Corpuscles are compact geometric structures formed by regular triangles with edges functioning like hinges. They can be connected to form chains, closed rings, and spatial networks. Some of the compound structures are flexible. Their geometric shape can be varied continuously and movements of a single element lead to collective conformation changes along the corpuscle chain. In many cases, however, this requires a slight deformation of the edge lengths. Open-ended corpuscle chains can be fully flexible and the element conformations repeat each other approximately after three units. We also observed that ring-like chains made from paper can be deformed more easily if the number of ring elements is a multiple of three. To investigate this further, we consider a number of corpuscle structures and simulate their deformations by a numerical model. Edges are modeled as elastic springs and the structures are relaxed towards conformations of minimal energy. We find that most of the corpuscle rings can only be closed if some tension is applied. Moreover, the computer experiments suggest that if this tension is high, some of the elements will spontaneously be punched in and the structure will lose its symmetry. In both of the striking examples we found, the ring size was in fact a multiple of three.


A new method for estimating the proportion of outcrossing was developed by the use of maximum likelihood method. Using a qualitative character which is monogenically inherited, the proportion of outcrossing can be estimated in one or two generations. A numerical example was also given. Further, the outcrossing and natural crossing were differently defined.


Retinal image classification has been into existence since decades. However, the biomedical industry has suffered over benchmark accuracy datasets. The availability of good quality data points is one of the main reasons for the absence of complete automation in retinal image processing. In this paper we try to delineate the different architectures utilised in retinal image processing. The utility of transformer in transplant techniques for data creation and classification is widely recognized. Finally, we compare different models and analyse their merits and demerits. The paper aims to not only provide a literature survey for all the different mechanisms available, but also put forth the promising areas for tomorrow.


How does fatalism affect the ways in which medical professionals view Appalachians' interest in their own health? Via a literature review, this concept is explored to reveal various ways in which fatalism can shift its meaning along a continuum from abdication of all self-efficacy to a complex interaction of environment, economics, belief, and abdication.


Machine learning (ML)-driven computable phenotypes are among the most challenging to share and reproduce. Despite this difficulty, the urgent public health considerations around Long COVID make it especially important to ensure the rigor and reproducibility of Long COVID phenotyping algorithms such that they can be made available to a broad audience of researchers. As part of the NIH Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Initiative, researchers with the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) devised and trained an ML-based phenotype to identify patients highly probable to have Long COVID. Supported by RECOVER, N3C and NIH's All of Us study partnered to reproduce the output of N3C's trained model in the All of Us data enclave, demonstrating model extensibility in multiple environments. This case study in ML-based phenotype reuse illustrates how open-source software best practices and cross-site collaboration can de-black-box phenotyping algorithms, prevent unnecessary rework, and promote open science in informatics.


This paper enfolds a medius analysis for first-order nonconforming finite element methods (FEMs) in linear elasticity named after Crouzeix-Raviart and Kouhia-Stenberg, which are robust with respect to the incompressible limit as the Lame parameter λ tends to infinity. The new result is a bestapproximation error estimate for the stress error in L2 up to data-oscillation terms. Even for very coarse shape-regular triangulations, two comparison results assert that the errors of the nonconforming FEM are equivalent to that of the conforming first-order FEM. The explicit role of the parameter λ in those equivalence constants leads to an advertisment of the robust and quasi-optimal Kouhia-Stenberg FEM in particular for non-convex polygons. The proofs are based on conforming companions, a new discrete Helmholtz decomposition, and a new discrete-plus-continuous Korn inequality for Kouhia-Stenberg finite element functions. Numerical evidence strongly supports the robustness of the nonconforming FEMs with respect to the incompressibility locking and with respect to singularities and underlines that the dependence of the equivalence constants on λ in the comparison of conforming and nonconforming FEMs cannot be improved. This work therefore advertises the Kouhia-Stenberg FEM as a first-order robust discretisation in linear elasticity in the presence of Neumann boundary conditions. keywords. linear elasticity, nonconforming finite elements, Kohia-Stenberg, comparison, locking, discrete Korn inequality, Stokes equations ∗To appear in IMA J. Numer. Anal. †Institut fur Mathematik, Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, D-10099 Berlin,Germany; Department of Computational Science and Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea ‡Institut fur Mathematik, Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, D-10099 Berlin,Germany


We present the results for π,ρ,proton and Δ masses from our recently built Pentium cluster and compare with the quenched Wilson fermion data presented by MILC and GF11 collaborations [Nucl.Phys.B (Proc.Suppl.)60A(1998)3,Nucl.Phys.B 430(1994) 179]at β=6/g^2=5.7 and 5.85 on the 8^3×32 lattice.New data are shown at β=6.25 on the 12^3×36 and 16^3×32 lattices.Such a large β value is useful for extrapolating the lattice results to the continuum limit.The smearing technique is systematically investigated and can greatly improve the spectrum data.


The main objective of the article consists in the characteristic of the list of works as the carried-out by Yelets service class men during construction of Yelets, and also in allocation of the main points defining fighting capacity of fortress during recovery work. In this regard the tasks in which separate episodes from fortress history found reflection were set. It is necessary to give the characteristic to city building, a fortress and fortifications in 1591-1653, to reveal the problems which arose at the service class men and also to define fighting capacity of Yelets garrison during this period. Secondly, to consider restoration in 1619 under the leadership of the voivode G.L. Valuyev of Yelets fortification after pass on the southern counties in the summer of 1618 of Cossacks of the hetman P. Sagay-dachny. Thirdly, to analyze the process of carrying out reconstruction of a part of fortifications organized in connection with news of the being outlined campaign to the Russian borders in 1639 of army of the hetman S. Konetspolsky. Fourthly, to analyze the restoration of Yelets fortress after the fire in the middle of 17th century. For completing the designated tasks, rare documents from Russian State Archives of Ancient Documents funds, a part from which was published, were attracted, and a part is for the first time introduced for scientific use. On their basis the author managed to track how the geopolitical situation at the southern boundaries affected the processes connected with construction works. After the analysis of the available documents the author came to the following conclusions. All actions connected with works on maintenance in combat readiness of city and fortress fortifications were held within need of the state on strengthening of the southern boundaries. Works on construction and restoration of fortifications laid down on shoulders of the service class men of Yelets garrison who were carrying out them in parallel with execution of "monarchic" service. Planned actions for partial alteration of fortifications and restoration of the sites of defensive walls collapsing for many years, by the voivodes coming to Yelets were not carried out. For strategic reasons the opinion on transfer of fortress on the new place moved forward.


In this article, I approach the problem of understanding the presence of daughters, harlots, and mothers in the Book of Isaiah by exploring the imagery primarily applied to Zion. The analysis of daughters, harlots, and mothers has as its vantage point the observation that these characters never gain access to language, self-justification or self-representation though the identity of these silent women seems to be the major concern of Yahveh. The silence of the characters can be described through the concept of » otherness « as couched by Simone de Beauvoir. By focusing on the » otherness « of the female characters ; on the valuation and the activity in relation to their female gender ; and on the informative and performative function of the imagery I reach the following conclusion: Due to the cultural context the typically male addressee of the Book of Isaiah was accustomed to understand woman as a phenomenon whose identity was described by her male protectors. Therefore, when every male addressee in the Book of Isaiah is described like a woman, man's existence is specified. Man is a phenomenon in this world without a real ability to grasp his situation or to define his identity. It is the will of Yahveh that man realizes that his survival depends on his relationship to Yahveh just like a woman depends on her protectors. The male addressee must take the » otherness « upon himself since every man in all aspects of life will be a phenomenon in the hands of Yahveh.


Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignancies and causes of death worldwide. In this study, we assessed the correlation between clinicopathologic factors with programmed cell death protein 1 (PD‐1) and programmed cell death ligand‐1 (PD‐L1), and cytotoxic T lymphocyte‐associated molecule‐4 (CTLA‐4) expressions. Furthermore, we analyzed the prognostic significance of these proteins in a subgroup of patients. We retrospectively evaluated the PD‐1, PD‐L1, and CTLA‐4 expressions in 294 HCC tissue microarray samples using immunohistochemistry. PD‐1 and PD‐L1 expressions were significant related to high CD8+ tumor‐infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) (r = 0.664, p < 0.001 and r = 0.149, p = 0.012). Only high Edmondson–Steiner grade was statistically related to high PD‐1 expression. High PD‐L1 expression was demonstrated as an independent poor prognostic factor for disease‐free survival in addition to previous known factors, size >5 cm and serum albumin ≤3.5 g/dL in high CD8+ TILs group. We have demonstrated that the combined high expression of PD‐L1 and CD8+ TIL is an important prognostic factor related to the immune checkpoint pathway in HCC and furthermore, there is a possibility that it could be used as a predictor of therapeutic response. Also, this result would be helpful in evaluating the applicable group of PD‐1/PD‐L1 blocking agent for HCC patients.


The quality of a machined surface can be described by macro and micro parameters, like the size error, the form and position error or the surface roughness. The task of machining process planning is to find the best machining method and parameters, which ensure the required quality. In this article, the surface roughness in the case of turning and milling technologies is analysed. The effect of the cutting parameters (feed at turning and depth of cut at milling) and the tool parameter (corner radius) are investigated. The results are compared with the theoretical geometric model of surface roughness. In longitudinal turning as well as in constant Z-level milling, the geometric model of surface roughness is similar. The article presents whether the real surface roughness is similar too.


A multispecialty group practice in southern Maryland offers patients a multitude of services, while all billing and record keeping is completed overnight in India.


