recycled artifacts. The analysis of the different archaeological evidences from Nutria Mansa locality shows multiple activities developed in camps of hunter-gatherers groups located close to the maritime coast of Buenos Aires Province.


Abstract The optical absorption spectra and photochromic effect of Bi12SiO20 pure, Al and Ga doped single crystals and crystals of nonstoichiometric composition have been investigated in the wavelength range between 8,000–26,000 cm−1. It is suggested that the mechanism of the color centers photo-generation takes place for Bi5+ ions tetrasites according to the following scheme: Bi5+ + 2e → Bi3+. The role of oxygen vacancies and Bi3+, Al3+ and Ga3+ ions in the lattice octasites of Bi12SiO20 crystals in the formation of the optical absorption shoulder is discussed.


When a subject exhales forcefully, a wheeze is usually heard during the latter part of the maneuver. The origin and mechanism of this wheeze has been the subject of speculation but this has never been approached experimentally. In this study, a computerized frequency analysis technique was used to count the number of discrete frequency components making up the forced expiratory wheeze (FEW) in 10 normal subjects. The number varied from 1 to 5 implying a source in the larger airways. The supports previous theoretical considerations that relate the FEW to the so-called "equal pressure point" (EPP) in the larger airways. Since the EPP is thought to be determined principally by lung static recoil pressure, it can be surmised that this also determines (roughly) the number of wheeze components in the FEW.


Abstract This article is focused on public interpretations of the Argentine "crisis" at the beginning of the twenty-first century as necessary conditions for the constitution of the event. Such interpretations held that Argentina was dominated by a kind of evil force originated a long time ago, but whose effects persisted in the present. And, unless it was conjured once and for all, it would remain active and damaging in the future. Thus, the "crisis" was seen as an episode of the continuous failures. Based on opinion pieces or leading articles in newspapers and general interest and political magazines, academic articles and books, I want to show how the imagination of possible futures depended on the conceptions of temporalities implicit in the interpretations embedded in narratives and different valuations of events, figures and ideas. These gave historical specificity to the event and led to the emergence of new scenarios for political action.


An access controller comprising plural access ports in which information associated with access from a CPU is stored for each access, and a bank management unit for managing use states of the plural access ports and informing the CPU of the use states. The CPU writes the information associated with the access on an unused one of the plural access ports on the basis of the use states provided by the bank management unit. Accordingly, the access controller which has a function of not accessing an erroneous address, suppresses the CPU processing load, and does not require a complicated description of firmware can be provided.


Health service managers are being encouraged to clamp down on nurses taking more than the prescribed amount of study leave as bosses seek ways of funding PREP proposals.


The probability operator is derived from first principles for an equilibrium quantum system. It is also shown that the superposition states collapse into a mixture of states giving the conventional von Neumann trace form for the quantum average. The mechanism for the collapse is found to be quite general: it results from the conservation law for a conserved, exchangeable variable (such as energy) and the entanglement of the total system wave function that necessarily follows. The relevance of the present results to the einselection mechanism for decoherence, to the quantum measurement problem, and to the classical nature of the macroscopic world are discussed.


A method is described for the electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry determination of chromium in untreated samples of wine. The optimal temperature program is defined according to pretreatment and atomization curves constructed in the presence of different types of wines from Macedonia. Pyrolytic graphite tubes and centre fixed platform tubes are tested as atomizers. Matrix matched (tartaric acid) aqueous standards are proposed for calibration. The detection limit achieved is 0.5 μg l Cr in wine. The relative standard deviation for the concentration range 30 100 μg l Cr is 2-3 %. The accuracy of the method was confirmed by comparing the results obtained with those found for wine samples previously digested with HNO3–H2O2 mixture and by analysis of spiked samples. The analytical procedure developed was applied for the analysis of wines produced in different regions of Macedonia. The chromium content ranged from 8 to 38 μg l for white wines and from 10 to 20 μg l for red wines.


The results of experiment on airborne laser sounding of coastal sea waters about Northern Scotland are described. The aircraft- laboratory of Institute of Atmospheric optics with Makrel-2 lidar was used. As a rule, the flights were carried out at height 300 M above water with average speed of 320 km/h. The pulse repetition rate of laser shots changed from 5 up to 25 Hz. The total length of flight lines above water surface has made about 8000 km. The processing of signals was made by a method of logarithmic derivative with statistical processing. The large attention was given to neutralization of influence of afterpulses, arising in photomultipliers, and especially strongly interfering to sounding of water.


