I n A New Narrative for Psychology, Brian Schiff makes the provocative claim that not only is the discipline of psychology fragmented and lacking in theoretical unity, but more importantly, it is "in danger of being irrelevant" (4) because it fails to address the most fundamental questions concerning what it is to be a human being. Schiff argues forcefully that the variable-centered methods that dominate social science research today invite unwarranted researcher conclusions, have a fatal error in logic, and lead to decontextualized research findings with no practical bearing upon the complex lives of real human beings. Schiff's central thesis is that placing the study of narrative at the center of psychology is the ontological, epistemological, theoretical, methodological, and practical solution to the major problems and "disciplinary identity crisis" (5) within contemporary psychology. In this treatise, Schiff aims to provide a clear vision of narrative psychology, guidelines concerning narrative methods and interpretation, and suggestions regarding how the use of narrative can help psychology achieve greater disciplinary coherence. Schiff's vision of narrative and its potential is lofty and inspiring. Regarding the transformative power of narrative in his discipline, Schiff envisions a psychology—with narrative as a unifying framework and "positive centralizing force" (231)—that truly aids the understanding of human beings, provides insights regarding the complexity of human experience, places interpretation and meaning-making at the center, and examines how individuals interact with their social and cultural worlds. Eschewing a structuralist approach to narrative, in favor of a functionalist approach, Schiff focuses upon what narrative accomplishes, how humans convey meaning, and how narrating creates a sense of reality. Sociologists will appreciate Schiff's insistence that individuals' interpretive processes occur within specific social, cultural, historical, temporal, and spatial contexts, that human experience and meaning-making are socially constructed, and that selfreflexivity in research is crucial because the researcher shapes the construction of the narrative. In addition, Schiff argues that narrative psychology can be useful


This paper studies the property of the very weak solutions to obstacle problems for weighted nonmo elliptic equation divA(x,u(x))=divF(x) with conditons〈A(x,ξ),ξ〉≥α|ξ|p,A(x,ξ)≤β(|ξ|+k(x))p-1.


Rice bacterial leaf streak( BLS) caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv.oryzicola is an important disease in the south of China and Southeastern Asian countries.It occurs every year in local areas.This paper reviews the research progress in the disease occurrence in China,the classification of Xanthomonas oryzae pv.oryzicola,and its infection characteristics,pathogenic factors,virulences and breeding of resistant rice.Some issues involved in the disease occurrence and control were presented,and the areas on which future studies might be focused were discussed.


The term "design experiments" was introduced in 1992, in articles by Ann Brown (1992) and Allan Collins (1992). Design experiments were developed as a way to carry out formative research to test and refine educational designs based on principles derived from prior research. More recently the term design research has been applied to this kind of work. In this article, we outline the goals of design research and how it is related to other methodologies. We illustrate how design research is carried out with two very different examples. And we provide guidelines for how design research can best be carried out in the future.


It has long been recognised that one of the most valuable documents about pluralism is the lengthy return of pluralists made in 1366 in accordance with a constitution of pope Urban V. In this return detailed information was sent in to archbishop Simon Langham by the various diocesans, containing the names of pluralists residing at the time in their dioceses, the value of their emoluments, their benefices and academic titles. It has an obvious value as a clergy-list, containing the names not only of several distinguished clerks who held office in the government service, but also of humbler men, as well as of that interesting class of university graduates to whom the acquisition of ecclesiastical benefices became a financial necessity.


In this work we propose a formal modeling of optimal constraints for testing the conformity contract and robustness behaviors of object oriented (OO) programs. Our approach is an important way to generate test data of overriding methods of the inheritance process in the general case where behaviors of OO classes are not necessarily similar. The key idea of this work is to use mathematical entities for developing some algorithms of test data generation to simplify conformity and robustness verification process. Our model of constraints is based on set theory and logical axioms, and can represent in an unambiguous form all properties and behaviors of OO robustness contracts. The second model of this paper is an equivalence partitioning of input data of the program under test, this partitioning technique can be used to reduce the number of test cases that must be developed for classes and subclasses.


A few years ago, the fact that thick piles of undeformed sediments occur in some trenches, caused several geologists to doubt the reality of subduction. However, in 1971, Oxburgh and Turcotte published the results of a study on the origin of paired metamorphic belts and concluded that in a convergent plate boundary periods of active subduction must episodically alternate with periods of cessation of movements along the subduction zone.


Abstract Background Short tandem repeat (STR) loci are widely used in forensic medicine and population genetics. Aim To profile 20 autosomal STR loci using the SureID® 21 G Human STR Identification Kit. Subjects and methods Samples were obtained from 1412 unrelated Chinese Han individuals from Ningde City, Southeastern China and 20 autosomal STR loci were profiled using the SureID® 21 G Human STR Identification Kit. Results A total of 261 alleles were observed among 1412 unrelated individuals and the corresponding allelic frequencies ranged from 0.5464 to 0.0004. The combined power of discrimination and exclusion of the 20 autosomal STR loci were 0.99999999999999999922 and 0.999999340285752, respectively. There was no significant deviation from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) and minimal departure from linkage equilibrium (LE) for two pairwise combinations of loci after sequential Bonferroni correction. In the population comparison, phylogenetic analysis was performed between the Han population and other relevant populations on the basis of the shared autosomal STR genotyping. Moreover, the neighbor-joining tree and principal component analysis were analysed based on the Nei's standard genetic distance. Conclusion The population comparison revealed that the structure of the Ningde Han population was similar to the structure of southern Han populations in China and was significantly different to the other Chinese ethnic groups, such as Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Kazakh, Uyghur, Manchu from Xinjiang and Mongols.


This paper investigates a potential linkage between production and perception in the temporal aspect of speech from an ecological point of view. The variability of the segment duration is analyzed to estimate the temporal control precision in speech production, using large-scale speech corpora comprising a commonly used word set (5240 word entries spoken by 20 speakers) and a phonetically balanced sentence set (503 sentence entries spoken by 10 speakers). The results first show that the duration of a given segment has little correlation with the estimated control precision of that segment. They also show that the estimated precision systematically changes as a function of vowel quality and temporal position in an utterance unit, such as a word or phrase. These findings are in good agreement with the perceptual characteristics, i.e., sensitivity and acceptability of deviation in segment duration; accordingly, the results suggest the existence of some linkage between perception and production.


Abstract : This study presents the background, development, and use of generalized event-oriented simulation model of work activities. The particular question addressed in this research effort was: Can an event-oriented simulation model be developed which will be useful in estimating work completion dates and personnel requirements using the information presented in a work directive. The program is written in SIMSCRIPT II.5 and is adaptable to a particular joint test force by using free-format data inputs. Any test force which is responsible for the performance of activities may be studied using this model. Any number of activities, missions, test phases, workers, and levels of workers may be defined through the input data. Detailed input instructions are provided to tailor the model to the analyst's requirements. Numerous options are available to include: worker skill factors, mission reduction or cancellation probabilities, activity performance capability with reduced personnel, reports, parametric studies, and replications of the entire data package. The function of each routine and event is discussed and a complete program listing is appended. A sample study is provided to illustrate many of the significant features. (Author)


BACKGROUND: Upper airway patency may be compromised during sleep and anesthesia by either anatomical alterations (mechanical properties) or disturbances in the neural control (compensatory neuromuscular responses). The pathophysiology of upper airway obstruction during anesthesia may differ between men and women. Recently, we reported that the upper airway mechanical properties were comparable with those found during natural nonrapid eye movement sleep, as evaluated by measurements of passive critical closing pressure (PCRIT) and upstream resistance (RUS) during midazolam sedation. In this study, we compared the effects of gender on compensatory neuromuscular responses to upper airway obstruction during midazolam general anesthesia. METHOD: Thirty-two subjects (14 men and 18 women) were studied. We constructed pressure-flow relationships to evaluate PCRIT and RUS during midazolam anesthesia. The midazolam anesthesia was induced with an initial dose of midazolam (0.07–0.08 mg/kg bolus) and maintained by midazolam infusion (0.3–0.4 &mgr;g · kg−1 · min−1), and the level of anesthesia was assessed by Ramsay score (Level 5) and Observer's Assessment of Alertness/Sedation score (Level 2). Polysomnographic and hemodynamic variables were monitored while nasal pressure (via mask), inspiratory air flow (via pneumotachograph), and genioglossal electromyograph (EMGGG) were recorded. PCRIT was obtained in both the passive condition, under conditions of decreased EMGGG (passive PCRIT), and in an active condition, whereas EMGGG was increased (active PCRIT). The difference between the active PCRIT and passive PCRIT (&Dgr;PCRIT P − A) was calculated in each subject to determine the compensatory neuromuscular response. RESULTS: The difference between the active PCRIT and passive PCRIT (&Dgr;PCRIT A − P) was significantly greater in women than in men (4.6 ± 2.8 cm H2O and 2.2 ± 1.7 cm H2O, respectively; P < 0.01), suggesting greater compensatory neuromuscular response to upper airway obstruction independent of arousal. CONCLUSION: We demonstrate that the arousal-independent compensatory neuromuscular responses to upper airway obstruction during midazolam anesthesia were partially maintained in women, and that gender may be a major determinant of the strength of compensatory responses during anesthesia.


While I agree with the action taken by the Court and consider that, in view of the unsatisfactory and contradictory provisions of the special agreement by which the parties have submitted this case to the Court, it is perhaps the only course by which the Court could, under its Statute, aid the parties in arriving at a wholly satisfactory solution of their dispute, nevertheless, in view of certain language used in the order, which might be the source of doubt as to the limits of the jurisdiction of this Court and might serve as a basis of argument that it is within the competence of this Court, with the consent of the parties, to take jurisdiction of and decide purely political questions upon considerations of expediency without regard to the legal rights of the parties, I feel it incumbent upon me to make the following observations: In my opinion the question of the competence of this Court which has been raised by the present case and a direct decision of which the Court has avoided, for the moment at least, by the making of the present order, is, from the point of view of the future of this Court and the development of the judicial settlement of international disputes, by far the most important question which has ever been brought before the Permanent Court of International Justice. I feel, therefore, that I would be derelict in my duty if I allowed the question to be passed over in silence or left any doubt as to my opinion in regard thereto.