We examine the incentives for firms to voluntarily disclose otherwise private information about quality attributes of differentiated products. In particular, we focus on the case of differentiated products with multiple attributes and consumers that are heterogeneous in their preferences over these attributes. We show that there exist certain configurations of consumer preferences under which a firm producing a high-quality product, even with zero costs of disclosure, may choose not to reveal the quality of its product. This failure of firms to voluntarily disclose the quality of their products will arise when providing consumers with more information results in more elastic demands for these products, which, in turn, triggers more intensive price competition and leads to lower prices and profits for all firms. As a result, the equilibrium in which disclosure is voluntary may diverge from that in which disclosure is mandatory.


Cardiosphere‐derived cells (CDCs) were cultured from human, murine, and rat hearts. Diluted supernatant (conditioned‐medium) of the cultures improved the contractile behavior of isolated rat cardiomyocytes (CMCs). This effect is mediated by the paracrine release of cytokines. The present study tested the hypothesis, that the cardiovascular state of the donor's heart influences this effect on CMCs and tries to identify the responsible factors. CDCs were cultured from human tissue samples of cardiac surgery and from murine and rat hearts. The supernatants of cultured CDCs from hypertensive humans and rats showed a higher improvement of the contractile behavior of CMCs compared to CDCs of normotensive origin. Subsequently, the cytokine profile of the supernatants was analyzed. Among the cytokines elevated in supernatants originating from hypertensive humans or rats was Interleukin‑6. CDCs were also generated from Interleukin‑6−/−‐mice and their wildtype littermates. The supernatant of the cultured Interleukin‑6−/−‐CDCs had no effect on the contractile behavior, whereas the supernatant of the Interleukin‑6+/+‐CDCs showed a positive effect. To confirm the hypothesis that Interleukin‑6 contributes to the paracrine effects, CMCs were incubated with Interleukin‑6. It improved the contractile function in a concentration dependent way. Finally, the effect of the supernatant of cultured CDCs derived from a hypertensive human sample could be abolished by simultaneous incubation with a specific Interleukin‑6 antibody. CDCs release cytokines that improve the contractile behavior of CMCs. This effect is more intense in CDCs from hypertensive donors. Interleukin‑6 is involved in this phenomenon. J. Cell. Physiol. 229: 1681–1689, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


This article discusses that "to accept the state's examination and adjudication" should be stipulated in the concept of "criminating oneself "as a factor constituting the act of criminating oneself. On the other hand, the determination and legal explaination of "particular criminating oneself" is contrary to the stipulations in Article 67, Section 2 of Criminal Law, and the author puts forward that" particular criminating oneself" should include confessing several crimes of one sort.


Summary: In severe intracranial hypertension there are twO ba ic causes of death: compres >Ion of the brain stern and complete cessation of cerebraI blood flow. The disproportion be tween the volume of the intracranial space and the enlarged content may be solved by twO surgical procedures: 1. by enlarging the volume of the cranial ea vity, or 2. by reducing the content within the intra cranial space. Trying to achieve a correct diagnosis using cerebraI angiography unduly prolonged phe period of the severe condition. Hence the author performs extensive hemicraniectomy, localized aecording to the neurologieal symp tomatology, immediately after neurosurgical examination. Indications for this operation are states of severe intracranial hypertension with "stonelike" hard fontanelle, sign of brain stem lesion, and disturbances of re piration. The value and neeessity of emergenc)' external deeompression is demonstrated in case report; of 6 infant with aeute intraeranial hyper tenSIOn.


: Our reality today is witnessing progress in technology in a rapid way, where the mechanisms of education have evolved according to the development of technology, which contributed to increase educational productivity, it made the process of learning more fun, easy instead of relying on traditional teaching methods as it contributed to increase the interaction of students with the learning environment as well as the level increased achievement creative thinking. Augmented Reality is one of the most important techniques that improved the learning and awareness processes. Moreover, contributed to the satisfaction of student's needs and their education effectively, as well as in student's health awareness inside the schools. This paper investigates to study the impact of Augmented Reality technology in education in the classroom and educate students about healthy nutrition, Survey and interviews were conducted among teachers, students, and health advisers to determine the extent of impact AR technology in education in classroom and health awareness, this paper will work to promote the use of Augmented Reality in education.


Effect of different concentrations of hypotaurine (HTU) on melanosis and quality of shrimps during 10 d storage in ice were studied. During refrigeration, the total plate count and total volatile basic nitrogen of shrimps treated with 20 g/L HTU were the lowest, and the hardness and microstructure were the best. Moreover, the score of melanoses, pH and total bile acid of shrimps treated with 20 g/L HTU were also low. Sensory evaluation showed that HTU treatment could make the shelf life of shrimps 3−4 days longer compared with the control. Based on the above physical and chemical indexes, 20 g/L HTU showed great potential as a safe inhibitor in the treatment of shrimps' melanosis.


Abstract Artist Luz Broto bored a 5 cm hole in the MACBA museum's main façade, an intervention entitled Abrir un agujero permanente (2015), within a temporary exhibition. Broto demanded the hole's permanence, disputing the venue's temporary nature and challenging the museum's bylaws, which exempt it from bestowing permanence to artwork. The artist's drilling of the façade constituted a destructive strategy to impact the museum's functioning, resulting in juridical and political consequences. This article reads Broto's use of destruction and institutional regeneration in relation to Spain's 'New Left' neglect of contemporary art institutions and to the pre-existing fabric of cultural networks more generally.


The amphorae collection of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) stores the rarest for the Black Sea region sample of Roman amphora of the first half of the 1st century BC with the Latin stamp SES "anchor". Judging by the presence of traces of marine mollusks on the outer surface, the vessel comes from the sea. Under the act of transfer the amphora was received in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts from the Kremlin Museums in 1965. The stamp makes it possible to confidently define the vessels origin from the workshops of the Roman colony Cosa (modern Tuscany territory), which belonged to the famous plebeian Sestius family, who Cicero corresponded with. Additionally, it has been suggested that the amphora may originate from the famous Grand Congloue shipwreck near Marseille, explored in the post-war period by J.I. Cousteau.


personal relationships. The partnership contract (enkeragir in Armenian) was based on the model of a sedentary businessman, usually based in Julfa, and an active agent who travelled on the business of his master. This operative mechanism was dependent on extended family networks and reputations to work efficiently, and was thus intrinsic to the organization of community life and the societal fabric of the Julfans. Conversely, it was this successful system that ultimately bred the insularity that contributed to the demise of the network, a subject that is considered in Chapter 8. The concluding chapter has a useful comparative analysis with two other long-distance trading networks operating concurrently, the Multani Indians and the Sephardic Jews. Though the analysis is dense and insightful, one possible criticism is that it could have been expanded to do greater justice to the author's commitment to placing the Julfans in a comparative context. This book was awarded the PEN literature award for UC Press Exceptional First Book and was also chosen as the first book in the new series Author's Imprint from the California World History Library. It is indeed an outstanding work, which will be of interest to those working on world history, economic history, trade diasporas, and diaspora studies more widely.


The tape casting technique has been widely used to prepare ceramic tapes for different applications: ceramic substrates and multilayer planar structures for integrated circuits and capacitors, solid electrolytes for fuel cells and sensors, piezoelectric ceramics for actuators and transducers, membrane systems for micro-filtration, structural composites and heat exchanger. In this work the conventional tape casting technique was adapted to utilize the active filler controlled polymer pyrolysis process making use of polyssiloxanes and fillers in the initial suspension. Suspensions were prepared with 60 vol. % of polymeric phase (polyssiloxanes and methyl-trietoxy-silane) and 40 vol. % of fillers (Si and Al2O3) with different contents of polymer and fillers. The cured tapes were pyrolysed In nitrogen atmosphere at 1400 oC/2 h and 1500 oC/2 h, converting the material to ceramic tapes in the Si-Al-O-N-C system. The pyrolysis process was characterized by thermogravimetry up to 1000 oC and pyrolyzed tapes were characterized according to phase formation, microstructure, density and thermal conductivity. The converted tapes showed relatively high porosity (between 12 and 22%) and low thermal conductivity (between 3 and 8 W/m.K.). The tapes are mainly composed by crystalline phases of b-SiC, Si2ON2, O'SiAlON, Al2O3 and mullite and a SiOC amorphous phase; Si was observed in tapes pyrolysed at 1400 oC.


Based on the latest research results of perceptual learning on adult amblyopia,the paper adopts Gabor as the training stimuli,selects discrimination tasks under the noise environment as the training method,and analyzes and designs the adult amblyopia training system of perceptual learning.The system contains two stimulating tasks in relation to perceptual learning training with adult amblyopia in different conditions,and adjusts the next training model parameter based on the previous training results,which reduces the amblyopia's contrast threshold and improves their visual contrast sensitivity.Given full consideration to the inconvenience of the medical treatment of the long-term patients,the system provides the structure with web support,and synchronizes the training data to the central database.In this way,the system can garantee the parameters for computing the next model's training parameters,and render patients a home-based treatment.