The essential oil of the aerial parts of Baccharis grisebachii was examined by GC and GC-MS and evaluated for its antimicrobial properties. Forty three essential oil constituents were identified representing 94.3% of the total. Thymol, thymol methyl ether, thymyl acetate, alpha pinene, alpha humulene, and globulol were found to be the major components. The oil showed MIC values < 250 μg/mL against Cryptococcus neoformans (125 μg/mL), Aspergillus spp. (125 μg/mL), and particulary against Trichophyton mentagrophytes and T. rubrum (62.5 μg/mL)


This paper investigates prices of consumer electronics sold on the Web by both online‐only retailers (Dotcoms) and the online branches of multi‐channel retailers (MCRs). Surprisingly, it finds that Dotcoms charge higher price than MCRs, a conclusion contradictory to the results of most of empirical studies. Also finds that the electronics prices decreased over the period of study in general, dropping about 0.6 percent per week, and the prices of MCRs and Dotcoms went down with time at a similar speed. Further, the prices across MCRs are 35.3 percent more dispersed than the prices across the Dotcoms based on full prices, and 33.1 percent more dispersed based on percentage prices. However, results show that price dispersion moved up with time in general, with no significant difference in the speeds between MCRs and Dotcoms.


In the introduction to his edition of the Biographia Literaria, John Shawcross argues that a habit of self-detachment or self-abstraction characterized Cole ridge's mind from very early days. Shawcross bases his argument on one of the autobiographical letters of 1797 to Thomas Poole in which Coleridge asserted that his youthful reading of fairy tales had habituated his mind "to the Vast" and had developed in him a sense which prevents him from feeling that the universe "is but a mass of little things" (CL, I, 35*0 • Shawcross wants to establish from this that Idealism was endemic to Coleridge, "that the attitude of the empiricist, the avowed or actual self-surrender of the mind to the disconnected impressions of sense, was foreign to Coleridge from the first" (BL, I, xi-xii; cf. lxxxiii). At this distance we might want to give more weight than Shawcross does to Coleridge's heavy temporary investment in associationist theory, and put more emphasis on his continuing fascination and uneasiness with the physical world that stood over against him. Coleridge was always teased by the tough palpability of things, the objects of this world which, though theoretically cold and dead without him, seemed often to resist the probing pressure of his touch. For example, the letter to Poole on which Shawcross depends for his argument is counterbalanced by a let ter written two days earlier to John Thelwall. In that letter to Poole Coleridge insisted with some pride that the sense which he possessed led him to see whole ness where others saw only fragments. But in the earlier letter to Thelwall it is precisely this wholeness which he cannot see, and he confesses that he can only rarely draw his intellect up to the heights where he perceives unity (CL, I, 3*+9 350). And in so late a poem as "Work without Hope" (composed 21st February 1825), he attributes his frustrating discontinuity with the bourgeoning natural world to a deficiency in the order of his soul and not to anything inevitable or inherent in his relationship with physicality. That fracture between the self and experi ence is, of course, one version of the burden of Dejection and its related poems. Within that group Coleridge established and classified themes of uneasy disjunc tion to which he returned occasionally throughout his life. Much more assured, though in substance pointing to the same problem of continuity, is this comment on the complex stand-off of subject and object from the Essay on Method included in The Friend of l8l8: "In a self -conscious and thence reflecting being, no in stinct can exist, without engendering the belief of an object corresponding to it, either present or future, real or capable of being realized: much less the in stinct, in which humanity itself is grounded: that by which, in every act of conscious perception, we at once identify our being with that of the world without us, and yet place ourselves in contra-distinction to that world" (ed. Barbara E. Rooke /London, 19697, I, 1+97). There is an aspect of subject independent of ob ject just as, presumably, there is an aspect of object independent of subject; and that, with considerable vacillation and variation, is just what Coleridge had been saying in the long stretch of time—over a generation—going from the autobio graphical letters to Poole to the late uneasiness of "Work without Hope." 1 The problem is remarkable not only in its persistence and continuity but in the vari ety of tones and forms through which Coleridge gave expression to it. The self is compelled to give but also to hold back. It wants to stand aloof from the material it has to deal with, to keep itself (as Coleridge puts it) in contra distinction; yet, simultaneously and with equal vigor, it also wants to probe and prod the material in that ultimate exploration which the self has to go through in order to achieve the fullness of its potential. The purest harmony of self


Basal liners prevent leachate migration to the surrounding environment. This research investigates the performance of three Malaysian residual soils as basal liner materials by conducting geotechnical tests and microstructural analysis. The optimum thickness of compacted residual soil liners is also determined by studying the long-term transport of four heavy metals (Cadmium, Copper, Lead and Zinc), which are commonly present in landfill leachate, through compacted soils using physical and numerical modeling. The outcomes of this research may contribute to the design and management of compacted local residual soils as basal liners for future municipal solid wastes sanitary landfills in Malaysia.