Erin Sanders, who plays the part of teenage inventor Quinn on Nickelodeon's "Zoey 101" show, with the author. She and her mother recently visited, and were impressed when this loop's little brother (also described below) was able to vastly improve very weak reception on KLBJ Austin (230 miles away) on an average radio. Used with a good radio, this loop is able to receive WWL 870 New Orleans, at almost 700 miles away (thanks to KJIM 870 Ft. Worth powering down).


In a recent paper @J. Chem. Phys. 119, 2376~2003!#, Li et al. concluded from a series of calculations and analysis that ''when compared to other pure carbon nanostructures, we find no rational reason yet why carbon nanotubes should be superior in either binding energies or adsorption/ desorption kinetics'' for H2 storage. 1 This is in contrast to our encouraging computational data and analysis on H 2 storage in single walled carbon nanotubes ~SWNT! which Li et al. largely dismissed, while urging others to perform further calculations to resolve the issues raised. Using what is essentially a space-filling model for highly idealized~8,8! SWNT, the analysis of Li et al. indicates that the ambient temperature H 2 storage capacity cannot exceed 1.5 wt. % and that high capacity is only possible at cryogenic temperatures. In this publication, Li et al. performed three types of calculations towards modeling the interactions of H 2 with ~7,7! armchair nanotubes. In the first step, they calculated the H2 adsorption energy at an endohedral site upon full relaxation of atomic coordinates using density functional theory~DFT! as implemented in VASP, 3 which was reported to be 2.63 kcal/mol per H 2 at 0 K. Subsequently, they performed classical molecular dynamics ~MD! simulations at 300 K and 600 K on various SWNT configurations with Brenner's bond-order potential 4 and noticed an appreciable nanotube structural deformation @although seemingly to a lesser extent compared with our ab initio MD results for ~9,9! nanotubes #. The calculated distribution of the longitudinal angles also appears to be smoother. Finally, they selected a few random configurations from these MD simulations to perform DFT calculations to evaluate the H 2 adsorption energy, which was done with a chosen rigid tube structure but relaxed H 2 coordinates. The average adsorption energy per H2 is reported to be 1.8 kcal/mol. They found ''no abnormal interaction between H 2 and the nanotube that is outside the range of ordinary van der Waals interactions between a H2 molecule and a flat graphene sheet or graphite surface.'' We have two principal issues with this paper, both of which stem from the choice of SWNT models on which the calculations were based: The upper bound H 2 capacity~1.5 wt. %! determined on the basis of simple H 2 space filling analysis of a rigid hexagonal unit cell and the adsorption energy analysis where a different ~tetragonal ! SWNT unit cell was employed. In our opinion, it is an oversimplification to predict an upper bound for H2 capacity~1.5 wt. %! in SWNT based on simple space filling analysis on a rigid model, at least for the reason that significant SWNT dilation can occur upon H 2 adsorption. 5 The SWNT dilation can occur without a significant energy penalty and the required energy for dilation can be supplied via H2 adsorption. Figure 1 shows the potential energy change upon lattice expansion by up t o 1 Å along the aW direction in a hexagonal unit cell of ~9,9! SWNT calculated by local density functional theory as implemented in VASP. It is apparent from this calculation that the energy required for the lattice expansion in this range does not exceed 5 kcal/mol. So, given an adequate adsorption energy, there is no fundamental reason that the SWNT unit cell could not expand to spatially accommodate an H 2 uptake.1.5 wt. %, particularly if one is not restricted to ~8,8! nanotubes. We believe that the most serious issue is in the author's choice of unit cell parameters which materially compromises any meaningful comparison of their calculated adsorption energies to those reported in our paper, 2 and indeed, to the heats of adsorption of hydrogen on SWNT reported in the literature. 6 For reasons that are not clear from their discussion, they have selected a tetragonal unit cell to represent the ~7,7! armchair nanotube lattice despite their own geometric analysis, mentioned previously, that uses a hexagonal lattice in the unit cell. The resulting square lattice structure ~Fig. 2! is clearly not close-packed and is inconsistent with any experimental description of the packing of SWNT in the literature. The unit cell parameters for the ~7,7! nanotube lattice used in their calculations are 15.66 315.6634.919 Å in dimension, which gives a shortest intertube distance of 6.28 Å. This is clearly inconsistent with any experimentally reported internanotube distances ~ca. 3.15 Å! for SWNT bundles from x-ray diffraction studies. 7,8 For purpose of comparison, we show the unit cells magnified by 2 3231 used in both their VASP calculations and ours in Fig. 2. Our opinion is that this study of SWNT in an experimentally unknown square lattice, using a lattice spacing that is nearly twice the distance determined by x-ray diffraction experiments on a range of SWNT samples, represents a de factosimulation of hydrogen interacting with essentially isolated ~7,7! nanotubes. This simply JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL PHYSICS VOLUME 120, NUMBER 19 15 MAY 2004


This chapter is concerned with the Nordic region as a context fostering a distinct place branding scholarship and practice. The endeavour goes beyond demonstrating particular practices or significance of branding phenomena in this region. Rather, the aim is to compile and structure a growing body of research dealing with Nordic place branding and assess its global relevance and academic implications. The Nordic is approached, not only as a geographical context of place branding, but also as an approach – an ideological mindset – that shape place branding concepts, strategies and tactics. Boldly put, the Nordic wave is proposed as a hybrid scholarly approach, which bridges across managerial and critical schools as well as sensitively engages with place branding practitioners. It is argued that these distinct features allow the Nordic wave in place branding to travel across geo-political and scholarly boundaries, and carry the potential of expanding place branding research and practices on an international scale. (Less)


In both the theoretical supposition by Marxist writers and the authantic history of developing Marxism, a common result is revealed,that is, Marxism has heen moving forward in the planar direction of nationalization and globalization since its birth.From the source of thought,value consciousness and its law of practice, we might perceive the unification of its nationalization and globalization.


helpful comments and discussions. Tianying He thankfully acknowledges financial support from the Bankard Fund for Political Economy. Abstract Exploiting variation in the federal tax schedule arising between 1988 and 2006, we estimate the tax-price elasticity of charitable giving. We make two contributions to the literature. We use the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) for our analysis. The SCF reports donations for both itemizers and non-itemizers, while the latter's donations do not appear in tax return data. Besides, the SCF has detailed information on individual correlates of giving and covers a long time period. Second, we estimate the price elasticity not only for " exogenous itemizers " , who have high enough non-charity deductions to itemize (and reduce their tax-price of giving), and who have been well studied in the literature, but we also consider " exogenous non-itemizers. " We characterize the incentives of non-itemizers based on the tax-price they will face if they give enough to itemize, as well as the " distance " in giving required for them to reach this itemization threshold. Our results suggest that (1) exogenous itemizers are responsive to tax incentives, with an estimated price elasticity of around-1 for the full sample, which is similar to representative studies in the literature, and an estimated elasticity that is more than double for the self-employed; (2) " exogenous non-itemizers " also respond to tax incentives involving both the price and distance associated with itemizing, with sensitivity to the tax price diminishing as distance increases.


Human resources cost management is an important part of human resource management in colleges and universities. Strengthening human resource cost management of colleges and universities has great practical significance to optimize the management, improve the efficiency and increase the comprehensive competitiveness of colleges and universities.


Dysphonia, caused by irregular vocal folds vibration, is one of the major symptoms of benign laryngeal diseases and other organic and functional pathologies. The paper presents a cloud-based system for remote analysis of vocal samples submitted by patient through his smartphone using a mobile application which acquires, preprocesses and adds metadata. The system provides a first-level information on possible voice alterations and, if necessary, suggests doing an accurate voice control by a specialist.


An overview of beam instrumentation requirements at the SSC and a status report on progress is given. Small transverse emittance beams, ranging in energy from 30 keV to 20 TeV, must be commissioned, measured, and diagnosed. Instrumentation plans and current design and development efforts for BPMs and other systems are presented. Monitors and electronics soon to be delivered for use in the Linac are described. Design of the Linac systems has been done with requirements and applications to the synchrotrons in mind and thus should provide a basis for the design of much of that hardware. The useful commonality of design across the machines is discussed.<<ETX>>


Objective To explore the clinical efficacy of pregnancy and myoma of uterus cesarean section at the same time myomectomy, further to explore the safety and feasibility. Methods from 2012 January to 2012 December in our hospital underwent cesarean section simultaneously myomectomy in 48 cases, as the observation group, with the same period of simple cesarean section in 48 cases, as control group, to observe the operation time, two groups of bleeding, anal exhaust time the time and the incidence of postpartum lochia, etc. Results The operation time of the observation group was higher than that in the control group, the difference was significant, with statistical significance(P0.05), while the observation group, amount of bleeding, anal exhaust time, the time and the incidence of postpartum lochia situation compared with the control group, no significant difference, do not have statistical significance(P0.05). Conclusion Pregnancy and myoma of uterus cesarean myomectomy is a safe and feasible method to avoid the risk of operation, two, is conducive to postoperative recovery, is worthy of clinical application.


Several stratigraphical phases were distinguished following the first season of excavations at Tell Farama (ancient Pelusium).1) The first phase is associated with the actual use of the theater. In the next phase, the building was used as a garbage dump. This is clearly visible in the southern section of the excavated area: just in front of the pulpitum there is a 35 cm layer of organic remains and mixed potsherds. A pit located in the southeastern corner of the area is probably related to a second phase in the abandonment of the building, when the theater was dismantled for bricks, which were used probably to build the Late Roman fortress located west of the theater. In order to facilitate transport of the removed bricks, the dump was laid with a thin layer of broken bricks. Simultaneously, new layers of lime debris accumulated, and litter continued to be deposited in the ruins, alternating with layers of pure desert sand. Overlying these is a leveling layer consisting of brown earth with patches of lime and small fragments of pottery, twice remade with bricks mixed with lime mortar. The fill up to the modern surface contains more lime and fragments of bricks, pottery, etc. accumulated inside the theater, showing that the dismantling was a prolonged activity. Moreover, in the two parodoi, east and west, traces of plundering of the pulpitum and of the outer wall of the monument are acute. The corresponding stratum was composed of brown compact earth, ashes, lime and potsherds. In the western passage, some 40 cm below the narrow ledge of the stage building, a brick threshold covered by cement was found. Just below the level of the threshold, the foundations cut through two parallel walls of the Hellenistic period.