This chapter contains sections titled: The Sovereignty of Cyberspace, Crypto Anarchy, Shifting Borders, The Emergence of Law in Cyberspace, Utopia, Dystopia, and Pirate Utopias, Notes


"Here at Satire U.," wrote William Satire in the April 6 New York Times Magazine, "our undistinguished professors are curriculating their courses in finger painting and rock-music appreciation together under act sciences, headed by a 10-yeared chairman of art policies studies, or art studies policies. . . ." Among other things, this passage is a good example of satirical parody Satire obviously disapproves of both the form and content of university "studies" disciplines By simultaneously using and exaggerating "studies" jargon, Satire announces his superior distance from such discourse, a distance presumably shared by the credentialed readers of the Times. Parody - and its sisters: burlesque, travesty, pastiche, plagiarism, quotation. illusion, appropriation and intertextuality - were a major topic at this year's Society for Cinema Studies annual conference, which was held April 3-6 in New Orleans. According to my calculations, at least 30 of the approximately 160 formal papers delivered at the conference specifically addressed the subject of parody and/or intertextuality. These papers ranged from "Consumerist Parody: Intertextuality Between Film and Video in MTV" to "Parody, Intertextuality, and Signatured: Kubrick, DePalma, and Scorsese" to "The Postmodernist Parody of Alfred Hitchcock" and "Intertextuality: 'Vietnam: A Television History,' AIM, and 'Inside Story'" to "Who's in on the Joke: Parody as Evidence of Narration." Before I say more about the conference itself, I want to return to Safire's parody and the issues it raises for film and television studies in general, and for the Society for Cinema Studies (SCS) in particular. For many neoconservatives like Satire, "studies - whether cinema studies, women's studies, black studies, American studies, even visual studies - are a travesty of older university disciplines like philosophy, art history and literature. Although some academic traditionalists may grudgingly accept the formalist study of certain art-house films, in general they consider film and television to be one of the direct causes of contemporary illiteracy, if not of the decline of Western civilization. What's more, the fact that cinema studies is built on the interrelated methodologies of Marxism, feminism and modern French philosophy further antagonizes the detractors of cinema studies. Nevertheless, due to relatively favorable enrollment figures and sheer intellectual brilliance, cinema studies concentrations and programs exist within many United States and Canadian colleges and universities. Full-fledged doctorate programs in cinema studies, however, exist in only a few, mostly public, universities. Most prominently, these include New York University, the University of California at Los Angeles. the University of Iowa, the University of Wisconsin at Madison and at Milwaukee, University of Texas at Austin and Northwestern University. Many SCS members, perhaps the majority, are either a faculty member, a graduate, or a soon-to-be graduate of one of these programs. If this sounds incestuous, it is. Though to be fair, with just 700 members, SCS is no more incestuous, if that's the proper adjective, than other university associations such as the Society for Photographic Education (SPE), the College Art Association, or the Modern Language Association. Unlike SPE, where photographers outnumber theorist/historians by at least 10 to one, very few SCS members are either filmmakers or teachers of filmmaking. However, some SCS members also belong to the University Film and Video Association (UFVA), which is the film/video equivalent of SPE. The forthcoming issue of the UFVA Journal will contain a history of SCS by Ramona Curry titled: "SCS: A Socio-Political History." Building on Richard Dyer MacCann and Jack C. Ellis's introduction to Cinema Examined (1982), an anthology of essays drawn from the pages of SCS's Cinema Journal, Curry argues that "the primary goal of the Society at all stages has been to constitute cinema studies as an academic discipline. …


The paper proposes the method of working with the functionality of the computer programs AntConc, WordSmith, WordList, MonoConc Pro, CATMA, and KORP, which can be used to study the multilingual corpus texts on the topic of European Studies. Various debatable views of foreign scientists ‒ representatives of corpus linguistics ‒ regarding the content of the concept of the multilingual corpus have been considered. Besides, there has been formulated a working definition of the multilingual comparative corpus that belongs to the combined type of thematically oriented corpora of texts in different languages, grouped into sub-corpora, with their translation into other languages (or with the possibility to use computer programs to translate texts). The paper also defines the role of corpus linguistic statistics, which deals with the analyzed computer programs and allows to calculate the frequency of words or collocations use, construct diagrams of the frequency of word or collocation use in sub-corpora of texts, etc. Thus there has been made a preliminary conclusion that the computer toolkit of the corpus managers AntConc, WordSmith, WordList, MonoConc Pro, CATMA and KORP makes it possible to construct both individual Key Word in Context (KWIC) and concordance lists of search elements on the subject of European Studies; distinguish between the functionality of one or another contextual meaning of search units in their most probable left-handed and right-handed valency in different languages; see the results of statistical processing of the information from corpus tags; save and print the results; support different formats of text data (txt, doc, rtf, html, etc.).


There are a lot of wind power plants based on double feed induction machine technology which are connected to electrical network. These usually don't consider reactive power (even reactive power consumption), so they generally affect the entire network voltage stability and can cause instability in themselves and become no longer balanced by the torque. This paper presents a method to study the relationship between the active power and voltage at the point of common coupling (PCC) connected wind power plant to identify the voltage stability limit. It is a fundament to define a permitted operation region in complying with the voltage stability limit at the PCC connected wind power. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eee.21.1.9804


:Objective To evaluatethe effect of ulinastatin pretreatment on pulmonary gas exchange following tourniquetdeflation in patients undergoing lower extremity surgery. Methods Twenty-seven ASA Ⅰ or Ⅱ patients, aged 25-64 yr, body mass index 18-28 kg/m~2,whose tourniquet inflation duration varied from 1.0 h to 1.5 h, scheduled for unilaterallower extremity surgery, were randomly divided into 2 groups: control group ( group C, n =15) and ulinastatin pretreatment group (group U, n = 12) . The combined spinal-epiduralanesthesia was performed at the L_(2,3) or L_(3,4) interspace and a radial artery catheterwas placed for sampling. Patients in group U received iv infusion of ulinastatin 6 000U/kg while patients in group C received equal volume of normal saline instead 10 minbefore tourniquet inflation (10 ml/min). Radial arterial blood samples were collectedimmediately before tourniquet inflation (T_0 , baseline), 1 h after inflation (T_1 ) and30 min (T_2), 2 h (T_3), 6h(T_4), and 24 h (T_5 ) after tourniquet deflation for blood gasanalysis and measurement of plasma malondialdehyde (MDA) and serum IL-6 and IL-8 levels.Alveolo-arterial oxygen partial pressure difference (P_(A-x) DO_2) and respiratory index(RI) were calculated.Results Compared with the baseline values at T_0 , PaO_2 at T_4 wassignificantly decreased, while P_(A-x),DO_2 and RI at T_4 and the levels of plasma MDA atT_(2-5) and serum IL-6 and IL-8 at T_(3-5) in group C, and the levels of serum IL-6 andIL-8 at T_(3,4) in group U were significantly increased ( P 0.05). Conclusion Pulmonary gasexchange impairment following tourniguet deflation could be attenuated by ulinastatinpretreatment (6 000 U/kg) via inhibiting lipid peroxidation and systemic inflammatoryresponse.

Key words:
Trypsin inhibitors; Pulmonary gas exchange; Tourniquets


Technical characteristics,main parameters and its main construction of the main converter for DF8CJ AC drive diesel locomotive are described. Principles and major protective functions of the control system for the traction converter are expounded. Improvements of the main converter are introduced,which have been proved in 2 locomotives produced newly. The test shows that the improvements are efficient.


The Kuantan Singingi District Health Office was legalized through Regional Regulation No. 37 of 2000. This service is one of the services formed from several existing services, as stated in the regional regulations. From the author's observation, there are many multiple positions held by one person and there are even positions that have not been filled and the qualifications of workers who are not in accordance with the required competencies. The purpose of this study was to determine the human resource needs of the Kuantan Singingi District Health Office in 2017 in quality and quantity. This research is descriptive analytic. Descriptive is describing the availability of human resources in the Kuantan Singingi Health Service, while Analytic is studying the availability of human resources and then calculating the needs so that an overview of HR needs for the future is obtained. The results of the study revealed that quantitatively, Dinas needed 24 people with details of 5 people for section heads and 19 people for staff staff qualified for Bachelor of Public Health. The author recommends that proposals be made to increase the number of employees according to their needs and provide opportunities for existing employees to continue their education to higher strata in accordance with official needs


Wafer method and system for inspection is provided. One method comprises irradiating the light in the second wafer that does not substantially penetrate the first wavelength of light and the wafer penetrate into the wafer to the wafer. The method further includes generating an output signal in response to light from the wafer resulting from the irradiation step. In addition, the method includes detecting defects on the wafer using the output signal. The method further includes determining whether defects using these output signals whether a subsurface defects, or surface defects.


The transmission mechanism between consumption and its fundamentals has been under reviews in the literature from Friedman's permanent income hypothesis to household's liquidity constraints. One particular angle to explain consumption is focused on the role of consumer expectations as a determinant of consumption spending. Here we explore alternative measures for consumer expectations (captured by surveys to households) by taking into account general manager expectations and by using imports of durable consumption goods (which capture consumer confidence about future economic conditions). We argue that, for a small open economy, the expectations channel is well captured by alternative measures; find that even though there is a pass-through from expectations to consumption, this effect tends to have a short-period effect; and also report those values and periods of time for which the alternative measures have a significant impact on consumption.


This research scrutinized the assessment of consumer attitudes and behaviour towards shariah banking services. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of religious motive, service quality, and low charges on customer satisfaction. This research is a quantitative research. The location for the research is shariah bank in Surakarta,Indonesia. Data is collected in this research based on a sample of 100 customers through a structured questionnaire containing 29 questions. The researcher used accidental sampling method which means that the researcher determines the sample accidentally. Analysis is done on this research by using multiple regression analysis, to examine the relationship among independent variables (religious motive, low charges, service quality, and dependent variable (customer satisfaction). The results of this research show significant and negative relationship between religious motive and customer satisfaction, significant and positive relation between low charges and customer satisfaction and insignificant and positive relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction.


U.S.Climate Change Technology Program(CCTP)brought forward a new strategic plan in September 2006.Strategic Plan will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by capturing,storing,and sequestering carbon dioxide,and the RD strategies intended to accelerate the development of these technologies.The technologies outlined in this Plan-hydrogen,biorefining,clean coal,carbon sequestration, nuclear fission and fusion,and others-have the potential to transform our economy in fundamental ways and can address not just climate change,but energy security,air quality,and other pressing needs.This paper aims to provide reference for development of Chinese Climate Change Technology,through introducing U.S. Climate Change Technology Program(CCTP).


In this paper, on the HART (Highway Addressable Remote Transducer) protocol and the system project gives a brief introduction, and then expatiates the hardware and software design of the intelligent transmitter based on HART protocol. Proposed a set of practical intelligent transmitter solution. The ultra-low-power consumption microcontroller is adopted as the control core of the system. The power consumption demand is considered continuously during device selection, circuit design and program design process. The system low power consumption design is realized, and meet the demand of the loop powered intelligent transmitter. while the system realized all of the common commands and part of the special commands of the HART protocol, matched the general characters of the HART intelligent transmitter.