A grating coupled-out beam with less than 0.7 deg divergence is electronically deflected by changing the lasing wavelength of a semiconductor laser diode with segmented electrodes. The clearly resolvable beam-switching in three directions is demonstrated with the present device. A further improvement in the divergence of the output beam is discussed.


Technologists are fond of sharing their dreams, even with people they don't know. Perhaps you've seen one of them. The President of Apple Computer, John Sculley, had one of his made into a video about a product he envisaged for the next century called the Knowledge Navigator. The dream is not unique to Sculley. Indeed, with a few minor modifications, it may be called the generic language industry dream.


A current flowing in a power line and returning in the earth induces an unwanted e.m.f. in the neighbouring telecommunication line. Such inducing current occurs at the threephase power transmission in abnormal faulted conditions, but are flowing at normal operation in railway traction lines. A summary is given for the calculation methods of the mutual impedance between the lines with common earth return. However, the mutual impedance between an overhead power lineground loop and a narrow loop of open-wire telecom lines is discussed in detail. Error estimations and numerical results are shown in figures.


Introduction: Stretch shortening cycle (SSC) involves storage of elastic strain energy in the muscle during contraction. The stored elastic strain energy during the eccentric contraction phase release in concentric contraction phase. External muscle system (EM) was designed according to the SSC theory. This study tried to investigate the effect of external muscle system on strength performance. Method: The rectus femoris EMG signal was collected to determine muscle activity using a self-designed external muscle system. The maximum joint torque of isokinetic movement and peak velocity of isotonic movement were measured in knee flexion movement. Result: The peak velocity of external muscle (EM) was higher than no external muscle (NEM). The RF muscle activity with EM was declined compared to NEM. Conclusion: The external muscle system has positive effect on muscle performance, but future studies need to focus on the optimum stiffness of external muscle system in different movements.


Bridge edge beam system is an increasing concern in Sweden. Because it is the mostvisible part of the structure which is subjected to harsh weather. The edge beamcontributes to the stiffness of ove ...


The digital microwave channel is applied not only to transmit the video digital signals and audio digital signals in radio and TV resources but also to translate the data of network,phone and stream media.This paper studies on how to develop and apply the multi-mission transmission with the use of digital microwave channel.It is important for the using of digital microwave radio and TV resources.


The essential oils of Centaurea sicana (S) and C. giardinae (G) were studied by GC and GC-MS. Thirty constituents for S, representing 81.5% of the total oil, and 24 compounds for G (94.2% of the total) were identified. The oils were rich in sesquiterpenoids (47.9% for S and 54.7% for G) and hydrocarbons (25.9% for S and 31.7% for G). Germacrene D (13.3%), (E)-β-farnesene (8.3%), nonacosane (7.3%), heptacosane (6.5%) and phytol (6%) were recognized as the main constituents for S, while caryophyllene oxide (17.7%), nonacosane (14.5%), germacrene D (11.5%), caryophyllene (11.2%) and heptacosane (10.3%) were the main compounds for G.


While the hot, dry weather across the Midwest has affected soybean production, it has also negatively affected soybean diseases. In general, there is very little disease across Iowa in soybean. There have been a few fields with Septoria brown spot and Cercospora leaf blight, but it has been a quiet year for soybean diseases.


In 1890, Jessie B. Ramey's great-great grandfather, a young Scottish immigrant named James Caldwell who worked in one of Andrew Carnegie's steel mills in Pittsburgh, experienced a pair of devastating losses. Within a few months, Caldwell's infant son and wife died, leaving him solely responsible for the couple's six other children. In his plight, Caldwell sought assistance from the United Presbyterian Orphan's Home (UPOH), which provided care for four of the Caldwell children over the next nine years. Caldwell kept in close contact with his children throughout their tenure at the orphanage, paying for their board, visiting them often, and assisting with their indenture arrangements. Caldwell's story aptly illustrates several of the innovative arguments Ramey makes in her prizewinning book, most notably that working families at the turn of the twentieth century frequently used orphanages as a "family survival strategy" and that working-class fathers played "significant roles" in child care, particularly in the wake of family misfortune (1, 130).1 And yet, Ramey contends, despite her ancestor's somewhat successful ability to shape his family's experiences within the UPOH, the system of institutional child care on which he and other working parents relied at the turn of the last century was "rife with gender, race, and class inequities," which have had dire consequences for the development of social welfare into our own time (2).