In this paper we investigate how a software designer can build a complex software design model incrementally by exploiting model interfaces and information hiding to encapsulate different design concerns within model increments. Each model increment either extends or customizes the model it is applied to. When using model extension, each increment adds modelling elements to the existing model to provide additional structure and behaviour. When using model customization, each increment adds modelling elements to adapt the general structure and behaviour of the model to a specific need. We discuss how incremental modelling fits with software development processes, and show how different model composition techniques, i.e. class merge, subclassing, operation in-lining and advising, support the incremental extension and customization of models. Finally, we explain how to generate the complete software design in the end. Practically, we present how we extended the Reusable Aspect Models (RAM) approach to support incremental modelling and show details of an incremental design of a workflow middleware product line.


Mother plays a key role at home, especially in nurturing her children. It goes without saying that early education accepted by a child comes from a mother. She has great contribution to build character of young generation. That is why Qur'anic verses and the Prophet Tradition ( hadith ) indicate how,  without mincing words that,  mother should treat her children, even early before they are born. This article tries to analyze educative role of mother at home by exploring Qur'anic verses and hadith as well as by quoting expert views. In addition, it suggests outdoor factors influencing children education. Kata Kunci: Pendidikan, Ibu, Rumah tangga


Bisphenol A (BPA) is a monomer used to manufacture polycarbonate plastics, the resin of cans and other products with global capacity in excess of 6.4 billion pounds per year. Because ester bonds in these BPA based polymers are subjected to hydrolysis, leaching of BPA has wide spread human exposure. A recent report prepared by Harvard Center for Risk and funded by the American Plastic Council concluded that evidence for low dose effect of BPA is weak on the basis of a review of only 19 studies; the report was issued after a delay of 2.5 years. A current comprehensive literature review reveals that the opposite is true of December' 2004, there were 115 published in vivo studies of low dose effect of BPA, and 94 of these report significant effects. In 31 publications of vertebrate and invertebrate animals, significant effect occurred below the predicted "safe" or Reference 50 microgram/kg/day BPA. An oestrogenic mode of action of BPA is confirmed by an in vitro study which describes disruption of cell function at.23ppt. nonetheless, chemical manufacturer continue to discount these published findings because no industry funded have reported significant effects of low doses of BPA, although more than 90% of Government funded reports have noted significant effects.


This paper deals with nonlinear behavior of pile-supported bridge during earthquake motions. The formulation takes the FEM-BEM (finite element method-boundary element method) for the near structure zone while the BEM for the far field zone. The analyses addressed to the parameter studies of component influence on the behavior of the total superstructure-pile-soil system for the total rational design practice. The results are interpreted with regards to: (1) inelastic behavior of superstructure or/and substructure; (2) different superstructure properties and vertical excitation conditions; and (3) soil layering effect on pile response with emphasis on kinematic and inertial interactions.


We consider micro-taper (narrow refractive axicon) as optical element which is focusing or scattering in dependence on axicon's cone angle. The diffraction of laser beam by micro-taper is simulated by two methods: multiply internal ray reflections using geometrical approach and Helmholtz equation solving using finite elements method. Based on ray optics we derive analytic formulas for conical angles values which provide focusing or scattering features of micro-taper. Numerical simulation by finite elements method verifies theoretical results.


gas flow at the species level must be iz. bulk properties are no longer these facilities to characterise the gas 0 in some cases, time resolved measurements need to be carried out so that kinetic processes such as nozzle starting and model flow development processes can be examined; 0 most important, the methods must be non-intrusive and in no way affect or influence the gas which is to be examined for this reason, many classical methods involving use of probes in the flow are not suitable. A review of nonintrusive diagnostic techniques applied to hypersonic flows has been given by Exton [I]. HEG is a free piston driven shock tunnel [2] at the DLR in Gbttingen at present undergoing commissioning tests prior to its intended use for studies on the influence of real gas effects on atmospheric reentry phenomena. Calculations of the conditions in the free stream gas flow [3] indicate that there is still a high residual kinetic and (perhaps) Boltzmann population temperature, and that the species concentrations do not mirror this temperature it is known that chemical reaction freezes quite early in the n o d e expansion. The following table gives calculated free stream conditions for a run at about 20 MJ kg-1, with diaphragm burst pressure about 50 MPa, and with air as test gas [4]:-


Retinoblastoma (Rb) mostly occurs in infants and young children with weak resistance. Surgical treatment causes great damage to children's appearance, so adjuvant chemotherapy is needed to reduce the damage. But chemotherapeutic resistance affects treatment effectiveness and may
 even lead to the death of the child. Exploring the specific mechanism of drug resistance in Rb children is helpful to improve the therapeutic effect. It was found that the relative expression in Rb cell Y79, SO-Rb50, and HXO-Rb44 was greatly higher than that in normal hum an retinal cells.
 After transfection of SI-HIF1A-AS1 into Rb cells, the expression of lncRNA HIF1A-AS1 was decreased greatly, and the level of HIF-1α was down-regulated. Suppress lncRNA HIF1A-AS1 expression can reduce cell proliferation and improve apoptosis. Based on the overexpression of HIF-1α,
 the cell proliferation ability was restored partially, and the apoptosis ability was reduced greatly. When cells were cultured with vincristine, we found that suppress lncRNA HIF1A-AS1 expression can decrease cell survival, and overexpression of HIF-1α improved cell survival.
 The above results confirmed that inhibition of lncRNA HIF1AAS1 expression could reduce drug resistance of Y97 cells, while overexpression of HIF-1α can antagonize the drug resistance of low expression lncRNA HIF1A-AS1 against Rb cells. Therefore, this study suggests that lncRNA
 HIF1A-AS1 may regulate Rb cells' resistance to vincristine by regulating HIF-1α expression.


ABSTRACT In the past 2 decades, dengue has reemerged in Brazil as a significant public health problem. Clinicians demand a diagnostic test with high sensitivity that is applicable during the early symptomatic phase. We aimed to test two distinct molecular methods on samples from suspected dengue cases during an outbreak in Central Brazil. Acute-phase serum specimens from 254 patients suspected of having dengue were collected during 2005 in the city of Goiânia, Central Brazil. Samples were blindly evaluated by real-time and multiplex PCR in addition to routine immunoglobulin M serology and virus culture. Overall, acute dengue was confirmed by serology, multiplex PCR, or virus isolation for 80% of patients (203/254). Another four patients presented real-time PCR-positive results as the unique marker of dengue. Higher real-time PCR positivity levels and viral loads were observed in the early symptomatic phase of disease (≤5 days) than after this period. Multiplex and real-time PCR assays presented a high kappa agreement (0.85). According to multiplex PCR, 60 samples harbored dengue virus type 3 (DEN-3), 4 samples harbored DEN-2, and 1 sample displayed a pattern compatible with a double infection with DEN-2 and -3. The dengue virus real-time kit was found to be practical and adjustable for high throughput, to display the best performance in the early symptomatic phase of dengue cases, and to be valuable for confirming dengue diagnosis in a timely manner.


Abstract : The study assesses West European perceptions concerning the utility of the NATO Alliance by reviewing the statements and positions of European political and military leaders, opinion polls, and other pertinent sources. Emphasis is placed on documenting perceptions of military, political and economic threats to the Alliance, views on alternatives to NATO, and on the role of U.S. forces.


To explore tillering characteristics and its relationships with population productivity of rice under different cultivation methods in the rice-wheat cropping system in the lower Yangtze River,we compared the characteristics of rice tillering and panicle formation and its productivity and contribution to yield with two super rice cultivars Huaidao 9 and Xudao 3 by using three cultivation methods,precision artificial transplanting with dry nursery middle and strong seedlings,mechanical transplanting with small seedlings and direct seeding.Results showed that rice yields by using different cultivation methods were significantly different,artificial transplanting rice was the highest,while direct seeding rice was the lowest.The great contribution to yields of mechanical transplanting rice and direct seeding rice were mainly from main stem and primary tillers group,in particular for the direct seeding rice,the proportion of stem yield was up to 27.5%,that of secondary tillers group only about 5%.However,for artificial transplanting rice the stem yield proportion was small(16.7%),yield of secondary tillers group accounted for nearly 20%.The proportion of primary tillers group yield was relatively stable among the different cultivation methods and it ranged from 65.84% to 67.09%.The number of tiller leaf position of artificial transplanting rice was more,earbearing tiller percentage was higher and panicle number per plant was more.The primary tillers group emerged from leaf 1 to leaf 10 on main stem,among them the tillers from leaf 5 to leaf 8 had higher emerging rate and more panicles,secondary tillers group emerged and earbeared mainly in 1/5,1/6,and 1/7.Tillers of mechanical transplanting rice had a more concentrated emergence,the primary tillers group emerged from leaf 3 to leaf 7 on main stem,among them leaves 4 to 7 were the superior positions for tiller emerging and panicle formation,secondary tillers group emerged mainly in 1/4,2/4,1/5,but earbeared mainly in 1/4.The primary tillers group of direct seeding rice emerged from leaf 1 to leaf 5 on main stem,among them the leaf positions of 1 to 4 had higher rate of tiller emerging and panicle formation,secondary tillers emerged more,but earbeared only in 1/1,2/1,1/2,with a very low earbearing percentage.These three cultivation methods did not give tillering three times and more than three times.The tillers group of main stem and superior leaf positions in each cultivation method had higher population productivity and better panicle traits,made great contributions to the yield,and more than 85% of the yield came from these stems and tillers.The results suggested that the tillering and panicle formation law by different cultivation methods is different.It is indicated that increasing percentage of earbearing tiller and panicle number per plant and playing regulation fully of tillers group will improve the yield.In rice production,we should enhance the superior leaf position tillers' emergence and flowering frequency,inhibit invalid tillers,improve the population quali-ty,explore the way to increase yield potential of the superior leaf position by using the consequentially supporting management measures and through the precise regulation of density,fertilizer application and irrigation based on the actual various cultivation methods,consequently,achieve the target of high yield and efficient production under different cultivation methods.