In recent years a growing interest in using draft horses for farm work in Germany and
Europe can be observed. However, precise data concerning the performance of modern
horse-drawn technology are currently rarely available. In a field study labor time
requirements were measured on four farms and one market garden with regular use of
draft horses. In addition, farm managers were interviewed in order to learn about their
intentions to use draft horses nowadays. On the basis of the gathered data, area
performance (ha/h) and total labor time requirements (AKh/ha) of several field procedures
were processed. A comparison with current tractor data shows that although the
tractor performs better in all field procedures, there are merely little differences in crop
cultivation such as pasture or weed harrowing. Considering all arising costs the use of
draft horses can, under certain conditions, even achieve a better profitability than the
use of a comparable tractor.


Moodle is an open-source Learning Management System (LMS) that is gaining popularity in STKIP PGRI Sidoarjo's educational institution. While the education department has accepted Moodle, successfully implementing it for post-graduate students at STKIP PGRI Sidoarjo would then require student acceptance. However, the LMS is the ideal approach for increasing students' commitment to educational content such as sustainability. The findings indicated that students' desire to use LMS SIDALACE, Sidoarjo Learning Space, had a beneficial effect on learning as sustainability engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, students perceived closeness, peer references, and subjective well-being are positively associated with perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, which influences students' intentions to use, which in turn influences LMS usage for student engagement during Covid-19.


(57) Abstract: it is downloaded via a network such as the Internet, or viewer to view a stereoscopic image which resides in a personal computer, using a graphical user interface (GUI), attached in a variety of formats with the texture, or to facilitate the display of a wire frame without texture. In stereo mode, GUI enables adjustment of the neutral plane and the camera offset. File size utilized in viewer is very small, and to allow rapid transmission through the network. File includes wire frame information, texture map information, and animation information.


Soviet regime, and the islands still bear the names of Wilczek, Rudolph (the crown prince of Austria during the Austro-Hungarian expedition), Northbrook (the FirstLord ofthe Admiralty during Benjamin Leigh Smith's expedition of 1880), Hooker (by Smith for Sir Joseph Hooker, former director of Kew and president of the Royal Society), Eva-Liv (for Nansen's wife and daughter), Jackson (by Nansen after their meeting), Graham Bell (first explored by B aid win on Wellman' s expedition), and Ziegler. This multi-national approach has been very positively carried on in this book, which has summaries of its findings in Norwegian, German, Polish, Russian, and French. In April 1994 Russian Prime Minister Viktor Cernomyrdjn signed a declaration creating a nature reserve of Franz Josef Land and its surrounding areas; this was a major step in the nature conservation ofthe Eurasian Arctic. The authors of Franz Josef Land hope that this book, in addition to providing much-needed information about this archipelago, will reflect a similar interest and concern, and will lead to a greater understanding of the need to protect one of the least-known areas on Earth. (Beau Riffenburgh, Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1ER.)


The synthesis, characterization, and metal ion uptake studies of two chelating resins with multiple functional groups are reported. The chelating resins were synthesized by condensing a phenolic Schiff base derived from 4,4′-diaminodiphenylmethane and o-hydroxyacetophenone with formaldehyde or furfuraldehyde. The resins readily absorbed transition metal ions, such as Cu2+ and Ni2+, from dilute aqueous solutions. The Schiff base, resins, and metal polychelates were characterized by various instrumental techniques, such as elemental-analysis, ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy proton and carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-NMR and 13C-NMR, respectively), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and thermogravimetric–differential thermogravimetric analyses (TG–DTG). The 1H-NMR and 13C-NMR studies were used to determine the sites for aldehyde condensation with the phenolic moiety. Fourier transform infrared data provided evidence for metal–ligand bonding. Thermogravimetric analysis was employed to compare the relative thermal stabilities of the resins and the polychelates. The TG data were fitted into different models and subjected to computational analysis to calculate the kinetic parameters. The XRD data indicate that the incorporation of metal ion into the resin matrix significantly enhanced the degree of crystallinity of the material. The extent of metal-ion loading into the resins was studied in competitive and noncompetitive conditions, varying the time of contact, metal ion concentrations, and pH of the reaction medium in a suitable buffer medium. The furfuraldehyde-condensed resin was more effective in removing metal ions than the formaldehyde-condensed resins. The resins were selective for Cu2+, resulting in separation of Cu2+ and Ni2+ from the mixture at pH 5.89. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 88: 570–581, 2003


Sleep apnea increases risk for cardiovascular diseases in part by increasing sympathetic nerve activity (SNA). Chronic intermittent hypoxia (CIH), a rodent model that mimics repetitive hypoxemias that occur in patients with sleep apnea, increases mean arterial pressure (MAP) through a hypothalamic PVN dependent mechanism. The goal of this study was to determine effects of CIH on glutamatergic NMDA receptor tone and investigate the underlying mechanisms. After 7 days of CIH, male Sprague‐Dawley rats were anesthetized and PVN NMDA receptors were blocked bilaterally with AP5. Compared to normoxic controls, CIH exposed rats had greater reductions of renal SNA (CIH: ‐17±7 vs control: 2±2%) and MAP (CIH: ‐8±3 mmHg vs control: ‐3±1 mmHg). CIH decreased PVN expression of NMDA receptor subunits NR1 (72% of control, n=5, P<0.05), NR2A (33% of control, n=2), and NR2B (49% of control, n=6, P<0.05), but increased expression of the excitatory amino acid transporter 2 (158% of control, n=2), suggesting a possible compensatory mechanism to maintain excitatory neurotransmission. CIH reduced expression of postsynaptic density protein 95 (PSD‐95, 73% of control, n=5, P<0.05), a critical adaptor protein that links NMDA receptors to neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) activation. Interestingly, CIH did not change PVN expression of nNOS (105% vs control, n=3). We conclude that support of SNA and MAP after 7 days of CIH involves increased NMDA receptor‐dependent glutamatergic tone in PVN, which involves reduced expression of NMDA receptors offset by reduced glutamate uptake. A further contribution could arise from reduced NO‐mediated inhibition caused by reduced NMDA receptor‐nNOS coupling by PSD‐95. HL 102310 & 088052 (GMT)


The under-pouring material for filling the space under the track slab of the precast concrete slab track, has an important role in supporting the slab and distributing the load from running train to the below. If filling is not complete, due to the space under the slab, it can result in the pitching and rolling of the slab, and frost attack due to water infiltration into the voids. Thus, it can be addressed that the filling performance of the under-pouring material is very important in the construction of precast concrete slab track. In this study, has been evaluated the filling performance of two different types of under-pouring material - non-shrinkage cement mortar and cement-asphalt emulsion composite mortar according to filling methods and methods of mold installation. The filling performance was checked by visual inspection on the interface, with the slab being uplifted before the under-pouring material was completely hardened. The analysis on the test results show that modification of the shape and installation method of molds and the shape and location of filling holes can improve the filling performance.


The present work investigated the effect of purification on the 2~18GHz complex permittivity and complex permeability of multi-walled carbon nanotubes. In some frequency scope, purification decreased the real and imaginary permittivity, increased the real permeability, but had no effect on the imaginary permeability. The purified carbon nanotubes were characterized by Raman spectroscopy and it was found that the better crystalline of the carbon nanotubes were, the bigger the extent of the decrease or increase of the complex permittivity and real permeability became.


ABSTRACT The need of vehicular license plate recognition system (VLPR) has arisen based on the need to implement traffic control on transportation systems, since early 1970s. Since then, researchers are continuously proposing various approaches and solutions. One of the significant and challenging tasks is to localize the license plate of the moving car. Since the license plate standards are not strictly practiced in world, a large amount of variations are obtained like, size, location, type of font used, background and foreground colour, and so on. The principal component analysis (PCA) is one of the widely used and most successful techniques that have been used in image recognition and compression. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to identify the license plate using PCA.


This paper reports on the under–researched topic of indigenous and non–indigenous entrepreneurs in the UK in both rural and urban regions; referred to by Bjerke and Hultman (2013, p.65) in this context as a narrow view of entrepreneurship. This research provides insights into how both rural and urban socioeconomic environments influence the emergence of specific types of entrepreneur. Findings indicate that incoming rural entrepreneurs are lifestyle entrepreneurs while second generation urban ethnic entrepreneurs resist ethnic enclave economies. Issues identified include: lifestyle choices; impact of social and cultural influences; access to business support; use of networks and, a focus on customer relationships. Research implications include identification of differences between indigenous and non–indigenous entrepreneurs which indicate a requirement for bespoke business support that can adapt to the needs of nascent entrepreneurs in different environments.


Primary pulmonary Schwannomas are extremely rare and their radiological manifestations are varied. We presented a 42-year-old female patient with a huge benign Schwannoma, 8 cm at its greatest dimension, arising in the left upper lobe of the lung. This benign tumor showed an increased fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) uptake in the positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) imaging. The patient underwent a lobectomy of the diseased lung with a complete removal of the tumor. She remained asymptomatic after a 14-month follow-up. In this report, we focused the discussion on the radiological findings so as to improve the diagnosis of this rare disease.


It mainly introduces the device-management process based on POS, ATM of DCMS(Device Control Management System), which carries out the extendable model of current operational management and enables device-supervising management completely separated from it, consequently making sure both the running of the daily operation-trade dealing with current devices and increasing the dynamical -device management to improve the services and efficiency of the devices.