According to one aspect of the present invention, there is proposed a radio frequency identification tag, comprising: a tag antenna; and a microchip, the tag antenna with a bidirectional signal connection, wherein the tag antenna can be realized with a non-radio frequency tag reader device contact data read and write, wherein said microchip identification tag ID of the radio tag reader device before the read and write operations, and the RFID tag reader device and reading means for negotiating with the radio frequency tag reader write standards. Further, the present invention also provides a method of reading and writing RFID tags. The RFID tag reader and method of the present invention can ensure highly reliable read and write information and read and write efficiency.


A dissecting aneurysm of the left gastro-epiploic artery in a 79-year-old woman ruptured spontaneously into the peritoneal cavity. The insidious onset and the later progression to shock is discussed with relevance to the likely diagnoses. At laparotomy the aneurysm was excised.


The study of the bronchial asthma pathogenesis is an urgent problem due to its high prevalence and often developing uncontrolled severe ashma, including in childhood. The first signs of asthma development tend to occur in childhood, which causes deterioration in the patient's quality of life and early disability. Since BA is a genetically mediated process, the severity of the disease is assumed to depend on the presence of a specific allelic variant in the mediator (e.g. cytokines) genes involved in the BA pathogenesis. The aim of this study was to search for immunogenetic markers of severe asthma in Slavs children living in Krasnoyarsk city. The quantitative indicators of the Th1/Th2/Th17-cytokine profile in children with bronchial asthma (BA) with varying disease severity, depending on the polymorphism of cytokine genes, using the method of multiplex analysis (xMAP), were first determined. Changes in the cytokine background in BA patients fit into the concept that a percentage of neutrophilic endotype, which performs its functions through Th1 and Th17-lymphocytes in severe asthma, increases. In addition, the cytokine profile data depending on concomitant acute respiratory infections were obtained. There was an imbalance when analyzing the cytokine plasma level, with a tendency to maintain the protective functions of the immune system among patients in remission. Distribution of cytokine genes was obtained: allelic variants of IL12B rs321220*G, IL13 rs1800925*C, IL31 rs7977932*C and IL33 rs7044343*T are the most common in the population sampling from Krasnoyarsk. The probability of the genotype association of cytokine genes (IL12B, IL13, IL31, IL33) with the state of the immune system in bronchial asthma with varying disease severity in children was studied: a significant association of the TT genotype IL12B rs3212220 with a low concentration of IL-12B was presented. Our data obtained can be used along with the previously obtained immunogenetic markers of severe and uncontrolled asthma in children for patient-specific prognosis of the disease nature.


In this study, the extant Doxanderina species are addressed. Species contained within Doxander are examined based on type material, and a new species from Queensland is recognised. Comparisons are made based on morphology. This revision recognises six species in the Doxander complex: D. campbellii, D. entropi, D. japonicus, D. queenslandicus nov. sp, D. operosus, and D. vittatus. Doxander queenslandicus is most similar to D. vittatus from Indonesia, but differs in the body whorl being more dorso-laterally compressed, having a terminal point of the anterior canal which does not extend past the outer lip as in D. vittatus, and the presence of a dorsal knob on the shoulder of D. queenslandicus.


We investigated the variation in prickliness of bramble (Rubus fruticosus agg.) in relation to browsing intensity by fallow deer (Dama dama) and muntjac deer (Muntiacus reevesi) in an Oxfordshire wood, England. On average, 63% of the leaves of stands of bramble plants in the shaded understorey were browsed by deer while in open, unshaded areas 16% of leaves were browsed. The number of prickles cm-' was greater on shaded plants compared with plants in unshaded areas. In both open and shaded areas browsing was more intense on the periphery than in the centre of stands. However, stands of bramble in shaded areas were more accessible. Split-plot factorial experiments were carried out with potted bramble canes to determine the effects of simulated browsing, nutrients and irradiance (light) on bramble growth. The resource availability hypothesis predicts that plants occurring in resource limited environments should invest proportionately more resources in anti-herbivore chemical defences than those found in resource rich environments. We expected this to also be the case for physical defences for plants grown under different regimes of resource availability e.g. prickles of brambles. Removing leaves of bramble plants increased the number of prickles cm-' and also the number of prickles internode'. Fertilisation decreased the number of prickles cm-' but light regime had no significant effect. The investment in prickles measured as percent cane dry weight did not differ with light regime or browsing treatment and was approximately 4%, suggesting that prickles do not represent a significant cost to bramble plants. The increased prickliness of plants growing in the understorey of Wytham Wood is best interpreted as a response to increased browsing intensity rather than to shade i.e. a limit in light (carbon) availability. We suggest that experiments on the behavioural response of deer to variation in prickliness of brambles are required to assess the effectiveness of prickles as a deterrent to herbivory.