ABSTRACT Reduction of the cable insulation eccentricity is an important proposition in the cable industry. In this paper, firstly a strong negative correlation between the insulation eccentricity and the signal-to-noise ratio of insulation thickness in nominal-the-best characteristics is obtained by correlation and regression analysis. Secondly, the methods of fault tree and risk priority number are used to determine three key factors. Finally, Taguchi robust design is used to optimize process parameters. Experimental results showed that the average thickness of insulation can be reduced from 4.52 mm to 4.31 mm and the average eccentricity of insulation can be reduced from 6.12% to 3.09%. Taguchi robust design can not only improve the product quality, but also save product costs and achieve significant economic benefits.


This paper discusses the availability of land for construction use in the Pearl River Delta,with restrictions based on food security,use suitability and the need for an integrated life-support environment.Analysis based on food security restrictions shows that if land use conforms to the government's Regulations on the Protection of Basic Farmland,then a baseline of farmland will be maintained.An analysis based on suitable use and integrated life-support environment factors shows that the maximum land area available for construction use in the Pearl River Delta is from 97.12×10~4 hm~2 to 110.57×10~4 hm~2,23.30 to 26.52 percent of the total area.The currently undeveloped portion totals 21.08 ×10~4 hm~2 to 34.53×10~4 hm~2.Based on the rate of urban expansion from 1997 to 2004, unused construction land in the PRD will be used up in no more than 13 years.Depletion of available construction land is projected to occur in Zhuhai,Foshan and Zhongshan in 3 to 4 years,in Shenzhen and Dongguan in 7 to 8 years,and in Guangzhou in 13 years.Since land use and land supply are not perfectly matched, we assume that land supply will be depleted even more rapidly than estimated and cities in the PRD will soon experience a shortage of land.Although other cities in the Pearl River Delta,including Huizhou,Zhaoqing and Jiangmen,have a relatively abundant supply of land available for construction,there will also be conflicts over land resources due to rapid economic growth and the increasing use of land for construction.Overall,the supply of land for construction use in most cities of the Pearl River Delta is quite limited.There should be strict control of the land supply in order to improve the efficiency and quality of land use.


Abstract Benchmarking programs for crop and livestock farms have been used by farmers to identify ways to improve farm efficiencies. This study developed a set of benchmarks for oyster, mussel, and seaweed farming in Maine (USA). Farm-level survey data were used to calculate benchmarking metrics for each farm respondent. Results showed the importance of disaggregating benchmarking metrics by production scale, gear type, and whether farms were initial startup (defined in this study as <5 years in business) or established (>5 years in business) farms. The initial analysis of cost structures on individual farms provided useful information from which to identify key categories for disaggregation. Identification of the most important cost inputs further points to which benchmarks will be of greatest value for different groups of farms. Results for oyster farms showed that startup costs per oyster harvested were lowest ($0.20/oyster) on established bottom culture farms as compared to $0.96/oyster for established suspended oyster farms, and highest ($1.75/oyster) on startup oyster farms. Profits (Net Farm Income) per oyster were greatest on established bottom oyster farms followed by established suspended oyster farms, but were negative on average, for startup farms. Per-hectare, however, profits were greater on established suspended than bottom culture oyster farms. Labor efficiencies were also greatest for established suspended oyster farms (65 oysters/hour of labor), followed by established bottom culture oyster farms (55 oysters/hour of labor), with the lowest labor efficiency (44 oysters/hour of labor) for startup oyster farms. Given the inherent variability among aquaculture farms, adequate numbers of observations of participating farmers are necessary within each production scale/gear type and startup/established categories for benchmarks to be of value. For emerging sectors of aquaculture, benchmarking metrics can be useful for navigating the critical startup period, but obtaining sufficient numbers of observations is a challenge. Benchmarking metrics for established farm businesses provide guidance on the levels of production and economic performance necessary to be successful. Overall, benchmark values are most useful when applied in a holistic fashion that takes into consideration the performance of the farm across all production, revenue, expense, and efficiency categories (labor, capital, and financial).


Some of us in Library Land are required to publish a certain amount as part of earning tenure. Some of us choose to do research and write articles as a form of self-expression, because of intellectual curiosity, or perhaps to justify bearing faculty status. For whatever reason(s) you might want (or need) to see your own work in print, here are some thoughts that should increase your chances of success. At other times I will discuss other aspects of publishing, such as choosing specific journals, figuring out whether you will derive benefit from your college, and so on. For the present I will look at the business of getting started publishing in library science journals. Librarians run a gamut from "I've got this low-rent MLS and there's no scholarly content in my job" to "Yale hired me for my Oxford D. Phil. in Sumerian, and oh yes, I do have an MS in Information Science from a toprated school, as well;" that is, from the least to the most specialized kinds of job imaginable, from the lowest status to the acme. The odd thing is, librarians at Ivy League institutions (and some of the other high status universities) are mostly not required to publish; the perceived gap between the professors and librarians at such places is simply too great for the professoriate to care whether librarians do any research and writing. (A frequent indicator of that situation can be found in librarians' formal titles. Are they Assistant, Associate or Full Professors, as at most tenure-granting schools, or are they Librarian I, II, or III?) On the other hand, at many junior colleges, middleweight private schools, or metastasized former state teachers' colleges (like the one where I work) most librarians have faculty status, often tenure, and occasionally even a chance at sabbatical leave, largely because members of the teaching faculty acknowledge us as more or less similar beings. Sometimes the two life-forms even cooperate in research and writing!


Our objective is to provide a conceptual and comparative framework for criminological engagement with the issues raised by the regulatory rollback scheme promoted by the Trump administration. We begin with invoking the notion of an "imaginary social order," followed with identifying some core rationales for regulation, the complexities and contradictions, and the areas where the Trump administration favors more, not less regulation. The purpose and actual history of regulation in the United States is addressed as current regulatory rollback initiatives should be analyzed in relation to this history. In addition, regulatory issues ought to be understood in terms of their role in an increasingly complex and constantly evolving capitalist economy.


This article aims to present and discuss the representation of the beauty of women in different cultures through the fashion editorials of Vogue magazine published in the United States, France and Brazil between 2006 and 2007. The purpose is to question the role of the fashion in the construction of the concept of beauty. Women's magazines seduce and manipulate the readers with an idea. The methodology is based on the fundamentals of semiotics, with emphasis on Semiotics and Discourse 'École de Paris', made by Algirdas Julien Greimas. You can see that the three studied societies express favoritism by the Caucasian models, but also by the classical beauty.


The characteristic point carries important information as a characteristic point on the image. This article, in view of the image multi-criterion space method of portrayal, by improving the multi-criterion Harris algorithm, studies the precise locating methods in which the characteristic point can be extracted and the ideal characteristic point can be obtained.


nitrous oxide in subanesthetic concentrations on memory and responsiveness in volunteers. Anesthesiology 1992; 77: 888±98 5 Eger EI II. Age, minimum alveolar anesthetic concentration, and minimum alveolar anesthetic concentration awake. Anesth Analg 2001; 93: 947±53 6 Rampil IJ. Anesthetic potency is not altered after hypothermic spinal cord transection in rats. Anesthesiology 1994; 80: 606±10 7 Antognini JF, Schwartz K. Exaggerated anesthetic requirements in the preferentially anesthetized brain. Anesthesiology 1993; 79: 1244±9 8 Alkire MT, Haier RJ, Barker SJ. Cerebral metabolism during propofol anesthesia in humans studied with positron emission tomography. Anesthesiology 1995; 82: 393±403 9 Alkire MT, Haier RJ, Shah NK, Anderson CT. Positron emission tomography study of regional cerebral metabolism in humans during iso ̄urane anesthesia. Anesthesiology 1997; 86: 549±57 10 Chortkoff BS, Bennett HL, Eger EI. Does nitrous oxide antagonize iso ̄urane-induced suppression of learning? Anesthesiology 1993; 79: 724±32 11 RoÈpcke H, Schwilden H. Interaction of iso ̄urane and nitrous oxide combinations similar for median electroencephalographic frequency and clinical anesthesia. Anesthesiology 1996; 84: 782±8 12 Yli-Hankala A, Lindgren L, Porkkala T, JaÈntti V. Nitrous oxidemediated activation of the EEG during iso ̄urane anaesthesia in patients. Br J Anaesth 1993; 70: 54±7 13 Badner NH, Beattie WS, Freeman D, Spence JD. Nitrous oxideinduced increased homocysteine concentrations are associated with increased postoperative myocardial ischemia in patients undergoing carotid endarterectomy. Anesth Analg 2000; 91: 1073±9


The Design Outfit is a real project derived from a conceptual program. The program, or set of concepts from which the project sprang, critically approached three aspects of design practice: I) reality: how design proceeds from initial sketches to finishing touches, with all steps and scales given comparable attention II) collaboration: how designers interface with one another and others throughout a design process III) social awareness: how designers can shape and place their efforts in relation to social significance The project was designed to explore and test these aspects of design. Based at Henninger High, a public Syracuse City school located on the north side, a group of Syracuse University students paired with a group of high school students to lead a design exploration. Their ultimate goal was to design and build an installation at the school, but the process itself was also approached as a product. The first of two semesters consisted primarily of design lessons lead by the Syracuse University students. The collaborative strategy was to engage and teach the high school students while simultaneously extrapolating from discussions the ways in which the school facility and culture operated. From this understanding came the beginnings of a design. In the second semester, Syracuse University students focused their efforts on developing and realizing a design. They interfaced primarily with three parties: the high school community, craft technicians, and the school district bureaucracy. Unexpected turns and barriers became the norm, ultimately leading to behindschedule production and a minimal chance of the installation being realized in site. The process essentially became the product, and a compilation of text and images recapitulates and critiques the exploration. design outfit TABLE OF CONTENTS introduction i acknowledgements ii advice v PROGRAM: the conceptual framework reality 2 collaboration 5 social awareness 7 PROJECT: testing the framework Phase I: Fall '05 – Fall '06 10 Phase II: Spring '07 41 closing thoughts 78 sources cited 79


The paper arises from the need to adopt entrepreneurial skills in library practice so as to enhance the traditional library practice in Nigeria. It has been observed that previous studies emphasize librarians becoming entrepreneurs with the knowledge of information skills thereby becoming infopreneurs or knowledge entrepreneurs as the case may be, but the current paper addresses library practice and how skills that make entrepreneurs thrive could be adopted in order to lift the image of the library and for librarians to see their work as their own business. The concept of entrepreneurship is discussed and issues regarding the matching of such skills with librarianship skills and spotting the basic entrepreneurial skills that are deemed necessary for the thriving of library services are raised. There are perceived threats to the adoption of entrepreneurial skills by librarians and such are highlighted. Resolution and proposal concerning the need to adopt entrepreneurial skills to enhance library practice in Nigeria are introduced as the originality of the paper.