In recent years,the service charge makes commercial banks face severe chanlleges of reputation risks.As the transformation and strengthening of bank's market main-body status,the service charge has become a trend.Therefore,it is necessary to take following measures:strengthen the interface between laws and price control measures of bank's services,guide the public to establish the concepts of financial paid-services,improve the rationality of service pricing mechanism and the credibility of the charge,effectively ensure customer's rights to be informed in advance and options to trade,increase the transparency and rationalization of the process of service charges,strengthen the external supervision and management of bank's service charge from the perspective of the public interest to maintain a good order of market competition,increase the service charge based on valueadded and achieve the mutual benefit and the win-win of banks and customers through the improvement of efficiency.


In this article we introduce the {\it cylindrical construction} for graphs and investigate its basic properties. We state a main result claiming a weak tensor-like duality for this construction. Details of our motivations and applications of the construction will appear elsewhere.


Autonomous Under Water Sensor Networks UWSNs form distributed amorphous computing environments. Efficient resolution for an unreachable UWSN which includes failure-prone nodes will require strategies that are as simple as possible in computations and local communications, to facilitate self-organization. In this paper, we propose a self organizing localization algorithm for localization in distributed UWSN. Unlike in terrestrial positioning, Global Positioning System GPS do not work efficiently for underwater scenario. Also available localization schemes are not well suited for deep underwater. We propose an efficient localization technique for underwater which also eliminates errors encountered during localization process. The proposed localization algorithm and localization method which works for terrestrial and underwater is extensively simulated. The results show that our proposed localization technique performs better.


Roasted coconut paste (Acehnese: u neulheu) containing high fat (± 70 %) which can cause rancidity. The purpose of this research is to determine the appropriate antioxidant, and the combination of antioxidants to inhibit rancidity of roasted coconut paste during storage. The experiment was conducted using a randomized block design (RBD) with 3 factors. Factor A is a combination of antioxidants, there are two levels ie α-tocopherol : ascorbic acid (A1), and BHA : BHT (A2). Factor K is the concentration of antioxidants, there are 3 levels ie 0.02 % : 0 % (K1), 0.01 % : 0.01 % (K2), and 0 % : 0.02 % (K3). Factor P is the storage time, there are two levels ie 0 months (P1) and 2 months (P2). The results showed that the antioxidant α-tocopherol, BHA, and BHT, singly or not combined, function equivalently to inhibit the increase of free fatty acids and peroxide number. All three of these antioxidants function better than ascorbic acid. Synergism effect was seen in ascorbic acid in combination with α-tocopherol, but not in BHA with BHT. After stored for 2 months, there were an increase (P≤0,01) in water content, acid number, and peroxide number of roasted coconut paste. Natural antioxidant α-tocopherol (0.02 %), the combination of α-tocopherol with ascorbic acid (0.01 % : 0.01 %), and the synthetic antioxidants BHA with BHT (single or in combination ) can inhibit fat oxidation and rancidity of roasted coconut paste up to 2 months of storage.


In order to obtain a further validation of several reactor physics code systems to be used for the analysis of High Temperature gas-cooled Reactors (HTR) for plutonium burning applications, a HTR plutonium cell burnup calculational benchmark exercise was defined. For simplicity, the benchmark configuration only consists of a single spherical, 6 cm diameter HTR ("pebble") fuel element containing coated (PuO2) fuel particles. The requested calculations concerned the tracking of the multiplication factor, nuclide densities in the fuel particles and other relevant parameters during the irradiation of the fuel element at constant power up to the unusually high burnup of 800 MWd/kgHM. Generally a good agreement is found between the results of 3 out of 4 participants, representing 4 out of 5 code systems. The remaining differences in results between the 3 participants can be largely attributed to differences in the modeling of the reaction paths, which are amplified by the unusually high flux levels typical to this particular benchmark.


Transmembrane ion channels mediate a number of essential physiological processes in a cell ranging from regulating osmotic pressure to transmission of neural signals. Kinetics and selectivity of ion transport is of critical importance to a cell and, not surprisingly, it is a subject of numerous experimental and theoretical studies. In this presentation we will analyze in detail computer simulations of two simple channels from fungi - antiamoebin and trichotoxin. Each of these channels is made of an alpha-helical bundle of small, nongenomically synthesized peptides containing a number of rare amino acids and exhibits strong antimicrobial activity. We will focus on calculating ionic conductance defined as the ratio of ionic current through the channel to applied voltage. From molecular dynamics simulations, conductance can be calculated in at least two ways, each involving different approximations. Specifically, the current, given as the number of charges transferred through the channel per unit of time, can be obtained from the number of events in which ions cross the channel during the simulation. This method works well for large currents (high conductance values and/or applied voltages). If the number of crossing events is small, reliable estimates of current are difficult to achieve. Alternatively, conductance can be estimated assuming that ion transport can be well approximated as diffusion in the external potential given by the free energy profile. Then, the current can be calculated by solving the one-dimensional diffusion equation in this external potential and applied voltage (the generalized Nernst-Planck equation). To do so three ingredients are needed: the free energy profile, the position-dependent diffusion coefficient and the diffusive flux of ions into the channel. All these quantities can be obtained from molecular dynamics simulations. An important advantage of this method is that it can be used equally well to estimating large and small currents. In addition, once the free energy profile becomes available the full current-voltage dependence can be readily obtained. For both channels we carried out calculations using both approaches. We also tested the main assumptions underlying the diffusive model, such as uncorrelated nature of individual crossing events and Fickian diffusion. The accuracy and consistency of different methods will be discussed. Finally we will discuss how comparisons between calculated and measured ionic conductance and selectivity of transport can be used for determining structural models of the channels.


Research in regional growth has been characterised by two trends in recent years. The first is that creativity and talents are seen as parameters for regional growth. The creative class approach has argued that competition for talents has increased as innovation becomes crucial for maintaining competitiveness. This has forced local and regional authorities to implement new political actions toward supplementing the traditional business orientated policies with policies orientated towards attracting and retaining people. The second trend argues that regional analysis and policy-making need to be disaggregated to meet the diverse needs of different regions and due to the particularities characterizing innovative industries drawing on different knowledge bases. This paper argues that combining the understanding of knowledge on a disaggregated level that characterizes the knowledge base approach and the perspective on talent that the creative class approach represents provide a promising framework for regional analysis.


Polarity behavior of a hydrophobic ionic liquid (IL) 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethyl)sulphonylimide [EMI][TFSI] and binary mixtures of [EMI][TFSI] with ethanol, acetone and dichloromethane was investigated by solvatochromic method using Reichardt's betaine dye. Fluorescence spectroscopic method using pyrene as a probe was also used for estimation of polarity of [EMI][TFSI] and [EMI][TFSI]-based binary systems. The binary mixtures of [EMI][TFSI] with the molecular solvents interestingly showed increase in polarity with increasing [EMI][TFSI] for all compositions. The comparative and contrastive features of the results of two methods have been discussed to judge relative merit of one method over the other. Both of the methods collectively provided information to correlate specific interaction of the IL with molecular solvents and define polarity behavior. Journal of Bangladesh Chemical Society, Vol. 25(2), 146-158, 2012 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/jbcs.v25i2.15067


Background: The aim of this work was to study in vivo the perilesional skin in vitiligo with a colorimetric method.


In this paper, we present our AISIA team's contribution to the task Insight for Wellbeing: Multimodal personal health lifelog data analysis at MediaEval 2020. From the data sets provided, we extracted different types of useful attributes for the problem: the timestamp information, the geographical data, sensor data, and the semantic features from images captured by users. We proposed an approach, namely A2QI, by applying machine learning models for estimating the local AQI score and level, including Support Vector Machine and Random Forest. We evaluated the experimental data sets using Randomized Search and K-Fold cross-validation. The test sets' evaluation shows that employing a machine learning approach with appropriate features can significantly improve accuracy.


Sevoflurane activates phospholipase C and protein kinase C, leading to an increase in intracellular Ca2+ concentration, which modulates glucose transport. We studied in vitro the effect of sevoflurane on the uptake of 2-deoxyglucose in rat skeletal muscle cells and the mechanism that modulates the glucose transport. Sevoflurane 0.8, 1.2, and 2.0 mM significantly increased glucose uptake from 13.1 ± 1.2 pmol · h−1 · mg protein−1 to 22.6 ± 1.4, 32.1 ± 1.8, and 37.4 ±2.7 pmol · h−1 · mg protein−1, respectively. Tyrphostin A-23 (a highly selective tyrosine kinase inhibitor) 1 and 10 nM significantly decreased the sevoflurane-stimulated glucose uptake from 32.1 ± 1.8 to 25.8 ± 1.1 and 15.2 ± 1.7 pmol · h−1 · mg protein−1, respectively. Genistein (a selective tyrosine kinase inhibitor) 1 and 10 nM also significantly decreased the sevoflurane- stimulated glucose uptake from 32.1 ± 1.8 to 25.7 ± 1.5 and 15.2 ± 1.4 pmol · h−1 · mg protein−1, respectively. The sevoflurane-stimulated glucose uptake was decreased by 100 nM and 1 &mgr;M TMB-8 (an intracellular Ca2+ antagonist), from 32.1 ± 1.8 pmol · h−1 · mg protein−1 to 25.6 ± 3.3 and 20.3 ± 1.6 pmol · h−1 · mg protein−1, respectively. Staurosporine (a protein kinase C antagonist) 100 nM significantly decreased sevoflurane-stimulated glucose uptake to 26.1 ± 1.5 pmol · h−1 · mg protein−1. We conclude that sevoflurane increases glucose uptake in skeletal muscle cells and that the sevoflurane-stimulated glucose uptake was associated with tyrosine kinase, protein kinase C, and intracellular Ca2+.


Abstract The exclusive right to sell listing contract is believed to be preferable to the exclusive agency listing contract because it gives the listing broker more incentive to put effort into the...