ILO pub-WEP pub-PREALC pub. Working paper presenting a statistical analysis of housing needs in Ecuador, particularly low cost housing in urban areas - considers theoretical and definitional aspects, qualitative and quantitative aspects, economic implications of supply and demand imbalance, housing policy implications, etc. References.


transition process dominated by crossflow instability is considered to explore the possibility of a more accurate transition prediction than the eN-method allows. It is demonstrated that the nonlinear development extends over the largest part of the transition process. A strong and complex dependence upon the initial conditions is established. Controlled experiments explain the underlying mechanisms. If the initial conditions are known, the disturbance growth can be predicted up to saturation using nonlinear PSE approaches. There is still some uncertainty regarding the process which initiates the final breakdown of laminar flow after the disturbances have saturated. The big remaining problem is the receptivity problem. Thereby the receptivity to surface roughness appears to be solvable whereas the receptivity to free stream turbulence can be modelled only by empirical methods at present.


Introduction: One of the rare situations that occur at the consciousness level to those who are on the brink of death is a near-death experience (NDE). This experience that contains cognitive, emotional, and psychological elements is associated with profound and relatively present study aimed to investigate and explain the effects of NDEs on the lives of NDErs. Methods: This qualitative study was conducted using a descriptive phenomenological approach. The participants were 18 people from different cities in Iran who had NDEs. They were selected through purposive sampling from 2017 to 2019. The data were collected via individual tape-recorded in-depth interviews and simultaneously analyzed using Colaizzi's seven-step analysis method. Results: The analysis of the data revealed 216 codes that were classified under 11 thematic codes. In the next step, the extracted codes were further subcategorized under 4 main themes including social aftereffects, religious-spiritual aftereffects, emotional and psychic aftereffects, and the acquisition of transcendental abilities. Conclusion: NDEs have extensive and long-lasting aftereffects on the individual and social life of NDErs. These changes cause numerous problems for NDErs in their personal life or social relationships. Insight into these changes can positively affect NDErs and other people who interact with them.


The tropical Pacific has experienced a new type of El Niño, which has occurred particularly frequently during the last decade and is referred to as the central Pacific (CP) El Niño. Various coupled models with different degrees of complexities have been used to make real-time El Niño predictions, but large uncertainties still exist in the forecasts. It is still not yet known how much of the uncertainty is specifically related to the new CP type of El Niño and how much is common to both this type and the conventional Eastern Pacific (EP) type of El Niño. In this study, the deterministic performance of an El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) ensemble prediction system (EPS) is examined for these two types of El Niño. Ensemble hindcasts are performed for the nine EP El Niño events and twelve CP El Niño events that have occurred since 1950. The results show that (1) the skill scores for the EP events are significantly better than those for the CP events at all lead times; (2) the systematic forecast biases come mostly from the prediction of the CP events; and (3) the systematic error is characterized by an overly warm eastern Pacific during the spring season, indicating a stronger spring prediction barrier for the CP El Niño. Further improvements of coupled atmosphere-ocean models in CP El Niño prediction should be recognized as a major challenge and high-priority task for the climate prediction community.


Here, the research field of nanoplasmonic sensors is placed under scrutiny, with focus on affinity-based detection using refractive index changes. This review describes how nanostructured plasmonic sensors can deliver unique advantages compared to the established surface plasmon resonance technique, where a planar metal surface is used. At the same time, it shows that these features are actually only useful in quite specific situations. Recent trends in the field are also discussed and some devices that claim extraordinary performance are questioned. It is argued that the most important challenges are related to limited receptor affinity and nonspecific binding rather than instrumental performance. Although some nanoplasmonic sensors may be useful in certain situations, it seems likely that conventional surface plasmon resonance will continue to dominate biomolecular interaction analysis. For detection of analytes in complex samples, plasmonics may be an important tool, but probably not in the form of direct refractometric detection. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Analytical Chemistry, Volume 14 is June 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.