Comrade JiangZeming has developed many penetrating opinions about youth problems in China,which opens new fields of the Marxist outlook on Youth.This thesis emphasizes Jiang Zeming's outlook on youth,including knowledge of the essence of youth,requirements for youth ideological and political work,contents of research,aims of higher education and training youthful cadres,and researches on the regularity of the youth growth.


This study is focused on the effect of droplet length on droplet velocity in liquid-liquid Taylor flows for microfluidic applications. An experimental set up was designed to measure droplet velocity over a wide range of droplet lengths and flow velocities while also varying viscosity ratio. Five different fluid combinations were examined by employing AR20, FC40, HFE7500 and water. Results indicate the complexity of predicting droplet velocity in such flow regimes and also show a strong influence of viscosity ratio and Bond number.


We are operating a micro LIDAR system for lowering the influence of atmospheric conditions on the results of the 17m diameter MAGIC Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope (IACT) for ground-based astrophysics by means of very high energy (VHE) gamma rays. The laser of our LIDAR operates at a pulse energy of ∼ 5μJ at ca. 1kHz repetition rate for not disturbing the operation of the other nearby Telescopes on the European North Observatory at Roque de los Muchachos on Canary island of La Palma. The low light intensity reflected from the atmosphere requires a very sensitive light detector, capable of resolving and counting single photons. A high quantum efficiency (QE) Hybrid Photon Detector (HPD) with GaAsP photo cathode in the focus of a 60cm diameter mirror does this.


During the 30 th Polish and 10 th Ukraine Antarctic expeditions (09 November 2005 through 09 February 2006) we attempted three translocations of vegetative material of Deschampsia antarctica and two of Colobanthus quitensis around the Polish Henric Arctowski Station (King George Island, South Shetland Archipelago) in order to mimic dispersal of plants by birds. The results show that the factor limiting the establishment of these vascular plants in the region is probably the availability of fresh water, because only at plots near the glacier where melt water was present during all of the austral summer the plants were able to get settled. The other sites were apparently too dry, particularly in this respective summer season.


Freezing and thawing (FT) method has been known as an ef fective technique for removing suspended solid (SS) from suspensions including sewage sludge. In this study, saccharification solution produced from kitchen garbage has been chosen as sample solution, and FT technique has applied to the solution for the removal of SS in the solution. After the FT application for the saccharification solution (SS: 52700 ppm), SS in the solution have been reduced to 1300 ppm. And much clearer supernatant with lower SS content was obtained when FT solution kept at static condition overnight. Consequently, keeping FT solution at static condition overnight for SS sedimentation can remove over 99% of the SS from original kitchen garbage saccharification liquor. Saccharification liquor is easily damaged due to its characteristics. It should be kept frozen till its use as raw material for fermentation. Freezing and thawing offers good option both for SS removal and storage.


Friction plug welding of 2014 Al alloy FSW joints in 4 mm thickness have been successfully completed.The metallurgy experiment demonstrates that the FPW joint microstructures could be divided into three different regions:welding line zone,HAZ and base metal zone.The dynamic recrystallization occurs in the welding line zone,which consist of refined,equiaxed grains.Mechanical property measurements demonstrate that the peak tensile strength of the joint can reach more than 330MPa,reach or exceed the joint strength of the FSW welding joint when the suited parameters were used.The microhardness analysis shows that the hardness of the welding line zone is higher than the other zones,but the changes of the FPW joint microhardness is not very acutely.


Background Several studies have compared the performance of reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and antigen rapid diagnostic tests (Ag-RDTs) as tools to diagnose SARS-CoV-2 disease (COVID-19). As the performance of Ag-RDT may vary among different products and viral load scenarios, the clinical utility of the Ag-RDT remains unclear. Our aim is to assess the diagnostic agreement between Ag-RDTs and RT-PCR in testing for COVID-19 across different products and cycle threshold (Ct) values. Methods An evidence synthesis and meta-analysis of Positive Percent Agreement (PPA) and Negative Percent Agreement (NPA) was conducted after an exhaustive search of five databases to locate published studies that compared Ag-RDT to RT-PCR and reported quantitative comparison results. After the screening, quality assessment, and data extraction, the synthesis of pooled estimates was carried out utilizing the quality-effects (QE) model and Freeman-Tukey double arcsine transformation (FTT) for variance stabilization. Subgroup analysis was also conducted to evaluate the tests diagnostic agreement across distinctive products and Ct-value thresholds. Findings A total of 420 studies were screened by title and abstract, of which 39 were eventually included in the analysis. The overall NPA was 99.4% (95%CI 98.8-99.8, I2=91.40%). The PPA was higher in lower Ct groups such as groups with Ct <20 and Ct <25, which had an overall PPA of 95.9% (95%CI 92.7-98.2, I2=0%) and 96.8% (95%CI 95.2-98.0, I2=50.1%) respectively. This is in contrast to groups with higher Ct values, which had relatively lower PPA. Panbio and Roche Ag-RDTs had the best consistent overall PPA across different Ct groups especially in groups with Ct <20 and Ct <25. Interpretation The findings of our meta-analysis support the use of Ag-RDTs in lieu of RT-PCR for decision making regarding COVID-19 control measures, since the enhanced capacity of RT-PCR to detect disease in those that are Ag-RDT negative will be unlikely to have much public health utility. This step will drastically reduce the cost and time in testing for COVID-19.


The process of structural reform in Latin America has thus far been uneven, and various economic crises have raised doubts about reforms' effectiveness and have caused public support for further reforms to wane. To promote and highlight research exploring structural reform's impact on economic growth and income distribution in Latin America, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) cosponsored the conference "Rethinking Structural Reform in Latin America" in October 2003. ; This issue of the Economic Review contains four articles that were among the papers presented at the conference. The preface summarizes the conference speeches, papers, and discussant comments.


Previous research suggests that marijuana use is associated with impairments in retrospective memory. Ours is the first study to examine the relationship between marijuana use and prospective memory, the ability to remember plans and intentions. Over 100 undergraduate students completed a survey that assessed marijuana use and prospective memory. Marijuana use was found to be associated with failures on prospective memory tasks that involve internal cues (e.g., I forget what I want to say in the middle of a sentence, I forget what I came in a room to get); it was also related to problems with punctuality.


Information Technology in India is an industry consisting of two major components: IT services and business process outsourcing (BPO).[1] The sector has increased its contribution to India's GDP from 1.2% in 1998 to 7.7% in 2017. India's IT Services industry was born in Mumbai in 1967 with the creation of Tata Consultancy Services[7] who in 1977 partnered with Burroughs which began India's export of IT services. Objectives of the study, 1. To analyze the financial performance of selected software companies in terms of liquidity and solvency, positions and to assess the working capital position of selected software companies in India. Methodology of the study, Secondary data is used for the study which is obtained from concerned companies" website, NSE website and also from other relevant sites. Ten companies were selected as sample size, on the basis of convenient sampling technique. To analyze the performance of the selected companies, various techniques have been applied, like ratio analysis, mean, standard deviation, coefficient of variation and CAGR Suggestions of the study, The burden of interest has produced a deteriorating effect and reduced the percentage of net profit. It is suggested that a study of productivity and financial efficiency of the software industry of Indian companies. The few companies, which did not follow a definite policy of financing fixed assets, should follow such policy.


Mechanical milling behavior of Mo-Si-Fe powders was investigated u sing XRD, SEM and TEM techniques. The mixtures of elemental molybdenum (>99%), s ilicon (>99%) and iron (>98%) powders with a stoichiometry of Mo5-xFe xSi3 (x=0.5, 1, 2) were milled in a planetary mill for up to 195 h. For all three powder mixt ures, high-energy milling of 60h led to formation of the Mo(Fe, Si) supers aturated solid solution (Moss); and to a remarkable expansion of the solub ility of Fe, Si in molybdenum. The transformation of Moss to an amorphous phase was identified after longer time milling. In the milling process, the grain size of Mo (Fe, Si) decreased gradually and the internal stress increased linearly. After 40 h milling, the grain size was reduced to about 11 nm. SEM analysis of milled powders showed that the particle size increased initially with milling time. After 195 h milling, particles exhibited a spherical morphology and the particle size were reduced to about 100 nm.