An ultrasonic phased array (PA) does not work well in some weld metals owing to the strong acoustic anisotropy. However, the analysis of anisotropy for the compensation of the shift of the defect image in the PA has not been performed. In this study, we compared the results of imaging a slit in a Ni-based weld metal, commercially available as Inconel alloy 600, in an experiment and in simulations using the analytical solution of group velocity or the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. As a result, we succeeded in reproducing the shift and broadening of the defect image obtained in an experiment by the simulations.


In Brazil the genera Acetes H. Milne Edwards, 1830, and Peisos Burkenroad, 1945, are represented by three species and one subspecies: Acetes americanus americanus, Acetes paraguayensis, Acetes marinus, and Peisos petrunkevitchi. Acetes paraguayensis occurs in freshwater in afftuents of the Amazon and Paraguay Rivers. Acetes marinus occurs in oceanic and estuarine waters of Suriname and northern Brazil, is reported from Para (Tocantins River), and is recorded for the first time from Amapa. Acetes americanus americanus is found throughout Brazilian coastal waters. The range of Peisos petrunkevitchi is extended from Rio de Janeiro (22°29'S, 41 °47'W), Brazil, to Chubut, 44°S, Argentina.


The interference with the track circuit signal is more and more complex under the condition of high-speed and heavy haul, how to detect the signal parameters of track circuit more accurately is becoming an important issue. Firstly, the harmonic interference of the traction current is analyzed, and the harmonic current component of the traction current under the consideration of the power frequency drift and actual measurement are given. Then, due to the track circuit frequency shift signal (FSK signal) uses the frequency parameters to transmit control information. Therefore, through improving the spectrum resolution to improve the reliability of the signal detection, and combing the advantages of ZFFT (Zoom Fast Fourier Transform) algorithm with multiple modulation in the field of signal spectrum local refinement, the ZFFT algorithm with multiple modulation is proposed to detect the frequency signal of the track circuit. This algorithm refines the interested local signal spectrum of the whole signal spectrum to improve the spectral resolution, which can find and eliminate the interference signal frequency. Finally, the simulation is carried out, and the simulation results show that the frequency shift signal detected by this method can meet the error standard of signal detection and improve the reliability of track circuit signal detection.


Previous studies of the effect of unemployment on blue-collar male workers and their families have shown a deterioration of worker self-esteem, marital adjustment, and family satisfaction. The majority of these studies were conducted during or shortly after the Great Depression and are limited in their methodological sophistication. This study provides a contemporary look at the effect of unemployment on husband and wife self-esteem, marital adjustment and communication, and satisfaction and harmony in family relations. In addition, the influence of traditional versus equalitarian marital role expectations was examined. Data collected from 41 unemployed couples and 40 employed couples showed that the unemployed did not have significantly lower feelings of self-esteem, but did report significantly lower marital adjustment, poorer marital communication, and lower satisfaction and harmony in family relations. Traditional marital role expectations had a negative effect on these marital and family life varibles. Changes in spreading patterns among the unemployed are discussed and the implications of the findings are explored.


Additional details of a unique burial custom, practiced on the Delmarva Peninsula, have recently come to light. This practice involved preliminary treatment of the remains by bone-scraping and mummification and temporary incarceration in a temple or bone house and, secondarily, the use of an ossuary dug in the earth for the final and permanent disposal of the skeletons. The practice is reported on the Virginia and Maryland mainland and in the Carolinas by early writers. MacLeod has written a comprehensive account of the complex, and Willoughby discusses it in a paper on the Virginia Indians. From the viewpoint of archaeology, Bushnell and Stewart5 have made leading contributions in recording locations and excavations of ossuaries.


Essentially all manned spacecraft, satellites, planetary rovers and unmanned spacecraft need to reject waste heat through a radiator. While the waste heat load and the heat sink conditions can vary widely, the battery and electronics temperatures must be maintained within specified limits. Typically, the radiators are sized for the highest power at the hottest sink conditions, so they are oversized most of the time. Hence, there is a need to develop lightweight and efficient radiators for future spacecraft and satellites which offer the capability of significant turndown. Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) has developed a novel vapor-pressure-driven variable-view-factor and deployable radiator that passively operates with variable geometry (i.e., form factor) and offers high turndown ratio. The device, utilizes two-phase heat transfer and novel geometric features that adaptively (and reversibly) adjust the view factor in response to internal pressure in the radiator. The radiator folds into a tear drop shape to minimize the view factor when cold, and opens up to maximize the view factor when hot. This is facilitated by a dynamic feedback between the internal pressure inside hollow curved panels of the radiator and the radiator structure itself, which permits a change of shape within the elastic limit of the material – thereby resulting in a passive, reversible, deployable and variable-view-factor radiator, which enables heat spreading via two-phase mechanism and further rejection via radiation.


The spike in scale electroencephalogram(EEG) of epileptic is characterized by pointed peak,changeful size and transient occurrence.In this paper,a morphological filter optimized by artificial immune algorithm is proposed to detect the spike from strong background EEG.The triangular wave is chosen as the structure element of morphological filter and an average weighted combination of openclosing and clos-opening morphological operator is utilized to eliminate statistical deflection of amplitude.Then,the center amplitude and width of the structure element are optimized by immune clone selection algorithm.Through the process of immune evolution,the optimal structure element matching with different epileptics' spike can be obtained.The proposed method is evaluated by clinical EGG.Results show that back activity is fully restrained and spike component is well extracted.


A metacognitive hypothesis to explain age differences in adult memory is explored here–that younger and older adults differ in beliefs about memory and strategic processing. The motivational beliefs that adults make for their own memory performances were examined across tests of recall, recognition, face–name learning, and appointment-keeping. Forty-eight older and 48 younger community-living adults were required to report the factors they believed influenced their performance and the memory strategies used for each task. A final questionnaire required subjects to rank order the importance of a list of causal factors. There were significantly more younger adults as compared to older adults who attributed performance to controllable factors (i.e. strategy use), although age differences in beliefs on a more familiar memory task were smaller than on other tasks. Moreover, within age groups, attributions to controllable factors were associated with increased memory performance compared to when memory was attributed to uncontrollable factors (i.e. ability, age). Believing that memory is uncontrollable may undermine the efficient use of effort in cognition, consistent with current metacognitive theory.


This information is for people whose visas may be cancelled under section 116 or section 501, and for criminal lawyers.


The success of sensor-augmented pump (SAP) in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1D) is dependent on both health care providers (HCP; knowledge and experience) and patients (educational efforts and good training). One of the available software for analyzing SAP is CareLink (Medtronic MiniMed, Inc, Northridge, CA). A 14-day download consists of 9 different reports on 23 pages. Although the reports are well structured and organized, HCP are finding difficulties in interpreting the data in their busy clinics. We have developed a 5-step approach protocol in interpreting SAP using CareLink. The main objective of this pilot study was to assess the usability of the protocol. The main analysis is based on the Therapy Management Dashboard, where five segments are allocated: (1) basic statistics; (2) glucose and insulin overlay; (3) postprandial period; (4) basal/bolus insulin; (5) suspends and sensor. Possible changes are noted on a printed insulin settings page with evaluation of rationale/physiological insulin. Every segment is analyzed with correlation through others with step by step confirmation of possible change. Thirty-four patients (F 18, M 16), age 15.3 ± 7.7 years with total of 128 CareLink downloads were analyzed on monthly basis in a period of 3 months. The patients profile matched our everyday clinical practice, similar to glucose control on patients using insulin pump reported in several studies. Our data showed increased insulin total daily dose (TDD), due to fine tuning with more bolus dose than the basal rates. The glucose control was improved (as seen in Table 1) with a decreased hyperglycemic and hypoglycemic patterns. A 5-step approach protocol in interpreting SAP using CareLink is simple, convenient, and efficient and should be assessed on the multicenter level and with a wider population.


Disclosed is a manufacturing method of composite powder including silicon oxide and silicon metal capable of being used as a negative electrode material of a secondary battery. The method comprises the following steps: a first step of producing a porous material by mixing silicon chloride and glycol which is divalent alcohol; a second step of heat-treating the porous material under the inert gas atmosphere to obtain silicon oxide; and a third step of mixing and making the silicon oxide react in a solid phase with the silicon metal to obtain the composite powder. The silicon oxide is denoted by general formula SiOx, and the oxygen content (x) is within the range of 0<x<2. [Reference numerals] (AA) Discharge capacity(mAh/g); (BB) Cycle number


We investigated the radiation damage process of commercially available light-emitting diode (LED) lightings in an X-ray radiation environment such as the electron storage ring SPring-8. It was found that metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) in the LED power supplies were damaged by X-ray irradiation by a total dose effect greater than several hundred Gy (air kerma). To visualize the whole damage process, we performed in situ measurement of the MOSFET under an irradiation from an X-ray tube. The result clearly showed a sudden increase of the off-state drain current accompanied by a sharp increase of MOSFET temperature as a function of radiation dose, which eventually caused the device failure. We supposed from the result a significant increase in device lifetime by switching off the LED power supply and experimentally verified it by observing the increase of lifetime by an order of magnitude or more under the same irradiation condition.