In the environment of high speed development of large user industries, in order to ensure safe and reliable access to the grid for industrial large users, this paper proposes an industrial large user access planning model based on access risk. First, the traditional economic and security indicators are replaced by risk indicators, and the risk indicator system is constructed by considering the uncertainty of large user access capacity. Then, the CRITIC method is used to assign weights to the indicators of comprehensive risk, and the artificial bee colony algorithm is used to find the optimal access node as the target, so as to complete the site selection and access work of industrial large users. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by using the IEEE-69 node system as an example.


Anhydrous gelatin–glycerol compositions exhibit rubbery behavior in the temperature region −40 to +40°C. and in the gelatin weight fraction range 0.1–0.4. These rubbers are capable of sustaining considerable stress over several decades of time at room temperature or below but flow rapidly in the region 45–60°C. Stress relaxation moduli at 25°C. appear to be insensitive to the substitution of glycerol with water but shear viscosity data indicate that gelatin–glycerol rubbers flow at temperatures about 15°C. higher than their aqueous counterparts.


A discussion of the legality of electronic trading questions how electronic data interchange (EDI) systems accomplish the traditional legal goals of paper communication. These are: the display of proof that information is authentic; the communication of trade terms and conditions; the permanent storage of information; and the satisfaction of laws which require certain legal information to be 'written' and 'signed'. Other questions also emerge. How should trading partners and intermediary networks divide among themselves the risks of errors? How will Government record retention and control requirements be interpreted for electronic communication? What replaces the visible audit trail? Should the law be modified to clarify its applications to EDI?.<<ETX>>


THE immediate occasion for telecommunications management arises from the nature of the radio spectrum. If two radio stations operate on the same frequency at the same time without proper geographical separation, the interference is such that neither can give satisfactory service. Even the most die-hard opponents of government regulation of business accept the necessity for government regulation of the radio spectrum although they may differ as to the proper extent of that regulation. The advent of the communications satellite adds a dramatic illustration of the necessity for international regulation of radio communication. The extent of that regulation increased enormously in the interval between the 1906 convention signed in Berlin and the 1959 convention signed in Geneva. The international regulation of electrical communication by wire had led to the creation of the International Telegraph Union in 1865. The International Telegraph Conference and the International Radio Conference which met separately but simultaneously in Madrid in 1932 melded the separate radio and telegraph conventions into a single International Telecommunications Convention and created the International Telecommunications Union as the successor to the International Telegraph Union.


We try to analyze the figure of Penelope in Greek mythology, and how she has become one of the mythological prominent figures more reinterpreted throughout the times, with enormous influence in the art and the present culture.  rom certain feminist positions it has been wanted to see in Penelope role many characteristics that they would give us a supposition about the existence of a matriarchy, which was previous to the arrival of the patriarchy order. Nevertheless, we considered that the analysis of the sources demonstrate that powerful women such as Penelope, Arete,Yocasta or Niobe, had not the power by themselves, neither they have the character to be considered into the matriarchy parameters. The myth can transform itself to adapt to the new times, and it can serve to redefine the feminine gender and our current culture, but it must lead us neither to misinterpreting in an anachronistic way the past, nor to judging the ancient myths from a set of moral current values Key words : Penelope, Feminism, Classic Tradition, Myth, Gender.


Three crew members currently aboard the International Space Station are scheduled to end more than six months on the orbiting laboratory Tuesday, May 13 (U.S. time), and NASA Television will provide complete coverage of their return to Earth, from farewells to landing.


Many countries or states have been implementing rehabilitation programs for many years for drunk drivers but these interventions vary according to their type or their duration because of absence of standard, evidence-based interventions. We created a program taking into account previous experiences in Switzerland and around the world. Professionals concerned with the problem of alcohol in traffic (a lawyer from the administration authority, a doctor specialized in alcohology, a traffic psychologist, a specialist in adult training) would implement strategies to reduce recidivism among drunk drivers (first offenders). Our own observation of DUI offenders has led us to think that most of them are not alcohol dependent and are crucially lacking in information regarding the effects of alcohol on driving. The first original feature of this program is that it addresses non-dependent drinkers as a priority, even if alcohol-dependent persons are not systematically excluded from the program. (A) For the covering abstract of the conference, see ITRD Abstract No. E201067


The increasing number of intubations and percutaneous tracheotomies performed, together with the extended indication towards invasive mechanical ventilation, the prolonged time of survival and, as a consequence, increasing number of days spent in Intensive Care Units have determined an enlarged number of traumas of the upper airways at the bases of the increasing incidence of tracheal stenoses. About 2-3% of patients who undergo intubations and/or tracheotomy develop tracheal stenosis [1] (Level of evidence: IIb).