A laser treatment apparatus comprising a laser medium strong absorption medium injected into the laser irradiation apparatus and the subject affected tissue for implantation into a laser irradiation apparatus irradiating a laser beam to the affected tissue absorbing laser medium, the laser is irradiated to the affected target media injection apparatus comprising laser tissue injection needle absorption medium; through connections connected through the connecting portion provided at the rear end portion of the needle, and is housed inside the syringe pump strongly absorbing laser medium, the laser irradiation apparatus having the laser light introduced from the affected area laser irradiation apparatus occurs the light guide body tissue. This laser treatment apparatus without considering the color tone of the body tissues and composition on the absorption of laser light for heating objects like tissue damage reliably administered ET-called coagulation necrosis thermal damage, but also prevented because the affected tissue caused by ET abnormally high pressure cancer cell proliferation.


No matter how hard I work or how well I think I'm doing as a family physician, there are still areas where I fail my patients.


The invention provides an ammonia spraying mouth spout separation distance optimization design method of a space-limited denitration device. According to the ammonia spraying mouth spout separation distance optimization design method, ammonia spraying mouth spout separation distances are optimized under the condition that mixing distances, ammonia spraying grid pipe separation distances and vertex angles of ammonia spraying mouths are given, and the ammonia spraying mouth spout separation distances are changed by changing the length of the ammonia spraying mouths. On the special occasion that the mixing distances are short and mixing units cannot be installed, the ammonia-smoke mixing uniformity at the position of a catalyst layer inlet plane can be improved by means of the optimization design method. Under the situation that a space structure is limited and the mixing distances are short, the ammonia spraying mouth spout separation distance optimization design method enables the ammonia concentration uniformity of a reducing agent to be up to the standard and has the application potential of improving NOx removal efficiency and controlling ammonia escape amount.


Small amounts of compounds or salts representing forty‐three of the more metallic elements were added to the electrolyte during an investigation of the electrochemical reduction of 3–5‐dinitro‐o‐cresol. In thirty‐five cases a significant decrease in yield resulted. The data obtained cannot be explained by the conventional theories for electrochemical carriers. It is suggested that the effect is a function of the atomic number of the investigated metal of the salt added.


We consider the following 2-D Schrodinger-Newton equation \begin{eqnarray*} \begin{cases} -\Delta u+u=w|u|^{p-1}u \\ -\Delta w=2 \pi |u|^p \end{cases}\text{in} \; \mathbb{R}^2 \end{eqnarray*} for $ p \geq 2 $. Using variational method with the Cerami compactness property, we prove the existence of minimal action odd solutions. Also by carefully applying the method of moving plane to a similar but more complex equation on the upper half space, we prove these solutions are in fact axially symmetric. Our results partially can be seen as the counterpart of results in paper \cite{GS} for the 2-D case, or the extension of the results \cite{CW} to the odd solution case.


A floor mat and a small animal rearing cage capable of healthfully rearing a small animal and eliminating the need of adding a specific breeding floor mat even when the small animal is bred, wherein the floor mat is laid on the floor of a rearing box forming the small animal rearing cage. The floor mat formed in a sheet having heat retaining property and flexibility has such a size that can enclose at least the body part of the small animal and laid on the floor of the rearing box so that walls of such a size that can hide at least the half of the body of the small animal can be formed. By utilizing walls formed with the meandering and overlapped sheet-like floor mat, the small animal assures a sleeping floor, an excretion place, and birth and breeding place where light and wind can be avoided. The sheet-like floor mat desirably has both water absorbency and deodorization property to suppress the occurrence of odor.


C ase Presentation: A 55-year-old man was admitted for investigation of a persistent cough. Chest x-ray revealed an opacity near the right upper-lobe bronchus. He was an ex-smoker, and his only previous medical history was of an acute coronary syndrome leading to the implantation of a drug-eluting stent (DES) in his proxi-mal left anterior descending artery 3 months before this admission. A trans-bronchial biopsy was required, so a discussion ensued between the cardiol-ogy and the respiratory teams about whether to stop his oral antiplatelet agents (OAAs), in this case, a combination of clopidogrel and aspirin. Interruption of OAA therapy, as often happens for noncardiac surgery, has been shown to be an important factor in stent thrombosis. 1 The consequences of stent thrombosis are severe, with a 64% rate of death or myocardial infarction and a mortality rate of between 9% and 45%. 1,2 In recent years, there has been an explosion in the use of DES, for which the risk of stent thrombosis, although likely to be similar to the standard bare-metal stent in the early phase, is less well defined owing to the longer, potentially indefinite period of time over which it may occur. 3 Concern about the possible increased incidence of stent thrombosis with DES led to the publication of a consensus statement that highlighted the importance of not prematurely discontinuing dual OAA therapy and increasing its recommended duration in the case of DES to 1 year. 4 The timing and definition of stent thrombosis vary between studies, which has led to a call for standardizing definitions. 5 In addition, although most of the trials have included low-risk patients and coronary lesions, the use of DES in the real world is much less controlled, potentially increasing the risk of stent thrombosis. 6,7 It has been well established that patients who undergo noncardiac surgery soon after stent implantation are at increased risk for stent thrombosis. 8 –10 The reasons for this increased risk may include nonendothelialization of the stent, interruption of dual OAA therapy, and the potentially prothrom-botic state associated with surgery itself. The risks of surgery after coronary stenting have been described in 8 observational , mainly retrospective, studies 8 –15 (summarized in Table 1). The mortality rate in such patients ranged from 2.5% to 21.4%. Noncardiac surgery performed in patients who have had recent coronary stenting exposes them to an increased risk of major cardiac events in …


The curriculum reform of Mechanical Graphics based on the work-study combination requires that the curriculum modules should be reconstructed, the teaching mode should be changed and the evaluation system should be perfected.


Objective To explore the therapeutic effects of heparin sodium and silver sulfadiazine in treating Type II depth burns.Methods 52 patients of Type II depth burns were treated in two different methods.The experimental group was treated with heparin sodium and silver sulfadiazine,and the contrast group was treated with silver sulfadiazine only.The healing time,the rate of infection and the scar hyperplasia indexes of the two groups were contrasted.Results The Average healing time and the infection rate were(18.2±3.62)days and 10% in the experimental group and(25.2±2.62)days in the contrast group.There existed significant differences in between the two groups(P0.01).Conclusion The combined use heparin sodium and silver sulfadiazine can produce much better therapeutic effects than using silver sulfadiazine only.


Palm sugar is a product made from coconut sap.Anti inverse is a preservative that can decrease enzim activity. Sodim metabisulphite is a preservative commonly used in making sugar. This study aims to determine the effect of soaking tube with anti inverse solution and concentration addition sodium metabisulphite for naturally fermented coconut sap during 8 hours. The result showedbest parameter based on physicochemical properties were obtained by concentration addition of sodium metabisulphite 500 ppm and anti inverse concentration 3000 ppm with value as followed: water content (5.01%), invert sugar content (3.67%), sucrose content (77.67%), pH (6.54), brightness level (48.93), redness level (28.10), yellowness level (28.10), sulfit residue (79.52 ppm), yield (17.01%), and ash content (1.80%). Best parameter based on organoleptic properties were obtained by concentration addition of sodium metabisulphite 300 ppm and anti inverse concentration 2000 ppm with value as followed: colour (4.50), taste (4.50), flavour (4.65), texture (4.55).


The low-temperature remote oxygen/nitrogen plasma ashing process that removes both the photoresist and polymer residues containing carbon and fluorine after reactive ion etching (RIE) process was investigated. The fluorocarbon residue was distributed with a depth of several tens of angstroms from the surface with a relatively homogeneous spatial distribution after the RIE process. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis also showed the formation of fluorocarbon films during RIE with mainly C–C, C–CFx (x=1,2,3), CF, and CF2 bonds. The ashing rate increased with increasing amount of nitrogen addition to oxygen gas and showed saturation at approximately 10% of nitrogen addition. Mass spectrometry measurement revealed that the amount of atomic oxygen increased with the addition of nitrogen to oxygen gas. This study revealed that atomic oxygen is the primary reactive species responsible for removal of photoresist in the remote oxygen/nitrogen ashing process.


Dislodgment of an atrial screw‐in pacing lead is quite rare. This report describes a rare case of an atrial screw‐in lead dislodgment 10 years after implantation. Although it is an uncommon complication, very late dislodgment can occur postoperatively, and careful follow‐up is necessary. (PACE 2004; 27:264–265)


Thick films with a tetragonal structure were grown on NdGaO3 (110) substrates by the liquid-phase epitaxy technique using a mixture of Y0.4Ca0.6Ba1.4La0.6Cu3Ox and BaCuO2–CuO flux. The Ca and La concentrations in the films were found to be about 1/9 and 1/2 of those in the solute, respectively. The films showed a sharp superconducting transition with Tc(zero)=79.4 K and a transition width of 0.8 K. The growth of the films changed from a c-axis orientation to an a-axis orientation with an increase in the growth temperature and the holding time of the molten solution.


The starburst-type arylborane-appended polypyridyl RuII complex [Ru{4,7-bis({dimesityl}boryldurylethynyl)-1,10-phenanthroline}3]2+ (1) was synthesized, and its spectroscopic and photophysical properties were evaluated. In the excited state of the complex, intramolecular charge transfer (CT) between the π orbital of the aryl group and the vacant p orbital of the boron atom [π(aryl)–p(B) CT] interacts synergistically with metal-to-ligand charge transfer (MLCT). The synergistic CT interactions in 1 are more effective than those in previously reported arylborane-appended polypyridyl RuII complexes and lead to bright (molar absorption coefficient of the MLCT band = 7.2 × 104 m–1 cm–1, emission quantum yield = 0.29) and long-lived emission (8.7 µs) of 1 in CH3CN at 298 K. The unique emission characteristics of 1 are discussed in detail together with its electrochemical properties and time-dependent DFT (TD-DFT) calculations.


High density, ordered arrays of InAs quantum dots by electron beam lithography and selective area epitaxy emitting in the 1.1μm range are demonstrated. The role of mask geometry on quantum dot nucleation is determined.


This article offers a comparison of the accounts in 1 Samuel 3 and the Sixth Chapter of the Egyptian Book of the Dead and leads to the conclusion that they may be parallel accounts. The background to the Egyptian text is explained, and it is suggested that the Hebrew author used the Egyptian account in writing this important chapter in the Deuteronomistic History.