As the number of deployed multi-agent applications increases, further and better experience with the technology is gained, enabling a strong evaluation of the field from a more practical perspective. In particular, questions relating to how the theory of multi-agent systems impacts on practice, and how the practical development itself compares with other technologies, can be answered in the light of a heightened level of maturity. Given the tensions between theoreticians and practitioners in computing in general, let alone their spats in AI or multi-agent systems in particular, the discussion on agent systems and applications was both vigorous and enthusiastic


Macroalgae removal is a proposed management option in the GBR to reverse declines in inshore coral reef health. Automated image analysis (AIA) is a valuable tool to assess benthic community assemblages. This study compared the accuracy of benthic community assemblages assessed through the AIA program CoralNet to manual image analysis. The ecological effect of macroalgae removal on benthic community composition was also investigated on established permanent quadrats (5x5 m) for reefs at Florence and Arthur Bay, Magnetic Island. Control and treatment quadrats (n=3 respectively) were photographed before and after macroalgae removal over 6 months. The results obtained by AIA and manual approaches were consistent, with macroalgae cover is approximately 77%-87% in all quadrats before macroalgal removal. Through the monitoring period, a small increase in coral cover in the macroalgal removal quadrats was observed in Florence and Arthur Bay (an increase of 1.8% and 0.1%, respectively). CoralNet was demonstrated to be robust for assessing reef benthic cover with no significant difference in recorded benthic categories when compared to the manual approach. CoralNet was accurate for identifying broad benthic categories, but less effective than manual image analyses for lower taxonomic categories (i.e., genus or species level).


monofunctional, being capable of only the adenylation of FMN to form FAD. Studies on bacterial FADS have shown considerable promiscuity in the acceptance of altered FMNs as substrates but absolutely no uptake of different nucleotide triphosphates (e.g. CTP, TTP, etc.). Here we show that bacterial FADS (from C. ammoniagenes, CaFADS) will accept a modified ATP analog, specifically the fluorescent ATP analog aminopurine-2'-deoxyriboside-5'-triphosphate (2ApTP) for the production of dual fluorescent F-2Ap-D. Surprisingly, preliminary experiments indicate the monofunctional hFADS is not similarly promiscuous. These results implicate that this difference in substrate specificity may lead to unique biomarker applications. Understanding these enzymes may also lead to new approaches in nucleoside analog therapeutics.


In the existing literature for Information-Centric Networking (ICN) architectures improvement metrics are well researched and studied including the cache hit rate, origin server load reduction, and the reduction in the overall network footprint [1]. Metrics could be optimized using various aspects of caching including the content placement to make a decision which routers should cache the content on a request patch [2-5]. Impact of different ICN caching placement strategies on the main cloud TV performance metrics is deeply researched in this work, and results are presented. Seven cache placement algorithms are evaluated including four cache sizes of 1 GB, 10 GB, 100 GB, and 1 TB.


A combination of organic ureas and dynamic covalent chemistry was demonstrated for multistate switching, thermally induced fluorescence, and signaling cascades.


Biodiesel is an alternative fuel that becoming worldwide attention as renewable energy which could replace diesel fuel in compression ignition engines. It can be produced from CPO which has a high free fatty acid through the process called transesterification was catalyzed by zinc oxide (ZnO) catalyst. Heterogeneous catalyst such ZnO was promising candidate which has various advantages such as the easy catalyst separation from the reaction mixture, product purification and the reduction of environment pollutants. The purpose of this research is to synthesis ZnO catalyst by natrium oxalate precipitation. The crude palm oil has free fatty acid as such as 8,36%, so CPO conversion was conducted by esterification then transesterification reactions. The esterification reaction was occured at temperatures 65oC with H2SO4 catalyst as much as 1% w/w of oil. The transesterification reaction was occured at temperatures 65oC; with the molar ratio of crude palm oil to methanol were 1:6, 1:12, 1:18; concentration of ZnO catalysts were 0,3%, 0,4% and 0,5%; reaction time was 60 minutes. ZnO catalyst exhibited good activity in the biodiesel production with the yield of FAME above 98% after 1 hour of reaction with the molar ratio of methanol oil 1:18 and ZnO catalyst concentration of 0.5% w/w of oil. The produced crude biodiesel has density 878,5 kg/m3, viscosity 5,7 mm2/s, flash point 165oC, acid value 0,75 mg-KOH/g-biodiesel and alkyl ester content 97,2%. Keywords : crude biodiesel, crude palm oil, esterification, transesterification, ZnO.


Abstract : The axisymmetric Lockheed Viscous Implicit Solver (LVIS) Navier- Stokes computer code is modified to incorporate the capability for computing the flow in the base region of a tactical missile with propulsive jet. Modifications include generalization of the computational space to accommodate the geometry of the base and implementation of two turbulence models of the two-equation type (l-epsilon and k-W). Computer runs are made with both turbulence models. The results of these computations are similar, but some differences are observed in the recirculating near-wake flow and in the shear layers that separate it from the high-speed streams of the propulsive jet and of the external flow. These differences are attributed to the greater eddy viscosity predicted by the k- epsilon model.


AbstractThe method described previously for investigating the action of different addenda on the photosensitivity of silver bromide crystals has been used to study the effect of lead and iron ions on both stages of the photographic process. It is established that lead ions have a catalysing effect on the process of development and promote the latent image formation. Iron ions have an adverse effect on the two stages of the photographic process : although hindering the process of development, they have a strongly marked sensitizing effect on the latent image formation. The influence of iron ions on sensitized crystals has also been followed. The mechanism of the action of the addenda is discussed.


An efficient model is proposed to optimally allocate mobile distributed generations (DGs) for planning islanded microgrids. Unlike conventional DGs, the mobile DG units can be reallocated at any node in the powersytem in order to optimize the system performance. The mobile DGs are assumed to change their location for each season in the year. The microgrid system is controlled using the master-slave scheme. For a microgrid controlled using the maste-slave scheme, a master DG is capable of injecting active and reactive power whereas, a slave DG injects active power only as it operates at a unity power factor. The objective of this model is to minimize the annual energy cost and the cost of moving DGs around between different seasons. This problem is defined as a mixed-integer non-linear programming (MINLP) problem integrated with optimal power flow. The efficacy of the proposed technique is validated on an IEEE-38 bus system under a variable load demand. The results prove the effectiveness of the proposed approach in supporting islanded microgrids with mobile DGs.


Engineering of cooling mechanisms is a bottleneck in nanoelectronics. Whereas thermal exchanges in diffusive graphene are driven by defect assisted acoustic phonon scattering (the so-called supercollisions), the case of highmobility graphene on hexagonal Boron Nitride (hBN) is radically different with a prominent contribution of remote phonons from the substrate. Here, we show that a bi-layer graphene on hBN transistor with local gate can be driven in a very original regime where almost perfect current saturation is achieved by compensation of the decrease of the carrier density and Zener-Klein tunneling (ZKT) at high bias, leading to unprecedented figures for the voltage gain. Using noise thermometry, we show that this Zener-Klein tunneling triggers a new cooling pathway due to the emission of hyperbolic phonons (HPP) in hBN by out-of-equilibrium electron-hole pairs beyond the super-Planckian regime. The combination of ZKT-transport and HPP-cooling promotes graphene on BN transistors as a valuable nanotechnology for power devices and RF electronics.


Three patients with primary group-A infiuenzal pneumonia had diffuse pulmonary infiltrates, arterial oxygen tensions (PaO�) less than 50 mm Hg while breathing oxygen at 1 atm (fractional concentration of oxygen in the inspired gas [F1o2} = 1.0), and right-to-left pulmonary shunts greater than 45 percent of total pulmonary blood flow. At an F1o2 of 1.0, end-expiratory pressure (EEP) was added in increments of 2 to 5 cm H20 every 30 to 60 ,'-'� .


well as an expression of the ideality in thought and behaviour towards which these same aspire to and move against. This is particularly true for the popular, a broad and fluid compound of the various moral, ethical and physical ideals of a people and their deviations from them. In our context, this is best embodied in the audio-visual representational media of cinema and television, both of which range in their scope forces and opinion from the radical to the reactionary. It will be fruitful, therefore, to analyse this media in context of feminism and femininity, issues and ideas central to the day-to-day reality of all sorts of people. Accordingly, this paper will undertake a comparative analysis of Hindi cinema, specifically Bollywood songs, over the sixty year period of its supposed heyday in the 1950s to our own decade, purposing thus to arrive at the thesis that changes in perceptions of the feminine and female remain more or less superficial, effecting liberation only as much as serves to keep women and the idea of woman objectified and typified under a patriarchal whole. To what extent this sort of representational subjugation is and should be cause for concern is also a problematic it will comment on, i.e. whether as popular culture cinema need always be concerned with reform and change. What this purports for the feminist project then in terms of strategies for both activism and criticism will be the final cause for consideration in this paper.


Xiabandi Reservoir is located in a high seismic zone,the covering thickness of the dam foundation reaches to 150 m,and there exists a fine sand layer.Directing against the characteristics of the dam,and based on the static and dynamic tests of the materials of the dam and the three-dimensional static analysis,the security of the dam and cover in circumstances of earthquake are evaluated by adopting the nonlinear and effective stress analysis of considering the dynamic interreaction of dam-cover-cut off wall.


The objective of this work is to demonstrate how African, Indian and white healers were inserted in the colonial order in 17th century in captaincy of Grao -Para, and were incorporated in the new Christian world, between 18th century and early 19th century, by their healing practices. It also seeks to demonstrate how these characters reinvented and rearticulated the european, african and indian religious pattern of healing practices, in the intent of imprint their sense to their insertion process.


In the thesis, we introduce and study different approaches of modelling zombie epidemic. We model the apocalypse of zombies, who came into the population through an outbreak of an epidemic, with the use of assumptions based on popular zombie movies. We introduce and analyse the basic zombie model, determine steady states of the model and their stability. We expand our model by adding different compartments to the model, such as state of latency, quarantine and vaccination. In the thesis we introduce some other approaches for modelling the apocalypse of zombies. We begin with a model based on Lotka-Volterra predator-prey model and illustrate the periodic oscillations of the number of zombies and humans in population. Furthermore, we consider more aggressive approach in facing the zombie threat and try to answer the question whether the humanity survives. We describe the interactions between populations using an analogy with chemical reactions. We formulate a new model and consider whether the size of initial population affects the outcome of epidemic. As a strategy for surviving the zombie epidemic we propose the model in which we build a community. At the end we use diffusion to describe the movement of zombies and calculate how much time we have before getting caught by a zombie.