Silicone gel belongs to the group of RTV-2 silicone rubbers, which are room-temperature-vulcanizable materials consisting of two components. The material combines the advantages of the electrical and chemical properties of silicones with the unique mechanical properties of gels. The attempt to use silicone gel as insulation material in long-term stable and reliable medium voltage applications, e.g. as insulation material for power cable joints, requires a comprehensive and consolidated knowledge of the dielectric breakdown strength. A test program has been performed testing model insulations consisting of silicone gel under various stress conditions. The influence of the processing of the material, the influence of humidity and temperature on the dielectric breakdown strength of silicone gel is investigated. Also, the findings on the interdependency between the dielectric breakdown strength and the electrically stressed material volume (scaling effect) are reported. A further section of this paper describes the ageing performance of silicone gel under homogeneous and strong inhomogeneous electrical field stress. Finally, the dielectric breakdown strengths of a silicone gel/silicone gel interface model on the one hand and a silicone gel/polypropylene interface model on the other hand are analysed.


Coastal climate adaptation public works, such as storm surge barriers and levees, are central elements of several current proposals to limit damages from coastal storms and sea‐level rise in the United States. Academic analysis of these public works projects is dominated by technocratic and engineering‐driven frameworks. However, social conflict, laws, political incentives, governance structures, and other political factors have played pivotal roles in determining the fate of government‐led coastal flood risk reduction efforts. Here, we review the ways in which politics has enabled or hindered the conception, design, and implementation of coastal risk reduction projects in the U.S. We draw from the literature in natural hazards, infrastructure, political science, and climate adaptation and give supporting examples. Overall, we find that (1) multiple floods are often needed to elicit earnest planning; (2) strong and continuous leadership from elected officials is necessary to advance projects; (3) stakeholder participation during the design stage has improved outcomes; (4) legal challenges to procedural and substantive shortcomings under environmental protection statutes present an enduring obstacle to implementing megastructure proposals.


We demonstrate optical analogue of valley-Hall effect for 2D materials by achieving unidirectional coupling of valley polarized excitonic emission to large wave-vector modes in hyperbolic metamaterials. © 2019 The Author(s)


It is this monograph a check local laws declared unconstitutional by the State Court of Rio de Janeiro, especially the cities of the Macae e Regiao dos Lagos. In addition, there are also addressing the laws had questioned its constitutionality before the Court and have not been declared unconstitutional. Prior to this empirical verification, this research points concepts and brief historical account at the federal level and, after that, at the state level and has drawn a parallel between the two systems soon in Chapters I and II, respectively. Chapter III is that it brings the main objective of this research, as already mentioned. Moreover, it presents any extraordinary resources that target the declaration of unconstitutionality of judgments of municipal laws. Thus, we can envision cases where the local laws will reach the Supreme Court by means of diffuse control of constitutionality, with the approach of the effects of this decision and the impact of them in their respective municipalities. Finally, it discusses the peculiarities of the matters dealt with in the respective laws and possible trends and precedents open to that statement.


The chemical composition of 50 samples of leaf oil isolated from Algerian Juniperus phoenicea var. turbinata L. harvested in eight locations (littoral zone and highlands) was investigated by GC‐FID (in combination with retention indices), GC/MS, and 13C‐NMR analyses. The composition of the J. phoenicea var. turbinata leaf oils was dominated by monoterpenes. Hierarchical cluster and principal component analyses confirmed the chemical variability of the leaf oil of this species. Indeed, three clusters were distinguished on the basis of the α‐pinene, α‐terpinyl acetate, β‐phellandrene, and germacrene D contents. In most oil samples, α‐pinene (30.2–76.7%) was the major compound, associated with β‐phellandrene (up to 22.5%) and α‐terpinyl acetate (up to 13.4%). However, five out of the 50 samples exhibited an atypical composition characterized by the predominance of germacrene D (16.7–22.7%), α‐pinene (15.8–20.4%), and α‐terpinyl acetate (6.1–22.6%).