ABSTRACT Chatham Island forget-me-not Myosotidium hortensia (Boraginaceae) is a monotypic genus endemic to the Chatham Islands of New Zealand. Myosotidium hortensia is threatened in its natural environment by introduced grazing animals and weeds. Further to this, the conservation and reintroduction efforts of M. hortensia are hindered by their dormant seeds. The dormancy is imposed by the seed coat but the underlying dormancy mechanisms are not well understood. Understanding the dormancy mechanisms in this species will help in revegetation efforts. This work aims to elucidate mechanisms by which the seed coat imposes dormancy in M. hortensia by determining the germination after manipulation of the seed coat and measuring changes in oxygen uptake in response to this manipulation. The structure of the seed coat was assessed using scanning electron microscopy and the presence or absence of lignin in the seed coat determined. As with other Boraginaceae, the seed coat of M. hortensia does not restrict water penetration into the seed. Oxygen uptake was 4.5 fold higher in decoated than in intact seed. There was no significant increase in oxygen uptake for the seeds when their seed coat had been pierced or pierced and resealed with vaseline. However, the germination rate, as measured by radicle emergence, was faster in these seeds. These findings, in addition to the structural analysis of the seed coat which revealed that the seeds have secondary thickening but no lignin, confirmed that mechanical constraint of embryo growth was preventing germination.


The developing prerequisite for the item having ease alongside amazing quality has encouraged work towards composites of materials lately. Which are having particular stages and qualities just as better than the parent materials. Metal Matrix composites (MMCs) are continually advancing because of inventive and energizing advances and are broadly utilized just as perceived as a possible material for some mechanical applications in different industry. This examination represents applications of aluminum compound primary parts are numerous in vehicles, airplanes, and other military components because of their improved properties and solidarity to weight proportions. New class of AMMC are in consideration wide cluster of utilizations in ventures due to great mechanical attributes, ease, and light weight. Aluminum Metal Matrix composites likewise can be made through an assortment of methods. By various strategy for the manufacture cycle and by adding the diverse support material, distinctive trademark profile got. Objective of this investigation is to study about of creation measure and different components, which are affecting of nano reinforcement on Aluminum Metal Matrix composites.


The present work has the following theme: Karate-do as a mechanism to contain the
aggressiveness of the students. This research is justified by the aggressive behavior
that some students presented in the professional stages and by the fact that I am a
Karate-do practitioner. It´s Objective is to verify if Karate even being a martial art that
uses techniques of corporal combat, can help in the formation of students less
aggressives and with a more sociable behavior in the school environment. The
methodology applied was a literature review. The results show that Karate-do can be
a mechanism to contain the aggressive impulses of the students. We conclude that
Karate even being a martial art, can serve as a tool for the formation of students
morale through its philosophy and thus making these students less aggressive.


Abstract The greater mouse-tailed bat (Rhinopoma microphyllum) possesses a large geographical range, covering most of the arid and warm areas of the Old World. We studied the genetic variability of this species using two mitochondrial markers (the cytochrome b gene and the control region), from several Israeli colonies and from over most of the species' range. Our results show that the cytochrome b sequences, unlike those of the control region, are too conserved to separate among R. microphyllum populations. Based on the control region sequences, a high level of sequence similarity was found within the Israeli population. Three clades were observed over the species' range: Oriental, Intermediate and Palaearctic. This division supports most of the traditional taxonomy of the species. The Israeli population, which belongs to the Palaearctic clade, was found to be isolated from the Oriental and Intermediate clades. We suggest that the colonization of the greater mouse-tailed bat in the Levant occurred from African populations during the late Pleistocene, when many Saharan plants and animals penetrated the northern part of the Great Rift Valley.


We discuss metrizability of locally homogeneous affine connections on affine 2-manifolds and give some partial answers, using the results from [1, 5, 13, 12].


The T-gate stem height of InAlAs/InGaAs InP-based high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) is increased from 165 nm to 250 nm. The influences of increasing the gate stem height on the direct current (DC) and radio frequency (RF) performances of device are investigated. A 120-nm-long gate, 250-nm-high gate stem device exhibits a higher threshold voltage (V th) of 60 mV than a 120-nm-long gate devices with a short gate stem, caused by more Pt distributions on the gate foot edges of the high Ti/Pt/Au gate. The Pt distribution in Schottky contact metal is found to increase with the gate stem height or the gate length increasing, and thus enhancing the Schottky barrier height and expanding the gate length, which can be due to the increased internal tensile stress of Pt. The more Pt distributions for the high gate stem device also lead to more obvious Pt sinking, which reduces the distance between the gate and the InGaAs channel so that the transconductance (g m) of the high gate stem device is 70 mS/mm larger than that of the short stem device. As for the RF performances, the gate extrinsic parasitic capacitance decreases and the intrinsic transconductance increases after the gate stem height has been increased, so the RF performances of device are obviously improved. The high gate stem device yields a maximum f t of 270 GHz and f max of 460 GHz, while the short gate stem device has a maximum f t of 240 GHz and the f max of 370 GHz.


Estimation after model selection refers to the problem where the exact observation model is unknown and is assumed to belong to a set of candidate models. Thus, a data-based model-selection stage is performed prior to the parameter estimation stage, which affects the performance of the subsequent estimation. In this letter, we investigate post-model-selection Bayesian parameter estimation of a random vector with an unknown deterministic support set, where this support set represents the model. First, we present different estimators, including the oracle minimum mean-squared-error (MMSE), the coherent MMSE, the selected MMSE, and the full model MMSE. Then, we develop the selective Bayesian Cram$\acute{\text{e}}$r-Rao bound (BCRB) and selective tighter BCRB, which are lower bounds on the mean-squared-error (MSE) for any coherent estimator.


This study reports on an experiment involving normal female rats, castrates of both sexes, and estrogen-injected castrates to determine whether or not estrogenic hormones are capable of influencing transplanted adenofibroma. A total of 469 normal and castrated rats were given injections of estrogen and testosterone after tumor implantation in the region of the right inguinal mammary gland. The injection of estrogen raised the growth rate of tumors in castrates to 2.0 mm/week. Castration does not appreciably affect the number of successful implants in males, the takes in the normal males being 24.3% and in the castrates 22.2%. Injection of testosterone propionate in a small group of castrate females resulted in successful growth in 40%; in castrated males there was a 46.1% take. These results do not indicate any inhibitory effect of testosterone on adenofibroma. Estrogenic hormone is the important endocrine factor determining the successful transplantation of mammary adenofibroma in rats. The stimulatory effect of estrogenic hormone upon mammary adenofibroma is probably exerted indirectly through the "mammogenic hormone" of the anterior pituitary. The transplantibility and growth rate of adenofibromas may be altered by hormonal means since this tumor responds like the normal mammary gland to the ovarian and pituitary hormones.


Differences in the speeds of motor vehicles represent a safety hazard in traffic. In order to clarify the reasons for driving slowly and social interaction between motorists caused by slow driving, interview data were gathered from slowly driving motorists (77 drivers) and comparison data from other motorists (77 drivers). The material was gathered by police working from unmarked cars in the normal course of their traffic supervision duties on Helsinki, Tampere, Turku and Lahti highways between October and December 1989. A slowly driving motorist was defined as a driver who constantly maintained a speed of 68 km/h or lower in an 80 km/h speed zone or a speed of 86 km/h or lower in a 100 km/h speed zone. Only those motorists whose slow driving could not be attributed to any apparent factor (e.g., an 80 km speed plate, a loaded roof rack, or towing a trailer) were included in the data. A larger proportion of the slowly driving motorists were women than in the comparison motorists. They were also older than the comparison motorists. Almost all the slowly driving motorists were in private cars owned by themselves or relatives. The cars were older than those of the comparison motorists. The annual mileage driven by the slowly driving motorists was significantly smaller than that of the comparison motorists. For the motorists in question, slow driving is a conscious choice which they have made on the basis of driving pleasure, safety and vehicle-related considerations. Uncertainty about the handling of the vehicle, responsibility for the safety of accompanying passengers, and the safety of slow driving influenced more women to drive slowly than men. More than a half said that they always drove slowly, and the remainder said that they had some particular reason for driving slowly on the trip in question. The permanently slowly driving motorists emphasized especially the safety and pleasantness of driving slowly. About a half of the slowly driving motorists were leading a queue of vehicles at the time they were stopped by the police. Although almost all of the slowly driving motorists (92%) thought that it was right to give way to faster driving motorists behind them, only less than a half of the lead cars in the queues tried to give others opportunities to overtake them. Drivers who overtook dangerously or drove too closely behind disturbed the slowly driving motorists. About a quarter felt that they were being pressured to change their driving habits. A third of the comparison drivers admitted that they deliberately tried to disturb slowly driving motorists. About a third of the slowly driving motorists and a half of the comparison motorists thought that slow driving had given rise to hazardous situations in traffic. The report proposes measures by which traffic interaction and the risk caused by speed differences could be influenced.


Objective:To investigate perfusion characteristics of pancreatic tumors by using CT perfusion imaging(CTPI) and to evaluate the clinical value of CTPI in the diagnosis of pancreatic tumors.Methods: 45 patients with normal pancreas and 50 patients with pancreatic tumors underwent CTPI.The sharp images of CTPI including 44 patients with pancreatic tumors and 32 patients with normal pancreas were chosen.The mean blood flow(BF),blood volume(BV),time to peak(TTP) and permeability surface area product(PS) was measured and statistically analyzed.Results:Comparing with the normal pancreas,pancreatic carcinoma had lower BF,BV,PS and higher TTP and showed statistical differences(P0.05).Comparing with the normal pancreas,solid-pseudopapillary tumor of pancreas had lower BF,BV and PS and showed statistical differences(P0.05).Comparing with the normal pancreas,islet cell tumor had higher BF and BV and showed statistical differences(P0.05).Conclusion:CTPI can reflect the dynamic blood flow characteristics of pancreatic tumor,which is helpful for the clinical diagnosis and differential diagnosis of pancreatic tumor.