Duplicate enamel blocks were cut from teeth of various age groups from areas differing in water fluoride. One enamel block received a fluoride treatment and the other served as control. Analysis of thin enamel layers revealed that ftuoride uptake was inversely proportional to the natural F- concentration and, in a lesser degree, to the age of the enamel.


Abstract A dormant supermassive black hole lurking in the center of a galaxy will be revealed when a star passes within its tidal disruption radius, is disrupted, and a flare of electromagnetic radiation is emitted when the bound stellar debris is accreted. Although the tidal disruption of a star is a rare event in a galaxy, ~ 10−4 yr−1, observational candidates have emerged in all-sky X-ray and deep UV surveys in the form of luminous UV/X-ray flares from otherwise quiescent galaxies. We present the light curves and broadband properties of three tidal disruption candidates discovered in the UV by GALEX, and find that (1) the light curves are well-fitted by the power-law decline expected for the fallback of debris from a tidally disrupted solar-type star, and (2) the UV/optical spectral energy distributions can be attributed to thermal emission from an envelope of debris located at ten times the tidal disruption radius of the central black hole. We use the observed peak absolute optical magnitudes of the flares to predict the detection capabilities of the next generation of wide-field optical synoptic surveys.


: This project involves design and construction of automated lab system using arduino mega, GSM technology, RFID technology, Bluetooth technology. In today's age of automation, the focus of making our educational institutions smart and automatic is necessary. For that in this project, we would be implementing the automated lab. We are firstly concerned with the security of the lab where, the entry of the lab is only allowed for the authorized person by using radio frequency technology. To save energy we have implemented automation of electrical appliances using centralized control system based on the Bluetooth technology, In this we will use Bluetooth app to control electrical appliances. We have also included fire detector to detect fire related hazards. If temperature becomes very high so that there is chances of fire then call through the GSM module will make to the lab assistant and buzzer will buzz. In case, suppose lab catches fire then water sprinkling will start which will help to control fire.


This study focuses on the introduction of different types of insulation materials into existing building systems in Europe, where the chosen scenarios differ by climate zone and according to the Köppen climate classification. The insulation materials used are specifically: natural fibre materials, mineral fibre materials and artificial materials. The analysis in question was based on the assessment of the risk of interstitial condensation between the existing masonry and the insulation and the WCI [Kg/m2] (Water Content in the Insulation), through various simulations in dynamic mode, over a reference period of 10 years prior to the energy upgrading intervention. The case study buildings were taken from TABULA and divided by climatic zone, for the years of construction from 1945 to 1969 related to the building typology of single-family houses, wherein each building system the insulation was placed towards the warm side with a fixed thickness of 5 cm. The simulations concerned: a) the application scenario, b) the type of stratigraphy chosen, (c) exposure of the existing building system. The outputs generated by the simulations provided the data to determine in which type of building, depending on the insulating materials, interstitial condensation is formed or not. It was shown that only for the climate zones of the cities of Oslo and Brussels, associated with their own building typologies, for the insulating materials: mineral and natural, there is the formation of interstitial condensation.


In this paper,a new retrieval algorithm for English texts is proposed.First of all,the English texts are mapped into frequency matrixes of order 26 and the dimensions of texts representation space are reduced through singular value decomposition.Second,it fuses the features of the first singular value component and the second one,and then gets the complex feature vectors which reflect not only the statistic frequency but also the sequential structure of letters.In the end,the cosine similarity of texts is used to measure the similarity between the query and documents.The data comparison indicates that this algorithm has well experimental results.Moreover,it gets the advantage over the classic LSA retrieval algorithm in precision and operational efficiency.


There are examined 127 patients, who have transferred carotid endarterectomy. The results of research certifi cate that the conduction of CEAE can prevent the progressive course of chronic cerebral ischemia in 85 %of subjects and as a result we have stabilization or improvement of neurologic and/or neurolopsychologic state. The age of a patient, condition of contralateral carotid artery, the type of atherosclerosis plaque, associated pathology, the existence of the episodes of transient ischemic attacks and ischemic stroke in the pre-operating period exert an effect on the results of an operation.


A novel cranial fixation system, Craniosorb™, was developed using bioabsorbable, aliphatic polyester blends comprising a 50:50 mole:mole poly(50,50 D,L-lactide) (D,L-PLA) and a 95:5 mole mole poly(e-caprolactone-co-p-dioxanone) (PCL:PDO). It was determined that compositions containing less than 10 weight percent of the PCL:PDO copolymer form an opaque, semi-crystalline blend that upon heating above the melting point of the copolymer soften and appear clear until cooled below the copolymer's melting point to yield a visual cue to allow the surgeon to non-destructively contour the now flexible plate to the irregularly shaped cranial and facial bones. Additionally, a novel, easy to deliver fastener system composed of an interference fitting poly(L-lactide) rivet/pin was developed. Physico-mechanical testing of the plate and rivet/pin system demonstrated sufficient strength retention for cranio-facial fracture fixation. It was also found that the absorbable plate and rivet/pin device was biocompatible and elicited minimal inflammatory response. Good bone healing was observed across the defect site. Additional biocompatibility studies demonstrated that the polymer is non-cytotoxic, non-mutagenic, and non-sensitizing.


About the Authors. Chapter 1 Introduction: Reframing Agriculture in Mediterranean Europe. Chapter 2 Bringing Mediterranean Agriculture into the Theoretical Debates. Chapter 3 The 'Southern Model' of European Agriculture Revisited: Continuities and Dynamics. Chapter 4 Changing Agriculture - Changing Landscapes: What is Going on in the High Valued Montado. Chapter 5 Processes of Farmland Abandonment: Land use Change and Structural Adjustment in Galicia (Spain). Chapter 6 Reproducing Productivism in Spanish Agricultural Systems. Chapter 7 The Ambiguities of French Mediterranean Agriculture: Images of the Multifunctional Agriculture to Mask Social Dumping?. Chapter 8 Regional Patterns of Structural Change in Italian Agriculture. Chapter 9 The Emergence of New Development Trajectories in Italian Farms. Chapter 10 Transformations in Croatian Agriculture and Agricultural Policy: Challenges and Opportunities within the European Context. Chapter 11 Rural Transformations and Family Farming In Contemporary Greece. Chapter 12 Agriculture in Mediterranean Europe: Challenging Theory and Policy. Agriculture in Mediterranean Europe: Between Old and New Paradigms. Research in rural sociology and development. Research in rural sociology and development. Copyright page. List of Contributors.


Acute intermittent hypoxia (AIH) promotes persistent increases in ventilation and sympathetic activity, referred as long‐term facilitation (LTF). Augmented inspiratory activity is suggested as a major component of respiratory LTF. In this study, we hypothesized that AIH also elicits a sustained increase in expiratory motor activity. We also investigated whether the expiratory LTF contributes to the development of sympathetic LTF after AIH.


In accordance with the textual research on the name,author and the time of the book"Childrens Massage Canon",it is argued that the book was written by a Chen in the years of 1405~1601 instead of by Chen Rui and his son of the Yuan Dynastry in the years of 1574~1601.


Hydrogenases, a family of metalloenzymes that produce molecular hydrogen (H2) from protons and electrons according to the equation 2H+ + 2e- ? H2, seem to be very promising in terms of bio-hydrogen production as non-polluting fuel. At present, two major difficulties slow the progress and the achievements of a bio-H2-based biotechnology in the field of renewable energies: i) the low efficiency of conversion, in term of energy employed to produce molecular hydrogen and ii) the extreme sensitivity to molecular oxygen, a key feature of most hydrogenases that remains yet misunderstood and imposes to these processes a condition of strict anaerobiosis. In this context, only an extensive study on the molecular mechanisms of both catalytic activity and oxygen intolerance of hyrogenases could overcome these obstacles.
My PhD project focused on the preliminary biochemical and fuctional characterization of [FeFe]-hydrogenases from Enterobacter cloacae and Thermotoga neapolitana.
The first hydrogenase I studied was the one from E. cloacae IIT-BT 08, a high yield H2 producing bacterial strain. This protein is much smaller than previously known [FeFe]-hydrogenases, yet retaining a high catalytic activity, and could represent a good model to study the mechanism of catalysis of more complex hydrogenases. In this work I obtained, in conditions of strict anaerobiosis, a partially pure recombinant StrepII-tagged [FeFe] hydrogenase from E. cloacae, which has been analyzed by preliminar biochemical studies, including iron content determination, EPR analysis and activity assay. Based on the results of these analysis, I concluded that this protein shows no evidence for an hydrogenase, thus supporting the general skepticism of the scientific community about the E. cloacae enzyme.
In the second part of my work I studied the T. neapolitana hydrogenase. T. neapolitana is a hyperthermophilic microorganism which is able to grow and produce hydrogen gas even in microaerobic conditions; for this reason, its enzyme, one of most complex [FeFe]-hydrogenases, never charaterized before, could be a best model to describe the oxygen tolerance of this class of enzymes. In order to investigate on the potential oxygen tolerance of this protein, I expressed it in a E. coli based heterologous system and I obtained a functional enzyme. With this set up, I would investigate the oxygen tolerance of T. neapolitana hydrogenase by means of a site-directed mutagenesis based structure-function relationship study.
The last part of my work was dedicated to the study of one interesting [FeFe]-hydrogenase maturase, the HydF protein, from T. neapolitana. Because all [FeFe]-hydrogenases share a very uncommon and complex active site, they requires a special set of maturase proteins for their biosynthesis. Three of these maturases, HydE, HydF and HydG, recently discovered, are present in all organisms containing [FeFe]-hydrogenases and are extremely important for the functionality of this enzymes.
In order to elucidate the structure and function of this HydF protein, which are still unknown, I overexpressed it in E. coli cells, purified it and crystallized it. Furthermore, in this study I discovered a new feature of this protein, which is present in solution only in two oligomeric forms (dimer and tetramer), which have been isolated and subjected to crystallization and X-ray analysis.