The postbuckling failure of square composite plates with central holes is analyzed numerically and experimentally. The particular plates studies have stacking sequences of: (+ and - 45/0/90)(sub 2S); (+ and - 45/0(sub 2))(sub 2S); (+ and - 45/0(sub 6))(sub S); and (+ and - 45)(sub 4S). A simple plate geometry, one with a hole diameter to plate width ratio of 0.3 is compared. Failure load, failure mode, and failure location are predicted numerically by using the finite element method. Predictions are compared with experimental results. In numerical failure analysis the interlaminar shear stresses, as well as the inplane stresses are taken into account. An issue addressed in this study is the possible mode shape change of the plate during loading. It is predicted that the first three laminates fail due to excessive stresses in the fiber direction, and more importantly, that the load level is independent of whether the laminate is deformed in a one-half or two-half wave configuration. It is predicted that the fourth laminate fails due to excessive inplane shear stress. Interlaminar shear failure is not predicted for any laminates. For the first two laminates the experimental observations correlated well with the predictions. Experimentally, the third laminate failed along the side support due to interlaminar shear strength S(sub 23). The fourth experimental laminate failed due to inplane shear in the location predicted, however material softening resulted in a different failure load from predictions.


AbstractThe physical and mathematical problems associated with radioactive waste disposal have been outlined and discussed. Some of the more important relationships and equations have been derived and explained with a view to showing how techniques developed in conventional reactor physics problems can be applied with great effect to radionuclide transport. We stress in particular the problems associated with radionuclide transport through spatially random media such as fissured and porous rock. Three distinct modeling procedures are presented: (1) the classical advective dispersion equation and its interpretation as a stochastic differential equation, (2) a purely advective approach in which the groundwater velocity and the retardation factor are random functions, and (3) an analogy with neutron transport by regarding motion along fissures and subsequent branching as a pseudo-scattering process. We describe the mathematical methods needed to solve these stochastic problems and include perturbation theory...


A heuristic algorithm is proposed for the low power implementation of combinational circuits. By observing the structure of a given function, the proposed algorithm selects an input variable of a given function and performs Shannon expansion with respect to the variable to reduce the number of gates in the subcircuit realising the function. Experimental results show the efficiency of the proposed algorithm.


The synthesis of ZnO nanocrystals is carried out in alkaline alcoholic solution of zinc acetate dihydrate by sol-gel method. Effects of thermal annealing in nitrogen on photoluminescence (PL) properties of the sol-gel derived ZnO nanocrystals were investigated by PL spectroscopy. With increasing annealing temperature in nitrogen, UV emissions of the ZnO nanocrystals red-shifted from 378 nm to 388 nm while deep-level luminescent bands ranging from 450 to 700 nm with three emission centers at about 502 nm, 538 nm and 602 nm are enhanced, and the green luminescent band gains its intensity at the expense of the yellow and orange luminescent bands. Our results have demonstrated that the origin yellow-green color PL was tuned towards the cyan color PL with increasing the thermal annealing temperature in nitrogen from 344 oC to 813 oC.


An experiment was conducted under controlled conditions to standardize the temperature, substrates and seed quality on germination in lisianthus cv. Blue Magic using both in vivo and in vitro propagation. In vivo seed germination was conducted at three temperature levels (20 ± 1°C; 25 ± 1°C and ambient room temp.) and eight substrate media {cocopeat, sand, perlite, blotting sheet, germination paper, cocopeat + perlite (1:1); (2:1) and (1:2)}. For in vitro germination, seeds were inoculated on the MS medium supplemented with 0.5 mg/l IBA and BAP and cultured at controlled conditions (25 ± 1°C with 16/8 h light/dark photo period). In one-year-old seeds, maximum seed germination (38.66%) were observed in cocopeat: perlite (1:2) followed by cocopeat: perlite (1:1) at room temperature (34.0%). Under in vitro conditions, maximum seed germination (63.89%) was observed on MS medium supplemented with 0.5 mg/l IBA for fresh seeds


The features of clonal micropropagation in three variations of Ludisia discolor were studied. Brood buds, apical shoot meristems, immature seeds and mature seeds were used as explants. They are grown using Murashige & Skoog modified medium. A special technique has been developed for the sterilization and planting of microscopic mature seeds. Mature seeds germinated for 60-70 days. Seeds from 25-day-old capsules showed the best results among immature seeds. They gave mass shoots already on the 25-30 day after planting. The roller of the future first leaf of the protocorms was laid in the dark 2 months after germination. Switching to the light mode induced rapid gemmorizogenesis - the formation of the first green leaves, stem and adventitious roots. Seeds from 15-day-old capsules did not germinate at all. Planting with immature seeds is the most effective method of clonal reproduction of L. discolor in vitro.


This paper discusses how the author integrated issues in Information Assurance into parts of the undergraduate curriculum at his university. The emphasis is on his course on computer ethics and the social implications of computing. . Index terms – Integrating information assurance topics into the undergraduate curriculum; visions for the future.