In this paper we doped trivalent Yb ion as active ion in our host chlorophosphate-based glasses. After DTA Analysis we find the transition temperature and then start annealing to convert glasses to glass-ceramics. During this heat treatment some nanocrystals are grown in glass matrix and active ions are trapped in to this medium. Then we analyze samples with DTA, XRD and SEM to study their size, structures and optimum doping percentage. Embedded active ions like Yb (ytterbium), have various applications in lasers and solar cells field and in frequency convertor devices.


We study a flow of a viscous liquid containing a small admixture of molecules of the electrolyte nature. When moving such a medium in flat microchannels a layer of an uncompensated electric charge is created in a small neighborhood of the walls. In the absence of longitudinal electric current a convective transport of the charged layer induces an electric field component which is directed against the flow. In this case, the bulk Coulomb force appears in the charged layer, which may inhibit the flow. In this paper, based on the researches of authors on the electrification of fluid flows in channels, we assess the potential effects of Coulomb forces on the velocity distribution in the boundary layer and the value of the tangential stress at the wall. We consider different models of electrochemical processes on the walls with charged layers of varying intensity.


The completion of this thesis would not have been possible if it wasn't for my caring supervisor Professor Adel Beshai. It has been an honor to be his student and I have benefited greatly from his knowledge and support. I also want to thank my readers Professors Samir Makary and Mohamed Bouaddi. Thank you for making it possible for me to master my topic, for teaching me and for your time and effort. It is truly an honor to have such great professors taking part of this research.

I owe great gratitude to Professor Ahmed Kamaly for helping me take the right path and cross over from writing a course paper to starting a thesis topic. Thank you for your guidance, patience and support.

I am in debited to thank every great professor I had the chance to be their student. Thank you for enlightening me.

I want to thank Mrs. Amira Bishara, Mrs. Nancy and Mrs. Heba Halim for all the help, assistance and advising they granted.

I have found my passion in economics thanks to my first undergraduate economics professor, Professor Hala El Hadidy.

Thanks to my family, friends and work colleagues and superiors for giving me the strength to get where I am and motivating me to follow my dreams.


A detection unit for detecting a data row of a press position and a load at the press position; an input/storage unit for inputting and storing a value serving as a reference for determining a bend point in a relation between the press position and the load at the press position; a data-row calculation unit for calculating a data row of a press position and a load at a constant distance interval based on the data row of the press position and the load detected; a slope calculation unit for calculating a slope of the load based on the press position and the load at the press position detected; and a bend-point determination unit for determining a point, at which the calculated slope of the load exceeds the value serving as the reference for determining the bend point, as the bend point are provided.


Objective To investigate the best treatment program of cardinal stricture.Method use reformed self-made square gasbag catheter to dilate cardinal 3~5 times for 38 patients.Visit those patients to investigate the clinical effective.Result There are 32 patients do feel better after dilated in the stricture part (relaxed more than 0.5 cm).And 6 patients relaxed less than 0.5 cm,but also feel better than before.In all, the full efficient is 100.0 %.Conclusion The reformed self-made square gasbag catheter is the better method to treat cardinal stricture symptom.


Soils of the Darkhitui catena in the south of the Vitim Plateau on a northern slope and the foothill plain were studied. Skeletic Folic Cryosols (Nechic) are formed on watersheds under larch forests on eluvium of mafic rocks. Soils have high humus content in a thin humus horizon and a significant content of clay. Folic Phaeozems (Colluvic, Tonguic) are developed on a gentle slope under a forb-birch forest on colluvium. The most prominent features of these soils are as follows: high content of humus and fine material, impregnation by carbonates, and iron films on ped faces. Luvic Chernozems (Tonguic) are developed in the foothills under steppe meadows on lacustrine sediments. These soils are characterized by redistribution of fine fractions along the profile and significant humus accumulation favored by permafrost moisture content.


1 Campos-Juanatey F, Osman NI, Greenwell T et al. European Association of Urology guidelines on urethral stricture disease (part 2): diagnosis, perioperative management, and follow-up in males. Eur. Urol. 2021; 80: 201–12. 2 Roehrborn CG, McConnell JD. Analysis of factors contributing to success or failure of 1-stage urethroplasty for urethral stricture disease. J. Urol. 1994; 151: 869–74. 3 McDonald ML, Buckley J. Antimicrobial practice patterns for urethroplasty: opportunity for improved stewardship. Urology 2016; 94: 237–45. 4 Pinochet R, Nogueira L, Cronin AM et al. Role of short-term antibiotic therapy at the moment of catheter removal after laparoscopic radical prostatectomy. Urol. Int. 2010; 85: 415–20. 5 Kim S, Cheng KC, Patell S et al. Antibiotic stewardship and postoperative infections in urethroplasties. Urology 2021; 152: 142–7. 6 Manjunath A, Chen L, Welty LJ et al. Antibiotic prophylaxis after urethroplasty may offer no benefit. World J. Urol. 2020; 38: 1295–301. 7 Navai N, Erickson BA, Zhao LC, Okotie OT, Gonzalez CM. Complications following urethral reconstructive surgery: a six year experience. Int. Braz. J. Urol.. 2008; 34: 594–600. 8 Gupta NP, Mishra S, Dogra PN, Hemal AK, Seth A, Kumar R. Outcome of endto-end urethroplasty: single-center experience. Urol. Int. 2009; 82: 179–82. 9 Eltahawy EA, Virasoro R, Schlossberg SM, McCammon KA, Jordan GH. Long-term followup for excision and primary anastomosis for anterior urethral strictures. J. Urol. 2007; 177: 1803–6. 10 Yuan W, Gu Y, Zhang K et al. Postoperative infection of male posterior urethral stenosis with pelvic fracture: a retrospective study from a Chinese tertiary teferral center. Urology 2021; 154: 294–9.


The THS (Triangular/Hermitian splitting) iterative method is proposed to solve the shifted skew-Hermitian linear systems. Some convergence results are established and a numerical example is given to illustrate the convergence results obtained in this paper.


Neural architecture search (NAS) is a promising approach to fully automated machine learning that applies to arbitrary tasks. However, existing NAS methods tend to make a complex network that requires much time to train and predict. Since machine learning applications are now often run on mobile devices with limited computational resources, there is a need to obtain small, efficient, yet effective network models. This paper proposes MIA-NAS (Mutual Information Analysis Neural Architecture Search), an evolutionary NAS algorithm that extends Neural Architecture Search by Hill Climbing (NASH) by Elsken et al.. The proposed method introduces a procedure that removes layers that are less contributing to making predictions. The amount of contribution from each layer is quantified by estimating mutual information they have with true labels. The experiments showed that MIA-NAS produces smaller networks with comparative performance to the ones made by NASH. Besides, removing layers based on mutual information resulted in better performance than randomly selecting layers to be removed.


Principle of cell almightiness was the basis of plant tissue-culture.The explants of corn lamina were cultivated in the experiment.Results showed that the buds could be directly induced from lamina after inoculating them on MS+1.0 mg/L 6-BA+0.5 mg/L NAA medium with 8 days.The buds were inoculated on MS+0.5 mg/L 6-BA+0.8 mg/L NAA medium and formed many clumped sprouts and then differentiated gradually into plantlets after 7 days.The excised plantlets could produce root after inoculated on MS medium with 0.8 mg/L NAA after 8 days and developed into normal plants successfully.


Through the courtesy and interest of Mr. JULIUS HEGLER, of the Hegler Zinc Company, Danville, Illinois, the model coal mine of that company has been open for collecting, with the result that a number of coal balls have been obtained by Professor A. C. NoE. Some of these petrifactions were kindly turned over to the writer, and a series of sections from one of these coal balls constitutes the material basis of this paper. TheHegler coal mine produces coal from the Danville vein, known locally as no. 7 coal, and charted in that formation of the Pennsylvanian period known generally in Pennsylvania as the Conemaugh, and in Illinois as the McLeansboro. Unpublished investigations of this coal seam by paleobotanists and stratigraphers indicate that this vein may ultimately be given a higher position than that by which it is now known. The Danville vein at the Hegler mine has a thickness of about 5 ft. 4 in. Below the coal is the usual fire clay, while above is a 7 ft. layer of black shale with flakes of pyrite, in which occur numerous concretions. The petrifactions occur in groups or pockets in the upper 2 ft. of the coal. They are calcified, with pyrite occurring in varying amounts. From one of these coal balls was obtained a series of sections which gives the structure of the ultimate rachis of a fernlike frond with pinnules bearing fructifications. The pinnule is of the Pecopteris type. The midvein is prominent and extends almost to the tip of the pinnule. The lateral veins, usually seven to nine on either side of the midvein, are given off at a wide angle and are simple. The pinnules are 6-7 mm. long and about 3.3 mm. in width, and are furled so that their edges approach the lower side of the midvein, forming a semi-chamber within which the fructifications are attached.


Motor Neuron disease is a neurodegenerative disease of central nervous system leading to death of motor neurons from CNS and spinal cord. Due to the lack of effective treatment modalities, recently, many scientists have considered stem cells as a potential strategy for the treatment of this disease. Amongst the different types of stem cells, MSCs have been thought as a promising source of stem cells in regenerative medicine applications. These cells can be transplanted into the injured nervous system as a new therapeutic strategy. Although many challenges and concerns still remain, and the exact mechanism by which stem cells act is still unknown, the positive effect of stem cells following transplantation has encouraged many researchers to consider this as a treatment option in the future. There has been a lot of research ongoing on the derivation of motor neurons from stem cells in vitro and many scientists are attempting to bring these cells into clinical applications by conducting a number of clinical trials. Here, in this review, we discuss the current progress in pre-clinical studies and the status of clinical trials using stem cells in motor neuron diseases. We also discuss the hurdles which need to be overcome while moving from bench to bedside. Based on current information available, stem cell derived motor neurons can pave the way as a new treatment option for patients with the disease which seems to be highly promising.